Pan – the root word of our subjects today. Derived from the Greek meaning all, any, everyone. Dr. Mickey Carter brought this to our attention in his sermon on Sunday evening a Victory Baptist Church in Grantsville, West Virginia. Far away from the city of Caesarea Philippi and the Temple of Pan. Mickey Carter is one of those men of God who has likely forgotten more than I’ll ever know. But the wisdom in the recesses of his mind is amazing to me and it causes me delve deeper in scripture. Which is what good preachin’ does!
So here we go, I hope you enjoy this quick journey in the very shallow pool of my wisdom. The bulk of the information that I’m using today came from an article on www.thattheworldmayknow.com. The title of the article is “Gates of Hell.” Which sometimes I think the world is standing at with anticipation and a ticket to get in. It’s insane how the world is embracing this nonsense of today, and yet it’s nothing new is it?
In Jesus day they may not have had the World Wide Web, but they still had access to filth and sin. One such place was in the the city of Caesarea Philippi. It stood in a lush area near the foot of mount Hermon and was filled with immoral behavior and pagan worship. Much like America today. It was the center for Baal worship and eventually the worship of Greek fertility gods. This area became the center for worship of the Greek god, Pan. The Greeks named the city Panias in his honor, but it was later changed to Philipi when it was conquered by the Romans and rebuilt by the Herod Philip.
In a cliff above the city the people built shrines and temples to Pan. And this is where Jesus chose to deliver his “graduation speech” as it was referred to in the article of information, to His disciples. It was in that pagan environment that Christ would ask the question in Luke 9:18 –“Whom say the people that I am?”
Many in the religious world would have told Jesus not to take His disciples to such a wicked place.
To the pagan mind, the cave at Caesarea Philippi created a gate to the underworld, where fertility gods lived during the winter. They committed detestable acts to worship these false gods.
In order to entice the return of their god, Pan, each year, the people of Caesarea Philippi engaged in horrible deeds, including prostitution and sexual interaction between humans and goats.
When Jesus brought his disciples to the area, they must have been shocked. Caesarea Philippi was like a red-light district in their world and devout Jews would have avoided any contact with the despicable acts committed there. And there they were in the midst of an evil society, much like we are today, but the shock value seems to have worn off most of the church. They’re willing to embrace the wicked rather than listening to Christ who instructed the disciples in Matthew 16:18
And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Christ didn’t want us to fear and avoid the evil of the world but rather storm the gates of Hell and win the battle. But for now we’re too busy.
The Panic
There’s our root word again. According to the 1828 dictionary, the pan of panic is derived from the fear caused by the god Pan who was not only the god of fertility but the god of the wild shepherds and flocks and companion of nymphs. He had the hindquarters, legs and horns of a goat. I too might panic if I seen such a creature. But it’s not the creature that has caused the panic in our land. It’s the created.
The Pandemic
A man created disease, but as bad as the disease is the emotion that men have created in mankind. We’re as unreasonably frightened of this pandemic as the people were in the day to be afraid of the god of Pan. There is a vast difference between caution and panic. We should be cautious. We should protect the weak. But we should not have ever cowered in fear in our homes, ruined doubt economy and avoided the assembly of ourselves together. The quarantine of our nation incited greater fear and sent our nation not only into panic but into insanity. And most churches have halted the work of Christ and are now adopting the theology of men allowing pantheism to soar.
The Pantheism
Pantheism is the worship of many gods. Hello? Sound like Caesarea Philippi? It sure does to me. And every bit as crazy. On the far left of our nation, both literally and figuratively, the drive for paganism and pantheism is a force to be reckoned with. But not one to fear. If we fear it and what’s going on out there we’ll be as ineffective as the government was on their solution to the pandemic. We know as children of God there is “no other God than Jesus Christ. Capital “G” God. They may have a little g god, but what is that by comparison to the Lord Jesus Christ, who took on the sins of the world, won victory over Hell and returned as our risen Lord and Savior!
This is for certain not an exhaustive study of the subject of pan. But it always helps and encourages me when I realize that Satan’s tactics haven’t changed. And the advice of Jesus during the days of the Apostles is still His advice for the day of Shari. And He is still the God of Victory!