4th Letter to Church: Pergamum Revelations

Background: John, the disciple, had a vision and angel visitation on Patmos Island. They were told to write everything they see for that time and future generations. 

Wow, this church was situated in the area of Satan’s throne, as described by Jesus Himself.

City of Pergamum: Ancient Greek City in Turkey Aegean region, just 16 miles NW of Modern city of Bergama in Izmir Province. It is situated on top of a hill overlooking the Bakirday Plain, Overlooks Caicus- Bakir River Valley.  It was a major cultural and intellectual center for the Hellenistic Period. This area was very important to the Romans, Byzantines and Ottoman Turks until abandoned. 

There were many pagan temples: This was a major occult center.

Temples there were: 

Athena-the goddess of war, handicraft, and wisdom and the patroness of Athens. 

Zeus was the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek

Hera– the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. 

Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre

Demeter was one of the Twelve Olympians and the goddess of fertility and agriculture. She was also a goddess of women, family, law, and the Mysteries (secret religious rites). Demeter was the sister of Zeus, Hestia, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon

Asclepius-a god of healing, son of Apollo. According to ancient myth, the god Asklepios had the power to raise people from the dead and he himself was restored to life by Zeus: for this reason he was thought to also have a snake form

There was also the Asclepieia Healing Center dedicated to that pagan god and Hygieia the Greek God of Healing. Treatments included psychotherapy, massage, herbal remedies, mud and bathing treatments, surgeries and the drinking of water, which were prescribed according to what dreams the patient had experienced – it was believed that dreams recounted a visit by the god Asklepios, who held the key to curing all illness.

Remains of the Temple are now on display at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. 

Antipas- a faithful servant of God’s was put to death in Pergamum. 

Successes of the Church:

1. Remained true to Jesus’s Name
2. They did not renounce their Faith (easy to do in that atmosphere and that much pressure) 

Flaws of Church

1. Some Still Held to the teaching of Balaam, enticed Israelites to sin by eating foods to sacrificed idols. Characteristics of Balaam: was devious to get things done, profited off of God’s talents, believed in sin if it benefited him or others, perverted grace.
2. Sexual Immorality
3. Holding unto the teachings of the Nicolaitan: This is second time this is mentioned in Revelations, which means it’s a big deal to Jesus. This is against overpowering members of the church with hierarches, titles and making money off of the congregation or manipulating them. Jesus wants us all to be equal partners, all his priests serving the Kingdom. No one has more authority or more power or more clout. 

Action: Repent or God Himself will fight against you. 

Overcomers: Will receive hidden manna, get a white stone with a new name, only known to them. 

Thoughts: 

 1 Corinthians 10:20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 

When visitors sacrificed to these statutes, in the name of what they thought were pagan gods, they were actually sacrificing to demons. They were also tapping into the supernatural healing using demonic energy not the healing energy of the one true God, the God of Israel. Remember, the devil can come under the guise of good, as an angel of light, and demonic angels can replicate miracles. Even today, people seek counsel from healers who tap into that demonic power with use of things such as Reiki or muscle testing, sounds good but what is the source of healing? 

Sexual immorality has been made to be cool in America. We see this with the robing of God’s rainbow and the promoting of homosexuality, transgenderism, bi-sexual, bi-nary and so forth. It’s crazy that when I apply for jobs, they ask me what I do in the bedroom. What is your sexuality? Seriously, that is none of their business. I can assure you that my homosexual friends would think that was intrusive too. It has nothing to do with the quality of my work. 

Having an affair is no big deal to most people, sleeping with someone before marriage is a given for most, even the older generation, who has been known to have their fair share of STDs. 

Girls are wearing lower cut shirts and higher shorts. Where is modesty? The dress in other countries is far more wholesome than what is being sold to our young girls.

 Sex trafficking is at an all time high and the holes in our system seems to be overlooked. The missing children, who are knowingly passed along to suspicious characters are not a priority. We knowingly  through bad systems and bad follow-up allow innocent children and women to be sold into sex slavery, harvested for organs. From nude bars to films with full frontal on regular television, we have hit an all time low.

There are elements of the United States that are starting to look like Sodom and Gomorrah. Some of our pride events-parades and Mardi Gras look very similar to what we saw in Ancient times at festivals near these pagan cities. The lines of decency and indecency have been blurred. This is not about loving someone.  This is about aligning our actions and words with what God loves and hates.  We all know Sodom & Gomorrah didn’t end well. 

So many of our churches are in trouble in America because they have become big businesses, becoming money making machines with sprinkles of service.  They have scrubbed messages to fill the pews. It will take a major event I am afraid to bring people to the realization that we are on borrowed time with God’s patience. 

The politics within the churches has gotten ridiculous. It hasn’t been long ago that a family friend was in shock that the new Episcopal pastor at his church was 100% in agreement that gender alteration can or should start in childhood. We are talking about young children who have not finished puberty, whose brains have not fully developed.  I am certainly not the same as I was in junior high and high school- so many weird feelings and ideals have changed drastically. Pastors leading with this mind-set should be scared. 

God is really fed up with a few dominating and manipulating the herd for personal gain. This is the 2nd time he has brought up domineering hierarchical systems that take advantage and profit off his name. It’s a big topic for Him. HIERARCHICAL definition: 1. arranged according to people’s or things’ level of importance, or relating to such a system. 

We are seeing a transition in worship and study of God’s word. More and more you are seeing a movement of home churches, where members share ideas and iron sharpens iron. Everyone is an equal and people rotate host homes. 

On a side note, we need to keep an eye on Turkey. If God sees it as Satan’s throne and the spiritual connection is still there, then something demonic and powerful will be birthed from that region. 

Reflection: 

1. Do you overlook or just go along with rituals, ideals and traditions that are displeasing to God? Self-Examine on any of the above warnings that might be frowned upon, that includes “tarot” or palm reading for fun, collection of pagan super heroes, soft porn movies or  simply having a rainbow or your ( pronouns listed on your signature line of an email)  
2. Are you all in? or Half In? Or does your walk have 50 Shades of Grey? 
3. Have you thought about starting a little church group at your house? Or with like-minded?