Pergamum: The Poisoned Church

The Church at Pergamum: Revelation 2:12-17

Introduction

Imagine pastoring a church in Salem, Massachusetts--the international headquarters of the Satanic Temple and the historic hotbed of the Salem Witch Trials. Also the cultural center of American Wicca, Salem has renounced its Puritan past by opening its apostate arms to the witchcraft its forebears routed with ferocious zeal.

Now picture the world of Pergamum, which Christ identifies as "Satan's seat" in Revelation 2:13. An intense blend of sorcery and sensuality, this city was not only ground zero for emperor worship; it was also a popular center for the licentious worship of Diana (Artemis), the headquarters for the healing cult of the serpentine Asclepius, and the site of the Great Altar of Zeus that burned day and night with the smoke of occultism. This smoke included the martyred Antipas and earned Pergamum's reputation as the least safe place in the Roman Empire. Inevitably, idolatry and immorality were inseparably braided as the gold standard of Pergamum's pagan celebration. To a Christian, living in Pergamum would be like living in hell.

We might wonder how any church sprang up in Pergamum in the first place. Although we know that the same Christ who promised to build His Church also promised that the gates of hell should not prevail against it, what happens when the "gates of hell" no longer feel like "hell"? Pergamum is one of five churches of Asia that receive Christ's commendation, but it is also one of four that meet His censure for allowing Satan to slither inside its sacred doors.

Poisoned Doctrine

The Lord's definition of the blessed man in Psalm 1--as he who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful (Psalm 1:1)--should have anchored the doctrine of this church struggling under the eaves of Satanism. But we see not only that Pergamum was being poisoned; we learn that it was ignorant of its encroaching immunity. To be located in the seat of Satan and yet not be pummeled with persecution--as was Smyrna--waves an immediate red flag.

Long before a church shows signs of illness, we can be sure its teaching has been infected. Wolfish ideas hood themselves in sheep's clothing and slip inside the fold unseen. But wolves soon shed their "skin"--and strike like serpents with poisonous fangs. Even before false doctrine devoured Pergamum, old and new teachings--circumcision versus grace--clashed in early Christendom, causing confusion and division even among the Jews. In Acts 15, the Apostles met in the Jerusalem Council to wrestle out nonnegotiable evidences of true faith in Christ. Settling on a mere four of hundreds of laws pinpointed the exact sins of the flesh and spirit that in effect deny the grace by which we are saved.

These four external abstentions--meat offered to idols, blood, things strangled, and sexual immorality--made uniquely impossible a former lifestyle that endorsed the sins of either the flesh or the spirit. The idolatry and immorality endemic to Gentile paganism were strictly prohibited among believers in Christ. Lest grace become license to sin, Paul makes crystal clear that no sins of the flesh or spirit shall inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Colossians 3:5). Greed is as bad as lust. The fruit of the Spirit--borne of loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves--leaves no room for any works of the flesh.

The blessed man delights and meditates in the law of the Lord, but when that Sword arrests Balaam in his tracks, it is time for Pergamum to stand up and take notice. Christ wields the Sword of His Word with deadly aim the moment He addresses Pergamum: "These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges" (Revelation 2:12). This Sword of the Kingly Christ in Revelation 1:16--"And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword"--is the same Sword with which Christ defeats the nations when He comes: "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations" (Revelation 19:15). The Christian's weapon against Satan's strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4; Ephesians 6:17), this Sword knows no retreat: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

Although Christ commends Pergamum's faithful hold on His Name--praising the martyrdom of Antipas, whom tradition claims was roasted alive inside a bronze bull--He shows their hold to be precarious if they tolerate the doctrine of Balaam, "who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication" (Revelation 2:14). Pergamum was here directly violating the terms of the Jerusalem Council as upheld by Christ Himself. But Balaam's doctrine wasn't the only poison threatening Pergamum: "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate" (Revelation 2:15). Nicolaitans apparently believed that, since the body is evil, sins of the flesh can be indulged and excused because we are saved by grace.

Today we hear this heresy spouted as a rebuttal to the straw man fallacy of "works salvation": if we think we can't live as we please, that's dishonoring to Christ. As ridiculous and blasphemous as this sounds--aimed like a taser to numb the most compelling Scriptures that quicken a holy life--the Sword of God's Word beheads this serpentine "gospel" in mid-strike. We must either retain an entirely separate identity from worldliness or cease to exist as Christ's pure Bride without spot or wrinkle (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Ephesians 5:27).

Poisoned Devotion

The raw and unlovely truth about false doctrine is that it leads inevitably to false worship. The false worship of immorality and idolatry involves worship in body and in deception--undeniably so, for the "thing" being worshipped is dead. But Jesus makes clear to the woman at the well that "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit, and in truth" (John 4:24). While the Church at Ephesus knew they must worship the Lord in truth, they abandoned worship in spirit. But how sobering that there are two roads that dead-end in the seat of the scornful: not only the broad road of indulging sins of the flesh such as prostitution and promiscuity but also the winding road hiding sins of the spirit such as prejudice and pride.

In Christ's infallible wisdom, the entire Book of Revelation was delivered to each of the Seven Churches of Asia, and the fact that Ephesus and Pergamum were instructed to read each other's letters proves that neither church could point a finger: doctrine without devotion is no better than devotion without doctrine.

Poisoned Direction

Like Pergamum, today's Church has been poisoned by the false doctrine of antinomian "grace" with a Christ of our own making. For this reason alone, we must study the Book of Revelation--for we do not know the Christ of judgment. Ours is a woke Jesus of tolerance and affability. But Christ's warnings to His Church are just as fresh today as they were when delivered to the Seven Churches of Asia. If only those warnings had been heeded. But the five churches that mistook heresy for truth ultimately abandoned the Way, the Truth, and the Life, disregarding both Christ's indictment and His invitation. Death by poison--like Shakespeare's King Hamlet, they died having poison poured into their sleeping ear.

One of Scripture's saddest stories of soul-numbing poison involves the Moabites' incestuous origin--that accursed people whose doctrine of Balaam bewitched the Israelites for centuries with immorality and idolatry. Father/grandfather Lot had pitched his tent toward Sodom, inching closer and closer to history's hottest seat of Satan. How he tolerated this den of iniquity is unthinkable in itself, but he clearly lacked both Abraham's sense of direction and devotion. When the Lord delivered Lot and his daughters from Sodom, Lot was seduced by both of them and fathered the Moabites as a result. Moabites--of which beloved Ruth was one--were categorically barred from Temple worship. How their incestuous ideologies wormed their way inside nevertheless is heresy's own story.

The Church of Pergamum is left with one of two destinations: the blessed man's path to repentance or Satan's seat of the scornful. Christ commands: "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth" (Revelation 2:16). But notice the razor-sharp precision of Christ's Sword: He will fight against "them"--not "you." Christ does not remove the wheat with the tares, but once harvesttime arrives, nothing guarantees that any wheat will be left standing. History proves that the Church of Pergamum closed.

Conclusion

Consider Christ's closing words to Pergamum before He closed its doors: "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" (Revelation 2:17). Christ speaks not merely to the church as a whole but to individual believers. Although He will fight against "them"--all those who have turned apostate--He will reward "him that overcometh" against the wickedness of false doctrine and phony devotion. The Lord always has His remnant--even if only eight people in an ark--and I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait to join the rest of Christ's Bride who loves and adores the Bridegroom as He deserves.