Where is Pergamum?
A prominent city in Asia Minor, now home to Bergama, Turkey? That’s the historical, i.e. past historical seat.
Where is Pergamum now? i.e. present history?
It is “where Satan’s throne is” (verse 14). It s very present, in very many places today, everywhere we choose to break the first commandment and, in our lives, elevate other gods to the throne of the Almighty. If it were just a matter of our personal lives that would be easy to avoid; but in a world where the personal is the political and where still, so many of us believers want to live wholly private lives, Satan claims thrones all around us.
I live in a country where everybody’s right is such a sacred entitlement that human rights are sometimes the gateway to Satan’s entrance. I can do whatever I want to, even when what I want is destructive to the other person.
I believe that “holding fast to [the Lord’s] name, and not denying faith in him was for many, not just Antipas, a very political matter. Otherwise their secret religion would not have made a difference in public as everyone would have craved the rights to which they were entitled.
Does my insistence on my rights put a stumbling block in the way of others as did those who held on to the teachings of Balaam or who followed the Nicolaitians?
Since those who are strong are required to help the weak, then we really cannot always exercise our rights to the max, except when it comes to enforcing the politics of God’s community.
I don’t ever want to use my liberty as licence to lead another astray. I fear that he will wage war against me using the sword in his mouth. Is that sword the word of God that pierces so sharply? Well, sometimes the word is not really so clear as some would say. Sometimes they make it look cut and dry and they look like cut-throat.
Lord, I want to retain that healthy fear of your word, but I must admit that there are times when the word leaves me shaky because I’m simply not s sure of what it’s saying. Like sometimes now, I think that some places might surely be the throne of Satan, but some ultra-holy very-right cocksure people don’t see it that way. I can only keep praying to the Lord to help me conquer, and claim my new name and hold on to it. Amen
Thank God that when I get this “new name, no one knows except the one who receives it”. No one but God gives it so no one can take it away. I am his and he is mine forever.