It is October 27th and that means that the holidays are right on top of us. What are y’all planning to do? Does anybody have plans to be with extended family during Thanksgiving or Christmas? Do you get along with your family? In some families you know better than to bring up certain subjects around certain family members. You don’t go looking to get people upset most of the time. You know better than to wear your red MAGA hat around your flaming liberal cousin, right? It’s not worth the hassle of arguing all through dinner.
Politics can bring out the worst in people, can’t it? I heard the joke about a guy who was on his deathbed and suddenly announced that he was switching from Republican to Democrat. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.” said his friend. “For your entire life you’re been a staunch Republican. Why would you want to become a Democrat now?” “Because I’d rather it was one of them that dies than one of us.”
But when it is your family, especially family that you rarely see, it’s usually best to not bring up topics like that, topics that are going to cause unnecessary trouble. And if something does come up that is likely to be divisive, in a family setting like this it is usually best to just keep your mouth shut. Now…if we could just do that!
Now, in a church family we are going to have disagreements as well. Not everybody is going to think exactly alike about everything because we are all different and come from different backgrounds but God gives us unity about the things that really matter. And for the things that don’t really matter, we show grace and love and move on.
The problem comes when somebody comes into the church with different spinal beliefs. I say “spinal beliefs” because I’ve heard Ben make a good comparison between beliefs that are spine beliefs and rib beliefs. We don’t compromise our spinal beliefs. They hold us upright and strong. Those beliefs include things like the virgin birth, the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus is God, Jesus is the only way to Heaven and we are saved by grace and through faith. Those are spine issues that we will never waiver on.
Some rib issues may be whether we should sing hymns or modern songs, (I think we do a good job of doing both around here, by the way) what time the service starts and what color the carpet should be. Those don’t matter near as much as the spine issues. We may compromise on rib issues and while I may feel strongly that the carpet needs to be Pepto Bismal Pink, I’m not going to leave if it doesn’t get changed.
But, do you know what? This world is highly offended by our spinal beliefs. They think it is narrow-minded of us to think that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. It is mean and harsh of us to think that just because somebody doesn’t believe like we do, that God would allow good people to go to Hell. When we stand up for our beliefs; beliefs that are written plainly in the Word of God, we are called haters, sexist, bigots, homophobes and more. I have heard it said that the truth sounds like hate to those that hate the truth and so we can just expect to be called names as we stand up and refuse to compromise on our core biblical beliefs.
We can expect in the near future for the world to do more than just call us names. We can expect for the future to bring more and more pressure to conform and compromise and fit in to what the world thinks. We can expect that because Satan is behind it all and he always has been. Satan hates the church and Satan is the prince of this world so we can expect the world to hate us. Don’t be surprised when it happens.
We already see it in other parts of the world. Just last week I saw this headline: “Christian church DESTROYED as Chinese police drag worshippers into street and beat them” If the police and military came to Christ Fellowship today and said we had to renounce Jesus as the only way to Heaven or we would have this building destroyed and all be beaten, what would you do? We would all like to think we would stand strong but that would be hard.
Hopefully it won’t be in our lifetime but what about our kids and grandkids? It is going to get harder and harder for them. At some point, they may have to make that decision. But for us today, we are still tempted to compromise on things but it comes in different forms than direct outside attacks. So many times, it comes from within and that is something the church in Pergamum was having to deal with.
Turn to Revelation chapter 2 again. We are continuing our series on the seven churches of Revelation. These seven churches were real churches not unlike this one and Jesus told John to write them letters on His behalf. Can you imagine getting a letter from Jesus? What do you think our letter would say? I think Jesus would say, “Dear Christ Fellowship, you hoodlums crack me up!” But that’s just my opinion.
The church at Ephesus got a letter that said they had lost their first love, the love for Jesus and others. The next church, Smyrna, got a letter saying that Jesus saw their suffering and poverty. Today we read the letter to Pergamum. Pergamum is also in modern day Turkey like the others about twenty miles north of Smyrna. It is land-locked but still pretty country but is known even today for its temples and statues to almost every false god or deity of any kind. It was THE place to go for idol worship and they were proud of it.
Let’s read Revelation 2:12-17 and see what Jesus said to this church that was surrounded by all this ungodliness. “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. 13I know where you live-where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city-where Satan lives. 14Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. 15Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. 17Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”
Now, don’t worry. If you got anything at all out of that in your first read, you are doing good. I read that the first time and thought, “What in the world does any of that mean?” Thank goodness we have books written by much smarter men than me to help us learn what is being said to the church in Pergamum.
In this, Jesus goes back to the “sandwich method” of giving bad news. He starts with something good, then goes to the bad news and ends with more good news, like a bad news sandwich. He starts by commending them for not renouncing Jesus and for staying true to Him even though they are surrounded by so much idol worship that Jesus calls the city Satan’s throne. Evidently a man named Antipas had been martyred there for not renouncing Jesus so that was proof that it had to have been hard to be a Christian at that time in Pergamum.
But that church had remained true. They had not given in and that is a big deal. Just like at Smyrna at this time, Pergamum was under Roman rule and if you didn’t burn incense to the emperor then you could get in trouble. And that’s about all you had to do and you only had to do it once a year. Do that and everything would be fine.
Don’t you know that had to be tempting? Don’t you know that people in that church were considering just going and burning a little incense? What’s it going to hurt? All we have to do is go through the motions. We don’t have to really believe it. We don’t even have to really worship the emperor. All we have to do is burn some incense in his name. No big deal, right?
I heard a guy say one time that he was trying to figure out what to get his young son for Christmas. He was torn between a toy or a pet so he bought him a rattlesnake. That’s what compromise is good for sometimes. But we all compromise on things every day. We want to eat tasty food but we don’t want the calories so we compromise…sometimes. We want a big, powerful pickup but we can’t afford the gas, so we compromise and get a Kia Sorento. A friend of mine said “my wife wanted to paint our house blue and I wanted to paint our house red. So as a compromise, we decided to paint our house blue.” Some of you guys know about that kind of compromise.
But a little bit of compromise when it comes to Who we worship is not a small deal. Have you seen those bumper stickers that say, “Coexist” with the letters made from different religious symbols? They have a Christian cross, a crescent moon representing Islam and the Star of David for Judaism and some other stuff. That looks nice and in a perfect world we wouldn’t have to deal with it but coexist is all we can do with other religions. We don’t hate them and we sure don’t hate the people that believe in them but there is no compromise with them either.
We are never going to have an all-religions worship service. We don’t go to worship services for other religions, even for a minute or for a special occasion. We don’t participate in their prayer times. Some of you may not agree but I think we need to leave public prayer OUT of the schools. It used to be that I was for it but now, what is to keep a Muslim or a Wiccan from saying a public prayer before school or at a football game? Leave it out entirely so we don’t have to compromise our beliefs. Kids can and should pray silently all day long. Parents should teach them that but public prayer in school is going to teach our kids the wrong thing sooner or later.
That’s what was happening in Pergamum - compromise. Jesus told them He saw how they did not renounce their faith in Him but then He goes on to say in verses 14-15 that they had some people in their church who held the beliefs of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. Now, without going into a long history of what Balaam and the Nicolaitans believed, just know that Balaam was in the Old Testament and the Nics were in the New Testament and both took the truth and just twisted it a little bit.
Satan loves this method. You know, Satan doesn’t tempt most people by coming out and saying, “Worship me!” Oh, he would love to be worshipped but he knows that doesn’t work very well. A better way is for Satan to take what is God’s truth and just twist it a little bit so that it sounds good. It sounds true. It sounds right. It’s not awful. It’s not drastic. It’s just a little twist. But it’s the first step on a slippery slope.
Balaam tried to curse the nation of Israel but couldn’t. In fact, God turned it around to be a blessing but Balaam was able to get the Israelites to marry foreign women. Now, is it wrong to get married? Of course not. Is it wrong to marry a foreigner? Nope. But it is wrong to marry an unbeliever. 2 Corinthians 6:14 says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?”
God doesn’t want us to marry an unbeliever because you start to compromise. You say you want to go to church Sunday morning and they say they want to “worship God’s creation at the lake.” You say you want to pray to God. They say they are praying to their higher power. Pretty soon you think you are praying and worshiping God but really…you’re at the lake fishing. You’re just fishing.
Do you know what a Trojan horse is? It is originally from the Trojan War in which the Greeks supposedly built this huge wooden horse and hid a bunch of men inside while the rest of the army pretended to sail away. When the Trojans saw them leave, they pulled the huge horse into the city gates. That night, the warriors came out of the horse, opened the gates and let their men in to win the war.
Satan loves that story. He loves to do just the same thing. I’ve heard it said that no outside enemy will ever defeat the United States but our downfall will come from within. I believe that. We are seeing it happen every day on the news. It’s the same with our church. Satan has attacked us nine ways to Sunday and we have always stood strong, with God’s protection and provision. If Satan ever wants to take this church down, his best bet is to take us down from the inside instead of a frontal attack.
That’s what he was doing in Pergamum. The church had allowed some people to become members of the church who were not like-minded believers and while the church had never renounced the name of Jesus, they had been compromising their beliefs to include some people who were misleading the other church members.
So, while we like to say that this church doesn’t have any rules, we do have a Constitution and Bylaws Manual and a Policies and Procedures Manual. Do you know what that means? It means we actually do have rules. I hate to break it to you. When we say we don’t have any rules, we mean we don’t care what you wear or what you drive or how you worship. None of that matters to us. Tattoos and motorcycles? Come on! You have been divorced. You are dirt poor. You’ve been to prison. Come on! You’ll fit right in. We don’t have any rules about any of that because we don’t read in scripture where we should have a problem with that.
But when it comes to Who we worship and what we believe there is no compromise. I bet some of you didn’t even know we are a Southern Baptist Church and I like the fact that some people don’t know because we don’t put a lot of stock in being Baptists. I wouldn’t even say that we align ourselves with Baptists. I would say that Baptists align with us on what we read in scripture and how we interpret that. Baptists are the closest to exactly what we believe and we are proud to be Baptists because Baptists do good work all over the world but it doesn’t define us. Scripture defines us.
But as our constitution says in Article 2, Section 1, “this church historically subscribes to the doctrinal statement adopted by the body at the time of its original incorporation in December 2012, namely the Baptist Faith and Message.” This is the Baptist Faith and Message. It is basically a written description of what we believe about scripture and God and church and how to be saved. I know this is the first time a lot of you have even heard of this and I encourage you to read it. If you are a Christian but don’t believe everything the way this lays it out, you are still welcome to come here but you may not be comfortable. If you are a non-Christian, you are still welcome to come here but you can’t be a member unless you are a Christian.
We don’t allow Muslims or Buddhists or Witches or Hindus to be members. It’s not because we hate them or even dislike them. It’s not about that. It’s about not compromising our faith. We believe what we read in the Bible and there is no room for other religions. That’s never really been a problem and I don’t expect it to be.
But here is how something might become a problem. It was probably something like this that led to Pergamum getting a condemning letter from Jesus. Let’s say I went to the Leadership Team one day and mentioned that I thought we needed to ease up on our stance about homosexuality because there is a gay couple in our community and they are pretty wealthy and I think they might start coming to our church but I don’t want to offend them by preaching against that kind of thing. What would you think?
If I came to you privately and asked you not to be so vocal about Jesus being God because some visitors complained and said they were offended by such narrow-minded talk, what would you do? If I went to the children’s teachers with some curriculum written by Oprah that said Jesus was just one of many ways to get to Heaven, would that bother you?
I tell you what, when that day comes, you need to quietly, lovingly and prayerfully get me in a corner and tell me to REPENT! Because that is exactly what Jesus told the church at Pergamum to do in verse 16. They had compromised. They had been attacked from the inside and they were not grounded in the truth of scripture to realize that if they kept on, it would cause them to be taken out of this world as a church.
In fact, that is what every one of us should do if we see a church family member struggling with sin. We should hold each other accountable and when God puts it on your heart to say something, you get prayed up and go in love and with your Bible open and lovingly bring that dear one back into right relationship with God.
In love you tell them that in Romans 1, God calls homosexuality shameful, unnatural and a perversion. That’s not our words. That is God’s Word.
In love you tell them that Ephesians 5:18 says do not get drunk.
In love you tell them that Hebrews 10:25 says that we all need to be in church.
I love it when we have the Gideons here. They raise money for Bibles and we completely support that, of course, but I love their stories. I love to hear how somebody tried to get rid of a Bible while they were riding in a plane and threw it out the window and some farmer found it down below and came to know Jesus because of it. I want to hear about the guy who got mad and threw his little Gideon Bible on his roof and the roofer found it in the rain gutter, read it and had his life changed.
Those are great stories but they show the power of the holy scriptures. We rest in, rely on and love the Word of God and we will never compromise on what it says. I want the world to know that we don’t hate them. I want the homosexual, the drunk, the deadbeat, the liar, the cheat, the murderer, the gossip and the glutton to know that we love them and will do anything to lead them to have a life-changing relationship with God through His Son Jesus. And we do that by reading, knowing and sharing what the Bible says because there is power in these holy scriptures.
These are fun times at Christ Fellowship. It’s fun, not because we have game night or eat brownies during Bible study. It’s fun because we are seeing people become new creations, marriages saved, families healed and eternities changed. And we know that the Bible is true because it works. It has never failed us and with God’s protection and provision we will never fail it.
We are far from perfect people in this church. We have some folks that have been serious hypocrites, liars, thieves, drunks, gluttons and overall ne’er-do-wells in this church – okay, that’s just me. But our lives have been changed – my life has been changed - by what we have read in the Bible and they continue to change by what we are reading in the Bible and we want others to have what we have. We have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus and because of that relationship we can have peace and joy in this life even in the difficult times. Plus, we have the assurance of eternity in Heaven in the next life.
This life is hard for Christians and non-Christians alike. I don’t know how people do it without that relationship with God but also a relationship with a church. And this church has proven in the past that we will not renounce our faith nor will we compromise our beliefs with God’s help.
If you would like to be a member of this church, I would love to talk with you and pray with you right now. If you need that relationship with God that we have been talking about, I would love to pray with you right now. All you have to do is ask God for forgiveness of your sins, repent – turn away from those sins and ask Jesus to be Lord of your life, believing in Him to be the Way, the Truth and the Life and the only way to Heaven. Do that right now as the music plays.
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