The Church at Pergamos: The Worldly Church, Part Two | Chris Chadwick | Revelation 2:12-17 — Chris Chadwick

Take your Bible tonight and turn to the book of Revelation chapter two, Revelation chapter two in your Bible, continuing or finishing this morning's message. Revelation chapter two in your Bible this evening, picking up, well, I'm gonna do a little bit of a review and then we will move forward after the review. So, Revelation chapter two in your Bible's today. Now, sometimes folks will hear a message like this morning and if it's the first time you've heard something like that or a message like that, somebody might say, man, I wonder, is the pastor upset about something? No, here's the reality. The text of scripture should determine the tone of the preacher, the text determines the tone. And so there are times when the tone is much more, if you will, passionate, be more passionate than it is at other times and much more declarative. Why?

Because the text requires that if anything other than that, determines the tone, then that could become very, very fleshly and personal and that is certainly not what we want as followers of Jesus Christ. We began talking this morning, Revelation chapter two, verse number 12, about the church at Pergamos. Again, that's Pergamos or Pergamum, either one of them. They're interchangeable, same city, same place, a very prominent city in Asia and a very prominent city. John, pull up that slide, would ya? You don't have that slide? I don't know why you don't have that slide. It's the same slide we had this morning. Zane, pray for John, would ya do that? You guys pray for John as Kristen beats him up when she gets home tonight for not having that slide.

But Pergamos is a city towards the top of the horseshoe, if you will, of Turkey and modern day Turkey, is mere Turkey is where the city was and it's in a city called Bergamom and in the province of Izmir today. And it was a very prominent city. There you have it right up there. And each one of the letters, John writes seven letters and they're just delivered in a geographical fashion and the way that they are laid out, we believe is the way that they were read. In other words, and we don't have full understanding of how they got from Patmos to Ephesus. This is kind of what we think might be a possibility is that when John was released from Patmos, he went to Ephesus where he ministered and served for many, many years and lived there and that the letter was delivered to Ephesus and then somebody, remember John is an old man, a very old man, so we're almost 100 years old, but between 95 and 97 years old while he's on Patmos.

And when he gets to Ephesus delivers the inspired book of Revelation and they take the letters and read the letter to Ephesus and then they go to Smyrna and read the letter to Smyrna and then they go to Pergamum and they read the letter to Pergamum and kind of in that horseshoe fashion. Pergamum was a city that was distinctive for its geographical feature or its most distinctive geographical feature was the thousand foot Acropolis. And remember in the ancient world, the word Acropolis just simply means the highest point in the city. And the Acropolis outside of Pergamum, just to the south of Pergamum, on top of that Acropolis was a temple that had been built to Zeus right up here. It was a temple that had been built to Zeus and people would go there and they would worship Zeus and other things. It was a very, very fleshly, sensual, ungodly place to be. Pergamum was the seat of the Roman government for that region of Asia at the time.

It was a very, very important city. If New York was, if Ephesus was New York as far as economic power and economic control goes or wealth goes, then Pergamum was Washington DC. That's where you went to have a measure of control. Ephesus was where you went to make money. DC was where you went to exercise control. I have a friend in Congress, Roger Williams, and we were talking one time. He said, I tell all of the young interns, before you come to DC, go make your money and then once you make money, come to DC. And then you'll have, then you can have a measure of power and control. That's kind of how it was. You went to Ephesus to make money. You went to Pergamum because that was the place of power for Asia and the place of authority. The church at Pergamum, as we discussed this morning, was a church, and we ought to think of this. It ought to be important to us as we think about this.

It was a church that truly had never had any apostolic teaching. And by apostolic, again, we don't mean the charismatic, quasi-cultish teaching of the apostolic movement of today. What we mean is they never had an apostle come and visit the church in many places and many regions of the world had apostles, Paul being the most prominent, but Peter and others would go around. John obviously would go around and visit other churches and be a blessing to them. There's no evidence that that ever happened in Pergamum. There's no evidence that they have or were exposed to strong leadership in the city of Pergamum. There's no evidence of that at all. And there is also no evidence that they were exposed to solid Bible teaching. We would say it this way. The church at Pergamum was, in many ways, a very weak church family. They were a very weak church family.

We were a small, what we would say is a little, little church family and somebody might say, "Well, we should feel sorry for them." No, no, we ought not feel sorry for them because we understand this, that true faith is never fragile, only false faith is fragile. True faith is never fragile, only false faith is fragile. You can put a genuine believer in Jesus Christ in the midst of the worst place. And if they're following the Lord, they will. Listen to what we ought to say. They will extricate themselves from the things of the world, no matter how appealing they may be to some. And they will isolate, intentionally isolate themselves from the world so as to not affect their walk with God. This summer we were on sabbatical and Debbie and I had been in Houston on Sunday morning and we were driving to New Orleans Sunday afternoon and there were no churches that we could find on Sunday afternoon.

And we were staying near the French Quarter, we were staying like a quarter mile from Canal Street and Bourbon Street and we'd heard about it our whole life. And so we went to two churches on Sunday morning and we made our way to Canal and Bourbon Street or to the hotel, we got into the hotel and a beautiful hotel, we were able to stay in and it was really nice. And then we just walked up to Canal and Bourbon Street and so you're walking on Canal Street and we turned and we walked west on Canal Street and Debbie and I started getting like this like something just seems off here. And so we saw a guy in a Dodger's hat, we thought that was it and we kept on walking and we're like, "Man, what is it, what is going on?" And so our whole life, you know, you'd seen Bourbon Street and good things about Bourbon Street, no, it's amazing, it's wonderful.

And so we walked like a half a mile on Canal Street crossed, it came over and we were going north on Bourbon Street from where we were and man, we took about probably 25, 30 steps, not exaggerating and Debbie goes, Debbie looked right at me, she goes, "Don't look over there." Now how many of you men know when your wife says, "Don't look somewhere, that's exactly what you're gonna do." Like she said, "Don't look over there." And so I'm like, "Look over there." I'm like, "What am I supposed to not be looking at?" She goes, "Don't look." And so I didn't look and then she goes, "Don't look over there, didn't look over there." And before long she goes, "I don't think you're allowed to look anywhere here." I'm like, "Well, listen sweetheart, "it's not like you have sanctified eyes. "Keep your eyes on the ground." And we looked on the ground and we were like, "Don't wanna look there either, it's a good grief."

And before long what we realized is that we were in a cesspool of sin. And so we're like, "Let's just walk back to our hotel." So we just walked back to our hotel, got some food on the way and went back to our hotel. I just kinda hung out at our hotel, thankfully it was nice. We hung out at our hotel, we actually were starving, didn't know what to order, so we did DoorDash, simply so we didn't have to get back out. And here's just the principle that I'm trying to share. True faith is never fragile and a genuine follower of Christ will extricate themselves from the things of the world as opposed to inserting themselves in things of the world. They'll get out of it as much as humanly possible so they can keep their relationship with Christ what it ought to be. Sometimes people say, "I don't have any genuine believers that are there to encourage me." That's a bummer. That's when you need to be a part of a church family.

We want to encourage you in that. We want to help you in that. We want to help you. If you ever move from here, we help people find churches all the time on a monthly basis. We're helping people find churches around Canyon Ridge that are moving somewhere. We want to help you find the best that is available, but make no mistake, true faith is never fragile, only false faith is. So the church at Pergamum was struggling, was a challenge. They were in a worldly area. We talked about that a lot this morning, that it was a very worldly place. I read this quote and it bears reading again as we jump into the end of this passage of Scripture. John MacArthur's quote on this passage, "For many people in today's church, the term worldliness has a quaint old-fashioned ring to it. They associate it with prohibitions against things like dancing, going to movies, or playing cards.

Today's user-friendly, seeker-oriented, market-driven church doesn't preach much against worldliness. To do so might make unbelievers, not to mention many believers, uncomfortable and is therefore avoided as a poor marketing strategy. The Bible repeatedly warns us against worldliness. Romans 12 2, Titus 2:12, James 1:27, 1 John 2, thanks bro. Sorry, I preached my voice out in the great state of Washington this week. I was in Washington and they had no rain and it was very dry. It was almost like a Santa Ana was blown through San Diego and so forgive me for my voice. 1 John chapter 2 verses 15 to 17 were commanded to not love the world. And believer, I just want to say to you, if your affection is in the world and you're like more pumped about the things of the world than you are the things of God, you really have to check your walk with Jesus.

You might even have to check your salvation because we are commanded to not love the world and God would not give us that command if it was impossible. It's only impossible to not love the world for people who aren't followers of Christ. The non-follower of Christ will love the world. They'll put the temporal above the eternal. And so we see in this text of scripture the correspondent, Jesus is the one that is writing. Again, I'm just going to fly through these points. We see the commendation. Christ was very thankful for the fact in verse number 13. I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is. You live at what there's a lot of debate discussion. If you weren't here this morning, I encourage you to go back and listen to the message when it comes out tomorrow. But Satan's seat is often thought to be a lot of different things.

And the thing that I believe it is, and I'm not alone on this, is it is, it was at that time probably the literal epicenter of satanic worship in Asia and possibly throughout the entire world. The word seat means the throne. He's like you live where Satan's throne is. And by the way, Satan is worshiped, but there's parts of the world where he's worshiped much greater than he is here. I've traveled in parts of the world where I'm just like, dude, I cannot wait to get home to that Christian bastion of California. Like people think, yeah, compared to parts of the world. I mean, I just got back from Seattle in the amount of satanic tattoos and witchcraft and and Satanism that was just openly promoted was was something that to the aware believer is the same was in New Orleans. Very, very evident. And so there's places, I don't know that they would be the epicenter by any means.

I would have no way of knowing that nor would I try to to make that claim. I'm just helping us to understand there are places in the world that are much more given to that than are other places. And they lived at what John says is the seat of Satanism. Now, if it means one of the other things that we listed this morning and so be it, I hold to my position incredibly humble because the Scripture doesn't say for sure. It just seems from the language that the Scripture is saying that Satan's seat or the Satan's place of authority is Pergamum. What we know is certainty. It was a very difficult and hedonistic place to live. We can say that was certainty, but no amount of satanic opposition can destroy genuine saving faith such as the believers in Pergamum had. So they're holding fast to the Word of God and to the fidelity to the person of Jesus Christ.

Now, with that said, there was a criticism in verse number 14 where the Scripture says, ‘But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.’ So we talked this morning about the criticism and the church had compromised doctrinal truth, chapter 14, or verse number 14, the first part of it, the doctrine of Balaam. The reality is that we as a church family are commanded to hold true to biblical doctrine. We don't have the luxury of changing Bible doctrine. By the way, that's one of the reasons our preaching should be doctrinally filled as should our music be filled with doctrine.

I tire sometimes, and you could find them on what we may be starting to say, the progressive side and the conservative side. I tire sometimes of going into churches and hearing like self-help messages from whatever the liberal or the conservative perspective and self-help music from the liberal or the conservative perspective. The Bible and doctrinal truth are self-helping in and of themselves, in and of themselves. And we ought not be fearful to communicate and teach biblical truth, and some people might say, "Well, folks, we'll get bored with that." Not a true, genuine, faithful follower of Christ. I'm thankful for the folks that came and raised that come because they're like, "I just want to hear kind of verse by verse teaching of the Scripture." That's doctrinal teaching.

And the church at Pergamos had done what so many in our day have done, and that is they just tolerated weak preaching, weak teaching, and weak Christians in their church to the point where Jesus is telling them, "You better get some things fixed, or I'm going to come and I'm going to fight against you." And their erroneous doctrinal position had led to them tolerating, I'm going to use a phrase, I'm trying to be very gentle because there's children in here tonight, unlike the 1030 service, they tolerated sexual immorality in the church. They thought they knew better than God. And so rather than defeating the church, like outright through opposition which it cannot be defeated because the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

What they did was, they brought in stumbling blocks like Balaam did when he instructed Balaam the king of Moab that the way to defeat the nation of Israel was not to fight against them, but the way to defeat the nation of Israel was to get their men to commit immorality with the Moabitish women. So he used the Moabitish women to get the men to bow down to idols and then to commit immorality with them. And in so doing God brought grave judgment on the nation of Israel. And in Numbers chapter 25, the story is told through 22 through 25. And in Numbers chapter 25, God ends up killing in verse number 9, 24,000 men, including many of their leaders. Why? Because they tolerated sin. And so drastic action by God, and drastic action by Aaron's son, had halted Aaron's son killed a man, caught in the very act of adultery, and thrust a spear through his back and impaled a woman on the stomach and both of them were killed.

And that drastic action halted Israel's slide into full-on immorality and idolatry. Like the seduced Israelites, there were those in the church at Pergamos who had been seduced by the pagan system of the day. And so they had compromised theologically, referring to their act of abandoning or altering or downplaying fundamental Christian beliefs, doctrines, or Bible truths, in order to align with external pressure, cultural trends, and personal convenience. And then verse number 15, now we didn't talk about this this morning, so this is where we're picking up. I just need to give you a 20-minute rehearse of what we talked about for 40, or for 45, plus 20 minutes this morning. So, so 65 minutes. I want you to notice the perversion, verse number 15 of the Nicolaitans. So hast thou also them which hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I hate. Notice what God says, which I hate. People say, God doesn't hate anything.

They ought to read the Scripture. Now we spent a good amount of time talking about this a couple of weeks ago in chapter 2, verse number 6 about the church at Ephesus, where God says that He hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans there as well. The Nicolaitans derived their name from Nicholas, one of the seven men chosen to oversee the distribution of the next chapter 6. Some people called those the first deacons, I call them the first staff members of the local church. That's really what they were. They served in a capacity so that the apostles could give themself to the fasting and prayer in the reading of the word. That was their ministry. We're not sure if Nicholas became apostate. Some early church fathers believe that he did, or if his followers perverted his teaching. We just don't know. What we know is certain certainty is that they abused the biblical teaching on Christian liberty.

They taught basically that they could do whatever they wanted because they were saved, and that there was nothing anyone could do to change that. So they took the doctrine of eternal security that once you're saved you're always saved. And then they equated that to licentiousness, which basically just means I can do whatever I want because I'm saved, and nothing that I could do can ever make me unsafe. So therefore God is allowing me to enjoy whatever it is that I want to do in my life. And that is that is a totally bogus argument, but it is not an uncommon argument even to this day. We wouldn't call it Nicolaitanism, but that's really what it is. It's taking Christian liberty to its illogical conclusion and saying I can just do whatever I want because I'm saved. The Nicolaitans also taught that Christians could practice in pagan orgies.

They seduced the church with immorality and ideology, and they're actually bringing this into the church, and they're instructing the church on what they're allowed to do. Brothers and sisters, friends, I can't encourage us enough to remember that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, God calls us to a life of holiness. And we're to be holy because we are to imitate and pattern our life after the very person of Jesus Christ, and we're commanded to be holy because he is holy. And Jesus says in verse number 15 he says, "Thou hast also them which hold to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate?" And this is in the church, and the church was allowing it. The word hate means an active ill will. It's an active ill will. What does active mean? It's not passive. It's not a hatred that it used to have, and he doesn't anymore.

No, it's a hatred that God has for sensuality, and this kind of teaching coming into his church, and this licentiousness, the word licentiousness just means a license to do whatever I want, and licentious living where I have no personal restraint on what I think or how I live. I just do whatever it is that I want to do, and God says this, "I just hate it, which I hate to detest it, to abhor it." Whatever word you want to use, we need to understand this, that God hates this kind of perversion of the gift of intimacy and sexuality that he gave to be kept within the bonds of marriage, and only in marriage. Well, I can do it and not include another person. No, it does include another person, even if it's on your phone or your computer screen, because dear friend, you need to understand your eyes are to be kept for the one that God has for you. Well, pastor, I'll never get married. What then?

Then your eyes are to be kept for the King of the Lord of Lords who will satisfy all of our needs through his goodness and grace, and anything other than that is a clear perversion of Scripture. If you have somebody telling you it's okay, let me tell you, dear friend, you need to run from that person with clarity and honesty, put in one foot in front of the other and never looking back. Never looking back. Well, verse number 16, we don't end with just the idea. You see why I had to break this into two passages of Scripture. We don't end with the criticism that Christ gives. We also see the command, verse number 16. Jesus says, "Repent. Change your ways or face the consequence." The command. Jesus says very clearly, "Repent or else." We dealt with this on this morning, a little more than the 830 service than the 1030 service. ‘Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.’

He doesn't say He's going to come and we're going to have a talking to. I think Jesus would have been against gentle parenting. Like sweetheart, we need to have a conversation. Now, how do you feel about this? Let me tell you how I feel about this. No, this could be your punishment. What do you think your punishment should be? And they go back and forth and then they come to some form of agreement. Now, He just simply says, "I'm going to knock you out." That's the transliteration of verse number 16. "I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." Really, it's not even knock you out. He literally means I'm going to slaughter you. I'm going to destroy you. I'm not trying to be like over the top. I'm not trying to be superlative in this. I'm just helping us to understand that Christ is very serious. And by the way, those of you that parent by talking to your kids, I think talking to them is great.

But the judgment was determined by Christ. He wasn't coming to them and saying we could just figure something out later. No, He's literally saying He's going to fight against the church at Pergamum because they were tolerating sin in the church. Paul warned the church at Corinth of this very thing. There was a man in the church who was committing a adultery with his stepmother. And the church at Corinth was rejoicing in their "tolerance" of it. They were going around telling their friends how tolerant their church was. And Paul says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse number 6, "You're glorying is not good." Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. "Purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." About this verse number 16, MacArthur says this. He just wrote the best commentary on this church that there is.

Other guys are super helpful as well. But his is just impeccable on this church verses 12 to 17. And he says, "The sinning believers should be made," listen to what I'm about to say. "Sining believers should be made to feel miserable in the fellowship and worship of the church by being confronted powerfully with the Word of God." Sinning believers should be made to feel miserable in the fellowship and worship of the church by being confronted powerfully with the Word of God. Neither is the goal of the church to provide an environment where unbelievers feel comfortable. It is to be a place where they can hear the truth and be convicted of their sins so as to be saved. It is to be an environment where they where unbelievers feel, where they can hear the truth and be convicted of their sins so as to be saved. Well pastor, I brought a friend this morning. Good thank you. I don't mean that arrogantly. Please understand my heart.

I do not mean that arrogantly. On a personal level, I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable. But if the Word of God makes somebody, that's why I try to tell jokes and have a little bit of humor here and there. It's part of my nature who I am to begin with. But there's a measure of that where I, one of the common critiques that I have of my preaching is that I tell too many jokes when the Spirit of God is really working on folk's hearts. One of the common critiques that happened this week when I was preaching up in Washington. It was an honest fair evaluation. I don't want people to feel uncomfortable. I'm the youngest brother which means I'm the nicest in the family. By far I bring more joy to my family than my brother, sister and parents combined. I just walk in and it's like Christmas. How many of you that are youngest know exactly what I'm talking about? Amen to God. Be the glory. Yeah, that's how we feel, right? Yeah.

We're the joy of the family. Without us, there is no joy. Burnie and Zane are shaking their heads. And they're not shaking their heads in disagreement. They're just shaking their heads. I was like that. But they're not. But they're not. No, in all honesty, we don't want people to feel uncomfortable. But the reality is the Word of God and the Church of God is a place where unbelievers will feel uncomfortable. And we need not get away from God's economy of preaching that bring about a message of hope and healing for a lost and dying world. Because if somebody is not convicted over their sin, they can never be converted to our Savior. We don't want to be arrogant. We don't want to be harsh. We don't want to be unkind. We don't want to be in the flesh. We want to be honest and bold and truthful and loving and gracious and gentle as Tyler prayed earlier. But above all, we want to be truthful.

Because if there is no truth, there can be no salvation. Romans chapter 10 verse number 13 says, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him and whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach except they be sent as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace that bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For I say, I say it, Lord, who hath believed our report, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God." I'm talking about the Nicolaitans's error will never be suppressed by compromising with it. Today's non-conformative church is largely repeating the error of the Pergamum church on a grandstand and faces the judgment of the Lord of the church.

And let me give just a pastoral aside, if I can, for just a minute. When the goal of the church becomes attendance, then the direction of the church becomes pragmatic. We're praying for 410. It's five people to be saved just because we feel like we should pray for something like that. But let me tell you, the goal of Canyon Ridge is not to be a large church or a small church. We want to minister in kindness and gracious and honesty and preach every word of the Scripture, verse by verse, through the text that we feel the Lord leads us to that the Lord leads me to, and then the next pastor of the Lord will lead him to do the same thing. Our goal in life is not attendance. Our goal in life is fidelity to the Word of God and the growth of the believers within the congregation, within the family of the church.

So we're commanded here to repent or else Christ will come quickly and will fight against them with the sword of his mouth, a sword that will never be defeated. It cuts both ways, it's always sharp, it's always pure. And then we see in verse number 17, the counsel. The counsel that Christ gives, ‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’ I say this every time I get to this verse, but my dad, when I was a kid, said, "Foolish man never learns from his mistakes." A smart man learns from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Christ is commanding us to be wise. He that has wisdom, he that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying. He's saying, literally, pay attention.

This stresses the vital importance of believers paying attention to what Jesus is saying. Now, it's specifically, obviously, a message to the church of Pergamos, but it's a message that we're supposed to hear and learn, and Christ made some promises in this verse, and He made the promises to him that overcometh, or to the saved folks, to him that overcometh, and He gives three promises. "Will I give to him to eat of the hidden manna?" Hidden manna. What does that mean? Well, manna is a reference in Exodus chapter 16, verses 32 to 34, of how God miraculously fed the nation of Israel as they're going through their wilderness wandering. We're told that it kind of tasted like honey, it was a cornmeal, a cake, it was kind of like cornbread, kind of like a pancake, kind of like a corn pancake that tasted like honey. You say, "Have you ever tasted it?" No, not there's anybody else. You say, "Well, we have it in heaven."

I hope not for 40 years, but it had all the nutrients they needed. It fed them well. It was very healthy for them, whatever it was, and it fell from the sky, and God blessed them with enough food to eat every day, and on Friday, before the Sabbath, they had a double portion. They were able to collect no more, no less. They collected it on the Sabbath day, and they, or before the Sabbath day, and they ate the extra portion on the Sabbath day that they had left over, and God provided them. But you say, "Well, what is this talking about?"

Well, on each one of these three things, there's a measure of speculation, but here's kind of where I fall, and I'm certainly, obviously, not alone, because I read quite a few commentators, or a couple commentators on these points, to get a consensus, and this is kind of what is the general consensus, is that the Egyptians and the surrounding people had no idea how the children of Israel sustained themselves in the wilderness. I've been in the wilderness where the children of Israel have wandered, and let me tell you, there is nowhere near any type of food source that you could feed two to four million people for 40 years. It's just not there. And so the people of Israel and the surrounding nations were amazed at the sustaining providence of God for the children of Israel who were in the wilderness.

So too, the whole world should be amazed at the sustaining providence of God for His churches and those who are saved, how they have overcome. This is spiritual sustenance of Christ and His work in our lives, is to be a testimony to a lost and dying world, even when they ridicule us, and they mock us, and they make fun of us. It's often that people will make fun of a believer for something, and then on the back end, when they can get alone with the believers, say, "Hey, I know we were making fun and joking around with you, but, man, I want what you have." Why is that? Hidden manna? What is God saying? God is just saying, "I'll take care of you church at at Pergamos. I'll give you to eat of the hidden manna." He's not talking about a special food source per se. He's talking about God providing the spiritual needs that they have if they would just yield to Him and repent and do what He commanded them to do.

And then He said, "I'll give Him a white stone." Now, man, you talk about debates in the Bible. A white stone? Nobody really knows what that is for sure. There's a lot of different things. Somebody says it was an Old Testament jewel, it was a judicial casting of the vote for acquittal, it was a token for admission in a membership of recognition, it's something that is written with a divine name on it. Here's what seems to be the best of all of these. A white stone in the Roman custom was given to the victor in an athletic contest. Like if you ran the 100 meter race and you won, you were given the little thing on top of your head, the little leaf on top of your head and you were given a white stone and inscribed on the white stone would be your name and it served as a ticket to a special award banquet. That was the white stone. How'd you get in there? Oh, because my name is written on there.

I'm the fastest runner in Pergamum and I won so I get to go to the special banquet that has the head of state there and they're going to have amazing food there. This is my ticket in. In this view Christ promises the overcomers entrance to the eternal victory celebration in heaven. You say is that exactly what it means? That's kind of what we think it means because the picture or the Scripture doesn't give us absoluteness and if you want to go home and read all of the 14 other things it could be, feel free, I'll help you find the sources and then I'll look at you oddly. But if this seems to be the most logical conclusion to this idea is that Christ is saying if you overcome this is I'm going to give you," and then it says, "and I'm going to give you a new name written." And again, it coincides with the white stone because all the white stone was a new name and you got the white stone and you got the name.

It's kind of a cool thing, like God is saying, "I've not left you behind. I've not forgotten about you. You're going to get into heaven because you're going to get into heaven because of your faith and trust in Christ and your faith and trust in Christ has kept you true and you're going to deal with the sin that is in the church and you're going to take issue with that and you're going to confront people who are in sin because the church has to confront people who are in sin. We can't live with this idea of a program that we could just sin like Balaam's sin or like the Nicolaitans sin and just do whatever it is that we want. So a couple of take home truths for us. And the first one is this, though God has not called us to be spiritual police running around looking for people's sin, God has called us to holding one another accountable in the local New Testament church.

God has called you to hold brothers accountable and hold sisters accountable. So if you know there's sin in the church, two things, you have a personal responsibility to confront that in the person's life, number one, and you have a personal responsibility to make sure that the pastors of the church know about it so that it can be dealt with from a leadership perspective, well pastor, I just don't want to get anyone in trouble. Well let me ask you this, do you want anybody to get help? Do you want anyone to be helped? Well they told me this in confidence. That's why the wise Christian never promises confidence. If you come talk to me, I don't promise anybody confidence outside of a squad car, in a squad car I promise confidence. Inside the church house, I don't promise confidence, I promise intense discretion.

But if you tell me you're doing something that you're going to hurt yourself, hurt somebody else that's going to be destructive to your life or the life of your children, I'm going to do everything in my power to help prevent you from jumping off that cliff. As a police chaplain, I have a little different requirement and I follow that requirement to the letter with joy, no problem about it. But inside the church, you can't just tell a Christian brother you're going to do whatever you want or sister, you're going to do whatever you want, and then just kind of sit there silently. No, no. I can't sit there silently because I promise in our membership covenant to help hold you accountable to things. And by the way, you promised in our membership covenant when you read it and signed it and all of that. You promised in our membership covenant to live a holy life and to appreciate accountability.

So young men, when you know somebody is in sin, you need to hold them accountable to that as to our young women, as do our middle-aged women, and as do our older women and men and middle-aged men, lest the church at Pergamum, lest the church at Pergamum's warning become a warning to Canyon Ridge Baptist Church. And those of you who are in places of spiritual authority or influence have a higher responsibility to whom much is given, much is required. There are things I don't do simply because I'm a pastor, if you're like, "Well, I don't like that," then get out of spiritual leadership. There are things I just don't do, I don't even think you could prove that they're wrong, I couldn't even prove that they're wrong. I don't want to say them because I don't want to give anybody latitude, but I think even our pastoral staff probably knows some of them that I would talk about.

There's just things I don't know that are necessarily wrong, but I wouldn't practice it so as to simply not be a stumbling block to somebody else who is around me. Though I think there might even be Christian, they're not a thing, I believe there's Christian liberty in certain things that I would not, listen to me, that I would not do so I don't become a stumbling block to somebody else. Well, then let me finish with this, I came up with a little list, looks like there's five of them. I don't know if John put them on the slides, we did not have time to go over it, we had technical difficulties. Here was the technical difficulty, I thought I emailed him and I didn't. That was the technical difficulty. He's walking out of his office like, "Hey, are you going to email me?" And I'm like, "Hey, I did." He's like, "I don't think you did." So we always are like, "Check the set messages." And he's like, "Yeah, no, you didn't."

I think this is probably what happened. He deleted the set email before he asked, but obviously I'm teased and I just forgot to email him, so I don't know if he's around here. But I was thinking what leads a church to compromise. This is not an exhaustive list, but I do think it's helpful for us as a church body to think through some things. And so here they are. Number one, church loses its passion for biblical truth. It loses its passion for biblical truth. The thing that you ought to crave when you walk through the doors of Canyon Ridge Baptist Church is biblical truth. Now, like our community Bible study groups, we like your opinions, but the end of the day we want to hear biblical truth, like, "Well, this is what I think about it." Well, that's great. That's nice. That's wrong, but that's nice. Here's the truth. And by the way, I like it when that happens to me, I want to be right. I want to be right. We were coming back.

Debbie and I were at Wooden Valley Baptist Church in Bothell, Washington, it's right next to Wooden Valley. They started Wooden Valley, but they moved to Bothell, but they kept the name Wooden Valley independent Baptist. We're weird. But we were there and they closed down the freeway last Sunday night. And so the freeway was closed, so they were leading us a different way home. We went to the church like 10 times, and I think we went five or six different ways, and we never really learned how to get there because of the freeway, about 20 minutes away. And I go to get on the freeway, and I was a little bit turned around, and I thought we were supposed to go south towards Seattle, and we were supposed to go north towards Everett. So I went south towards Seattle, and I'm watching my GPS on my phone, and the GPS on my phone was like, "Take the next exit, take the next exit, take the next exit."

You know, and that woman on there, the new update on the Google one, I just want to throw her out the window. She reminds me of my first great teacher, like so irritating, like, "Ugh." But it had no problem telling me when I was going the wrong direction. That's what biblical truth does. It helps us know when we're going the wrong direction. And so we want to be very, very careful that we never lose our passion for biblical truth.

Number two, when doctrine takes a back seat to acceptance, we'll pass through, let me tell you, here's somebody, they've come in, they're very, very wealthy, they just kind of don't believe what we believe in some stuff, so maybe today you could tone it down a little bit. Bro, I don't know what I even would have said that day, but now I have to ramp it up because you asked me to tone it down. You say, "Why?" Because I'm a preacher of the Word, and I can't sleep at night if I feel like I toned it down for the acceptance of men. When doctrine takes a back seat to acceptance, not to quorum but acceptance, then the church is in danger of compromise when the church is no longer comfortable being distinct from the world. When you can walk into a church and it looks like the world and sounds like, "Well, I'm just going to tell you," it's not a pet peeve of mine, I think it's a pet peeve of the Scripture.

And that is you walk into a church auditorium and it looks a lot more like a nightclub than it does a church and it's dark and there's colored lights everywhere. You say, "Oh, come on, pastor, you're just, that's just because of your age." No, we're supposed to be distinct from the world. And I don't really go into nightclubs that often except when I'm working with the beach team on Friday night at 700 Grand Avenue, that's the only time I really go, or when I'm riding along with Danny Gomez and he chases somebody in there. I mean, that's really the only times I ever go, but I'm telling you when I go in there and I see what's in the world is very similar and I don't think anybody could even argue sometimes, very similar to what's going on in the church. I think that the church is on the road to compromise when we are no longer comfortable being distinct from the world.

When people walk into Canyon Ridge, I want them to know we're different. I want them to be seen as different. As a matter of fact, I told Zane and Christian, "Get us new cameras." They look too dark in our church when you look at them online. It's like we're trying to be cool or something and Zane's like, "No, we're just trying to make you less ugly." And I'm like, "Well, then get a black screen, that'll help." We're next. When what distinctions they have are based on preferences, not Scripture. When what distinctions they have are based on preferences and not Scripture. I was talking to one of our, let me rephrase, I was talking to a friend of mine and he said that there were some mentors of his that told him they wouldn't be his mentor if he quit wearing a tie to church on Wednesday night. I don't care if the dude wears a tie to church on Wednesday night or Sunday, obviously we've chosen not to.

But can I tell you the wearing of a tie is not an issue of modesty or morality or Scripture. It's entirely a preference and when your distinction is based on a preference, that's just incredibly unwise. But our brother James Stone, he always wears a tie on Sunday. Always. It's like his big preference and I don't have a single problem in the world with it. There's nothing wrong with that at all. I support him in that. I've got some ties I need to give him. I don't have a, there's nothing wrong in the world with that. If all of you show up in a tie on Sunday, I'm still not going to. Totally fine that you do that. That's great. Go for what you know. Go for the Lord for that. No problem with that. But if you think what makes you distinct is your preference, that's when there's a problem. Preferences don't make us distinct, they make us weird or different.

What makes us distinct is how we live according to the Scripture based on the authority of the Scripture. James can wear a tie and still be modest, but modesty is a distinction based on Scripture. These are the ways our brother James lives that out in his life before the Lord and he's very comfortable doing that and I'm very comfortable with him doing that. Can I get an amen? But when preferences become the means of distinction, you're in danger of compromise because you can be so conservative that you actually are becoming something that is in the flesh and of the world and lastly, Jesus and the cross of Christ are seldom magnified. In singing, in conversations or in preaching, Jesus and the cross are seldom magnified. I've heard so many moralistic messages and I appreciate the morality of preaching that tells me how I'm supposed to live, but moralistic messages devoid of Scripture are just for personal conformity.

They're like kind of spiritual self-help messages, more on the self-help than the spiritual. And when moralism becomes a substitute for doctrine, the church is on its way to compromise. Even though I might agree with the moralism, if it's not born out of the Scripture in a clear way, then the Scripture can be used to say whatever the person preaching wants it to be said. So we need to be careful, Church, that we don't lose our passion for biblical truth, that the doctrines of the Scripture never take a back seat to acceptance, doctrines always foremost, that we are comfortable being distinct in our preaching and our teaching and our music and our fellowship and our friendship from the world and that we do what we do not based on preferences, but based on Scripture and that Christ be magnified always in our church life. The church at Pergamos had fidelity to Christ, but boy, they had some issues they had to work on.

And I tell you, God has really spoken to my heart through this study and I pray He has yours as well. We're going to have a time of contemplation. If you're here tonight and don't know Christ as your Savior, Burnie and Zane will be standing right down here in just a moment when they do, we encourage you to come and let them take the Bible and show you from God's Word how heaven could be your home. If you're a believer and God spoke to you in your heart tonight, as I pray that He did and prayed all day that He would, I encourage you to spend time in prayer either in your chair or if you want to come to the altar, we encourage you to do so. We made it 21 inches high, so it's perfect for the average person's size of praying and we encourage you to do that tonight.