In 1871, an American named Heinrich Schliemann began ex-cavating an ancient city in Turkey. To the amazement of many, this retiredbusinessman had discovered the lost city of Troy. To-day, you can still see the ruins of its towers and its walls, which were 16 feet thick. According to the Homer's Illiad, the Greeks besieged Troy for ten years without success. After the death of the warrior Achilles, many wanted to give up the fight. But the king of Ithaca, Odys-seus, came up with a plan to get the Greek army into Troy. Odys-seus built an immense wooden horse. He and his warriors hid inside it. After leaving the horse at the gates of Troy, the Greek army sailed away. The Trojans thinking the Greeks had given up and had left the horse as a gift, brought it inside the gates.
That night, while the Trojans were sleeping, the Greek ships quietly returned. The soldiers in the horse slipped out and opened the city
gates. The Greek army quietly entered Troy and started fires all over the city. The Trojans awoke to find their city in flames. As they tried to flee, they were killed by the waiting Greeks.
The story of the Trojan Horse and the fall of Troy have come to represent the subversion of anything from within. That is what was happening to the church at Pergamos. Whereas Satan was trying to crush the Smyrnan church by persecution from without, He was trying to collapse the Pergamos
congrega-tion through corruption from within. That is the way our enemy operates. He either tries to crush us with hardship and hostility or
corrupt us with compromise. And we need to take heed to the fact that what ten years of outward assault on Troy was unable to ac-complish was done in one night when the enemy was brought within the city. The Trojan Horse at Pergamos was what Jesus called the doctrine of Balaam. It became a stumblingblock to the believers, leading them to accept idolatry and immorality while trying to
maintain their distinctiveness as Christians. As we will see from Scripture, the danger of the doctrine of Balaam is that it tries to wed
the people of God to the ways of the world, and that is something that has never worked and will never work. God's people are to be a peculiar people. God' s people are to be a dis-tinct people. God's people are to be a separate people. Friend-ship with the world is not an option. We are not to worship at its altars. We are not to learn its ways. We must not be pressed into its mold. Yet, that is what was happening in the church at Pergamos. And it continues to happen in churches today. The doctrine of Balaam is still finding its way into modern congregations, opening the way for worldliness to destroy the people of God.
I. It's Location where thou dwellest Pergamos was primarily known for one thing: religion. On a hillside overlooking the city was the giant altar of Zeus a throne of stone rising 40 feet into the air. On every corner, instead of finding a church, you would find a temple or altar to a pagan God. It was a primary center for the worship of the Emperors. Religions of all kinds thrived in Pergamos. In fact, there is an ancient say-ing that whenever any kooky
religious idea was expelled from some part of the world, it would find a place in Pergamos.
Something we must understand about ancient religions is that they were usually associated with immorality: prostitution, sodomy, orgies, and lewd entertainment. Thus, Pergamos was not only a religious city. It was a wicked city. And, according to Jesus, it was the capital of Satan's kingdom. It was the location of his seat, or throne. It was the place he'dwelleth - the place he called home. But God had a light in the heart of Satan's kingdom. And to that congregation, he said, I know thy works, and where thou
dwellest.
1. He knew what opportunities they had
2. He knew what obstacles they had to overcome the culture, the false religions,
3. He knew the kind of opposition they faced
He wanted the church at Pergamos to have the assurance that He knew where they were and what they were up against.
II. It's Loyalty
A. They were firm in their devotion holdest fast my Name
1. In their personal lives and in their public ministry, the Name of Jesus was lifted high.
2. Everything they did was identified with Christ
B. They maintained sound doctrine hast not denied my faith This was a church that clung to the fundamentals of the faith and would not compromise one precious doctrine of the Word of God, even when public opposition and Satanic oppression joined together to bring about the martyrdom of one of their faithful members. What we see in Pergamos is a church that was un-ashamed of their
Christianity and unwavering in their doc-trine. If you had attended one of their services, you would have sung songs of praise and worship, heard genuine prayer that sprung from the heart, and heard teaching that was
doctrinally sound. They were preaching the Gospel and worshipping Jesus, but they were in need of repentance because they had compro-mised with the world.
III. Its Liabilities
A. The doctrine of Balaam
Balaam was an Old Testament prophet. His story begins in Numbers 22. The Israelites, in their wilderness wanderings, had come to the borders of Moab. They had just conquered the Am-orites, and it looked like Moab was their next target. So, the king of Moab sent messengers to Balaam to hire him to curse the Isra-elites. To his credit, before Balaam answered the messengers, he prayed and asked God what he should do. God told him that he could not go with them or curse the Israelites. And that is what Balaam told the messengers. He refused to go with them. But they didn't want to take no for an answer. So, they upped the price. Balaam went. Along the way, God sent a messenger to Balaam the angel of the Lord. As a result of that encounter, Balaam confessed his sin and offered to return home. Instead, the Angel of the Lord told him to go with Moabites, but only to speak the words that God gave him to say.
Balaam obeyed. Instead of cursing Israel, he blessed them. Four times he blessed them. And throughout the process, he up-held the Name of the Lord and refused to deny the Word of God. That is the condensed version of Numbers 22-24.
READ NUMBERS 25:1-3
The Trojan Horse of Moab was their daughters. They came into the camp of the Israelites and caught the eyes of their men. They invited them to their sacrifices feasts full of immorality and idolatry. Soon, the men are eating at the tables of false gods, sleeping in the beds of pagan women, and bowing themselves down to worthless idols.
How did it happen?
READ NUMBERS 31:13-16
The counsel of Balaam.
Balaam held fast the Name of the Lord. He would not deny the word of God. But he taught Balak (the King of Moab) to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel. To keep from losing the reward he had been offered, He counseled Balak to send his women to seduce the men of Israel to make marriages with them and blend with them. It was a teaching that attacked the sepa-ration and sanctification that God expects His people to maintain. That is the doctrine of Balaam. It is the teaching that God's people can mix with the world while maintaining their Christian
distinctiveness, and it is widespread in our churches today. We are being taught that we can take the music of the world and mix it with Bible truths and that will make it Christian.
We are being taught that we can take the fashion of the world and put it on a believer and that will make it Chris-tian. Today we have believers who hold fast the name of Christ and are fundamental in their doctrine, but who see no harm in drinking wine, dancing, or going to movies full of vulgarity and sensuality.
That is the doctrine of Balaam. It attempts to wed the people of God to the ways of the world. And God calls it whoredom and fornication an unholy alliance. And just as Moab corrupted Is-rael, so the world is
corrupting Christianity. Our churches are full of people who hold the values of the world, find their pleasure in the world, and take their
priorities from the world.
B. The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes
Neither the identity nor the teaching of the Nicolaitanes has been preserved for us today. Although the word itself means to conquer the
people, the Bible doesn't tell us what the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes was. All we know for sure is that God hated it. However, I think there may be a reason why God has left the doc-trine of the Nicolaitanes a mystery: as a reminder to us that many false doctrines can
creep into the church, doctrines hated and despised by our Savior. We must guard against every false doc-trine and prove every teaching by aclear and correct interpreta-tion of the Word of God.
Conclusion
God told this church to repent to change its mind about its worldly ways or to face the discipline of God. Since at the heart of their error was false doctrine, God points them to the sharp two-edged sword of His mouth the Word of God. That is the only way to correct error, is through the teaching and preaching of a rightly divided Scripture. If they repented, he promised them two things:
1. If they quit eating at the table of the world things sacrificed to idols they would be fed with hidden manna. God would satisfy them in ways that the world could not.
2. If they broke off their relationship with the world, God would give them a white stone engraved with a new name.
a. In that day, special stones were given to people that entitled them to special privileges of friendship.
b. By showing the stone, they could expect to be re-ceived and be given friendship and hospitality.
c. What Jesus was telling us is that the person who rejects the friendship of the world will enjoy the unique friendship of God. What Pergamos teaches us is that we can boldly call our-selves Christians and hold to the fundamentals of the faith the inspiration of
Scripture, the deity of Christ, the Virgin birth and lose the blessings and friendship of God by refusing to maintain our separation from the world and its ways.
