Turning Point - David Jeremiah

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Just as a tiny crack can spread and ultimately destroy
a Holmes foundation, a small compromise can eventually decimate your faith. Today,
on turning Point, doctor David Jeremiah takes a closer look
at the Church of Pergamus, a church that once stood
strong but had been weakened by compromises that still impact

(00:26):
us today. Here's David to conclude his message the church
in Satan City, Pergamus.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
The churches of Revelation don't represent every kind of church,
but stop and think about it for a moment. There
are some churches, like the church in Ephesus, that started
out to really love the Lord and were on fire
for him, but along the way they lost their first love.
That's the language of the New Testament. And there are
some churches that have paid dearly for their faith. The

(00:55):
Church of Smyrna is an illustration of the suffering church,
some of them here in our country, but many of
them around the world and other places. And some churches, well,
they start out strong and then begin to make little concessions,
and before you know it, they have compromised away. The
power of the Word of God and the Gospel illustrated

(01:18):
by the church. We're studying right now the Church of Pergamus.
We called it the Church in Satan's City, and we
see what happened when it gave ground to the enemy. Revelation,
Chapter two, verses twelve through seventeen. Hey, friends, we are
going to Alaska in July, and I want to tell
you about it because it's a wonderful opportunity to get

(01:41):
together with God's people for a great vacation. This conference
cruise begins on the twelfth of July and lasts for
seven days through the nineteenth and it includes Stops and
Juno and will be in the Glacier Bay, will go
to Sitka and Ketchikan and Victoria. There's wonderful things to

(02:04):
see all along the way, great music from Michael Sanchez
and Hero Vega. I'll be teaching the Word of God
every day and we will have ourselves a wonderful time
in Alaska. I hope you can come and join us.
Find out more about it at David Jeremiah dot Org.
And now here is part two of the Church in
Satan's City. Baalim was a prophet in the Old Testament

(02:31):
times who professed to be able to influence the gods
for or against men by his incantations and his offerings. Well, Bailik,
who was the king of Moab, one of Israel's enemies,
wanted to see Israel destroyed. And he heard about Balem's talents,
and so he went to Baylim and he offered him

(02:52):
a big, fat fee, and he said, curse Israel for me,
and I'll pay you this money. And he couldn't curse
the people, and so he said, I'll get even somehow.
And he taught Balik how to destroy Israel. And this
is what he taught him. He taught him that he
could put a stumbling block in the form of enticement
from the women of Moab, and these adulterous women seduced

(03:16):
the Israelite men to take part in the idolatrous sacrifices
of the Moabites and to commit fornication. And the result
of that, if you know your old Testament, was that
God in judgment killed twenty four thousand Israelites because they
had disobeyed. And Balem was the reason for all of that.

(03:37):
He taught Bailik how to corrupt the people of Israel. Thus,
you see the doctrine of Balim is this. If you
cannot curse them, corrupt them. The sin of Pergamus was
the toleration of evil and evil men. The error of

(03:58):
Balem was that he thought for money he could get
God's work done. And the way of Balem is this.
It's covetousness. Listen to two Peter two fifteen. They have
forsaken the right way and have gone astray, following the
way of Balim, the son of pr who loved the
wages of unrighteousness. Now let's get back to the Book

(04:20):
of Revelation and put this all together. Notice I have
something against you because you have there who hold the
doctrine of Balim, who taught Baylic to put a stumbling
block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed
to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. The spirit of
compromise has been one of the greatest ills of the

(04:42):
Church since the days of Pergamus. The late Donald Gray
Barnhouse wrote, the very word pergamus has in it the
same root from which we get our English word for
bigamy or polygamy. It is the word for marriage, and
pergamus signifies a mix marriage in the most objectionable sense
of the word, for it is the marriage of the

(05:04):
organization of the Church of Jesus Christ with the world
and g Campbell Morgan said that the doctrine of Balem,
broadly stated, was undoubtedly that seeing that they were the
covenant people of God, they thought that they could get
away with indulging themselves in social intercourse with their wicked neighbors.
So what was going on in the Church of Pergamus,

(05:27):
and John says, I have something against you because of
this is though they were true to God, though they
had not compromised their faith, though they did not deny
what they believed and would not fall in line with
the persecution, they compromised their faith and they did not
live righteous lives. They began to get involved in the
culture of that sinful city, going to the pagan temples

(05:50):
once in a while. I mean, we have freedom in Christ,
heaving a part in one of the sacrifices. We're free
in christmise the integrity of one's faith. If we want
to have a little pagan festival along with our worship
of the Lord, that's all right. That's the doctrine of Balem.
To compromise, to take some of the world and put

(06:13):
it with some of the church and mix it all
up and try to be all things to all men.
Now listen to what the scripture says. And you also
have there those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolatins,
which thing I hate. Remember back in the Church of Ephesus,
we ran into the doctrine of the Nicolatins, and some

(06:33):
of the people in Pergamas held the doctrine of the Nicolatins.
As you will remember, Nicolatin derived from Nicao to conquer,
and laos people meaning the rulers of the laity, indicating
that in that city a priestly caste was formed, corresponding
to the priests and levites and Judaism. What was going
on there was the people in Pergamus were looking around

(06:55):
at all of the evil temples, and they noticed how
wonderful it was that they had a two class system.
They had the priests of the temple and they had
the laity, and they began to bring that into the church.
Harry Ironside said that Nicolaatin is really claricy, not heresy.
He said, is the subjugation of those who were styled

(07:15):
the laity by a higher archical order who lorded it
over them. As their own possessions, forgetting that it is
written in the Word of God. One is your master,
even Christ, and all ye are brethren. I hope you
don't think there's something special about me as opposed to you.
All I am is a member of this church who
happens to be trusted with the teaching ministry of the

(07:37):
Word of God and the oversight of the fellowship. But
in the sight of God, I have no more standing
than the least member of this congregation. I cannot get
anything from God for you that you cannot get for
yourself at the throne of Grace. The doctrine of Balem,
you see, and the doctrine of the Nicolatins sought to
persuade the Christians that there was nothing wrong with conforming

(08:00):
to the world's standards. But the most common word for
Christian is the word hagios, or holy, and it means
to be different or to be separate. The word holy
means to stand apart from the world and to be
different from the world. And therefore the temple was hagios,
the temple was holy, and the Sabbath was hagios. The

(08:22):
Sabbath was holy, and God is hagios, and Christians are
supposed to be hogyasks holy, separate, different, not amalgamated with
it all. And I've heard people say today, and it's
probably true, there's so much of the Church in the
world and so much the world in the Church today
you can't tell the difference between the two. And that's
what was going on in Pergamus. They had compromised their faith,

(08:44):
and the Lord says to them in verse sixteen, if
you don't repent, I'm going to come to you quickly
and fight against you with the sword of my mouth.
The Roman governors had the authority to execute people, and
in the language of their people they were said to
have it was I die or the right of the sword,
and the proconsul in Pergamus had already put many to death.

(09:06):
He had the right of the sword. But Christ writes
to that church and he says, I want to tell
you who's got the right of the sword. I've got
the right of the sword. If you don't clean this
mess up, I'm coming after you with the sword that's
in my hand. Tells you something about how the Lord
feels about our compromise in our lives. Now. At the

(09:27):
end of the letter, he says, he who has an
ear to hear, let him hear what the spirit says
to the churches. And then he makes two promises. And
I just have to summarize this quickly. He says to
him who overcomes, in other words, if you will stand
apart from the cult of Balim, and stand apart from
the cult of the Nicolatins, if you will be an overcomer,
a Christian who lives your faith out, then I've got

(09:48):
two things i want to give you. Number one, I'm
going to give you some of the hidden Manna. Oh,
there's all kinds of things said about that, you know.
The manner goes back to the Old Testament, when God
gave to Israel in the desert the mana. They didn't
have anything to eat, and he gave them some manna
to eat. And when the desert experience was over, the

(10:10):
mana didn't go away. They took a pot of that
man and they put it in the ark, and they
laid it up before God and the Holy of Holies
in the Tabernacle and in the temple. It was the
hidden Manna. You can say whatever you want to about
what he means here, but without question, the mana which
is called in one place the grain of heaven, and
in another place it's called the bread of angels. This

(10:31):
is the Lord's saying to the people in Pergamus. Listen carefully.
In this world, you cannot share with the heathen in
their favorite feasts, because you cannot sit down to eat
that which is a part of a sacrifice that's been
offered to an idol. And you may think that because
of that, you're being deprived. But don't you listen to
that for a moment, because I've got something special for you.

(10:54):
If you will be an overcomer and stand apart from compromise,
I'll give you the special manna of my words that
is just for you. Have you ever been in the
midst of all kinds of pressure trying to live your faith?
I remember when I was a student at Dallas Seminary
that one of the jobs I had during the four
years i was there was as a freight hand for

(11:16):
the Illinois California Express. I worked on the docs eight
hours from three till eleven, throwing freight, and it was
a dirty job, and I didn't know many Christians who
worked there. I found out the first day I went
to work there. That the language was not what I
was accustomed to hearing at Dallas Seminary. But there were
a couple of Christians who were there, and I will

(11:37):
never forget how I found them. Out your break for lunch,
everybody takes their lunch pail and they go back to
the room, and all around the walls of the room
are the vending machines and all of that. And I
looked over in a corner and here was a young man.
He had his lunch pail out, and in his lunch
pail was a New Testament. And he was back in
the corner with his hidden manner, getting some nourishment for

(11:59):
his soul. God had given him something special. He couldn't
participate in what was going on all around him, because
that belonged to the satan that was paganism. But he
had something special from God. You don't have to participate
and compromise your faith with the festivals and the feasts
and all of the cultural things that go on in
the pagan world. You've got something far better. You've got

(12:22):
the hidden Man of God, and he wants to give
that to you. And remember now he makes that real
for those who are overcomers. Notice the second thing he said,
and I'll give you a white stone, and on that
stone a new name. And I will give to some
of you the hidden manna to eat, and I will
give him a white stone, and on the stone a

(12:43):
new name written, which no one knows except him who
receives it. I have to honestly tell you that as
you study the Book of Revelation, the probability is that's
the hardest symbol to interpret. There is nothing that we
know of that gives us the key to that symbls.
I don't want to pretend that I know for sure
what the white stone means. I do know that in

(13:05):
ancient courts they used white and black stones for registering
the verdicts of a jury. For instance, a blackstone meant condemnation,
a white stone meant acquittal. And when the jury would vote,
they would take the stones, and each of them had
a white and a blackstone, and they would throw them
into the pot, and then they would take those stones
encounter them, and if there were more blackstones than white stones,

(13:26):
then there was a conviction, and if there were more
white stones than blackstones, there was a quittal. Maybe what
we're seeing here is the Lord saying you look around
at the world in which you try to live for Christ,
and it's filled with paganism. But I want you to
know the most important thing about your life is You've
been acquitted before me. You've been given the White Stone.
I've voted in your behalf. You're one of mine. One

(13:50):
of the most ancient customs in the ancient world was
to carry in their pocket an amulet or a charm.
Often that charm was nothing more than a pebble. On
the pebble a sacred name. And to know a god's
name was to have power over that god, according to
the Greek culture, and to be able to summon him
to your aid in time of difficulty, and to have

(14:10):
mastery over demons. And such a little emulet was thought
to be doubly effective if no one other than the
owner knew the name that was inscribed on it. Maybe
what John is saying is this, your heathen friends, and
you did the same in your heathen days. You carry
emulets with superstitious inscriptions on them, and you think they

(14:32):
will keep you safe. Your pagan friends think those amulets
will keep them safe. You need nothing like that. You
were safe in life and in death because you know
the name of the only true God. I could give
you ten or twelve different interpretations. I don't know which
one is right. I just know that God says this

(14:53):
to them. You don't have to compromise your faith for
in your personal relationship with Me. There is something special
I have reserved for you. And you live for me,
and you be an overcomer, and you walk the faith
in your high school, in the place where you work,
wherever you live your faith, and if you do, I've
got a special provision for you. And over and over again,
I've heard people say that to me when I have

(15:15):
lived for God in the midst of the terrible situation.
Some of you young people who go to pagan schools,
you may be the only Christian in your class. And
when you live for Christ, there's something special that God
does for you. He always does it. It's a part
of his promise. And so to the church. In Pergamus,
Jesus writes these encouraging words. We cannot forget as we

(15:41):
study these letters, that each of these churches represents a
period in the history of the Church. Now listen carefully.
Ephesus represents the Church of the Apostles, the Apostolic Church.
Smyrna represents the persecuted church right after the APIs Stalic days.
There was a great wave of persecutions under the Roman emperors.

(16:04):
But Pergamus represents the Church that got married to the world.
And let me tell you in closing the story of
how that happens, so you'll understand what happened in that
third section of church history. Clear at the end of
the Smyrnian period, during the time of persecution, the last

(16:25):
Roman emperor was a man by the name of Diocletian,
and Diocletian for ten years persecuted the Church. It may
have been the most severe of all the ten persecutions.
When Diocletian died and he left the Roman emperor's throne,
there were two men who were fighting for the throne.
In the east was Maxentious, and in the west was

(16:50):
a man by the name of Constantine. Tradition has it
that the night before these two men were to fight
it out to see who would get the Roman emperor's throne,
that Constantine saw a vision in the sky in the
shape of a cross bearing the inscription on the cross
in Latin in Huk signal vices by this sign conquer.

(17:16):
That night, Constantine bargained with Satan to join the Church
and declare himself a Christian, and Christianity would be the
religion of the state. So Christian leaders were invited to
witness the wholesale baptism of whole regiments of Roman soldiers.
According to the Edict of Constantine, he gathered up all

(17:38):
the soldiers and he said, you will be Christians, and
he baptized them all. And the unholy alliance of the
Church and the state began to develop, and Christianity was
forced upon the people. Folks who didn't even know what
Christians were were forced at sword point to be baptized.

(17:58):
It was either baptism or day. And when later almost
four hundred bishops met Constantine watched this. Now was carried
on a golden throne, and he presided over the council
as the recognized head of the Church. With all of
this profession and pomp, there is no evidence that Constantine

(18:19):
was ever born again. True believers in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who were being persecuted now found themselves being lauded. Where
once they were persecuted, now they were popular. Civil authorities
and political figures were seeking to be friends with the Christians.
The rags of their persecution and their hideouts in the

(18:39):
catacombs were traded for softer garments and more comfortable dwellings.
The Pergamas stage of history came into being, and the
Church was married to the world. The title that was
given to Constantine was Pontifax Maximus. While still retaining his

(19:01):
Heathen high priestly title, Constantine assumed headship of the Church.
Church and state were thus united, and Heathenism was gradually
brought in to Christian churches and Christianized Pagan temples became
Christian churches. Heathen festivals were converted into Christian festivals. Pagan

(19:22):
priest slipped into the office as Christian priests. Doctor Christwell
has written, and he said the priests of Jupiter, of Juno,
and of Dionysius, of Bacchus, and of Venus, and of Adonius,
all of these were paid out of the purse of Caesar.
But now that Caesar was a Christian, the priests of
the temples hastened to their baptism so they could remain

(19:45):
on the imperial payroll. They turned their idle temples into churches,
and they said, these are no longer images of Jupiter,
or Juno or Venus. These are images of the saints.
These same rituals by which the they had worshiped Astarte
and Aphrodite and Venus, they now employed to worship the
true Queen of Heaven. They bowed down in the same way.

(20:11):
They said the same ceremony in the same temples, before
the same idols. Only now the idols were named after
so called Christian saints. Even the days by which the
priest honored their gods were made days on the calendar
to honor those saints. The astonishing thing took place almost overnight. Heretofore,

(20:32):
humble homes and catacombs and dungeons had echoed with the
hymns of God's children, who singing was sometimes changed into
shouts of the martyrs as they were dragged into the arena.
All of that was now passed. The rags of persecution
were changed for the plush silk of the Imperial Palace,
and the Pergamian period of the Church had begun. Walter

(20:57):
Scott said Constantine offered his gold and patronage to the church,
and it eagerly swallowed the bait, sacrificed its conscience, and
allegiance to its Lord, and the Church and the world,
which had hitherto walked apart, were soon locked in each
other's arms. It was a fatal union. Let me ask

(21:18):
you a question, what is the test? Is it in
the Bible? Is it from God? Don't tell me about history.
I want to know. Is it in the scripture? Is
it from the Lord? I want to close by reading
a passage of scripture to you that I hope you
won't forget. Turn back in your bibles to Second Corinthians,
will you please, Second Corinthians? And I want to read

(21:42):
in the sixth chapter what God has to say through
Paul to the church at Corinth about compromising our faith
with the festivals and the paganism of the day. Listen
to the word of the Lord in chapter six, verse fourteen.

(22:04):
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what
fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light
with darkness? And what a chord has Christ with belile
or Satan? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?

(22:25):
And what agreement? Watch this now? What agreement has the
Temple of God with idols? For you are the temple
of the Living God. As God has said, I will
dwell in them, and I will walk among them. I
will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore,
come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

(22:48):
Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.
I will be a father to you, and you shall
be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Let
me tell you something, my friend. Don't you ever bow
down before anybody but God. Don't you ever bend your
knee before anything but the Lord. Don't you ever swear

(23:12):
by Heaven or by Earth in the name of a
saint or a past leader of any church. The Lord
God demands your absolute allegiance, and he will not accept
your faith compromised with the things of the world. The
church at Pergamus had three good things about it, but

(23:32):
the church in Pergamus was destroyed basically in her testimony
because she thought she could marry with the world and
maintain her faith. Well, we put a period at that
place in our study of this church. We have more
churches coming, the Church of Thiatyra and Sardis in Philadelphia

(23:57):
and Leah Deesea. In the weeks ahead, but tomorrow we're
going to take a moment to reflect upon Easter, and
our lesson tomorrow will be why does it matter? Why
is it important that the Resurrection be in the central
place of our faith? You don't want to miss tomorrow
special Easter programming. As we look together at the twenty

(24:19):
fourth chapter of Luke. As we say goodbye today, I
want to remind you again that Turning Point has a
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(24:40):
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It will help you, it will strengthen you and add
value to your walk with the Lord. Thank you for listening.
See you next time.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Our message today came you from Shadow Mountain Community Church
and Senior Past doctor David Jeremiah. What is God doing
in your life as a result of this ministry? Write
and tell us at Turning Point po Box thirty eight
thirty eight, San Diego, California, nine two one sixty three.
Visit our website at Davidjeremiah dot org, slash radio, or

(25:18):
call eight hundred ninety four seven nineteen ninety three ask
for your copy of David's best selling in depth book
on revelation, Escape the Coming Night. It's yours for a
gift of any amount. You can also download the free
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(25:39):
access our content, visit Davidjeremiah dot org slash radio for details.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
This is David Michael Jeremiah.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Join us tomorrow for the special Easter message Why Does
It Matter? On Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah