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ESPAÑOL: ¿El Trono de Satanás de Pérgamo todavía ejerce influencia?

According to Wikipedia, Caracas, Venezuela is the murder capital of the world. It has held that position since 2016, when it wrestled the crown away from then reigning champ, San Pedro, Honduras.

But that brings me to an interesting article from 2013 on the British new site, The Guardian. 

The article discussed the murder rate in San Pedro, which at that time was running at 20 a day or over 7,000 murders a year. This works out to an annual murder rate of 173 per 100,000 residents.

To put this in perspective, Birmingham, Alabama has the highest murder rate in the US running at 62.5 per 100,000 while Chicago has the highest total number of murders at around 500 a year. 

For its article, The Guardian interviewed a San Pedro mortician named Lucas, who said:

“Satan himself lives here in San Pedro. People here kill people like they are nothing more than chickens.”

Lucas added that when he first started working as a mortician, most deaths were from natural causes. By 2013, that had completely reversed. Deaths from natural causes were now rare. He said it’s common to see corpses coming in with multiple gun shot wounds. Lucas added that bodies even show up with with heads and body parts cut off.

But more than that Lucas believed that Satan himself lived there, that Satan lived in San Pedro.

In a veiled reference to the work of Satan, Jesus stated, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

Satan wants to kill. Murder and the breakdown of society is one of the defining trademarks of Satanic activity. Whether Satan himself lived in San Pedro it is hard to know. But undoubtedly there is a strong satanic influence of some kind.

The Place Where Satan Dwells

But we know at one point Satan lived in Pergamum.

In a warning to the seven churches of Asia, the Apostle John wrote:

And to the angel of the church of Pergamum write: I know where you dwell (The Greek word katoikeo), where Satan’s throne is and you hold fast 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 (again the Greek word katoikeo) … (Revelation 2:12-13 NASV)

Immediately, we notice that the prophetic word addresses the murder of Antipas. According to tradition he served as the Bishop of city. He was brutally burned alive in a bronze bull statue for casting demons out of people.  

Pergamum was a powerful and influential city located in what is now modern Turkey. It was a government town serving as the capital of Asia. It was on a major trade route, so it served as the financial hub. It also had a massive library with over 200,000 book, making it a center of learning. It was the equivalent of a university city today.

But the verse also speaks of both the church and Satan dwelling in Pergamum.

The same Greek word for dwell, katoikeo, is used in both instances. According to the Expository Dictionary of the New Testament, katoikeo, means “to settle down in a dwelling, to dwell fixedly in a place.”

In the same way that church members had homes and lived in the city, so did Satan. 

The Throne Of Satan

However, Pergamum was more than Satan’s dwelling place. John adds that Satan also had his throne there. 

The city not only functioned as the administrative center for earthly government, it also served as the satanic headquarters in the spiritual realm.

This reveals that there is some type of organizational structure within the satanic realm, with certain fallen angels having more authority.

We see hints of this throughout the Bible.

In Matthew 12:22-27, the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out a lower demon by invoking the name of a more powerful evil spirit named Beelzebul. Jesus never challenged the existence of this demonic being.

Revelation 9:11 provides the name of another ruling satanic angel known as Abaddon, which means destroyer. He is described as the King of the Abyss and ruled over a horde of locust-like demons. I would liken him to a general who commands a large unit of men. 

Though Satan’s kingdom is spiritual, this spiritual dimension often manifests itself in our physical world.

In Pergamum’s case, it was revealed through the throne of Zeus — a giant altar built around 200 BC. It was a massive structure 118 feet wide and 110 feet deep.

The altar existed when the Apostle John wrote Revelation. This is no doubt, the throne of Satan, that John was referring to. 

The Zeus altar was a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality. 

The Pergamum altar was dedicated to the Greek gods — primarily Zeus. 

In Greek mythology, Zeus was the head of the gods. Zeus may have been a veiled reference to Satan’s rule in the demonic kingdom.

Paul refers to Satan as the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). Perhaps, it was through this altar at Pergamum that Satan received human worship. 

In Deuteronomy 32:17, Moses addressed this connection between idols and demons when he warned Israel:

They sacrificed to demons who were not God,
To gods whom they have not known (NASV)

There was a connection between the worship of demons and the Canaanite gods.

When Christianity began dominating the Roman Empire, the Zeus temple and its altar fell into disuse. The temple was transformed into a fortress. It was partially destroyed through several battles. The altar eventually disappeared as it was covered by debris and dirt.

The Throne Of Satan Uncovered

But Satan’s largely intact throne in Pergamum was finally uncovered by German archaeologists in 1878. In 1901, it was dismantled and the altar was moved to a museum in Berlin, Germany. It has since been renamed the Pergamum Museum in honor its infamous relic.

So what would happen if Satan’s throne is uncovered, restored and moved to a new location in Europe?

In Deuteronomy 7:25-26, Moses gave Israel an interesting warning about the Canaanite idols:

“The graven images of their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be snared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. You shall not bring an abomination thing into your house and like it come under the ban (The Hebrew word cherem which means devoted/cursed) and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned  (again the same Hebrew word cherem).” (Deuteronomy 7:25, 26 NASV)

The Hebrew word “cherem”, translated by the NASV as banned, refers to any object that was devoted or dedicated to someone else. This setting aside for another’s service meant no one else could use it.

These idols were devoted to other gods, who Moses said were demons.

Cherem is actually derived from another Hebrew word “charam” which means to “lay under a curse.” It referred to the ancient practice of putting a curse on any objects that were devoted. 

Consequently, any individuals who came in contact with these devoted items would come under the demonic curse attached to them.

We see this at play in Israel’s battle for Jericho. 

In Joshua 6 verses 17-18, Joshua warned his soldiers that the city was under the ban, the Hebrew word Cherem. This meant they were to take nothing from the city, because by doing so they would “make the camp of Israel accursed (The Hebrew word cheram) and bring trouble on it” (Joshua 6:17, 18 NASV). Unquote

Unfortunately a soldier took some items and when Joshua later sent soldiers to take Ai, a small outpost, they were soundly defeated.

After this defeat, a prophetic word revealed what one of the soldiers had done making Israel vulnerable to satanic attack because of that curse. 

After Joshua dealt with the issue, they were then able to successfully defeat Ai.

This leaves us with a couple of questions. Was there a similar curse on Satan’s throne in Pergamum? Secondly, with this alter transferred to Germany, did a curse go with it? 

I will let you decide.

Thirteen years after Satan’s Throne arrived in Berlin, World War I broke out with the Germans on the Axis side.  It is estimated 16 million people were killed during this war.

That war ended in 1918 with the defeat of Germany. Twenty-one years later, 1939, Germany’s Adolf Hitler initiated World War II. This massive conflict involving Germany, Japan and Italy resulted in the deaths of over 60 million people including 6 million Jews in concentration camps. 

One of the goals of Hitler and his three nation axis was world domination.

In his vision of the End times recorded in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John revealed that world domination is one of the ultimate goals of the Anti Christ.

Was there a demonic influence behind these two wars and specifically the rise of Hitler?

In his book, Mass Hate: The Global Rise Of Genocide And Terror, Neil Kressel describes Hitler with these words:

“Overwhelmingly … Germans speak with mystification of Hitler’s ‘hypnotic’ appeal. The word shows up again and again; Hitler is said to have mesmerized the nation, captured them in a trance from which they could not break loose.”

Though we know the antichrist will appear at the end of the age, the Apostle John warns that before that happens many wannabe antichrists will make an appearance in 1 John 2:8.

Hitler was not the antichrist, but I do believe he was Satan’s attempt to set up the Antichrist reign before its time.

Daniel 7:25 warns of Satan’s desire to change the times and seasons. He wants to be in charge of the end time’s timetable.

But God stopped Hitler. God is sovereign. God is in control. God will decided when the antichrist will rise up, not Satan.

But oddly this was not the end of Satan’s throne’s journey or its possible influence.

Pergamum Altar Transferred To The Soviet Union

After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union took Zeus’ altar as a spoils of war. In 1945, it was transferred to Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum.

For most of the time it was in the Soviet Union, the country was ruled by Joseph Stalin — one of the bloodiest mass murderers in earth’s history. It’s estimated he was responsible for the deaths of 20 million people.

Now to be fair, Stalin was involved in mass murder before the throne of Satan arrived. But after the arrival of Zeus’ altar, Stalin set up of the Eastern Bloc made up of the countries supposedly liberated by the Soviet Union’s war with Germany.

For the next few decades, Soviet communism pushed for world domination via the Cold War.

The Soviets returned the Pergamum altar to communist controlled East Germany in 1958. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, East Germany was eventually reunited with West Germany in 1990.

And again God intervened and the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991.

Today, the altar sits in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Of course, the questions remains. Does it have a Demonic curse on it? If so is it potentially exerting some type of demonic influence in this region of the world?

We need to remember that after His resurrection, Jesus was given all authority over all tribes and all the world. The Lord has the final say. He is ultimately the One in control.

Thanks for joining me on the podcast, and I will catch you again.