Book of Revelation: Chapter 2:12-17 "Pergamum"

BONUS EPISODE - A letter to the church of Pergamum. In this episode we look at this church, and the historical Church's record, which has evidence of unfaithfulness to Christ. The good news is, there were only SOME guilty of our Lord's rebuke. The bad news is, the price was apparently too high for them to repent; their lampstand has been removed. What can we learn from this church? Listen and find out!

Transcript

[Music] good morning good afternoon or good evening wherever or whenever you are listening to us right now and welcome to this bonus episode of the Churchosity podcast my name is Heath Brady and I'm Andrea Brady and we are your Churchosity podcast Personnel these are the types of episodes that we like to call the Post scripts because these are the things that we like to think and talk about when the record button is off so thank you for listening and welcome to the Inner Circle well Andy yes here we are again are you excited oh man you have no idea well I know you're excited I'm just saying like we're we're already on our on our third letter yeah we're going to talk about the letter to the Church of pergamum on this episode mhm this one isn't even my favorite of the seven we're we're still a ways away from that one uhhuh but man I as I've been prepping for this episode my mind is just blown away at the just as I like to say the Precision of scripture um yeah it's just fascinating to me not not only how precise scripture is but how history fulfills the Precision of scripture this is one of those kind of episodes today that's cool yeah so I can tell you're a little giddy yeah but not in a sinful way not that's good don't want to be sinful when I'm trying to talk about the words of Jesus well I don't really want to waste any time okay because this might be a long one all right let's get let's get we'll see how it goes all right but I've got a lot of information to get through but I think that it's going to prove to be extremely fruitful for everybody so awesome I'm rare to go me too you ready to be blown away yep all right let's get into this the letter to the Church of

pergamum Revelation 2 starting in verse 12 and to the angel of the church in pergamum write the one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this I know where you dwell where Satan's Throne is and you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my witness my faithful one who was killed among you where Satan dwells but I have a few things against you because you have kept there some who hold the teaching of balum who kept teaching bailo to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality so you also have some who in the same way hold the teaching of the nicians therefore repent or else I am coming to you quickly and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes to him I will give some of the Hidden mana and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it that's the letter to the Church of pergamum sounds kind of

scary it does not sound good well to say that there is an awful lot going on here would be an understatement yeah um I think that it would be extremely beneficial for us to kick things off unpacking this letter by giving some details about historical pergamum okay pergamum was nicknamed the city of the serent that's not what pergamum means I'll get to that later but pergamum nickname was called the city of The Serpent and that'll make sense as we go geographically speaking the city of pergamum was roughly 48 mil north of Smyrna mhm which makes it about 100 Mil north of Ephesus uh so we're kind we're still in that northwesternmost region of of Asia Minor if you will okay which as we've discussed is not Asia in modern day it's more modern day Turkey because Asia Minor back in the time that John wrote these letters was a province of the Roman Empire mhm by the time pergamum achieved the the majority of its fame fortune and Glory Asia Minor this Northwestern province of the Roman Empire mhm occupied roughly 2 thir of modern-day turkey so it's a big big chunk of real estate if you will MH so just as Ephesus was known as the great political center for the Roman Empire and Smyrna was known as the great commercial center for the Roman Empire pergamum became known as the great religious center of the Roman Empire [Music] huh it's interesting because prior to Alexander the Great pergamum was really no more than just a large Castle siiz Building on a hill there wasn't really anything to it but as as far back as 301 BC pergamum was very ingal in unifying several Kings in Northwest Asia Minor and when it was officially founded it was a fascinating place to be because it had a virtually impregnable position I so they used pergamum as a treasury for the Roman Empire as well H future rulers made pergamum a dominant power in Asia Minor and it became the principal center of helenistic culture pergamum became an early Ally with Rome and because of that they became extremely wealthy and prosperous interesting pergamum was the official capital of this Asian Province for over two centuries but they lacked proximity to key trade routes so that is why even with all of their success and wealth and prosperity it yielded to the city of Ephesus mhm because Ephesus was a much better located city pergamum is also pretty far inland it's approximately 18 mil from the sea hm okay present L the city of pergamum is named burama and there's less than 50,000 people who live there but at the time that John wrote this letter to the Church of pergamum roughly n roughly 93 ad there was over 200,000 people who live there okay so it wasn't as big as Ephesus wasn't as big as Smyrna but it was a pretty decent sized Place back in the day mhm some interesting things that I'll get into more later Zeus is said to have been born there in pergamum h and there was this great enormous altar that stood almost 800 ft above the cliff this altar was 125 ft long 115 ft wide and over 50 ft tall wow so this kind of makes me think of in verse 13 how Jesus refers to pergamum as being where Satan's Throne is could this be a reference to this large ginormous altar to Zeus I don't know it's a possibility mhm the chief Idol in pergamum was an idol to oscalus who was called the god of healing and we'll discuss a lot more about this guy in just a few moments but just a couple of little tidbits here pergamum had a symbol called the caducus which is a two-headed snake on a pole oh and it became the official emblem of the city remember I said that pergamum became nicknamed the city of the serpent yeah this is why because the caducus was everywhere it's interesting because the caducus is very reminiscent of back in numbers chap 21 when the nation of Israel was plagued with snakes yeah and the Lord told Moses to put a brass serpent on a pole and hold it up in the air and anyone who looked upon this brass serpent up on a pole would be healed oh interesting it's also kind of interesting that in John chapter 3 Jesus references this event in fact H so how do you know that Moses and much of the Old Testament is true well because Jesus talks about it so if Jesus said it was real then it must have been real H but in John chapter 3 we all know the most popular verse ever right verse 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life mhm but as I say all of the time I'm a context Christian let's read that verse in context starting in verse 14 as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life verse 17 for God did not send his son into the world to judge the world but that the world might be saved through him so if you look at John 3:16 in context from verse 14-1 17 you see that this isn't just believe in Jesus and you'll be saved it's like literally look upon him wow gaze upon him and you'll not you'll be rescued and you will be healed with eternal life H so this this event in numbers is what Jesus is talking about here wow and it's just interesting that you fast forward several Millennia later and here you are in uh the first century and the caducus is the symbol of the city the city of the serpent it's two snakes on a pole mhm H isn't that the same symbol that they use for doctors yeah the uh American Medical or something Association and we'll I'll mention that in just a couple of seconds here I'm glad that we're on the same page here I was just trying to visualize it in my mind and thought you know I've seen this before yeah so let me tell you a little bit about the legend of aalap is okay so he is featured as or with a pole and a snake on it mhm the snake is symbolic of sin and Brass is symbolic of judgment this is also as you mentioned Andy the medical profession symbol mhm so aalap is was said to have been a god of healing that he was the son of Apollo and a virgin named coronus and he had the power to avert death and the Greeks later depicted him holding a staff of of Hermes which is a two-headed snake okay what's interesting though is that Hermes is the god of Commerce so there's this weird kind of budding up against each other of the medical symbol and the commercial symbol kind of makes you wonder about modern-day Physicians who have this symbol yeah are they healers or are they Commercial Business people right I'll let you decide okay but something interesting happened in the' 70s and ' 80s that that would be the 1970s and the 1980s yeah there was a survey done of 242 logos or insignias of the American organizations relating to health or medicine in which the caducus or staff of escolapios was used that's 242 wow in the United States of America that's a lot yeah well pergamum had health institutions but this was long before the Scientific Medical Practice of medicine began by hypocrates and this form of Health and Wellness prospered for roughly eight centuries but it functioned mostly As Psychiatry and suggestion for instance there was sleep that was induced and Priests used drugs and other methods to induce that sleep they would make patients dreams so that they could then interpret those dreams and there was also ritual bathing Whispering consultations soft hypnotic music being played Etc all as forms of therapy so that's just a little bit of rough detail background about pergamum and aalap is and uh we'll unpack that a little bit more as we go because I'm sure that we're all more so chomping at the bit to get into the scriptures right which is a good thing this is a letter to the Church of pergamum some of your translations might say pergamus it's okay pergamum is the neuter translation of the word pergamus is the female either one works just fine U my translation New American Standard is pergamum MHM pergamum is a combination of two Greek words perga meaning mixed or objectionable and gamus meaning marriage so pergamum essentially means mixed or objectionable marriage H and what's fascinating is that as we go through this letter you are going to very or you should very quickly discover what the theme of this letter is and the name of pergamum should give you a huge hint one thing that I want everyone to notice is that the remedy for the demerit against pergamum yeah is the word of God which will become more evident towards the end of the letter but let's get into the verses here verse 12 to the angel of the Church of pergamum right the one who has the sharp two-edged sword says this so there's Jesus's title and we we saw this title previously in chapter 1 remember in every single one of these letters Jesus is going to choose one of the seven titles that he gives of himself from chapter 1 and that very title pertains to the overall theme of the letter that is being written as well interesting and and when we were in chapter 1 Andy and we talked about this this two-edged sword what did we say this was do you remember the word of God it is the word of God that comes out of his mouth M and this is in direct reference to Hebrews 14:12 for the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of Soul and Spirit of both joints and Marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart check verse 13 and there is no creature hidden from his sight but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do so this is this is like symbolic of some serious judgment yeah that is going to be doled out by our Lord upon this church and he's going to explain why he does it with the double-edged sword remember the short sword for Close Quarters combat right and he is coming to divide something he's coming to cause a division of some of some sort I wonder what it is that he's coming to divide mm well I guess that we're going to have to unpack this to figure out right so the theme of the letter Begins the first thing that we all need to understand here is that a shift has taken place from the church being persecuted remember that was Smyrna right they were they were the church being persecuted by the Pagan world now we have a church being married to the world's paganism oh and that is the reason why the two-edged sword to cause a to bring about division to bring about a cutting apart if you will because Christ is the Seer of all and separator of all and he calls for his people to be holy to be set apart or elected for a purpose to be separated for Christ and this is where it all starts verse 13 I know where you dwell there's that I know statement again yeah that's at the beginning of each of these letters I know know the Lord knows everything we just read Hebrews 4:12-13 there is nothing that is hidden from him all is laid bare right I know where you dwell where Satan's Throne is well I made an interesting comment about how in pergamum they had this altar to Zeus who was said to have been born there um it is it possible that this is a direct correlation where Satan's Throne is well I don't like to sensationalize things but I feel we should pause here for just a few minutes and have a conversation about Satan and his throne Satan is real yeah there's no denying it not just because uh we know that there's an evil one among us all the time but because scripture over and over and over again tells us that Satan is real mhm Satan has character he's a murderer and a liar as it says in John 8:44 he is The Great Deceiver yeah Revelation 129 2 Corinthians 11:3 he is a sinner 1 John 3:8 those are just a few things about the character of Satan mhm but then Satan also has domain it's important to know that Satan is not omnipresent he cannot be everywhere all of the time so he has to have some somewhere in this world to have a base of operations from if you will or a throne make sense mhm but he has a domain he has a Dominion it's he has this vast demonic Kingdom you can read at your leisure Matthew 25 somewhere around verse 41 revelation

12:7 Satan is in charge of the world's system think about the temptation of Jesus for example when Jesus took him up and and showed him all the kingsom kingdoms of the world and said if you just bow down to me you can have all of this W right mhm also reference 1 John 5: 19 it's important to understand as I said that Satan is not omnipresent he can only be one place at a time Satan has all kinds of titles he's known as the adversary 1 Timothy 5:14 1 Peter 58 he's known as the accuser of the Brethren Revelation 12:10 he's known as the God of this world 2 Corinthians 4:4 he's called The Prince of the power of the air Ephesians 2 verse two he's also called the spirit working in the children of disobedience in that same verse verse he is the enemy who sowed tears among the wheat in Matthew 13:39 and at least six times in the New Testament he's referred to as the wicked

one Satan and his demons are not omnipresent they are territorial you can look at Revelation 9:14 Revelation 16:2 even look at the Book of Job at the very beginning of that book Satan and and the Fallen Angels come before come into the throne room of God and they are subject to the approval of God they need God's permission to do their bidding with job oh yes that's true they do not have power and authority over the people of God they get approval to do things which is how God still gets the Glory by the way mhm so as we have this conversation about Satan and Satan's Throne I thought that it might be a little bit productive again not to sensationalize but to keep us grounded in matters of History here was there an original Satan's throne and if so where could it possibly be

now oh boy so you want to have a little bit of fun sure okay well well we know about the founding and building of the city of Babel in Genesis 11 right and the name of the guy who was in charge of that was a guy by the name of nimrod oh yes good old Nimrod good old Nimrod now just fun food for thought if someone calls you a nimrod it's really not a funny compliment because Nimrod literally means we will Rebel right and of course you know the story of the Tower of Babel which is in effect what the people did they rebelled against God so Nimrod founds the city of Babel which later becomes Babylon then Cyrus comes in and he conquers Babylon and when Babylon is conquered all of the Babylonian priests and their initiates and all of their treasures and trinkets flee the area and go to guess where pergamum oh interesting okay so all of the thing and you can read some more about what this caldan way of worship looked like in the Book of Daniel mhm all during the Babylonian Empire the Babylonian captivity The Babylon the caldian practices the priests the rituals the idol worship all of that stuff it it was like the center of evil in the Known World H and all of that shifted to pergamum okay with all of this cultic worship and practice right and then eventually as Rome Rises to power cuz they're the next world power after the Persians mhm the priests the initiates and the treasures who had their origins in Babylon shift to Rome so you see this travel of this Satan's throne if you will mhm moving from its origin which is Babylon to pergamum to Rome M it's kind of fascinating to me mhm but we'll get into that a little bit more cuz uh we're going to have some fun with that okay back to the scriptures I know where you dwell where Satan's Throne is it's pergamum right right and you hold fast to my name and do not deny my faith so this is the Commendation that the Lord is giving here uh you did not deny my faith even in the days of antios my witness now antios is an interesting guy we don't know much about antios other than the fact that his name literally means against all H so it says here that he was Jesus's faithful witness possibly because he stood against all of this satanic Behavior interesting uhhuh but we kind of have to be careful to assigned too much glory to that name because Herod adopted this name as well oh gee remember he was known as Herod Antipas no I didn't I didn't remember that it's a historical little factoid okay so he says my faithful witness this Antipas my faithful one who was killed among you where Satan dwells see twice in the same verse in the verse here remember the law of double mention M this is something worth digging into Satan's Throne where Satan dwells could this be the period of time where the cultic practice of the priests and false worship were Central H well as I said at the beginning of the episode pergamum was the religious center of the Roman Empire got it something to think about mhm verse 14 so we had the Commendation now we're going to have the concern but I have a few things against you that Greek nevertheless yeah the big butt but I have a few things against you because you have kept some there who hold the teaching of balb who kept teaching bailo to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality now the good news here is that there's only some right it's not all it's some so that's the good news but Jesus is making a really big deal out of the fact fact that the that the church is tolerating the sum who are holding to the teaching of balum now what the heck is that yeah exactly well if you go all the way back to the Book of Numbers mhm you find out who balum and bailo were so balum was a prophet he was not Jewish we would probably classify him him as a soothsayer because he called himself a prophet okay he was not called a prophet of God and you can read about that in Joshua 13:22 Deuteronomy 23 says that balum was from Mesopotamia um he settled in Aram by the Euphrates River you can read about that in Numbers 22 and 23 but balum was hired by bailo who was the king of Moab to curse Israel oh and so balum against his own better judgment CU he didn't want to do it he refused to do it he goes to do it anyway and in Numbers 22 he's literally rebuked by his donkey it's kind of a humorous story you should read about it Numbers 22 okay so he refuses to curse Israel numbers 23 and numbers 24 so instead in numbers 31 we read about how balum taught Balo how to defeat the nation of Israel by telling him to take his young pretty women and have them Camp around the Israelite camps and you know tempt them oh and what and what would end up happening is that the Israelites would interm Mar which is EXT expressly prohibited and they would begin to adopt their practices and words wor ship and idolatry M so guess what what that's exactly what happened okay balum taught Israel's enemies how to corrupt them so here in Revelation 2 again remember it's rendered into signs and wonders here in Revelation chap 2 Jesus Is Telling John to write this letter and he's saying that there are some that the church is tolerating who hold to the teaching of balum well what was the teaching of balum how to corrupt the children of god wow so the people in the Church of pergamum are tolerating some who are teaching things that are corrupting the children of God and putting stumbling blocks before them which include eating things sacrificed to idols and committing acts of immorality literally and and spiritually speaking mhm so that's that's that's one of the things that Jesus has against the people in this church I will go so far as to say because of the theme of this letter that there's enough of the sum who are being tolerated in this church that you can't tell the difference between who the faithful are and who the Unfaithful are because it's mixed got it you follow me yeah the doctrine of balum refers to this spiritual unchastity or a marriage to the world 2 Peter 2:15 refers to the way of balum where someone is a hireling where they they're making a market for their gift because that's the thing is that balam sold his gift like he hired himself out to Bao got it oh okay there's also in Jude verse 11 something known as the error of balum which is sacrificing Eternal riches for temporal gain so that's all that's going on here is this intentional mixing of religious practice if you will MH and it's being tolerated by the church and then he says in verse 15 so so you also have some in the same way who hold the teaching of the nicians well remember we talked about the nicians in the letter to the Church of Ephesus that's right we did and remember what that referred to remember it was the combination of the two Greek words Niko and and Laos which means ruling over the people yeah this speaks of uh the clergy ruling over the people MH so it's a mess here in this church it's it's messy it's all mixed up it's it's kind of like uh when you do your laundry and you put your darks and your whites in the same thing and you're getting and it's like your Reds are bleeding all over your white so to speak it's just it's an absolute disaster here and it's being tolerated it's kind of scary yeah so he says in verse 16 therefore repent boy there's another one of those moments where the therefore really needs to know what it's there for right I mean it's pretty intense because yeah the good news is that there's only some there's only some who are involved in idolatry and fornication there's only some that are subscribing to the clergy worship and it's because uh the rest of them are faithful to Christ faithful to Doctrine faithful to loving those who are in the church faithful to the truth of the Gospel but they're tolerating the bad behavior they don't want to get their hands dirty if you will right so in verse 16 this is an action statement he says therefore repent MH in our English there's a semicolon there which tells me that this is really important therefore repent why or else I'm coming to you quickly there's that word quickly again in the Greek it'll soon take place and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth there's that sword again yeah twice in the same letter remember law of double mention right mhm better pay attention take action now it's a this is a conditional statement repent do a 180° turn it's interesting to me because just like back then so it is today that we live in a time when right and wrong are relative truths but Jesus sets the standard doesn't he yeah the word of God which is what comes out of his mouth determines ultimately what is right and ultimately what is wrong and only Jesus has the authority to judge between what is right and what is wrong no one else not even the church gets to judge that only Christ only he judges That's The Power of that two-edged sword wow like he's coming to make Close Quarters combat war and divide what is all mixed together M you follow me yeah and that's the close of the letter but then there's the postcript there's this Infamous phrase that's outside the body of the letter and again I believe that's for a reason which I will get to on a later episode he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches well who is this statement for then Andy anyone who has an ear so that's everyone personally yes and uh what the spirit says to the churches mhm it's all of the churches so this is for everybody right mhm not just those in the church but those out of the church I would argue yeah it seems this is a pattern yes that after that it's written like almost after every letter to the church yes this is kind of cool but it will change in the fourth letter ah all right but until now not we we'll worry about that later okay he who has a ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who over comes 1 John 54 and5 to him I will give some of the Hidden mana and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it well

Mana that's the bread from the Wilderness right that God supplied the nation of Israel with every single day yeah that's what kept them alive physically mhm and I would argue spiritually and they weren't satisfied with it they

complained at least in Egypt we had fish right but here I believe that Mana is symbolic of John chapter 6 where Jesus says that he is the bread of life oh the hidden Mana because the Mana in Exodus wasn't hidden true they had to go get it yeah this is the hidden Mana didn't they keep some Mana in the Ark of the Covenant yes in the uh for the Tabernacle yeah this speaks to me that there are some that Jesus is hidden from that his bread of life is hidden from some because the hidden Mana is only reserved for those who overcome right only those who put their faith in Jesus Christ only those who confess him as Lord get the hidden Mana it's pretty provocative if you think about it and then he has this weird thing the white stone with a new name written on the stone mm well this was a thing back during this time period this whole concept of a white stone with a name written on it see if if if you went to the Roman games okay as a spectator and you were in good standing with Rome you were given a white stone with your name on it and a plate full of bread and fruit to eat while you observe the games H okay this was essentially your admission into the games and if you didn't have favor with them you weren't allowed in you didn't get a stone it didn't have your name written on it it was like you know a ticket a ticket to the games like a ticket in a ticket in the meal to the Seahawks game right if you if you didn't have good standings you didn't get to go see the games and you were cast out so the sum who who receive the hidden Mana are given access to all that Christ has for them but it's also symbol this whole new name thing yeah what's that it's not the same old name it's a new name mhm it's kind of interesting well what will Jesus do as a promise to the Overcomer it's it's a new identity it's a clean slate it's a fresh start think about 1 John 1:9 if we confess our sins then he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness right it's the same concept here repent is in the body of the letter in the postcript the Overcomer the one who confesses Jesus Christ is Lord the one who overcomes the World by their faith in Christ alone is washed white do snow the symbolism there remember signs and wonders signs and wonders right essentially the admonition that Jesus is giving first and foremost to the church in pergamum but to all of the churches and to all who have an ear to hear is an admonition to purify your ambassadorship because this letter speaks of spiritual compromise yeah h the overall theme of this letter is compromise a mixing a blending a mixed marriage if you will well what does the word pergamum mean mixed marriage right right and Jesus has the two-edged sword to separate what is mixed together mhm isn't that crazy that is crazy isn't that wild yeah it's not by it's not by accident it's not by coincidence the Precision of this letter is freaking ridiculous you see why this stuff excites me so much yes I do like it's just ridiculous how incredible this stuff is Right mhm pergamum as I said it means mixed marriage these Pagan and immoral practices are what the church was rescued from but she had been sucked back in because of pressure from the culture so there's no separation there's no distinction and the Pagan world was growing more and more hostile towards the church so she compromises to draw better attention maybe to be more attractive maybe to endure far less persecution so she falls in line with what the world says it will allow and she courts them yeah the church is in danger from the world but in Far More Danger from the Lord for not separating from the world yeah Jesus says repent or else he is going to come and divide and conquer repent also because as he said there are still some who who remain faithful because not all are guilty of this right but the some who are faithful they need to repent because those who are faithful are faithful to his name they're faithful in his faith and they can be his faithful Witnesses [Music] mhm and yet their lampstand was removed right so that's a crazy letter isn't it yeah yeah now do you want to get into a lot of trouble

here well you won't I'm the one talking you just nod your head and agree yeah I'm like oh you're guilty by association here exactly so we talked about this whole um Satan's Throne thing we talked about the domain of Satan we talked about how is there original is there an original place where Satan's Throne was and did it move and if so how so I'm going to take you all on a crazy trip through history to not only tell you where the origin of Satan's thr Throne I believe is or was not only where it moved or how but how that also relates to what I label the prophetic level that these letters are written on which is church history okay could it be possible Andy that there's a period of time where the church married the world Capital C church was married to the world yes be possible yes well I do think there was a time okay well going in order we had the Church of Ephesus which prophetically was the apostolic church period the next letter was the Church of Smyrna right so at the end of the apostolic era the church went into this phase of horrific persecution that lasted over 250 years through the through the Relentless somewhat gruesome horrific persecution and murdering of Christians all the way up to roughly the third or fourth Century so then this letter the Church of pergamum prophetically speaking would speak to what comes the period of the church that comes after that well let's see what happened okay let's talk about the Babylonian Legend and the migrating priesthood okay okay so we talked about Nimrod the founder Babylon right Mr Mr we will Rebel he had a wife whose name was saramis they had a postumus son whose name was tamuz okay tamuz was said to be associated with the Sun God and every year at winter solstice the Sun God quote unquote dies you know cuz as the days get shorter the light gets less and less mhm mhm uh the Sun God is slow dying and then on the winter solstice roughly around what we would call December the 22nd the sun god officially dies and then the next day the days start to get longer so the Sun God is

resurrected well in in Babylonian in caldian Tradition they celebrated the death of tamus the Sun God by burning what was called a Ule log in the fire [Laughter] okay Ule is the caldan word for infant oh jeez okay and guess just take a gander Andy huh what they did the next day um they burned the ulog the night of winter solstice and the next morning when tamuz or the Sun God was said to be resurrected what do you think they did they have um hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls

would they give gifts yes they gave gifts but they replaced the U log uhhuh with a trimmed tree the next morning adorned with gold and silver decorations okay and you can read about that in Jeremiah 10: 1-5 okay huh this whole worship of tamuz and these caldian practices just as a side note also included mistletoe which was symbolic of fertility okay where do you think we get the idea of kissing under the mistletoe from now I I just as a side note I am no way shape or form here condemning what we do for Christmas right that's a different conversation I'm not that guy but it certainly is provocative where we get those Traditions from right yeah oh but it gets better okay so Nimrod is virtually identical to aalap is in a lot of ways the guy from pergamum okay okay mhm because just like just like Nimrod aalap is eventually develops the worship of his widow and his posthumous son so nimrod's Widow her name was saramis and his postumus son's name was tamuz that's in Babylon saramis and tamuz the mother and the son right mhm in Phoenicia it was ashero and tamus in Egypt it was Isis and Horus in Greece it was Aphrodite and Aeros and in Rome it was Venus and Cupid so essentially you have the Latin and Greek labels and stories of the original caldian myth of Seamus and tamuz hm okay and all of this practice of worship is where the original caldian priesthood was born like the one that we see in the Book of Daniel okay so what happens eventually this caldian priesthood migrates as I said the Babylonian Empire was conquered by Cyrus the Great Cyrus the Persian he conquers Babylon and the priesthood flees to where pergamum pergamum okay but then after a long period of time power shifts to Rome and that same religious system of clergy worship clergy ruling over the people this false uh this false religion if you will of worshiping the son God you know worshiping other gods yeah that shifts to Rome R the same religious system shifts to Rome and it all adopts Latin labels and forms a foundation for the Pagan Rome religion and all of that happens before the 3r century the title Pontius

Maximus was invented for the high priest at pergamum but originally it came from Babylon the idea of having a Pontius Maximus or the highest priest got it priest came from Babylon it was the high priest of the religious system so as I said this system transfers to Rome and there is an appointment of successive Caesars as the high priest or Pontius Maximus mhm in 378 ad damasus Bishop of Rome completed the absorption of the Babylonian system into the Roman

Church which leads to Future Caesar worship interesting okay so pergamum then becomes the center of the official religion of Emperor worship the first temple of Emperor worship is erected in pergamum roughly 27 BC and it's under vaspian that the Loyalty test of Caesar worship begins remember the pinching incense on the altar yeah yeah this is where all of that came from

okay in 312 ad now here's the thing is that is that there is this long line of Caesars that demand and command this form of religion and you can read about them at your leisure we'll be here for another hour if I take you through every single one of them right but before I get into this I want to make one point remember how I talked about earlier a lot about this whole possibility of the Satan's Throne or where Satan dwells being in pergamum yes so I talked about aalap is who was said to be the son of Apollo and of a virgin woman named coronus [Music] well aalap also had the nickname ascal soter which means asalia the Savior oh because he claimed to have power over death mhm so by the time you get to this place where you have all of these Gods being worshiped and you have Caesar representing the overall spiritual manifestation of God like the highest supreme god mhm it's almost as if here in pergamum you have a counterfeit Trinity because you have Zeus there's an altar for him he was said to be born there this is the false God the Father you have ascal is that also has a temple there and he's known as the Savior so this is almost like a false god the son and then you have Caesar or Emperor worship with incense gives a picture of a false god the spirit got it so when Jesus is talking about where Satan dwells where Satan's Throne is it's highly possible that these are all of the reasons why Jesus uses that descriptor for pergamum

H so fast forward to 312 ad there's this guy by the name of Constantine yes that's what I was thinking there are there are a series of events in Constantine's life that eventually lead to his conversion to Christianity there are some records that indicate that he was converted on his deathbed who really knows but what everyone can agree on is that Constantine did authentically convert to Christianity in 325 he issued what was known the Edict of Toleration or freedom of religion because up until this point as we learned on our last episode during the times of the church persecution MH for roughly 250 years Christianity was illegal right right well in the Edict of Toleration Christianity is now no longer illegal but all religions are free to worship now okay and because things in Rome were so chaotic politically governmentally spiritually religiously you name it economically even Constantine in 330 ad moves the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium okay which is later changed to

Constantinople he makes many favorable moves for Christianity he ceases gladiatorial fights he reduces the killing of unwanted children he abolishes crucifixion as a form of execution he repeals the persecution edicts of Diocesan and if you remember Diocesan was the emperor under which the largest amount of death to Christians occurred huh okay he assumed headship of the church he Advanced Christians to high offices M and he declared Sunday as a day of worship and there's a lot of controversy about that throughout the ages you know changing the day of worship from let's say Saturday to Sunday right changing the L you know the language of worship on the Lord's Day versus worship on the Sabbath day that's in the Catholic church right there's a lot of controversy about that but this was actually not a bad thing that con did and I'm going to tell you why during the time that Constantine issued his Edict of Tolerance remember I said up until this point Christianity was illegal right there were three major sects of sun worshippers wow okay plus you have Christians who are coming out of hiding probably literally coming out of caves yeah I would imagine so in an effort for everybody to get along and everybody to benefit from this Edict of Tolerance Constantine declares Sunday as the day of worship to unify the Empire because therefore this means that the sun worshippers can still have their day of worship the Christians can have their day of worship but this also was a huge benefit for slaves because slaves never got a day off so not not only did Constantine declares Sunday as the day of worship slaves got to benefit from this hugely because Constantine forbid work on Sunday and replaced it with a day of worship that's good so everyone got to worship whatever religion they were a part of on Sunday so it's not necessarily a horrible thing that Constantine did now later on in church history it you know the church pollutes it and it becomes something else but for the sake of our conversation here this in my opinion was really a good thing for the church because he legalized Christianity or I should say he removed it from being an illegal religion but he also created a day when Christians were free to worship publicly okay I think that's pretty cool yeah Constantine also reduced slavery considerably but eventually the church consummates her marriage to the world mhm from 361 to 363 we got this guy named Julian he was later nicknamed Julian the apostate he he sought really really hard after restoring paganism and making Christianity illegal again but it didn't work and from 363 to 364 Jovian reestablished the Christian religion but then from 378 to 395 you have this guy by the name of theodosius and theodosius is the one that made Christianity the state religion huh there were forced conversions which filled up churches with ungodly people that were laced with the ambition to rule heathenism and pump and Circumstance emerge in the church there is a co-mingling of Christianity and paganism of the culture Pagan temples become churches Heathen festivals are converted to Christian ones Pagan priests sneak into offices as Church priests but all of these changes were made mostly in name only so essentially where persecution fell short marriage to the world accomplished and the church became married to the world wow gee and that's what the third letter talks about mhm MH so what does that mean for you and I

today well I know we're only on the third letter but I want us to start getting present to this idea that in every single one of our churches doesn't matter where you go to church in every single one of our churches in 2024 there are elements of all seven of these churches yeah I was kind of getting the gist of that yeah as you because remember he who has a near let him hear what the spirit says to the churches mhm these letters are written to churches of all time for us to take inventory as it pertains to Christ report card for each of these churches and not only that it's for us personally he who has an ear so it begs the question not just in our churches but in our own personal lives are we married to the world have we sold out our Eternal riches to have temporary gain for some reason mhm or God forbid become a stumbling block a bad example yeah of Christ and the faith m well I would I would argue the same words as Jesus to repent to repent and follow his name to repent and latch on to his faith to repent so that we can be his faithful witness because at the end of the day ladies and gentlemen just like back then in ' 93 ad and as it will be forever more the church is the bride of Christ and it's high time we stopped being unfaithful to him and that's all we have to say about that thank you for listening to the Church oity podcast the post scripts on our next episode we'll be taking a look at the letter to the Church of thyra we'll be talking about that woman Jezebel and probably get ourselves into a heck of a lot of trouble but until next time this is the Churchosity podcast Personnel saying peace [Music]