This week we are exploring the letter to the church at Pergamum, in Revelation 2:12-17. This is the church that had allowed the world to corrupt its doctrine, by neglecting the word of God and by adopting pagan and unchristian ideas.
We live in an increasingly liberal world today, that rejects the idea of moral and spiritual absolutes. Allan Bloom, in his classic book The Closing of the American Mind, said: "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative."
The man on the street today will argue that scientific truth is absolute and consistent, but that religion and matters of faith are entirely subjective and relative. If that were so, then there could be no moral standard, and even scientists would not be morally required to follow facts. If morals are relative, if religious and ethical truth do not exist in absolute forms, then there would be no foundation to compel a scientist to obey the truth, or to condemn him for falsifying his research.
C.S. Lewis, in the opening chapter of his book Mere Christianity, makes the very valid point that there are certain expectations that humans have of one another, relating to honesty, fairness, and decency. These are absolutes.
Everyone has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. They say things like this: "How'd you like it if someone did the same to you?" – "That's my seat, I was there first" – "Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm" – "Why should you shove in first?"
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed.
(From C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, chapter 1)
Lewis was merely pointing out that there are standard and known rules that govern human society.
The biblical explanation is that this is because humanity is made in the image of God, and though sin has scarred this image, it is still there. These rules reflect the absolute morality of holy God that he has imprinted on the human race.
We will go further to say that the gospel is also the message of salvation for the whole world. The Christian and the church must maintain a strong commitment to the truth of God according to the Bible. In the truth of God's word is the gospel through which we learn of Christ's death and resurrection and our salvation through faith. We also see his message sets us free from sin and leads us into a victorious lifestyle.
When the church neglects the Bible it can offer...
