3. The Pergamum Church

“¹² “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:

These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. ¹³ I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. ¹⁵ Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. ¹⁶ Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.¹⁷ 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. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.”  (Revelation 1:12-17)

This church is in the midst of perhaps, very demonic geographic places. This is a church that is in the center of places where Satan is truly manifesting in a very strong and powerful way. It is a church that it is constantly being challenged by the secular culture over the culture of God’s Word. This is a church that is faithful in confessing the name of Christ; they are surely not going after other gods. However, for the sake of politically correctness, they tolerate false teachings. This is a church with no backbone. They probably do it all in the name of love, but they are a bunch of “cheese-balls.”

In my short life as a Christian I have seen plenty of these Christians; they have a false sense of what love, mercy and grace are. The message for this church is to repent and take care of business by confronting and taking these false prophets out from among them. The message for this church is to do what they are called to do; not to wait for the Lord to do it directly. God is telling this church to repent, but also with a promise that He himself will deal with these false doctrines; He will deal with what the Pergamum Christian refuse to deal with. The Lord already gave us the authority to come against these false Prophets and Teachers. One thing is to have sinners coming to our churches with questionable life styles, the other is to allow people to actually be a part of the church and allow them to spread their venom and teach their lies as true.

Jesus ate among sinners, reached out to them, but He had no tolerance when it came down to the false teachers that were presenting a wrong doctrine of who the Father Is.

TO BE CONTINUED…