Revelation 2:14 14But I have a few things against you, that you have there some holding fast to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.
Although the church in Pergamum had a lot of good going for it because they had not compromised in their faith in Jesus, but there was a sickness within the church. A few things refer to the two issues stated at the end of this verse. The church had apparently begun to tolerate false teachings similar to the teachings of Balaam. In Numbers 22, Balak, king of the Moabites, was afraid of the Israelites who were encroaching on his territory. Balak tried to get Balaam to curse the Israelites, but instead, Balaam pronounced seven sayings that blessed Israel and cursed their enemies. Instead of divine curse from a pagan prophet, what got the Israelites in trouble was moral compromise. In Numbers 25:1-2, the Israelite men committed two abominations: sexual immorality with Moabite women and participating in idol worship. Twenty-four thousand died as a result. The believers in Pergamum were facing the same danger.
Immorality and idolatry were two challenges many early Christian converts faced. Pagan temples often included prostitutes or tolerated or even endorsed sexual immorality. As the experience of the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 8-10 indicates, it was common that if one wanted meat, it had likely been dedicated to an idol before being sold. Sexual immorality was also common in most cities of the Roman Empire. These two issues continue to plague believers today, but just more sophisticated in expression. These two sins lie at the root of the power of sin into which everyone is born. They appeal to our base, sinful nature, empowered by the flesh and are distortions of God’s plan for us. Immorality appeals to the hormonal urge to reproduce, but it turns this into self-pleasure. Idolatry is empowered by the worship of self instead of God. At the root of both is self. The old self must be crucified to Christ and resurrected and empowered to a different type of life where Christ is Lord. Sin and compromise always lead to judgment and destruction.