As we progress on the road that leads to eternity with God – the city of God, the knowledge of how the word of God became polluted to explain some of the wrong beliefs and doctrines we now believe is important. This is my focus here. How to react to this anomaly follows.
From the root word, purgos, according to Thayer Definition:
a tower a fortified structure rising to a considerable height (like a castle) , to repel a hostile attack or to enable a watchman to see in every direction.
Since the word refers to watchtower and repelling attacks, what should we at the end of the Church Ages be drawing the attention of the people to, and what is the attack we have to repel?
IT IS WRONG DOCTRINES INCORPORATED INTO THE CHURCH AND HOW THIS HAS MADE THE DEVIL TO CLAIM A SEAT IN THE CHURCH.
THE SEAT OF SATAN: PAGANISM MIXED WITH CHRISTIANITY.
William Branham explaining the subject said Pergamos means married or thoroughly mixed together because this was the age when the church mixed with government, as it marched forward to accept errors and idolatry into Christianity.
It was at this point in time that Emperor Constantine came on stage. He was fighting his brother for the throne of Rome and he said he saw a vision of the cross and he said, Lord, if you give me victory here, I will take care of the Christians, they will not kill them again. He won the battle, and he came back to Rome and called for a stop to the persecution and killing of Christians.
“What is the problem, he asked? And they said these people don’t respect Rome. They go on their own. They are even cannibals because they said if you don’t eat the flesh of Jesus, you will not go to heaven. They don’t bow down to the statues of our idols, and even the statue of Ceasar.
He then called for a council that would discuss these disagreements in a way that the council would come up with what would be pleasing to all and sundry. That led to the council of Nicene in AD 325, where they married pagan beliefs with Christian beliefs.
What came out of that meeting was what gave birth to the Catholic Church we have today. Then it was Roman Catholic Church because it comprised mostly of elite Romans and the Christians who had bowed down to them because they did not want to die. Among the things they introduced to Christianity are these: this is the period in April when Jesus died and resurrected; that is the time we worship Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, to begin our planting season; let’s just marry the two and call it Easter. Thus, entered Easter into the Christian Calendar.
Then, there is the celebration in December called Christmas; this was the time they worshipped Jupiter Puer (son of Jupiter) and Jupiter, the sun god who they considered as the head of all the gods in the world. December 26 that we call Boxing Day was the day they wrapped gifts in boxes and distributed them to each other in honour of Jupiter and his son. We still do it today, but we do not know where it started from. It has not changed. That was how Christmas and Boxing Day came into Christianity.
If you ask me when Jesus was born, I will tell you sometime in October because if they say somebody lived for thirty three and half years and he died in April, how can December to April be thirty three and half years? Plus, If you go to Israel (Bethlehem) and stay out in the night, Dec. 25th you will die of cold because Dec. 25 would be winter, and the Bible says shepherds were outside when Jesus was born. They are normally outside up to October; by December, no shepherd will be outside, they will die. If you go check your scriptures very well, Jesus was not even killed on Friday, the Passover that year fell on a Wednesday. There is nothing like Good Friday. But it coincided with a time when those in authority then were worshipping Asterte or Ishtar and forced it on Christians as a condition to end persecution.
These introductions and all that went on at the Nicene Council that took away the purity of Christianity are not esoteric knowledge, there is a book called Babylon Religion which documented all these. How the ancient Egyptians worshipped Ra, how the Babylonians worshipped the sun god is the same method and vessels being used for communion in the orthodox churches. There is also the Two Babylon written by Hislop which confirms the above and also show you how Pergamos became the fountain of pollution of the church.
That’s not all, at this time the 5 ministerial offices listed in Eph. 4:7-14 died – was replaced by the hierarchy established by the Romans, and now we have Pastors, under Bishops and Bishops under Archbishop. YOU CAN READ MORE ON THIS IN WIKIPEDIA. SEARCH ORIGIN OF BISHOPS. You will see this:
In the days of the Apostles, Pastors appointed Bishops as temporary overseers of a particular church pending the time a Pastor would be sent. In the First epistle to Timothy and Epistle to Titus in the New Testament a more clearly defined episcopate can be seen. Both letters state that Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete to oversee the local church.[13][14] Paul commands Titus to ordain presbyters/bishops and to exercise general oversight.
See, Timothy and Titus were the ones that appointed and supervised Bishops.
Babylonian religion mixed with Christianity in Pergamos. That is why Jesus said in verse 16, “Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” Because it was the word that they corrupted.
PERGAMOS: SPEAK OUT AGAINST ERROR
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” (Rev 3:22)
This scripture has been our basis for exploring the 7 letters in Rev.2 and 3, as we look for lessons in them to know how the letters concerns us in this last Laodicea church- our present age.
We will draw from Rev.2:13 where Jesus said they were living where Satan’s seat was. One meaning drawn from William Ramsey’s book, 7 Churches in Asia Minor, is the dominating influence of the state religion of Emperor worship controlled the lives of the citizens of Pergamos.
Here was built the first Asian Temple of the divine Augustus, which for more than forty years was the one centre of the Imperial religion for the whole Province.
In this Pergamenian Temple, then, Satan was enthroned, to explain the throne of Satan mentioned by Jesus. He sowed pollution and controlled the lives of people.
So, what do we do. The meaning of the name Pergamos gives us the answer. It’s a castle, a fortress and these structures have a Watchman who stays in a WATCHTOWER.
This will be explained later.
Error is meant to be corrected, so that the man who taught error would have scriptures to show he was wrong, so that He could reflect and change and the young Christian would not be derailed because a big man of God said it. God is not a respecter of person. Peter was senior to Paul in age and one highly respected member of the Apostles of the Lamb – the original 12 disciples yet Paul corrected him openly. See the story in Galatians 2 .
If you don’t speak out, you will fail in fulfilling the commandment of God in Acts 1:8 where Jesus said we should be His witnesses. The word witness is Martus in Greek and means legally (i.e. you are bound under oath) to tell people what you have heard and seen so that a case can be determined, even if you are killed for saying it.
THE WATCHMAN
From Mk. 12:1 we see the vineyard of God described. There is a watchtower put there, even before the workers were put there.
(a) Watching out for evil, or good (2Kings 9:17) that’s the job of the watchman.
When you see, you must speak (Jer. 15:16 ; Rev. 10:9-10, Isa. 62:6). If you don’t speak you WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE BY GOD: Ezek 3:1-4,17-21:
So, the REAL Christian is a Watchman who MUST look out for evil so as to warn people of the danger coming. Wrong teachings is classified as evil- it will send people to hell: 2Tim 2:15-18:
And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.” See also 1Tim.1:19-20
Ps 8:2: “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”
Note the words out of the mouth…
From the above we see that God did not design the Christian to see or hear evil and keep quiet; he/ she must speak to correct BUT in love.
As we conclude, look at the preaching of John the Baptist in Luk 3:7-14: He spoke to the multitude, the religious class, the publicans tax collectors and then the soldiers.
Did you notice he named everybody BY NAME along with what they did wrong, and it was done in the open. So, why should our own be different. Is it because we don’t know who we ARE?
We can’t afford to be emotional or dogmatic. We have to defend the truth because it’s our job and more importantly, His word is important to Him. (2Tim. 4:2; 1Tim. 5:20; Titus 1:13)
Photo by Rayees Khan on Unsplash