January 21, 2006

• The churches in Revelation 2,

  
  

  The next church is Pergamous – This comes from the Greek (I just recently saw a cartoon showing Paul talking to some Greeks, and saying, and in the Greek this means….wait a minute, you are Greek). Anyway. The word Gamos means marriage – you know monogamy, polygamy, etc. And Per means opposition, objectionable.

  
  

  Note that Jesus is described as a sharp, two-edged sword, and we know that the sword is the Word of God which rightly divides the truth.

  
  

  In church History this is 313-600 A.D. Pergamos had a huge altar to Zeus, a big throne which was 150 feet high. They were influenced by the teachings of Balaam – remember him from Numbers 22. Balaam was the prophet who was told to bless the Jews by God, and Balak (In Hebrew Balak means waster) the Moabite wanted him to curse the Jews. Everytime Balaam spoke blessings came out – and at one point the angel of the Lord blocked his path, and Balaam was spoken to rather sharply by his donkey.  Balaam finally was able to find a way to crack the protection of  Israel, he told Balak to intermarry (something God had forbidden) and send in the beautiful girls to tempt the men with lust. And from there, then idols would be brought in. One other neat thing about Balaam is that when he overlooked the Israelite camp, they were camping around the ark in the way God assigned, he would have seen the campsites in the shape of a cross. If you check Numbers 2 and draw a simple diagram of a map, and put the population of each tribe in it’s right position, N, S, E, and W, you will see the cross shape when you add the numbers.

  
  

  So Pergamos ended up married to other ideas that did not come from God. These foreign ideas caused people to stumble.

  
  

  The way to defeat ideas is with the Word of truth, and Jesus is coming quickly and will fight them with the sword.

  
  

  Three things are given to them that overcome

  
  

  1. Hidden manna (bread- and it is bread that is provided freely from God. Remember Moses, the people over a million, would go out and gather manna. They were told to gather a certain amount, no more and no less. Some obeyed, some did not. A point of interest the word manna means, what is it?) So God is giving hidden knowledge to the people.

  
  

  2. A white stone – in those days voting was done by stones. People would have a white stone for yes, black for no, and they would drop the stone secretly into a container to cast their vote.

  
  

  3. On the white stone a new name would be written which no one knows except him who receives it. A new name is in a way a new beginning, uncontaminated by the past and associations with the past. It is a new life for us.

  
  

  For your information, the Nicolations were a heretical group in the early church that taught immorality and idolatry. It appears that Ephesus and Pergamon accepted the teachings. Thyatira resisted them. Pagan feasts and orgies happened in these churches.

  
  

  Zeus was the ruler over all the gods in the Greek pantheon, and he is noted for coming down to earth and fornicating with women in various disguises, creating offspring. He was the God of the sky and controlled the weather according to their beliefs. Reminds me of another being who also is controlling the bad things on this earth, the great deceiver.

  
  

  Emperor Constatine at the time of this church, stopped the persecution of Christians with his Edict of Toleration. Then he started merging Christianity with paganism, for example saturnalia with Christmas, etc. This is very much what is happening in this day and age with the doctrine of tolerance, where people are trying to imply that all religions are basically the same. And it is this compromising of beliefs that can water down the truth of God. When beliefs are compromised the church begins to lose its potency, its ability to function effectively. We lose the cutting edge.

  
  

  Hope you are having a great beginning of the weekend, it looks busy for us, especially with three teenagers all doing stuff

  
  

  Heather

  • 12:08 am
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