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

More interesting Revelation facts from my private study. Revelation 2 & 3

Each letter presents part of an aspect of Jesus that was mentioned in Revelation Chapter 1. In order to get a complete picture of Jesus, you need the revelation from every one of the seven churches, we must be the WHOLE body of Christ, not just a denomination.

Another thing to realize is that each of these letters, besides talking about a church at the present time when John wrote the letters, is prophetic. That John also wrote about the development of the church age. And that the facts listed in the letters did not occur in history until well after John died.

And the last thing to note is that every letter ends with, “He who has an ear, let him hear with the Spirit says to the churches.” These letters are also meant for each of us today, because don’t forget, we are the temple of Christ.

THE CHURCH AT SMYRNA

In Greek, Smyrna means Myrrh. Myrrh was a burial spice. It was mentioned three times in Jesus’ life. First he was given myrrh when the wise men came to give their gifts. It was a foreshadowing of what would happen to Him in the future. Then myrrh was offered when Jesus was on the cross – it was a drug to ease some of His suffering, and Jesus refused to take that, rather He chose to face fully what He was sacrificing for us, then it was brought to the tomb on the third day, and was not needed because Jesus was risen.

One interesting thing is to look at Isaiah 60:6 This talks about the gentiles bringing wealth to Israel, and it says “The multitude of camels shall cover your land. The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; All those from Sheba shall come; They shall bring gold and incense, and they shall proclaim the praises of the LORD.” This talks about when the Lord will rule and reign at the end time, when Israel is returned to their land. Notice that the only gifts talked about are Gold and incense – myrrh is not mentioned. It is not needed in Jesus’ second coming because He has overcome death and will not need the burial spices.

Now, given that the name Smyrna (myrrh) refers to what the church was going through, it is interesting that Jesus is called the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life. This is a church that Jesus did not have a complaint against, but He was fully aware of the persecution that they were going through. In the church age, this represents the time period from 100 AD to 312 AD the time when the Roman rulers were seriously persecuting the church. During this time there were 10 rulers that caused the death of millions of Christians. So it is interesting that John wrote in verse 10 that the devil would through some of them into prison and they would be tested and have tribulation for TEN days – and the number of rulers that caused them grief was 10 rulers.

And the vision of Jesus is that if they are faithful until death they will be given the crown of life. And these people will not be hurt by the second death. That is Revelation 20:6 “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”

I am in such amazement at how intricate the prophesies are in the Bible. No matter how deeply I dig in the Word, there is still so much more to discover. What an awesome God we serve.

I hope you have a blessed evening.

Heather

Gideonrecon made a comment that he wished he could hear Pastor Don’s teachings himself.

Guess what, you can!!!!

Go to the link on my site (on the left of this page) – “In His Name Ministry”, scroll down, looking on the left for the caption “Say Amen”.

For free, if you click on any of those titles in the Say Amen column  you are brought to a streaming video of a sermon by Pastor Don. These have aired on our local TBN channel and are about 1/2 hour long. They are also great teachings.

If you do go there and listen to any of them, please let me know, I would love to hear what you think.

Also Pastor Don has two books that he just published that are awesome. And there are other Bible teaching tapes that can be purchased (some have sound bites on the site).

Hoping you enjoy hearing the Bible studies “firsthand”.

Heather

A few random Bible notes.

Joseph was put into the pit by his brothers and ultimately rose to Prime Minister position in Egypt. His trials and ordeals prepared him for his new position. I think that our trials and ordeals also help to prepare us for new positions in God’s name.

P – Prime Minister
I  – In
T – Training.

I suspect any position, pastor, preacher, praise leader would also fit in the above acronym.

Also, another cool fact about Revelation. The letters to the churches are written in the order that follows the Roman Postal route. And I am checking this out, and so far it follows – the name of the church seems to be related to the content of the letter. So far Ephesus (which means Darling, Romantic Love) had forgotten their first Love.

Paul went to Ephesus in Acts 19 and asked them if they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, they were not, they were baptized with the baptism of John the Baptist – repentence and law, but not the Spirit. Now, what is the fruit of the Spirit – LOVE.  Paul taught the people in Ephesus for many years.

The church, John instructed, needed to return to their first love. And the reward for doing so would be to eat of the fruit of the tree  of life in the midst of the Paradise of God. So they would, by returning to Love, be able to eat fruit again.

This church started out in love, then ended up doing works, but forgot the underlying love that was necessary. So often we have to return to where we lost our way, and begin again. I don’t think God will give us new instructions until we obey His old ones. I keep praying not to lose that love of God to complacency.

Hope your day is good, here I am seriously contemplating building an ark. It is pouring down rain, roads are flooded, and not fun to drive. I am hoping no more trees are uprooted. I don’t want to lose power again.

Have a blessed day and again thanks for your prayers and encouragement. It is so awesome to know that when I walk through life I have a lot of awesome Xanga friends to prop me up when I am down. Hoping to be a blessing to you as well.

Heather

Thank  you for your prayers and reminders of keeping the proper scriptures in mind. I woke up feeling a lot better than last night. And God is good. I was going through some old notebooks looking study notes and came across this journal entry about a dream/vision I had. I wasn’t asleep, wasn’t fully awake. I think that Joel 2 says that the older ones (I’m in that bracket) will dream dreams. This one is so relevant to what I am dealing with now I thought I would share it with you.

4/7/03 This morning I woke up and had a sort of waking vision. I had been praying that all the barriers I had placed between God and myself would be removed. I wanted nothing separating us. My ultimate prayer was to have a relationship with God like Moses and Joshua Son of Nun did. Well yesterday that ultimate wish came closer to happening. Today in my prayers, I saw myself approach Jesus instead of staying 3-4 football fields away. I came and took a deep breath and looked into the mirror of Jesus’ eyes. I saw myself as He saw me. In His eyes my soiled, dirty, sin-filled garment was washed as white as snow. I finally saw something of how much He loved me. I fell at His feet but He raised me up. I begged to sit as I could not stand, so we sat side by side and He told me to rest. He put His prayer shawl over me and I felt safe and protected, the Father’s arms around me. He told me to tell people that there was room for all under His wings. I fell physically back to sleep under His wings.

(note from today 1/17/06) I had told this vision to Pastor Don and he called it a visitation. At that time it provided comfort to a lot of people, as Pastor Don let me tell about it in church. Funny how God will remind you of times with Him when you feel distant. I had totally forgotten about this dream/vision.

Heather

Feelings and the truth.

I go through ups and downs in my day. This is one of those days where feelings seems to be ruling and I am spending a lot more time in prayer so that words do not cross my lips that I will later regret.

The truth is that when I accepted Christ into my life I am in His kingdom. The truth is that He knew I would make this choice and made provision for me before I was even conceived. The truth is He sent His son to die for me so that my sins would be forgiven and I could boldly go into the Throne Room of Grace, adopted into His kingdom.

The lies that are besetting my mind right now are based on fear that somehow God would rather not have me in His kingdom, that I should skirt the borders of the kingdom, hide out, not be noticed, not ask, for if I do then I will draw God’s attention to me and He will realize his colossal mistake of letting me into the kingdom. I know this is not true. But I guess the hurts of the past run deep and lately my memories have been emerging. One of which is the thought that, since my parents did not want me, that because they chose to abuse me, that somehow I was unlovable. So, if they did not like me, why should God like me.

I struggle so dealing with the Love of the Father. I can handle being ignored, fearing God, wanting to be good, following rules, but when it comes to seeing God as 1 Corinthians 13, which portrays God and Love, I want to run and hide.

I covet your prayers during this time because I am trying to remind myself of the truth but depression is nipping at my feet.

Heather

Friday Bible study Part 2

What you believe God is about to do may have nothing to do with what will actually happen.

The faith in your words will mobilize the Holy Spirit to action. All we need is a tiny bit of faith to move mountains. But the Holy Spirit will do it the way God ordains, not the way we think it should occur.

Mark 11: 22-24 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

(Heather’s note, in a previous Bible study, Pastor Don had us count the number of times it says believe, and the number of times it says say or ask.)

We tend to, in pride, believe that it is our faith that causes the supernatural to happen. Our faith is important, but it is not the operating agent that causes the actions to be done, that is the Holy Spirit.

When we speak in faith, we free the Holy Spirit and God to work in our lives.

Unfortunately people have twisted the words to state that if you say a particular prayer, or say things in a particular way, or say with faith, that it will happen just as we say. That borders on witchcraft.

Yes, we speak, and what we speak is what affects our circumstances, but it is not the speaking – it is the Holy Spirit which is moved by our speaking which is the operating agent.

In the process of discipling a person we teach people how to use faith as an action word and to teach others how to use it, but we are powerless to accomplish this in the earth in our own faith power. We link our faith to the Holy Spirit, God and Jesus.

We think certain people (some TV evangelists and faith healers, etc) have more of an anointing than others. This is not true, we all have access to the anointing, and people have different anointings on them.

It is the person who is coming to the evangelist, the healer that is the one whose faith causes the miracle. Jesus and the woman with the flow of blood is an example, and often Jesus told people that it was their faith that brought about the healing. The evangelist and healer is the one who primes the pump of faith, but it is the faith of the person coming to God that produces the healing.

God is the one that knows what we need before we ask and He has prepared the way for our needs. We do not always know when the miracle will happen, or how. For example at the wedding in Canna we really don’t know exactly when the water was turned to wine, was it when the water was put in the jars, when the wine was poured out, when the servants were carrying the jars. It is not important when it occurred, just to give glory to God for the great miracle that He did.

1Thes 5:19-20 Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise the prophesies.

Pastor Don pointed out that often what we say, and how we act when the anointing is present can quench the spirit. The spirit could be operating, and people’s attitudes, words, beliefs or behavior can cause it to depart.

One example he gave was when people stagger into worship services an hour after it began, choosing to come in after worship music, critical of the worship leaders, or leaving early. These things can cause the Holy Spirit to not manifest (of course this is not set in stone because it is really the Sovereignty of God that determines what will occur). If people are caught up in idle chatter it can interrupt the flow of the Spirit.

(Heather’s note, we need to be humble, worshipful, respectful and careful of what we do and say. Our words do have impact and our attitude can interfere with the good that God might want to do.)

This study was challenging for me, because it is so convicting. I am often not careful with the words that I use, and God is very forgiving, but I also know that at times my words defeat what God wants to do in my life.

I am hoping you have an awesome Sunday.

Heather

Friday’s Bible Study by Pastor Don Moore, In His Name Ministries and Living Word Chapel. Part 1

Pastor Don asked the question, what prevents us from receiving what we have prayed for in faith? What blocks us from seeing the miracles we want to see?

We can’t blame God because He never fails, He loves us, and no problem is too much for God to deal with. So if a situation does not come to pass, there has to be something in us that causes us to miss what God really wants us to do, mentally or spiritually.

As a disciple of Christ we need to examine ourselves, and correct ourselves when we speak negative words, or words without taking God into consideration.

Here are some traits that could prevent us from recognizing God’s miracles in our lives.

The tendency to always look for the spectacular (spectacular by our definition of what spectacular is.) If we look for the spectacular rather than what God wants to do, we can miss God’s work in our lives. Often, when we pray we anticipate what we think God is going to do and how He is going to solve our problem. We have our plan based on our limited understanding of how we think God should proceed, but that just boxes God in. When God moves outside of our expectations we may miss the supernatural move of God. When we pray we are to pray the prayer of faith, and then get out of God’s way so the Holy Spirit can change things. The sad point is that when we come to God with our expectations we miss the most profound miracle of all—where God and us get to participate together in a miracle directed by God. We have the sin of presupposing God, who has a plan way beyond what we can think or do.

One example of this is the woman who was planning to give up her sons to pay a debt, but Elijah came and told the woman to gather empty vessels. She gathered some, Elijah told her to get more, she borrowed some from neighbors, but didn’t go the extra mile and get lots of them. God filled the vessels with oil which she sold to pay off her debt and had money to live from. But by not throwing herself fully into this plan (which to her senses might have seemed foolish to gather empty vessels), she might have missed God setting her up in the oil business.

Sometimes the things that God asks us to do seem strange, and we have to act in obedience. Moses being told to lift up his rod (what if Moses had said to God, what good will that do and refused to obey?), or the paraplegic who was told to pick up his cot (if he had said but I have been crippled all my life, how can I do that?)

Or the man with leprosy who was told to bathe in the Jordan, there were many other rivers in the area, but the Jordan was a muddy river. It took the servant girl to convince the king to bathe in the muddy water (something anyone with open sores would be hesitant to do).

Sometimes we expect a spectacular miracle because of our personality, our low self esteem, or our lack of belief.

In John 2, the Wedding at Canna, Mary told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. God knows our needs before we even ask for what we need. Just bring our problems to God, and let Him solve it. Sometimes God has already set up the solution to our problem before we even ask. The servants were told to fill the water jugs – now this is not a logical thing to do, serve water at a wedding. It would be an embarrassment and could possibly get them in trouble. But to their credit they not only filled the water jugs, but they filled them TO THE BRIM. Even though the servants had no faith, they obeyed to the max. Then Jesus told them to take the jugs and pour out. It made no sense, but the end result was the best wine served at the wedding.

Sometimes when God tells us to do something we do it to a minimum. For example, if God tells us to fast, and we give up our piece of toast at breakfast, instead of fasting the whole day, it is a fast, but perhaps not to the extent God had suggested.

The first law of receiving a miracle: Do what you are told to do by God. To hear from God you have to believe that you can hear from God, have the faith and believe you will receive a Word from God, clear your head and expect to hear an answer in the Spirit, your inner witness.

Psalm 37:4 states that God gives us the desires of our heart (that doesn’t mean that He gives us everything we desire, it means that not only does He give us the desires of our heart, but He gives our hearts the desires we have.) Pastor Don pointed out that sometimes our shortsighted thinking causes us to stop God’s abundance for us, that sometimes we want what isn’t right for us, and a loving God, just like a loving parent, will also say no. (Heather’s example: If my kids want to eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner I would not let them, for there would be no nutritional benefit. They would see my “no” as mean and not loving, but it actually is the most loving action I could do for them. Likewise, if they whine and beg, and demand things, sometimes a “no” is what they need to not be spoiled and have a false sense of themselves as the center of the world, etc.)

God will never ask us to do something we can’t do. He gives us the power to do what we need to do.

Sometimes we miss a move of God because what God is asking us to do seems too simple. We are looking for something spectacular, but God only asks a simple action.

For example, Joshua was told to walk silently around the walls of Jericho and then give a shout. The walls were huge, and “common-sense” would tell him that that will not budge the walls, yet God used the faith of the men doing that simple action to do a marvelous miracle.

The ingredient that mobilizes the supernatural is faith. Hebrews 11:6 states that without faith it is impossible to please God and that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. One of the key words in the verse is diligently. How often we pray, look around and see no sign of an answer, then assume God isn’t answering. We let go too soon, instead of continuing in prayer.

Faith is an action word.

I will continue this study tomorrow with other ways that we block the working of faith in our lives.

These notes are from our discipleship class, and they are very convicting to me, in my struggles with faith. All of this is a process, and we grow gradually in this as we exercise our faith. The more we apply these principles to our lives, the stronger our faith will become. No one is perfect in this, except Jesus. But faith is the currency in Heaven, so we are learning now how to speak that language of faith.

Have a blessed night.

Heather

I swear I have the spirit of silliness on me. God seems to be sending me a laugh a day, here is todays song silliness:

To be sung in the Last Days to the tune “We’re off to see the Wizard” from the Wizard of Oz.

Follow the Roman road, Follow the Roman road,
Follow, follow, follow, follow, Follow the Roman road.
Follow the Roman, Follow the Roman
Follow the Roman road..

Oh, we’re off to see the Savior
The Wonderful Savior of God
You’ll find He is, He is, He is our Glorious savior and Lord.
Forever, forever our sins are forgiven, and we’ll be in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Because, because, because, because because,
Because of the incredible sacrifice  He made.
We’re off to see the Savior, the Glorious Savior of God.

Silliness, but fun.

Have a blessed day,

Heather
 

I took the song off, but you can find it by looking up Al Jolson, Swanee. Sometimes I find music on a site makes the site take so long to download.

For those of you who said you did not know the tune to Swanee from my Jan 11th entry, I put on the Al Jolson version for you. Hope you enjoy, you have to listen for a few seconds to get to the chorus which is what I wrote my song from.

Heather