The Inward Altar

THE INWARD ALTAR

Before we look for the Antichrist in the world, we must recognise whatever is antichrist within ourselves.

In ancient Pergamon, in what is now Turkey, archaeologists uncovered a great altar. It was excavated and taken to Berlin beginning in 1871.

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889, during the wider period in which the altar's discoveries were being brought to Germany.

In its time, Nazi Germany became the centre of the Holocaust, in which approximately six million Jewish people were murdered — one of the darkest atrocities in human history.

The Altar of Pergamon has been associated by some biblical interpreters with the place Jesus called “Satan's throne” in Revelation 2:13.

But before we concern ourselves with an outward altar, we must recognise the inward altar within us.

We can spend our lives identifying the darkness in the world while overlooking what still needs to be brought into the light within ourselves.

Jesus said:

“The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.”— John 14:30

What a remarkable statement.

The question is not simply where Satan's throne may have stood in the ancient and modern world.

The question is whether anything that opposes Christ still occupies a place within us.

Before the kingdoms of this world are brought down, what of the kingdoms still standing within mankind?

 The stone that shatters the kingdoms of this world has first overthrown the kingdoms within His people.

The stone is not merely coming against something. It is establishing something — the Kingdom of God.

In Daniel 2:35, the stone becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth.

The inward overthrow is what prepares a people through whom the Kingdom is revealed outwardly.

These are the first fruits — a people in whom the kingdoms of this world have been overthrown, and Christ alone reigns.

It also brings Revelation 14:4 into view:

“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”