The Danger of Discounting Doctrine.

This week I am preaching from Jesus' letter to the church at Pergamum in Revelation 2:12-17. There are a number of things we can learn from this letter and on Sunday I will unpack one particular dynamic in our culture that I think is deeply problematic: the expectation of tolerance.

But another emphasis a preacher could focus on is doctrine, a sometimes maligned topic in our day. Why should we emphasize doctrine in an age in which it’s disdained? Why do we hold tightly to our beliefs in a day in which everyone believes what they want? In Revelation 2:11–17, the Lord’s message to the church at Pergamum, deals with the danger of doctrinal compromise. This church was indifferent to subtle influences that corrupted its teachers and endangered the spiritual life of its membership. We are in danger in similar ways today. Consider a 2001 study by George Barna (admittedly now dated and probably much worse...

Almost half of born again Christians (45%) agree that Satan is “not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” (2001)

About one-third of born again Christians (34%) believe that if a person is good enough they can earn a place in heaven. (2001) 

Fifteen percent of born again Christians claim that “after He was crucified and died, Jesus Christ did not return to life physically.” (2000)

About one out of four (26%) born again Christians believe that it doesn’t matter what faith you follow because they all teach the same lessons; a belief held by 56% of non-Christians. (2000)

Yikes! No wonder the Apostle Paul wrote, "The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine"—2 Timothy 4:3. Some of great Christian thinkers and theologians of the past century have known better when it comes to doctrine...

"The chief need of the present age is great theology." —Dr. Loraine Boettner

"Great saints have always been dogmatic." —A. W. Tozer

"There can be no spiritual health without doctrinal knowledge." —J. I. Packer

"We cannot have the benefits of Christianity if we shed its doctrines."—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says that doctrines are like maps. They are not the reality and may not be as exciting as reality, but they chart reality for us in a vital way. Just as studying a map of the shore of the Atlantic is not as exciting as walking along the Atlantic coast itself, so studying the doctrine of Atonement is not exactly the same as the experiencing the Cross itself. But the purpose of a map is to represent, graph, and explain the reality. If you want to find your way, you need to have a reliable map and consult it frequently.

Let's look at the text and notice five things:

1. The Designation of Christ (Revelation 2:12) The church in Pergamum was established early since it is one of the seven churches addressed by Christ. Antipas was martyred there, the first Christian put to death by the Roman state. Revelation 2 mentions Pergamum as the place “where Satan’s throne is,” probably referring to the temples in which the Roman emperors worshiped. This city was located in Mysia, an ancient province of Asia, in the Caicus valley. The city had a great library and four beautiful temples representing the gods Zeus, Dionysus, Athena, and Asklepios. In addressing this letter, Christ describes Himself as having a two-edged sword. The sword, a symbol of judgment, denotes the Lord’s vengeance on the guilty world. To those who refuse to own His absolute authority, the sword must do its sure work in the execution of judgment.

2. The Discernment of Christ (Revelation 2:13) Jesus declares that He knows their works. Jesus knows where they live. He commends them for holding fast His name and their refusal to deny their faith in spite of the martyrdom of Antipas. Christ knows our temptations and takes into consideration our circumstances. The church is commended for holding fast His name in spite of its circumstances. They were not ashamed of their relationship to Christ.

3. The Denunciation of Christ (Revelation 2:14-15) This church, however, tolerated the Nicolaitan sect and those who held the doctrine of Balaam. Although the Savior could approve their general course, He could not approve their toleration of these who held to a pernicious error that sapped the very foundation of morals. The church was indifferent to subtle inward influence that corrupted its teachers and endangered the spiritual life of its congregation. It was a church with devotion and yet lax in dealing with doctrinal error. The false teachers taught the same doctrine as Balaam and, therefore, deserved to be classed with him. The doctrine of Balaam permitted heathen religious rituals, which led to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans that sanctioned immoral practices. The essence of Balaamism is worldliness. It is a grave mistake for the church to make a union with the world. Satan seeks to nullify the power of the church by mixing Christianity with worldliness. Some churches today are seducing their members away from Christ by providing worldly amusements unworthy of Christ. The church must preach and practice sound doctrine. Doctrinal distortion, dilution, and defection lead to disaster.

4. The Directive of Christ (Revelation 2:16) Christ issued a sharp command to repent. Unless the church repents, judgment will be swift and decisive. In spite of their faithfulness, the evil character of those things that were tolerated in the church was so serious to the mind of Christ that He would judge the church with the sword of His mouth. The impending judgment, unless they repented, was designed for their edification and salvation. The church was condemned for its laxity. While all in the church did not practice the deeds or adhere to the deeds condemned by Christ, the church tolerated them in the assembly. The pastor of this church had not practiced or imbibed the reprobate deeds, but neither had he denounced them nor opposed their entrance into the church.

5. The Disclosure of Christ (Revelation 2:17) Christ admonished the church to hear, heed, hold, and honor the Spirit’s words. He assured the church that overcomers would be given hidden manna to eat and a white stone with a new name written on it which no man would know without receiving it.

Doctrinal defection is a real danger for the church today. Every church must maintain doctrinal purity. The message to the church at Pergamum is valid for the church today. Diligence, discernment, and discipline are necessary to maintain doctrinal purity, for we are commanded to contend earnestly for the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3)

The Greatest Commandments (Mark 12:28-31)

Mark tells us, 

Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” (v. 28). 

The scribe was not wondering about chronology. He was not asking, “What was the first commandment that God ever gave?” Rather, he was posing a question of priority. He was asking, “What is the single most important commandment that God has given to this world?” He wanted to know the chief duty not just of members of the household of Israel and, later, the Christian community, but of the entire world, of every human being created in the image of God.

It was common in both the Old Testament writings and in Jewish teaching at Jesus’ time for teachers to attempt to summarize man’s chief obligation to God. For example, the prophet Micah said, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8). God told the prophet Habakkuk, “The just shall live by his faith” (2:4b). Rabbi Hillel, who taught twenty years before the ministry of Jesus, summed it up this way: “What you would not want done to you, do not do to your neighbor,” which was simply the Golden Rule articulated not in positive terms as Jesus did but as a prohibition. Hillel added: “This is the essence of the law. Everything else is mere commentary on it.” These are just a few of the attempts to sum up the whole duty of man.

When the scribe asked Jesus to do this, Mark writes: Jesus answered him, 

“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment” (vv. 29–30). 

Jesus directed the man’s attention to the most fundamental summary of man’s obligation that God gave to His people in the Old Testament, the Shema, which is found in Deuteronomy 6. That chapter begins with these words:

 “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you—‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ ” (vv. 1–3)

After this preface, we come to the divine summons, the call that begins with the Hebrew word shema, which means “Hear” or “Give ear.” Israel was commanded: 

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (vv. 4–5). 

It is very significant that Jesus chose to cite this passage when asked to identify the highest-priority commandment. When the Shema was uttered and the Jews were directed to focus their affection on God, the object of their affection was not an impersonal cosmic force, an unnamed, unknown higher power. It clearly stated God’s identity: “The LORD our God.” This was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God who had delivered Israel from their slavery in Egypt.

Of course, the Israelites were not commanded to love Him simply because of what He had done for them, just as we ought not to love God simply for the gifts and benefits we receive from His hand. Neither are we to love Him simply for His attributes—His infinite wisdom, His limitless power, His peerless justice, and so on. Rather, we are to love Him for who He is in Himself. We do not really progress in the Christian life until we understand that we are to love God simply because He is lovely and wonderful, worthy of every creature’s unqualified affection.

This is why the Shema commands the people of God to have a comprehensive love for God. First, we are commanded to love God with all our hearts. The idea is that our love for God is to come from the very root of our beings. Our love for God is to be an affection that is surpassed by no other affection. It is to be an undiluted, unmixed love for God.

Second, we are commanded to love God with all our souls. In other words, our love for Him is not to be tepid or lukewarm. It is to be a blazing fire in our souls. It is good to remember the warning Jesus gave to the Laodicean church in the book of Revelation. He said: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth” (3:15–16). Our love for God must be white hot, not cold or even lukewarm.

Finally, the Shema tells us to love God “with all of [our] strength.” The affection that we are to have for God is not to be a weak, impotent thing. We must call on all of the strength we can muster to express our affection for Him.

It is interesting that the Shema lists three dimensions of our love for God—heart, soul, and strength. Jesus, however, listed four—heart, soul, mind, and strength. Some Hebrew scholars say the idea of the mind is implied in the word that is translated as “strength” in the Shema. Jesus, however, left no ambiguity. When He quoted the Shema, He said, “You shall love the LORD your God … with all your mind.” We are to love God with the fullness of our understanding. 

Sometimes I get impatient when I hear people say, “I do not want to study, I just want to have a simple faith.” God did not give us the Bible so that we might treat it as a children’s story. He calls us to apply our minds to the fullest extent to understand the riches and the depths of His revelation of Himself in His Word. This is what it means to love God with our minds.

If we are honest with ourselves, we all have to admit that we have not kept the Great Commandment for even a single day of our lives. However, we are at ease in Zion about it. We are not really under great conviction in this matter, because we see that no one loves the Lord God with all of his or her heart, soul, mind, and strength. Thus, we think it must not be a big deal if we do not keep this commandment either. We are greatly mistaken in thinking this way.

The scribe asked Jesus which was the Great Commandment, the first in terms of importance. This was a natural question for him. The Jews taught that there are 613 commandments in the Torah, and the scribes distinguished between the “heavy laws” and the “light laws,” with the heavy laws being the more important ones. Even Jesus did that to some degree when He talked about the least of the commandments (Matt. 5:19) and weightier matters of the law (Matt. 23:23). We see this distinction also in the way the New Testament discusses sin. The New Testament recognizes a love that covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), meaning sins that do not call for public ecclesiastical discipline. 

Elsewhere, we find lists of heinous crimes that destroy the church and require ecclesiastical discipline (1 Cor. 6:9–10; 1 Tim. 1:9–10). However, no sin is so small as to be insignificant. John Calvin, responding to the Roman Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sin, said that no sin is so slight that it does not deserve death, but no sin is so great that it actually destroys the grace of God in our souls.

If I were to ask you, “What is the most serious sin of all?” what would you say? Murder? Adultery? Idolatry? Unbelief? It seems to me that if the Great Commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, the great transgression is the failure to keep this commandment. That scares me, because I have not kept the Great Commandment for five minutes in my life. I have never loved God with my whole heart. My soul has never overflowed with affection for God. My mind has been lazy with respect to understanding God’s Word, and I am often more interested in learning the things of this world. Finally, I have used only a portion of my strength in my affection for God. Were it not for Jesus, I would perish because of this sin, and rightly so.

But consider Jesus. Was there any portion of the Lord’s heart that was not completely in love with the Father? Did Jesus restrain His soul from affection for His Father? Was there anything that the Father revealed that Jesus ignored as being unworthy of His attention? Was His affection for His Father a spineless, weak affection, or did He manifest the most powerful, strong affection for the Father ever seen on this planet? You know the answers to these questions. The Lord Jesus kept the Great Commandment perfectly. Every second of His life He loved the Father with all of His heart, all of His soul, all of His mind, and all of His strength. Had He not done that, He would not have fulfilled the law of God and would not have been worthy to save Himself, let alone save us.

After identifying the Great Commandment to answer the scribe’s question, Jesus added, “And the second, like it, is this: 

‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (v. 31). 

Jesus here quoted Leviticus 19:18 to identify the second-greatest commandment. Obviously, Jesus was correct in ranking love for God as the greatest commandment, but it is significant that Jesus felt it was necessary to mention love for one’s neighbor. Love for other people is also extremely important. Indeed, as Jesus said in the parallel passage in Matthew’s gospel, these two commandments summarize “all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:40), that is, all of Scripture.

It is worth noting the injunctions that follow the Shema: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut. 6:6–9). We are never to forget the Great Commandment, as well as the other commands in God’s Word. To guard against that, the Scriptures must be an integral part of our lives and something we teach to our children with diligence.

Augustine on Ephesians 5:16

From Augustine of Hippo, “Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament,” in Saint Augustin: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. R. G. MacMullen, vol. 6, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1888), 366.

Ephesians 5:16 "...making the best use of the time, because the days are evil." 

But as concerning these days which we are passing now, the Apostle says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Are not these days indeed evil which we spend in this corruptible flesh, in or under so heavy a load of the corruptible body, amid so great temptations, amid so great difficulties, where there is but false pleasure, no security of joy, a tormenting fear, a greedy covetousness, a withering sadness? Lo, what evil days! yet no one is willing to end these same evil days, and hence men earnestly pray God that they may live long. Yet what is it to live long, but to be long tormented? What is it to live long, but to add evil days to evil days? When boys are growing up, it is as if days are being added to them; whereas they do not know that they are being diminished; and their very reckoning is false. For as we grow up, the number of our days rather diminishes than increases. Appoint for any man at his birth, for instance, eighty years; every day he lives, he diminishes somewhat of that sum. Yet silly men rejoice at the oft-recurring birthdays, both of themselves and their children. O sensible man! If the wine in thy bottle is diminished, thou art sad; days art thou losing, and art thou glad? These days then are evil; and so much the more evil, in that they are loved. This world is so alluring, that no one is willing to finish a life of sorrow. For the true, the blessed life is this, when we shall rise again, and reign with Christ. For the ungodly too shall rise again, but to go into the fire. Life then is there none but that which is blessed. And blessed life there can be none but that which is eternal, where are “good days;” and those not many days, but one day. They are called “days” after the custom of this life. That day knows no rising, it knows no setting. To that day there succeeds no to-morrow; because no yesterday precedes it. This day, or these days, and this life, this true life, have we in promise. It is then the reward of a certain work. So if we love the reward, let us not fail in the work; and so shall we reign with Christ for ever.

Spiritually, you are what you eat

Have you ever heard the phrase “you are what you eat”? Nutritionists and health experts tell us this all the time, “you are what you eat!”

If you’ve read the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or have seen the movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory then you will undoubtedly remember this principle demonstrated in the life of a character named Violet Beauregard. In this story, one spoiled girl who must have everything she wants, takes a very special piece of gum at the Chocolate Factory, one which has the flavors of a full meal (tomato soup, roast beef with baked potato, and blueberry pie with ice cream). However, Willy Wonka forbids her to eat this gum because it has a particular problem - when it comes to the dessert flavor, blueberry cobbler, the person chewing it literally becomes what they are eating - in this case, a blueberry! In fact, Violet chews the faulty gum, and right on cue, she starts turning purple and becomes plump like a blueberry. She is only able to waddle a little bit due to her girth, and Willy Wonka tells the Oompa Loompas to roll her to the juicing room so she can be squeezed and the pressure of all that blueberry juice can be relieved.

Well, in a very silly way I suppose, that story demonstrates something that we already know - that our appetites can get the best of us, and what we hunger for and what we consume, will change us. In other words, “we are what we eat.” 

Did you know that the same thing is true spiritually? In teaching the values of God’s kingdom, Jesus once explained that in our spiritual lives, we are what we eat. In other words, what our spirits hunger for, what our spirits most desire, will change us. You see, Jesus knew that if we hunger for the wrongs things, our lives can go tragically wrong. Lucifer, once a great angel of God, had hungered too much for power; Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon, had hungered too much for praise; and in the NT, Jesus told the story of the rich fool, who had hungered too much for pleasure. Because they hungered for wrong things and rejected God’s good things, they forfeited both. But even as it is true that we can hunger and desire after the wrong things, it is also true that we can hunger after the right things! Jesus tells us this in Matthew 5:6,

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

I want us to consider why a spiritual hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness is the most important desire of our hearts. Let us consider three reasons why a thirsting after God’s righteousness is our most important decision of all.

1. We Have a Deep Need for God’s Righteousness. In fact, the Bible teaches us that we need righteousness to get into God’s kingdom and to live in Heaven. Now, the word “righteous” simply means, “characterized by what is right.” So, what the Bible teaches is that there is a standard for what is right and we need to meet it in order to belong in God’s Kingdom. Now, this talk about “standards” and “rightness”reminds me of the story of…

…the man who arrives at the gates of Heaven and is greeted by the Apostle Peter. Peter greets the new arrival and begins leafing through his book to see if the man is worthy of entry. Peter goes through the book several times and says to the man in a flustered tone. “You know I can’t seem to find anything you did really great in your life. But I can’t find that you really did anything bad either.” “I’ll tell you what, Peter continues. “If you can tell me of one really good deed you did in your life, then you’re in.”

So the man thought and thought. Finally the man said, “Well there was the time I was driving down the highway and I saw a group of biker guys gathered around this frightened girl. I slowed my car down and sure enough, it didn’t look good. There were about 20 of them tormenting this poor girl.” “I got out of my car, grabbed my tire iron and walked straight up to the leader of the gang. He was a huge man with a studded jacket and a chain running from his nose to his ear. I noticed the gang had circled around me, yet I still felt brave. I ripped the chain from the leader’s face and hit him over the head with the tire iron. I yelled to the gang, leave this poor, innocent girl alone. You are all a bunch of deranged animals. Now go home before I teach all of you a lesson.”

Impressed, Peter asked, “Wow, When did that happen?” 

“Oh, about two minutes ago,” the man said.

You know, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a terrible joke, but did you catch the problem with it? It suggests that the standard for righteousness is the goodness of the deeds that we do. But the actual standard for rightness is the will and the holiness of God. Yes, we do right things, we think right things, and we say right things. But all our rightness is like filthy rags (Is. 64:5–7). Jesus says in Matthew 5:20, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” Wow, we say, is there any hope then? Yes of course, but only as we hunger after the perfect Righteousness of Jesus Christ.

2. We Must Hunger for the Righteousness of God, Not Something Else. C. S. Lewis once  observed that our problem is not that our cravings are often too big, but that our cravings are often so small and easily satisfied with lesser things. In other words, our desires tend to favor things like food, drink, and clothing. Or we crave power, pleasure, prestige and possessions. But you see, our cravings are far too small when we focus on these earthly things.

Now to correct things, we often assume that we must get a control on our cravings and just kill them altogether if we are going to be righteous. But you know, the reality of true satisfaction is not in the denial of our cravings, but in redirecting them from small things to the One Great Thing, to God Himself.

Now, just a moment’s reflection will show why this must be so. You see, it’s because God is the source of all good things: fortune, fame, success, or even happiness itself. In the NT, James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). 

So our hearts must be redirected. And the only way we can enter into fellowship with God and find the happiness and blessing we so long for is to possess a righteousness and holiness that will commend us to God. But can this be done? Well, the answer is YES! Yes, our hearts and our desires can be shifted. But of course not by us, certainly. But God can and will do it. The heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that in Jesus Christ, God has obtained our redemption and provided all who believe in Christ with the righteousness I’ve been speaking of. The Bible says that Jesus Christ “has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

3. When We Hunger and Thirst for God’s Righteousness, We Shall Be Filled. 

The great Church Father, Augustine once said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.” 

Jesus says in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” My friends, don’t mistake the promise of God: those who hunger and thirst after God’s righteousness shall be filled.

You know, spiritually speaking, what the nutritionists say is true: we are what we eat. So you and I have a choice this morning. We can be satisfied with the righteousness of the world and all the enticements it offers. We can try to satisfy ourselves on the small things. But be warned: the world’s righteousness and the world’s ”stuff” can be compared to drinking salt water; if you drink it, the salt water simply increases your thirst and dehydrates you, eventually leading to your death. Yes, it will wet your dry lips, and yes it will moisten your parched throat, but it will not truly satisfy the needs of your body…or more importantly, your soul.

Meaning, the other choice, the better choice, is that we will choose to be satisfied with nothing less than Jesus’ blood and His righteousness. My friends, let your hunger and thirst for Jesus’ righteousness shape you into the image and likeness of Christ. You are what you eat! And Jesus’ promise is that when you seek after Him, you will be satisfied, your heart’s desire will be filled in Him. He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” What a promise Christ has given us!