The Invisible Sin That Destroys Intimacy with God

Why would we talk about these 7 historic messages? Because God never would have put this in the Bible unless it had direct application to us today in the 21st century. Now let's talk about this city, Pergamum. This city was actually the Roman capital of Asia. So we've got this from Jesus: I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused Didn't you deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan's city? So two times he's saying Satan's city. But I have a few complaints against you, Jesus said. You tolerate. Jesus says, you got these teachers in here that are teaching you basically it's okay to live like the world, to pursue the idols that the world pursues, to live in sexual immorality like the world does because you've got the grace of God. This is the sin of the Pergamum Church. It's not the teachings of the idolatry and sexual immorality. It's— Hey, everybody. Welcome to the John Bevere Podcast. I am joined by my son, Arden. Arden, it's great to see you today.

It's always good to see you.

I love, love what we're talking about. I mean, We're talking about the churches, the 7 churches in the book of Revelation. Arden, why is it that we keep coming back to this theme about the last days, the end of time?

Well, I think it's coming off of even everything you talked about. I think it's so important that we talk about this and don't shy away from it. Now, of course, not making it the only thing that we talk about, but something that's changing people's perspective to living with an expectancy that we're living in the last days. We need to be urgent about the things that we're doing, but not scared about the things that we're doing.

It has a purifying effect. The Bible says that if we have this hope in us, we purify ourselves even as he is pure, which is quite amazing. And so there is something supernatural about talking about the last days. And this is why it was the second most talked about subject by the early church fathers in the first three centuries, second most talked about subject in the New Testament, other of course than salvation in both accounts. So what we've got here is— I, I love— and just to quickly recap, we've got Jesus appearing to John the apostle. Now John's in his 90s. I think this is actually 92 or 93 AD, somewhere in that realm. That's kind of amazing when you think about it. He's in his 90s and he started walking with Jesus when he was a teenager, in his late teens. This man's been so faithful. And they put him in a boiling vat of oil and he came out unscathed, absolutely terrified the emperor. And he shipped him out to Patmos, which is like our Alcatraz of modern days, right? And so then Jesus says, I'm going to give you the revelation of Jesus Christ, which is amazing. And this is when Jesus comes to him and says, hey, I've got a message to the 7 churches which are in Asia. Now, John was overseeing those churches. Paul actually started these, probably all 7 of these churches in his ministry. However, he was beheaded in 67 AD, and then John moved to Ephesus, and that's where he started pastoring for the next 3 decades these churches. So of course Jesus is going to be speaking to the pastor, and he's, he's like sending these messages He calls them to the angels of the churches of, of the 7 cities, but actually means— most Bible commentaries believe it means the bishops, the pastors, the leaders. And why would we talk about these 7 historic messages to these 7 historic Asian churches? Because God never would have put this in the Bible unless it had direct application to us today in the 21st century. And so I personally believe, Arden, that you can find a message that God is actually speaking something out of all 7 of these churches. And that's why we're going through each one on each of these podcasts. So we've done 2 of them, and the first one was Ephesus, which was so interesting. Then we did Smyrna. Yeah, right. And now we're about to do Pergamum. Now let's talk about this city, Pergamum. It actually is today called Bergamo. Bergamama, Turkey. I hope I'm saying it right. It's B-E-R-G-A-M-A, somewhere close. But anyway, it's a city of about 100,000 people today.

Today, back then. Okay.

But back in those days, this city was actually the Roman capital of Asia.

Interesting.

Now, we got to remember, Asia back in those days wasn't the Asia of today. It was basically mostly Turkey.

Yeah. And so Yeah, because whenever I heard Asia Minor last time as we talked about it, I always was thinking like, okay, how much of Asia does that actually mean? But as we talked about, it's mainly just Turkey. I think it's all just Turkey if it's just Asia Minor. But this at that time is what they were referring to as Asia is a lot smaller than what we thought.

So yeah, so it was a city that was very steeped in pagan worship. So it was actually also a city called, it was nicknamed the Athens of Asia. So the Hellenists were there, and the Hellenists weren't people that were into hell. The Hellenists were people that were like sent to bring Greek culture into cities. So you've got this kind of tension between the Romans and the Greek kind of way of life, and Pergamum kind of housed both of them. And so, you know, all of these cities in Asia Minor, the seven cities, they they all had these temples to these goddesses. And, you know, this one had quite a few temples. It had, um, the temple to Zeus, Athena, Dionysus— is that right, Dionysus?

I think so.

That's good. I guess. Yeah, the Greek god of healing. But the big one was Zeus. It was a massive, massive structure. So let's just dive into this letter. I'm going to read the whole thing, okay? All right, so we've got this from Jesus. Remember, this is right from the mouth of Jesus. Write this letter to the angel of the church of Pergamum. This is the message from the one with the sharp two-edged sword, speaking of himself, Jesus. I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan's city. So two times he's saying Satan's city. This is amazing. But I have a few complaints against you, Jesus said. You tolerate— remember the word tolerate— you tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin. What sin? The sin of tolerance. This is interesting. It's not the sin of teaching them, actually teaching idolatry and sexual immorality. No, he said you are tolerating those who teach this. So he is saying repent of your sin of tolerating or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious, I will give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. That's interesting, isn't it? And I will give to each one a white stone, and on that stone will be engraved a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it. Now, Jesus, let's just open this up. He introduces himself as the one with the sharp two-edged sword. I personally believe this is because what he's about to do with this church is cut something out that is very deadly, and that's called tolerance. Hey everybody, as you know, health is a big, big premium for me. It's important that we take care of the temple, the Holy Spirit. Well, did you know that 85% of the meat that you get in grocery stores is imported. Well, guess what? Goodranchers.com. These are friends of ours. We know them personally. They are feeding tons of people in the United States by going to small farms and getting animals that were born in the USA, have had no steroids, hormones, or any kind of other preservatives added. They are eating grass out in the fields. They're healthy. Lisa and I, we get a delivery every single month, and you can taste the difference. So they are giving a $40 discount and some extra little goodies for all of our patrons, Arden. Yeah, so what do they have to do to get it?

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So if you look at Hebrews chapter 4, it says, for the word of God is alive and powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts between soul and spirit. That's interesting. Between our mind and our spirit, between joint and marrow, it exposes— and this is the part I want to reveal— it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing from all of creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we must give an account. So here's Jesus introducing himself to this church as the one with the sharp two-edged sword, because, hey guys, I'm about to you know, perform surgery.

Yeah. And I think this is interesting because he's saying, obviously, you guys are holding to the teaching of Balaam. What is he meaning exactly by that? Because I know what you're saying of tolerating, but is he saying that the teachers are teaching the ways of Balaam of understanding like, hey, I know these are the things that are going to trip you up? Because obviously, that's what Balaam did is told the king, hey, the Israelites will be able to be tripped up if you do this. Is that what he's kind of addressing with in terms of the teachers, or is he addressing with the people?

He's addressing the leaders are tolerating people that are teaching this. Okay.

So, so it's—

and you said something really important because I think a lot of people miss this. If you go back, Balaam is found in the Book of Numbers. Numbers 22, 23, 24. Balaam is a prophet who actually wasn't a prophet of Israel, but he was a prophet that heard from God. It's very interesting.

Very interesting.

And He's very well known that he, you know, he— it's known that whoever he curses is cursed, whoever he blesses is blessed. So this king of Moab who is called Balak, he's the king of Moab and Midian. They're all terrified because Israel has destroyed the most powerful nation in the world, Egypt. And now Israel has come into their territory and the people are terrified with fear. So is the king, because they're like, what is going to happen to us? So this king has this bright idea. He says, I'm going to hire this prophet and he's going to come and curse them so they won't be able to overpower us. So he sends his nobles and his elders to Balaam's house and they say, hey, the king of Midian and Moab wants you to come and he wants you to curse Israel. And we're bringing you a massive offering for doing this. And Balaam looks at him and says, well, let me pray. And see what the Lord says.

Which he probably shouldn't have even needed to pray about that one.

Correct. Because the first thing God says to him, he comes to him that night and says, who are these men with you? Yeah. In other words, they're not my covenant people. They want you to curse my covenant people. Why do you even need to pray about this? And Arden, right there, that tells us there's some things we just don't need to pray about. Yeah. I mean, if you're married to somebody and you're thinking about having a relationship with a different woman, You don't need to pray about that. Okay? If you're, you know, trying to pray about whether I should take some uppers before I go into my final exam, no, you don't need to do—

why don't you trust the Spirit of God? What is an upper?

Oh, that's— I'm showing my age, aren't I? Uh, it's the drug. It is the, um, drug that actually causes— it energizes you. So what would you call that today?

I mean, to me, that's just adrenaline. I don't know what you're—

well, there was these drugs that they used to take when I was in college, and man, I'm just showing my age. I'm so That's why you're on this program.

Okay, I've never heard of uppers. So what do you take that gives you a lot of energy and speed? Again, is that—

is that—

is that adrenaline?

Okay, that's— so now I just used an example I probably shouldn't have, but anyway, there are just some things we don't need to pray about.

Yeah.

Okay. Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first I want to thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages. So thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patron. Now let's get back to the show. So God says this to him. He says, all right, since you didn't get the clue, I'm going to make my will abundantly clear to you. You shall not go with these guys. And number 2, in case you think about cursing from your house, you shall not curse them because they're blessed. So Balaam comes down, looks at these nobles in fetters, and goes, hey, I can't go with you because the Lord's refused to let me go. So it's not that God doesn't want me to go, it's he's refusing to let me go.

So it's not my will here. It's not that I want to.

I want to go, but God won't let me do it.

But God won't do it.

Yeah. It's like the kid that wants to go play ball with his friends, but his mom said, no, I want you to do your homework. And he goes to his friends and goes, I can't go.

Well, I think that's even a really good way of positioning how we oftentimes can look at sin. I think You've even had stories where people have said, like, I've been trying to break through sin, but I feel like I can't break through and break through. And then they finally get the realization from God. It's because you still, you still enjoy it. You still like it. And I think sometimes we have to ask ourselves that question is, do you still like the sin that you've been stuck into? And maybe you've been asking God and you're like, no, God, I want to, I want to get set free from it in the same way Balaam's like, well, actually, my flesh here is I would really like that money. I would really like the benefits that might come from me being able to curse God or curse the people of Israel. But yet God's like, no, it's not. It's not about this is my will. It's what I want to see interacted through my voice piece at that time, which was Balaam, which is honestly, it always blows my mind when I think Balaam is hearing directly from God because of what we said. But yet God was like, I want it to be not just your message or what you want to do. I want it to be my message that's shown through you.

Yeah, he He was kind of like, I have to, I have to obey God, not I get to. And I think all of us need to really check ourselves like you just said. I will never forget my friend who, he was smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day and crying out to God, crying out to God, said he wanted to be free and he couldn't get free. He was fasting, he was asking ministers to pray for him. And his friend got delivered from 2 packs and he was so angry. He said, John, I was so angry at God. And he said, I yelled out, why haven't you delivered me? And God said, because you still like them. And he said, I took one look at that lit Winston cigarette, put it out, and he said, I've never smoked a cigarette since. And it was decades. And so, yeah, there are a lot of times that people aren't free from sin because we still like it. Balaam, to him, God's word was more law. It was restraining. And so he does obey God and he says, hey, I can't go with you. They go back. King Balak, of course, sends more nobles. With more valuables, more treasures, more honor, more dignity. And Balaam actually looks at him and says, hey, if he gives me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more. In other words, I'm still refrained.

Can I even add into something? Because Balaam could have had a mindset of, well, look how much they're giving me, like a man of God, and what I'm getting out of this, like, God, This is a blessing. Like, what could have this been? And actually seeing it from that angle.

Yeah, that's what Gehazi thought too.

Yeah. Which, I mean, that's something that I've always— we joke about with you is we talk about, you know, if someone gave to the ministry $10 million, would you eat a donut? Because you have a very stern rule of what you eat and you always say no. And you say, why? Why would I have to compromise the temple of God to be able to see finances come into this ministry?

Everybody's going to think I'm ridiculous.

But yes, people will.

People will laugh at that. I have a very strong personal conviction because God said your body My temple, take care of it.

But it's your personal conviction. And I think what you're seeing with Balaam is he could have— he very easily starts to see like, oh wait, my personal conviction of what I know to be true starts swaying with based off of maybe some of the benefits that he could even receive through ministry, which is something I think is a little bit sobering for people to remember because, yeah, there's a lot of benefits, personal benefit in this for him.

Yeah, the king's going to honor him greatly. All you have to do is come and curse the people.

That's all you got to do.

And so he says, hey, if he gives me everything he's got, I'm not— I'm not coming and doing it because I couldn't go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more. So then he makes the statement, which I think is amazing. But nevertheless, stay with me one more night. Let me see what else the Lord's saying. Like God's going to change his mind. God's already made it abundantly clear. You shall not go with the people, shall not curse them because they're blessed. Right. But what's mind-blowing is that God comes to him that night and said, when the men, or if the men come to call you, which they were going to do, rise and go with them. But only the word which I speak you shall do. So now he's got the word of the Lord to go. So he gets up the next morning, saddles his donkey, goes with them, does exactly what he's told the night before by God. He knew. And now God's angry because he's going.

Yeah. And you're like, it's literally the next verse. I know God was angry because he was going.

So you're thinking like, okay, God, are you schizophrenic? No. This is the thing that we have to remember. If we really, really, really, really want something and God's already made his will revealed to us, he oftentimes will give it to us even if he knows it's not best for us. Example, Israel says we want a king, and Samuel goes to God and God says, well, if they get a king, the king's going to take their best daughters, their best sons, is going to take their best lands. He's going to— he's going to take taxes from them to do all this. Samuel goes back to people and they go, we don't care, we still want a king. So Samuel goes back to God and says, what do I do now? God says, give them their king. He said, but God, you said that's not the best for them. God said, I don't care, they want their king, give them their king. So if you look at Israel, they wanted meat in the desert. They weren't satisfied with the manna. The manna, I mean, can you believe it? Elijah ate 2 cakes of that manna and went 40 days and 40 nights nonstop. I mean, I would love to have food like that myself, okay? But They want meat. So the Bible says in Psalm 178 that God heard their request, sent quail in enough to feed 3 million people. The quail just kind of fluttered above the ground. They plucked them out of the air and they ate the meal. And the Bible says in Psalm 78, while the meat was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them and slew the stoutest of them. And you're like, whoa, God is the one that miraculously brought three— enough quail into the middle of the desert to feed. And those quail don't run in those desert over there to feed to feed 3 million people. But before they're done eating it, the judgment of God comes on. Why? Because God will give you what you really want. So now Balaam, he— God is angry because he's going. And so God sends this angel and opens up the eyes of the donkey. He sees the angel 3 times, gets off the road. Balaam's beating his donkey. And finally, finally, the donkey talks to Balaam and says, what are you doing, man? I'm trying to keep us from getting killed by this massive angel. God opens up Balaam's eyes. He sees this like Angels are usually like 8, 9, 10 feet tall. This 10-foot-tall angel. And Balaam just like falls on his face and says, God, I'm so sorry. I've sinned. I've sinned. I've sinned. And then he makes this statement that is mind-blowing. He said, what does he say? You read it.

He says, so now if it's evil in your sight, I will turn back.

If it's evil in your sight, I'll turn back.

Yeah.

What are you, stupid?

He's like, so if you're sure you want me to do this, then I'll go back.

That's how stupid people become. When they want what they want, idolatry above what God wants for them. So this is, this is the core. So now Balaam goes and cursed to curse these people, and he ends up blessing them all 4 times. The king is furious. He says, oh yeah, I was going— the king is furious. He was like, oh yeah, I was going to give you a whole lot of money, but you're not getting a penny from me now. Now Balaam wants that money. So see, he's still bent on getting that money. I mean, this should be a lesson for all of us. And so he goes, wait a minute, wait a minute, I can't curse them. Them, but I could tell you how to get them under a curse. And the king said, how? Send your women in, let them be really seductive, dress seductively, tell them to bring their idols. And when Israel begins to commit adultery with those women and fornicates with those women and begins to sacrifice to their idols, then they'll come under a curse. And that's exactly what happened, because just in the very next chapter, the women of Moab come in The women of Midian come in, they bring their idols, they commit adultery. And I believe a plague hits Israel. And if I'm not mistaken, 24,000 people died in that plague.

24,000.

Yeah, 24,000. Okay, now let's bring this over to Pergamum. Jesus says, you got these teachers in here that are teaching you basically it's okay to live like the world, to pursue the idols that the world pursues, to live in sexual immorality like the world does because you've got the grace of God. Now, Jesus said to them, you also tolerate the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Now let's talk about the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Nicholas of Antioch Both Irenaeus and I'm trying to remember who the other guy was. They're both historians. Irenaeus, Hippolytus.

Hippolytus.

Okay, let me make sure I'm— yeah. Okay. So both Irenaeus and Hippolytus, who are historians, wrote about this guy named Nicholas of Antioch. So in essence, if you read Acts chapter 6, verse 5, it says, and the saying pleased the whole multitude. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith. This is back when they needed the men to wait on the widows' tables. So they, they chose Philip, uh, they chose Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas. Now listen to this: a proselyte of Antioch. So a proselyte means somebody who is converted. So he was a proselyte from Antioch. He was— so basically, this is a Jewish— this is a guy who was into pagan worship, and he converts to Judaism But then all of a sudden the gospel comes along and he converts to Christianity. So this guy's a free thinker. This guy's like, oh, whatever is new and whatever is really cool, I'm going to go with. So he introduces a very similar thing to what Balaam taught Balak to do with the people of Israel. He basically says, hey, if you got a little pagan worship, which pagan worship always revolved around sexual immorality and money and greed and all that stuff, got a little bit of that. It's okay because you got grace, you got Jesus, but you can have the world too. So Jesus is saying to these leaders, you're tolerating this. You're not confronting this. You're not challenging this. You're not getting it out. You're putting up with it. And so this is the sin of the Pergamum Church. It's not the teachings of the idolatry and sexual immorality. It's the tolerance of the teachings of idolatry and sexual immorality. That's what's mind-blowing.

Yeah. Because, I mean, even looking back at Moses during that time, do you feel like there was the tolerance of the women being able to come into that time period? And then you look at what was the reason why it all stopped was what Eleazar's son— he was like, I'm not—

Phinehas's son.

Yeah.

Oh, wait a minute. Eleazar.

Phinehas.

Phinehas was his son.

Eleazar said, I'm not going to tolerate this anymore. And, you know, took the spear and ran through the woman and the man while they're sitting there. I mean, it was so commonplace to them that they're there having a meeting talking about what's going wrong. And then yet there's this man who has such a lack of the fear of God or a lack of even just like thinking he's completely fine.

Israeli man.

He's an Israeli man.

He's got this woman. He's from Midian.

Yep. He's got a Midianite woman and he's bringing her into his tent in front of everyone.

In front of Moses.

In front of it.

Yeah. And Phineas says, I've had it, takes the javelin and runs the javelin right through the man and the woman while they're in the act of committing sexual immorality.

Which, I mean, kind of looking at modern-day things is I think we do have a lot of people where it's almost like they're OK with flaunting the things that maybe they're doing, like maybe they're out drinking with their friends and they're OK with posting on social media and showing that they're professing Christians and, you know, doing— taking these steps where it's like, Okay, you're, you're showing that you're aligning with two different things, that you're showing on one hand that you're maybe boasting on the things that you were doing that are very worldly. But then on the other hand, you're going through your right motions and going to church and doing those things, right?

Yeah, that's basically what we're doing in this very day and hour. We have developed a grace message, which is exactly what the Nicolaitans did. They developed this grace message. That permits a very ungodly, worldly, fleshly lifestyle. In essence, when we come to Jesus, we deny ourself, we take up our cross, we follow Him. We say, Jesus, I'm no longer my own. I'm now yours. I'm going to live in a way that's going to glorify you. I am going to love what you love. I'm going to hate what you hate. What drove the nails through your hands, I'm no longer going to entertain myself with it. I'm not going to flirt with it. I'm not going to engage in it because I am yours. I am your betrothed bride. I belong to you. If I befriend the world, I commit adultery against you. And that's the thing we've got to remember. Back in those days, if you look at the ancient Jewish wedding, we have engagement, they had betrothal. They're different. Engagement, you can break the engagement and it's fine. Betrothal is you are married even though you're separated. While you're separated, you're expected to keep yourself pure. You know, the groom would come do the ketubah, it was called, with the bride's family. He would say, this is— I want to be the husband. They would drink the wine. They're married. I mean, Joseph, he was going to put Mary away when he heard about the fact that she was pregnant. He was going to do it privately, but he was going to divorce her because the only way to get out of a betrothal is a divorce, because you're already married even though you're not living together and you haven't had sex together. So James makes the statement. He said, you become a friend of the world, you become an adulterer, and you make yourself an enemy of God. Now, why does James say you make yourself an enemy of God? Why doesn't he say you make yourself an enemy of Jesus? Now, of course, Jesus is God. Of course. Yes, he is God, our Savior, God, our soon-coming King. He is God manifested in the flesh. But I love how James doesn't use Jesus's name. He uses God, which I believe he's implying to the Father. Want to know why? Because God paid a high price. For the, for the bride, for his groom. He, he, he paid the price of the lifeblood of his own son. And so when we commit adultery with the world, we're committing adultery against our groom and we make ourselves an enemy of God. God's like, I am not happy with this because right now you are taking the betrothal lightly and you're throwing it basically back in my face.

Yeah. And what can I ask you, just because I think this message has gone on for a while, what do you see as the effects in people's lives when they kind of accept that as their, their belief system in terms of I can do everything that I want to keep doing, but yet still be in a relationship with God? What have you seen as the effects of that?

I am so happy you asked that question because the very thing that most people cry out for, they give up, and that is intimacy with God. So the Bible says that we're to abide in fellowship with Him. We're to live in fellowship with Him. If I was, let's say if I was a husband and I was committing adultery against my wife, I may technically be still married, although it's not gonna last very long. But what I'm gonna lose is I'm gonna lose that intimate, those intimate moments with her. She's not gonna share the secrets and the desires of her heart. She's not gonna share the intimate things of her heart. I lose that. What we do when we do this with people is we cut them off with fellowship, intimate fellowship with Jesus. Now, what keeps us strong is intimate fellowship with him. Living in fellowship with Jesus is what keeps me walking with him, right? The way I kind of compare it is this: if I'm on a football team, right, I got 10 other players on my offensive team. And who's my captain? It's a quarterback. So let's just, let's just do, you know, who's, who's a famous quarterback?

Give me Tom Brady.

Tom Brady, of course.

Of course.

All right, Tom Brady's the quarterback, but now I'm Julius Edelman. I'm the wide receiver.

Julian.

Julian Edelman. Yeah. And I'm not in the huddle. Tom calls the play, and the play just so happens that it's a pass To you? To Julian Edelman. He's not in the huddle. He doesn't know what to do. So everybody on that team, the linemen know they go into a blocking position. The halfbacks know that they're going to be there to pick up any blitzes. The other wide receivers are going to parts of the field that opens up the field for Julian Edelman. He doesn't know where to go. He doesn't even know the ball's coming to him. Okay. His teammates are going to be really angry at him. So what we do when we tell people, when we start saying to tolerate these things, we're cutting them off from fellowship with Jesus. We're like pulling them out of his huddle. And now there's a distance because the Bible says sin hardens our heart. So when our heart is hardened, we no longer hear his, his still small voice. We're no longer receiving from him. When we're reading the Bible, we're just getting more stories. We're getting more examples. We're getting insights. Inspiration we're getting, but we're not hearing, really hearing from him.

Yeah, I feel like it's also, it creates a Christianity in your life that's not going to last. Like, I've seen, we've seen so many examples of people who have gotten close to people who knew their lives were not living in a standard that was honoring to God, and the people position in their life was not challenging them that because they were scared of of maybe losing that relationship. And so they feared the person more than they actually feared God and the things that they were supposed to be preaching into. And we watched as just those people that they were entrusted to, or those people that were entrusted to them, continue to walk away from God. Because why? It's just a list of rules and regulations as you look at that in terms of what you can and cannot do. And then you look at those examples and you're like, okay, well, I can continue to keep doing this, and I'm believing that I'm I'm going to continue to have this revelation or relationship with God and understand that God can heal all my diseases and sicknesses and God can forgive all my sins. And this is amazing. But yet then I never experience God. Then it's just, what are you actually having a relationship with? Which, I mean, probably. And of course, you might want to do this. It was even what he's probably mentioning about the hidden manna later on in this, this, this chapter too, of like, what is actually waiting for you? After you start doing these things, what's being beheld for you?

You know, if you look at man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God— not proceeded, proceeds. I look at that as the manna, the manna from heaven. That's what we need to live and survive on. And, you know, I mean, just think of these words: man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds. We live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What these guys were doing. And I, I've actually got this. I'm going to read right from one historian's writings. Nicholas taught a doctrine of compromise, implying that total separation between Christianity and the practice of occult paganism wasn't essential. According to the early writings concerning the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, they taught that it was all right to have one foot in both worlds. All right. One didn't need to be so strict about separating from the world in order to be a Christian. So what it did is it basically weakened the church. And a church that gets weakened like this is not a church that's going to last. And Jesus is like, hey guys, you're, you're going to fall away. Your lampstand is going to be removed. Your influence is going to be removed. If you continue in this doctrine of compromise. In short, basically, the doctrine of the Nicolaitans was one of compromise and tolerance. We see the same thing with the next church of Thyatira. It's tolerance again. It's not— it's like God already attempted to deal with these teachers, but now who He's dealing with is the leaders that are tolerating it. And so Jesus's instruction to the church of Pergamum: Repent of your sin. So the sin is the sin of tolerance, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth. So I love what Jesus says to this church about those who are victorious. So if we live in a world of compromise and yet we refuse to compromise, We don't tolerate. We don't tolerate in our own life. We don't teach it. We don't tolerate the teaching of it, but we expose it. He said to everyone who is victorious, I will give some of the manna, as you just spoke about, that's been hidden away in heaven. That those are— I believe that is the revelations, the intimate sayings of Jesus that we draw our strength from. And I will give to each one a white stone. Now, this is absolutely amazing, the white stone. So in the courtroom back in those days, the jurors had a black stone.

And then Urim and Thummim, right?

No, no, that was actually the priests.

Okay. Yeah, but they're different because I thought Urim and Thummim were white and black stones.

I didn't know that. I mean, you're probably right.

Okay.

But no, this was jurors in Asia Minor. Okay. So the black stone was guilty. Yeah, the white stone was innocent. And Jesus said, I'm going to throw in a white stone for you. And he said, on that stone is going to be engraved in a new name. And new names with God always end up being greater authority, greater responsibility. Yeah. The one thing that I want to point out, because we're just about ready to wrap up here, is the thing that so impacted me in studying this, Arden, and our producer did such a good job. I mean, there's so much that we didn't cover. But I look at this faithful martyr Antipas, and Jesus points this out. I'm going to go back up there and read this. He says, I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to me. You refused to deny me even when Antipas, my faithful witness, was martyred among you there. In Satan's city. So these people are remaining loyal to them. So, so think of this. He's, he's, he's not pleased with this church because they're tolerating this teaching, which tells us that remaining silent on these very critical matters is not pleasing. But he said, you've remained loyal to me even when Antipas was martyred. And the historians tell us that that there was this brazen bull in the middle, in the city square of Pergamum, and it had a door on it. And this guy Antipas was the first person martyred by the people of the city. And what they did is they put him into this brazen bull, closed the door, put a massive fire underneath that, And they actually constructed some intricate pipe work in this bull that when the victim was being roasted alive, as the victim screamed, it sounded like a bull. And that's the way this guy was martyred in front of everybody. And so Jesus saying, you remain faithful to me, even when he was martyred that way. I mean, it really tells you that these guys were loyal, except they tolerated. They tolerated. And we're going to talk about that in the next podcast when we get to Thyatira, the danger of tolerance. That's what we're going to really, really hone in on in our very next one with Thyatira. I'm telling you, I get— you know, I've also been writing on these seven churches and I just get so shook up when I write about these things that happen in a good way. I literally, I went to breakfast the other morning with somebody. I'd been up really early and I said, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm a bit shaken by what I just wrote and what I learned about one of the churches in Revelation. It wasn't even this one. So these things are put in here for us to what? To not compromise in a very compromising society right now. So listen, I just want to encourage you. Please believe what you read in the scripture, not what everybody thinks they're reading or the way everybody interprets just through a few scriptures. Get into the word of God yourself. Find out what Jesus is saying, what the Apostle Paul, Peter, John are writing, Jude, the rest of them, James, writing to the church. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you. And if you see someone who is teaching otherwise, trying to say, ah, it's okay, you can watch these movies, we're all covered by grace, don't tolerate it. Confront it in a very loving way, not in a judgmental, dogmatic, critical way. Remember, the Ephesus church was like that, but they lost love. You can't lose your love for people, but you can't tolerate the teachings that will kill people. Because in essence, the most unloving thing you can do is to watch somebody heading towards destruction and say nothing. So please, please, please don't in a very mean-spirited way confront teachings that are pulling people away from the heart of God. Confront it with boldness, but with great compassion. And great empathy. Well, until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast. God bless you.