Truth Magazine

By Earl E. Robertson

“Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth,” wrote Paul (Rom. 14:22). Liberals and perverters of truth, practicing some things “contrary to sound doctrine,” must exercise care that their inconsistencies are not too obvious to the public. Their preaching must be geared to their practice, not their practice to their preaching!

Recently such an one said he had never preached on instrumental music in the worship and would not. The reason being, he said, such practice is not mentioned in the Bible. Another preacher of the same persuasion concurred with this statement. They support religious activities for which there is not one verse of scripture to support them and they obviously know it; and, furthermore, they know instrumental music in worship parallels such practice. They believe in one church sponsoring a work for which all churches are equally responsible. But let them produce a scripture authorizing a sponsoring church! They believe that churches may monetarily subsidize human organizations to do the work of the church. But let them produce a passage of scripture to authorize churches of Christ to furnish with subsidy David Lipscomb College or Potter Home and School. They know the scripture makes the difference, and they also know their practice places them “in the middle”.

Any departure from the truth, though it may not be specifically named in the word of God, must be condemned. Paul shows the Ephesian elders that some from among themselves would arise “speaking perverse things” to draw away disciples (Acts 20:30). Do those “perverse” things have to be named before I can preach on them? There is only one gospel but many perverters of it (Gal. 1:6-12). The perversion of truth does not have to be specified in the scripture for one to preach against it! The gainsayers of truth must be stopped – they teach things which they ought not (Tit. 1:9-11). Paul told Timothy to charge some “that they teach no other doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:3). Does the doctrine have to be named in the scriptures before I can rightfully preach against it? There are some things “contrary to sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10) which are not specifically named in the scriptures – instrumental music in worship being one of them! Sins in the “such like” category must be condemned as well as the ones specified (Gal. 5:21). False teachers (2 Pet. 2:1) lead men away with error (2 Pet. 3:17). Instrumental music in worship is unauthorized and must, therefore, be preached against inconsistent preachers to the contrary notwithstanding.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, p. 107
February 8, 1979

By Mackey W. Harden

These are the words the angel of the Lord spoke to the apostles in Acts 5:20. The apostles had just been arrested for the second time because of their preaching the gospel. The Sadducees were very upset because the apostles could not be persuaded to quit preaching about Jesus. Upon their first arrest (Acts 4:1-3), Peter and John had been threatened, “. . . and commanded not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts 4:17-18). This however did not stand in their way at all, for they continued without any hesitation to teach and preach in the name of Jesus. This is what led to their second arrest, as recorded in Acts 5:17-18.

After they were imprisoned, the angel of the Lord came by night and set them free. They were instructed to “Go, stand and speak in the temple all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20). Let it be observed that they were not set free just to go somewhere and hide from these rulers that were threatening them. They were set free in order to fulfill a divine mission. They had a job to do for the Lord and in order to achieve that goal they had to “Go, stand and speak . . . all the words of this life.”

Those of us who are Christians today have the responsibility to spread the cause of Christ to those who live in this generation. We need to be as zealous of this as the apostles and first century disciples were. Let us notice what the Bible teaches as to how we can “Go, stand and speak .

Go

Jesus our Lord said, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest (Jn. 4:35). As a boy of six or seven years old growing up in southern Alabama, it was very easy to visualize what Jesus is saying. As one looked out over those cotton fields all you could see for acres and acres were those little “cotton balls.” Then the workers would go out into the fields and begin to pick and harvest the cotton. Likewise, it staggers the imagination to look out into the world and see the many people who need the saving power of the gospel. Truly the harvest is ready if we will but “go.” “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations . . .” was the command of our Savior (Matt. 28:19). We have to be willing to obey the command of “go” if we are to spread the seed of the kingdom.

Stand

In writing to the church at Thessalonica, Paul said. “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle (2 Thess. 2:15) To “stand fast” means to remain firm in our beliefs of the gospel that has been delivered unto us. People who are willing to live for the Lord have to take a “stand” against things foreign to the word of God. We need to remain firm and “stand” for the truth. The apostles knew very well what it meant to remain firm for the Lord. In so doing, they gave their lives for the cause of Christ: How firmly entrenched are we?

Speak

To spread the word we have to “speak.” We have to share our knowledge about the gospel with others if we expect to convert them. Paul was an ambassador in bonds for the sake of the gospel. He prayed that he might boldly make known the mystery of the gospel, “. . . that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak (Eph. 6:18-20). Notice that Paul says, “as I ought to speak.” He had the attitude that it was a necessity for him to “speak boldly” the gospel. I fear that many today do not have this wonderful attitude that Paul here displays. Most Christians probably do not talk to people enough about the gospel. If we do not tell them the wonderful story of Jesus, how can they be saved? Let us strive harder every day of our lives to, “Go, stand and speak . . .” to a lost and dying world.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, pp. 106-107
February 8, 1979

By Larry Ray Hafley

The gruesome, grisly events in Guyana need a bead drawn on them. It is still impossible to conceive and believe the magnitude of the murder and suicide of 900 people. Why? What? How? These are the beginnings to questions we cannot verbalize, let alone find complete answers to. Apart from the human horror, there are other thoughts to ponder.

First, skeptics and unbelievers are saying: “The Rev. Jim Jones, Jonestown, mass suicide; well, what can you expect? That’s religion for you!” In other words, Christians are lumped together with the “People’s Temple” cult of Jim Jones. We are all just a bunch of cranks and nuts. “Faith” and “religion” are the cause of the madness of Jonestown. Saints must be aware of this attitude on the part of the world. They must not be embittered by it, but they must recognize that it exists and prepare to live it down (1 Pet. 2:12).

The Scriptures say this disposition will result when disciples are led into “damnable heresies.” “And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (2 Pet. 2:2). and so it has happened, and so it is that the way of truth is evil spoken of.

Second, there are some horrible things mentioned in the Bible. The practices of the heathen religions are unreal. They are as unbelievable as Jonestown. And people do not believe them. Some of the things in the Bible are just too “far out” to believe, say the unbelievers. Well, suppose the Bible mentioned a false teacher, a deluder and deceiver named Jim Jones. Suppose it described the slaughter in Jonestown. No one would believe that such a thing could be done, but it was! Nothing about the Ammonite god, Molech, is as remarkable as the Jonestown deaths. The Bible is not as unbelievable as real life.

“But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: To whom they ail gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the great power of God. And to him that had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries” (Acts 8:9-11). You could put the name of Jim Jones in a paraphrase of that text. You might even be able to come up with something using the name of Joseph Smith, Ellen G. White, or Mary Baker Eddy, not to mention, Herbert W. Armstrong. No, the Bible is mild compared to current events. If anything is not to be believed, it is Jonestown, not the Bible.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, p. 106
February 8, 1979

By George T. Eldridge

Featured on our front cover is a picture of the remains of the temple, the Asklepion, of the god Asklepios. Different pictures of the Asklepeion will be seen in the next two issues.

An understanding of this Greek god requires some knowledge of the city that makes him important to Bible students. The name of that Greek city is Pergamos. Its Latinized form is Pergum. The city of Pergamos was not as prominent in Apostolic times as was the city of Ephesus. The city of Pergamos has significance to pupils of the New Testament. It was the third church addressed by John in his message to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2:12-17).

The religion of Jesus Christ, in all probability, came to Pergamos due to the labors of Paul when he worked in Ephesus and was “disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus” (Acts 19:9). “And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10).

Based on modern geography, Pergamos would be located in Turkey. The modern town of Bergama is built among the ruins of this ancient metropolis, but it is far smaller in extent.

Religious Mecca

As a religious Mecca, Pergamos was styled “Thrice Neokoros.” This signified the city had three temples in which the Roman emperors were worshiped as gods. One of the oddest titles to which any city in ancient days could lay claim was the title “Neokoros.” “Neokoros” means temple sweeper. When a city erected a temple to a god, its greatest claim to honor was that it was that it became officially the “Neokoros,” the temple sweeper of that god. The sweeper of the temple, of course, was the most menial and humble of religious duties. Behind the title “Neokoros,” there lies an idea which in itself is a lovely idea. The idea was that a city’s greatest privilege was to render even the humblest service to the god who had taken up his residence within it. Since the city of Pergamos called itself “Thrice Neokoros,” here was a city where Caesar was worshiped in three temples. This city, therefore, was dedicated to glorying in the worship of the Roman emperor. Her worship stood out! Three temples in which to worship a man as a god! John, the writer of The Revelation, says Pergamos is the place “where Satan’s seat is” and “where Satan dwelleth” (Rev. 2:13). That may have specific reference to the temples dedicated to the Empirical Cult, the worship of Roman emperors as gods. Other gods, however, were worshiped in the city of Pergamos. They were notably Zeus, Dionysus, Athena and Asklepios.

Who Was Asklepios?

Pergamos was the center of the worship of Asklepios, or as the Romans called him, Aesculapius. The Egyptians deified an historical physician, Imhotep, exactly as the Greeks deified the historical Asklepios, i.e., Aesculapius. In 420 B.C., the worship of Asklepios was introduced at Athens coupled with that of Hygieia (in Greek mythology, the goddess of health). Asklepios was the name of the Greek god of medicine, the son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis.

Without going into Greek mythology as to his origin and his acceptance by the Greeks, let us say that temples were erected to Asklepios in many parts of Greece. To the Asklepeion of Asklepios, there came sufferers from all over the ancient world. The temple had its medical wards, its medical schools, its priests, and its votaries. Asklepeions were near healing springs or on high mountains.

The practice of sleeping in these sanctuaries was very common. The emblem of Askleplos is the serpent. The serpent was intimately connected with one of the ways in which cures were effected in the Asklepeion. Sufferers were allowed to spend the night ip.the darkness of the temple. In the temple, there were temple snakes. In the night, the sufferer might be touched by one of these tame and harmless snakes as they glided over the ground on which he lay. The touch of the snake was held to be the touch of the god himself, and the touch was held to bring health and healing. It was supposed that this Greek god Asklepios effected cures or prescribed remedies to the sick in dreams. There was a temple of Asklepios at Athens, as there was at Pergamos.

The Greek god Asklepios was introduced into Rome by order of the Sibylline books (293B.C.) in order to avert a pestilence. The Latin form of the Greek god (Asklepios is Aesculapius. Having been introduced into Rome, Asklepios, the Greek god of medicine, became well known in Pergamos and was sometimes referred to as “the Pergamene god.” Pergamos has been described as the “Lourdes of the ancient world.”

The precincts of Asklepios’ temple in Pergamos were dedicated to the sick and afflicted. People came from all parts of the Graeco-Roman world to get both magical and medical aid from priests as well as the goo Asklepios.

Is there anything in the worship of Asklepios which might account for the fact that John said Pergamos was the place where Satan’s seat was (Rev. 2:13)? There are two possibilities. The characterization of Asklepios was “Asklepios Soter,” “Asklepios the Savior.” “Soter,” “Savior,” is the word which in the belief of any Christian belongs uniquely and exclusively to Jesus Christ. It might well be that the Christians felt that the application of this title to a heathen god was indeed a Satanic perversion of the truth. There was something even more suggestive than that about the worship of Asklepios. Since the emblem of Asklepios was the serpent, many Jews and many Christians with knowledge of the Old Testament believed the serpent was nothing less than the emblem of Satan himself. The serpent was bound to carry the thoughts of these individuals back to the old story of man’s first sin in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3). Therefore, this might well be why John regarded Pergamos as “Satan’s seat.” Pergamos had the temple of a god whose emblem was the serpent, and in that temple, snakes crawled about and were regarded as incarnations of the god himself.

Final Word

Asklepios was in the form of a snake and is commonly represented as standing. He is dressed in a long cloak with bare breasts. His usual attribute is a club-like staff with a serpent coiled around it. Have you ever looked at the symbol of the American Medical Association? Its symbol is called a caduceus. In classical mythology, the caduceus was a staff or wand around which two serpents were entwined in opposite directions with their heads facing each other and surmounted by two wings. The caduceus came to be a symbol for Aesculapieus, the god of medicine and subsequently for the medical profession itself. The United States Army Medical Corps uses a caduceus on its insignia.

Truth Magazine XXIII: 6, pp. 104-105
February 8, 1979