April 4 We Have Liberty.

April 4

We Have Liberty

Re 2:14 But I have a few things against thee

It was a beautiful spring morning as you enjoyed the singing birds and warmth of the sun and walked to the mail box. Besides the normal bills and junk mail was a special looking envelope. Puzzled what it was you opened it to find the following letter.

“I have a sword, and I have a few things against thee. I know where you live and if you don’t obey what I tell you to do, I will come to you, and bring my sword with me!”  

That kind of message would be shocking to get, especially if you had no idea what you had done to get someone that upset with you. But that was the letter that arrived in the church mailbox of the “United Church of Open Arms” in Pergamos. At the hastily called deacons meeting that night the letter was read and discussed. It gave details of what they had done that was creating the problem. A couple of men understood exactly what the problem was and had been speaking out against it for years, but the majority of the men just scratched their heads and tried to understand.

“Let’s read this one line at a time and try to understand it” brother Balaamous suggested. 

“Good Idea” responded pastor Nicalomous. And so they began to read it one line at a time.

Re 2:12 ¶ And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges;

That was an easy one. They were familiar with those scriptures.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful,

 and sharper than any two edged sword,

Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:  

The next line was pretty complimentary. They all smiled as pastor Nicolamous read. Christ said he knew their works and that they lived in a town that was the seat of Satan. He knew they had not denied His name or faith in Him, even when Antipas was martyred.

“That was a really tough time of persecution.” Merculous said.

Alexandrous responded “Yes, and remember when Antipas refused to offer incense to Caesar and was killed. The church meeting we had after that was the point where our church started going downhill!”

“What do you mean downhill?” It was pastor Nicolamous “Within a year after Antipas was killed our church attendance had doubled and..”

“Yes” Alexandrous broke in” And almost all of the new members were from the 1^st Church of Balaam. The rest came here when the old Nicolaitan church was falling down. They have brought some questionable practices into our church!”

“There you go again!” It was Merculous, one of the Nicolaitans. “You think rules and regulations solve everything, but what about love? Don’t you have enough love to overlook other peoples faults? They all can’t be perfect like you are!”

“Yeah, well I don’t offer incense to Caesar, like you do!”

“OK Mr. know it all. Who is going to provide for my family if the Romans kill me? Everyone knows I love Jesus so that little pinch of incense is meaningless.”

“Men, please,” Pastor tried to get control of the meeting. But it was the same old heated argument and there was no stopping it.  

The letter continued unread. The next lines would have shown them why Christ had somewhat against them.

Rev 2:14….because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. 

What was the error of Balaam? The story of Balaam is in Numbers 22-25, but the error of Balaam is revealed when Moses is angry.

Nu 31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.

 Since Balaam could not curse Israel, he advised the Moabites to corrupt Israel by sending women to allure the men of Israel. The men willingly went to pagan feasts, the women had sex with them and showed them how to worship pagan gods. In simple words the error of Balaam is adopting (marrying) worldly and ungodly practices by Christians. 

Rev 2:15 So hast thou also them that hold the

doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

No one knows who the Nocolaitans were or what they believed. The word meaning is related to a heretic named Nicolaus and the Greek is associated with the idea of “Victory over the people” 

It sounds like the church at Pergamos had allowed people to join who were compromisers with worldly ideas and were winning the church over to their way of thinking. Probably they found a way to offer incense to Caesar and still think they maintained a Christian lifestyle.

Now the question before us is how do we keep the world out of our churches? What does that mean anyway? We are in the world but should not be of the world. Fifty years ago fundamental churches condemned, card playing, movies, dancing, drinking, smoking, premarital sex, cussing, and a long list of other things. I even knew a lady who would not drink pop from a can because someone might see her and think she was drinking a can of beer. “Have no appearance of evil” was her by word.

     But seriously, what does the modern church teach about separation from the world. The church at Pergamos had people who did whatever was convenient and probably excused it by claiming Christian liberty. Our churches are filled with compromising Christians, and condoning pastors.  The study of these churches in Revelation is hard. It requires us to look at ourselves and ask “Am I separate from the world?” I don’t think living the Amish life style is what is meant. I think it is more a heart attitude, that sees the error of the world system, the failure of riches for happiness, and the foolishness of fame. Our Christian liberty must be balanced with our Christian responsibilities. (See Galations chap 5 & 6.)

OK enough for now. But it is a question we need to think about. What is there in our lives and our church standards that we exclude because it is ungodly, worldly, or immoral? Anything? Nothing?        

Our meditation for today is the following verse.

 

Eph 6:13 ….that ye may be able to withstand

in the evil day, and having done all, to stand