His Perfect Love

Larry: Today on His Perfect Love, examine your priorities.

Matt Vandervenn: Instead of us standing ground and saying no, the word of God in our relationship with Jesus is first. It's preeminent. It's the It's how I divide my day. Everything revolves around the word of God and my time with Jesus and then all the other things I fit in, including my employment, my time with other people, my investment, even my ministry. But my Jesus and my time in scripture is what comes first. And yet we're finding ourselves culturally relevant today where it's been reversed.

Larry: You know, we counted a real blessing from the Lord to share this time together with you. We call the program His Perfect Love and our teacher is Pastor Matt Vandervinn. Last time we completed our look at the Lord's letter to Smyrna in Revelation chapter two. It was a letter of encouragement and commendation. Today as we begin the study of the letter to Pergamum, we see a very different tone from the Lord. Pergamum had fallen into the hands of false teaching. They were compromising. The Lord's response, repent. Here's Pastor Matt.

Matt Vandervenn: This morning our time is going to be in regards to the church of Pergamos or called Pergamum. This is a church that needed to repent for the falling into idolatry, eating food that seemed to be sacrificed to idols and committing sexual morality and holding the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. So as we we look at this, it's it's going to be really, I believe, convicting to the heart. But I know what it won't be and that is condemnation. Jesus Christ is not it is not the author of any condemnation. As we come here this morning, God certainly has met many of us over the years and where we're at.

He's freed us and brought us from past sin and brought us to a place of holiness and righteousness. And when we go through these things, certainly I know in my heart, the Lord always begins in my heart when the scriptures and often there can be sometimes this Oh man, I you're wrestling with these things and Jesus really wants him to lay them down if we've repented and we've been forgiven. And that's really his call to action for this church. In verse 16, he makes it very clear that he's not saying I'm throwing you out. I 'm done with you.

No. Jesus is always been about the ministry of reconciliation. He just wants us to draw us back into that right, holy relationship with him. No matter how far we've gotten from him, no matter what's happened, whether we're saved or not saved. He desires that for all of us to come into a relationship with him and be right with him in that relationship. Amen. So when we read this, I know there's going to be certainly, Lord, conviction here as well this morning. And And we don't want to run from that. The Lord wants to speak to us through his word.

And again in the days we're living, it's fitting. I mean, we have so much going on in the culture and the compromise with the culture. And that's the sin of Pergamos. I mean, I don't think like any of us, nobody stepped out or started their morning thinking how can I be culturally relevant and yet at the same time balance between being a Christian and not being a Christian that's compromising. Anybody wake up and pray that kind of prayer this morning? Probably not. But we did wake up and probably inundated with technology right away, things vying for our attention and time.

Maybe some of you even work, your laptop, your phones, you hear that thing or whatever sound or you you've assigned to your phone. It's amazing how it's crept into our lives and trying to exist and not only live our faith out perfectly in this world that's vying for our attention and time. It's so easy to cause us to be tempted and or fall into an idolatry. So Revelation chapter two, again verses 12 through through 17 continues with the third of the seventh message. There's seven of them, seven letters. We're in the third to the churches of Asia Minor and modern-day Turkey during the Apostle John's time while he was exiled to the island of Patmos.

Again a dot in the middle of an ocean, right? Each of these messages that we're going to read includes a specific word to a specific church. But lest we be ignorant, there's also a lesson applicable here to the the bride of Christ gathered here this morning, believers today. Now this letter is written to the the believers in Pergamum or Pergamos. I'll use both words interchangeably to represent this city. Please know I'm talking about the same place. This city was beautiful and it was art and art filled a city in the province of Asia belonging to these two tributaries that went by the Cayus or Cayus River.

Pergamum was the center of a worship to Dionysus, Zeus and other pagan gods. So the theme of this letter to the church of Pergamos or Pergamum is to guard your heart against the pressure of the prevailing culture. In this letter the Lord draws our attention to the failure of this church that not everyone, but members, certain people within this church to resist the invasion of paganism via the culture that would seep in insidiously compromising minds, hearts and thoughts. Now this church, Pergamos, the oldest and arguably most beautiful section of Pergamos that we're going to look at in here in a minute, also stood for this place of where they erected high altars.

And it's likened to worship. And the reason I bring this up is because many of you may remember in the Old Testament there was a tower that was erected. It was called the Tower of Babel. And it was done as a way for humans to erect it to basically sort of beat their chest to say look, I am like the God Most High. I can build a tower high to the stars and I can look down on all that I built and glory in it instead of glorifying in God. I'm going to show you a picture up here in a moment.

And as you can see, there's columns. This is what they've been able to unearth. Archaeologists even find this standing. Again a beautiful section lifted to the heights. The Acropolis in Pergamos was lifted to kind of higher than all of the ruins in the city and it cascaded with these steps that would come down and it would look to the valley below. One of the most dramatic structures of the Acropolis was a was what scholars believed to be a temple to Zeus. So pagan idolatry in the city. It's sort of pagan idolatry are us, Pergamos, much like as we saw Smyrna.

And it's important for the context because we need to know what this ancient city looked like, what the church looked like there and that will help us to understand the letter in which Jesus Christ was writing to that historically in context. Well it had these massive foundations as you can even see some of even the rubble behind you. I mean these are things that men earth with their hands. They didn't have cranes. They didn't have modern technology. So this took a lot of work and it was something that they really celebrated humanism. Look at all that man can accomplish.

The altar is also believed to be associated with a temple known as the great altar of Pergamum. Now interestingly in the 19th century that temple was moved from Pergamum or Pergamos to Germany, Berlin specifically, by archaeologists. And when they had gone to who was in in power at that time was the Ottoman Empire, when they had gone to the Ottomans and said hey can we move this huge massive structure? They said absolutely, have at it. They didn't care. They didn't By that time there was no interest, but it's now located in Germany. Now if you were to go back in times of ancient and you were to walk north, okay?

We talked about this temple of Zeus. If you were to walk north from there, you would come to this great altar as I mentioned of Pergamum. One of the encounters that that would have been in that area was also the a temple to Athena. So not just one pagan god, multiple pagan gods. And that was constructed in the fourth century, really the beginning of the third century BC. Now we understand the book we have in front of us, Revelation was written roughly 80-95. So that would have come after, but it just shows you that this letter wasn't taken as serious not only by that church, but by the surrounding communities and the culture in the city.

And that's heartbreaking. But it was dedicated, that temple of Athena as the city's patron. So this isn't just something it was kind of something that city became known by, the Athena worship and certainly the sexual morality that would go with that. Now just beyond that temple, if you're still letting the video play in your mind towards the northwest, as I said we were going west, you would see this magnificent structure that was constructed as a large library. It 's been estimated that there are well over 200,000 documents both papyrus, giving you some idea to the historical nature, old documents, as well as parchment.

And it could be seen from a high place even far away because it was lifted up. You could see the intellectualism, certain nothing wrong with scholarly work, right? We understand that scholarly work there's nothing wrong with that. But it was kind of lifted up as in a way to say this is our identity, intellectualism, humanism. It's been said that the Seneca people that actually lived in and worked in that area said that maybe 200,000 is a little bit of an exaggeration. They believe it would be closer to 40,000 volumes that were cataloged and many of them came from Alexandria.

So now you're talking about historical significant influence because you're talking older writings to the times of Greece and the Greeks in the specifically in the library of Alexandria. It certainly was one of the largest collections of written material in the ancient world and it was famous throughout the Mediterranean. People would travel all over to come to Pergamos to be able to see that library, to see this pagan worship, to look at these things and say what can't man do? That's what the city was known for. It also hosts one of the most extravagant wedding gifts of all times.

How many have heard of Mark Antony? Some of you history, Mark Antony. It's said that he presented to Cleopatra a sizable portion of the Pergamos Library, a collection in part that rest of the restored library of Alexandria, his own collection that was up went up in flames during the rain or the time of occupation by Julius Caesar. So also there was a portion of that library that everybody could go and say hey this was what was given to Cleopatra. So you can imagine people from all around the world were traveling to this to this amazing intellectual Mecca, if you can say it that way.

Now its notoriety was really an intellectual center. Again its arts, library, medicine. It was known for its medical achievements. It actually had gardens. I'll talk a little bit about that. But it also because of all of the writings and scholarly work, it became commercially one of the largest parchment producers in the area. So people from all around the area would basically request paper or order paper. It's what kept the money flowing into the city because you you had to have if you wanted to write on any kind of good paper or scholarly work, it had to be paper from Pergamos.

The city is also known for another temple. And it's where this garden was given or made. It was a courtyard. And it was devotees were set the devotion to if you if I could say it this way, was all about again pagan worship, but this time not into what we would call holistic medicine today as we would know it. So that idea of using God's creation, herbs and earth and things like that that are meant that have healing properties. That's not what this is describing. This is actually very pagan and twisted. What it was is it was this sort of area that people would go in, but they would place hundreds and hundreds of slithering snakes in this garden, in this courtyard.

And people, if they wanted healing, were brought there and told to walk through this garden to see if the snakes could basically rub up against them and the oils or the things from the skin. Somehow it's supposed to promote healing. Not for me, right? Like I'm not I might want to be healed, but I ain't going through that garden. Right? And then on the other side of the road, which is interesting, you had some of the top professors for medicine. So what we would think of medical doctors, right? Things like that. Now overlooking this whole metropolitan area or metropolis, if I can say it that way, one of the seven wonders of the world, I already mentioned it, was that temple of Zeus.

Its altar, just let the video play in your head, was 800 ft tall. All right just for everyone here, if you look at the peak of this building, the sanctuary we're in right now, inside is 26 ft. Outside at the peak is almost 27 plus ft. So you're looking at 26 ft here. Now I want you to picture 800. Can anybody even do that in your mind's eye? I mean that's huge. You call this just a a coincidence. I call it a replication of a tower. Again a tower I read in the Old Testament, the Tower of Babel.

And that's exactly what people gathered here because as they would go there, they would walk up, they would climb up, they would sit there and go what can't man do? There's only a few times we see that. I see Nebuchadnezzar when he's standing on a balcony and he's looking above the city and in pride with his voice begins to say look what I've built. Look how great this is. Only to a short time later be cast into a garden. Isn't that interesting? They had gardens. And like an animal, beast for seven years. A lot of pride.

And he's going to call it a synagogue of Satan as we just read in the letter. It's very It's very interesting. He says Satan dwells there. He talked about that. Actually excuse me in the previous letter, but it's nonetheless Satan dwelling in this area. So it's very very interesting. And I And I think it's no doubt that the satanic influence, the demonic influence that was impressive, very oppressive. And the fact that the church existed at all there to me is extraordinary, extraordinary. But it does He does tell us, Jesus, that the gates of hell will never prevail against his church.

And this is a great perfect example of that. Now the best preserved of the ancient structures of ancient Pergamos was also after they sort of went through and cleaned up the area, excavated and did that, was the temple of Trajan. It was built during the reign of Emperor Hadrian or Hadrian. So that would be 117 to 138 AD. When was this letter written again or believed to be written? Right around 80-95. So you're talking this this pagan temple which would be an emperor worship cult, just like we saw in Smyrna that brought a lot of persecution.

If you wouldn't bow the knee to the emperor, we see that same thing happening here. And it was dedicated and it defiled that whole city. But this towering obviously demonic structure and ruins, it gives a testament to something that we saw here that we didn't see in Smyrna yet. God was saying in Smyrna hold fast, stay strong. One of the things that Jesus is actually going to commend this church on is their ability to hold strong. There's a lot of things he's going to correct them on and he's going to be very stern and sobering and to very I think strong warning to the church today to not become culturally compromised.

But one of the things he's going to compliment on is even to death that even at that satanic temple or the rebellion of things going on there, these people were willing to die for their faith. That's interesting because they're willing to die for their faith in one way. So Satan can't beat them that way. So what does he do? Come through the back door and gets them uncompromised. They never saw it coming. But that's what he wants us to learn from this this letter. So the Lord's going to address two serious concerns that stem from the same problem really.

It was a compromise with the culture. He's going to call the two and they're specifically understood at that time. I'll explain them as we go through it here in scripture. One would be the doctrine of Balaam. The other one is going to be called the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. It's between these two doctrines that's going to comprise and we get in context what some of these things are. The context is king and hermeneutics on leading scripture that's going to help us to understand what exactly is he talking about where when it says that the church has been compromised with the culture.

I mean after all today we see the same thing happening. The culture is trying to come in and compromise the church today. I think just years ago the social justice gospel, right? They wanted us to be compromised by that. Technology has come in and compromised even in the church. What do you mean? Well I can remember as a technologist, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but something just so subtle. I kind of mentioned it when I first got up here this morning. You know how many of us thought, you know maybe some of you are old enough.

I remember 20 and 30 years ago when the computers were coming out specifically on the desktops, the whole point of it was that it was going to make us more efficient and have more time for family or other things. You remember that? We were all sold that that that was part of the bill of goods that we were sold. And I to be transparent with you, I worked as a technologist. I was responsible for some of that and and I really did believe in that vision. A lot of what was being told to us never came to fruition.

As a matter of fact, the exact opposite. And let me explain what I mean. Well I used to when I first got into technology computers, I worked with what was called mainframes. You had something called terminal emulation TN 3270s which meant on my desktop we had what was called a dumb terminal. And in the back you had a mainframe and you basically through a thin net or through today what we would think of as Ethernet, you had a connection that would go back and connect to that mainframe and bring what I called it terminal emulation because we were connecting to that back mainframe, but we could visualize the user interface on the dumb terminal in front of us.

And we would do these things and we thought oh this is going to be great efficiency. How much better if we took the information worker low, that's all of us in this room, and we put a computer on your desktop and took the front the back end loading and brought it to the front end and allowed you to be in control of the processing power because after all if I put that kind of empowerment in your hands, you're going to of course know when and how and effectively use that and it's going to make us more productive, more efficient.

Things are going to be better. It's going to save the company time, us time. And what happened? Well it didn't take long after client server came out that you got laptops. And some of you began to bring those home. And what a normal end of a day at 5:00 p.m. all of a sudden got stretched out to 6:00 and 6:30. And then some of us well that's okay because I'll eat dinner. At least I'm home with the family. I got home a little earlier, but I'll eat dinner and then afterwards we could spend time in Bible study at that time, right?

Because after all there's going to be a give get here. We're giving our hearts more. These companies are going to be thankful. Oh man, the benefits are going to be wonderful until we started hearing ding ding. You know that's mine when I used to get the emails coming in or the texts. Hey can you look at this? And next thing you know 7:00, 8:00, 9:00. What about that Bible study? What about that quiet time with the Lord? What about the efficiencies that we were going to gain? Well to some for some of us that end up becoming a a real struggle, a real tension.

It was so insidious and seductive. We never thought We thought actually it was going to give us more time and be make us more effective for the kingdom of God in efficiency, right? And there's good things that have come from it. I mean today we have people that have watched the the the live cast or the live stream here. Kevin's been able to see people from Africa, from different countries all around the world that tune in and listen and watch the videos here or the service here in the world. So that's wonderful. People are able to get online and we can interact with technology.

But that's also led to some forsaking the gathering of the saints and sitting in their homes and not wanting to get out of bed and come to church because it's easier just to flip on a TV, have a few minutes with God and then get on with your day. Not that we know anything about that, though. You see what was promised to be so good and so subtle culturally has changed the mindset of the church that sometimes I think because we've become so coin operated Excuse me for being blunt and using the term. Because we've become so coin coin operated with the companies we work with and serve, I think sometimes that's permeated the church to think of ministry as becoming coin operated.

What's the give and the get? I do this, then the Lord's going to bless me this way. And if that I don't get that blessing, well then maybe something's wrong. I'm not going to keep doing this anymore. What about the time we wake up in the morning, remember? We're going to wake up earlier. You know what I'm talking about. I'm looking at some of you. You're going to wake up earlier, right? 5:00, 4:00 because you want to get into the word before you have to get to the office, right? And then ding. Oh hang on.

I'm just going to grab my coffee. I'm just going to check email for a second. And then next thing you know you're grabbing your bag, you're flying out of the house, just trying to make it there and you didn't even open the word yet. And this is what's happening for this It's cultural shifting. Instead of instead of us standing ground and saying no, the word of God in our relationship with Jesus is first. It's preeminent. It's the It's how I divide my day. Everything revolves around the word of God and my time with Jesus and then all the other things I fit in, including my employment, my time with other people, my investment, even my ministry.

But my Jesus and my time in scripture is what comes first. And yet we're finding ourselves culturally relevant today where it's been reversed.

Larry: That is Pastor Matt Vandervinn on His Perfect Love. We're going through Revelation at the present time and I'll remind you that you can hear the program again when you visit His Perfect Love dot org. That's His Perfect Love dot org. We're also at one place dot com and look for us wherever you get your podcasts. We also offer a mobile app. This is a great way to take Pastor Matt's teachings with you on the go. You can learn more about the mobile app and start your download when you visit our website, His Perfect Love dot org.

Okay Pastor Matt, question for you. As the culture changes, should the church change along with it to be culturally relevant?

Matt Vandervenn: Larry I believe that's one of the mistakes that I see many churches making today. You know they want to be culturally relevant and so they're willing to lean into the culture in an attempt to reach people for Christ as though the means justify the ends. There's all kinds of things happening anymore. Churches don't teach the word of God any longer, scripture. They touch on a passage here or there, you know whether they have Bible studies that involve alcohol, all kinds of things to try to reach the current a culture and generation. In reality, what the church needs is to be a place of refuge, the place that anyone regardless of age, gender, the way they look, speak can come in and find a place of uncompromising truth when they're ready to meet the living God, Jesus Christ.

If we change, if the church changes the nature of culture, then will people go to find this? Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And his love and truth pierces every generation with hope. Real love is not trying to be something you're not, but resting in whom you belong to. And the church belongs to Jesus Christ. It's His. He's the bridegroom. We're the bride. And it ought to have his fingerprints and fragrance. It doesn't change to meet the culture. It's a city of refuge amongst a lost and dying world.

Larry: Thanks again, Pastor Matt. Are you looking for a Christian school that offers a quality education and a nurturing environment for your children? If so, you might be interested in Calvary Chapel Christian Academy, a ministry of Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Calvary Chapel Christian Academy is a non-denominational Christian school that serves students from kindergarten to 12th grade. The academy's mission is to provide a Christ-centered education that equips students to love God, love others and serve the world. The academy offers a rigorous academic curriculum, a variety of extracurricular activities and a caring and supportive staff. The academy is located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA.

For more information, please visit our website at cc harrisburg dot org slash academy. That's cc harrisburg dot org slash academy. This has been His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt Vandervinn. Thanks for listening.

Matt Vandervenn: His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.