“Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Revelation 2:16
When our lives are in conflict with the truth of Scripture, we set ourselves up for judgement. God is wanting to strengthen this congregation and, sometimes, that involves a purging. When true believers come in conflict with the Word of God, and they are convicted of their sin, they are quick to repent. They want their lives to measure up to the truth of God. False “brethren” will not repent, and it is to these that the Lord will come quickly to war against them.
In this abrupt command, Christ issued a sharp word to the church at Pergamos and their modern counterparts: “Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Even though many in the church at Pergamos had been faithful and one of their numbers had died as a martyr to the faith, it was nevertheless true that the evil character of those things which were invading the church was so serious in the mind of Christ that it involved fighting against them with the sword of His mouth. There is no alternative to continued impurity and compromise with the truth except that of divine judgment. The apostasy which is seen in its early stage in the church at Pergamos has its culmination in the future apostate church in Revelation 17 which is ultimately brought into divine judgment by Christ the Head of the church.