Standing In Truth

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Good morning, CCW.

I'm not even supposed to be here today.

There was no plan of man that allowed me to be here today, but then God stepped in.

And I'm here.

And I'm glad.

But I'm not glad why, because Pastor Rick and Miss Heather and their family, they're going to a funeral tomorrow that's going to be really hard.

And people ask how they are, and I mean, I don't, I mean, I hope they're not okay because you're not supposed to be.

You guys pray for your pastor and his wife and their family.

And they sent a message to me saying to thank you all for the text and the calls and the prayers.

Some have taken meals.

Just be in prayer for them.

And I know they're busy right now, but there's going to be a time soon when it quiets down.

And they're probably going to need that call even more.

So, with that being said, I'm your guy today to talk about the church at Pergamos.

And when I started looking at the church at Pergamos, I didn't even know how to say many of the words in Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

And I've Googled them, but I still don't know if I have them right.

We'll see how it goes.

Let's read Revelation chapter 2, verses 12 through 17, and then we'll talk about it a little bit.

Revelation 2:12–17

And to the angel of the church in Pergamos, write, These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword.

I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast to my name, and you did not deny my faith, even in the days in which Antipas, my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.

But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things associated to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.

Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I hate.

Repent, or else I will come quickly, and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

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

To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat.

And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the privilege to gather in your house and worship.

And God, I thank you for the privilege to preach your word.

And Lord, I pray that you will open our hearts and our minds that we may not leave here the same way that we came in.

God, I just pray that you will move here today, and I come here believing that you will.

God, I'm not even supposed to be here, but I am, and I pray that you will just speak to your people today and be with our pastor and his wife as they prepare for a very difficult day tomorrow up in Tennessee and Kentucky.

We love you, Lord, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

As you study the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, you'll notice a pattern in each of the letters.

And there's no secret, your sermon notes are going to give you that pattern.

So we're going to talk through the pattern today, and the first thing that you need to notice as you're studying the letters to the churches is that each church has a different geographic location.

And it's important to think about geographic location whenever you are looking at these letters, because let's just be honest, if I came in here and I had a letter to the church at New York City, and a letter to the church at Portland, Oregon, and a letter to the church at Silicaga, like it or not, you would have some notions and preconceptions about what those places are like, whether you've been there or not.

And forbid that I were to come in here with a letter from Las Vegas.

We don't need to see that letter.

So I want you to consider the places when you're reading the letters to the churches in Revelation so that you don't miss out something.

Think about the geography.

And so we're going to talk about the geography of the church at Pergamos.

Pergamos was a capital city of Asia Minor.

Rome ruled the world at the time, and Asia Minor was a big province, and Pergamos was the capital city.

From what I read, the city was about 250 years old at the time of this letter, and it stood on a great big hill.

And they had a lot of different gods there that you could worship, and people had been worshiping them for a long time.

One's name was Athena.

She was the goddess of warfare and wisdom and handicraft.

I'm not really sure what that is, but I'm going to go with crafts.

There was another god named Oskepolos, and he was the god of medicine and healing, and his symbol was a snake.

And from what I've heard, you could get it like a prescription to go lay in his temple and have snakes crawl on you and get healed up.

Another god named Dionysus, he was the god of pleasure and wine and festivity, ecstasy, more or less.

Then we got Zeus.

He's like the king of the gods.

And he's like the god of thunder or something like that.

And then, and then at the time that this letter came, they even had made Caesar a god.

When Caesar died, the Roman Senate said he was a god, so Pergamos built him a temple.

I guess it was like the temple of the dead god.

I don't know.

As long as you're making up gods, you just make up whatever you want to make up.

So, anyway, we got this cultural center of wisdom and warfare and crafts and healing and pleasure and ecstasy and wine, and it's the capital city, and it's on a hill.

Capitol Hill?

I don't know.

I'm not trying to say that, but I will tell you that here at Pergamos, we've got this huge cultural center that's the capital, and there's false gods everywhere.

And in that city, in that place, that's the church that we're talking about today, the church at Pergamis.

Number two, every time you read one of these letters, I believe, you're going to see Jesus identify himself in some kind of way.

The identification of Jesus that he gives here is I'm the one who has a sharp two-edged sword.

He goes on in verse 16 and says, I will fight against them with the sword that's in my mouth.

In the chapter before, when John sees a vision of Jesus in chap Revelation 1.16, Jesus has a sword in his mouth, sharp two-edged sword.

So Hebrews tells us that the word of God is a living and powerful thing, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the soul and the spirit, the division of the joints and the marrow, discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Now, we've studied the last two weeks, different churches, and to Ephesus, Jesus said, I'm the one who walks among the golden lampstands.

And then over at Smyrna he says, I'm the first and the last, who was dead and then lived again, or rose again, came to life.

Here we see Jesus as a picture of judgment.

And God's word is how he's going to judge, and it's sharp and powerful and thorough and cutting, and it doesn't just cut the flesh, it cuts the thought and intents of the heart.

God speaks and things happen.

Jesus cutting, surgery by sword is what it sounds like he's telling the church at Pergamus here.

Number three, and you guys are gonna think we're about to get out of here, but I promise you're not.

Number three is the approval.

Jesus gives the positive first.

He says, I know your works and I know where you dwell.

You dwell where Satan's throne is.

A lot of people think that they had a big altar made to Zeus, and some people say that that's what John was referencing here as what Satan's throne is.

I don't know for sure, that's speculation.

And I don't even know if they really worship Satan in Pergamus.

But Jesus made it very clear in Luke 11, 23 that he who's not with me is against me, and he who doesn't gather scatters.

I don't think the devil has to have you worship him.

As long as he can get you not to worship the Lord, I think he's probably okay with that.

If he can get you to worship some old idol or something else, you don't even have to just say, I'm worshiping Satan.

So Jesus tells him, I know your works, and I know you guys live in a real tough neighborhood for believers.

And you have held fast to my name and you did not deny the faith when Antipas, my faithful martyr, was killed among you.

That may seem a little confusing to you, because doesn't a martyr mean someone who was killed?

Well, yes, it does, but it didn't always.

The way I understand the original definition of martyr was witness.

But there were so many witnesses for Christ who were being killed, the whole definition changed, and martyr now means someone who was killed for the faith, not just a witness.

So Antipas, one of these guys that I didn't know who he was, so I looked him up, and if you Google Antipas, it says, cause of death, brazen bull.

Now I've been to New York City and Wall Street, and I've seen a brazen bull there.

And I started thinking about how it might have killed me because it didn't seem like the brazen bull was very threatening.

Maybe I could climb up and fall off of it, or maybe I'd run into it and bump my head.

But what the brazen bull death is, it's a type of torture that they used to do, where they put you in the door of the bronze bull, built a fire underneath it, and waited for you to slow roast to death.

And this man got killed that way, and the people were around watching, and they would not deny the faith, and they still held fast to the name of Jesus.

The devil came roaring at them like a lion, trying to knock them down.

But they stood firm and they held the faith, and Jesus commends them for that and the approval.

Number four, and this is where we're going to start slowing down a little bit.

Number four is the accusation.

Jesus says, Some of you there hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block in front of the children of Israel so they would eat things offered to idols and commit sexual immorality.

What in the world is the doctrine of Balaam?

You guys probably know Balaam.

He's the guy who rode the talking donkey.

No?

Okay.

We'll get there, but before we talk about Balaam, I want to tell you about a couple of things that were going on with the new church at the time.

So this is a Gentile church, and the Jewish people thought that the Gentiles might need to be circumcised because the Jews had been circumcised.

And it was a whole big deal.

And in Acts chapter 15, they had a council at Jerusalem to determine whether or not the Gentile people had to be circumcised.

Acts 15 · chapter mention

And after debate, the council came down and said, Don't have to be circumcised, but we don't want you to eat things sacrificed to idols, and we don't want you to commit sexual immorality, and then stay away from things strangled in blood.

Those aren't really relevant for what we're talking about today.

But the council said, Stay away from things that have been offered to idols and don't commit sexual immorality.

Well, long about before the church at Pergamus got this letter, Paul had wrote to the Corinthians, and he said this, 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 4, he says, concerning things offered to idols, we know an idol is nothing in the world.

1 Corinthians 8:4

And he goes on and says, Beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.

If anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things too?

So Paul tells the Corinthians, idol ain't nothing.

We know there's only one God.

Mature believers, pretty well, eat what you want, don't worry about it sacrificed to an idol.

But there are people who aren't as mature as you, and you might cause them to stumble and eat something sacrificed to an idol, even though it's against their conscience.

He goes on in Romans chapter 14, verse 14, and says, This, it's pretty strong.

Romans 14:14

I am convinced by the Lord Jesus there is nothing unclean of itself.

But there's a rest of that verse, and the rest of it is, but to him who considers anything to be unclean, it is unclean.

Now that you know that, we're going to lay the foundation about the doctrine of Balaam.

And remember, Paul's principle isn't eat whatever you want, but it's don't make people stumble.

Balaam was a false prophet.

And it you can read about Balaam and Balak in Numbers chapters 22, 23, 24, and 25.

Numbers 22 · chapter mention

But I'm not gonna do that because you guys would hit the exits.

So I'm gonna try to tell you the story.

There was this king, and his name was Balak.

And Balak was the king of the Moabite people, and there was also a people called the Midianite people, and they worshipped a false god called Baal.

Well, the people of Israel started coming into his land, and King Balak got nervous.

I don't know if he thought there was gonna be a majority or what, but he looked around and he said, They're licking up all of our resources, they're taking everything that we've worked for.

So Balak the king gets a delegation and sends them over to try to hire Balaam.

Or Balaam.

Like I say, I don't know how to pronounce the words.

They go to try to hire Balaam, who is like a false prophet.

And Balaam is tricky because he like talks to God.

So the delegation comes to Balaam and they say, Hey, we need you to come curse the people of Israel.

And Balaam talks to God, and God says, Don't go do that.

They're blessed people.

So the false prophet says, Thanks, but no thanks, guys.

The delegation goes back to Balak.

I'm trying not to lose you here.

They go back to the king and they say, He ain't coming.

And the king says, Yes, he is.

Go tell him we'll give him whatever he wants if he'll come over here and curse these people.

So they go back and Balaam prays, and God says, If they come and get you, you go with them, but you only say what I tell you to say.

The next morning, Balaam gets up and he gets on his donkey, and they start going down the road, and all of a sudden the donkey veers off the road.

And the reason that the donkey veers off the road is because he can see the angel of the Lord standing there with a sword drawn.

And Balaam can't see the angel of the Lord, so he hits the donkey.

The donkey gets back, angel of the Lord's still there down the road a little bit.

Donkey runs into a wall and crushes Balaam's foot.

Balaam hits the donkey back onto the path.

They go down the road a little bit.

It's a narrow path, and the angel's right there, and you can't go nowhere, so the donkey just lays down.

And Balaam hits her again.

Bible says it's a girl donkey.

So the Lord opens the donkey's mouth.

And the Bible doesn't give us a dialect for this donkey.

And when I think about talking equestrians, I only know of really three.

This one, Mr.

Ed, and donkey and Shrek.

And so I'm gonna go donkey and Shrek the best I can.

The donkey says, What have I done?

You struck me these three times.

And Balaam, who is not fazed by the talking donkey, answers it.

And he says, This, you abused me.

And if I had my sword, I would kill you.

Here's a pro tip.

If your donkey or any other animal starts talking, don't kill it.

Bring it to me.

I'll make you a good deal for it.

We'll get something worked out.

So Balaam tells the donkey this, and then the donkey says, This Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden ever since I became yours to this day?

Was I ever disposed to do this to you?

The donkey's basically basically saying, Look, dude, I'm a good donkey.

There's something wrong, and you can't see it.

Well, right then, Balaam's eyes get open, and he sees the angel of the Lord, and the angel of the Lord tells him, You can go down there, but you only tell him what I told you to tell them.

They keep going.

Balaam goes and meets King Balach.

And three times he comes out to curse the children of Israel, and three times he blesses the children of Israel.

Well, old King Balak, he's plenty fighting mad about this, right?

Because you go hire a prophet or a preacher or something, and they come and don't say what you want them to say.

So I don't know exactly what happens, but Balaam and Balak get together and they conspire, and we see later in Numbers chapter 25 that the children of Israel stay there and that they committed harlotry with the women of Moab.

Numbers 25 · chapter mention

And the women invited the people to sacrifice to their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods, and Israel was joined with Baal of Peor, and God was angry with them.

The anger of the Lord was aroused against them.

That's a whole lot.

A few verses later in Numbers 31, Moses encounters some women, and he says, These women, through the counsel of Balaam, caused the children of Israel to trespass at the incident of Peor.

So I've told you all that to try to tell you.

When I think about Balaam, I always think about a talking donkey.

So when I started this, I was looking at why the talking donkey mattered to the people at Pergamus.

Well, it's not that.

The doctrine of Balaam essentially is this you may not be able to shove a believer down, but you just throw out some stuff and let them trip up.

How many of you know that there's a lot more than one way that you can fall?

Like, I can't remember the last time that I got pushed down and shoved over.

There was this time back in May where me and Luke got out in the yard to play football, and he was on defense and I was on offense, and I got 22 yards or so before he roll tackled me.

And my shoulder hadn't been right since then.

But before that, I can't remember the last time somebody pushed me down.

But I've tripped this week like a couple of times.

I mean, these days it's usually going up the stairs.

Thank goodness.

Because the thought of tripping down the stairs, man, that's getting more and more horrifying as this hair gets grayer and grayer.

But it's not just stairs, rocks, roots, curbs.

Sometime on a sticky floor, if I have the right shoes on, I can trip all kinds of ways.

Usually when I trip, it's because I'm not paying good attention, or sometimes because I'm tired, right?

But let me tell you this: if I trip and fall, I'm just as down as if I get pushed down.

And sometimes when I trip and fall, I don't even have time to brace myself, like I might have if I see the attack coming.

These people at Pergamus, they stood strong when Antipas died in this horrible death.

But Jesus says, there are people in your congregation who are tricking you and causing you to stumble according to the doctrine of Balaam.

They're just putting stuff out and letting you trip over it.

Just a blurb about the Nicolatans.

I don't know a ton about them, but Jesus says, I hate their doctrine and I hate their actions.

He talks about Ephesus 2, the Nicolaitans.

I know there was a deacon, a deacon in Acts chapter 6, whose name was Nicholas, and Nicholas, they say went rogue and developed his own following.

Acts 6 · chapter mention

And a lot of people say that maybe something like, you've got this liberty through Christ, and they turned it into a license to sin.

Imagine a rogue deacon going creating his own doctrine.

Pretty wild.

But anyway, the Nicolaitans followed this, and one old writer named Clement said that the Nicolaitans abandoned themselves to pleasure like goats.

That's pretty harsh right there.

Nothing you do with your body matters.

The body's evil anyway.

Some of these twisted type of thinkings.

And the people at the church at Pergamos began to eat, have sex whenever they wanted to, whatever.

And my guess was that they were learning part of the truth.

Hey, Paul said he was convinced that nothing is unclean.

But they didn't finish the sentence.

And even Paul said that an idol isn't nothing in this world, eat whatever you want to eat, it's alright.

So I read all this and I said, Man, what is the big deal?

Like if you come up to me and say, Dave, I'm gonna need you not to eat anything offered to an idol.

Okay.

That sounds fine.

I think it'll be harder for me to only eat things offered to idols.

Well, I'll have to go find like some witches or something.

I don't, you know, I don't know what I have to do to find things offered to idols.

Like I would have no trouble not eating food that had been offered to an idol.

But I started trying to think about maybe, and this is speculation, about what life may have been like in first century Pergamus.

And I imagine, again, I don't know for sure, but I think that the church, the Christians, this was like the new age thing.

It wasn't the established religion.

Pergamus was an old city, they had old temples, right?

And then you got this new fangled thing.

They're the capital, all they got to do is keep Rome happy, and they built Caesar a temple and they're worshiping him.

And that happened even before Jesus was born.

So I imagine that the standard practice around Pergamus might have been that you take something over to Athena's temple to make sure that you're smart and you've got good military.

And then you take a little bit over there to Asclepios' temple to make sure that you're healthy.

And then you take a little something over to Caesar to make sure nobody gets arrested.

And then you take something to Dionysus' temple for pleasure, and then you give a little something to Zeus so that he don't blow the whole.

Thing up.

I mean, it must have been exhausting.

And those are just the ones that I know about, right?

But the people probably adapted, and they got a schedule and a routine, and we're going to go to this place on this day and this place on this day.

And with all that, I just got to think it might have been kind of hard to find food that wasn't offered to an idol.

If you come to me and say, Dave, I need you to only eat food that hasn't been approved by the FDA or the USDA, I got a little different problem on my hands.

I mean, you can do it, but it's not easy.

Right?

Most of the time you're going to have to grow it yourself, kill it yourself, catch it yourself, or milk it yourself to get some of that kind of food.

It's a lot harder.

And if you're thinking I can grow and kill and catch and all that, and there's maybe a store or two, but if you're going to grow it or kill it or catch it, I mean, there's just not a lot of farming going on in Washington, D.C.

And it's not like the people at Pergamus could just hop in the car and go down to the hunting club.

Also, I would imagine, I don't know this for a fact, but a lot of Jesus' disciples were younger people.

So I'm thinking that maybe many of these believers might have been younger folks who went out to catch up the new thing.

Because the old people, like me, not going to follow no new trend.

I'm setting my ways.

Always done it this way.

I know what works.

Not going to teach an old dog new tricks.

But the kids, they went out and did it, joined the church, got saved, probably got baptized like we did today.

And those kids at home had parents.

My dad was a cook in the United States Coast Guard in the 1960s.

And he was on a boat and he loved to cook.

Like this is what he did.

The bigger the crowd, the better.

And he would cook here and there and everywhere.

One of these guys, when we were finishing the breakfast dishes, he was planning out and putting out lunch just all day long.

That's how he showed love.

Well, I moved back in with my parents when I was just out of college to save money, get married, all that.

And what happened while I was there, I got sick, like bad sick, on something.

I don't know what it was, but I attributed it to bad meat.

And so living with my dad, the cook, for five weeks, I didn't eat meat.

And it drove him crazy.

He would put a big meal out and I'd eat a cheese sandwich and a fruit cup.

And we'd go on fried chicken, pork chop, roast beef, meatloaf.

I wouldn't touch any of them.

And then he started getting in me about well, you need the nutrients from this meat and this and this.

And I listened, but I held, I even held out probably a week or so longer than I would have, just cussed.

You know, just cut.

So I tell you that, to tell you this, my kids are pretty good eaters.

Amanda's done a great job with them.

When Ella went to preschool, four years old, she carried lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickle with ranch, or maybe a nice vinaigrette or something.

And the the preschool teachers are opening up lunchables and tearing uncrustable and trying to put goldfish, and then they open Ella's up, and they send lunch for me.

No, that's what she eats.

Chef's salad, four years old.

For her seventh birthday party, we told her, Ella, make the menu.

And she said, okay, I want chicken salad, vegetable tray, pinwheels, and spinach dip.

And we said, okay, baby, that's fine, but we need to pick a few things for the children to eat.

We have no thank you bite at our house.

We've always done that.

It's allowed the kids to expand their horizons.

Me and Ella ate Escargo on the cruise ship this summer.

Tastes like garlic and butter, in case you're ever wondering.

At least what I had.

Give it a try.

We just don't have many fights around our house about food, but the other day we did.

And the reason we did is because Luke came home from school and he sat around about an hour, and it got to be about 4.30, and he went to prepare himself a snack.

About a pound or pound and a half of chicken fingers that he cooked up in the air fryer.

And he got all that situated about 5.15, and then it got to be dinner time about 6.30, and he wasn't hungry.

And that was fine.

He sat with us and we ate dinner, talked, all this, they did their chore, and about 7.30, he gets rummaging through the refrigerator, getting yogurt, and I said, Boy, if you're not going to eat what your mama cooked, you better put that back.

Back to Pergamus in the first century.

Can you imagine that there's a teenager and he's been out and he's found this new church and he's believed in Jesus and he's got saved?

And he comes home and he tells his parents, hey, y'all need to be saved.

There's a man who died and rose again, and he's the real deal, he's the thing.

And his dad is kind of listening, and they've always made their sacrifices to Athena and Caesar and all that, and this kid is up to his ears in the new age thing, and they're dealing with it.

But then it gets dinner time, and mom's been cooking over the hot stove all day, and they sit down for dinner, and the kid says, Mom, did you sacrifice this to idols?

And she says, Well, we took it to our gods like we always have.

And the kid says, Well, I'm not supposed to eat it.

That's what my church says.

And the dad is just about ready to slap the kid off into the middle of the next week, and he remembers something that the boy told him a few days ago.

He said, Hey, I thought you said over at that church you go to you're supposed to honor your father and mother.

Well, you better honor your mama by eating what she cooked.

And the kid doesn't know what to do.

But he doesn't eat, he holds out.

And the next day he goes over to church and he's telling this guy who's been around a while about all his problems that he has.

And the man says, Oh man, it's fine.

Even Paul says there's nothing to an idol.

It's not like you're worshiping those old gods.

I mean, you've got to keep peace at home.

Just go on and eat with your family.

Doctrine of Balaam.

And so the young believer, taking the false teacher at heart, goes home and he eats.

And his family says, Well, there really ain't nothing different about him.

That church, that ain't nothing too that.

Across the street, maybe.

There's a young family.

Dad, mom, two-year-old baby.

They've been saved, baptized.

They were there the day that Antipas got killed in the brazen bull.

And the baby's been crying and they don't have much money.

And they know one place they can go find some food that hadn't been offered to idols, but they can't afford it.

And the mom looks at her husband and she says, Look, honey, you know we love Jesus.

And we've kept the faith.

We were there when Antipas was killed.

But our son, he doesn't know anything about any of this.

And my mom's right down the street, and she's got a house full of food.

And the dad holds out and they go to bed hungry.

And the next day he goes down to church and he's telling one of the older guys about the problem he's having.

And the guy says, Oh, no.

Paul said even Jesus had told him that everything's clean.

I eat it, I'm full right now.

And so the dad goes home, and that evening they take the baby and go eat with the mom's parents down the road.

The same food that they ate before they become Christians.

And it didn't kill them.

And you know what happened in my speculation?

While they're there having dinner, the grandmother says, You know, I know you guys go to church on Sunday, but we're having grandkids' day over at our temple.

And all the kids are gonna be there.

And I really would love it if y'all would come to me.

Go to church.

You can go to your church too.

And then that teenager that we talked about, one night his dad and older brothers go off to Dionysus' temple to worship with the temple lady who meets him outside, and he's the only person that he knows who hadn't been there yet.

And he says, What even is sexual immorality?

I mean, it's not like I'm married, I'm not committing adultery.

What even is sex?

I mean, I've already eaten some of the food and it didn't kill me.

Maybe I'll go but not go all the way.

I mean, Jesus said that whoever has lust in his heart's already committed adultery.

Well, that's already blown, so I might as well just go on.

I can still do this and go to church on Sunday.

The devil couldn't knock them down, but he brought a sneak attack.

And the people kept their beliefs and kept saying, I love Jesus, but what happened is they started looking just like everybody else.

They weren't distinguished, they weren't set apart, they weren't sanctified, they weren't holy.

They married Christianity to their false belief systems on the advice of church leaders and false prophets who led them in the wrong direction and put a few stumbling blocks out just so they could live their best life.

Letting them fall.

He just made her think.

The devil knows your appetite, and he knows that if you compromise just a little bit on the small thing, the next time it'll be a little bit easier, and you'll get on to bigger things and bigger things because once you compromise, it's just a matter of degree.

And the appetite is defined as a natural desire to satisfy a bodily need.

And the church at Pergamos gave away to their appetite.

But I mean, didn't God give them the appetite in the first place?

That's what the devil might have told them.

Watch your appetites, and we got all kinds of them.

Food and sex are ones we've talked about today, but victory and success, money, power, control, pleasure, popularity, social media, regular media.

You can even have too much of an appetite for safety and security.

You marry yourself to it, and then you try to make your faith fit in there, and a lot of times it's a real bad fit.

Watch what you consume.

It makes a horrible God.

A lot of times we eat up the food of the idols.

The admonition, fill in blanks again, told you that one would be long.

Admonition means to counsel or warn against.

Counsel or warn against.

We see the admonition in verse 16.

Jesus said, Repent, or I will come to you quickly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

That word repent expressed sincere remorse or regret for sin or wrong.

I'm gonna tell you, that ain't a word we use a lot at the roper house.

When's the last time you did?

Like repent.

Do you know?

Can you even think of anything you need to repent for?

Is anybody straining out there?

I'm asking because I had to when I was writing this.

Because usually, if you're anything like me, the things I do, I believe are right, and if it weren't right, I wouldn't do them, right?

That's how it usually works.

And I think a lot of people think like that, and we live in an unrepentant society.

But you know when you usually see a lot of repentance, it's when somebody gets caught.

And they can't get out of it, they can't justify it.

And then all we have this drastic change of heart.

Confession.

It's amazing how many times that happens right after somebody gets caught, maybe on tape.

Something they've been doing for years and years.

You don't have to repent in front of the whole world.

You don't have to come down to the altar.

It can be just between you and God.

You can do it on your way out today, on the way home in the car, or after you get home if you want to.

And you know, a lot of times if anybody starts confessing publicly, man, it gets really uncomfortable.

It's like, honey, why don't you go and get the kids?

I'm not sure how this is going to end up.

They were supposed to be over for dinner, but maybe we're busy that night.

And sometimes if you do stick around for the public confession, you need to repent of your reaction.

Judge not lest you be judged.

The thing is, though, you can come up with a lot of good reasons for what you do.

Justifications.

Do what we do.

That's the way it is.

That's the way of the world.

You can come up with reasons that, just like those people in Pergamos, seem really good.

But Jesus tells them to repent, and as long as you keep your reason, it's really hard to repent.

And Jesus says, if you don't, I'm going to come and fight against you.

And I don't know if I want to be any part of that.

So what if you compromise?

That's what Amanda said earlier.

Doesn't necessarily keep you from following Christ.

You're still strong in the face of the fire.

Faithful follower of Jesus, but it's just one of those things that's the way of the world, it's the way things are, it's how we do things here, and you know it's not right, but everybody's doing it.

When I was a baby lawyer, like almost 20 years ago, baby lawyers who start their own business go out with their hands out, begging for the judge to give them something to work on.

And so I did that, and there was a lot of us, and we went to the court, and court-appointed work, like if you can't afford a lawyer and you're charged with a crime, they give you a lawyer and the state pays the lawyer.

I was one of those guys.

And uh, so what I did, I went to the courtroom, and there was a bunch of us there, and this judge, who he was a nice guy, he was a good guy, he was a tough guy.

And he called us in, he was giving us training, and he said, Hey guys, any time that you come to my court on a case that I've given you, you're gonna bill an hour.

Now, if it goes more than an hour, well then you bill whatever time you're here, but don't come in here with any quarter of an hour.

And he told us all this.

And I said, All right.

And so I went and hour, hour, and then one day I had two cases in this court.

And I got there about 8.55, and I left about 1045.

And then I had three cases one day.

And then one day, one of my buddies he had been doing a long time, he had 11 hearings set at 9 o'clock in the morning.

And I said, Man, how are you gonna bill that?

I was just feeding my family, and that was the system I was in.

The judge told me to do it, and the system knows.

I got an email, I've been thinking about this just a couple of months ago.

They came out with a training class for court-appointed lawyers.

It's called Ethics in Billing.

Like how not to whatever.

And in this, they have a 2,000-hour rule now where if you bill the court over 2,000 hours in a year, you gotta go meet with a counsel.

And one of the guys in 2023, this email, I think is public record, said he billed 5,528 and a half hours.

That's 106 hours a week.

15 hours a day, every day, including Christmas and Thanksgiving.

And I never did anything near that.

But it didn't mean what I was doing was right.

What about you?

Is there something that you know that you should be doing that you're not doing, but you got a really good reason?

Or something that you're not supposed to do, you need to quit.

You got a good reason.

As long as you keep your reason, you won't repent.

You may not get pushed over, but you might get tripped up.

And the devil may be standing right there to devour you.

Laugh blank is the assurance.

Verse 14.

Jesus concludes with an assurance to the overcomer.

And that assurance is, I will give you hidden manna to eat.

I don't know where the manna is because it's hidden.

But Jesus promised he'll give it to the overcomer who repents.

Whenever I see manna, I think about the children of Israel in Exodus chapter 16, two whole chapters after they saw the Red Sea be parted and they walked across on dry land like a whole long time, right?

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

I don't think so.

But the children of Israel out are in the wilderness and they don't have anything to eat, and they say, Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt when we sat by pots of meat and ate bread to the full.

Have you brought us out here to kill us with starvation in the wilderness?

And then God provided man.

I wonder if the same situation might have been going on in Pergamus.

Man, we were saved, we're free from idols, we follow Jesus, but I can't really find nothing to eat.

And they're having barbecue over there.

And I can smell it.

And mama says it's okay.

Mana symbolizes sustenance.

Jesus promises sustenance to the overcomer at Pergamos, physical and spiritual.

Philippians 4 19 says, My God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.

And Jesus promises hidden manna to eat.

The second thing that Jesus assures the church at Pergamos is, I'll give you a white stone.

Two times a white stone was given back in those days.

One, if you competed in an athletic event, and one, you got like this white stone to go to the banquet.

So food, right?

And it says with a new name written on it.

I don't know exactly what the new name meant, but it says, Nobody knows but you.

I think if you repent, you can get a new name.

Make a new name for yourself.

White stone was also given as a judgment of acquittal.

A judge, they say, would put up a white stone to acquit you if you were not found guilty.

I wonder if it was slate.

Maybe like a clean slate.

That's the assurance.

Repent, I'll provide all your needs.

New name, clean slate.

Sounds pretty good, right?

So I wrote this sermon out, and I'm not used to doing a sermon in a week, and I got I don't, I usually get like a month and a half.

But I get here on Thursday, and I'm going over my notes, and I don't have a conclusion.

And for some reason, it doesn't bother me that I don't have it all wrapped up.

But I'm studying on Thursday, this is Halloween, and I'm going over it and reading it and all what I do.

And before I even knew that I was gonna preach, I had set up an appointment with some people.

I was gonna get them to sign some papers that I'd done for them.

I was gonna do some law work.

And as I was uh going through my sermon and thinking about them coming, I thought this, man, I hope they bring cash.

And they got here, and we did the papers, and they brought cash, money on the barrel head.

And then I go back upstairs and I'm going over my sermon, and I'm getting to this part that I just told you that story about all them hours in the court-appointed world.

And I'm sitting there with a pocket full of cash.

And God said, Dave, I'm just seeing how serious you are about all that stuff you've been writing on your papers that you're gonna go tell these people someday.

And I made the decision I'd run by the bank on the way home.

And then I sat back down at my computer and I pulled out my wallet to pay something online, and in my wallet was a hundred dollar bill that somebody gave me a couple weeks ago for something I did for them, and God said, that one too.

But it's just a little bit, and nobody will ever know.

But I tell you what, I got the ticket.

And this week I didn't eat the food of the idols.

I trusted God's gonna provide all of my needs.

So I went home and like Thursday was a deal, right?

I go home and I text this guy that this guy that prays for me.

Lots of guys pray for me.

This guy, I gave him five things to pray for me.

About a month later, he came up and asked me about three of them, and I was like, okay, I got this.

So I text him.

He had told me Wednesday night, the night before, when he found out I was preaching, I think, I'm gonna be praying for you.

I go home and I said on a text message, have you been praying for me?

And he said, Of course.

I always pray for you.

And I sent him a message, and if you ever want somebody to call you, you send this message.

I said, Asking because some stuff went down this afternoon.

Phone rings immediately, and we talk a little bit, and he says to me this, he says, I always pray for you.

But last night I specifically prayed that God would affect your heart so that through your sermon you would affect the heart of the church.

You gotta stand to your feet.

God, I'm not even supposed to be here today.

But God, you set this appointment even when we didn't, and you have affected my heart.

And my prayer now, as we open this altar, is God that you'll continue answering that prayer and you'll affect the heart of your people here today.

Amen.

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