Faithful to the Gospel, but also to the Law

Sermon for Midweek of Septuagesima

Revelation 2:12-17

Three of the seven letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation have a combination of praise and rebuke for the pastor, two have only rebuke, and two have only praise and comfort. This third letter, to the angel of the church in Pergamum, has both praise and rebuke for the pastor of the church, and there’s much we can learn from it.

First, Jesus points to Himself here as the One who has a sharp double-edged sword. And where is this sword? John saw it earlier in the vision of Jesus. It’s coming out of Jesus’ mouth. As the writer to the Hebrews says, The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. With that soul-penetrating sword, Jesus accomplishes two things: He both defends His people and slays His enemies.

He says to the pastor, I know your works and where you live, where Satan’s throne is. Satan’s throne is figurative. It means that the enemies and persecutors of the Word had a strong presence in Pergamum. It means that lies and deception were common there, as Satan is called the “father of lies.” It means that, through his lies and deception, Satan was influencing tyrants and inciting them to persecute the godly. Jesus even mentions a Christian named Antipas, His faithful martyr, who was put to death in Pergamum by the servants of Satan. Jesus isn’t ignorant of Satan’s influence there. He knows all about it and is using it in His own hidden ways to build His Church.

Jesus also knows that the pastor has been faithful in confessing the true faith and holds fast to the doctrine of Christ. You hold fast to my name and have not denied my faith, even in the face of persecution and as he watched others being put to death for confessing Christ before men. You continue to teach My Gospel! That’s good!

But it’s not all good. But I have a few things against you, because you have there people who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to set a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality. In the same way, you also have people who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I hate.

The story of Balaam and Balak is recorded in the book of Numbers. The children of Israel had spent their 40 years in the wilderness. They were just about ready to enter Canaan from the east, which meant they had to go through Midian and Moab, where Balak was king, and he had seen the incredible victories the Israelites had recently won against the surrounding kings. So Balak hired Balaam, a well-known prophet / sorcerer from the east, to curse Israel. It’s quite a story. Balaam was offered lots of money to curse Israel, but the Lord kept him from doing it. Instead, the Lord compelled Balaam to bless Israel. But that meant he didn’t get paid. So he came up with another solution for Balak: Send a bunch of beautiful young women over to the Israelite camp and have them seduce the Israelite men, both to have sex with them and to join them in their pagan rituals and festivals. It worked, though, in the end, it didn’t save Moab. Many Israelite men joined in the fornication and idolatry, resulting in a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites before Moses and Phinehas the priest put an end to it.

Apparently there were Christians there in Pergamum who were also engaged in sexual immorality and idolatry, even as they remained “practicing” Christians!

In a similar way, there were Christians in Pergamum who were being seduced by the Nicolaitans, a sect that promoted wife swapping and participating in pagan rituals and meals. These Christians were engaging in these obvious sins, and nothing was being done about it by the pastor. He was supposed to be using the Word of Christ not only to preach the sweet comfort of forgiveness of sins to the penitent, but to preach the Law to the impenitent, the Law that bites and kills on the inside, the Law that condemns sin, including the sin of adultery and of idolatry, in all their forms. Jesus Himself commanded His apostles to practice church discipline, and finally, if the sinner refused to repent, he was to be excommunicated. Instead, this pastor was tolerating it. And Jesus says, “I hate that.”

So He says to the pastor, Repent! Recognize your own sin in failing to preach and apply the Law! Realize that it’s not okay to tolerate sinful behavior among the members of your flock. You must use the sword of My mouth against it, and if the sinners refuse to repent, you must exclude them from the fellowship of My Church, both for love of Me, and for love of them, and for love of the rest of the flock, and even for love of outsiders, lest they should start to think that Christ Himself tolerates or even endorses adultery or idolatry.

If you don’t repent, Jesus says, I am coming to you soon, and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. It’s far better to have a preacher preach the Law in Jesus’ name now, even if it hurts, than to have Jesus Himself come and fight against you later.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This warning, and the encouragement that follows, is not just for the pastor of the church in Pergamum. It’s for all who will listen, for all the churches, for all the hearers to pay attention and learn.

Jesus closes with an encouragement and a twofold promise: To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the hidden manna. The manna, the miraculous bread from heaven, came down to the Israelites in the wilderness every day for forty years, except for the Sabbath days. But a portion of it, a measure of it, was to be hidden away in a jar in the tabernacle, to be kept from generation to generation. That jar was eventually lost. But the true hidden-away manna is the joy and refreshment and sustenance of the heavenly good things that are reserved for the saints in heaven.

He adds, And I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on it which no one knows except the one who receives it. The most likely meaning of the white stone comes from Roman history. The Roman poet Ovid, who lived just before the time of Christ, writes of a white stone signifying an innocent verdict in court. So here, to the one who overcomes, to the one who perseveres in repentance and faith until the end, who continues to confess Christ and abide in His Word, He promises that the absolution that the sinner hears here in this life, from the minister, will most certainly be honored in heaven. He’ll be forever absolved from sin, from the curse of the law, and from eternal damnation.

Now, how does all this apply to us here? Well, Satan’s throne, his diabolical influence on society and on the government, seems to be everywhere at the moment. His hatred toward Christians, toward God, toward the Word of God, and toward the creation itself is taking over our country, as it has already begun to take over many countries in the world. Maybe you saw (at least in the news) reports of the Satanic show they put on as “entertainment” at the Grammy’s this week. Or maybe you’ve seen that the Satanic temple is literally sponsoring an abortion clinic right here in New Mexico. Satan is not even hiding anymore. He’s revealing himself openly in our culture and in the speeches and actions and policies of a whole political party here in this country. But we are encouraged by Jesus’ words in this letter that He both knows and ultimately controls how things are going in the world, and He also knows when His people continue to confess Him and His Word boldly and unapologetically, which should inspire us to keep doing it, because it’s only a matter of time before Satan’s throne is overthrown, because Christ is coming soon.

But the criticism revealed in this letter is especially relevant. There are any number of Christian churches that no longer preach the Law, no longer condemn the sins that God’s Word condemns, like sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, and unscriptural divorce. Or, if they condemn it on paper, they don’t say much about it from the pulpit. And even if their members are publicly and persistently promoting wickedness, whether it be sexual sins or sins like abortion, for example, their pastors refuse to excommunicate them for it. Their wickedness is tolerated. And Jesus still hates that.

Now, I know of no examples of public, unrepented sin that haven’t been addressed among us. But if it ever has to be addressed, or even if it’s just a matter of preaching against sin in general, I hope you understand, it’s what Christ commands us to do. When a pastor condemns sin, either in general or in the case of an individual, it isn’t to be mean. It’s to be faithful to the Word of Christ. It’s to call a sinner back from the edge of the cliff of eternal condemnation, or to warn God’s beloved people so that they don’t start heading in the direction of that cliff. And finally, it’s to give a clear witness of the Christian faith to outsiders. The fact is, the Christian faith has been horribly represented to the world in all sorts of ways, and that includes Christians who stubbornly refuse to live as Christians, and it includes churches that have stopped disciplining open sin. We can’t do anything about what other churches do. But we can see to it that we remain faithful here in preaching and applying both the Law and the Gospel.

So take that lesson from this evening’s letter from the book of Revelation. And also, take with you the comfort of Christ’s promise to the one who overcomes. An innocent verdict in God’s courtroom that lasts forever, and the revelation of the blessed election to salvation that took place before time began. Amen.