Tues.’s Devo - The Deeds of The Nicolaitans

Read Rev. 2:15 Like the church in Ephesus, the church in Pergamos had the same sin of holding to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Remember Nicolaitans means “to conquer the laity”. It was when the overseers, elders, bishops, whatever you want to call them exercized supremacy over the members of the church. Jesus refuted this in Matt. 20:25-28 when he told those who wanted to minister to others, to be their servants. The gold head that Daniel saw in Daniel 2 was the Babylonian kingdom that was later duplicated as the Roman Empire and will be duplicated again as the anti-christ. In Rev. 13:3 it said that the beast had seven heads and one of them had a deadly wound that was healed. This head stood for the pagan Roman Empire. It rose again as the Roman Catholic spiritual empire. Her motto was to divide and conquer. As it went in the government, it went in the church. Men began to covet the leadership, and politics, human knowledge, and programs took the place of God’s wisdom and the Holy Spirit’s control. Evil men led the flock. From this arose bishops, and archbishops, and cardinals, till finally the Pope. To maintain control over the people, they realized they needed to take the Word from them, so the people could have no power to rebuke what they were doing. They burned the ancient scrolls, and excommunicated the righteous teachers, telling the people it took a certain education to be able to interpret the scriptures rightly. Now they had control to teach their own wicked doctrines and lead the people into darkness. The ancient Roman Catholic church called herself the mother, so could it be that she is the woman clothed in scarlet: the whore - the Anti-Christ in chapter 17? The early bishops believed they were above the Word. They forgave sins by confession to them, they baptized infants, and even practiced regeneration baptism. Today’s devotional is a little heavy, but our hope is in adhering to the Word and not the doctrines of men. God has blessed us with the written Word that has the power to bring life and hope and restoration - even to our wrong doctrines. Our prayer today, Lord, is that we adhere strictly to your Word and allow your Holy Spirit to guide us.