Mary Fairchild
The following is based on the phonetic writing of the expository teaching tapes of Pastor Jim Mooberry.
If you leave Smyrna and you travel three days north you come to this city which was the capital of Asia. It was built on a cone shaped hill that was a thousand feet above the plain below it. It was an impressive city. The city was a blend of political power, of pagan worship and of academic sophistication. It probably rivaled anything else in all of the empire east of Rome. It was a city where there was a great university and there was a library of 200,000 volumes—the second largest library in the world. That library was actually sent to Egypt as a gift from Anthony to Cleopatra some years later. The city was filled with Greek philosophy and education. It was also a great religious center. They had there an alter to Zeus at the temple of Zeus that was forty feet tall and it was considered one of the wonders of the Ancient East because of its craftsmanship and its size. In fact it has been rebuilt and you can see it in a museum in Berlin. Also there was there a magnificent temple to the god Esclepus(?) which was a serpent god, he was the god of healing. And that was there patron god so they had this huge temple to him—people would come there and offer sacrifices in order to be healed by this god. Finally, it was the center of emperor worship.
The first temple that was built that was built toward worshiping a Caesar was built here—the temple to Octavious. There were three temples there in fact and it was considered the center of all of the Roman empires’ worship of Caesar. In fact here it was that the practice began that a citizen must offer incense to
Caesar and proclaim his as Lord. And that was as much a political statement as it was a religious one. And so it was one of the world’s great examples of educated culture and sophistication and pervasive pagan worship.
Now this was a city where the church of Jesus Christ was a very lonely entity and it faced constantly temptation to join what was going on there—to identify with the worldly systems in order to be more acceptable. This particular message foreshadowed another period in the churches’ history. It followed the apostolic period and all second and third centuries which was the persecution period. It began a period where the church became accepted by the world and really as a result the church merged with the world. Satan had learned a lesson from his violent attacks on the church in the first and second centuries—what he learned is that when you persecute the church only two things happen. Number one the church continues to spread, and number two the church flourishes—it’s in a constant state of spiritual revival when it’s being persecuted. And so the very thing he attempted to do to stamp it out could never be achieved by persecution and so in this next period of church history as we look back we see he took a far more effective approach. In this particular period he hadn’t persecuted the church, he endorsed the church. In fact he indulged the church. And that brought much more problems and difficulties than when he ever persecuted the church.
So during the 4th through the 5th century, roughly, the church merged with the state. In fact the name Pergamus gives us a hint of that—pergas means an elevated place or a tower and gamas means union or marriage and so in a real sense as the church was elevated in status the world it also became married to that same world that it was sent to save. During this period of time we call the period of the marriage of the church with government. It started with Constantine. When Constantine was in conflict with his rivals for political power he had a dream of a flaming cross in the sky. And underneath that cross
were the words that meant “by this sign conquer.” Constantine believed that this vision was a message from God and if he would embrace Christianity he would be able to defeat his rivals—so that’s exactly what he did although the evidence points to the fact that he never really became a Christian. He never truly accepted Christ as his Savior. One of the reasons we believe that is he waited until just before his death, he had a deathly illness, to be baptized. Because it was his understanding that water baptism was what cleansed sin. So he wanted to wait until the last minute to get the most of them cleansed and so he did not really understand the grace of God. But he did issue and edict called the Edict of Milan in 313 AD where he reversed official Roman policy two centuries when he said that the church of Jesus Christ should be tolerated in the kingdom. In fact he set up a way to give up reparations to return property to those who had it confiscated and to make amends for what the empire had done to the church. Shortly thereafter he made it official religion of the Roman Empire.
Now this apparent blessing to the church became a curse because the church began to be infiltrated with paganism. As the church became more popular, and after all it was the religion of the empire everyone wanted to be part of it whether they were born again or not, whether they were really Christians or not. And so what happened was there was pressure to bring in other pagan practices to make the church be an umbrella for all the religions in the empire. And so the compromised more and more to maintain that favor and that power. And the church began to shroud itself in mystery and in ritualism and most of this had a strong resemblance to Babylonian mysticism and some of the practices of ancient Babylonian religion. In fact the church began to be more Roman than it was Christian during this time. A church hierarchy began to develop and then all of the churches bound together and there were bishops of cities and then there were archbishops over that. But the bishop at Rome began to acclaim the highest authority because he was in greatest proximity to the emperor. In fact, after a season, that claim was supposedly solidified when there was the declaration of something called apostolic succession. And that the bishop of Rome actually was just one of the successors from Peter and therefore had a power and an authority that the other bishops did not have.
Just a partial list of some of the traditions, and most of them having pagan backgrounds, that were added to the list of the church during this period with no Scriptural basis whatsoever:
- AD 375—worship of the saints and angels began.
- AD 394—the mass was instituted, which is in reality and offering of the “actual” body and blood of Jesus Christ again—every time the mass is said that is exactly what takes place.
- AD 431—the veneration of Mary
- AD 500—priestly vestments there was a priestly class that was separated from the rest of the laity
- AD 526—extreme unction began
- AD 593—the doctrine of purgatory entered the church
- AD 600—prayers to Mary were inaugurated and also the service went to Latin because there was more mystery involved.
In many ways there were practices that entered the church that had never been there in the first three centuries of the church and they began to infiltrate and take over. And they became more important than some of the original biblical teachings. Just as the church at Pergamum is seen to compromise with the world’s paganism and immorality—that’s what Jesus is cautioning it about, so it represents the spiritual adultery of the union of the church with the Roman Empire—that is the visible church. As the church became married to government authority, became elevated to a place of acceptance… right along with it there was a decrease of its power and its blessing.
In verse 12 you can see the commission of Christ and the character that he makes known. In each letter Christ reaches back to the vision in chapter one and he takes one of the tributes that was described there and he reminds that church of that attribute. In each case that attribute has particular interest to that church and its problems or its condition and this time the title is “the one who has the sharp two-edged sword.” Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God is the sword of God. Revelation 19:15 says that Christ will rule the nations with the sword that proceeds from His mouth—that is His Word; His authority and the significance to the church in Pergamum is that He is the judge. He stands ready to judge what is going on in this church because this church is guilty of tolerating false teaching.
When Paul was challenging Timothy, hisprotégé, to carry on the ministry and to preach the Word, in season and out of season, he challenges him this way: “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom preach the word”(2 Timothy 4:1). Paul challenged Timothy and he said “Timothy, I stand this day for God and before Jesus Christ the judge and I challenge you to continue and fulfill your ministry.” Do you know that we all stand before God and Jesus Christ the judge every moment of our life, every month, every week, every day. We all stand before the judge and Jesus is reminding this church “I’m in you midst, I’m standing at the door and if you will not judge the sin yourself I will.” That’s a sobering thought to us because Jesus Christ will discipline the believer, who after repeated warnings, repeated attempts to get him to turn, will not. That should have an affect on our lives. Not of fear, but of simply love for Jesus Christ and realize that he is standing there—he is observing our life. We are never without him. When we are involved in sin we become at that moment, practically, atheist because for some reason we forget all about him. We, for some reason, don’t even think that he sees what is going on.
As he stands and he says to them he gives them first of all an accommodation, there are some things that he singles out that he is very pleased about and then he commends for in verse 13. “Where Satan’s throne is”—Satan’s throne originally was in ancient Babylon, in fact the practices of Babylonian religion in chapter 17—Jesus says that is the mother of all religious harlots—false religion. Satan has put forth this propaganda, this misinformation, this religious hypocrisy from Babylon and then there was a time evidentially that he moved to Pergamum which was the center of emperor worship in the world and at this time Jesus says “this is where his throne is.” Satan is not omnipresent, he can’t be everywhere at once and Jesus locates him and says “this is where his headquarters is at this time.” And next time it’s going to be in Rome—chapter 17. But notice also when you think about the center where Satan was working—the culture and the society of that place. It featured a great culture, it was very religious it was closely associated with political power. It had a great focus and emphasis on education and it exalted men. The point is Satan is very sophisticated, he’s very cultured, and he’s very powerful. Sometimes we only think of the grosser things when we think about Satan and we miss some of his more subtle work because he is in the world working through this system that he has created and that men and women live in.
Jesus says something to them. He says, “I know your perseverance.” He says, “That you hold fast my name.” In spite of all this evil environment the church at Pergamus had done well with some things. They had a strong commitment to Christ. Even in the face of persecution they stood their ground and proclaimed him as Lord of the universe, the only Lord of men. He says, “You did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas.” Now, we go back to church tradition because we don’t know anything about Antipas except what church tradition tells us. The church fathers say that he was a martyr in Pergamum he was brought before the statue of Caesar and was to offer incense and claim Caesar as his Lord and it is said that Antipas declined and instead proclaimed that Jesus Christ is Lord and there was no other. Then it is reported that the Roman officials said to him, “Antipas, don’t you know that the whole world is against you?” And it is recorded that Antipas replied, “Then Antipas is against the whole world” and he would not yield. The church fathers say that that man was put inside of a bronze bowl that was heated from underneath and literally roasted him to death for his faith—and Jesus says to him he is my faithful one. Is that something Jesus would say of you? Are you His witness? Are you His faithful one? Are we being faithful in our free time, our marriages, in our giving to His work—are we putting Him first in everything in our life? We are not even asked to give our lives right now.
Then He says in His rebuke in verses 14 and 15. This church had tolerated false teaching—it was corrupting the church. He says you have some there that have this doctrine of Balaam. In Numbers 22:6: Israel has left Egypt and they are journeying through the wilderness and they pass through several
different kingdoms to come to Canaan the land that God is going to give them. As they are passing through, in keeping with God’s directions, they have conquered the cities of Arad, they have conquered the cities of the Amorites, they have wiped out the kingdom of Basham, and now they have come to Moab and the king of Moab is scared to death and instead of going out to ask what it is that God would have him do for his people he calls on a prophet named Balaam who evidently was a true prophet of God. But this king had something in mind. He had noticed that when Balaam prophesied something it always came true and he thought of it as some sort of a magic power. As he called Balaam he said “I want to pay you to curse Israel because if you curse them then something bad will happen to them.”(See Num. 22:6) He didn’t understand that Balaam was simply carrying out the will of God. Balaam said I can only say what God wants me to say (although he wanted to, he wanted the money…). So three times he tried to curse Israel but each time a blessing came out because God said no (Numbers 24:10). What happens after that we are not told except we are told what happened in Israel is the result of what Balaam told Balak—“I’ll tell you the way that you can weaken them.” And the way was it would invite them (Israel) to their idolatrous ceremonies…. “Invite them over for a wonderful welcome service and get them to be involved in your service and be involved with your women in the practices of those services, which included immorality.” Look at 25:1-3, “…the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab…the people ate and they bowed down to their gods…so Israel joined themselves to Baal…and the Lord was angry against Israel.” ISRAEL COMMITTED SPIRITUAL ADULTERY AND, IF WE READ THIS RIGHT, PHYSICAL ADULTERY AS WELL. They were enticed to go in and join these idolatrous feasts and in so doing, wanting to be accepted, wanting to be one with the rest of their other people there they began to do the same thing and ultimately it polluted them.
The teachers at Pergamum were evidently doing the same thing. THEY WERE TEACHING THAT COMPROMISE WITH THE WORLD WAS OKAY. THAT PARTICIPATION WITH THE IDOLATROUS CEREMONIES IN PERGAMUM WOULDN’T REALLY EFFECT THEM. AND IN ONE WAY IT WOULD MAKE THEM MORE ACCEPTABLE TO THE PEOPLE IN PERGAMUM. Unfortunately we hear this all the time today in churches that want to be so accepted by the world that their willing to not just adapt to the world with the message, but adopt the world. So they were leading them away from separation to Jesus Christ. Preaching holiness and preaching separation from the world to Jesus Christ is not a very popular thing. There’s always going to be a group somewhere that’s going to teach what the teachers at Balaam taught and people will flock to them. There so-called churches may grow huge, but it is not a blessing from God. It is not the power of God. So they were getting involved in the worship services and celebrations of pagans.
Secondly, Jesus says, they have there some that have the teaching of the Nicolaitans. This was the teaching that the church in Ephesus rejected…. We are not sure exactly what this teaching was, but when we read the church fathers who were close to the scene, two things come forth from it…and it is derived from the name Nicolaitan which means literally “to conquer the people.” One of the thing that they were teaching was licentiousness in the name of liberty. Something very similar to Balaam and they were conquering the people of God. In other words they were saying, as the Greeks said, that the body is evil but the spirit is pure. So, you can indulge the appetites of the body and have no harm to your spirit. You worship God in spirit and then you can go do what you want in the body…. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were teaching that this was okay because “we are under grace.”….if that’s your understanding of the grace of God—that you can just live in immorality because you are forgiven and God will forgive you, then I question whether you really know Jesus Christ personally. Or whether you really understand the grace of God—that should lead us to purity of life (Gal. 5:13). This doctrine appeals to the simple heart but it is an absolute lie.
I want to give you another example of what happens when we make these choices to adopt and to identify with the world and how it progressively takes us down a path that will destroy us (Gen. 13:10). The example of Lot….. Abraham and Lot had just been to Egypt and now they were coming back up. The world appealed to Lot. Two of the most evil cities that have ever existed were in the valley that appealed to Lot. “The men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly…” In chapter 19 we find Lot in Sodom. He has his own house there, in fact, he’s sitting in the gates of the city which is the place of leadership. Little decision by little decision, he kept moving closer, in fact, he actually got involved in the very politics of that city and bought property there. There were some serious consequences for him choosing to identify with the world. The first was addiction or enslavement. The world is addicting and we notice that he was gradually sucked in…. Once he was entangled he found it impossible to leave. If you remember the story, when God was about ready to destroy the city the angels told him “get out of here” and he didn’t go. He had become entangled and overcome by the world. The second consequence was corruption. Now, he’s a believer. Peter tells us that what he saw in Sodom bothered his soul, but he never moved. HE NEVER MADE A MOVE TO SEPARATE AND GO BACK TO BE WITH THE LORD. So, corruption ensued. His personal values got corrupted—he offered his two daughters to a crowd, a mob, to take them to do whatever they wanted with them…. His family was corrupted. After they left, his two daughters got him drunk and had relations with him and bore children from their father…
Then, the third thing that happened to him (addiction, corruption, loss) was loss. He lost his testimony…., he lost spiritual growth opportunities because at this time Abraham was going through some of the most wonderful growth experiences with the Lord that he ever went through and Lot could have been there with him, but he separated himself from the Lord unto the world and he missed it all. In fact, he lost everything after divine judgment. He lost his house, his goods, …everything. That’s a caution to us as believers that we can live like the rest of the world lives, but one day when we stand before Jesus Christ and He examines our works for reward—we could lose everything. Paul talks about some who will be like that in 1 Corinthians 3 were it says that if their works are all burned up they will still be saved, but they’ll have total loss. LIFE IS MADE UP OF CHOICES. What choices are you making? What choices are you making at the office? Is there an opportunity for unethical practices there? Is there compromise there…. Do you identify with Christ remain separate? At school….the schools are filled with temptation in our day. What are you doing at school? What kind of choices are you making in your family through what you watch, through the leadership that you do or do not exhibit there….
Hierarchical leadership—the division between the clergy and the laity is unbiblical. The Bible teaches that we are all believers and we are all ministers—we are all priests to God. We all have gifts. This could have been the beginning of the elevating of church leadership to a place where it enslaved the membership and it tells us again the necessity of standing firm in the Word of God. In every generation there are going to be those who want to improve upon God’s pattern. Whether it’s that they want to change the role of women to something they consider better, or whether they want to bring in secular techniques in leadership, or whether they have some new organizational structure that will cause the church at least to numerically grow faster….they always want to bring in something they think will improve upon God’s pattern. It is extremely important for each generation to hold fast to the Word of God.
Then John gives them the correction (Rev. 2:16). His message is “face your sin or face me.” Or “judge yourself or I will judge you.” I believe that Jesus Christ, not only one day when He examines our works, we will be saved but even now there are times in this life when He will discipline us because He loves us. He speaks of “them”—selective discipline. “HE WHO HAS AN EAR LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAYS TO THE CHURCHES. TO HIM WHO OVERCOMES, TO HIM I WILL GIVE SOME OF THE HIDDEN MANNA. AND I WILL GIVE HIM A WHITE STONE AND A NEW NAME WRITTEN ON THE STONE WHICH NO ONE KNOWS BUT HE WHO RECEIVES IT.” The one who “overcomes the world” is he who believes in the Son of God (1 John 5:5).
The overcomer is the one who accepts Christ as their Saviour and Jesus speaks to this church and says there are some even there that need to accept me as their Savior and those who do I will give this. He says first of all “I WILL GIVE YOU OF THE HIDDEN MANNA.” Manna was given by God to the people as they traveled through the wilderness to sustain them. It was called bread from heaven. It was miraculous. Everyone in history has seen that there is a typology there. That Israel’s experience in the wilderness going to Canaan is typical of the believer’s experience. Egypt is symbolic of slavery to sin. The Red Sea and the journey through it miraculously is symbolic of redemption and a new birth—salvation. The walk in the wilderness where they were tested by God and He wanted them to respond in faith is typical of our life in this world and Canaan is typical of heaven—the kingdom glory. So, if they were given physical manna to sustain them then the correspondence to us is a spiritual manna that nourishes us—Jesus Christ himself. John 6:51, “I am the living bread.” Not just the bread, the living bread—spiritual bread that came down out of heaven. “If anyone eats of this bread he shall live forever. And the bread also which I give for the life of the world is my flesh. I will die for the world.” So, it satisfies our deepest need and the one who comes to Christ has the hidden (it’s called hidden because it’s something the world doesn’t see—the world doesn’t see our relationship to Jesus Christ, or the communion we have with him as believers; in John 14:19 He told the disciples this much, “After a little while the world will behold me no more but you will behold me because I live you shall live also. In that day you should know that I am in my Father and You are in Me and I am in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them he it is who loves me and he who loves me shall be loved by my Father and I will love him and I will disclose myself to him…. Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘If a man love me he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.’”). If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ the Father and the Son have come to make their abode in you through the Spirit and he exposes Himself to us. He can see His work in our life. We sense His presence and when we read the Word of God we know Him and that is the “hidden manna”—that which sustains us through this life in the wilderness.
Then, there’s this other beautiful picture of the white stone. A white stone in that society was very commonly used of one of two things. One was, it was used in the court of law that a white stone was placed before a defendant when he was acquitted. So this white stone can symbolize the fact that in Jesus Christ we are acquitted from our sin. We are accepted in the beloved. And that secret name that is written on it I believe is the fact that we are a new creature, a new person when we come to Christ. It is represented by tat new name that’s in secret in our inner life. Something else that stones were used for—oddly enough, like our party invitations and when there was a banquet they would pick out beautiful stones and they would write on the stone the invitation and leave it at the house. So Jesus has given us, and will give us His invitation to the banquet of the Lamb and the marriage supper in heaven. What a wonderful, wonderful Lord. Why wouldn’t we want to live for Him? But this letter warns us that a worldly church, or a worldly Christian can be more popular and acceptable with the rest of the world but he will lose his spiritual power….
In 1 John 2:15 he says, “Do not love the world not the things of the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away and also its lusts but the one who does the will of God abides forever. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby that we know that it is the last time.”
We should be separated unto Jesus Christ. We should love Him above all things in the world. We can’t be taken out the world, that’s not God’s purpose. We are in the world, but we are not of the world. We should live that way. For anyone who does not know Jesus Christ personally, do you have the hidden manna? Have you been given the white stone? If not, Jesus counsel to you is “come,” “come to me and I will give you these things.” If you have never come to Jesus Christ as your Saviour “come.” In simple faith, just say to Him, “I accept you as my Saviour. Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for me. And I come to you now with nothing in my hand to receive your grace and forgiveness.”
WORKS CITED
- Revelation and Church History
- Church Age
- WHEN THE CHURCH LOOKS LIKE THE WORLD: REVELATION 2:12-17; The Faithful Word, JMREV5; *Pastor James Mooberry, “The Faithful Word: Two Decades of Expository Teaching Tapes.”