"And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two_edged sword says this: ‘I know where you dwell, where Satan,s throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.’" (2:12-13)

Pergamum was the administrative center of the Roman province of Asia. It had the twin distinction of being a center for the Imperial cult of Caesar worship, as well as the home of the great temple and altar of Zeus, situated on a hillside from which it overlooked and dominated the city. It really must have looked like "Satan’s Throne" to those Christians who lived in the city below. Satan ruled this town, and he had help from the Romans.

As we learned during our look at the Church of Ephesus, Jesus introduces Himself in a manner unique to each particular church. To the Church at Pergamum He introduces himself as "the One Who has the sharp two-edged sword." Why was this special? Because Jesus wasn’t the only person in Pergamum who wielded a two-edged sword. So did Caesar. The profession of Christianity had been forbidden by law throughout the Empire since the days of Nero, some twenty years earlier. Christians who refused to offer incense at a bust of Caesar while declaring "Caesar is Lord" were subject to the sword . . . or worse. Apparently, that’s what happened to Antipas (or "Antipater") whom church tradition says died, not by the sword, but by being placed inside a bronze bull and burned to death during the reign of the Emperor Domitian. Ouch! Yep, life was a little on the challenging side for believers who lived "where Satan dwells." They were confronted with rampant, even satanic, paganism (often involving temple prostitution) on the one hand, and state mandated and enforced idolatry on the other. Like Indiana Jones in a revolving fireplace, their situation was not much improved! And it was about to get worse.

"‘But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality. ‘Thus you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans . Repent therefore; or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.’" (2:14-16).

O.K., this will take some "unpacking." The whole sordid affair with Balak (King of the Moab) and Balaam took place during the 40-year "wilderness wandering" episode of Israel’s Old Testament history. You can read the whole thing in the book of Numbers, chapters 22-25 (to pique your interest, it involved frightened Kings, lots of money, a talking donkey and a sword-wielding angel - details to follow). It all culminates in Numbers 25 where we learn that the sons of Israel "began to play the harlot" (i.e., engage in illicit sex) with the women of Moab and Midian, and to eat things sacrificed to their gods. Balaam himself was eventually killed when Israel destroyed Midian (see Numbers 31:8 & Joshua 13:22).

In His message to the Christians at Pergamum, the Risen Christ reduced the above incident to its basics. Balaam taught (imperfect tense in the Greek, "continually taught") Balak and his people to do three things in order to destroy the people of God: 1) Throw stumbling blocks before them, 2) get them to eat food offered or sacrificed to an idol (we’ll call this "oblique idolatry"), and 3) encourage them to engage in illicit sex (sexual purity in all its forms is one of the distinctive marks of genuine biblical/Christian faith).

So, what’s all this got to do with the Church in Pergamum? Enter the Nicolaitans. The word "nicolaitans" is a compound word, formed from two words: nikao, which means "to conquer" or "to rule over" and laos, which means "people." Hence, "to conquer and rule over the people". Interestingly, the Old Testament name Balaam is derived from two Hebrew words: bela which meant "to conquer" and ha’am, meaning "the people". Balaam taught Balak how to "conquer" God’s people. Both situations involved teachers who "conquered" or "ruled over" God’s people by leading them into bondage by means of false teaching and compromise. According to the church father Irenaeus, the Nicolaitans were followers of Nicolaus of Antioch who had abandoned right doctrine (yes, doctrine is important - even in house church) and both taught and lived "unrestrained indulgence." Hippolytus agreed and noted that the Nicolaitans practiced "indifference" regarding what a man ate or how he lived.

Apparently, in Pergamum this indifference had led to compromise with the Imperial Cult of Caesar worship. The Nicolaitans taught that, when confronted, Christians could avoid Caesar’s sword through indifference and compromise, like the Bishop in the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" who, when on the brink of annihilation at the hands of the Muslims, counsels the Christian General, "Convert now, repent later." The Risen Christ, speaking through the Apostle John, understood that, like Balaam, the teaching of the Nicolaitans would become a stumbling block (Greek: skandalon), leading the people of God into compromise, idolatry and more. In both the Old and New Testaments, compromise and idolatry are related to moral impurity - God understands something here that we apparently do not. His admonition to the Christians at Pergamum is blunt, unequivocal and necessary. Like Indiana Jones in a revolving fireplace, you must choose: face Caesar’s sword as the price for your faithfulness to Christ, or face Christ’s sword as the price for your unfaithfulness and compromise with Caesar & paganism. And, no, He never said it would be easy; only that it would be better . . . and that He would be with us.

The solution to this dilemma, like that to all such dilemmas of compromise, is simple: Repent. Genuine personal (and corporate) repentance is the God-appointed means of seeking Christ’s forgiveness and of throwing ourselves upon the mercy of our God. As David discovered during the nasty episode of conducting a forbidden census (1 Chronicles 21), it is always better to cast oneself upon the fathomless ocean of God’s mercy, than to place oneself into the hands of men (1 Chronicles 21:13).

Most of you are probably aware of George Otis, Jr. and the Sentinel Group who have produced the "Transformation" videos over the past few years. The videos are wonderful encouragements about how God is working in transforming ways in various places around the world. Last summer I wrote an e-mail about my experience in a meeting where George Otis, Jr. was speaking outside of Spokane in Deer Park (that letter was entitled "Transformation, Baseball and an Evening With George Otis, Jr.," dated for August 31, 2005, and is posted on our website, if you’re interested).

But I have two bones to pick with how the videos and the experiences of transformation around the world are currently being interpreted and even marketed. First, the videos are becoming a "vicarious revival experience" for the people & communities who watch them. George Otis himself addressed this issue when he spoke here in August, last year. Here is what I wrote about his treatment of this issue then: "Next, George related his perceptions of transformation rallies in Colombia and Africa. The difference between the two rallies, he observed, was the difference between a rally in Colombia to celebrate the transformation which God had brought about and a rally in Africa (no, I can’t remember where) to plead with God for a coming transformation. Then, like a good marksman, He released the arrow at his unsuspecting targets: We in America want to sing about and celebrate spiritual victories and an intimate relationship with God which belong to someone else, but which are not our experience or our reality. We need to pay the price of prayer, fasting and repentance to achieve our own victories, rather than celebrating the victories of other people in other places (what I call "vicarious revival")." It is always easier to vicariously enter into someone else’s experience of revival than it is to pay the price necessary to experience it for ourselves.

And this leads me to my second bone to pick, namely, the creation of a "one-size-fits-all" model of revival (i.e., God always works this way . . .). Think of this in terms of the letters of Christ to the seven churches of Asia. Here were seven different letters to seven very different churches, each letter dealing with issues unique to that particular church (but with general application to other churches in other times). But today, in our treatment of transformation and revival, its as though Jesus, writing to those same churches today, would write just one letter and say, "Here, just circulate this letter among yourselves, ‘cause you’re all the same anyway"! O, really? I don’t think so. I think both scripture and history would argue otherwise.

Let me be more specific. One of the popular messages (or interpretations) that has come out of the videos concerns the idea of "unity" in the body as a necessary prelude to revival. The argument runs something like this. "In such and such a place, the pastors all came together and prayed together and the result was revival. Therefore, we must have unity among the pastors, the churches and the body before we can experience revival here." But what if "unity" was God’s message to the church in that city for a special reason which is not necessarily transferable to your city (not that unity is bad, it simply isn’t God’s message for your city)? Look at what the history of revival says about the need for "unity" with respect to revival. During the Evangelical Awakening in England in the 1700s, the only unity among the Anglican Churches was their united resistance to both George Whitefield and John Wesley, both of whom were "shut out" of Anglican pulpits throughout England (despite being ordained Anglican priests) and were forced to resort to open-air preaching in fields and town squares. During the Second Great Awakening in America (1799-1811) there was both co-operation and dissension. Two of the leaders of the Second Great Awakening, the Reverends James McGready and Barton Stone, were charged with heresy by the Presbyterian Church for their participation in the revival (McGready "repented" while Stone left the Presbyterian Church). And during the Welsh Revival of 1904, Evan Roberts was viciously attacked in the press by leading members of his own denomination, the Calvinistic Methodists (the Reverend Peter Price being the most vocal).

So, is "unity" the "linchpin" for revival? Not necessarily. The New Testament speaks more of homothumadon - "one-mindedness" - than it does of unity, but I’ll let you do that study for yourself, or read about it in Module 4 of our house church equipping workbook. Man much of our efforts at "unity" in the church are manifestations of what M. Scott Peck ("The Different Drum") calls "pseudocommunity." The real "linchpin" for revival in any given city probably has more to do with the besetting sins and spiritual strongholds of that city. Here in Spokane & Eastern Washington where I live and work, I have been deeply impressed over the past two years that the "linchpin" for revival in our area is not unity among believers, churches and organizations, but repentance for our sins, our failures and our disobedience of walking in spiritual strongholds that God despises. What are the spiritual strongholds that need to be the focus of that repentance? There are three which take prominence: 1) the spirit of religion -wanting and working to look outwardly religious; 2) the spirit of control - wanting to control people and how they live their spiritual lives, rather than loving them and equipping them for the work of the ministry; and 3) the spirit of mammon - wanting to control money, which becomes another form of controlling people in ministry. Acknowledgment, confession and repentance of these three spiritual strongholds, I believe, is the linchpin of widespread spiritual revival and transformation in our community.