Draw your attention back to Revelation chapter 2 this morning. Beginning in verse 12, we are going to read the text of the third letter that Christ had John record to the churches in Asia Minor. Revelation 2 verse 12. And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write the words of him who has the sharp, two-edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore, repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it." Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our gracious Lord and heavenly Father, we thank you that we have another opportunity to come before you as a body this morning to worship you, to look to your word, to lift you up, that we might see the greatness, the glory of God. the express image of God in Jesus Christ, the God-man, the Son of God, who came and who redeemed us, who sacrificed Himself for us, who paid the debt of our sins that we could never pay, that we might be reconciled to You, God, as if we had never sinned. Lord, we pray that You would just speak to us here this morning, that the Holy Spirit would make His presence known with us, that we might feed on the Word here this morning, Lord, that we might be given some of that hidden manna here this morning. Help us to be faithful. Help us to be true to Your Word. Help us to be proclaimers of truth. and help us not to be in love with this world. It's in your precious and holy Son's name we ask these things. Amen. Well, when we write a letter or an email, we usually begin by addressing the person who's going to be reading it with some kind of pleasantry, some kind of word of kindness. We would start it, dear so-and-so, I'm glad to be writing this letter for this or that reason. Or I might say, it was so great to see you the other night, and then I continue on with the contents of my letter. Well, when the reader first starts to read that letter or that email, not many people write letters anymore, when they first start to read this, they can have some sense of hope that this is gonna be a pleasant letter. This is gonna be something that they can read and not have a lot of angst or a lot of anxiety in reading it. This is not what we have here this morning in our text. The letter opens with a sense of threatening, with an impending confrontation, if you will. The words of him who has a sharp, two-edged sword. In our world today, and in the mind of, I think, most churchgoers, in most professing Christian churches, they could never imagine receiving a letter from Christ addressing them in this manner. To most, Christ is all love. He's warm and fuzzy. He's all accepting. Let me paint a little bit of a picture from something that I was privy to recently. There was a person who made a post on social media regarding the acceptance of abortion by those who call themselves Christians. The original poster of this that was shared by this individual stated that they did not believe a real Christian could support abortion. And I think that's 100% accurate. Well, this person shared the post and received a response, and I will share with you part of that response. And listen closely. This person, and I quote, said, also don't question my beliefs because I support women choosing to take control of their own bodies. I love Jesus and Jesus loves me. He's accepting and loving, not judgmental. End quote. After a few additional words, including some cussing, the writer of this response, went ahead and blocked the person who shared the post without ever receiving a response or reaction. But did you catch the words that this young person used? I love Jesus and Jesus loves me. He's accepting and loving and not judgmental. He's not judging. He is the judge of the whole world. And by right, by authority, by victory that He has won, He has the right to judge as He sees fit. Go back and read Revelation 19 and tell me that Christ Himself is not the judge. This Jesus of this young lady's imagination is not in any way the Jesus that is described in scripture. It's not the Jesus who addressed the letter to the church at Pergamum that said to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write the words of him who has a sharp two edged sword. I pray that the Holy Spirit will grant us to hear this morning and to have hearts to believe and to hear what He says to us in this text from His Holy Word. Listen to me, we are not free to worship a God of our own making, even if we call Him by the name Jesus. Jesus, in fact, has revealed Himself to us through His Word. He is the Word. And if we are Christians, if we are true Christians, true followers of Jesus Christ, we must reflect and shine a light in this dark world of who Christ truly is. We must shine the light of what He says is holy and what He says He hates. We are His church and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Not according to our whims, not according to our desires, but according to what He declares His truth to be. We can't have our truth. All truth is His truth. As we start to look at this, there seems to be here in our text this morning to the church at Pergamum, the exact opposite issue of what the church at Ephesus had. The church at Ephesus, they were all about doctrine, but they had lost their first love. Here in Pergamum, it appears that they are showing a love, but have failed in doctrine and in truth. We'll see this as we look at this text here this morning. We'll see what I believe is one of the major problems in the church today. a church, a professing church who is so eager to show love and acceptance of others and their beliefs. So we have a group of people who call themselves Christians who don't want to be looked at as being unloving. They don't want to be looked at as being unaccepting of others. and they want to show love so much that they have failed miserably at reflecting who Christ is. Instead of standing for truth, instead of being fixed and immovable as to what God says is right and holy, the church has capitulated, compromised, and surrendered to the world in fear of being seen as unloving. in fear of what the world might think and do to them, instead of being in the fear of the Lord. I wish we had all day to look at this text. Unfortunately, we don't, and I don't want people to get to the point that they, I mean, we've got four more letters to go, right? So I don't want to get too bogged down here this morning, but I want us to take a look at our text here this morning. And let's glean from it what we can. And let's pray that the Holy Spirit will use this in our lives to draw us closer to Him, to be more resolute, more faithful, to stand stronger in the faith. Let's look at the historical context or the overview of Pergamum as we begin. The city was located, as are the other six cities that the letters were addressed to, in Asia Minor, which is now modern-day Turkey. The ruin of the ancient city can still be found today in the village of Bergama. The city is approximately 15 to 20 miles from the Aegean Sea. and it's alongside the Caiacus River Valley, about 65 miles north of Smyrna, which was the previous letter that Christ sent through John. This would have been that next destination on the postal route that we have talked about that had that circular, that clockwise route throughout Asia Minor. Pergamum was a very ancient city, and it was the seat of Roman government in Asia. Pergamum, or Pergamos, some of your, and I meant to mention this earlier, but some of your Bibles may have it as Pergamos. It's Pergamum in the ESV translation, it's the same place. But it contained the second largest known library in the world. During that day, you had two libraries, Alexandria and you had Pergamum. This library contained over 200,000 volumes of handwritten books. It was second only to that library, the most famous of which is Alexandria in Egypt. A very interesting story comes out of this, though. 400 years prior to the writing of Revelation, the king of Pergamum tried to hire the librarian of Alexandria away from Egypt. His name was Aristophanes. And the king of Pergamum's goal was to make Pergamum's library the best in the world, to exceed even that of Alexandria. And the king of Egypt, when he found out about this, was so mad that he put a trade embargo on papyrus, which was the type of paper, we'll call it paper for lack of a better term, the thing that you wrote on to create a book. So Pergamum no longer had this material available. Well, the scholars in Pergamum were then unable to make the books that they were making to build up their library, and they developed a new type of material from animal skins called parchment. And this allowed books to actually last longer. It was several hundred years, a couple hundred years before that actually caught on, but it allowed Pergamum to keep creating books for their library. And it actually was referred to as the Pergamos Charta, was what it was referred to. In English, we make a contraction of those words, which we get the word parchment from. So Pergamum actually means parchment. Pergamum was the center for emperor worship and Roman deity worship. Pergamum had a necropolis, which is a high hill or citadel, which is often used as a place of worship. So often you would have a city down below and a necropolis or this big hill up above. And on that hill is where all of the temples would be erected. The high place. And the city boasted temples to the Greek deities Athena, Zeus, Dionysus, Asclepius, Hera, Demeter, and Persephone, and temples were also constructed to Egyptian deities. The coins that were used in Pergamum bore the images of Athena, Zeus, Dionysus, and Asclepius. The great altar to Zeus was built on the Acme or at the highest point there of this Acropolis. And more recently, this temple to Zeus, this altar to Zeus was excavated in 1878 by the German Archaeological Institute. This would have been the most visible monument to people as they came across the valley. The altar has been preserved and is in unbelievably good condition. You can go online and you can look at this. And it's displayed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. Its decorations, its carvings, its statues depict scenes from the battle between Olympian gods and the giants, as well as scenes from the life of Telephus, the city's legendary founder. Another interesting note to history, after viewing this altar to Zeus there in Berlin, Hitler's architect of the Third Reich used it as a model for a stage and structure which was built for Nazi party rallies. and it was placed in Nuremberg, Germany, where the Nazi party had all the rallies. A lot of the videos you see of Hitler speaking, he is standing on something that is modeled after the altar of Zeus. The city was also home to Galen, who was the second most famous physician of the ancient world behind Hippocrates. It is here that the church of Pergamum receives this letter from Christ addressed to them with the title, The Words of Him Who Has a Sharp Two-Edged Sword. It is here that attention is drawn back to Revelation 1, verse 16. If you look back there, in his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword. And his face was like the sun, shining in full strength. In that day, one, there were people that were put over the city as magistrates, and they were given authority to wield the sword in judgment. This would be a very, very familiar reference to the people who lived in Roman territories. It is showing that this one, this one who has this sharp two-edged sword, has been given authority and power to execute judgment and to carry out a sentence. And it's here in verse 13, Christ says, I know where you dwell. Christ knows where this church at Pergamum dwells and the difficulties that surround living in such a place. I heard one minister preaching on this a while back that seemed to be insinuating that Christ somehow was giving them a pass or was more understanding of their failures due to the city in which they dwelt. I don't think that that is the tone at all to what Christ is telling the church here when he tells them, I know where you dwell. I believe that when we as individuals who also suffer from sinful passions and desires view other Christians in other areas We need to give them grace to understand that we may have the same type of failures given living in a certain place. But Christ doesn't view things the way that we do. I think what he is getting at here is that Christ is the dispenser of grace, of mercy, as the one who has accomplished redemption for us and gives out grace through the Holy Spirit that is equal to the grace needed in whatever area His people are. I believe in China today. China grace is needed. In the Ukraine, Ukraine grace is needed. In Russia, Russia grace is needed. And in America, America grace is needed. Equal grace Excuse me, grace equal to the need, given the area where Christ's people live, where His church exists. It is that grace that enabled some in the church at Pergamum to hold fast to His name and to not deny His faith, as we read in verse 13. Notice Christ says here, Yet you hold fast My name, and you do not deny My faith. Christ says, My name, My faith. These things are His. They are not ours. If we have faith, it is the faith of Christ that is given to us. We hold up His name, not our own. So it is grace which allowed some of them to hold fast, to stand firm, without denial, even in the days, as our verse tells us, when Antipas was killed. Antipas, Christ says, is my faithful witness who was killed among you. Antipas was given grace equal to the task. He was given Pergamum grace to remain steadfast and not deny the name of Christ. It's a precious thing to me to reflect on something here from the lips of Christ. He knows Antipas. He speaks his name. He knows Antipas as his faithful witness. We know absolutely nothing about Antipas from history. He's lost to us, save for this single mention from the lips of Christ. There's a fable written about him, but nothing that actually records history for us other than Christ's words. I think this needs to be a lesson to us. You know, I look out and I see a lot of ministers, especially on social media, and they seem to want to lift up their name. They want to be famous. They want to have a status, a celebrity status. Why is it so important for us to be remembered? And I'm not saying, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we don't want to have a legacy to our children. But that legacy that we should want to have is teaching our children about Christ, about His Word. Right? But for my name to be remembered by the world, what eternal good What does that do? So many ministers want to be known, want to be celebrated, yet Antipas is forgotten to history, but Christ says, he was my faithful witness. You know what mattered? It wasn't that Antipas was known to the world, but that Christ knew Antipas. My faithful witness who was killed among you, you know, there are some who use the name of Jesus who don't know Him. Think back to what I shared with you earlier. as we were introducing this message in the introduction. This one who says, I love Jesus and Jesus loves me. There are some who use the name of Jesus who do not know Him, who are not known by Him. Matthew 7, 21 through 23, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, Jesus speaking, says, on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Antipas is not this one. Antipas was known by the Lord and was his faithful witness. Antipas instead hears the words of Matthew 25, 23, when his master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter the joy of your master. This was Antipas. It's all we know. Christ's faithful witness. Well, we have recorded for us in the last part of verse 13, "...even in the days of Antipas, my faithful servant, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells." This is a difficult and troubling repeated word in verse 13 in the message from Christ to the church in Pergamum. We know that when something is repeated in scripture, we better take notice of this, right? That we should look more intently at something when it's repeated. Well, we find this allusion to the throne of Satan and where Satan dwells in this verse. Christ says, I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Christ says, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed, where Satan dwells. There have been several reasons and explanations pointed out by the commentators and expositors of Scripture for this allusion. I find good reasoning in most of them, and I find the best reasoning actually is for all of them to be added together and viewed almost with the Aristotelian phrase, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So we could look at each one of these individually and see where this might be a reference to why Christ says this is where Satan dwells, where the throne of Satan is, But I think when we put all these together, the whole of understanding is much more powerful than all of the parts. So let's look at a couple of them, mainly three of them here. One of these explanations, one of these parts, is the fact that there was a tremendous amount of idol worship in the form of Greek and Greco-Roman deities and Egyptian deities there in the city. Obviously, this is forbidden idolatry to the people of God. This is idol worship. This is sacrificing to idols. Sacrificing to those who you call God who are not. Making these images out of your hands into something to signify your God and then worshiping it. The second, and this is one that has a lot of weight to it, even on its own, but the second is that there's this emperor worship taking place in the city. And I think it's interesting, in three of the letters to the churches, we have a reference to Satan. If you'll remember, in Smyrna, in the letter to Smyrna, in verse nine, And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Now remember, we talked about what a synagogue is. It's a place of worship. So the Jews who are not, who had condemned the Messiah, who had rejected the Messiah, are not viewed as Jews by Christ. And they are worshiping that at that point which Christ says is Satan. It's as bad as those who worship the emperor. It's as bad as those who worship Zeus. You've rejected the Messiah. You've rejected the Son of God. And then we have here in our letter to the church at Pergamum, and then in Let me find this again here. In the church to Philadelphia, in chapter three of verse nine, behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie. So I think that dwelling in this area where emperor worship was prevalent probably has a lot of weight to it in why Christ says Satan dwells here. But there's one more, and this is the one I found to be extremely weighty in my opinion. They were worshiping and sacrificing to a Greek god named Asclepius, or Escalapius. It's Latin Escalapius, the Greek is Asclepius. This is somebody who I think we should know a little bit more about. He was a Greco-Roman god, the god of medicine and the son of Apollo, according to Greek tradition. He was worshipped in the temple dedicated to him, and the sick came to sacrifice for healing and receive medical treatment there at the temple. Within the temple, snakes were free to roam, and one of the secret healing rituals was to be placed in a tunnel underneath the temple and be given some sort of drug that would induce this this coma-like effect, this just being out of it and receive visions of Asclepius. And the snakes would gather in that tunnel, and they would slither all over the bodies as they were in this sort of trance from the drug, from the medicine. Well, his symbol is actually very familiar to us today. We see this often at hospitals, in ambulances. I for years thought that this was a reference to Moses in the wilderness when he lifted up the brazen serpent when they were bit by the snakes. That's not what the symbol for medicine is. It's the symbol of Asclepius. This idolatrous, this false god that was being worshipped under the symbol of a snake, a serpent, here in Pergamum. Even the Hippocratic Oath the original Hippocratic Oath. It has been changed, it has been altered, it has been updated, but the original Hippocratic Oath began by saying, I swear by Apollos Soter, which means the Savior, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses making them my witness. Asclepius, worshiped under the form of a serpent whose actual form and whose actual name is Satan. Revelation 12, 9, And the great dragon was thrown down, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Revelation 22, and he sees the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. Taken as a whole. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And there are more reasons. There are five that I was able to find. These three are the ones that I think are the most powerful reason for Christ saying, this is the seat of Satan's throne. This is where Satan dwells. In verse 14, Christ then says, but I have these things against you. There are some there who hold the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also," verse 15, you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Evidently there were believers in the church of Pergamum possibly even the leadership in the Church of Pergamum who tolerated teachers who were spreading a sinful, unbiblical, idolatrous lifestyle. The leaders in the church had evidently failed in the area of church discipline to protect the flock Christ's body, the church, and the influence of these teachers, these false teachers, was acting like a cancer, ravaging a healthy body like a cancerous disease. Remember the church in Ephesus commended for what? What were they commended for? for testing those who called themselves apostles and are not. Christ, and found them to be false. They tested them, they found them to be false, and they rejected them. So the commendation for the church at Ephesus comes the condemnation for the church in Pergamum. They have allowed this cancerous teaching, this disease to spread among them. Well, Balaam here and the Nicolaitans seem to be tied. Remember we talked about the Nicolaitans in the first part of chapter two in the letter to the church of Ephesus and we said we would circle back to that. Well, we're circling back to that. There seems to be a tie here. The Nicolaitans were somehow in with the same type of teaching as those who held to the teaching of Balaam. If you remember Balaam, the history that is given to us in the book of Numbers 22 through 25, the king of Moab, this Balak, the king, and his people had seen the children of Israel conquering as they came through the wilderness. as they were taking possession of the promised land, right? And they feared, because they feared that they were going to be conquered. And so the king of Moab, he sent messengers to Balaam, actually twice, to try and entice and pay Balaam to curse the children of Israel. And you remember the incident where Balaam is allowed to finally leave and go with these messengers the second time, and God even uses Balaam's donkey, who he was riding, to speak truth to Balaam. Unfortunately, that's kind of where we usually leave the story. There's a whole lot more to the story. There's a whole lot more to the history that is recorded for us here in Numbers. Well, Balaam went on three different occasions to three different mountains, each time offering seven sacrifices to God. And he received the word of the Lord and gave that truthfully in an oracle to Balak. The Lord would not let Balaam curse his people. He would not do that. We find then, we learn from our text here and additionally from the text of 2 Peter 2.15 and Jude verse 11, that Balaam loved wealth and although he wasn't allowed to curse the children of Israel, He put a stumbling block before them, which led to what takes place in Numbers 25, one through nine. The people of Israel began to whore with the daughters of Moab and were drawn into sexual immorality and taking part in the feasts of food sacrifice to the pagan gods of Moab, namely Baal. This led to a plague sent by God, which killed 24,000, and did not end until a man named Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, when one of these men brought this Moabitish mistress into the Temple of Meeting, into the Tent of Meeting, And Phinehas went and grabbed a spear and slew both of them. And the wrath of God was subdued. And he relented of this plague. This was exactly what was occurring in Pergamum. By those who held the type of teaching that Balaam used with Balak to cause a stumbling block to Israel. These same type of things are what undoubtedly the Nicolaitans in verse 15 were also doing. They were also by their works and teachings similar to those in the church in Thyatira, which we will look at next, who were seduced by a woman, Jezebel, to sexual immorality and to eating foods offered as sacrifice to idols. This was a huge problem in the church in Pergamum. and the church being led to tolerate and take part in those things which Christ hated. Remember in the church of Ephesus, Christ isn't a judge. He said of the works of the Nicolaitans, I hate them. I hate them. They're evil. They're unholy. They're not what pleases me. Remember Paul's words in the letter to Galatians in Galatians 1, 6-10? I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed." Literally, let him be damned to hell. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Repetition is important in Scripture. Twice, let him be damned. For am I now seeking the approval of men? or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not, Paul says, I would not be a servant of Christ. This teaching that was allowed to continue in Pergamum was a gospel contrary to the one preached by the apostles and by Christ himself. This is not the true gospel. This was a worldly gospel, a satanic gospel, a gospel contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord. See, in reality, the society at Pergamum had no problem with Christianity. Now listen to me here, and let me finish this. They had no problem with Christianity. What they had an issue with was the exclusivity of Christianity. You could worship whatever gods you wanted. You could worship Christ as long as Caesar was Lord. The problem was Antipas, remember back to Polycarp from Smyrna, how am I going to say Caesar is Lord? 86 years I have served Christ and He has done me no harm. How am I going to do that? Remember Joseph in Egypt? How am I going to sin against my God? You could have worshipped any and all as long as it wasn't just Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the true gospel, the gospel preached by the apostles that Paul was talking about in Galatians is an exclusive gospel. It's a narrow way. The only door is Christ. All other ways lead to death. In a hell prepared for the devil and his angels. The devil who dwells in Pergamum. Christ is the way, he's the truth, he's the life. No man comes to the Father except through him. Christ and Caesar are not Lord. Christ is Lord. Acts 4.12, and there is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. 1 Timothy 2.5, there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. So verse 16, he says, therefore repent. Repent of this evil, turn from this evil, say the same thing as God says about this evil teaching. The false gospel, the worldliness, and giving in to the world. Repent. Can you just hear the excuses? What are the excuses we hear today? Well, if we're gonna reach the world, we've got to be like the world. Well, if I'm gonna reach this group, I have to look like this group. I have to talk like this group. I have to be in the area where these people are to reach them. I have to be like them. I have to know more about them. Excuses. This is the same spirit that we see in the world today that was occurring in Pergamum. Repent. James 4.4, you adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity to God? You want to be friends with the world, you make yourself an enemy to God Almighty. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Repent of your adultery with the world. Repent of doing what Israel was doing in Numbers 25. Repent of whoring with the children, with the daughters of Moab. With whoring with our secular society, which is the enemy of God. to use medical terms, excise it. Remove the cancer is what Christ is telling the church here at Pergamum. Repent, be done with it, get rid of it. Get it out of the church. There's no place for worldliness here. There's no place for false worship. There's no place for capitulating to the world's demands. Not within the church. Not within God's people. And Christ is telling the church at Pergamum, repent or else. It is a scary thing to think that Christ would come quickly and war with those in His church. It's not real clear whether this is warring with the church or those outside the church and leading them astray. I believe it's probably a little bit of both. Because there were those who would have made themselves as if they were part of the church. Those who would one day stand and say, Lord, didn't we do this? Didn't we do that? Depart from me, I never knew you. You workers of lawlessness. This was once again, wasn't a suggestion to repent, it's a command. And it has a threatening promise attached to it. He warred with Israel. Did he not? He warred with them when they were guilty of this and 24,000 perished. Verse 17, who has an ear to hear? Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Once again, we are commanded to hear what the Spirit says to the church, not a suggestion. And then we have a wonderful promise. Last part of verse 17. To the one who conquers, to the faithful one, I will give some of the hidden manna. Well, the manna, if you remember, in Exodus 16, God sent bread from heaven. and he fed the wandering people of God. Well, some of that manna was hidden in a pot and placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Israel was on their way to a land flowing with milk and honey. Yet, as they wandered in the wilderness before they got to the promised land, They were grumbling and complaining, starving and hungry. And we have recorded in Exodus 16 that God gave them manna from heaven, bread rained down for the people to gather and be fed. This manna is what sustained them throughout their journey in the wilderness until they reached the promised land. Christ is that hidden manna. Sent from heaven to give us life, to sustain us as we travel through this barren wilderness on our way to the promised land. John 6, 33-35 says, For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to Him, they said to Christ, Sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. John 6, 48 through 51, I am, Christ says, the bread of life. Listen, your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. You know, the Jews believed that when the Messiah would come back, they would find that Ark of the Covenant and take that manna from inside the Ark of the Covenant out of that pot and feast on it. They missed the fact that Jesus Christ is that hidden manna. Hidden because you have to be given eyes to see Him. Well, the white stone with a new name There are numerous explanations for this, and some of them I believe have merit. I won't go into great detail on all these for the sake of time, but I think the ones that have been the most relevant, that would have been the most relevant to that time that this letter was written, and in the area in which it was written, is that there was a white stone given to the victors in the games. And that white stone was a sign of victory and an entrance into the celebration at the end of the games. The victory celebration. After they had endured the hardship of the games, of the event, and had been victorious. A white stone was also a vote in the courts for innocence. or to cast a vote for an acquittal of the one suspected of crime. Christ has won the victory. and enabled us to stand justified before the Father, reconciled to Him judicially as though we were innocent through the substitutionary atonement that He offered on the cross for His people. A new name, a name only known to the one who receives it, Again, there are numerous attempts to understand this and I wish we had time to go down the rabbit trail of all these, but I believe that The most probable explanation for this is it's tied to Revelation 3.12. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven and my own new name. I think that's what this ties to. Well, to sum these up, to conclude here this morning, what are we to understand from this? Well, I think the first thing is we need grace for the time and place in which we live. Equal to the challenges that we face in our own time and place. I think second, we must not capitulate to the world and its desires. Do you see the similarities with what was going on in Pergamum to what is going on in the professing church in America? How many of our so-called pastors and church leaders are giving in, are capitulating with the world and the world's desire in an effort to not be viewed as unloving? Think about what is truly loving. If you were a doctor and you really cared about your patients, and they came to you and something that they were doing was causing them harm, harm unto death, what loving doctor would tell them to continue in doing that which is causing their condition? It is not unloving for us to share the truth of God's Word with the world, even if they hate it. Even when they hate it. Well, do we have a problem with idolatry and false worship in America? Within the church in America? You know, I'm way over time, but I want to get this in. This issue that is so prevalent right now with abortion. Think about what that is. Millions of babies being sacrificed to the false god of sexual immorality. I'm going to keep doing what I want to do. I'm going to keep worshiping myself, body, my sexual desires, the desires of the flesh. And if I get pregnant, I'm just gonna sacrifice my baby. That's what's going on in our country by the millions today. Oh, my body, my choice. Make my own decision. Don't tell the woman what to do. For your own pleasure, you're offering human sacrifice to yourself. Do we have a problem in America with false worship and idolatry? I'm not sure the condition at Pergamum was any worse than what we are dealing with today in America. And you know what? If you suggest the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, you're in danger of the same thing that's going on in the church at Pergamum. where Antipas, my faithful witness, was killed among you. What about the little things? Are we compromising with the world? Are we compromising so that we can be at peace with the world? Sports gods. Actors. Music. The list goes on and on. Money. Success. Fame. I'm going to bow down to those things? Oh, but I'm still a Christian. No! It doesn't work that way. No man can serve two masters. You can't do it. Either you don't really know who Christ is, or you're in major need, as all of us are, to live our lives in repentance. Our lives as Christians should be characterized by repentance, turning away from sin and to our Savior. turning to the Word for knowledge of our sin and conviction, to the Holy Spirit to come for us and lead us with power away from our sin to look at the One who is the author and the finisher of our faith. And we must live knowing that Christ is our way. He is our hidden manna. He is that which is provided for us, that which sustains us through the wilderness of this world, no matter what it brings us. If it brings us the fate of Antipas, and Polycarp, and 11, 10 of the disciples, and Stephen, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Absent from the body, what? Present with the Lord. What's the worst they can do to me? Send me home to my father? Send me to the promised land a little quicker than what I thought? He wins the victory, and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for the time that we've had. Lord, we pray that You would just hide Your Word in our hearts, that we might not sin against Thee. Lord, that Your Word might convict us of the sin in our lives. that it might lead us to repentance and to faith in the one who has provided for us, who sustains us, who gives us bread from heaven to feed on as we wander through this wilderness. Lord, give us grace needed to live our lives here in this world that is contrary to you, this wasteland, this wilderness, this land that is opposed to you until we reach the promised land. We thank you. Thank you for your gifts. Thank you for your grace and for your mercy. In your name we pray. Amen.