Church at Pergamum - Revelation 2:12-17

Kurt's been introducing these seven churches and has addressed a couple of them. We have here now Pergamon is the third city in the series of the seven, and it's the northernmost of the seven churches. It's also the first one that's inland. The other churches begin going to the south and farther inland from here.

Let me run through a few slides. We're going to return to this, but this is the dominant feature. The main part of town was in what you see right in front of you in the foreground. And up on the top of the hill, the Acropolis, was a theater and also several temples and even a very large library. Let's take a look. Well, let's see after I turn it on. Let's take a look here at the big picture.

Here's the book of Revelation and the outline that we looked at earlier here. You have, I think if you've got the binders, this might be a sheet inserted on the back of your binder. This is still in the second chapter, so we're looking just at the messages of the seven churches still in chapter two. are right in here, the things which are, right now. And then, here's Pergamum, which is the northernmost of the seven churches, the first one that goes inland, and from here they go farther inland. And then the chart, did you hand this chart out earlier to the folks? Okay. And so now we're in the third column there, since it's the third church. And then here's the one about overcomers. Now here's, if you're up at the top of the hill, here's the theater. with some of the adjacent temple buildings. That's really quite a theater scene where you have this kind of summer circle there and overlooking the city. So quite a view. Here is the library area. The library was one of the largest in the Roman Empire. And the volumes here end up getting moved to Alexandria in Egypt. and then the Muslims destroyed the whole thing. They didn't like anything that was there.

The temple of Athena off to the right. The goddess Athena was the goddess of the Roman soldiers. So then here's the Zeus temple on the Pergamon Acropolis. Asclepius was the god of healing. This is the one that the doctors of the day referred to, those seeking aid of this god Aeschlepios would often times spend the night in this temple. And one of the hopes was that one of the magical snakes might slither over you. Believe it or not. And then here is one that's actually real pivotal in the message to the seven churches. This is to the Emperor Akabian, who later was called Caesar Augustus.

And that is relevant to the text here, as we'll see here shortly. Now, in your handout, there's an appendix item, one page, addressing crowns and rewards. And I wanted to include that just because there were some questions about it last week. We may or may not have time to touch on that. So you have that available at least to read.

Alright, let's take a look at the passage here which starts in verse 12. It says, and to the angel of the church at Pergamum write, the one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this. Now we talked last week about the word translated angel ultimately means messenger. So this is the one carrying the message to that church, which basically includes the whole book of Revelation, a copy of the whole book of Revelation to that church. And then it says, the one who has the sharp two-edged sword Why the mention of the sharp two-edged sword? Who is that that has the sharp two-edged sword? What's that?

Christ, right. And one of the things that you likely noted when you were kind of doing the overview is these introductions for each of the messages to the seven churches are taken almost entirely from the first chapter identifying Christ. Different aspects of who Christ is. That's what these introductions are, and we see that's the case here with this message to the seven churches. The sword here that's identified is not the Roman short sword, but the ronquilla, the five-foot-long barbarian battle sword. This is the one where the judgment that's brought out with this is a massive judgment, and expresses powerful judgment.

Isaiah 49.2 talks about this two-edged sword. So, essentially, you've got this identification of Christ with the two-edged sword.

Let me ask you this. If you were receiving a message, let's say that the Lord was writing a letter to Holly Hills, would you like to have Christ identified as the one with the sword? Probably not. Probably not. That would kind of make you wonder or wince right at the outset. Here's verse 13. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast my name, and did not deny my faith even the days of Antibus, my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you where Satan dwells. The form here is similar. Christ starts off saying that He knows this, He knows that. Why do you think Christ starts off saying, I know this and I know that? Why would He begin these messages with that kind of introduction? I know this and I know that.

Yeah? One thing, it shows that He's alive. He's alive. If He was dead, death wouldn't be an I know. At best it would be an I used to know, right? Yeah. It's also that He's all-knowing, so He's God. Okay, yes. He is aware of what's going on. Yep, very aware. And let me ask you this question. Let's make this real personal. Do you think the Lord knows what's going on in Holly Hills? Yeah, absolutely. See? And I think that's one thing.

As you look at this, if you start making personal application, the Lord knows what's going on in Holly Hills. He knows all of what's happening. He knows what's happening in people's individual lives. He knows the small stuff and the big stuff. He knows the stuff that we all know and share openly and then some of the things that aren't shared openly. He knows all those things.

One of the things here we saw from the lesson a couple of weeks ago, Satan's Throne refers to this cult of emperor worship, and under pressure from the Roman Empire, that was the one thing as you look at the various temples at the top of the hill here.

Everything else was optional. If you wanted to go to the theater, they didn't pressure you. If you wanted to go, you could go, but nobody was there holding the sword to you saying, you're going to go to the theater. Want to go to the library? You know, same thing. That's fine. And freedom of religion in the Roman Empire, so far as, you know, you worship, you know, one or none or half-dozen gods, they don't care. But what was the one required thing in the Roman Empire, in terms of religious observance?

Bow to the emperor. Bow to the emperor, yep. And what was the consequence of not doing so? Death penalty, yeah. So it was rather serious. They ended up developing a system in the Roman Empire. You had what was called a libelous. And it was a certificate that said that you had done your obligatory worship of the emperor.

And so, you know, Christians would be asked for this thing and I don't have it. So that's a problem, right? So that ends up being an issue that gets addressed here. Greek mystery religion, Jewish religion, had no authority of capital punishment. The Roman Emperor's temple, however, you've got to do that or you die. And so the Roman Empire tended to go through waves of enforcement on that.

Now, we have no record of who this fellow Antipas is directly, and it certainly doesn't explain much here. There's an unconfirmed writing, or just not very known to be reliable, that says that Antipas was burned to death in a bronze bowl. He was, however, a faithful witness, and that same term was applied to Christ himself in Revelation chapter 1. Antipas' testimony for the faith and refusal to submit to these demands to declare the Roman Emperor's deity cost him his life. It was costly.

Likely, Antipas was either the first martyr in Pergamum or, at the very least, a very notable one. Others had followed him as martyrs. Apparently it was an example of faithfulness they all knew about, because as this message was written, they weren't asking, who's Antipas? They knew who the guy was.

The next words, however, are ominous. Christ knows this, Christ knows that, but then as we look reverse side there, the beginning of verse 14, but, oh boy, you don't want to hear that. But, I have a few things against you. Now, as Kurt introduced these earlier messages, for Ephesus there was one thing that Christ had against them. Smyrna, there was nothing that Christ had against them. How many somethings do we have here? A few. Maybe that's one reason why the sword goes along with it.

Let's take a closer look at these things that Christ held against them. The rest of verse 14. Because you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam. Who kept teaching Balaam to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel. Balak, rather. To bring a stumbling block before the sons of Israel. To eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. So you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. There's a couple of focal point verses here in 14 and 15. These focal points are Balaam and these Nicolaitans. In each case, the problem is not that everyone in the church was off track, but some.

Isn't that interesting? Why didn't he just say, you know, there's a few of you, but it's no biggie, just a few, some of you. Why didn't he just say, well, let's just skip it. Could it have been that the church accepted it? Pardon? Could it be that the church accepted it? Yeah, and I think that's something you see in this message to this one church, and we'll see it again. It's the acceptance of and the continuing toleration of these false teachings that are a problem. It's what do you do with it? Do you just let it sit there? How do you handle it?

And so his significant objection is not that all of you have embraced this, but the fact that all of you allow the sum. So this is something I think to take to heart. This is the first time the Lord says, you know, I've got a few things. And the problem is not the widespread embracing or acceptance, but the allowance of some by the everyone.

Okay? Ephesus is commended for hating the teachings of the Nicolaitans. And Kurt talked about what we know of the Nicolaitans a couple weeks ago. But what Christ had against the church here at Pergamon was not just against those who held to the false teachings of these groups, What Christ had against them was they allowed these false teachers to be among them.

That's the problem. Why is it a problem? Let's get practical here. Why is it a problem to allow these false teachers to remain there? What's the biggie? Other people are going to listen to what they say. That's a part of the problem, right? Yeah, you see any other problem with it? Ah, you start getting divisions based on, oh I follow this, I follow that. It's dividing. Dividing the body is a problem. Dividing the church body is a problem. So yes, division, I would put it a couple of ways. Division and infection. Division and infection. Those are the two big issues that come with allowing the sum. Yes. not caring about them. Okay. Yeah, okay.

You hear what he said? How about not caring about them? So, so let me get a little better insight into what you're wanting to imply or indicate here. Are you saying that they're just letting them be was not caring about them? They don't really have a concern for their fellow Yeah, okay. Yeah, at the root of this, the tolerance, you know, we get tolerance put at us as this is supposed to be a good thing, right? The tolerance was actually an expression of apathy.

Yeah, you don't care when you ought to, okay? That this is a real concern. Yeah, Mike? Yeah, as we covered at the end of our biblical counseling elective in here at the end of last year, yeah, there wasn't any sense of dealing with the issues among the believers. And so that was a problem, wasn't it?

And so allowing these false teachers in who would be infectious and divisive was also an expression of apathy. Yeah, it's also, I mean, it's a poor example of who Christ is. The church is, you know, supposed to be exemplifying or exemplifying who Christ is to the world. And if you're allowing false teaching, one, you're doing a bad thing in that, or you're doing a bad job at exemplifying who he is.

And two, I think one of the things we see in these verses consistently is he knows He cares and He's dealing with the issues. So to not deal with them is not Christ-like. Those are three really good words put together. He knows, He cares, He's dealing. Those words, really good words to put together, simple, nothing complicated about them, but that knows, cares, deals with are words that go together, don't they? And so he's bringing it in front of them. And so really important to have that here. Let's take a look kind of in the middle of page two there. There's a paragraph in the middle starting at the bottom half. It starts out with the word but and then there's three dots there.

There's a point of doctrine and or morals in which the church was to draw the line. Certainly there are times to talk things through and to be patient with one another and try to take time to clarify things. But there is a time to draw the line. The elders of the church who are to be shepherding have a responsibility to watch out for false teachers. That's point one. Is responsibility over there? No. We have next, the deacons have it as a character requirement to hold to the one faith. So now we've got the elders and the deacons.

And then in Philippians 1.9, Paul prayed for everyone in the church at Philippi such that their love would be abounding in real knowledge and all discernment. Real knowledge and all discernment.

Sometimes you will have it put to you that Christians have to choose between love and truth. Scripture does not do that. Scripture does not have us picking between love and truth. Ephesians chapter 4, speaking the truth in love. 1st Corinthians 13, love rejoices in the truth. So love and truth are not to be chosen between.

Oh, I'll pick one or the other. And what often happens, you have people say, well, yeah, but I just want to love everybody. And then they let go of the truth. And then you'll have those who say, I'm going to grab hold of the truth and chew everybody to pieces in the process. He says, nope, both. Real knowledge and all discernment in what? In love. It's not a matter of choosing between love and truth. As a matter of fact, they do go together inseparably.

Scripture repeatedly puts that. Stan? I agree with everything that you said, but does Christ specifically say that they were supposed to cast out these false teachers or these people that obviously were underneath the influence of false teachers who may have either been in the church or outside the church? that, it does say that they're supposed to tolerate false teaching. There's a lot of ways to do that.

One, if the ultimate thing is to cast them out because they're causing so much never get to that, which goes back to his question. He would focus on those teachings, I would assume, in the church and say why they're wrong, like Paul did when he went to Greece and Mars. He spoke against what they were believing, brought it into focus. So he's not necessarily saying to cast them out. That's right.

The first step is not casting them out. It is a problem that they continue to tolerate it, but it comes down to, remember the words that Kurt used here, the last one they used was just as important as the others, to deal with it. And that's where it becomes a question, how do I deal with false teachers? Do I get out my 45, plug them, and then go on with the service?

No, we first have to begin talking about it, addressing it, and that maybe it's just one person and typically things should be dealt with starting with one individual and you begin dealing with it there and it's going to start off with conversation. Obviously that's not an easy solution because it went all the way to Matthew 18 when they actually came up with a method to discharge. Yes, Matthew 18 is a central passage on how do we deal with things that are wrong in the church.

The ultimate intent declared there in Matthew 18, similarly said in Galatians 6.1, the ultimate intent is to restore. That's what you want to do. But you're either going to end up restoring or rejecting the one who persists along that path. The ultimate end is rejection, but not tolerating it. To use the word that Kurt brought up, deal with it. We know, we love, we deal.

How do we know the difference between false teaching on the one hand and erroneous teaching on the other? Art's question is, how do we know the difference between false teaching and erroneous teaching? Basically, scripture has a dividing line. Some of it is going to be teaching that is like, OK, that might be a little off track.

Some of it is going to be teaching that is profoundly contrary to scripture, profoundly contrary to scripture. And part of the difference there might be a matter of clarity. It is, here's Titus chapter 1 verses 5 through 9, last verse, verse 9, it is an elder's qualification that he be able to divide what's true from what's false, refute what is false and establish what's true. That is a qualification of an elder. It sometimes comes as a matter of degrees in terms of the kind of teaching.

A part of what you see being brought up in this passage is, this is profoundly false teaching. That of Balaam and the Nicolaitans, and in both cases, I think you're pointing at gross immorality and profound compromise as the characteristic of the teaching. And so, you know, he kind of lays it on the line here.

This is not small stuff. This is major. And so this is big stuff. He's not picking at things that are anything gray or uncertain. Ultimately, it's God's Word. We have to know God's Word. We have to be able to look at God's Word and determine what's true and what's false. That's a quick answer to a big question. Sorry about that. I think it's a good observation here.

It's important to notice that it's not the world that's the source of this false teaching. These are false teachers from within the church. The Lord isn't criticizing this church and he doesn't criticize the church and the other churches for not reforming society in God's image. Their fundamental problem isn't that the world is teaching that there's many ways to God or any of that other stuff. These false teachers are coming from within the church that are other believers like he said. They're other believers, and that's the source of the false teaching that I think that he's identifying here.

It is the warning of Paul in Acts 20, but even about the elders. That you'll have wolves even coming from among yourselves. So yeah, the problem is within the church. It's not that I clean up downtown and the morals downtown. It's not that I clean up the internet. But, you're exactly right. It's what's going on in the church.

Are we dealing with it? Are we addressing what's happening here? It's within the church body that we're really to have our focus here. Mike? I think that's right. It's not going down the street. or whatever. That's how the church has got that name in the world. I think the thing is, I mean there is a place to have various kinds of influence, but really clearly the focus here is, you know, the church.

That's where we've got to express our concerns and keep our watch so far as false doctrine, false morals. That's not the Church's focus today. Pardon? The Church's focus today is not discerning truth from error within the Church. It's by saying that we're right and the world is wrong. Yeah. And thundering away at a world that believes all sorts of stuff that isn't true.

But none of that's the fundamental problem. Now, that's not the issue. Here's Paul, he walks into Ephesus. Does he try to clean up the house of prostitution? I mean, archaeologists can tell you it's still there. the brothel that's right to the left of the library. He didn't bother with that.

But even if he had, even if he was able to, even if we were able to change all the moral ills in this world, it doesn't change anybody's fundamental position. Their problem isn't that they have all sorts of sinful problems in their life or that they believe all sorts of weird, crazy stuff. Their problem is that they don't believe that Jesus is who he claimed to be. It is possible for Christians to get the wrong focus to the point that, boy, we've got society all cleaned up, and now we've got all these very moral people who are going to hell.

Yeah. Absolutely. And that's the tragedy, is that a lot of moral people are on their way to hell, because they think that Christians... because Christians have stopped identifying truth from error. That's right. They now think that what it means to be a believer is to live a good and moral life. Yes, that's right. And that's the unfortunate thing. Yeah.

Even the voices of, like, you know, Christians speaking out against homosexuality or something of that sort. Same problem. You can have a whole bunch of people, and in fact there will be millions of heterosexuals pouring their way into hell. And there will be some that are homosexuals that won't be. Because they put their faith in Christ. So the wrong distinction is being made. The focus of this message here is, what's going on in the church? The focus of this message is, this is the body of Christ.

That's where we're looking at dealing with this, not trying to clean up society. Well, and I mean, you said that Paul didn't go in and immediately deal with the brothel. But, I mean, to a degree he did, but he did it by taking care of believers. You separate the false from the truth, and in doing so, you are dealing with those things. But it's not going after it directly.

And you're correct, he did have an impact. Remember, they had a riot for two hours. Greatest archivist of the Ephesians. Why? His evangelizing and impacting believers. was undermining the sale of the statues of Artemis. So it was having an impact, but not because he was aiming at the sales of the statues of Artemis.

His aiming was at people becoming believers, and then as believers, walking according to the truth. Stan? To sum it all up, basically, the Church is the representative of Christ, and if they aren't pure in their thinking, doctrine, and their representation of Him, then then they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. That's right, that's right. Our focus so far is behavior and expression of what is true and what is false needs to be within the church, not going out trying to clean the world up. And obviously that's not easy.

No. Now notice, how does Christ feel about the teachings of the Nicolaitans? How does he feel about them? What's his sentiment? Heat. Now that's a pretty strong word. You think maybe that's a little too strong? Why would our Lord use such an intense word for the teachings of the Nicolaitans? I mean, couldn't it be softened a little? Well, he got their attention. Well, he got their attention, yeah. You notice, I mean, there's some pretty intense words in this message. Can you soften truth? Yeah, can you soften truth? What happens when you do? You know, what happens when you do? People ignore it. Yeah, people ignore it. I suppose the waiter comes to you at the restaurant and says, how much arsenic would you like in your steak? You know, but none thank you.

As a matter of fact, it's troubling to be asked the question, right? This is one of these things where Christ's sentiment on this is, the gauge is pinned. It's all the way over on one side, okay? He is not apathetic or ambivalent about this. Let's look at this Balaam guy. That's here on page three.

Below is a summary of the biblical references to Balaam, starting in Numbers 22, which is the core passage there. It goes on through about a half dozen references in the Old Testament. And interestingly enough, the last few books of the New Testament keep bringing up the theme Balaam, but not identically. The second Peter passage talks about the way of Balaam.

This is about one who hires himself out for religious work for the sake of gain. Of course, that doesn't happen in our era, right? The error of Balaam. This refers to Balaam's error of thinking he could get God to curse his covenant people because of their sins and bypass the promises.

Was God's covenant with Abraham conditioned upon Abraham doing everything right? No. Did Abraham do everything right? No. Is God faithful to his promise to Abraham? Yep. So Balaam made a big mistake right at the outset that when God makes an unconditional promise, there's no way to spoil it. God's going to keep his promise. That was the error of Balaam from Judah 11. Here's the doctrine of Balaam, the third time it shows up. And the doctrine of Balaam taught or counseled Balak to tempt Israel in marrying the daughters of Moab.

This is a mixing in with the world, basically is what it amounts to. Mixing in with the world. And the idea is then you'd have this breakdown and separation of the world and the church. That was part of the issue we were just talking about, isn't it? people get mixed up about where's our focus here as Christians? Are we supposed to clean up the world? Not so much.

So this breakdown, separation, that's the doctrine of Balaam. This is the third item here. Here's what's interesting is this Balaam character gets addressed from one of the early books of the Bible, the book of Numbers. all the way to these last three books, including this passage in Revelation. Let's look at page four.

Yes. I don't remember, but I think Balaam actually was a prophet, was he not? Yes, at least as he was claimed to be, not a godly prophet. Not Jewish, but did you say he was a Jewish prophet? No. You're right, he was a I don't know offhand so I need to take a look at that. Baal typically means Lord. I believe it means Lord of the People. Yeah, Lord of the People. So he was a Moabite prophet.

Yes, and what's interesting is that I have a footnote there on the prior page. It's actually been an archaeological record found in Jordan in the area where he operated. It says Balaam son of Beor, just like the Bible says three times in this archaeological record. So anyway, you can check that out. So anyway, what you see there is, here are the three things. Putting a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, that was the first thing Christ mentions here.

Encouraging believers to eat things sacrificed to idols and committing acts of immorality. Those were the three things that were brought up there. About food being offered to idols, Paul wrote about this in Romans and 1 Corinthians, two chapters. That was a matter of personal conscience, but it was not an absolute moral error to eat food that had been offered to idols. But it was a problem when the Christians would go to the pagan temple, because that was the custom. You go to the pagan temple for some of these meetings that they would have.

We're going to have a meeting, folks, a public meeting. And the meeting starts off, you know, it seems like it's almost against the law these days, but meetings would often start in a prior generation with an invocation. Even city council meetings, I once started with that.

The invocation, well the pagan invocation was to have an offering to these pagan gods. And so it was that meat that they're talking about here. And frequently at the end you'd have a benediction, which would be another offering to the gods followed by an orgy. That's part of what he's talking about here. So for the church to get mixed up with that was a major moral mess. And it's a spiritual mess too.

It was a matter of joining in with the pagan rites. Yes? Just a point on that. There was nothing wrong with eating the meat in itself. It was the problem that these folks would eat the meat and it would get them to think about other things so they get rid of the group they were with and then go back to the temple and perhaps enjoy the relationships with the various prostitutes or other things that occurred in the temple. In other words, the problem is not just putting the meat in their mouth. The problem is everything else that went along with it, including the immoral practices that went along with it. Where in our older terms we would say a benediction, sort of an end of meeting prayer, Their version of a benediction was you make an offering to the pagan gods and then you have an orgy.

That was their idea of a benediction. Yes. Well didn't Paul summarize that chapter something to the effect that he said everything that is not of faith is sin? That's right. And so that kind of relates to this too because they are not doing this in faith. They're doing this for personal satisfaction of their hunger or their relationships or whatever.

How is that practical today? I think the thing is, what you look at is, as Christians, certainly we have freedom to do all kinds of things. But the principle that Paul put before the believers in that day was, all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. And we've got to look at it, as Christians we have great liberty, but we still have to ask the question, is this helpful?

Will this stumble my brother? Will it cause my brother to have a problem that I'm doing this? Will it be a problem for these other people to see me participating in this? So we run into the same kind of question even though we may not have the same pagan temple culture. Still we have lots of different things where we need to ask the question.

Certainly having the liberty, but is this helpful? is, you know, say maybe you've got a friend who's battled with alcohol or something that's come out of it. Is it okay for you to have a glass of wine? Absolutely. Is it good for you to have a glass of wine in front of him? Maybe not. So I think that's where it becomes applicable. Or if you're the friend that has a problem with the alcohol. Yeah, that's a problem. Not, you might say, of the faith. For instance, Mormons.

I spent 32 summers in Mormon land giving lectures. They kept praying the cross a lot of times, Eleanor and I, for the first seven or eight years. And then finally, I had to sit down with my sponsor and had a little visit. But the thing that was interesting was that we would go out to a real famous seafood place out there. And I always wanted to have iced tea with my seafood.

But they didn't, of course, believe in having iced tea. They didn't believe in a Pepsi. They didn't believe in a Pepsi. Nothing caffeinated. So then I, as a gesture toward my friendship with this individual, would not have tea. But it was not against my faith, and it was certainly, I felt, not necessarily against his, but he did not believe in tea, so therefore, Olga and I would not have tea with our meal. Yeah, there what you're looking at is somewhat of a, it may on the surface look similar, but the way Paul put that was, you know, I'll be all things to all men, that is, I'm not going to make the, in this instance, the T, the issue.

Why? Because I don't want to do anything to distract from Christ. Even, let's put it this way, even here in the church, I am reluctant very reluctant to speak of my own political opinions, although I have very strongly held opinions. But I don't put a focus on that. Why? I don't want anything to distract from Christ. And even with other people that are unbelievers, Still, you've got to ask the question, is there anything I can do or say that would distract from Christ being the issue?

A friend of mine years ago, he worked for AT&T, and he and another fellow would spend hours, because Nevada has many miles to drive to get places, hours driving out to this remote station out in the middle of Nevada, back and forth. all the time, hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks, months and months, driving back and forth to get to this remote station in the middle of Nevada. Well, my friend finally persuaded this other fellow who was with him all the time to come to his particular political persuasion after all these talks. And he said it was not satisfying. He says, when it was all done, I had a fellow who believed politically like I did, but was still headed to hell.

And so I think the thing is, I don't want to do anything to distract from either my ministry with believers, or even the opportunity for evangelism with unbelievers. It has a similarity to it, but underneath it, there is a difference. One is my brother, the other one is not.

Yes? You know, I know I'm in some condition with that Mormon, though. drink the iced tea, I think that would have been okay too. It wouldn't be a problem on his part, but it is a matter of saying what will I refrain from in order that this person here be able to hear what I say. Yeah, but wouldn't it be a matter of faith rather than what you drink? So far as he's concerned, he doesn't care one way or the other. I'll have my iced tea or not have it, I don't care. But the point being, as a matter of love for that person, not as a brother, but as a matter of love for them that they might be able to hear, I'll have something other than iced tea at the moment. I'll take my lemonade instead of the iced tea if that's what it takes to make the ears open and the eyes see. Let's move on here. In verse 16, Therefore repent, or else I am coming to you quickly.

I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth. Very interesting. The Lord isn't coming to go and slaughter the Christians. He's coming to use that sword for surgery. Do you see the difference there? He says you need to act. about these false teachers who are among you. If you do not, I will, but it will be some radical surgery here. Radical surgery. Now, I have a question. What does that look like? What does it look like when the Lord Jesus Christ comes in with the sword of his mouth to deal with false teachers? I think that's the picture in Isaiah when only the remnants left.

Yeah, you may have some pretty radical things have to take place. Could be a rough time, yes. Some were sick in the church. In Corinth, right? Yeah, some were sick. In fact, he said some even died. Yeah, this could be something radical. It is imperative that Christians judge as judging ought to be done among themselves.

First of all, me personally, dealing with things in the church, doesn't mean I come in savagely at every moment. As a matter of fact, remember, truth and love are tied together, not separate. So even if I come in and deal with a particular situation, I may even, and I'm reluctant to do so, may even have to come in and deal with things with some fair intensity. But in the end, it's still loving.

What the Lord was talking about, He says, you be loving, this is your point that you brought up earlier, you be loving the people in the body and even these false teachers by pointing out what's true. Or, I will come in out of my love and do it. The Lord will have to do it. Yes? I was reading about the law of the leper the other day. The law of the? Leper. Leper? Yeah. Okay. If a leper has a rising. Oh, I see. Yeah. You're talking about the Old Testament law? Yeah. It can be unclean. Yeah.

And if he is fully white. then the priest pronounces him clean. So, I guess the fact that a lot of people don't understand how sinful the whole nature is, and until they are aware of that, can they turn from it positively. The sin nature is unredeemable. Frankly, the world is unredeemable. which is one of the reasons we talked about earlier, our job is not to clean it up.

Believers need to fully understand it is the Lord's intent to deal with what is to be redeemed. It is among the church body, it's those who are truly believers. Within a believer, it is that part of you which is saved. The Lord's not saving the sin nature. The Lord's not coming to clean up that which is ultimately to be gotten rid of. And it's real important for believers to understand those distinctions.

It's when those things get foggy, when those things become unclear that the problems arise. And that's a part of what he's trying to get them to see here. Clarity. Spiritual clarity. Ever drive in a vehicle and maybe something gets splashed up on the window and for a moment you can't see anything? That's a real difficult way to drive for very long. The clarity that you want to have in the windshield in front of you is a good illustration of the clarity that the Lord wants us to have among ourselves as believers, personally and as a church body. Clarity of vision, seeing things clearly. Getting the foggy, frosty layer of snow off the windshield. Seeing things with spiritual clarity. That's God's intent.

One of the things we make a point of here, we're about to run out of time. is what does repent mean? Repent is one of those words that's gotten, well, a lack of clarity. The first bullet we have, repenting, to change one's mind, is what it means, doesn't mean to just feel badly about one's choices. Just because you play the blues doesn't mean that that's what repenting is. Sometimes, and I've seen this, where people feel real sorry about getting caught. Or they feel sorry about the bad consequences. Or that I seek to have better self-esteem, or to shore up the sin nature.

No, it is a change of mind, a change of perspective and orientation. That's what it's about. The feelings may be an outcome from that. But at the core, repenting is a change of mind. It's not a feeling at the core, although feelings may be associated with it. Repenting is a change of mind. That's what it's all about. Therefore, have a change of mind about this whole thing, and then act on that change of mind. Or, then, if not, I will have to come and deal with this. Far better that you deal with it.

Okay, we've got pages 5 and 6 that we're not likely to get to. I do want to point out something, though, and leave it to you to pick up the details on it. Verse 17 is of a pattern typical of the rest of the messages. But one of the things that I think is really neat is that it talks about hidden manna. It talks about a white stone and a new name. And one of the things that is really neat about all three of those is that it's very personal. The Lord desires a personal relationship with us. Are we a part of a special group here as we gather as believers? Yep. Does it matter that we gather together? Yes, it does. But there's also this aspect to it.

The Lord desires a personal and unique relationship with you alone. With you alone. Intimacy between you and Him is exactly what He has in mind. So it's not simply a matter of being part of the crowd. It's not simply a matter of, there's the Lord somewhere out there and I guess among all the faces, I'm somewhere in the group. But in these words is a recognition that the Lord desires and is His very intent to have a personal relationship with each and every single one of us.

No exceptions. And that's individual. And that's really neat. That's really something special to ponder. Here's this church. He's got hard words to say. I've got a few things to bring out about what's going on here at your church. But in the end, he says, I want a personal relationship with each one of you. And this is good stuff. This is rich. This is deep. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at these verses, certainly some of it hits hard. Quite hard, as a matter of fact.

And yet, as we look at it, it's also clear as we come to verse 17 that you gave several pictures of a personal relationship between you, the Creator of the universe, and our Savior. and each individual one of us. And Lord, we thank you for those pictures. And we thank you that that's ultimately our intent, that your intent rather, with each of us. And that you desire that personal and intimate relationship with each and every single person here today. And we thank you for these truths that are laid out, Lord, that make clear things among us as a church body as well as for each individual here. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.