I am very excited to say that this post is my 150th post. God has used this blog to teach me so many new things about Him and His truth. I hope that the same is true for you. Each time I come to write a post, I refuse to filter or dumb-down what God has given us. What use is a life-giving medicine if we delude it with water? The same is true of Scripture. So, I realize I step on toes…as I’ve said before, I don’t really care. You matter more than your feelings. That’s why today, I’m going to tackle some more hard truth. Let’s keep looking at Revelation.
“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write the following:
“This is the solemn pronouncement of the one who has the sharp double-edged sword: ‘I know where you live—where Satan’s throne is. Yet you continue to cling to my name and you have not denied your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed in your city where Satan lives. But I have a few things against you: You have some people there who follow the teaching of Balaam, who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality. In the same way, there are also some among you who follow the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore, repent! If not, I will come against you quickly and make war against those people with the sword of my mouth. The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give him some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on that stone will be written a new name that no one can understand except the one who receives it.’ Revelation 2:12-17
New English Translation
The church in Pergamum was clinging to the name of God, but they weren’t willing to speak the hard truth. What does that mean? Well, they wanted to be a people of God, but they didn’t want to confront the sexual sin and those eating food sacrificed to idols in their midst. The crazy thing is, in ancient times, both sins were generally associated with worshiping false gods. It’s easy to see how meat sacrificed to idols is involved, but it might be less obvious how sex can be involved.
In ancient times, people would prostitute themselves, not even always with the same sex, to honor the gods they served. Sometimes, people were even designated as the temple prostitute, their entire job being sexual worship. This sin was creeping its way into the church of Pergamum, and that was a massive problem. For something that blatantly bad to creep its way in, there had to be several long periods of time where sin was ignored and repentance was not encouraged. A big sinful mess never happens overnight, it takes several times of one less obvious sin building up on top of another until everyone’s used to it and does nothing about it when it’s out in the open.
Modern church really isn’t that different. We’ve had years of people tolerating and encouraging sexual sin in the name of diversity, inclusion, and love. Unmarried couples living together, confused and broken people attempting to switch genders (physically impossible, but people try), and the church stood on the sidelines, sometimes silent and sometimes cheering them on.
No matter the sexual sin, the people struggling through these situations are hurting people. There is something in their lives that made them believe that sexual sin was the only way to find fulfillment. Something hurt them so bad that they think disrespecting the body God gave them is their only way to find peace. The church has a choice: we can either help them find a dignified hope or be silent and let them suffer in sin. What do we choose?
In my post What is Love? I talked about what love really is and how Scripture shows that we can only truly love by first loving God. Through that, we learned that love involves respecting and obeying God. So, when loving someone in sin, no matter if it be sexual sin or something else, to love them is to urge them to repentance. Anything that is against God’s truth and will is wrong, and should not be promoted by God’s people. Even if we’re not the one sinning, our silence or praise of their sin is then sin. However, helping someone to see the truth, and doing everything you can to help someone move back toward God, is living as a Christ follower.
My question is this: Do you love those around you? Think about the past few months. Have you helped others and yourself move into repentance? Or have you tried to sweep it under the rug or even encouraged sin? Don’t be too prideful to admit if you did. Honestly, if you said you’ve not done it at all in the past months, I’m not sure I’d believe you. No one is perfect, we’re all going to make mistakes. However, we have the choice of whether we’re going to change or not.
Now, from the flip-side… are you the one bringing sexual sin into the church? There are so many ways this can happen. Back then, it was likely prostitution. Today, it can be anything from porn, sex outside of marriage, lust for the opposite or same sex, to impure speech. These have all made their way into the church at times, often unnoticed at first.
Some of these you may think don’t affect those around you, but they do. Sexual speech not only is disgusting and rude, but it also leads others to have inappropriate thoughts, and that’s your fault. Are you guarding yourself and others well? Or are you a stumbling block to those around you? Maybe you think porn is harmless and only you know. Hidden sin can only hide for so long. Some day, some one will walk in on you and find out. What if they fall into that sin because of you? Please, I beg of you, fight for yourself and those around you. Ask God to purify your heart and mind. You are worth fighting for.
I don’t know which side of the table you’re sitting on. Either way, the truth is, sexual sin isn’t a light matter, and unrepentence is a direct slap to God’s face. When you refuse to repent, you’re telling God that you don’t care about Him or His truth. In that moment, you’re no longer living as a child of God because you’ve chosen to walk away from Him. Do you really want to choose your sin over God? Which one is lasting pleasure? God is.
Today is the day to get right with God. Whether it means you stand up for yourself and start repenting of sexual sin, or you stand up for yourself and others and start repenting of tolerating sin, now is the time. Tomorrow is never promised. The church is only the church of God if it follows Him every step of the way. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of people packed in a building. What do you choose?