The Book of Revelation: Revelation 2:12-17

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Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: Revelation 2:12-17

JESUS DEFINES OUR LIFE

If you have your Bible, let’s go to Revelation chapter two.

Most of my life in church has been in the worship realm: worship pastor, worship leader, drummer. So, for me to preempt worship for teaching, you can always know it’s only because the Lord said so. Because to interrupt that moment…I would rather have sat there for three hours and just been able to soak.

I’ll tell you up front, I feel like this is a hard teaching. It’s not a hard teaching like I’m going to yell. A hard teaching, like what I think the Lord reveals in this passage, is incredibly important. I think it’s so countercultural to where we live today.

It’s long, there’s a lot. So do your best to stay with me. I have zero concern for whether or not it comes across like a good speaker or thespian. I don’t care. I deeply care that we get what’s in it.

I grew up around a lot of great preachers. And I remember hearing a few of them say the burden of the Word of the Lord would rest upon me. That’s not Greg Sanders very often. The burden of having to teach rests upon me. All week long, this has just sat with me.

I will tell you unequivocally that there are aspects of our lives that Jesus expects to define.

Culturally, we live in a day and a time where the broad stroke of humanity would say, my life is my business. And when we look at how Jesus deals with the early church, He doesn’t seem to support that perspective. He doesn’t seem to support an understanding that you get to choose your own adventure–that it’s your life.

He seems to have taken it very seriously that, when you gave your life to Me, you gave your life to Me. And in following suit, He will begin to define every aspect of our lives. And if we allow Him, He will define a critical path for us.

The problem is we live in a culture where, whether we like it or not, the church is an absorbed mixture, where we’ve adopted the mindset of the day, where we would say there are things that are ours to define, not His. Jesus challenges that deeply in what He says to Pergamum.

So, “Write this letter to the angel of the church of Pergamum. This is the message from the one who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know that you live in the city where the great throne of Satan is located. And yet you’ve remained loyal to Me, and you refused to deny Me even when Antipas, My faithful witness, was martyred among you by Satan’s followers. And yet, I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you who are like Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to worship idols by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin in the same way. You have some Nicolaitans among you, people who follow the same teaching and commit the same sin. So repent, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword in My mouth. Anyone who’s willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Everyone who’s victorious will eat of the manner that has been hidden away in heaven and will give to each one a white stone. On the stone will be engraved a new name so that no one knows except the one who receives it.”

ADDRESSING CHURCH CULTURE

Last week, we looked at what Jesus says about the successes. We looked at this first passage about the fact they live in the city where the great throne of Satan is. And about the fact that even in the midst of someone being murdered, they stayed the course. Love that. 

This week, we’re going to take a look at two different aspects: what Jesus says about their sin and what He says about their expected response. So here we go.

Jesus has a few problems with the church culture. So, He’s going to assess the culture of the church. And the issue He has is that they’re tolerating idolatry and sexual sin. We can read this from an American point of view, and it just glazes past because we don’t consider the actual nuance of what He’s saying.

He describes that they had some Nicolaitans among them. I don’t want to take a lot of time on the Nicolaitans. Pastor Dustin did that a few weeks ago. It’s a phenomenal teaching. I would recommend you go back and listen to it if you’re like, I don’t know what a Nicolaitan is. But we have to look at these issues of idolatry and sexual sin because the way Jesus deals with them applies so directly to our culture.

On top of that, Jesus will address more than just Pergamum on these issues. He addresses multiple churches on these issues, which means this is something that we can extrapolate out of Revelation and understand it is a word for the church at large.

There are a couple of clear principles based on His address that I think come through. Number one, and I want us to hear the strength of this: we are responsible to Him for each other. I don’t know that I can make a statement that is more anti-American Church than that. We are responsible to Him for each other. And we are responsible to each other before Him.

His use of the word “tolerating,” where He says, “you tolerate some among you,” implies responsibility. In the original Greek, the idea is to hold something or to have it in mind to be in possession of it.

Elsewhere in the Scriptures, the way the same word phrase is used is to say to somebody, “What have you done? What is it you’ve done?” It implies that it’s their responsibility. It’s something that they’re in possession of. And the implication is really clear: if we do not correct wrong discipleship and sexual sin, we are condoning it. And that upsets the heart of Jesus.

Man, I think that flies so directly in the face of the American perspective and wrong belief that our sexual expression is no one’s business.

That’s where we’re heading today. And it teaches us a very real principle: that our faith isn’t just ours; we’re mutually responsible to each other in how we follow Jesus. We are part of one thing. Together, we are His body. This individual idea is not a construct of Scripture. It’s a construct of culture. And Jesus focuses His concern on two areas that we will deal with.

TWO CONCERNS OF JESUS

One is interaction with food offered to idols, and that’s a really hard thing for us to grab onto in our day and in our time. I want to do my best to break it down to what I think it really means. In many of these cities, Pergamum being one, to not worship these idols, to not participate in these festivals, to not eat at these events meant a very real banishment from the socioeconomic culture of the city.

The Greeks believed in a thing called syncretism, which was that they could plug and play gods. Say you worship Zeus. Well, hey, you show up in a city, and they have their top god, and maybe their top god’s name is Jupiter. Great, just worship Jupiter instead, and you can apply that to Zeus.

So the Christian church began to do the same thing with Yahweh, saying, We could go to the temple, get the benefit of the fact that because we’re at the pagan temple where we get to rub shoulders with all the people that are the movers and shakers in the city, therefore we’re not extricated from the economic system. 

Because, remember, it’s an imperial religion. So, to not do it meant you were an outcast in the city. So there was a very real cost analysis that they had to make.

And I believe there’s a connection to areas of life where we are willing to compromise the way He’s called us to live to get ahead financially. I would say the modern food offered to idols for the church are places where economy trumps discipleship.

The second thing He deals with, it is probably the one that I think the Lord has put His fingerprint on the most this week, is sexual sin. And “sexual sin” is defined as any attitude, behavior, or participation with sexual activity outside of what He has revealed in Scriptures. Jesus expresses that they were tolerating some who are like Balaam. He will pull a text out of the old text. He will pull a name out, pull a story out.

Now, some of us, because this is the 8:30 Gathering, and a lot of people that come to the 8:30 Gathering have been in church a little longer than others, you might know who Balaam is and you might know who Balak is. But I want us to revisit it because I think the strength of what comes through that story reframes this entire conversation.

How many know that when you’re with your spouse in a fight, and they say, You’re just like your father, that that’s rarely pulling something wonderful into your life? Or if you say, You’re just like your mom, it’s rarely used as an elevation? What are you doing? You’re likening a behavior now to something historically that you knew was wrong or you didn’t like. That’s what Jesus is doing here. This behavior is just like Balaam.

THE STORY OF BALAAM

Numbers, chapter 22–if you have your Bibles, let’s go there. And if you’re so good, you already know where it is, and you’re already there, I love it.

“That night God came to Balaam and asked him…” So we’re going to pick up mid-story. And I’m just going to kind of work the narrative a little bit because it’s a fairly long story. It takes up about nine chapters in the book of Numbers.

“That night God came to Balaam and asked him, ‘Who are these men with you?’ So Balaam said to God, ‘Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent me this message: A vast horde of people has come from Egypt and spread out over the whole land. Come at once and curse them. Perhaps then I will be able to conquer them and drive them from the land” – Who are those vast people? Israel. – “‘Do not go with them,’ God told Balaam, ‘You are not to curse these people for I have blessed them.'”

Okay, so here’s the narrative. Israel is the people who are camped. They’re coming into the land to take it. They’re coming from Egypt. Does that remind anybody of anything? They’re in the middle of moving into promise. Balaam asked the Lord and received an answer. He was not to curse them, for God had blessed them. So Balaam says no, the emissaries return to Balak; he gets mad, sends another caravan with more wealth to convince Balaam.

It’s always interesting when the Scriptures reveal things like, he sends another caravan with more wealth. Because in the narrative, it’s telling you what was really driving Balaam. Instead of saying, “No, He already told me no,” He says, “Let me go check again and see if this has changed His mind. Perhaps this offering is more acceptable.” So the Lord tells him to go.

The story gets very curious right here. The Lord tells him to go, and on his journey, the angel of the Lord, a warring angel this time, pulls a sword in front of Balaam and his donkey. Balaam has no idea, can’t see into the spirit realm. How many want your prophetic voices to be able to see into the spirit realm? 

The donkey, however, can see in the spirit realm. So, three different times the donkey just hits the deck. Not going, that’s a dangerous thing right there, we’re going to die. Balaam beats the donkey. After the third time, the donkey says, Why are you hitting me?

All week long, I’ve talked to my dog differently because of this passage. Just because they can’t respond doesn’t mean they don’t understand. Finally, the veil is lifted, he sees the angel of the Lord, and the angel says, I was sent to kill you if the donkey hadn’t stopped. This is not a PETA advertisement, but it was interesting because the angel asks him, Why are you beating your animal? Just a thought.

So Balaam is told to go by the angel, who says, all right, go. I don’t know about you, but if the angel of the Lord stood in front of me because I had asked the Lord and the Lord said, yes, I would have just turned around and went: okay, I’m out, I’m done.

The angel says, go, but say only what I give you to say. So every time in the narrative that Balaam asks the Lord, when Barak wants Him to curse, every time he asks the Lord, the Lord releases blessing on Israel through his prophecy.

WHEN WE FOLLOW OUR HEART INSTEAD OF GOD’S

What I want to highlight in this story for us as we move through it is that in the very first encounter of Balaam asking, the Lord revealed His heart on the subject. Balaam kept asking, not because he didn’t know God’s heart, but because he had an appetite to do what He was asking. He wanted what He was asking, so he kept asking. I think it’s pretty clear in the narrative that he was greedy for a reward.

Regardless of the reason, Balaam stubbornly refused to follow what God had already revealed as His heart. And that’s a key revelation for us. God expects His heart desires, His answers to us, to become the foundation of our behaviors and attitudes.

And when His heart desires, and answers to us don’t cause obedience, we now have found a root of insurrection in our own hearts. And when we follow that root, destruction happens.

During this entire narrative, there’s another side to the story. There’s Israel, and Israel’s narrative is found in Numbers 25:1. It says, “When the Israelites were camped at Acacia, some of the men defiled themselves by sleeping with the local Moabite women. These women invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, and soon, the Israelites were feasting with them and worshiping the gods of Moab. Before long, Israel was joining in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the Lord’s anger to blaze against His people.”

So Israel is participating in feasts in honor of pagan gods. They’re at parties for these gods. Israel engaged in sexual behavior outside of God’s direction. They were given a mandate prior to this to never intermarry with other people groups. The people of God were always to find spouses within the people of God. They were never to go outside of the people of God. They were never to fornicate; they were never to have sex outside of marriage.

These are just simple rules that God gave them. Both of those were forbidden by God. Hey, for the record, they still are.

If you’re dating an unbeliever, stop it. You’re violating what the Scriptures say. You’re violating God’s revealed heart. And what you’re setting yourself up for is a lifetime of misery because you have no aligned value set. The reason the Lord says not to do it isn’t that He’s prejudiced; it’s because He understands that on the other side of that equation are children who are going to be raised in confusion instead of being raised in the fear of the Lord.

If you’re having sex outside of marriage, stop it. It’s sin. And I don’t care where that classifies: if you’re having sex with yourself for having sex with somebody else. If you’re handling your sexuality outside of the constructs of what God says, it’s sin. Period. There’s no other way around it.

Those same things that Israel was punished for, as we’re going to see, God’s still says are wrong. And so what happens is Israel begins to shift her allegiance to God, which is always the outcome of mixture.

This is why God hates mixture. It always leads us away from Him. And when the people of God disregard holiness and purity, their hearts always leave allegiance to the ways of God.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SEXUAL SIN AND IDOLATRY

Let’s read on: “The Lord issued the following command to Moses: ‘Seize all the ringleaders and execute them before the Lord in broad daylight, so His fierce anger will turn away from the people of Israel.’ So Moses ordered Israel’s judges to execute everyone who had joined in worshiping Baal of Peor. Just then, one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman into camp…” can you imagine in the middle of them executing judgment, this guy parades this girl in, “…right before the eyes of Moses and all the people, as they were there weeping at the entrance of the Tabernacle. When Phinehas, son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest, saw this, he jumped up and left the assembly. He took a spear and rushed after the man into his tent. Phinehas thrust the spear all the way through the man’s body and into the woman’s stomach. So the plague against Israel was stopped, but not before 24,000 people died.”

I want to make some observations here. Number one, the Lord knew who was driving the sin. And I want to highlight a couple of truths in this. We must never believe our lack of holiness, nor a lack of purity, goes unnoticed by God. And we must never fail to understand that He deals with sexual sin in a very severe and direct manner.

Sexual sins and idolatries carry grave consequences, and we would do well to understand that what we sow, church, we reap. And we’ve bought into a lie that says, that’s all grace. I love the grace of God; I wouldn’t be here without it. But the grace of God never gives me a license to sin.

The narrative continues. The plague subsides, and Israel goes after the Midianites. So we pick up in Numbers 31: “And Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. ‘Why have you let all the women live?’ he demanded, ‘These are the very ones who follow Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the Lord at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the Lord’s people.'”

Some thoughts on this. What Balaam did was he revealed a secret to the king of Midian. He told him how to defeat the people of God. By doing that, Balaam spoke outside of what God had authorized.

That was direct, arrogant disobedience, and Balaam gave away a secret to the king that we must see. He knew that sexual sin and idolatry robbed the spiritual authority and capacity of God’s people.

Guess who else knows this? Your enemy. We have an enemy that completely understands that sexual sin and ideology rob the spiritual authority of the people of God.

WHAT WE WORSHIP, WE ENTHRONE

I would say it this way: sexual sin is the use of a gift He has given outside of the parameters He has set out. And sexual sin is the idolatrous worship of your ability over His authority. It’s a partnership with the enemy, transferring power to him through disobedience.

Do you understand that all of the enemy’s power is thwarted human power? Romans 1:25 decrees that by deliberately choosing to believe lies, humanity begins to worship what God created (i.e. human abilities and such) in exchange for worshiping Him. And when we do this, we enthrone the enemy.

What do you mean enthroned? If God is enthroned on the praises of His people, what that teaches us is a principle that what we worship, we enthrone.

Your sexuality is an appetite. It is not your identity. And therefore, as with all appetites, we are to surrender them to His purpose, His government, and His guidelines. And God’s model for dealing with sexual sin and His people, the model He has given His people, is to directly and with expedience deal with it.

And this is what Jesus says to Pergamum about what their response is to be: “Repent, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword in my mouth. Anyone who’s willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Everyone who is victorious will eat the manna that has been hidden away in Heaven. And I will give to each one a white stone, and on that stone will be engraved a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it” (Revelation 2: 16-17).

Jesus gives them the only answer, Church: repent. In fact, He says repent or else.

I just want us to consider the strength of that statement. He isn’t suggesting or asking. The word repent is in what’s called the aorist imperative. It’s a verb, and it literally means “do it now.”

What Jesus reveals is that there’s an expiration on the grace window that they’re in. Repent or else I’m coming to deal with it. And He’s declaring that there’s no space for the justification of the sin. We’ve got to stop justifying sin. Specifically sexual sin.

We’ve got to stop adopting a different mindset that says it’s okay, it’s really not that big a deal, nobody knows, and understand that if God was willing to deal with His people coming into the Promised Land by killing 24,000 of them over something like this, He has to be willing to deal severely in our day and time if He’s just.

There’s no space for justification. And there’s no way to fight it other than ruthlessly shutting it down. He says, “I’m going to come towards him with the sword of my mouth.” What is the sword of His mouth? Perhaps the unfortunate spoken judgment for sin that is irrevocable. I don’t know what that word means, all I know is He says, repent, and it’s direct.

I think the most natural understanding is to hearken to Paul’s teaching, the Word of God being a sword. And I believe what Jesus is saying is the Scriptures have revealed and judged sexual sin therefore those who participate in it can see what their decisions have earned them.

IN GOD WE FIND PROVIDENCE AND IDENTITY

Jesus gives promises, and I love the promises: “anyone who’s willing to hear should listen, everyone who is victorious will eat of the manna that has been hidden away in Heaven. I will give each one of them a white stone, and on that stone be engraved a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” 

Manna hidden away in Heaven here is symbolic of His supernatural ability to provide. There’s a very real chance that what He’s dealing with, and I think it’s a probability, what He’s dealing with is the fact that He understands the risk they’re taking economically to not participate in these pagan temple sacrifices.

His statement is, I have supernatural provision for you. You don’t have to subject yourself to the world system. You can stand your ground and righteousness, and I will take care of you.

And I would say it this way for us. We don’t have to cut corners for finance. He has provision stored up for those who will live righteously.

If you’ve cheated on your taxes, knock it off, because all you’re doing is doubting His ability to provide for you. If you’ve cheated in business, stop it. All you’re doing is doubting His ability to provide for you.

His statement here is I have manna stored up. What was manna? Manna was a supernatural provision they had done nothing to grow. All they did was harvest it and eat it. It speaks to His ability to take care of us. So walk in holiness, walk in purity, and walk in obedience to Him and trust Him; He will provide supernaturally, I promise that.

He says, “I’ll give you a white stone.” White stones have great significance in Greek culture. They were used as invitations to political and social events, galas, parties. They were used to cast votes, a white stone being a vote of acceptance or a positive vote.

I want us to consider that He’s giving a white stone as a vote to them to say, I am for you. What does it feel like to have the King of Glory look at your righteousness and say, Here’s my vote. I’m for you. I’m behind you.

He says, I’ll give you a new name. If we track the history of names in Scripture, we discover they are powerful in what they carry. They carry identity. They carry authority. The name given is unique to the one receiving it, and I think it speaks to Him knowing us intimately in a way that no one else can.

I also see something that we must catch. He is calling out and declaring identity with this statement. I believe it’s vitally important that we understand this promise in connection with what He’s dealing with: sexual dysfunction and sin. Our current culture is declaring in the face of sexual sin a myriad of ways that your appetite defines your identity. We live in a culture right now that says your sexual appetite actually gives you identity.

Isn’t it curious that Jesus is declaring in the face of sexual sin a promise to actually give true identity if we follow His plan? I think the statement carries a strength that I want to call out: He and He alone can give true identity.

We have to understand that our appetites, our beliefs, and our desires, do not create our identity. They were never invited to. They were never given authority to. It’s only Him that does that. And if we want the gift of His identity to be released to us, it comes as a result of surrendering our will to follow His way.

I don’t think there could be a more countercultural teaching possible.

I don’t care what the culture says. I literally don’t. I have no concern. Because our enemy has done such a job to teach people that their appetites and their desires actually define their identity. Just because it permeates our culture doesn’t make it truth.

I would also say this: when you gave your life to Jesus Christ, you signed on the dotted line to say, I will follow the way You said to live. No longer will I follow the way I want to live, my appetites, my desires, my beliefs that have nothing to do with my trajectory. From the moment I gave You my life, You and You alone will tell me how to live and define where I go. 

THE ANSWER FOR REPENTANCE IS NOW

He says, “Anyone who’s willing to hear should listen to the Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” I just want to pause and ask us a question. And it’s not a good one.

Is there sexual sin in your life? Are you justifying any sexual behavior that He says is sin? Have you allowed the deception of the enemy to cause you to believe that your appetites create your identity?

Are you living an unholy life in any way? Are you deceived by the belief that you can play in that space and it won’t affect you?

If so, I’m going to ask you, and maybe state it a little stronger, I’m going to tell you, you’ve got to make the decision to repent today. Based on what Jesus says, the answer for repentance is now. It’s not, go home and think about it. It’s not, consider it. It’s not, process it. It’s not taken as suggestion. It is now.

The only way the King of Glory can cleanse a culture as off as ours is through a people who will follow His way purely. A people who are so surrendered to Him that they will say, my sexuality and my idolatries, I gave them to You, so You’re my only king. You’re my only worship. And I use my appetites the way You told me to.

I have been in this conversation for 25 years. I’ve heard all the arguments. I’ve had people say to me things like, “Well, we just believe in different Bibles.” This is an epidemic in our culture. My fear is it’s an epidemic in the church because we’re scared to stand in righteousness because it feels intolerant.

Standing in truth is going to seem intolerant.

If we handle this with hatred towards the world around us, that’s wrong. But to very simply say, “I gave my life to Jesus, and this is what He says: I am not permitted to live that way, nor believe in that life.” That is a statement of discipleship. That is a statement of being under the authority of Heaven.

That is not a statement of unlove or intolerance. Last I checked, Galatians says, “I’m crucified with Christ, yet He allowed me to live, but this life I live now I don’t live according to the flesh.” Sarx is the word that he gives, which is “the way I see things,” “the way I want to do things,” “my appetites,” “my desires.” I live it now according to every word He speaks.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I want to invite the Prayer Team to come forward. You can stand with me if you would.

There’s only one way to repent, church. It’s to repent. By definition, it means to change direction. It means to stop, admit what you’re doing was wrong, and move back towards the Lord.

I think confession is necessary in repentance. We all want to believe, I can say a quiet prayer to the Lord and nobody knew what I was dealing with. If you’re in this room right now and you’re mired in sexual sin, and the first thing that comes to mind is, I don’t want people to know, guess how you’re going to get out of sexual sin. Have the courage to say, what you think of me means less to me than what He thinks of me. I wish I could make it softer. There is no way around it.

In Paul’s statement about sin in the early churches, he talks about when elders sin to rebuke them publicly so the fear of the Lord spreads across the church. It seems to be that he wants us to have an attitude that understands what we’re dealing with is so dangerous, we can’t have any concern other than to get free from it.

You say, “What is sexual sin?” I don’t think I have to define it, but let me define it just in case. If you’re stuck in pornography, that’s sexual sin. If you’re stuck in any kind of sexual activity outside of the construct of a man and a woman in a marriage, that’s sexual sin. If you’re a husband and you’re married, but your eyes and your thoughts are on somebody else, and your dreams are about somebody else, that’s sexual sin.

Purity is purity. If you give me a glass of water and put one drop of iodine in it, it’s mixed. If you put the whole bottle in, it’s just as mixed.

Sexual sin is sexual sin, and we’ve got to eradicate it in our culture. We’ve got to be willing to walk in holiness and purity and say there is no excuse other than I am Yours and Yours alone.

I’ll promise you, you were His before you belonged to your spouse. If you’ve made your spouse a cop that has to help police your life, repent. Because you have a King who has already told you how to live. I don’t want to be a church that He says, you’re guilty of Balaam’s sin. You understood sexual mixture, and you still participated in it.

I want us to take bread and cup today. If you’re here and you need to repent, come find one of the team members and just tell them you’re ready to repent. All you’re going to find is a bunch of people who are going to cry with you. Let’s not leave today with a stubborn, hard-heartedness that says, I don’t know how I feel about that.

I know it’s a strong word, but surrender just looks like surrender. And your sexuality was given to you as a gift by Him. But He gave mandates and understandings of how to use it. Now let me pray us out.

Holy Spirit, would You just lead and guide this moment please? Lord, for those who have walked in purity, we thank You for Your guidance. Thank You for Your Scriptures. For those in the room who have to deal with sin, I ask for the grace to be there to repent, the courage to be there to repent. Jesus, either way, Your statement is: repent. So we lay all this in front of You.

As we take the bread and we take the cup, You said to let us examine ourselves as we do it; to ask the question, “Have I exchanged all of me for all of Him?”

So Lord as we ask that question of ourselves, “Do I fully belong to my King,” would You lead us and guide us in this?