The Church at Pergamos
Tom Shrader examines the third of seven churches in Revelation, focusing on Pergamos where believers faced the challenge of compromise while living in Satan's stronghold. He emphasizes how Jesus identifies Himself as the one with the two-edged sword, representing God's Word as the weapon against compromise. The teaching calls Christians to stay engaged in the world while holding fast to biblical truth without compromising their faith.
“The Bible says it, that settles it - that middle third of the bumper sticker is a waste of ink.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: What Christ Says to the Church (Revelations)
Recorded: 2004
Duration: 39 min
Themes: compromise, truth, faithfulness, persecution, temptation, worldliness, standing firm, spiritual warfare, living in secular culture, facing peer pressure, struggling with compromise, new believer, church member, navigating worldly influences, defending faith, young adult
Scripture: Revelation 2:12-17, Hebrews 4:12, 1 John 2:22, John 15:19, Numbers 22, Daniel 1
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, biblical authority, sanctification, spiritual discernment, church discipline, apostasy, revelation, christology
Full Transcript
We are in week three of a seven-week series that I'm excited about, and at this point that excitement line is pretty short, but I'm at the head of it. It is Revelation chapter 2 and 3. The book of Revelation starts with Jesus revealing—it's the revelation of Jesus from Jesus, and He's writing to seven actual churches.
In the back of your Bibles you have those maps that you look at when you get bored. If you look back there, you'll see in the Mediterranean what is modern-day Turkey, and you'll see a little island called Patmos. John has been exiled to Patmos. He's the only one of the Apostles that was not martyred. I have never understood it—they tried to burn him in oil and it didn't work. I don't know how that happens. That seems like that would be tough, but he's at Patmos and Jesus reveals Himself and messages to seven actual churches.
As you come onto land in Turkey, you come geographically to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum (that's where we are today), Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, and they were actual churches. We had a group of 44 that were in Ephesus a week ago today, and they got back and I said, "What was the highlight of the trip?" and they said, "By far Ephesus." I've tried to encourage you to go online and check out the ruins, and they just said Ephesus is amazing. It was a port city, now inland five or six miles.
The Pattern of These Letters
Each one of these churches represents an actual church, and we think a type of church that you'll see for all time. This is a key—I didn't do a very good job with this yesterday, so I want to make sure I get it in your psyche today. We've encouraged you to be very judgmental and look and go, "Oh wow, our church fits into that category." If you are in a good Bible teaching church, a church like Ephesus might fit. Remember what they said—they were hard-working, discerning, persevering, and you read that and think, "This is a great place." Here's the problem: they've lost that first love. Strong orthodoxy, low on love.
There's a general pattern to each of these letters. The recipient is identified, then a strength, then a weakness, then an action, then a promise. That's the general trend, though there are some exceptions. Last week at Smyrna was the exception. Smyrna was a church that was filled with suffering and persecution.
In each of these instances, Jesus identifies Himself, and typically the identification He uses is an antidote to the weakness or challenge in the church. He said last week, "I'm the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega." It speaks of His sovereignty, and in the midst of our suffering, one of the first things we need to know is that God's in control. I say this in my world all the time: God's in control. I've already had three presidential election conversations in here this morning, and we just have to say God's in control of who's in control. That doesn't mean we don't engage in campaign for whatever your candidate or whatever your cause, but God's in control. That's where I find my comfort. He'll never leave me or forsake me, even if it feels like He has.
The Church at Pergamos
Today we get to the church at Pergamos. Let's read Revelation chapter 2 verses 12 through 17: "And to the angel of the church at Pergamos"—that angel, we don't know his name, but that would have been the lead pastor, the lead elder. He would get this letter. "Write this: These things says He who has the two-edged sword."
Stop for a second. Does that term "two-edged sword" conjure up any image in your mind biblically? Does it make you think of anything? The word. Yeah, Hebrews 4. He's emphasizing truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life." He's emphasizing truth.
"I know your works. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. You're right in the middle of this battle. You hold fast to my name and do not deny my faith, even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr who was killed among you where Satan dwells." There's persecution here, suffering here, attack here.
"But I have a few things against you"—here's the weakness—"because you have there those who hold to the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, to commit sexual immorality. Thus you also hold to the doctrines of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate."
I don't know if you remember week one—we met the Nicolaitans, and I said we'll meet them again and talk about it then. I told you when we get there, I'll say we've already talked about it. We don't know much about these guys. They had some false teaching, and we think it was antinomianism—in other words, if you believe you're forgiven, therefore how you live doesn't matter. We don't know if it's that. We know it's some teaching that's crept in and you've begun to assimilate that.
"So here's what you need to do, verse 16: Repent, or I'll come quickly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give the hidden manna to eat"—I'm the bread of life, I'll give you food—"I'll give him a white stone." Again, not sure. There are a couple possible interpretations there, but "on that stone I'll write a new name which no one knows except him who receives it."
The City of Pergamos
Let's get the big point which jumps off the page. A little history: Pergamos was a beautiful city. Historian Sir William Ramsey writes this: it was "a royal city beyond all other cities in Asia Minor. It gives the traveler the impression of a royal city, the home of authority." The rocky hill on which it stands was huge. It was on a flat plain, then up on like a plateau of a thousand feet is this city that dominates the landscape. It was the capital of Asia.
The seat of government. Remember we said about Smyrna and Ephesus they were free cities so Rome oversaw them, didn't occupy them. This is government, this is Washington DC, think that type of city. They had the second largest library in the world, interestingly enough, obviously not a printing press but over 200,000 volumes.
It was a wealthy city, they invented parchment. The Egyptians cut off their supply of papyrus and so necessity being the mother of invention, they invent parchment and ship it all over the world. Very pagan city, temples to Zeus and Athena, the first temple that was ever built to a living Emperor. There was a temple there built to Caesar, there was a god of medicine and this temple was really stark. It was a long hallway, no furniture in it and in this room, this room was filled with snakes and the idea was as the snakes bit you, you were healed. Many people were healed just looking down the hallway. They said, I don't think I want to.
They were the custodian of Greek life. Again, I encourage you, go online and you'll see some incredible ruins, a magnificent theater that was there. And it was a city that was hard to engage. The problem that you have in the city of Pergamos is the problem of compromise.
The Challenge of Compromise
So in would come the Christians and they would say, this is the way, the truth, the life. And the people of Pergamos would say, come on, it's 96 AD. We're not going for that old fashioned stuff. We can, at least I think, can connect on this level.
That's why Jesus goes, verse 12, these things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword. You don't necessarily need to turn there, but Hebrews chapter four, verse 12, the word of God is living and active, sharper than the two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow. And the word of God is able to judge the intentions of your heart and your thoughts. There's no creature hidden from it, hidden from His sight. All things are open and laid bare to His eyes.
Jesus knows everything there is to know. And for us, He left us this word.
The Authority of Scripture
I had a chance over the weekend to do a coaches conference. We had about a hundred coaches, mostly high school, coaches and spouses. So sports, all different sports, football, baseball, basketball, softball, wrestling, track. And I've learned, I've done hundreds of these conferences. And I made a mistake early on. This conference was sponsored by FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
In July, Sandy and I will be up in Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center. And early on, I made a mistake that if the sponsoring entity was Christian, I made the mistake of thinking everybody there was a Christian. And so over the years, I've made two modifications. The first one is to go back and it's this point for Pergamos, that the Bible is the word of God.
The problem in Pergamos is that there's compromise. Who's to say what's right? I used an illustration last week and they come out of politics and the minute you get them in, my fear is people think that you're taking a stand and I don't want to get into that. I just want to make a point. There was a debate last week and a guy was saying, well, you know, he's a boy and the other guy said, well, what's a boy? What's a girl? And within five minutes, it's a shouting match. Sandy left about 30 seconds into it and said, I'm not sure why you're watching this stuff.
But there was no chance to settle an issue. I think they were talking bathrooms, but I don't know. There was no chance to settle an issue because you couldn't agree on terms. You start redefining all the terms. So you redefine what a boy is, you redefine what a marriage is, you redefine who God is.
Objective Truth
Well, is there a right answer? Is there an objective truth? And we would say for us, yes, this is it. That if I want to understand who God is, I don't need to go hike Camelback Mountain and sit on the top and meditate and connect with the God of the universe as I perceive Him to be. God is not a subjective truth. God's an objective truth. Therefore, He is as He is.
The Bible says it. It's the old bumper sticker. I believe it. That settles it. That middle third of an ink is a waste. The Bible says it. That settles it.
I have a friend who thinks I'm nuts. And whenever we start talking about Bible, he'll go, I love Papion and I've read it twice, but you just keep reading this thing? Well, yeah, it's active. Isn't it amazing? As you mature, this book somehow gets deeper. That it lays you open.
God Sees Through Everything
Isn't it amazing that you can go to happy hour and fool your friends? People can say, how you doing? And you say, great. And you can fool people at work. You can fool them. I was talking to a guy, I don't know, whatever day, holidays screw me up, but maybe Tuesday. And this is a guy that, how are you doing, you know, good, great, good and getting better. Any better, there have to be two of me. And I told him, you put on 10 more pounds, there will be, but that's a whole different subject.
But he had this kind of heavy look and I said, are you all right? And he said, well, can we talk? And basically, everything in his infrastructure of life was crumbling. Marriage is crumbling, money is crumbling, everything's crumbling. And if you ask the guys that he hung out with, guys in his small group probably, guys that he plays golf with or pickleball with or bowls with or hikes with, they'd say, great. You can fool, we can fool each other.
What the Bible says is God sees through all that stuff. And when the word of God is taught and the spirit applies it, the term is lays you bare. It would be used to describe a prisoner they're going to execute where they would take his shirt or collar and they pull it back to lay his neck bare so they could sever his head from his body.
I was teaching one night in a group, I'm going to say maybe half this size, two thirds. So I knew everybody by face in the room. I didn't know them personally, but knew them. There was a lady that was there all the time and she had somebody with her, and they looked similar. So I was feeling like they were related and I didn't know if it was a mother and a daughter, I didn't know if they were sisters. So I'm smart enough to stay out of this thing.
The other lady was new; I'd never seen her before. The longer I taught, her arms are crossed, her body language is screaming. She's almost in a fetal position. She wants out of there so bad, and I say amen and they are out the door, gone.
So I clean up, I get my stuff, I'm going out and my car's over on this side of the parking lot, but these two ladies are standing under a light over here and I know there's an illustration. So I saunter over, take the long way to the car. I said, "You guys all right?" And the lady that was there on a regular basis said, "Tell him what you think." And she said, "No, I don't want to do that." And she said, "Go ahead and tell him, he's a big guy, he can handle it." And I said, "Well, I'm not a big guy, but I can handle it."
The Power of God's Word
The visitor said, "I know what you did tonight. I know what happened in there. I know what that was all about." I said, "Really, what was it?" She goes, "My sister called you today and she told you everything there is to know about me and where I'm vulnerable and all that lesson was driven right at me tonight." And I said, "Thou dost flatter yourself. No." I said, "What you experienced is the Word of God being applied by the Spirit of God to your life."
Many of you have had that experience. First time I ever walked into a Bible study, I walked in and again, a room about this size with Larry Wright. And it was like in the movies where everything fades away. And it was just Larry and me. It was like everything he said, I thought Susan called him. Susan called him and said, "You'll get him here."
That's why you can pick it up, that's why you can study it over and over and over again. One of our campuses, in the next few weeks, is teaching the 23rd Psalm. We just did that in here not terribly long ago. And so I had a little free time the other day and I was reading it and I saw a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't see when we taught it 6, 8, 10 months ago. And we'd studied it before that and before that. Here in this world where all the foundations feel so shaky, what stabilizes me is the Word of God.
Living Where Satan's Throne Is
That's what's happened in Pergamos. Verse 13, "I know your works, I know where you dwell." The word means literally where you live permanently, your permanent residence. You're not a sojourner, you're here, this is home. And it's Satan's throne surrounded by this pagan stuff.
In your mind some of you just got a picture of maybe it's your office, maybe it's your neighborhood, maybe it's this world we live in. It feels like conversations, input I get back from people, it's like everything's shaking, everything's different, nothing's the same, values are different. There have been years and years and years of kind of attacking at a base and it's eroded and now we're left in this limbo place.
So the normal pattern is this: there's a thesis in the land, whatever it is, an antithesis is developed. It rarely wins out but a compromise and you end up here. And then you repeat and pretty soon you're by negotiation over here though you started here.
The Confusion of Our Culture
My dad died 10 years ago this July 2nd, so a month from now. If my dad came back today he would be vastly confused by this world we live in. He would go, "Okay I want to make sure I understand this, you pay more per gallon for bottled water than for gas? That seems odd. And you pay $5 for a cup of coffee? And what is kale?" They didn't eat a lot of kale in Melrose, Iowa.
But he would be most, I think, most troubled by what he just saw in the culture. By turning on the TV. He'd be confused by the political climate, be confused by the moral climate. He'd be stunned that people are shooting each other at McDonald's because they got cheese on their hamburger instead of no cheese on their hamburger.
How does this happen? Here's what Jesus is saying: there's a compromise. It's the old frog in the kettle. You boil water, you throw a frog in, he jumps out. But you throw the frog in the water and then gradually turn it up and the frog eventually is overwhelmed and that's a little bit of where we are.
The Call to Engagement
Now, in that situation our instinct is to withdraw. And Jesus says, "No, no, no, charge." The night before He died, Jesus prayed to the Father and said, "Father, I don't pray that you take them out of the world, but that you send them into the world." So we're fully engaged. And it's very difficult. No longer are you morally, just say morally, forget theological, morally no longer are you a majority. Everything feels like a battle.
He said this: "You hold fast to my name." His name stands for Himself. It's a revelation of who He is and what He'd done. It represents the fullness of His divine human person and saving work. Christianity is Christ. Your name, your reputation.
1 John 2:22, "Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?" You might not fully understand it. You don't deny the faith. Isn't that when you get in, I mean, you all I'm sure have been in these discussions, but you get in these discussions where somebody says, "You commit intellectual suicide to believe this." Well, tell me what? "You can't explain it."
My day is filled with stuff I can't explain. Here you go. I got no shot at explaining this thing. I got no idea. And now it measures my heart rate and what I eat. I don't even know how. It's Big Brother to the ultimate.
The Authority of Scripture
I can't explain the Trinity to you. Three persons, one God, and every illustration kind of breaks down. But I know it's true. How do I know it's true? Simple. The Bible teaches it.
Isn't that intellectual suicide? No. It's wisdom. Because a timeless God doesn't produce dated material. And He tells me how to get the most out of my life.
Surviving in a Compromised World
Remember the point. It's that compromised life. How do I survive in that? And He's saying, you hold fast to this Word. I know there's suffering coming. Verse 13. I know that you're going to be belittled.
John 15:19: "If you are of the world, the world loves its own. But because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
The Pattern of Compromise
"I have these things against you." And He gives us a story from Numbers 22. It's the same idea that we see at different times in the Old Testament. The nation of Israel is tempted to begin to intermarry. To begin to cut corners.
God had prescribed a lot of things in detail for them to show that they were different. Daniel chapter 1. Remember Daniel and the boys are taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar. And they are brought to the king and he says this: "Assign them a daily portion of food. It's the food that I eat. And the wine that he drank. And they were to be educated for three years. And at the end of that time, they would stand before the king."
And the idea was, we're going to take three years and assimilate them into the culture. Slowly, gradually. Adopt the same philosophy.
The Balance of Engagement
In these moments of tempted compromise, you need to stay engaged in the world and you need to hold fast to the truth. And you need to do it in a way that's engaging and loving without compromise. You're to be unique, but not odd.
The Problem with Christian Subculture
Here's what we've done. This is totally understandable. We've turned the word Christian into an adjective instead of a noun. So we've got our own little... I get emails all the time. Christian comic. Christian radio. Christian bookstore. Christian plumber. Christian lawyer. I might have been reaching on that. But you get it.
And we've used the illustration before. If that toilet in there is plugged up, there's no biblical way to fix it. Now I can operate with integrity and honesty, but there's not a Christian way to fix it. A Christian is a follower of Christ.
Called to Stay Engaged
God saved you and delivered you not to withdraw from the world, not to become a monk, not to be moving into some monastic form of life, but to stay fully engaged. How can you complain about the media if Christians aren't engaged in it?
I have a friend who was with us here and I don't know, two or three years ago, applied for and ended up going back to do graduate work at Harvard in public policy. And it was just about a year ago now that he graduated. Wasn't sure what he was going to do. And he got hired by CNN to be their online correspondent covering the presidential election and faith. Right engaged in the middle of this.
I mean, his tweets and retweets and posts are so interesting. And oftentimes, here's what's amazing to me, and it would be his observation, is all he's doing is posting what people are saying and the Christians are killing him for it. He said, I get these letters. I don't know how you do it. How do you handle all these? Yeah, you got to have a pretty fast delete finger right here. I mean, he's getting beat up for saying here's what's going on in the world.
Well, if you don't know what's going on in the world, what chance do you have of infecting it and coming in and engaging with it? How can you complain about the schools if you don't have teachers and people willing to run for school board? How can you complain about the world you live in if you're not engaged with it?
Changing Hearts, Not Just Behavior
One of the things we do, really important now, is the minute we see somebody that God rescues, delivers, saves, we immediately want to change their behavior. So we're at summer camp. We've got summer camp next week. So we'll have 500 junior high, high school kids. And inevitably, what's going to happen is there'll be one or two kids who God will save who are all tatted up and more piercings. They look like they fell in a tackle box. I mean, they'll have stuff hanging everywhere.
And the first thing everybody wants to do is get rid of the piercings. The first thing they do is get him out of his circle of friends and try to get him in a Bible study with a bunch of people that already agree with what he's doing when God saved him and strategically placed him in that circle of friends.
We want to see changed behavior, but what we want to see are changed hearts. That's why something like this study can be so dangerous. You just come week after week, year after, we've been doing this 25 years now, and you've heard everything I got and can probably repeat it back, but has your heart been changed?
Christ's Call to the Church
And so I think Jesus is speaking not just to the church at Pergamos, but to us. He's saying, you live in this world. You're living in this world. I want you to, verse 16, repent, turn around, change your mind, engage the world, but I want you to get more of you on the world than the world on you.
Four Closing Thoughts on Compromise
I have four closing thoughts on compromise. Number one, it rarely occurs quickly. It's like sin. When you see somebody that blows up in a big way, you can almost always retrace the steps and go back and say, it was a point in time. You could see it coming. Compromise is a slow process.
Here's the second thing. It always lowers the standard.
Lowering Standards
When I got to college, college just blew me away. I'm in the first college class I went in was psychology 101, and I had come from this pretty closed environment. The professor said, "You do not have to come to class. There'll be no papers. There'll be no quizzes. There'll be no tests, just a final." I said, "Really?" And the next time I saw him was for the final, and he had grown this full beard. It was unbelievable.
Well, I'm now in there a little while, and it's during Kent State, so it's totally chaotic on campus. They brought in two things: they started changing the grading system so everything was on a curve, and then they brought in the honor system. So I said, "I need a clarification on this. We're going to give you the test, and then I as the professor, I'm going to leave the room and trust you to not be cheating." Between the honor system and grading on a curve, my GPA shot up to 2.0. I mean, it was pretty amazing. It was stellar, but you got a teacher who couldn't get kids to do an A, so you lower the standard. Compromise does it.
The Subtle Nature of Compromise
The third thing is compromise is seldom offensive. It's these little things. No big deal. What are you so upset about? What difference does it make?
And then last thing, compromise is oftentimes the first step toward total disobedience. I have an illustration from Jeb Stuart Magruder. Jeb Stuart Magruder was part of Watergate. I was at Grand Canyon College and used a Watergate illustration, and nobody knew what it was. So I've learned, you have to explain. That was the scandal that brought down President Nixon, and Jeb Stuart Magruder was part of the inside group. If I remember, I think he ultimately became a pastor.
But Magruder said this, speaking of Watergate and leading up to it. I quote, "We had conned ourselves into thinking we weren't doing anything wrong. By the time we were doing things that were illegal, we'd lost control." Listen to this sentence: "We had gone from poor ethical behavior into illegal activities without even realizing it."
A Call to Examine Ourselves
The point of today is, are you like that church at Pergamos? If so, now's the time to put on that brake. That compromise, I can resolve that by saying, "Listen, this is right. This is the place. This is where I find my truth." Next week, the church at Thyatira. Take a look at that next week.
Father, thank You for the amazing word that You give us and the truth that You give us. We live in a world that sometimes feels like it overwhelms us. Things coming so fast and changing so fast. And all progress is change, but not all change is progress. Not all change is good. God, help us examine our own life and values in light of Your word, in Your truth. Help us be good stewards of the time, the energy, the effort, the money that You have entrusted to us. And let us live in a way that glorifies You. We praise You and worship You in Jesus' name, amen.