Sunday: Christ’s Messages to Smyrna and Pergamum
Smyrna was a beautiful and wealthy city but also was a center of mandated emperor worship. Refusing to comply with this mandate could lead to the loss of legal status, to persecution, and even to martyrdom.
Read Revelation 2:8-11. How does the way Jesus presents Himself to this church relate to the church’s situation? What was the situation of the church? What warning does Jesus give to the church about what was coming?
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The message to the church in Smyrna applies prophetically to the church in the postapostolic era, when Christians were viciously persecuted by the Roman Empire. The “ten days” mentioned in Revelation 2:10 point to the ten years of the Diocletian persecution from A.D. 303 until A.D. 313, when Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan, which granted Christians religious freedom.
Pergamum was the center of various pagan cults, including the cult of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, who was called “the Savior” and was represented by a serpent. People came from all over to the shrine of Asclepius to be healed. Pergamum had a leading role in promoting the cult of emperor worship, which, as in Smyrna, was compulsory. No wonder Jesus said that the Christians in Pergamum lived in the city where Satan’s seat is and where his throne was located.
Read Revelation 2:12-15. How does Jesus present Himself to this church? What was His appraisal of its spiritual condition?
The Christians in Pergamum faced temptations from both outside and inside the church. While most of them remained faithful, some, the “Nicolaitans”, advocated compromise with paganism in order to avoid persecution. Like Balaam, who apostatized and enticed the Israelites to sin against God on the way to the Promised Land (Num. 31:16), these members found it more convenient, and even rewarding, to compromise their faith. Though the Jerusalem Council had forbidden “things offered to idols” and “sexual immorality” (Acts 15:29, NKJV), the doctrine of Balaam taught church members to reject this decision. The only solution Jesus can offer to Pergamum is: “Repent” (Rev. 2:16, NKJV).
The church in Pergamum is a prophetic picture of the church from approximately A.D. 313-538. Although some members in the church remained faithful, spiritual decline and apostasy increased rapidly.
| What does it mean not to deny “My faith” (Rev. 2:13, NKJV; see also Rev. 14:12). How can our refusal to deny our faith help us to resist compromise and be “faithful unto death” (Rev. 2:10)? |
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Don't you hate it when the authors put two ideas in the one daily lesson!
Smyrna and Pergamum - I will choose to comment on Pergamum.
The backstory behind this condemnation is the story of Balaam. We all know the story of the donkey and how Balaam blessed Israel against his wishes and the instructions of Balak, King of Moab. That is the part that we read in "The Bible Story" as children. But the story continues and has a less savory ending. In Numbers 25:1-9 The Children of Israel are in Moabite territory and the men took an interest in the Moabite women. A plague occurred (maybe it was an STD) and thousands of people lost their lives as a result. In Numbers 31:16 we read:
So it was not just a case of the Israeli men falling for the charms of Moabite women, but an enemy strategy from Balaam, who had found a way of bypassing the roadblock of the donkey and cursing the Children of Isreal in a devastatingly practical way.
It is not all that difficult to draw a parallel with today's situation where we are surrounded by commercial sex. It has become the national entertainment. What once regarded as something intimate and private, has become a commodity for social interchange. We cannot change the way the world operates, but we can guard the avenues of our own minds.
I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:10-11 (emphasis added)
The universal Body of Christ shares a common identity with Jesus Christ but deepens its fellowship through the vehicle of suffering. Scripture is filled with both narrative and instruction concerning the role of suffering in the believer’s experience. The Apostle Paul said:
We always carry around in our own body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:10)
Then why is it we all tend to avoid suffering if we can? It sounds so pretty in words, but honestly, people don\'t want to suffer, and avoid it at all costs if they can.
However, if someone else is suffering, it is added to by other Christians, or we feel pity for someone suffering, and oftentimes creates a Job & his friends type of scenario. Job is the perfect example of remaining faithful through suffering, in spite of his friends, who blamed him for some sin in his life.
The message to the church in Smyrna is our message.
We don't mind persecuting those who don't believe like us.
"The law in Galatians had become a controversial issue between 1884 and 1886, when Waggoner began to teach that Galatians had the Ten Commandments in mind rather than the ceremonial law. That understanding was met head on by Butler and Smith, who held that the new interpretation undermined Adventism’s traditional position on the end-time importance of the law of God. As might be expected, the national Sunday crisis heightened the importance of the topic.
Butler sought to solve the problem at the 1886 General Conference session, but failed. His next move was to block Jones and Waggoner from presenting their views at the 1888 session. But Ellen White outmaneuvered him by publicly coming to the support of the younger men. The stage at that point was set for the controversial Minneapolis meetings. "
https://www.adventistreview.org/2013-1528-p16
When the time of end will come those who oppose the truth will do their utmost to quench out the light.
In Christ the Church will be victorious.
While the struggle with sin and apostasy among church members is not a new phenomenon, our God still loves us and patiently entreats us to aspire to be with Him by choosing the path that leads to eternal life...
Symrna are under threat of phyiscal death from civic powers. Are in danger from people who say they worship God but actually worship Satan so threat of spiritual death. Jesus comes to them as one who experienced death and overcame it and if they are faithful He promises eternal life. Note eternal life is more important than physical life, 2Cor 4:7-18, we might suffer but he will be with us through flood or fire. Isaiah 43:1-3
Pergamon - I believe the issue of "eating food sacrificed to idols" here is symbolic (see 1Cor 8 & Rom 8) so what does it mean? Jesus said I am the bread of life, the words I speak are life, he who eats this bread will live forever, this bread is better than the manna in the wilderness - John 6. So I believe the issue is on whose words are we nourishing our souls, ones that lead to compromise, distraction, rebellion or ones that strengthen our faith? Jesus offers the promise of the manna in the ark, he comes to them with the two edged sword of his mouth - word of God Heb 4:12 - the sword that cuts and heals.
We as the remnant church must be faithful as the church of Pergamon. They trusted in God to the point of persecution. 10 years years of persecution was not mare issue. One problem we are facing with current christiand is the Nicolaitan and Balaam characters. Too much lukewarmness in church. We must repent.