The White Stone

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

THE WHITE STONE

Rev 2:12-17

12 "To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:

These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. 13 I know where you live — where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city — where Satan lives.

14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. 15 Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

NIV

Although we can find the evidence of the existence of all these ancient cities and find historical information regarding some of the facts within all these letters, of what value does that serve our spiritual journey unless we find how that relates to us. Here we see, as we have in the past that Jesus has that double-edged sword which is able to separate soul and spirit, bone and marrow and judges the attitude of the heart. We would be wise to realize this and live in accordance with that knowledge. Jesus knows where we live, where Satan has his throne. Perhaps this particular city was especially sinful, yet where we live right now is filled with so much sin, Satan has to have his throne here as well. We only have to listen or watch the news, although they did not name it as such, sinful behavior is always the lead story. Most of the programs that are on television portray some form of sinful behavior. Many of the famous stars, live far worse than those citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah. Temptations abound all around us enticing us to engage in behaviors that are indeed sinful. Here we have evidence the Israelites were enticed to eat food sacrificed to idols. We Christians are being enticed to partake in the practices of those who worship idols, such as the idol of self-indulgent, or the idol of money, or the idol of human knowledge or intellectual greatness. They are so many idols we could choose from to be enticed to worship. Satan tries his best to entrap us, but all he has to offer is lies and spiritual death. Satan even uses the scriptures to attempt to convince us our thinking, our behavior is based in the word of God, but he lies, that is all he ever does. We cannot live being fooled by Satan and live rightly.  Jesus offers us the truth and eternal spiritual life.  Are we ready for Jesus to fight against us with that sword? Of course not, we have to make sure first that we are not engaged by any of the sin of this world and second, if we find ourselves getting enticed we need to repent immediately. If we overcome all those temptations and remain true to our faith, living in accordance with that faith, and if we waver, recognize when and repent, we have a great reward.   This hidden manna is pure spiritual food, that which nourishes our spirit. When we eat normal food we ingest it into our being, it is digested and used by our bodies to continue to live. Without any food at all we would literally starve to death. This holds extremely true regarding this hidden manna. If we do not get the pure truth from the word of God we will literally starve to death spiritually. This is why Jesus sent us the Spirit, who will lead us into all this truth, this manna, this bread of life. But there is still more. Because we have overcome we will also get a new name personally from Jesus, it will be written on a white stone. Many scholars have many different ideas as to what that exactly means, but the point of it remains the same. Jesus is going to, well has already given us this new name. He has given each of us a personal emblem of his that each one of us only know. What we know about Jesus and how he interacts with us is known only to each one of us, and the others do not know it and we do not know how he interacts with the others. Although we are all part of the body of Christ and we have many things in common, such as the manna, there is still something extremely personal, one on one, with each believer who overcomes and Jesus. What is on our white stone is known only to us.