False Teachings and the Line in the Sand – Rev. 2:14-17

SPEAKER 04 : 0:00

I think it is still alarming to people that there can be people on Christian television or Christian radio or in so-called Christian pulpits who are not Christians. It has been my pleasure, if you call it that, because of the results I call it that, to actually talk to preachers, even seminary professors who did not know the Lord. Several years ago, I met a man teaching the book of Revelation in a major denominational seminary. And he was alarmed hearing that some of his friends were going to a Bible study in the book of Revelation, of all books. And he especially hated the churches of Revelation.

SPEAKER 1 : 0:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER 02 : 1:04

This is Hope for Today with Bible teacher David Hawking. And on today’s program, we’re stepping back into one of the most blistering warnings in the entire Bible. Revelation 2, 14 through 17 is a direct message from Jesus to a church that started tolerating what God hates. False teaching, sexual immorality, spiritual infidelity. And instead of dealing with those problems, they let them fester. But Jesus, Jesus is drawing a line in the sand, and he calls them in this passage to repent, to repent or face judgment. This isn’t theory. This is a warning for today’s church, and the time to respond is now. Stay tuned. Just before we begin, have you visited the Hope for Today Media Center? You gotta check this out. It’s a 24-7 hub for free Bible teaching by David Hawking, including full video series on prophecy, the life of Jesus, and verse-by-verse studies through entire books of the Bible. And it’s all online, all free. all designed to help you grow deeper in God’s Word and to share the teaching with somebody else. Head over to DavidHawking.org and click on the Media Center, and this part of our ministry is made possible by the caring donations and gifts of listening friends. Let’s get into the Word now. Here’s David Hawking for our continuing study, Religious Compromise.

SPEAKER 04 : 2:40

Now let’s read it again, please, beginning at chapter 2, verse 12, and follow along as I read. And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, These things saith he who hath the sharp sword with two edges, that Thracian sword. I know thy works and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat or throne is. And thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my faith, even in those days in which Antipas, which means against all, was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth.” But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate most. Verse 16, repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save or except he that receiveth it. Pergamos was a dangerous environment. and it heard a serious evaluation. We mentioned two things there, the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. There was a question brought up about Balaam last time as to whether or not he is a Jewish prophet or whether he’s a Gentile. I decided to do a little study on it because I, frankly, was kind of surprised by the question, taken off guard. Apparently, Balaam must be a Gentile and not a Jewish prophet. He’s mentioned 60 times in the Bible, 50 of which is in the book of Numbers in chapter 22 to 24 and in chapter 31. He’s mentioned three times in the New Testament, 2 Peter 2.15, Jude 11, and here in Revelation 2.14. What is the doctrine of Balaam? We summarize it being three things. One, he cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel. By that, we mean he tempted them to marry women who worshipped a foreign god and led Israel into idolatry, to marry the women of Moab. Secondly, he caused, at least tried to cause, the children of Israel to compromise with pagan practices. That is, to eat things sacrificed to idols, to go along with all the pagan feasts and celebrate in them, which is pure compromise, flat out. Third, he persuaded them to commit sexual sin. to commit fornication, justifying it all. And Balaam was hired by Balak, king of Moab, to curse Israel. But he couldn’t do it. God intends to bless Israel. And it’s a wonderful story. But just to give you a little background on Balaam, will you turn to Deuteronomy chapter 23? Deuteronomy chapter 23. And you can jot these down and look at them for yourself. But I think the evidence would point to the fact that Balaam is not a Jewish prophet. I know it says the Lord God is speaking to him. I know it says he’s a prophet of the Lord. But I think the evidence is clear. He’s a Gentile. He’s not a Jew. In Deuteronomy 23, verse 4 and 5. It says, because they met you not with bread and with water in the way. This is why God won’t let an Ammonite or a Moabite come into the congregation of the Lord. Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when you came forth out of Egypt. And because, second reason, they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of, what’s the next word? Mesopotamia to curse thee. No, he was not from Israel. He was from Mesopotamia. And the next verse says, Nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee. Turn to Joshua chapter 13. Next book to the right, Joshua chapter 13. So he’s from Mesopotamia, according to Deuteronomy 23. And in Joshua 13, verse 22 says, It says, Balaam also, the son of Beor, the… What does it say? It doesn’t call him a prophet. It calls him a soothsayer, a diviner, a practice of the occult. Did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them who were slain by them? Israel never recognized him either as one of their own. He is a soothsayer. And, of course, God told the children of Israel to kill those. Interesting. Go to Numbers now, chapter 22. Back a couple books. Go to Numbers chapter 22. And look at verse 5. Numbers 22, verse 5. It says, he, meaning Balak, this king of Moab, sent messengers, therefore, unto Balaam, the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people. He came from where? Mesopotamia. The river is referring to the Euphrates. We’re talking about coming from Babylon. And that’s where the soothsayers and occultic people were. And that’s where he sent this Balak king of Moab. And you see, back at that time, the children of Moab sent messengers, or King Balak did, sent messengers to the river where his people were. So another reason why he is not from Israel at all. And then look at one more verse, chapter 23, verse 7, in the same book, 23, verse 7. And I think this settles it. It says, he took up his parable and said, this is Balaam talking to Balak, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram. Now Aram is a term referring again to the Mesopotamian valley through which the Euphrates River goes. It says, out of the mountains of the east, all of your wise men came from the east. Remember at the time of our Lord, wise men came from the east. They were soothsayers, astrologers. They were into the occult. And they said, come, curse for me, Jacob, and come defy Israel. The thing that’s interesting to me is, back to Revelation 2, is that here’s a church letter that deals… with a terrible problem of religious compromise, and the situation of Balaam is brought up for all of us to learn from. It says the Spirit is saying this to the churches. What happens is that sometimes somebody who’s not really one of us all of a sudden becomes a part of us and teaches false doctrine and leads us astray. I want to ask you, does that sound contemporary? I think it is still alarming to people that there can be people on Christian television or Christian radio or in so-called Christian pulpits who are not Christians. It has been my pleasure, if you call it that, because of the results I call it that, but it’s been my pleasure to actually talk to preachers, even seminary professors, who did not know the Lord. They went into the ministry as a high and lofty profession to do good and to help people, but they didn’t actually know the Lord. Several years ago, I met a man teaching the book of Revelation who was deeply affected by what I was saying in the messages to the church. It was a home Bible study. And he was alarmed hearing that some of his friends were going to a Bible study in the book of Revelation, of all books. Which he said is just a colossal waste of time to even study. Nobody can understand it. Why do you even study it? It must be a wacko. I mean, he’s got to be crazy to even teach it. And he came and he used to argue with me every single meeting. He’d argue with me. And he especially hated the churches of Revelation. Because he says, all you’re saying is that churches are corrupt. That’s what you’re saying. I said, well, they can be. He said, well, not all of them are. I said, that’s true. But in Pergamos, the compliment is given to those who hold fast God’s name, who do not deny the faith. And this same man did not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. I mean, put it together. Well, I want you to know that before we got into the terrible parts of the tribulation, he gave his heart to Jesus Christ. Today, he is a pastor here in California of a Bible teaching church. And he has thanked me many times through the years for our, I want to say loving confrontation, but frankly, sometimes I just wanted to hit him in the nose. You know what I mean? I mean, he just drove me batty every week. We had these arguments, these intense arguments, while so many people who weren’t Christians were watching. Wow, wow, that’s what Christians are all about? You know, it was a great testimony, you know, sure. There are two more points here. Not only that Pergamos was a dangerous environment and they heard a serious evaluation, but in verse 16, Pergamos received a strong exhortation. You know that five of the seven churches are told to repent? Five of the seven churches are told to repent. Now most of the teaching about repentance in the Bible applies to non-believers. There are a few exceptions. But in the preaching of John the Baptist, in the preaching of Jesus, the preaching of the apostles, unbelievers were told to repent and turn to the Lord. But believers are also told to repent. And churches are told to repent. And there are two things that I’d point out to you about verse 16. Let’s read it again. It says, repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Would you notice the change in pronoun? In the first phrase, it’s singular. In the second, it’s plural. The them in the plural would be those who, verse 14, hold the doctrine of Balaam, or verse 15, hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. So we got people in the church who are definitely the them who are not saved. The them are unbelievers, though professing to be Christians. You say, wait a minute. Are there people who profess to be Christians who are not? Of course. There are people in the church. There is a them here, and there is a thee, a you. There’s a you who’s a believer who’s caught in a very serious church situation. compromises there. The city is a dangerous environment. It’s hard to live for the Lord, let alone come into the fellowship of Christians and finding all this confusion about what we’re to believe and what is allowed. And because of the corruption in society, Christians were going along with it. And the church was getting rotten. You couldn’t tell the difference between the Christians or the lions without a scorecard. It was getting bad. You think it’s bad today? I hope you feel as I do that a lot of us are responsible. We are responsible. And sometimes our conduct, and I know it quite well, can reflect all that the world is saying. And what’s the answer? It’s repent. Stop it. Two things. One, our Lord indicates that it may involve a removal of the church’s influence and testimony. Look at that again. This is talking to believers when he said, repent or else I will come unto thee quickly. Look back at chapter 2, verse 5. The same thing was said to the church at Ephesus. Remember therefore from where thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick or lampstand out of its place, except thou repent. The situation may be really bad, and the Christians may have compromised terribly, but the appeal here and the exhortation is repent. There’s still hope, but if you don’t repent, I’m going to remove the influence of that church. I’m going to take its testimony out. I will come unto thee quickly and do that. I’ll remove it. So coming unto thee quickly, please don’t misunderstand, is not talking about the second coming of Christ. It’s talking about Christ exercising his judgment upon a church that refuses to repent and takes their testimony and influence away. It may not only involve a removal of the church’s influence and testimony, but it may involve a result that leads to eternal consequences. Here we have a change in pronoun, as we mentioned, chapter 2, verse 16. And we’ll fight against them, those who hold these doctrines. and will fight against them which thing I hate. And notice how he will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. And back to verse 12, the sharp sword with two edges. We’re talking about the giant sword of the barbaric tribes, which with one blow, it’s all over. It’s fatal. And that’s the words in Revelation 19. When the Lord comes, he will smite the nations. He will hit them with the sword of his mouth. And he’ll destroy them. He’ll wipe them out. He will tread in the winepress of God’s wrath and the blood of those who have rejected him will flow. So what we’re talking here is judgment to the them. A little flickering hope to the individual. to the church itself, to the true believers, saying, repent, or else I’m going to remove your testimony. But to those who are holding, who are in the church, but holding the doctrines of the world. Hey, listen, Christians can fall into the trap of that, no doubt about it. But there’s a big difference between falling into the trap of that and actually holding to it and teaching it and believing that it’s okay. And God said the result to all those who are holding it, and that’s what you believe, I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Eternal consequences. He’s talking about judgment being lost forever. You may be doctrinally orthodox, but without love, you’re like sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. You make a lot of noise. You may feel so righteous in all that you are, in all that you do, but without God’s love, we’re nothing. Look, when all’s said and done, if this is it, folks, if the Lord’s coming tonight, you better make sure your name’s written in heaven. Whatever else you want to do, whatever else you’re planning, whatever’s on your agenda, you better make sure of one thing. Is your name written in heaven? Are you an overcomer? Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

SPEAKER 03 : 19:10

This ministry is about the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. If you want to know how to go to heaven or be born again or to really get saved, you need to go to the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Wow. Have you put your trust in the only one who can save you from sin, death, and hell? He’s the one. Not a church, not an organization, not a bunch of works that you might do to please God. No, it’s the work of God that we believe on His Son. He has paid for our sin with His own precious blood. That’s what the crucifixion was all about. And the grave couldn’t hold him. The third day he rose again. He’s alive. He ascended into heaven, and he’s coming back for those who have put their trust in him. Why not open your heart to him right now? Just say, Lord, I confess my sin to you, and I believe that our Lord Yeshua, Jesus, he died for my sin and paid for it completely. I can’t pay for it. He can, and He will forgive me if I open my heart to Him. So I do that right now. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and thank you for turning on hope for today.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:55

God bless you. Well, that is David Hocking, and this is Hope for Today. And friend, if you prayed with David just now to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, well, welcome to the family of God. Perhaps you’d simply like to know more about what it means to be a Christian. In either case, we’d love to send you David’s booklet called What Is Christianity? and a Bible study by mail. Both of these are free to new believers or for anyone who’s not yet a Christian, but they want to know more about what the Bible says about being a Christian, having a relationship with Jesus Christ. You can request these free resources at 1-800-75-BIBLE. That’s in the U.S. Or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. Bible is 24253. Or go to our website and use the contact form at DavidHawking.org. DavidHawking.org. Right now, Matt’s here, and together we’re going to tell you about a powerful Bible study resource that we’re featuring this month.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:56

Matt? Whatever happened to morality? This engaging question is the title of our featured resource by my dad for July.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:03

And we want to send you a copy when you join us in ministry with a donation of $20 or more.

SPEAKER 01 : 22:08

You know, Jim, our culture today is struggling desperately because it’s working feverishly against biblical principles and moral values. This war against God’s will and loving boundaries is like little we’ve seen before. Unbridled pleasure, worship of material gain, dehumanizing the unborn. Embracing contradictions as truth. It reminds me of the assessment of Romans 1, 22 to 23. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wow. So how did we end up in this sorry condition and what does scripture declare about it? And Matt, is there any hope? Yeah. How can believers be a shining light of testimony? What do we say, Jim, to this and the next generation? Those questions are so, so important. You’re going to find the trustworthy answers from God’s Word inside whatever happened to morality.

SPEAKER 02 : 23:02

Whatever happened to morality, the future survival of America and every nation is our gift to you when you contribute $20 or more this month. Prayerfully consider our donation. Give generously as God leads and provides. If you’d like to correspond with us by mail, perhaps to send a financial gift to help us continue this ministry, we could sure use your help. Here’s our address in the U.S. Hope for Today, Box 3927, Tustin, California. 92781. In Canada, write to Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO 7 Oaks, Abbotsford, BC, V2S 8P1. And of course, you can also make a donation on our website, davidhawking.org, or by phone, 875-BIBLE-IN-THE-US, or 888-75-BIBLE-IN-CANADA. Let’s get back to David.

SPEAKER 03 : 24:01

We’re teaching the book of Revelation. We are in chapter 2, talking about the religious compromise that went on at the church in Pergamos. God said He had some things against them. They had the doctrine of the Nicolaians that says, which thing I hate. And He said, repent, or I come unto thee quickly. Wow. We need to understand the Lord’s not compromising with any of the words. He boldly tells us what we need is repentance and to get right with the Lord before He comes in and destroys this ministry. Well, it’s a wonderful treat for me to teach the book of Revelation. I hope you’re enjoying it. By the way, we have a fabulous book of 576 pages on the book of Revelation called Understanding the Future. Give us a call. Ask for the book, Revelation, Understanding the Future. God bless you.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:07

Friend, if you’d like a copy of the commentary David mentioned, it’s called Revelation Understanding the Future. This book is just $20 and you can purchase when you call us at 1-800-75-BIBLE in the U.S. or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And Bible is 24253. You can also order at DavidHawking.org. And if you missed any part of today’s program or just want to listen again, visit us at davidhawking.org and click on the radio button. That’s where you can stream recent broadcasts. Also on the website, you can sign up for our free monthly letter, explore powerful resources like Revival Now, Your Quest for God, Does God Truly Love Me, and more. Those three are free resources that you can download right off the homepage. Well, next time on Hope for Today, David continues our study in Revelation chapter 2, verses 14 through 17, with a direct word from Jesus that exposes the danger of tolerating what he calls evil. You’ll hear the truth straight from God’s word and a call to turn back while there’s still time. Invite someone to listen along with you and do join us again right here on Hope for Today.