Christ or Compromise - Revelation 2: 12-17

We're in this section where we're studying the letters to the seven churches and we've

seen the message to Ephesus so far and how they were in danger of becoming a loveless

pharisaical church.

We've seen the letter to the church in Smyrna and they were facing the danger of persecution

and now we're going to come to the church in Pergamum who is facing the danger of becoming

an inclusive church.

You might not think that sounds so bad at first but it is and it can really tear a church

apart and send them down the wrong path.

For instance here in Greenville so if you go about 20 miles from our church there is

a historic church called First Baptist Greenville, one of the most historic churches in South

Carolina and it's a very well known church.

It was the very first president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention was the pastor

of First Baptist Greenville.

Not only that but First Baptist Greenville served as the very first campus for the Southern

Baptist Theological Seminary, my alma mater and it started there in Greenville and its

first campus was at First Baptist Greenville.

They stood as this pillar of orthodoxy.

You looked at them and you saw that as an orthodox church.

They are a forerunner in orthodoxy.

But today First Baptist Greenville is no longer part of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

They're no longer part of the Southern Baptist Convention and what once stood as a pillar

of orthodoxy has now become a forerunner in heresy.

Very much if the Bible calls it sin they call it good.

If the world loves something and approves of something they say well we love that thing

and we approve of that thing.

We're going to incorporate it into our church and so you look at this church and it stood

again as once a pillar of orthodoxy and now they're a church full of heretics.

They were a church that beautifully reflected Christ and over time they became a church

that reflected the culture.

And my question is how does something like that happen?

They have a lot in common with Pergamum.

The church in Pergamum was well known for being an orthodox church.

They were well known for being a church that reflected Jesus in a sinful world but over

time they started incorporating things into their faith and into their church that had

no business being there in the first place and Jesus says they are in danger of becoming

a church full of heretics.

So that's the question.

How does the church go from being a reflection of Christ to a reflection of the culture?

And I want you to see that you've got to consider this church, this church in Pergamum in the

midst of the culture that was around them.

You look with me at verse 13, if you have your Bibles there.

Revelation chapter 2, we're going to start in verse 13.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Jesus says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is.

Yet you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas,

my servant, my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells.

So here's what you need to know.

One of the main things about Pergamum, Pergamum first and foremost was the official capital

of the Roman Empire in Asia Minor.

So the Roman province in Asia Minor, Pergamum was the capital.

So if you want kind of an analogy today, you could think about the city of Ephesus back

then as being like our modern day New York, right?

They were the epicenter of commerce and culture.

That's what they're known for.

It's New York, right?

Well, Pergamum, modern day equivalent.

It would be like Washington, DC.

Rome ruled Asia Minor from Pergamum.

So they were a very political culture is what they're in right here.

And honestly, the city was a bit of a kiss up.

Okay, let's just call it like it is.

They like to kiss up to Rome.

They knew that they would never be as good as Rome.

They know that they could never have the splendor of Rome.

And so they sought to make their city look as much like Rome as they possibly could.

Like literally everything in their city was an imitation of what you would find in Rome.

They built a temple to the first living emperor.

They were the first city to do a temple to a living emperor.

And at the time it was Caesar Augustus.

They emphasized worship in the imperial cult and worship of the emperor in the city.

And because of all this kissing up, they did to Rome.

Rome named Pergamum.

They gave them the right to be the judgment seat of Rome in Asia Minor.

So Pergamum was said to bear the sword of Rome.

I mean, that's how important this city was.

They bore the sword of Rome.

So they were a place that was a highly political culture, but also it was a highly pagan culture.

Right?

I mean, if you think about Rome, there's a lot of temples to false gods and goddesses,

right?

Well, again, Pergamum tried to imitate that in their own city.

And so they built all these temples to gods and goddesses.

And so Pergamum was a city in which Christians would be most likely to feel pressure to conform

to the surrounding culture.

And we don't have to look forward to see those type of similarities in our world today, do

we?

It seems like the church today is always under that pressure, either politically or culturally,

to conform to whatever they want us to conform to.

And it's because of this political and pagan presence in Pergamum that Jesus says, you

dwell in the place where Satan's throne is.

It was Satan's throne because of the amount of pagan worship and things that were going

on there.

And so he's saying that Satan is unleashing all sorts of attack on the church in this

city because of their faithfulness to Jesus.

But to their credit, again, notice in verse 13, Jesus says, they hold fast to his name

and did not deny the faith.

And we know from documents that we have from the first couple centuries that if a Christian

was found to be guilty of being a Christian, basically, they would be brought before a

Roman official.

And if they wanted to avoid punishment and death, they only had to do one thing.

What did they have to do?

Can't or yeah, curse the name of Jesus, basically, like literally, if you will curse the name

of Jesus, you get off scot-free.

You can go home today.

Jesus is saying here, you have not done that.

So there's a good chance that many of the Christians in Pergam had already been brought

before a Roman official.

They had been given the opportunity to curse the name of Jesus.

And Jesus says, you did not do that.

You held fast to my name.

And that phrase hold fast there, it means to keep carefully and to keep faithfully.

And this is something that they were presently doing.

And so Jesus says they didn't deny the faith.

They didn't regret sticking with Jesus and being faithful to Jesus, even if it meant

persecution, even if it meant punishment.

And this is what was happening.

There was all this pressure to conform.

And Jesus reminds them, you didn't even conform and give in, even in the days of Antipas,

my faithful servant.

And we don't know a lot about Antipas.

I'd love to know more about him if we could ever find some works that tell us more about

him.

But basically church tradition says that it was the apostle John, the guy who's writing

this book under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle John actually ordained Antipas to be the pastor of the church in Pergamum.

And because of his faithfulness to Christ, he was arrested and then he was burned alive

for his faith.

And Jesus says, even in those days, you held fast to my name.

Now you have to understand, that's a lot of pressure coming your way, right?

You've got political pressure.

You've got this cultural pressure.

And what I want you to understand is that Satan's main goal is to get Christians to

concede our faith.

That's what he wants.

More than anything, Satan wants Christians to concede our faith.

And he's going to throw everything he can at us to get us to concede our faith, whether

that's the political rulers of the day saying, you must do what we tell you to do, even if

that means it goes against your religious beliefs.

Or if it's the culture coming and putting pressure on us and saying, if you don't affirm

the things we affirm, if you don't accept the things that we do, if you tell us we're

wrong, we're coming after you.

Good thing we don't live in days like those, right?

That's a joke, obviously.

This is the days that we're living in constantly.

I mean, that describes our world perfectly.

And you have to understand that they're facing all this.

And Satan fully believes that every Christian has a price.

That's convinced of it.

Right?

I mean, if you think back to Peter, Peter said, I'm going to hold fast.

Jesus, even if all these other guys desert you, you can count on me.

I never will.

I'm going to be with you to the end.

And then what happened?

Some pressure came, right?

And some people said, hey, don't you know him?

Aren't you one of his followers?

And what did Peter do?

He said, oh, of course I am.

I'll put me up there right next to him.

Now, he denied three times.

He even brought a curse upon himself in the midst of all these denials.

Peter's price was the price of his life.

He said, I'll be faithful unless it calls me my life.

That was his price.

I actually read about a tribe, an Aborigines tribe, and they had this land.

And this land was sacred to him because it had some green ants on it.

And they thought that the green ants were gods.

And so they worshiped these green ants as gods.

And I don't think they realized that the ants were actually green because the land was rich

with uranium.

And so some scientists came and offered to buy the land because they wanted to mine the

uranium and things like that.

And the Aborigines said, no, no, no, we can't do that.

This is sacred land.

These are our gods.

We will never sell this land.

They said, what if we gave you $8.3 million?

And they said, you know what?

They'll be fine, right?

They'll find another place to live.

Yeah, yeah, they're gods.

They'll be all right.

So they ended up selling the land for $8.3 million.

Obviously, they had a price.

They said, hey, we're faithful.

We're going to worship these things as gods.

But for $8.3 million, that's pretty nice.

You see, this is what I want you to consider.

Satan thinks that every Christian has a price.

My question is, what is the price of your convictions?

We like to think that we don't have a price, right?

But then some pressure comes.

Then the government says, if you continue to meet as a church during this time of lock

up, we're going to shut you down.

Look at the pastor in prison.

Are you willing to remain faithful if it means you have to go to prison?

Are you willing to remain faithful even if it means that you could have to pay a fine

or something like that?

For many of us, it's the price of our comfort, right?

I'll worship Jesus as long as things go well for me.

And I'll continue to be faithful as long as I remain happy and healthy and comfortable

and everything's going right.

Or for many of us, it's the price of our lives.

I think everyone in here would say, even if they held a gun to my head, I would not deny

Jesus.

And that's easy to say when there's not a gun held to our head, isn't it?

We don't know what we would do in that situation.

Lord willing, we would be faithful.

But for many people, their faith, the price of their life is enough for them to say, no,

I don't believe in Jesus.

Satan fully believes that you have a price, something that would get you to walk away.

And so he sends all this pressure, political, pagan pressure.

And so this was the culture in which this church existed.

But I want you to see, as we continue reading this letter, I want you to see how that culture

began to invade the church.

So they weren't just a church in the midst of the culture.

The culture was now in the midst of the church and it was beginning to tear it apart.

So look at verses 14 and 15.

This is what Jesus says.

He says, but I have a few things against you.

So here's all the good stuff.

You held fast and I'm my name also.

I have a few things against you.

You have some there who hold to the teachings of Balaam, who taught the lock to put a stumbling

block before the sons of Israel.

So they might eat food, sacrifice to idols and practice sexual immorality.

So also you have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaotans.

So he's referencing the Old Testament figure Balaam.

Anybody remember Balaam?

Yeah.

He had a famous talking donkey, right?

Never seen one of those would have been pretty cool.

But you might remember that Balak, the king of Moab, he hired Balaam to go and do what?

What was Balaam supposed to do?

Yeah, curse the Israelites.

But what happened?

Every time Balaam opened his mouth, rather than curses coming out, what happened?

Blessing.

It's hilarious.

Right?

Balak's like, all right, you're a prophet.

They know you're a prophet.

Go and curse them.

And God says, actually, every time he does that, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit upon

him and blessings are going to come out instead.

So Balaam came up with another tactic.

I don't know if you remember this part of the story, what he did.

He said, okay, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

All right?

I can't curse them, obviously.

Guys, don't let me do that.

So I'm going to send some Moabite women among them.

And the Moabite women seduced the men of Israel and led them into sexual immorality and idol

worship and idolatrous practices and things like that.

And Jesus is saying here that just as Balaam coerced the Israelites into corrupting their

faith, the Nicolaitans in this context were coercing the Christians in Pergamum to corrupt

their faith.

You see, the Nicolaitans, they were a heretical group that basically preached cultural accommodation.

They wanted cultural accommodation and secular living.

They encouraged unrestrained indulgence.

First of all, they told that because Christians were saved by grace, Christians were free

to do anything.

There's a whole movement of that going on today, by the way.

It's called the Free Grace Movement.

We do believe in free grace, but not the way they preach it.

There's a movement today that is in the spirit of the Nicolaitans that says, you have been

saved by grace.

Jesus has done it all.

Therefore, you can literally go and do anything you want.

There are people within this group who say, you don't even have to ask for forgiveness.

You don't need to repent of your sins.

Why would you ask for forgiveness when Jesus has already died on the cross?

So they say, just go and live however you want and live in the freedom that Jesus has

done it all for you.

And the Nicolaitans were saying that, and they were saying, whatever the world does, you

need to do.

Whatever the world believes, you need to believe.

They taught that Christians should be indistinguishable from the culture around them.

And Jesus says, many of you in this church in Pergamum, you have fallen for that.

You have believed that, and you think that this is what you were supposed to do as a

Christ follower.

And so they start being inclusive, and they start including all these things in their religious

practices that have no business at all being in the church.

They're trying to avoid confrontation with the world, and they think the answer to that

is inclusivism.

But I want you to understand something, being inclusive doesn't make you non-confrontational,

it just makes you nonsensical.

That's all it is, just plain and simple.

One of the best examples of this that I think of when I think of this idea is, you might

know the actor Russell Brand, I think he stopped acting now, he's got a podcast.

But he's got a bunch of random tattoos on him, and they all come from different religions.

There's some Hindu tattoos, there's some Buddhist tattoos, there's some Christian

tattoos.

There's some different religions of the world, and he thinks that it makes him a citizen

of the world.

Like, hey, I'm a citizen of the world, look at me with all these different tattoos, I'm

non-confrontational, I'm one with all these people.

And I'm thinking, no, it just makes you look nonsensical, right?

Because those are conflicting ideologies.

You can't believe in reincarnation and resurrection, they don't go together.

This doesn't make you this non-confrontational person, it just makes you look nonsensical.

That's exactly how the church looks when we try to bring things into the church to try

to be inclusive and not offend people outside of the church.

It does not make us non-confrontational, it makes us nonsensical.

Which is exactly why we have Christians today who have brought things into the church and

into their lives as Christians that have no business being there as a Christian.

Like there are some Christians today, thank you Bethel, that have taught, not your Bethel,

sorry Bobby, I should make that clear, Bethel Church, okay?

Your Bethel is wonderful, we love her, okay?

But Bethel Church has started this movement of grave-sucking, where people literally go

to the graves of dead people and they put their mouths on the ground and they inhale

and suck and they're trying to benefit in some way from the legacy of the person who

died there.

And they call themselves Christians, that's pagan, that's nonsensical.

There's a seminary that literally had a chapel service where they put a bunch of plants on

stage and they repented to the plants for what the humans had done on earth.

And they were talking to the plants and praying to them and repenting and I'm thinking, guys,

what are we doing here?

And those are obviously like, you know, far out there, right?

We can admit that.

But there are some more subtle ones that come into our lives that have their roots in paganism

and in other religions and things like that, things that we don't like to talk about and

might hit a little close to home for some people, like horoscopes.

A lot of Christians look at a horoscope, think that you can look at a horoscope and it'll

just tell you, oh man, if you're, whatever, you're gonna have a great month or you're

gonna have a month of stress and all this kind of stuff and they buy into it and they

think this is literally, it's telling me my future.

It's telling me what my month is gonna be like this month and I'm thinking, you think

that little horoscope is God?

You think it knows what's going on?

That's not the sovereign Lord.

You know, they do this with the zodiac signs too.

People use this to excuse their sin all the time, don't they?

Well, I know I'm grumpy and I'm angry, but that's just a cancer.

That's what we do.

It's like, no, you've got sin in your heart.

You need to repent.

Like, you don't just excuse yourself because you were born in a certain month.

That's ridiculous.

But Christians buy into it.

That has its roots in paganism.

I mean, Christians today, there are Christians who will say, if you do good things to people,

I expect good things that are gonna come back on me.

That's karma.

That is literally karma.

I know we would never say we believe in karma, but literally every person believes in karma

in some way because they might not write out, come and say like, okay, I think if I do good

things in the world, good's gonna come back and happen to me.

But what happens when we have done good in the world and then we just get hit with a

barrage of bad stuff?

We go, what did I do to deserve this?

God, didn't I do all these good things?

Here's the reason you're upset.

It's because you expected God to do something good back for you, right?

There's karma in all of our hearts.

We say we don't believe in it, but it's there deep down.

This is what I'm saying.

The spirit of the Nicolaotans is alive and well today.

And one of the reasons it's so alive and well today is because it is our desire to be non-confrontational.

Most of us, at least.

We don't want confrontation with the government, and so we bend to their will and we do whatever

they tell us to do.

We don't want confrontation with the culture, and so we try to blend in and try not to offend

anybody who doesn't believe what we believe.

We don't want to upset people.

We want people to like us.

We want people to think that we're cool and that we're hip and that we're with it and

that we're not some crazy people who are following a crazy religion.

We don't want confrontation, but let me tell you something.

In our desire to avoid confrontation, we've invited corruption.

I get the desire not to have confrontation, right?

2014, Alex wouldn't have said that.

He would have fought with anyone.

Thank God for sanctification.

But I'm old now, okay?

So I don't like confrontation anymore.

I try to avoid it at all costs, but there needs to be a time when Christians are willing

to stand up and say, if we have to have confrontation, then we have to have confrontation.

Because if we stick to this idea of we're never going to have confrontation, we're

just going to keep inviting all sorts of corruption into our church.

You see what gets me today, and I'm going to try not to go on a rant, because I don't

have time to go on a rant right now, but y'all got me worked up.

So let me just say this, all right?

There you go, Brian.

Thank you, sir.

For some reason, Christians today are too afraid to grab this book and say, thus says

the Lord, and I don't understand it.

We see what the culture is saying.

We see the sin that's going on in the world.

We even see Christians participating in sin, and we don't want to upset them.

We don't want to offend them.

We don't want to hurt their feelings.

And so we back off and we refuse to say anything rather than just saying, you know what?

This is what God says.

This is what the word of the Lord says, and I'm not going to act like it doesn't say

that.

What good does that do anybody?

I mean, if we're just ignoring the sin of the world and we're not saying anything to

them, we're basically saying, I'm content for you to go to hell, right?

Is that not what we're saying?

Well, you keep living in sin.

You keep doing what you're doing.

I'm not going to, who am I to say anything to you?

Who am I to say anything to you?

I'm not perfect either.

And so we just don't say anything at all.

We don't tell them that it's sin.

We allow them to continue in their sin.

And what's going to happen, folks, is one day they are going to die and they are going

to stand before God, and He's going to say, I never knew you.

Even if we're right there next to them, and they look to us and they say, why didn't you

say anything?

Why didn't you say, if you knew this was going to happen, why didn't you say anything to

me?

Why didn't want to hurt your feelings?

I would have rather you hurt my feelings in that moment than me spending eternity in

hell.

Do you see the problem here?

Christians are too shy and too timid today.

We're too afraid to call abortion murder.

We tiptoe around that topic and act like it's not, but it is.

I'm tired of people acting like that it's not, and we're too afraid to do it.

We're afraid to call homosexuality an abomination.

We're afraid to call gluttony a sin.

We're afraid to call premarital sex and cohabitation a sin.

We're afraid to call out sexual abuse within the church.

We're afraid to affirm the clear teachings of Scripture just so people will like us and

we won't get canceled as a church.

Where are our priorities?

This is exactly what happened to the church in Pergamum.

This is exactly how they ended up in the situation they ended up in.

At one point they were a beautiful reflection of Christ, but because they kept accommodating

and being inclusive and bringing things into the church and bringing the culture into the

church, they became a church that reflected the culture.

Just like what happened to 1st Baptist Greenville, folks.

And how did this happen?

Well, they started compromising on sound doctrine, didn't they?

They knew the doctrines of the Lord and they started compromising on all those doctrines.

And see, that's the whole point of what Jesus is getting at here.

He's saying when the church compromises on sound doctrine, she ceases to be a reflection

of Christ and begins to be a reflection of the culture.

Now one of the biggest problems with saying that today is that people don't like doctrine,

do they?

They say, preacher, don't preach one of those sermons where you're just teaching a bunch

of doctrine.

God help me if I don't.

Because I need people to know what the Word of the Lord says.

I need people to know what sound doctrine looks like and that it comes from the Word

of God so that when you have a Jehovah's Witness come to your house and they start telling

you why there's no such thing as a trinity, you can say, hold on a second.

I know what the Bible says.

I know sound doctrine.

I've been trained up in the way of the Lord.

And so I know how to confront this or when you're talking with an atheist and they say,

hey, you know, all religions are the same.

If you have no answer to that, what are you going to say to them?

If you don't know sound doctrine or if you're talking with a Mormon or someone else who

appears to be Christian and they use the Bible and they talk about Jesus, if you don't know

sound doctrine, what is stopping you from falling into their heresy?

Nothing.

And so I know everybody wants these short sermons full of jokes and pithy stories.

I know people want all these sermons that are just fluff and they make you feel good

and you leave there just going, oh man, that was great.

And I laughed a whole bunch and blah, blah, blah.

But I will not compromise on sound doctrine because our souls are on the line, folks.

If I was a motivational speaker, I could make you laugh all day.

I make you feel good about yourself.

But God has called me to pastor.

He's called me to preach the Word.

I am responsible for what I teach you.

And so my sermons might not be always fun.

I get that.

I've heard they could be a little long.

I don't know, maybe.

But it's for a reason.

It's because I love you and I want you to know sound doctrine.

I want you to know what the Bible says because one day you will stand before God and you will

have to give an account.

And in this life, you're going to encounter so many distractions and so many people who

want to lead you astray that I can't afford not to teach you sound doctrine.

People say, well, doctrine divides pastor.

Yes, it does.

Divides truth from error.

Divides true Christianity from cultural Christianity.

This is why we need to be in the Word of God always.

We need to know what the Bible says because listen to me, church, if it can happen to

the church in Pergamum and if it can happen to First Baptist Greenville, why couldn't

it happen to us?

I mean, George's Creek is a few pastors away and a few generations away from being the

next First Baptist Greenville.

That's why I keep telling you, I want to die in the pulpit.

And then after that, whatever happens, it's in the hands of the Lord.

But while I'm here, I will continue to preach this sound doctrine because our souls depend

on it.

And you might say, well, pastor, is it really this serious?

Yes, it is.

Look at verse 12.

I want you to see what Jesus started this letter by saying.

He said, into the angel of the church in Pergamum, right, the words of him who has the sharp,

two-edged sword.

Now keep in mind, what was Pergamum known for?

Because they had kissed up the Rome, they were said to bear the what of Rome, the sword

of Rome.

Jesus is cheeky this way.

He likes to pull on things that are familiar to them.

Yeah, they had the sword of Rome, but Jesus says, yeah, I've got a sword too.

The sharp, two-edged sword.

What does that refer to?

The word, right?

I mean Hebrews, if you can pull it up there, Mazzan, Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 through

Hebrews 4:12–13

13, this is what the Bible says.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the

division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and

intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of

him to whom we must give an account.

So Jesus tells this church, I know that you think you're great.

I know that you're in this city that thinks it's great, that you have the sword of Rome,

but I have the sharp, two-edged sword that pierces, that divides.

And it's amazing what he's saying here.

He's saying that there are two possibilities here.

This sword is a comfort to some, isn't it?

Does the word of God comfort your soul?

Yeah, comfort is mine.

But this same sword that is a comfort to some is judgment for others.

Right?

This is what Jesus says.

John chapter 12, verses 47 to 48, if anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do

John 12:47–48

not judge them, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge.

The word that I have spoken will judge him on that last day.

So that's Jesus saying that this word can be a message of life and salvation, or it

can be a message of judgment and condemnation.

So He calls us to repent and remain faithful.

That's what He says in verse 17.

Look at how He closes this letter.

Verses 16 and 17, He says, therefore repent, if not, I will come to you soon and war against

them with the sword of my mouth.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a

white stone with a new name written on that stone that no one knows except the one who

receives it.

So He says, there's a great reward.

If you repent, you remain faithful to Christ, there's great rewards.

You get the hidden manna.

What is that?

Anybody know?

You're our resident, theologian, Joseph.

You remember?

Okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

All right.

So Joseph says he has no idea.

So the hidden manna, remember, what did the Israelites, what did God give the Israelites

as they're going through the wilderness?

Manna, bread from heaven, and the manna was said to be hidden in the heavenly places,

right?

And so that was how they were sustained throughout their journey through the wilderness.

Well, the Bible teaches us in John chapter six that Jesus himself is the true bread

of life.

He's the true bread from heaven.

He is the true manna.

And though Jesus is hidden from our sight now, Jesus is saying the ones who overcome

or promised that hidden manna.

It's referring to the fullness of Christ and His ability to nourish us and sustain us

throughout all of eternity.

And then you get this really cool reward here where He says you get a white stone with your

name on it, right?

So two interesting little cultural things that this could refer to.

In these days, whenever there was a courtroom hearing, the jury, if they were asking for

the verdict, if a person was guilty, the jury would put forward a black stone.

But if the person was found innocent, they'd put forward a white stone.

And so Jesus is saying here, you receive this white stone as a symbol of your being declared

innocent in the eyes of God.

And not only that, when you think about the games that they had at this time, the athletic

games, much like our Olympics today, the victors of those games often received a white stone

with their name engraved in it.

And they gave that to them because you could present that to a person, that white stone

with your name on it, and it would admit you access into the celebrations that were taking

place afterward.

And so here's this really cool picture.

Jesus is saying, if you repent of your sins and you trust in me and you remain faithful

to me, you will be declared innocent in the eyes of God and you will be permitted access

to the celebration that's coming.

The marriage supper of the Lamb where Christ and His bride will be joined together in that

heavenly celebration.

And so that's what Jesus is getting at here.

This is an amazing reward.

And so church, we must not let the culture infiltrate the church.

We cannot afford to compromise on sound doctrine.

And I understand again, our desire to avoid confrontation, but like I said, if we must

have confrontation, then let's have confrontation to the glory of God.

If that's what it takes for Christ to purify His church, then we should be willing to do

it, right?

We want to be a pure church, a people who aren't perfect, but a people who see our need

for Christ and we repent of our sins and we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so we pray for boldness.

We must throw ourselves in the love and the mercy and the grace of Christ.

And we keep running forward.

Keep chasing after Christ until we receive the reward of that upward calling, where we

receive that white stone being declared innocent, permitted access to the marriage supper of

the Lamb, and we will be with our Savior forever.

As Jesus says here, He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.

All right, Joseph, you know the oldest here?

But you get the word of wisdom tonight because you failed miserably earlier.