"I know your works, and 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 in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells." (Revelation 2:13)
We had crossed "Check Point Charlie," the most "notorious" border crossing between East and West Berlin; it was May, 1986. We walked North on Frierichstrasse toward the Unter den Linden. We turned East and walked along the gray, drab street with colorless buildings toward Museum Island. East Berlin was in no way the busy metropolis that was West Berlin. It was an example of just what happens to a culture when they think some "big brother" can take better care of them.
After we walked for a while I looked over to my left and notice a large building with the marking, "Pergamon Museum." I stopped, and the first thing which came to my mind was our Brother, "Antipas...faithful martyr, who was killed...where Satan dwells." Inside that building are some of the actual stones in the reconstructed, First Century Pergamon Altar. I was just embarking on the next four years of traveling 4 to 5 times a year, serving the Church in Eastern Europe, missions which were from one to two months' duration. When I got home and thought of a name for my mission, immediately it came to me: "Antipas Ministries."
Sorry for the "trip down memory lane," but it was a sobering moment for me; and every time I read Revelation 2 I think of our great Brother Antipas, a faithful Follower of Jesus, among them of whom it is said, "whose deeds follow them." Maybe you have wondered at times what you would have been like in those days in Pergamon; would I have been like Antipas? In Germany in the 1920s and '30s, what would I have done? Would I have been of those who "spoke up" for the Jews, gone against the German Government's repression of minorities, shackling of the Church? Who, my friend can answer that for sure? I know I can't. I can say for certainty, however, that the question is certainly not irrelevant in today's world.
Our trust is Jesus Christ, not our bravado, or presumptuous "spiritual" declarations. We live, as a Czech Brother once told me, believing that when deep trials come, we must trust the grace of Jesus. We stand today with David, who wrote and sang, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom/(what) shall I be afraid." This not only applies to what "might be" in our lives. This absolutely applies to you and me right now, right there, whatever befalls us in this time, and, in whatever the future may bring. Let me share the promise to the Church at Pergamon which Jesus gave to those who would overcome, a promise which is for you and me also. "To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives."
Father, in Jesus' Name, "For all the saints who from their labors rest, who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blest, Alleluia, Alelluia." Amen.
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When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
Hebrews 12:2
