Pergamum: Life At Satan's Throne - Revelation 2:12-17
Two gas company servicemen, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee were out checking meters in a suburban neighborhood. They parked their truck at the end of the alley and worked their way to the other end. At the last house a woman looking out her kitchen window watched as they checked her meter.
Finishing the meter check, the senior supervisor challenged his younger co-worker to a footrace down the alley back to the truck to prove that an older guy could outrun a younger one. As they came tearing up to the truck, they realized the lady of that end house was huffing and puffing right behind them. They stopped immediately and asked her what was wrong.
“When I saw two gasmen running as hard as you were,” gasped the woman, “I figured I'd better run too!”
The woman in this story was running from what she thought was a pending gas explosion at her house. The two servicemen, on the other hand, were running to the finish line…their truck. Pergamum, Life at Satan’s Throne, will ask us the questions, “from what are we running” and “to what are we running.”
Leaving Smyrna, we have traveled further northward and a little inland, to what is the northernmost and probably the most remote of church among the seven churches to which John writes. Let’s consider our template as we move through today’s reading.
First, there is the address with the connection of the author of the letter to the Son of Man from Revelation 1:12-19: “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum wrote: These are the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword:” Just as the importance in Ephesus of the One who stands among the lampstands was important in their call to action and Jesus be the one who had died and had come back to life was important in the promise to Smyrna, this importance of him who has the two edged sword will come back in the call to repentance.
Next we come to the commendation…what Jesus recognizes in a positive way about Pergamum. Jesus says, “I know where you are living, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan lives.
Just what is Satan’s throne? Well, there are a few folks who sit upon what some would call a throne…there is a drummer…there is a person that has gone to use the facilities…and then there is a king or emperor. We will go with the final option this morning with how it relates to the Scripture passage.
If you recall your mythology lessons growing up, the Romans had this pantheon of gods and goddesses. We also talked a few weeks ago about how when and emperor would die that the senate would then declare them a god…and then Domitian and some others pushed it a little further and wanted to be worshiped while they were still living and still in power. Well, if you had to take a guess as to where Rome decided to build a temple in Asia Minor, where do you think they located it? That’s right…right in Pergamum, and many scholars connect this temple with the reference to Satan’s throne in the letter to Pergamum.
So here we have this core group of early Christians in Pergamum, seeking to be faithful to Christ, and they are surrounded by this culture of folks who would worship the emperor. The Christians, knowing that there is only one God, and that there is only one Savior, refuse worship the Roman gods, the refused to bow down to the emperor. The pressure is applied, from the Roman government, from their neighbors, and possibly even from family members: “change, go to the Roman temple, bow down, get over this notion that “your God is the only true God, be like us, think like us.” The persecution kicks in and the pressure gets more intense, “if you aren’t going to bow before the emperor, then you will pay the price.” Finally, you get some that are real gung-ho for the emperor worship, maybe it was the people of the town who weren’t Christians, maybe it came down from the emperor himself…but the persecution turns violent. Somebody decided that we’re going to make an example out of one of these Christians and Antipas is killed—then they will either get out of town, or they’ll forget their faithfulness and come to the temple. We don’t know a great deal about Antipas. We do know, however, that Jesus considered him faithful. Antipas refused to give in despite all the pressure, he refused to bow down to the Roman gods, goddesses, and emperor, and he was killed for his faithfulness.
Jesus’ word encouraging word to the church in Pergamum is that they have held fast and not denied Christ, even under the threat of death. They did not run away in fear from the threat of evil, despite all the pressure put on them.
What kind of pressure does evil put on us? How are we pressured to turn from Christ? What do those around us try to pressure us to do that we shouldn’t? Maybe it is peer pressure, maybe it is pressure from those in authority. Is it to use drugs, and bow to getting high? Is it to do something dishonest on the job, bowing to the emperor profit or getting ahead? Is it to participate in racism, ageism, sexism, or any of the variety of other “-isms,” that would have us bow down to ourselves?
It is in the temple of racism that the brother of one of St. Paul’s former ministers found himself being called to bow down and worship. Vernon Tyson, brother of Bobby Tyson Sr., had been appointed to serve Oxford United Methodist Church. It was the early 70’s and racial tensions ran high. Vernon, a man faithful to God, sought to lead the people of that congregation to be a people of reconciliation of the races, something many did not like…and so those around him, particularly in the church, put the pressure on to change. Would he back down and run from the evil? Would he run and jump on the bandwagon and go along with the rest of the folks?
Reverend Tyson refused to give in to the pressure to bow down to evil. He stood his ground, ready for whatever would come his way. What is our reaction when the pressure is put on to participate in something that is ungodly, something that is downright evil (meaning it works against the purposes of God)? Do we run from it? Do we join in? Or are we like Antipas and Vernon, and the members of the church in Pergamum, do we hold fast to our faith in Christ? Do we run from what we think is a potential life-threatening explosion…or do we stand fast, regardless of what may come?
Remember the opening story…the woman was running from what she perceived as danger…the men, not seemingly doing anything wrong, were running to their service truck.
Jesus offers a word of correction to the church in Pergamum: “But I have a few things against you: you have some here who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice fornication. So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” We talked last week about the Nicolaitans, who were a form of Gnosticism—Gnosticism teaching that only the spiritual world was real, and the only way to the supreme spiritual being, we would call God, was through obtaining certain knowledge that could only be given by a higher spiritual being that deemed you worthy of receiving the secret knowledge. They were heretics and false teachers. The same could be said for those who held to the teachings of Balaam, and while the Scriptures give us a detailed picture of the conversations between Balaam, Balak, and the talking donkey, we do not know exactly what the teachings were that led the Israelites into eating the food of idols and practicing fornication, we read in Numbers 31:16 that “These women here, on Balaam’s advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.” Whatever it was that Balaam taught, it turned the people from the true worship of God, and he stood condemned for misleading the people. He was a false teacher as well.
Jesus’ problem with the folks in Pergamum is that while they had held fast resisting the evil of the community around them and refused to run from it, they now found that some had allowed false teaching to work its way into their lives. Rather than running from evil, they had run to false teachers. Why might they do that? We do not know exactly, but most likely it was because it allowed them to do something they wanted to do, it allowed them to compromise their faith in a way that seemed to be okay, but actually led them further and further from God and His truth. Or it may have been that someone that was popular or well liked was offering the false teaching, and simply because of who it was, they listened and followed.
That kind of thing still happens today. It is from a different time frame, but still in the area of Oxford North Carolina. False teaching split a church. There was a gentleman in the church…he was a deacon…he was a Sunday School teacher…he was a well-loved member of the community. For some reason or another, I could never find out the whole story, he believed and began to teach that Jesus was not really raised from the dead. The pastor called for him to step down from teaching and asked the church to dismiss him from his deacon duties, but there were many in the church who backed him, and though he should still be allowed to continue in all his duties. Sometimes, though, the false teaching doesn’t come as obviously wrapped as that…sometimes it is hidden, because it sounds good, because it comforts us, or because it makes us feel good, but it continues and grows until it becomes a problem. Maybe it is suggesting that a certain type of lifestyle is okay, suggesting that what I am doing is okay because God made me this way, and if you want to be this way too, then it is okay…and friends, I’m not simply talking about homosexuality, teachings that would permit adultery or polygamy. Maybe it is a teaching that gives a nod to drunkenness. There are some that try to make witchcraft compatible with Christianity…for instance a woman I knew that claimed to be a Christian and a “‘white’ witch.” That God ordains racism through a hierarchy of the races is another false teaching that has at times wormed its way into the church, such as the times that many church members and even clergy ran to and embraced the false teachings of the KKK or other supremacist organizations. The list could go on to how false teachings…teachings that are diametrically opposed to God, work their way into a church. Somehow these false teachings grow within a congregation and lead the folks away from God’s True Word. People hear something that appeals to them, and rather than standing firm on God’s Truth, sometimes we run to the false teaching and jump on the bandwagon.
It is from false teachings that Pergamum and all of us who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, that Jesus calls us to repent. Jesus warns that if he will not, He will come and make war against them with the sword of His mouth. That picture, though, is one that is just hard to imagine. Jesus coming and slashing his way through the members of a congregation filled with false teachings like Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The reason it is hard for me to picture this as the image we are supposed to have of Jesus and His sword is because the exchange with Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane where Peter pulled out his sword and struck the high priest’s servant’s hear, and Jesus told him to put that sword away. However, this is not the first time that Jesus has said something along these lines. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law (now you know where that tension comes from), and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”
Could it be, though, that this sword is not a sword of medieval times that we usually picture, but that this sword that proceeds from the mouth of Jesus is something else?
Ephesians 6:17 reads: “Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Hebrews 4:12-13 reads: “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render account.”
Could it be that God’s Word is the sword that proceeds from the mouth of Christ? Could it be that the God who spoke the universe into existence does not need a weapon of steel and iron, but that it is His eternal Word that would be brought against the false teachings? Could it be that at anytime we are confused as to what is right and true that we have simply to pull out our Bible, the Word of God, and lay it up against that teaching, and let it divide the true and the false? Which one seems more powerful to you?
We have the address…the commendation…the correction…so what promise does Christ offer to Pergamum?
“To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
Manna…a white stone…and a new name…
Manna…that which sustained the Israelites to sate their hunger while they wandered in the wilderness…God offers a promise of sustaining presence as the Pergamum residents endure their wilderness of oppression. Remember, in this economic oppression, families are having a hard time feeding themselves, so the promise of manna, the promise that God would fill their needs, comes as a wonderful word of hope.
The stone…what color is the stone? It is white. If take note of our apocalpitic symbolism, we realize that white is not the color of the good guys, for sometimes in Revelation the bad guys are white…white is the color of victory. Christ has promised that if the people will endure…if they will conquer the temptation to run away in fear or run to a false teaching, that He will give them victory…they will overcome.
The name that is not known…a name that is not known is mentioned elsewhere in Revelation. It is the name of the rider of the white horse…on him is inscribed a name that is not known…but He is called Faithful and True…He is called The Word of God…He is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Does the name on the stone matter to us today? No. What matters, what gives us ultimate hope, is that those who conquer are forever connected to Faithful and True, The Word of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ.
Let anyone with ears hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
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