Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture Introduction

An old Peanuts cartoon shows Lucy, Linus, and Charlie Brown lying on the grass and looking at the clouds.

“What do you think you see, Linus?” asks Lucy.

Linus points at the clouds and answers, “Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean.

That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor.

And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen, I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side.”

Then Lucy asks, “What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?” Says Charlie, “Well, I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.”

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 41.

If you ever thought you might want to deliver one of John’s letters to one of the seven congregations, you might want to think again, especially about this letter to Pergamum.

In this letter, John represents Yeshua as a potential judge against his own body.

Yeshua, through John, speaks of a possible coming judgment—first upon false teachers, and then upon those who know but do nothing about it.

His tone is sharp, if not angry.

There is a sickness running through this congregation.

And the problem, is the sickness is being presented as a cure and the people are buying it faster than it can be sold.

Twice in this one letter Yeshua refers to himself as the one who has the two edged sword coming out of his mouth.

He declares that he will come and make war with those offering a cure that is really a poison and with those who do nothing to stop it.

These statements about Yeshua as a warrior and as a judge are meant to call us to attention.

To pay attention to what we hold to be true.

John wants God’s people to realize that to hold to false teaching is to declare open warfare on Yeshua and that there comes a time when we must take the truth to struggle.

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 91.

Ha-foke bah Hebrew

Ha-foke bah English

Revelation 2:12-

Sermon Introduction

Introduction

Principle Consistent Outline

The sound was unmistakable.

The voice on the other end of the phone was struggling to say each syllable of my name, “Ra-bbi Mi-ch-ael.”

I knew the voice, a young lady from our youth ministry, and I knew that terrible sound of a heart stricken with grief.

“Melissa, what is wrong?

Are you okay?

Are you in danger?”

She did not say a word but just released a series of gut wrenching sobs followed by the sound of her releasing the dam of tears she had been holding back for as long she could.

I asked again, “What is wrong?

Talk to me?”

By this time, Lauren had joined the call.

As she forced back the tears, we heard her say, “But, he said that God told him it was okay?”

What are you talking about?

Who told you that?

She released more tears.

I knew this pain was more than heartache, someone had told her in the name of God that something she knew was wrong was right.

Who was this false teacher.

What did he say to deceiver her.

What had happened.

Slowly she started to utter words.

They forged there way through tears, rivers of tears.

At first, all I could make out was “worship leader” and “it’s okay” and “sex.”

It was hard to understand but I pressed in and asked, “Did the worship leader say it was okay for you to have sex?”

She responded and said, “He told me he loved me, he told me that he was going to marry me, he told me that the Bible never says we have to have a ceremony to be married, we just needed to be intimate with each other, that was marriage and that one day he was going to have the ceremony but not now.”

My hand hung low.

I could not believe it.

She then said, “And now, he said that he does not feel like it is God’s will for us to be together and he broke it off with me?

Why did I ever let him convince me?

Why did I do this when I knew it was wrong?

I can’t stand moments like this in ministry.

These are some of the hardest to heal.

The pain and hurt runs deep and usually takes years, not months to work through.

Though I can’t stand when things like this happen, I understand why they happen.

We all know what it is like to close our eyes to the truth in order to open our eyes to an easy pleasure.

We all know how hard it can be to take the truth to struggle, to speak up on behalf of the truth when it might threaten the status quo or upset current relationships even though we know that not doing so runs against all we hold sacred and dear.

Sometimes it just seems easier to let things slide, to convince ourselves, “it is not that bad.”

Whether we abandon what is true for the sake of pleasure, or out of fear, or in some attempt to prove we are tolerant and accepting, the end result is usually the same: more regret, more stress, more heartache and pain.

That is why the Scriptures from Moses to Revelation, warn God’s people to not abandon God’s truth.

There is a clarion call from the days of Moses in the Wilderness to this 3rd congregation in Pergamom that God stands as a judge against false prophets, teachers and their teachings and He call believers in every century to take the truth to struggle when it is be challenged.

At one point an evil enchanter deceives the knight into thinking that the fair lady, the body of the Messiah, has been unfaithful to him.

So he leaves her and strikes out on his own.

As he makes his way, he finds another lovely young lady, with whom he comes to a quiet, secluded repose under a foreboding tree.

The knight then hears someone shout a cry of warning, telling him that he should flee lest he should buy pleasures from a lurking lady at the cost of his life.

At first the knight is frightened by this cry, but then he is overcome by the beauty of the lady, who is a witch in disguise.

Because Yeshua judges false teaching, we should declare Messiah in difficult situations ()

Then the tree speaks to him, telling him that he was formerly a man, but a witch disguised as a beautiful young maid transformed him into a tree.

The tree tells him that though he is a tree, the heat and the cold pain him, and he relates how one day he happened to see the witch as she really was: A filthy foule old woman I did vew [view], That ever to have toucht [touched] her, I did deadly rew [rue].

When he recoiled from the witch in horror, she turned him into a tree.

The point that Spenser is making is simple: false teaching always promises, but it never pays in good only evil.

False teaching disguises itself as something attractive, refreshing, rewarding.

But underneath the false exterior, it is filthy and foul, and those who have indulged in it know only regret it.

Because Yeshua judges false teaching, we should declare Messiah to difficult people ()

Because Yeshua judges false teaching, we should declare Messiah despite the difficulties ()

Principle Consistent Outline

We must take the truth to struggle in the public square ().

Read and describe the historical context of this letter from Yeshua to the believers at Pergamum.

Pergamum was the seat, the center, the capital, the first Roman world center of idolatrous worship.

The first city to win the “bid” to host the worship of Caesar Augustus.

The chief city for the worship of all the great Greek gods.

The kind of city that new how to have a religious party.

Yeshua is the judge, not the one with a knife tongue.

He is the judge not the Roman proconsul.

The city of Pergamum the Pro-consul was famous for his two-edged sword of judgment.

It was the sign of his power over life and death.

Yeshua says he has the final authority over a death beyond death.

Not just the death of the body but the second death itself (cf.

Rev 19).

Of all the letters only this one is concerned about “where you live” over “what you have done.”

In light of the certainty of Yeshua’s divine judgment on this place, how must we respond?

Explain: In light of the certainty of Yeshua’s divine judgment on this place, how must we respond?

a-d

Those who don’t know his name: We must convince them (13a, d)

There are those who don’t know what they don’t know and those who know what they don’t know.

Pergamum was mainly full of people who did not know what they did not know because the Gospel was not mainstream.

Pergamum had some who also knew what they did not know and chose to remain closed to it.