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Learning from the 7 Churches in Revelation.
Sermon 2: Pergamum and Thyatira
Revelation 2:12-29 Page 1034
Last week we began with some quotes about the church, here are some other ones to consider. The first two deal with attendance:
If you don't go to God's house, why should He go to yours?
Some people never come to church except for their baptism, their marriage, and their funeral, or when they're hatched, matched, and dispatched.
The next one relates to the purpose of meeting together:
It matters not how spiritual a church may profess to be, if souls are not saved, something is radically wrong, and the professed spirituality is simply a false experience, a delusion of the devil. People who are satisfied to meet together simply to have a good time among themselves are far away from God. Real spirituality always has an outcome. Oswald J. Smith (B. 1889)
What does that outcome look like for you? How does your connection to God and the congregation make any difference to who you are and what you do and think? If our relationship with God is only for this hour then it is like we are having an affair with God and cheating on the Devil. We live with Him all week and sneak out to meet with God for an hour and then crawl back into bed with the real master of our lives. If our Sunday faith does not impact Monday God is not fooled.
The other side of this is when this hour is a group expression of a relationship that has sustained you through the week. You have come to share the Lord and to celebrate His greatness together. Church assembly is then the assembly of people who know God and make Him known! You come for an audience of one and you are pleased to see others who are doing the same. God has given us reason to celebrate and we come and worship Him together.
Last week’s text challenged us to consider our strengths and weaknesses as individual Christians and as a group. Each of the churches in the text in Revelation is assessed individually. Each one has its compliments and criticisms recorded for us to read and learn from. It is not our view of strengths and weaknesses that makes a difference it is the view of Jesus that we need to be seeking. Jesus is Lord and leader of this congregation and it is His view of where we are at that makes a difference. We need to know how He is seeing things. What is He pleased with and what warnings would He give us? Do we want to know and would we be pleased at the things He is pleased with and change if He told us? Are we going to ask Him for His perspective?
We start by looking at the church at Pergamum:
PERGAMUM, PERGAMOS (Gr. Pergamos). A city of Mysia (
Rev 1:11; 2:12), the chief town of the province of Asia. It was the site of the first temple of the Caesar cult, and a second shrine was later dedicated to Trajan. On the crag above Pergamum was a thronelike altar to Zeus (cf. Rev. 2:13). It is natural that "Nicolaitanism" should flourish in a place where politics and paganism were so closely allied (2:15), and where pressure on Christians to compromise must have been heavy.John records Jesus speaking:
"To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.
13 I know where you live--where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city --where Satan lives.Within their Pagan city they have been true to Christ.
They have not renounced their faith – drawn to Emperor worship.
They have been faithful during persecution - (see NIV Study Bible Note)
These are good things – they are complimented on their faithfulness!
Nevertheless!
REV 2:14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. 15 Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.Some people, not all, are trying to walk in both worlds – thinking they can please God and the world at once and their lifestyle was no different than their Pagan neighbours. How are you different from your neighbours?
It ends with:
REV 2:17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.The blessing is left to the individual.
It is for each one who overcomes; being a part of the group will not save you.
So what do we learn? Pergamum responded to its environment in two ways. The church was divided. Many refused to compromise with the inhabitants of Satan’s city, but others suggested that it was possible to please Christ and their pagan neighbors at the same time. Because of our love for Christ compromise is not an option here either.
Balaam, in Numbers 22-24, had tried to abide by God’s will while pleasing King Balak at the same time. Actually, Balaam sold out to the enemy. There are modem churches that resemble Pergamum.
The solution to our struggle with the world is not surrender! The Pergamum church was losing its identity as a "holy people" (1 Peter 2:5-9). They were becoming priests of the world rather than priests of God (Revelation 1:5-6).
The challenge is the same as we read last week; do the right things for the right reason. We need to speak and live the word of God – not just some parts of the word and live lives of genuine worship.
The message to Thyatira is similar:
18
"To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.Take note of the positives.
Good deeds with love for each other, service and perseverance, and GROWTH!
Nevertheless!
REV 2:20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.23
I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. 24 Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): 25 Only hold on to what you have until I come.They have become tolerant of a destructive person with divisive teachings.
Then there is a blessing to the one who overcomes and does the full will of God.
REV 2:26 To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations-- REV 2:27 `He will rule them with an iron scepter;he will dash them to pieces like pottery' (Psalm 2 King quote) -- just as I have received authority from my Father.
28 I will also give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.Thyatira was a small community, but the longest of seven letters was addressed to the church in this community.
The church of Thyatira makes one feel good. There is excitement in the congregation. They are working like Ephesus, but unlike Ephesus they love one another. Furthermore this church is growing, "their latter works are greater than their first".
Don’t you suppose that some of the Ephesian Christians longed to share in a fellowship such as existed in Thyatira? Yet as is often the case churches lose their balance. Ephesus had lost its balance - it loved the truth but love for people was on the decline. In Thyatira there was a warmth and love for people but love for the truth had become secondary.
The divisive woman is called Jezebel from the Old Testament like Balaam in the section to Pergamum. This false teacher claimed to be more spiritual than others in Thyatira. She had special insight! Those who accept her teaching can be super spiritual like her.
Her teaching said that the immoral lifestyle of Thyatira was not inconsistent with being a Christian. Her teaching was similar to that doctrine of Balaam and Nicolatians which can both mean ""conquer the people"" that were found in Pergamum.
Christ condemned the church of Thyatira not because they had all accepted Jezebel’s doctrine but because they "tolerated" the woman and her teaching. Christ had given her time to repent and so should his church, but when repentance does not appear, action must be taken.
What a shame that churches too often seem to be either "lawful but loveless" like Ephesus or "loving but liberal (tolerant of error)" like Thyatira. When the church follows its King it will "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15).
So, by looking at these two churches we are reminded that being a part of a congregation means having a level of unified doctrine as well as a set of ethics that are based on our relationship with Jesus and His word.
Next week: Sardis and Philadelphia.
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