I Know Where You Live

Sermon by John Turner
Based on Revelation 2:12-17

Nut-Shell Summary of the Revelation to John

Today, we come to the third of seven sermons drawn from Revelation, Chapters 2 and 3. The Revelation to John is not a series of revelations about end-time events. Rather, it is the unified Revelation of Jesus Christ as the Lion King , the Lamb Servant, and the Shepherd Guide of his flock. Jesus knows and cares for his churches. He redeems all creation, bringing the perfect new heaven and new earth where his faithful servants will reign with him. Even times of severe persecution cannot prevent Jesus from bringing his faithful servants to final victory.

The Message to the Pergamum Church, Where Satan’s Throne Is

The risen and exalted Christ is imparting messages through John to seven churches in Asia, what is now western Turkey. Today we view the church that was located in Pergamum. Pergamum was a strong center of countless pagan religions. It was the world’s leading center for the worship of Asclepias, the Greek god of healing, represented to this day by the snake on the physician’s staff. More to the point, Pergamum was the world’s leading center of emperor and empire worship, especially featuring temples to Caesar Augustus and to the goddess Roma. The various pagan religions of Pergamum flowed among each other and created a formidable culture for Christians to penetrate.

Hear what Jesus says to his church in this difficult location: “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. Jesus speaks with the authority of the direct word of God, and he has the discernment to cut through any mixture of truth and error to straighten out and purify hearts and minds and to judge rightly any twisting of the truth.

“‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Satan’s throne most likely referred to the cult of the emperors and their empire. Jesus knows and cares about the spiritual environment in which we live. He knows what we are up against. He knows the temptations we face. He knows when we give in, and he knows when we stand firm.

Bishop Antipas, Faithful Witness/Martyr

Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. Against strong and direct opposition, the church members of Pergamum have stood bravely and firmly, at the risk of their lives. Antipas was the bishop of the Pergamum church who, under the threat of death, refused to renounce Jesus. Tradition says that he was consequently roasted in a brass bull in 92 A.D. Jesus was pleased to share with Antipas his own designation as a faithful witness, a martyr for the faith. Jesus was also pleased that the church had stood with Antipas, even though in doing so they risked suffering the same fate.

Not many citizens took with ultimate seriousness the claim that the emperor was God. But if the claim was not viewed as spiritually significant, it was viewed as socially significant. Emperor worship brought significant political and commercial advantages to Pergamum, especially public works projects, and the jobs and wealth that followed them. To refuse to worship the emperor was to risk irritating Rome, thus shutting down the flow of benefits. It seemed to the general public that refusing to worship the emperor was to let one’s personal views stand in the way of the public good. From their perspective, such a lack of civic-mindedness and patriotism was not to be tolerated. But Jesus takes the opposite view. In the Revelation to John, he warns against the Roman imperial cult.

Skipping the Balaamite/Nicolaitan Cult This Week

I am going today to skip over the second issue addressed in Jesus’ letter to the Pergamum church, the issue of the Balaamite/Nicolaitan cult which we will include when we address the similar Jezebel cult at the Thyatiran church next week.

The Danger of Worshiping a Nation, Government, or Politics

My focus for the rest of this sermon will be on avoiding the dangers of worshiping a nation or a government or even the political process itself. In worship, we are declaring what we believe to be powerful, excellent, holy, of highest worth, and the source of whatever worth we have. We become like what we worship.

As Christians we worship not a What but a Who, not a force but a divine personality who has become human and has dwelt among us full of grace and truth. Our God has not remained distant and uninvolved, but has revealed exactly what we need to know in order to be transformed by degrees into his image, to be saved from our sins, to live with faith, hope, and love, to be prepared for a perfectly blessed future. No other god can do that for us. No nation or government can do that for us. Only Jesus can do that for us. He alone is worthy of our full and unchecked devotion.

There are many excellent things in God’s creation that we should appreciate, but that we should not worship. We should appreciate the rich variety of creatures and the various environments that God has provided for us, but we should not worship them. We should appreciate the diverse benefits of the social order in which God has placed us. We should pray and work for the maintenance and spreading of those benefits, but we must not worship the social order or the people who lead it or the political process that runs it. If God through the apostles told the citizens of the Roman empire to be thankful for and prayerful for the order and prosperity provided by the empire, and he did, then we who live in the twenty-first century United States of America have all that much more reason to be prayerful and thankful for our country which provides us with relatively large degrees of liberty and justice and material resources with which we may serve our God. But if God insisted that the citizens of the Roman empire resist any tendency to imply even in an empty ceremony that they might be worshiping the empire or its leaders, then we who may be more greatly tempted by the greater benefits of our country have all the more reason to clarify that we do not worship anyone or anything other than the God we know through Jesus Christ.

We need to keep clear that Jesus Christ has a unique and absolute control over our identity as Christians, and that it is to him and him alone that our ultimate loyalty lies. We need to be aware that when we gather to worship Jesus, we are one with true believers in every land, one with faithful people living under every kind of government.

Why I Can Say the Pledge

As a citizen of the United States of America, I can say the pledge of allegiance to the national flag because it includes the words, “one nation under God.” which I understand to mean that the pledge to the country is superseded by our higher allegiance to our Lord. I am able to offer my allegiance to my country without implying that I am worshiping something other than God. My baptism, in which I have died to the world, sin, self, and the devil, and come alive to God, means that, in a case of conflict between Jesus and my country, Jesus wins. We need to keep that clear. That reservation is what makes American liberty real liberty. It is not unpatriotic to put Jesus first, but it is the highest act of patriotism. Christians who put Christ first help prevent our country from giving itself over to totalitarianism. By insisting on our freedom to follow Christ above the government, we keep our government safe for real liberty.

The Dangers of Political Involvement by the Church

As important as our democratic republic is to us, it is even more important that we not idolize politics. When the church has leaped too enthusiastically into politics, it has been costly to the church. Perhaps the worst example of this was in the lead-up to World War 1. You may have heard me mention this before. The church threw itself so fully and unreservedly into the war to end all wars, the war to make the world safe for democracy, that, when the inevitable disillusionment with the fallenness of human institutions and the impotence of human worldly ideals set in, the church caught the brunt of it. The church moved from its highest point in American history prior to World War 1 to one of its lowest points after World War 1. A little more reserve, a little more restraint, a little more awareness that political processes even at their best are riddled with sin and futility, and the church would have come through that time still strong rather than discredited in much of the public eye. Whether our ideals are liberal or conservative, whether or cause is health care or abortion, we will end up disappointed in the policies that emerge from our government because our government is primarily composed of pragmatic power politicians. They wouldn’t survive if they were not. They will use us when we advance their power and discard us when we don’t. That fact won’t change.

We as the church do not exist to exercise political power. We exist to testify about Jesus Christ, to be formed in his likeness, and to do what we can to make the world better in ways appropriate to our identity as a community of faith. Our power is exercised not by the coercive arm of government, but by the voluntary associations of people of faith, working together creatively to make life better.

Democrats and Republicans and independents, liberals and conservatives, libertarians and distributists, can work together through Jesus Christ in reaching out to the children and youth of our community, in praying together and encouraging one another that we may become more like Jesus, in supporting Loaves and Fishes and community gardens, and so forth. Together we can worship Jesus Christ and seek to follow him. Together we can challenge the idolatry of our culture that government makes all the important decisions and that politics is the center of power. As individual citizens, we have the obligation to vote in ways that express our values as best we can, but we do not have to all agree about how we vote. We can agree on Christian values about things like hunger, health care, jobs, abortion, and so forth, but disagree on the role that government ought to play in advancing those values.

Let me give a specific example. Many of you volunteer for Loaves and Fishes. You believe that caring about hungry people is an important Christian value. I know that those of you who work side by side have differing opinions about what role government ought to play in helping the hungry, but you don’t let that stop you from working together. You could argue with one another about government policy with such vehemence that you would be unable to work with one another, but you don’t. Some of the things that you learn at Loaves and Fishes affect your voting, but you do not insist that your fellow workers learn the same lessons. I think Jesus is pleased.

What Jesus Came to Do

Among Jesus’ closest disciples he included one who had collected taxes for Rome and one who had participated in rebellion against Rome. He had bigger fish to catch than building a political movement for or against Rome. He came to build a community of faith that could itself offer real hope of new life with God. He kept his focus off politics and on building that community of hope. We exist as a church because he did. He would advise us to be grateful and responsible citizens in the country that supplies us with so many benefits, but he would advise us never to idolize that country or its government or its leaders or its policies or a particular political party or a specific political crusade, but to keep our eyes on representing the reign of God in our lives together. The real solutions and the real hope come from what we do together as his disciples. It is right to be grateful for living in a country where we can have this discussion without fear of persecution. It is right to be responsible citizens. But it is wrong to get sidetracked from the one thing that gives our lives eternal meaning, being disciples of Jesus Christ.

Promise for the Spiritually Pure

Jesus has a great promise for those who overcome the temptation to false worship. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’ The hidden manna is a symbolic promise to sustain the faithful people of God through the wilderness to the Promised Land. The white stone with a new name written on it probably refers to the new identity believers receive when they are baptized into Christ, and the subsequent new nature that gradually makes us more and more like Jesus. There is a happy ending for the faithful. The call in this text is to purify our worship by focusing on Jesus. If we do that, it will work out all right at last.