The Church at Pergamos

Well, good morning and blessings to you all. First of all, I apologize. Thank you for your prayers. It's not as bad as it feels.

For a message, you can turn your Bibles with me to Revelation. We continue the study in our series of messages on the churches, the seven churches, letters that were given, again, from Jesus to John to distribute to the angels of each one of these churches. Just a little bit of a review. We're ready this morning for verse 12, chapter 2, the church at Pergamum.

If you remember, the first church we looked at was the church at Ephesus, and we could call this the backsliding church. If you remember, it appeared to be a strong church. They withstood, and they rejected false doctrine. They rejected the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which we're getting into today again, something that Jesus hated. They rejected so many things. They were a busy, active church. In the end, Jesus rebuked them, condemned them, asked them to repent of their they left their first love. We talked about that. And remember the introduction to that church? He told them that He was the one that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.

And that just reminds me of the covenant-keeping God that we serve. To this particular church, even though they were being unfaithful to Him, they left their first love. He said, "I'm still in your midst, and I'm walking among you. I am keeping my covenant even though you are walking away from it." But He said, "If you don't repent, I'm going to remove that candlestick. I'm not going to change my covenant." That's our God.

We change, but our God doesn't. And then we looked at the church at Smyrna the last time, and this was the persecuted church, and we talked about that, the suffering church. And it was basically a letter given I called the letter of encouragement just to ask and to just put out a word to these believers, "Hang in there. Just hold fast and endure unto the end." And a comfort that He left them was, remember, He said, "Your tribulation will be over in 10 days." That's another way of saying it's a short time. And then He closes with saying or no, He opens that letter saying that, "I was dead and am alive forevermore." What a comforting thing to tell to persecuted Christians that are facing death, facing tribulation, persecution.

He just reminds them, "I was there, and I died. You're facing death." And remember, we talked about Polycarp, their leader, who was we read him in the martyrs' mirror, and they possibly witnessed him being put to death in one of the most crucial, cruel ways that a person could suffer, that agonizing death that he went through. But He reminded them, "It's only 10 days." So He's saying, "You can go through anything and everything for a short time." And He told them, "I have something waiting for you." So He kept pointing them to the life after death. "I was dead and am alive." What a comfort for us. Tribulation, pain, temptation, trials, short time, not even to be compared with the eternal reward that we're going to receive from Him.

This morning, we can read the letter, verse 12, to the church at Pergamum. "And to the angel of the church at Pergamum write these things, sayeth, 'He which hath the sharp sword with two edges, I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is, and holdest fast. And thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days where in Antipas'" I guess I'm saying that right, "was my faithful martyr who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam and who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication.

So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit sayeth unto the churches. To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it."

See, each one of these churches, He has just a little different opening for them. This morning, He tells these people who He is. He says, "I have a sword that has two sharp edges, Jesus." Why does He do this? Why does each letter have just a little different not say just beginning, "Well, this is Jesus. This is" but this is the one that holds. And that sharp sword with two edges, that sounds intimidating. It sounds a little bit fearful, doesn't it?

Well, according to what I've studied in history, this particular city, there was times in the Roman Empire where they would give so much authority to their leaders. They would give what they call the right of the sword to the emperor, the leader of that particular group.

And it's believed that in this particular time, this city had a governor that was given a tremendous power, and he carried a sword. Actually, he had a person as he walked through the city, there was a person escorting him or walking in front of him with a big sword in his hand. And the emperor had the last word and the first word. If there's a criminal or, in this case, these Christians, who's going to get the sword? And he had the right to the sword.

In other words, what he says, "Will be." And if he told the soldiers, "He's worthy of death," that sword would do it. Tremendous authority given to the emperor at this time. And I would think when Jesus opens this letter then saying, "I'm the one that has the sword that has two edges," it meant a lot to them. They knew exactly they could relate to that and identify because imagine yourself walking through town, and here walks a person, and the emperor's behind him, the big sword's in front, and the emperor has the word on it when it's going to be used, who and how. And I just love the way Jesus tells these Christians here that, "I am the one that really has the first and the last word on judgment, on condemnation, and I have the power of the Word of God."

Remember, Hebrews tells us that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. Being able to divide asunder soul and spirit and bone and what's the wording all there? Marrow. Yes, to separate that. I mean, let's just pause and think of that. The emperor's sword could only slay them physically.

But Jesus is telling this church, "I have a sword that actually has the way of coming down deep in the heart of people and changing them." The emperor's sword can't do that. But I know every one of us sitting here this morning, if we claim to be a child of this great king, that sword has come into our life and hopefully is there today dividing asunder that which is of the flesh and the world and that which is of Jesus, the Spirit, and all the good things, putting a division right down in there. What a solid opening in this letter He gives them.

The compromising church. We'll talk about that a bit later. Let's look at just a little bit of history here.

History tells us that each one of these cities in Asia here were well-known maybe for particular they had a lot of things in common, and that would have been pagan worship, a lot of that in all these cities. And remember, Acts tells us that all of Asia worships this great goddess Diana and so on. So they had these different gods and so on. Just a couple highlights that would stand out for this particular city.

It had a theater there that would hold like 1,500 people, and I think parts of that is still remaining today according to those that go there and study such things. Parts of it, parts of the steps of the things are still somewhat in place there. But imagine 15,000 people coming together and watching their sports and their games and their animal fights or whatever they all did there.

So that was sort of a highlight for this city, at least for some. Notice in the letter here, Jesus makes the comment that it's Satan's throne or where Satan, how does He say that?

Where Satan dwells. And this particular city had what they call the god of gods. Now, in that pagan worship, they have gods that mean different things to them. They have a little different levels for them, but they had one there, and if I pronounce it correctly, it's Zeus or Zeus, the god of all gods and goddess. And if you're really going to get up into their gods, they had a god of gods. I found that interesting.

Isn't that speak of the human heart? We don't put all the gods on one level. We have to put one sort of up there somewhere that is the god of all gods. And if you really want to get into worship, that's the god you turn to. Well, He was in this city.

If you're really into pagan worship, you got to go to God of all gods.

Satan's seat. Is that possibly why this is where Satan dwells, especially dwells? Wouldn't that be an attractive place for the devil if the god of all gods lived here?

So among these, they had the god of what they called the god of pleasure, and I don't have all these names written down. So if you were really looking for pleasure, you'd go to the god of so-and-so, the god of pleasure. He would offer you all sorts of I mean, there's wild parties held there. There's drinking and so on, and there's immorality and whatever else that the human heart wants to go after to seek pleasure. They had a god that could promise that.

They also had a god for the sick, and they had a particular place, temple there. They come together. Modern day, we'd call it a hospital hospital, a huge place. It was a well-known place for all of Asia. People would travel for a distance. If they were sick or had any kind of health issues, they'd come to this place, and the gods, of course, were exercising and practicing their goofy things in there. And one of the things they did, I found interesting, they would practice some sorts of medicines there, but it was interwoven with pagan ideas and so on. But in one particular case, they had this little dungeon-like room where they put the sick in, and they turned everything dark, completely dark.

And you would go in there as a sick person, and you would cry out in the dark. You would cry out to sort of the unknown gods, the mystical gods, to find healing. And another practice that was very popular there is they would put people, the sick people, they would put them in a trance-like condition. They'd put them out. I don't know how they did that.

And then they would bring the snakes. They'd put them in this room, and they'd turn the snakes loose, and the snakes would just sort of crawl over their sick bodies in a ritual of healing and so on. I mean, you would have to put me in a trance too, to have snakes wiggle over my body in these rituals. And somehow, there was supposed to be a healing, the snakes.

I find that so interesting. They had a library there that was another well-known interest spot that would hold 200,000 volumes, I think. I don't know what these books had. If they have all this goofy stuff here in healing, did they have any kind of good medical, I don't know, books in that library? I don't know.

But interesting, I find this hospital became so popular. It drew people. Something must have been working here. The powers of darkness or whatever, apparently, were some sort of healings and comforts being found by this particular spot.

And they tell me that today's modern medical system has this pole as an emblem or whatever, of a pole and a snake woven around the pole. You see that on the medical trucks and maybe on some hospitals, and Darian's familiar with seeing that maybe every day. They tell me that particular image or emblem dates right back to this hospital. I found that interesting.

So if you see that today, you can think of this hospital back in Pergamon.

Well, that'll give us just a little bit of a glimpse what this little church here was surrounded with. And Jesus gives them a word. He, first of all, tells them that He knows where they live. He knows where they are. He knows everything about them. A comfort to us. It doesn't matter what we're facing today.

He tells every one of these churches that particular thing. What's He say here? "I know thy works and where thou dwellest. I know that you live right in the middle of what is called Satan's seat."

So what are we facing today? Remember, we want to make this practical and bring it to our time. It was a long time ago these letters were written to these churches, but I think they're so real to the churches of today. And how do we relate to them?

I find real comfort in just knowing again that Jesus knows everything about us. He knows our loneliness. He knew these people's loneliness. Think of living in a city like that. Every street corner you come to, there's some little old image of some pagan god or something that you have to reject. Every time you come to a place of business maybe, you go to apply for a job or whatever, you're faced with this thing, emperor worship. Whether you worship emperor or not was a big deal there.

And if they said no, it might cost them their life, and it did in many cases.

What about the fear that we face today? We talked about the loneliness a little bit. Just imagine in a big city like that with all its influence, and here's this little church. They must have felt lonely many times being separated from family and maybe those they love, and they're taking the low road. They're taking the narrow way, and it puts them in a category of less than the rest, loneliness. And then I thought of the fear that they must have constantly been in. When is it my turn? Because He mentions here, "You kept on. You kept faithful. Even through the time of my faithful martyr, Antipas, was among you." So He was one of them.

And Tortulia, yeah, I think He brings that out. It's in the martyr's mirror. We can read about this martyr. And the martyr's mirror has a painting, an image there of this Antipas that was brought to this city. They had a big old they called it a cow or a bull or whatever that was made out of copper or brass. It was their furnace type of thing. It had a big door on the side. There's a picture there showing a man standing with a long rod opening this door of this big cow that is on top of a burned, a big fire right in the middle of it. They opened this door, and they threw this man right into the side of that big cow and shut the door and just roasted him alive.

That happened among these Christians. Jesus says, "He was among you. He was one of you." So no doubt, perhaps, that this little church was right there in the city when they watched this.

What about the fear that could have brought, the intimidation when they saw the emperor and the authorities coming around? "When is it my turn? When is it my turn?" Just a constant pressure they were facing.

Jesus said, "I know exactly what you're going through. I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to go with you in the furnace," so to speak.

What about our temptations? They had their temptations, just the constant pressure they were under just to live normal and save their neck and get involved in all the prosperity that was going on in those cities, that constant pressure, the constant temptation of, "What about the temptations when you're walking through the city, and there's this festivity? There's this party going on. There's prostitutes walking around." And men, we know a little bit how that is, don't we? Just those temptations, constant pressure. Jesus said, "I know all of that. I know what you're going through."

But He said, "You're holding on to My name and to My faith." No doubt, this church opened their worship service and their prayers in the name of Jesus and closed it that way again. They held on to a name, powerful name, the name of Jesus.

And they have not denied His faith. What an encouragement. They have not denied the faith.

And then He turns, and He says, "But there's two things that I have against you. There's two things that are here in your midst that need to be changed. You need to repent of, or else I'm going to come, and I'm going to fight against you with the sword of My mouth." Remember, He's carrying the sword.

The first thing He mentions is the doctrine of Balaam.

What's that?

This caused me to dig into that a little deeper. We know the story in Numbers about Balaam. That's been a long time ago. I mean, Numbers chapter 22, I think, is maybe first mentioned.

What does that have to do way back there? What does that have to do with Peter brings it up? I believe it's Peter that talks about the doctrine or Balaam. Is it Jude maybe it comes up again? Jesus talks about it here.

But evidently, this doctrine of Balaam was something that was very influential and permeating and destructive and so on. And Jesus brings it up here again. And a thing I want to bring out to us, we can say, "Well, that happened way back in history. Who's Balaam anyway? He's dead and gone." If you read Numbers 31, I think it is, Balaam was condemned to death by God. So he's gone. He's off the map. What does Balaam have to do with this church or us today?

Notice here, Jesus calls it a doctrine. The doctrine is something that continues. What is a doctrine? A doctrine also can be a particular teaching. Or this morning, I'd like to think of it as a spirit.

And if you remember the story back in Numbers where the children of Israel were moving from one camp to the next, from one city to the next, they faced that deal in the wilderness. They began to complain and so on. And if you remember how that God allowed snakes to come out of the wilderness and bite them and so on, and they were there, "Oh, what shall we do? The snakes are" and I think it says many died through the snake bites. And then God told Moses to set up that brazen serpent, that pole, brass pole, and to look to that thing, and they will be healed. And they were healed. But there were many already that were sorted out of there.

This happened just a little bit before, if I understand the timeline of it, just a little bit before the children of Israel were marching up. Now they had strong men, and their army was probably at the strongest. They're marching up, getting the Amorites, Amalekite, and so on. They were victorious and so on, moving on up to the borders of Moab, the Midianites.

And Balak was the ruler, the leader there, and he saw what they're doing. He saw their power and how that God's presence is with them. So you know the story how they sent the princes of the Midianites over to Balaam, which was supposed to be a prophet of God, to come and bring a curse on these people. And the goal there, if you read that story, was not necessarily to wipe them out or to kill them. It was to just sort of weaken them, to decommission them so that they're not so powerful, so that they're not just going to overtake every city that comes in their path.

Well, they promised they offered Balaam. They give him this money and these things. And also, Balak promised him that he would be setting him up to great honor. Remember that? And this appeals to the human heart. So you have all these rewards, and top of all that, you're going to be set up high honor.

And Balaam just loved that. "Oh, if I can just get all of that." So he went. He asked God about this. Remember, God said, "No, you can't go and curse these people."

And all the princes came back and said, "But why not? Surely. See what you're missing out on. All these gifts and that high honor that you're going to receive, you're missing out on all these things. Well, let me go and check it out again."

And he went, talked to God again. God said, "Go for it." I don't know for sure why God did that. "Go for it." And he got on his donkey, and you know how he went. And the donkey saw the angel, and he didn't. And there's a roadblock and a bridge. I call it a bridge, a narrow passage. And his leg got scraped and hurt. I can relate to that. That is painful. If you ever rode a donkey or a horse or a pony, and he takes the fence post too hard, and your leg's there, I mean, that hurts.

And it's made him angry. And he comes off, and he beats his donkey and so on. I still don't know why God said, "Just go do it."

So anyway, long story short, and I went to Josephus because I wanted to see a little more writing on this subject. And he brings out a good bit more details than the Bible actually does. So he finally gets there. God told him, "Well, you can't curse these people because they're blessed by Me. So it doesn't matter how hard you try. You're just not going to curse them."

Isn't it interesting how Balaam and Balak went up there to that mountain? And it says that Balaam said, "Hey, let's gather this wood together and make an altar." They put bullocks on, I believe. And Balaam goes and says, "Okay, Balak, you just stay behind. I'm going to go and" he prayed to the God of heaven, didn't he?

He talked to God, and they had this altar set up. But he just couldn't curse these people. Isn't that neat? Every time he opens his mouth to just put them out of commission one way or the other, not necessarily to destroy them, but to just tear them down. And there's blessing came out, and they were even blessed more. Well, after the second time or so doing this, Balak was getting pretty upset. I mean, "Here we hired you to come and curse these people, and all you did was bless them." And he said, "Sorry. I can't do anything about it. When this God gives us a word, that's what's in there, and that's what's going to come out."

How true. Well, Josephus tells us that after the second time when he was really upset with Balaam, Balaam said, "Let me try it one more time. You go over here. I'm going to go over here to this God, the God of heaven, not some old pagan God." But he said, "I'm going to try once more to persuade this God to put a curse on these people."

Is that possibly the spirit that went down through the ages, made itself all the way to Peter, to Jude, or at least the warnings, and all the way here to Revelation? That spirit—see, Balaam wanted what he wanted. He wanted the rewards. He wanted everything. He wanted the honor. He wanted all of that. And yet, he seemed to still want God.

And there was a compromise. He was trying to compromise. He wasn't blatantly turning over to a pagan God at this point. Well, when he said, "I'm going to go and try to persuade my God," it still didn't happen. He came back to Balaam, Balak, and the princes.

And they were really upset with him now the third time and said, "Well, you're basically worthless. We're going to send you away without any rewards." And according to Josephus, Balaam turns around, and he walks away, and they left each other that way for a bit.

And then a thought came to Balaam's mind. He said, "Hey, Balak, come back here. I have another thought." And he said, "I tell you what. If you follow my instructions, we can weaken this strong army of God. We can cause them to stumble.

Just follow my instructions." And this is what he told them. He said, "You go get all the Midianite girls, the young ladies, the prettiest ladies in your midst, and you deck them out with the prettiest clothes." I mean, the power, give them the power. The ones that have the power to tear down the modesty of the beholders is how he worded it. "And you send them out to the borders, the camps of those Israelites."

And he gave a prophecy. He said, "What those Israelite men are going to do, they're going to be attracted and allured to these ladies. And when they come and they want to go to the next step of marriage or whatever, then you just go with them to a certain point. That is how you're going to eventually tear them down."

Sounds like a plan. That's what they did. They took their best young ladies, and they decked them out with beauty and attraction, and they sent them out right on the edges of the Israelite men. And the men looked at them. They couldn't handle the temptation, what would you call it? The luring, the enticing.

And they said, "Hey, come here.

Come here." And the young ladies came, and they began dialoguing. And the young men eventually said, "We want to marry you." The young ladies said, "Are you sure?" The young ladies did not trust the Israelite men at this point.

They said, "What you really want with us is to just use us as prostitutes, and then you're going to send us back again to our people." And the men said, "No, we promise. We will take care of you."

And they even made an oath. This is what I read in Josephus. I'm not sure if the Bible brings it out this clear. But according to the historian Josephus, he says that the men made an oath before the God of heaven, before these ladies, that they would take care of them.

And then the ladies were drawn in by that, and they finally said, "Okay, we will become your wives." But here's the catcher. It's a package. We become your wives, but with us, you get our gods as well.

And they said, "No, we have our God." They knew now they were violating, and this is not going to fly in the camp. "No, we have our God." Well, they said, "But your God, it may be everything fine, but one thing about your God, your God only accepts you people. And our God is a big God, and our God accepts all nations."

And they thought, "Well, that is sort of true, isn't it?" And slowly but surely, there was a compromise. There was a coming together. Corinthians tells us there were 23,000 souls that fell into this sin in one day, 23,000 souls. And if you read numbers, that comes out. Compromise. That's what that's called. It's a marrying together of the world and the church. That's what that is.

And Balaam, although all the time you never saw that Balaam had the idea, "I'm going to completely destroy God's people," he said, "No, you come in." Now, we see in Samarna, in the church in Samarna, persecution didn't work. I mean, they came in the front door, and they said, "It's either your life or the denial of Jesus.

Deny Jesus or your life." And it didn't really work. They weren't real successful. That church, as far as we know it, at least for that time, they stood firm on the words of Jesus. And when we look at church history, it is that way.

Those that were persecuted, it seemed there was a testing and a trial to strengthen their faith. But the spirit of Balaam comes in the back door, so to speak, and he comes in a subtle, sneaky way, and he comes right into the God's people, and he entices them. Okay? He knew that when those men are enticed, what happens? First thing, it weakens them.

As the army of God, it weakens them.

Isn't that true today? It is so true. Satan comes in the back door, so to speak, and he says, "A little here and a little there. Just little bits at a time, he's going to be a lot more successful than the roaring line that comes in the front door with a sword and a furnace."

I trust every one of us this morning would say, if we'd have those coming in the front door and say, "Hey, are you going to deny Jesus or not? If not, it's going to be your life." I trust we would all say, "It's going to be our life."

But what about how is the church being destroyed today? Just the subtleness, the subtleness.

Jesus said, "You're going to have to repent of this," the spirit of Balaam. Trying to think of some ways that the spirit of Balaam is active, how it could have been or was active or influential in the church here in Revelation that we're reading about today.

Well, we can say some of the historians say it was the idea of Constantine that came in later and introduced this whole political into the church, and the church and the state became one and married each other, so to speak, and the church was state operating.

Maybe.

Maybe all that is there. Maybe all of that was already happening in this time. But I think there's something here. While we reject that, while we reject the state and the church coming together, how are some ways right here in our congregation that we can compromise that brings us to this same thing that Jesus said, "If you don't repent, you're going to lose it"?

That's for us today because I think as much as in Numbers and as much as in this church, the spirit of Balaam is still alive and well today. And he's going to be here, I think, as long as time will stand. What are we willing to do to stand up against the spirit of Balaam? Balaam lost his life, condemned to death by God among many others. And if you read Numbers, it wasn't just the young, unstable men. It was older men. It was men of stability and strength. And there are some names mentioned in the Bible of those men that fell to this sin of fornication and the eating of idols, the fornication. The thing was allured into that.

Then the ladies said, "It's going to be our gods," and they fell for it. So the next thing they know, they're sitting eating idols that were offered unto these pagan gods. What about us today? Well, we would say, "There's no way. We're not going to partake in some old pagan god. No way. I mean, we know better than that, right?"

So does that mean there are no gods in modern America today?

Are we facing no gods? The God of pleasure. They were just more blatant about it than we are today. The God of healing, whatever that means today.

I like to think of crossing lines, learning from this Balaam experience. When he persuaded the men of God to cross certain lines, first of all, is to be enticed by those ladies. They were crossing a line right there, and Balaam was sharp enough to know that. When they begin to cross lines, they're going to become weaker and weaker and weaker. We see there's a pattern. When we begin to cross the principles of God's Word in detail, in small ways, it's much easier to step across the next line. And that's what was happening here. The spirit of Balaam led them through those lines.

And he said, "There's a stumbling block." Now, Balaam never went and said, "Well, I tell you what. Just go commit adultery with these ladies and eat their sacrifices off her title." He never said that. He was just simply coming, like I said earlier, in the back door in a subtle way. And Jesus says to this church, not necessarily that it's that blatant, but he says it's a stumbling block.

He's casting a stumbling block. Another area I thought for our day today is principles, Bible principles, and applications of those principles.

When we look at church history, and even in my short lifetime, I have seen this over and over, and it's going on right in front of our eyes. If we begin to fudge on applications of Bible principles, eventually, and it doesn't take long, we lose the principle.

The principle's gone. You can go to churches today that refused a generation or two ago, they refused to say what the application of principles, major principles, like we can say divorce and remember. I'll start back a little closer home. I mean, in the early 1900s, we can read that almost all the Christian churches practiced the headship veilings for the ladies, and then they became an ornament instead of a covering. The ladies finally started messing around with their head coverings.

They tried this just to look a little more nice and blend in with a little more of the ornaments. Guess what happened? The ornaments turned into, "What's this old thing for anyway? Finally, it's not really serving the purpose," and they eventually took them off.

They crossed a lot. Somebody asked me recently, "What do you think? Every lady that doesn't wear a head covering isn't a Christian or all Christian ladies wear head coverings?" I can't answer to that, but I tell you one thing. God's Word, when we look at Balaam, he was not concerned so much, how should I say?

He was not following the will of God in his prayers on those altars. He knew what God's will was, but he was trying to persuade God into his will. That's what he was trying to do. Let me once more go and try to persuade my God. So that's what churches are doing today.

So there's a Bible principle. We don't like the application, so we say, "Well, let me go once more again and dig into this Word a little deeper and really find out what God means by that." And we dissect the Word, and we look at it this way and that way from every angle. We say, "I don't really think that's what God meant."

That's exactly what Balaam was doing. He knew the will of God, but he said, "Let me go up to this altar once again and see if I can persuade God to come to my terms on the truth." That's what we do with God's Word.

We know it's there, but we say, "I don't like it. It doesn't fit my lifestyle. So how can I persuade God's Word to adjust?"

The truth today is back to the head covering. I have seen churches and ladies do this. They fool around with that thing, and they make it this shape and that style and that color and whatever else, and eventually, they lose it, and it's usually not very long. And that's sad, but I think if we're not careful, this compromising a little here and a little there and a little shaping of here, we lose it, and the principle's gone.

And then you discuss what was once a conviction. They say, "Well, we understand it this way now." Well, how? That's what Balaam was doing. I understand it this way now. I recently had a man tell me, "Well," and I knew this man at one time had a strong conviction against divorce and remarriage.

Well, he said, "I think in cases of abuse, when there's abuse in a marriage, then that frees that person up to go and get remarried again, the innocent one."

And I'm like, "How did this man get to this?"

Balaam got there too, and he introduced this into this church, compromise.

But where do we see that in the Bible?

There might be a place for separation when there's abuse. I'm not saying that, but Jesus never gave us any freedom anywhere that I understand in the New Testament to get remarried. Even if my wife is abusive up and down all day long, that doesn't set me free from the covenant I made with her.

That's how we want to understand the Word of God. It's too clear. We can't compromise. We can't fudge. Think of the Christians back in this church. Every little street corner they'd come to, and there's this little statue of the God of wisdom, the God of healing, or the God of pleasure. And you could go to these little store shops, and you could buy these cute little shrines that would identify you with this God. You take it home and set it on your dresser. You have a nice little statue of the God of wisdom, a nice little shrine here, just cute. Those are identifiers. I can't help but believe that when those folks went to the store to buy their clothes, their clothes no doubt had all these little symbols and emblems of identifiers: who your God is, who you relate to.

And the Christians here had to say, "No," because when I begin to compromise and have the little statues on my dressers, that is telling that I'm not loyal to my God.

What about us today?

Who are the gods of America today? I can't believe what America does, and we say, "Well, there are no gods in America." There sure are. There's people set up to—they even call them kings, maybe a great actor or actress or some sports player.

Folks, I'm here to say this morning that we are surrounded with gods.

We really are. We're not as blatant as these people were back here about it, but we're surrounded with them. And I call us, how are we going to say no and reject anything of expression or any identifier that would identify me with a God of this world?

Let's reject it. Jesus told these folks, "You're going to have to repent of this, or else I'm going to come, and I'm going to fight with the sword of my mouth."

The other doctrine—wow, our times are on and out again—Nicolaitans. I'll try to make this really quick. About the only thing we know about this doctrine, I think, according to God's Word and scholars and so on, have tried to come up exactly. We don't read much about this particular doctrine in the Bible, but we see in Ephesus that Jesus said that the deeds of this doctrine or the deeds of these people were in their midst, and they hated it, and he commented them for that because he said, "I hate it too." So we know that Jesus really hates this doctrine, and the church at Ephesus hated it. It was only a deed in their midst or in their surroundings, and here he says to this church, "It became a doctrine."

So from deeds to doctrine, somehow these deeds were influential, and they made their way into this church. What is it? I don't know if anybody really knows for sure, but they tell me the word is made up of two Greek words.

The first is "niko." I don't know if I'm going to pronounce that correctly, which means in and of itself in the Greek mean "niko" or "niko" means to rule over or to conquer. And then "laity"—laitans—would mean the laity.

So if we take definition from just simply the Greek words, it would simply mean to rule over the people. And that doctrine Jesus said, "I hate." Now, some think, well, that came in with, again, Constantine where all the big stuff came into the church where they had the popes and the priests and then later the nuns and all the special people of hierarchy became part of this great state church.

But I think it can come a little closer home than that.

What about these high-profile people that are in our midst at times? We elevate them. We chase after them, and we put them on a pedestal. And I remember years ago, my wife and I had a couple in our house, a young Catholic couple, and it seemed like he was sort of seeking for the truth, but she was so set in the Catholic ways, and we had a good conversation.

And one thing that she did say, she said, "Well, whenever I said about reading God's Word and this is what the Bible says and so on," she said, "We said we don't read the Bible." And I look at her, "You're a Christian. You don't read the Bible?" "Well, no. You see, our priests do that for us." "So you mean you don't really know what's in the Bible yourself? You don't read it?" "No. The priests read it, and they explain it."

And I'm like, "Well, how do you know they're right?" "Well, we just trust that they are right. We just trust them." Well, I said, "What if one day you wake up and find out they weren't right? Shouldn't you be digging in as a godly person into the Word of God yourself?" "No. We just trust them. We trust the priests." I mean, bring it home a little closer. I have a cousin in a distant state who's part of a church congregation, and their bishop wasn't quite what he should have been maybe, so they felt he was a little too lax or whatever, so it's time to ordain a new bishop. They put in their things from the ministry, and the deacon, which was sort of a young aggressive deacon, got into being the bishop.

And one of his first little speeches he made to the congregation, he got up, and he said, "I want you to know that from this day forward, things are going to be different," and basically said, "The book stops here, and what I say, that's how it's going to be."

Well, you know what happened to that congregation? It wasn't long at all. They just split apart. That kind of dictatorship or authority or whatever was never meant to be in the New Testament church of Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus said, "You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you." Jesus told his disciples.

That changed. That was history in the Old Testament. You had these big leaders like Moses and the prophets. You had all these big men, but in the New Testament under the new covenant, Jesus says, "I've written the law of God on each one of your hearts, and guess what? You're all kings and priests," and he put us all on one level.

Here we are a brotherhood. There's no one greater here. I don't care what your talents or gifts are this morning. Jesus said, "This shall not be so among my people." Get off of the high horse and come down on the level of the brotherhood, and Jesus told the disciples, "He that is great among you, let him be your servant."

I love that. And Jesus demonstrated that when he took the towel and he girded himself and he washed the disciples' feet. Is that why he hates this doctrine and that it should not be named among the New Testament church? And then he gives the rewards in closing here. He talks about the hidden manna to those that remain faithful to him. The hidden manna, what's he talking about? Could he be talking about John 4 where he says he told his disciples when they went out to buy food, and they came back and said, "Jesus, you need to eat," and he said, "I'm eating something you don't know anything about, and that is to do my Father's will."

It is a manna that is a deeper manna, deeper sustaining than our earthly food. Maybe he's referring to Exodus 16 where Israel was running out and they're hungry and so on, and he sent that manna that kept dropping. They didn't even know what it was. They went out and said, "What is it?" And Moses had to tell them, "It's bread. It's something for you to eat."