Let's begin with a word of prayer.
Gracious Father in heaven, we thank you for this day.
We thank you for its blessings.
We thank you for all that you do for us.
We're grateful for the time of Thanksgiving and remembering the uh blessings that we have been granted and all of the bounty that we have in this country.
And we know that every good and every perfect gift comes from your hand.
We pray that we might always recognize that our greatest gifts
in life are not the physical ones or the financial ones, but the spiritual ones.
We're grateful for your church, for the body of Christ that we have here at Collierville, for the association and the fellowship that we have in your faith.
We might come together, encourage one another, provoke one another to love in the good works.
We might serve you faithfully day in and day out.
Lord, we pray that you be with those who are struggling, those who are ill, those who have physical difficulties, and we pray that your hand will be upon them, that they might be
able to recover fully.
Pray that you be with us as we go throughout this day, and may the worship that we offer you be that which is pleasing and acceptable in your sight.
All this we ask and pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Revelation chapter 2, we were discussing the church at Pergamos.
Verse 12 reads, the angel of the church in Pergamos write, these things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword.
Now you're going to find that picture, the sharp two-edged sword idea over and over and over again in the book of Revelation, but should we assume that it's talking about
a physical sword?
No.
As matter of fact, when you see the picture of the sword over and over in the book of Revelation, you find that it proceeds out of someone's mouth, not used by their hands.
What does the book of Ephesians there in Ephesians chapter 6 as
Paul writes concerning the armor of God, what does Paul describe the sword as being?
the Word of God.
The sword of the Spirit, he says, which is the Word of God.
And so over and over and over again you have this idea that the offensive weapon that God uses to deal with his enemies isn't a physical sword.
It isn't a physical tool of warfare.
It is rather
the power of His word, His authority, His truth.
Truth is by far the greatest weapon we have available to us.
If we sacrifice the truth for victory, we've actually defeated ourselves.
If we trade the truth for stability,
We've caused our own foundation to crumble.
Jesus, as He spoke to those disciples and the crowds gathering around Him, would say at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that the person who hears these sayings of Mine and
does them is likened to one who builds his house upon what?
upon the rock.
Now he's not saying somebody built their house on a bunch of pebbles, he's talking about the word there is for a bedrock.
Sometimes you might drive through uh different areas that have mountains, and you might be driving through the valley and look up on top of the hills and on top of the mountains,
and there's a great big giant house sitting right up on top of the mountain.
You might wonder why in the world, number one, would anybody want to drive up and down that mountain in the middle of winter?
And then you might also wonder how sure is that house?
How guaranteed are you that that house isn't going anywhere?
Well, one of the benefits you have on the side of a mountain is guess what the mountain's made out of?
Rock.
You get that foundation solid in that rock, not in dirt, not in mud, but in rock.
And the mountain's coming down before the house does.
And the reality is that Jesus tells us if you build your life on the truth of God's Word, sure, you'll endure storms.
Sure, you'll endure floods.
Sure, you'll go through all the turbulent things in life, but what your house will be built on, what your life will be built on, will not move out from under you.
You can flip on the world news.
And in a lot of countries that have been dealing with a lot of storms and a lot of hurricanes and typhoons, they're dealing with mudslides.
was listening to one news report and a guy said he heard a rumbling, came out of his house, and immediately started to try and get everybody in the whole village to get out of
their houses.
Why?
because of the mudslide that was going to come down and going to wipe out the entire village.
Some of them got out, some of them didn't.
It wasn't a rock slide.
It was a mud slide.
eh That foundation can move.
That foundation is uncertain.
When the one who talks to the churches, when the one who's sending the message to the churches begins by saying, I'm the one who has the sharp two-edged sword.
He is identifying the fact that you're either on his side or you're not.
because that sword is going to divide those who stand with the truth and those who don't.
So notice what the one who has the sharp two-edged sword writes to the church at Pergamos.
I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr.
who was killed uh among you where Satan dwells.
But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat
things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which
things I hate.
Now you remember the church at Ephesus, right?
What did the church at Ephesus stand against?
Back there in verse 6.
the deeds of the Nicolaitans.
So as we already discussed, uh we don't know a lot about this group, but it seems as though it was a group within the church influenced highly by the Gentile world, that they
were loose in their morality, they were loose in their doctrine.
And God says, I hate their deeds.
But now we're writing to the church at Pergamos and he says, have some among you who are practicing their deeds.
And this is the second time that Christ says, I hate their works.
We should not overlook the fact that there are deeds, actions, doctrines that can be taught in the very churches that wear the name of Christ that Christ says, hate everything
about that.
Absolutely.
There's a reason why it's worth pointing out in conjunction with what Ava said.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
The problem that was going on in the church in Pergamos was not that they believed everything the Nicolaitans taught.
It was that they allowed the Nicolaitans to remain in good standing within the church.
Notice what Paul writes dealing with a similar issue, this time in Corinth.
with the man who had his father's wife, chapter 5 verse 1 of 1 Corinthians.
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father's wife.
And you are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you."
Paul says, you had had a right attitude about this, this man would not be in your presence.
But he goes on to say, he says, for I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged as though I were present him who has done this deed.
Paul says, I don't need to be there in person.
I don't need to be an eyewitness to this.
I know.
what has been reported and I know it to be true.
And as a result of that I can judge righteously from where I am." And he's about to do that.
He says, "...in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for
the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."
Your glorying is not good.
Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and...what?
Truth.
I wrote to you, verse 9, in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or with extortioners, or with idolaters, since then you would need to go out of
the world.
But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral.
or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person.
For what have I to do with judging those who are outside?
Do you not judge those who are inside, but those who are outside?
God judges, therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person.
If you notice that ending quote, put away from yourselves the evil person, it's a quote that appears again and again and again and again and again in the book of Deuteronomy.
God says when someone violates the law and persists in it and is unrepentant of it and will not turn and repent, He says, put them out.
The law for Israel was, you put this person out from among you.
You don't allow them to stay in their inheritance.
You don't allow them to stay in their family.
You don't allow them to stay in your nation.
You do not allow them to remain because their sin
Their rebellion is infectious.
That's what the analogy of leaven is.
When you place leaven inside a piece of dough and let it sit there, does it just sit there?
What happens?
The leaven spreads throughout the entire dough.
Paul says you can't let sin sit in the body of Christ.
You can't let those who persist in immorality and are unrepentant remain in the body of Christ.
And that's what those who practiced the deeds of the Nicolaitans and the doctrines of the Nicolaitans were.
They not only practiced it, they taught
others to practice it.
Hence the analogy and the comparison to Balaam.
Balaam taught Balak how to get God to curse Israel.
And as a result of the fact that Balaam taught Balak how to get God to curse Israel, thousands died.
Not by the hand of Balak, not by the sort of Moab, but in judgment from God.
So, Paul writes to the church and says, you deliver this one up for destruction.
Who are they to deliver him to?
Satan, how do you deliver someone to Satan?
Do you bind them up in uh handcuffs and fetters and carry them to some uh dark place in the midst of the earth and deliver them to a serpent?
How do you deliver someone who's in the body of Christ to Satan?
Correct.
You remove fellowship from them.
because if you are not in fellowship with Christ, who are you in fellowship with?
Satan.
Now, by their actions, by persisting in their lifestyle and being rebellious and unrepentant, they have already chosen to be in fellowship with Satan.
The problem is the church was still acting like they were in fellowship with Christ.
turn over to 1 John chapter 1.
1 John chapter 1 and verse 3, that which we have seen, John writes.
Remember, same writer of the book of Revelation.
That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
Notice that John says, through the doctrine,
and the truth that John and the other apostles taught and their hearing, believing, and obeying that truth, they had fellowship with the apostles and through their fellowship
with the apostles and the truth they had fellowship with God and Christ.
But notice what else he says.
This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him," now notice did the Nicolaitans say they had fellowship with God?
Yes they did.
Did they say they had fellowship with Christ?
Yes they did.
Yet what does John say?
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice.
This what?
The truth.
John makes it clear you cannot be out of fellowship or agreement with the truth and in fellowship agreement with God.
Now you know why the church at Pergamos, their message begins with, I'm the one who has the sharp two-edged sword.
What does a sword do when it comes in contact with flesh?
It separates it.
It separates the living from the dead.
John?
is writing to a church that was in fellowship with evil.
And John's going to tell them, you have a choice.
You can fellowship evil or you can fellowship me, but you can't fellowship both.
Notice he says, thus you also have those, verse 15 of chapter two of Revelation, you have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate, repent or else I will
come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Christ is not going to leave the analogy to their own interpretation.
He is going to make it incredibly clear.
It is with His Word that they can have fellowship with Him.
It is with His Word that He can remove them from fellowship with Him.
The church does not have need of burning anyone at the stake.
The church doesn't have need of lynch mobs.
The church doesn't have need of flogging someone through the street.
The power of the church to separate someone from fellowship with God is in what?
Not bonds, chains, and imprisonment, but the word.
And Paul would point out that when the church assembled together, they had the authority of the Word of Christ.
When an assembled body of Christians declares that because of someone's immoral actions and immoral persistence in immoral participation and immoral doctrine that they are no
longer in fellowship with Christ evidenced by the Word, the truth of God,
That is authorized by Christ.
You don't have to have elders.
You don't have to have a preacher.
It is an assembled body of the church that is authorized to withdraw fellowship from those who walk disorderly.
That's the only qualification there is in the New Testament, is that the church has to do it as a body.
But notice, whether the church would do it or not, what was true about what Christ had done.
Whether the church would withdraw and cut off the Nicolaitans or not, what had Christ already done?
He'd already cut them off.
The question was whether or not the rest of the church would be cut off with them.
It is important to realize you can lose your salvation by fellowshipping evil.
by holding to that which God will not hold to.
And John tells us why.
Go back there to 1 John chapter 1.
God is light and in Him is no what?
Darkness at all.
If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Now here's where the challenge is.
Where does grace end and judgment begin?
That's the challenge for every congregation.
That's the challenge for every member of the body of Christ in their own lives.
Raise your hand if you were perfect all last week and the week before, the week before that.
Here's something to remember though.
John helps us identify where grace ends and judgment begins.
Turn back to 1 John chapter 1.
It is a challenge to get through Revelation 2 and 3 quickly because there are too many sermons and too many lessons that need to be taught and need to be learned.
Especially for congregations.
Because that's who it's written to.
But in 1 John chapter 1, notice what John teaches us.
He says, verse 7, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
There's grace, right?
We're walking in the light, we're in fellowship with one another, and the blood of Christ continually, there in the Greek, cleanses us from all sin?
Yes, all sin.
But, he says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
John says here's one of the ways you can move out of grace and into judgment.
Look at your life and claim you have no sin.
Look at your life and claim you no longer need God's salvation, forgiveness, redemption.
That you are no longer in need of the blood of Christ.
and you'll find out that you're a liar and the truth is not in you.
But notice he says, verse 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
John says here's your standard between grace and judgment.
When we realize we have sinned, we seek God's forgiveness, we turn from that sin, and we repent of it.
Were the Nicolaitans repenting of the things that they were practicing and teaching?
No!
Hence Christ said, you put them out because they will not repent.
Where does grace end and judgment begin?
Where repentance refuses to occur, where someone determines they will persist in rebellion against God in the face of the truth.
Can you be guilty of something you don't even know is a sin?
Absolutely you can.
Matter of fact, in the Old Testament law, God through Moses tells Israel, I'm going to give you set of ordinances and sacrifices that are for sins you didn't even know you
committed.
Why would God do that?
Because He knows that people will go from a point of youth to old age and sometimes they'll never be taught everything they need to know.
And under the Old Testament law, when you're guilty of one thing, you're guilty of what?
All of it.
The law condemns you.
So God gave them a sacrifice for that sin that they didn't even know.
they had committed.
but did that absolve them from the sins they committed and then wouldn't repent of?
No, because that wasn't a sin they did ignorantly, that was a sin they did intentionally.
What was the punishment of the man who went out on the Sabbath after the Sabbath law was given by God, went out on the Sabbath and gathered sticks?
he was stoned to death.
Seems like a harsh punishment for picking up sticks, don't you think?
See, the point wasn't that he picked up sticks.
The point was that he did it in direct rebellion to the direct command of God.
and he did it fully knowing that he was doing it, and when he was found guilty of it, sought no repentance and no forgiveness at all.
His determination was, I don't care what God says, I'm doing it my way.
and for that he was judged.
Where does grace end and judgment begin?
Where someone is unwilling to repent fully knowing they're in violation of the law.
Now John is going to tell the church, because guess what?
Now the church knows that their practice of fellowshiping the Nicolaitans is in direct violation of the law.
Now they have a choice.
They have a choice to continue in grace or have judgment.
Why?
because while they may have convinced themselves that their actions up until now were okay, they have just been informed directly from the Lord they're not.
And so the sentence is, verse 16, or the condition is, repent or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna to eat, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who
receives it."
Now in the midst of chapters two and three, you have some of the pictures that you're going to find in the rest of the book.
Like for instance, a new name.
all throughout the Old Testament, even in the lives of the apostles, you have God taking individuals and giving them what?
A new name.
What was Abram's name?
Abraham.
But his name wasn't Abraham until he was 99 years old and God changed it a year before Isaac was born.
When Ishmael was born, his name was Abram.
His wife's name was Sarai.
At age 99 and 89, God changes their name to Abraham and to Sarah.
all throughout the Old Testament.
You have examples of God changing the names of individuals.
What was Israel's original name?
Jacob.
When we call them the nation of Israel, the children of Israel, that's identifying their father.
That was his name, but it wasn't his name all throughout life.
It was the name God.
gave him.
Now, Christ says to this church, to the one who overcomes, to the one who is faithful, by the way, sometimes overcoming is overcoming the temptation to not repent.
Sometimes we look at ourselves and we think, know what, it'd just be easier if I just continue just the way that I am, not make any changes at all.
That is a temptation to not obey God.
Especially when we look in and say, well, wait a minute, I've got friends, I've got family that are over there who believe the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.
If I do what John is telling me to do, I'm going to...
my family.
No.
Now you lost your family when they held on to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans and wouldn't repent.
We have a challenge in the body of Christ.
And it's a challenge that the world doesn't have.
You see, the world is not responsible.
for separating faithful believers from those who were once faithful believers but have now departed from the faith.
You're not going to be able to call up the magistrate.
You're not going to able to call up the judge.
You're not going be able to call up the police officer and say, I need you to deal with this.
This man was once a faithful follower of Christ, now he's an idolater.
Sorry, they're not, they're gonna hang up on you.
That's not their job.
and Paul will point out, go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 5 in your mind, and remember Paul says, I'm not telling you to separate yourself from those in the world who practice
these evil things.
Where did Paul say you'd have to go if you were going to separate yourself from everyone in the world who practiced immorality, sexual immorality, idolatry, defrauding people,
covetousness?
Where would you have to go?
He says, you'd have to get on a rocket ship and leave the planet.
Call up Elon, because you're going to need a ride, because you're going to have to leave the earth if you're going to separate yourself from everyone in the world who practices
sin.
Consider this.
We are commanded to judge more harshly and actively behave in a different way from a Christian who has become unfaithful than from a person in the world who's never obeyed the
truth.
And say, wait a minute, this person over here is committing adultery and they've never obeyed the gospel.
And this person over here obeyed the gospel, now they're committing adultery, why should I treat them differently than I treat them?
And the answer is because you've been commanded to.
If this person hears the gospel and obeys it, what do they have to do?
They have to repent and get out of that adulterous relationship.
This person already knows the truth, and they have determined in spite of God's command, in spite of their own knowledge of God's Word, to persist in rebelling against God.
Does this person know the truth?
No idea.
Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but they've never been obedient to God's commands.
This person knows the truth.
and knowing it is directly shaking their fist in the face of God and saying, will not repent.
God says you can't treat them as if they're ignorant.
You can't treat them as if there are no consequences for direct rebellion against God.
So it is the responsibility of Christians to treat differently the unfaithful Christian.
Caught up in the same sin as the world, we treat the unfaithful Christian differently than we treat the world.
Why?
Paul told us.
It wasn't because we hate them.
because we love them and we want them to do what?
Repent!
Here's one of, go ahead.
Yes.
If we draw that together, if they say, you know what, I'm not going to ask for forgiveness.
I'm going to keep doing this.
I'm going to persist in this action.
I'm going to continue living this way.
This is not a discussion of someone who's struggling with sin and repenting of it and struggling again and repenting of it and is trying to
pull themselves out of the grip of sin.
This is about the person who says, don't care what the truth is.
I don't care what the scripture says.
You can't tell me I have to leave my adulterous relationship.
I'm in love with that person.
I don't care if she's married.
I don't care if that person has a spouse already.
I don't care if they are not scripturally divorced.
I'm going to persist in my actions no matter what.
Why is the church commanded to separate themselves from those who practice that type of sin?
Not because the church is perfect, but because if we condone it to things.
Number one, Paul says it will infect more than that person.
There'll be some innocent person over here who knows the situation over there and says, oh, I guess that's okay.
And now they'll go do the same thing.
And so they will become a participant in evil.
And now they're lost because we didn't condemn the person who was already lost.
We didn't set a separation.
and clearly identify that this action is not able to be participated in and remain in fellowship with God.
So the reason number one is because someone who's innocent might become lost by seeing and now believing that it's okay to practice that which they're seeing.
But number two, and I'll get to Ava in a moment, number two
is because if we persist in fellowship with evil, we cannot be in fellowship with God.
That's Christ's point to Pergamos.
You can be out of fellowship with evil and in fellowship with me, but you cannot be in fellowship with evil and in fellowship with me.
We are not in fellowship with the world.
We may sit down and eat a meal with the world.
We may sit down over Thanksgiving and sit down with a bunch of people who aren't Christians and have a meal with them.
but we are in no way pretending that we are extending spiritual fellowship with the world.
But a member of the body of Christ who has rebelled against God?
When we sit down and we act like everything's okay, everybody's good here, mm-mm.
God says, no you don't.
Paul says, you don't even eat with them.
Now the idea of eating there, not just crunching on a cracker, okay?
This is an action of fellowship as the body of Christ with that individual.
Yes, Ava.
Okay.
So, ignorance of the law is an excuse to a degree, right?
And that's important to realize.
In Israel, the law was both the civil ordinance and the religious ordinance.
So, there are practices on worship, but also there are practices on business dealings with somebody.
Well, if somebody is over here,
and he's got his scale and he's measuring out a pound of butter for a certain price and he says, right, I'm gonna sell you a pound of butter.
And he sells him a pound of butter, sells the next guy a pound of butter, sells the next guy a pound of butter, and three weeks goes by before he realizes when he tests the scales
with two things that he knows weigh a pound, his scales are out of whack.
Now has he defrauded people for three weeks?
Not intentionally, but has he defrauded them for three weeks?
Yes, because he said that was a pound of butter and it wasn't, but they still paid for it as if it was.
Here's a person who has committed a sin unknowingly.
Not because they didn't know that it was wrong to defraud people, they knew that, they just didn't know they were doing it.
Now what do they need to do?
They need to repent.
Can the man say, well, you know what, I just now realized I was defrauding people, but I can't really afford another scale right now, so I'm just gonna keep on.
Now he's committing a sin knowingly, and he's not restoring those he has defrauded.
So, God put an ordinance in place for someone to be able to repent of that which they did not realize they were doing.
Sometimes because they were ignorant of the law, sometimes because they knew the law and they didn't know they were violating the law.
but then also God commands them when they become aware of their sin to do what?
To repent.
All right, we're out of time.
Thought for sure we were gonna get through a couple more of these letters, but good discussion and thank