12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write;
These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;
Before I broach the meaning of the name of the third church
Christ wrote to, let’s look at the two edged sword. There are only three other places in scripture
where the two edged sword is mentioned.
One scholar translated this to mean that the swords moved
‘quickly.’ That pitiful explanation does
not even begin to explain this statement in Psalm 149. I want you to read this psalm and as yourself
if you can apply this kind of authority to your own life. Remember, your real strength does not lay in
who you lead openly but in who you move spiritually in prayer.
6 Let the high praises
of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; 7 To execute
vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8 To bind their
kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9 To execute upon
them the judgment written: THIS HONOR HAVE ALL HIS SAINTS!
This is all one sentence.
The purpose of the two edged sword is to punish, bind and execute God’s
will on those who will not submit to His Word.
It continues to say that all His saints have this honor. By the law of first mention this should have
put a great dread in the hearts of the church of Pergamos. To have their Savior begin his letter by
saying the Judgment of God is hovering over their church is terrifying. The two edged sword is not an implement of
protection. It’s only purpose is
judgment. This is reinforced in Proverbs
5.
3 For the lips of a
strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4 But
her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. 5 Her feet go down to
death; her steps take hold on hell.
As I said before, the two edged sword is solely for
judgment. In this case it judges illicit
romance. It begins with passion and
excitement and ends with broken marriages and disillusioned children and
congregations if you are a minister. One
might even say it is judging a perverted marriage since this man is finding
love on the lips of a STRANGE woman. If
you want to take this path further, do a word study on WORMWOOD and see where
it takes you, even in Revelation. There
are eight instances of wormwood in scripture and they all bring the sense of
your sins eating you up from the inside.
The gall or bile that most of them reference is the chemical
in a body that dissolves proteins, in other words…you. Disobeying the Word of God is a bitter
experience that will eat you alive from the inside. In many instances this bitterness comes out
after the initial feeling of smooth oil or sweet honey taste. What we are warned about is that Satan has a
way of making all our bad decisions seem pleasant for a short season and then
they will eat us alive. Now let’s look
at Hebrews 4.
11 Let us labour
therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief. 12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any
twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the
heart.
As you can see in verse eleven, the final warning is to
abstain from unbelief and then it makes it perfectly apparent that this
unbelief is referring to a lack of faith in GOD’S WORD. To those who say it doesn’t take all that or
that the Word of God is flexible and can be taken with a grain of salt, know
this…God watches His Word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:12). He will not let it fall to the ground. His sword will judge you and your every
thought. There is not one dark secret
that He is not aware of and He will hold you in judgment if you do not repent.
Having said all that, let’s look at the name Pergamos. In this place, especially in this circumstance,
the name means a perverted or illicit marriage.
It doesn’t matter if you spout volumes of words about love and noble
character, if your ‘love’ is not in line with God’s Word you fall into the sin
of Pergamos. This includes but is not
limited to sex outside of marriage, sex with someone other than your spouse,
sex or marriage with someone of the same gender or even allowing yourself to
entertain thoughts in that area. God
ordained the rules and basis for marriage and if you choose to find ‘love’
outside of His plan you too are a Pergamos church.
13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where
Satan's seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith,
even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among
you, where Satan dwelleth.
Jesus isn’t a fool.
He knows exactly where your church is and whether you are in a place that
is full of idolatry and sin and where you are hated for your faith. He expects YOU to live holy and fully according
to His Word. Pergamum was a city FILLED
with idolatry, sin, blaspheming and perversion.
It took a strong willed soul like Antipas to hold on when so many were
winking and turning aside. At the same
time every Roman citizen was required to offer a pinch of incense to Caesar
each year to buy and trade. Simple
yes? Just a pinch and declare him to be a
god. You don’t even have to believe it,
just do it and get your certificate. The
only problem you have is that two edged sword watching your life and comparing
it to God’s Word. Jesus didn’t argue
about the difficulties they faced, only that He expected HIS church to be
without spot or wrinkle. The Devil likes
to be creative. Antipas was placed
inside a brass bull shaped idol and it was heated till it was red hot. It was said that he sang praises to God until
he died.
14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou
hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a
stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto
idols, and to commit fornication.
So, we’ve established that it was a difficult place to live
in faith. In the United States we have
our own Pergamums like Las Vegas, Atlantic City and others less well known;
places where prostitution and gambling are legal and sin is rampant. I’ve been to airports in Europe where women
come into the restrooms and clean while men are relieving themselves right in
front of them. They nobly claim to be
above sexism and racism. They call evil
good and good evil. Nevertheless people
still live for the Lord in those places.
You just need to have a heart that is fully given to the Lord. The problem is that certain unsaved religious
people in these churches bring in ungodly ideas to ‘help’ the church.
In Numbers 22, Balak, the king of the Moabites was terrified
of Israel. Sadly, Go had told Israel to
leave the Moabites alone but Balak didn’t believe it. Israel was dwelling in the land God had given
them and Balak hired Balaam the prophet to prophesy against Israel. The story is quite long but the end of the
matter is that Balaam told Balak to send his beautiful women into Israel’s camp
and when the Children of Israel married them they would bring their pagan gods
into the camp and Israel would no longer have God’s protection. He couldn’t prophesy against a blessed Israel
but for money he sure could teach Israel’s enemy how to remove the blessing.
Many churches today have believing unbelievers who take
scripture with a grain of salt and think whatever unscriptural ideas they have
to raise money or counsel people are God given.
They do not live separated lives of prayer and devotion to God and will
do whatever they can to drag the church into the modern world. They had this attitude two thousand years ago
and they are still corrupting the church today.
There are sins we should never think of committing and these people coat
them with a layer of sugar and honey to make them palatable. These are they which say sexual perversions shouldn’t
be judged because Christ died for those people.
They are like Satan telling Jesus to turn stones into bread so the
church can be blessed (Matthew 4:3).
It’s just like Satan to try to prove spiritual things by allowing
forbidden natural things.
15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the
Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. 16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
As for the Nicolaitans, some believe that you cannot come to
God for yourself; that you needed a priest to show you the way. Jesus said if you want to be a priest you
should serve as a slave. These people
however, like the middle ages Catholic Church, said you had to come to Jesus
through the church to be saved. The word
Nicolaitans means “Ruler over Laity.”
The laity is the ordinary members and these people believed you must
come to Jesus through leaders only.
These people began to take the scriptures away from the people until one
Catholic Pope said that salvation only came through the office of the popes and
it was punishable by death to possess a personal Bible. Today many churches can hardly get you to
remember your Bible (even though it’s legal) to services and most Catholic
churches don’t require you to bring one at all.
Notice that Jesus said, “Repent or I will come quickly and
destroy you with the sword of my mouth.”
That is the two edged sword of judgment again. God will overcome the false word with the
true word. The false word will not come
true but the true word will. Remember
when Jezebel who had that same spirit brought 450 prophets of Baal and 400
priests of the groves into Israel (1 Kings 18:19). Elijah came with the Word of God and ordered
King Ahab to bring the false prophets to Mt. Carmel. He had them prepare a sacrifice to Baal and
he prepared one to the Lord God.
Whichever God lit the fire supernaturally was the true God.
The prophets of Baal prayed for hours with no success while
Elijah mocked them. “Perhaps your god is
asleep or on a journey or maybe he is relieving himself!” They became so incensed that they began to
cut themselves until they became faint with blood loss and still no fire
fell. He then repaired God’s altar which
Jezebel had destroyed and poured water all over the sacrifice three times and
prayed a simple prayer. God completely
devoured his sacrifice. Elijah then put
all 850 to death. He used the word of
God against them and God came through.
He burned the sacrifice, the stones of the altar, the water and even the
dust of the ground.
17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith 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.
For the 3rd time; “He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”
Once again, they needed to listen to God’s Word and take it
literally. When we come to the Lord we
are given a name. That name holds our
life’s promise and skills. It is who we
are. Our gift will make room for us and
provide for us. Like the wishy washy
saints in ancient times were willing to burn incense to Caesar to keep their
jobs so they might receive a white stone with their old name on it to use as a
pass visit the coliseum and obtain bread, Jesus will also give this church a
white stone if they are faithful, only his stone will have a new name to
identify their new abilities. This new
name is between them and God alone. We
need to trust our Lord to give us this name and to remain faithful long enough
to reap its benefits.
I’ve said it often in my lessons that the receiving of a
name from God is a big thing. Whether
your name is prophet or priest or king it lets you know what God expects from
you and gives you a head up to press on in a specific direction. Jacob (trickster, supplanter) was called
Israel (yis ra el – he will rule as God).
Saul (named after a failed arrogant king in Israel) was renamed Paul
(little). Why? Because as we read in 2 Corinthians 12:7-8,
Paul had a certain arrogance himself as a former Pharisee and needed to be
reminded of where his strength truly lay.
Proverbs 22:1 says that a good name is rather to be chosen
than great riches. Ecclesiastes 7:1 says
that a good name is better than precious ointment. What can be said about men and women of God
who ignore God’s Word and attempt to pollute His house with ungodly and immoral
decisions? My late Apostle could be
frustratingly single minded in his commitment to scripture but when you looked
back on his walk with God, confused and undecided would NOT be his names. Integrity and certainty would shine over
everything he did in Christ.
Beloved, it is difficult to obey scripture when our own
governments and social peers may look down on us. This does not make scripture wrong, it makes
the government or peers wrong and our choice clear. We must use all the weapons at our disposal
to heal this breach. The Bible tells us
to pray for our government and to witness to our friends. Be bold in the Lord beloved. If only one soul is won or strengthened by
your words and you meet that soul on judgment day it will be worth it.
Bishop J
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