Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Roger Marsh: Welcome back to Family Talk, the broadcast ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh, and it's always a privilege when we get to spend time with our good friend Rabbi Jonathan Cahn. As a world-renowned speaker and a ten-time New York Times bestselling author, Jonathan has captivated millions all around the globe, from the halls of Capitol Hill and the United Nations to readers hungry for biblical truth, and that number is growing by the day.

Ever since his groundbreaking debut, The Harbinger, which spent two years on the bestseller list, Jonathan has consistently uncovered deep ancient mysteries that connect God's word directly to the headlines of our modern world. Today we're going to talk about his brand new book called The Altar of Pergamon: What the Apostle John meant in Revelation when he identified the throne of Satan, and how an ancient altar unburied in modern times has secretly shaped major global empires and what all this means for us in the body of Christ trying to guard our families and stand strong during these turbulent days. Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, welcome back to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. It's always an honor to have you with us and, of course, the Doctor would be giving you the biggest of hugs right now just to see you across the screen and have you on the program with us again today.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: It's always great to be back. I have always loved this ministry and Dr. Dobson, and I'm so glad that it's in great hands and the Lord is blessing through you, Roger.

Roger Marsh: Well, we appreciate that. Let's get right to the nitty-gritty here because every time Jonathan Cahn comes to visit us, he has a book that's packed with meaning and insights and revelation for us in the body of Christ. First and foremost, what does the Altar of Pergamon reveal to us?

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: The Altar of Pergamon is an ancient mystery that is affecting the world to this moment. Imagine if there was an object from ancient times that goes back ultimately to the Book of Revelation that could lie behind everything from the rise of Adolf Hitler, World War I, and World War II to the Cold War and the atomic age.

It relates to the rise of Marxism, communism, and socialism, where we are right now with a new world order, and the future. This is my 11th book, but the mystery is really colossal. It has impacted everyone basicallly on the planet in one form or another. The first book I wrote was The Harbinger, and I was led to reveal it through a story to reach more people. I was led with this one, too, to write it through a story. So there is a story and a thriller, but it's ultimately revealing something very real, probably about 200 mysteries we counted in here, literally affecting our lives.

Roger Marsh: As we're talking about this brand new book, it's important for us to recognize the past and some of the more futuristic parts of scripture that are now being played out right in front of us here. Jesus does make references to what is called the throne of Satan. Talk about how this factors into this story.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: The Bible is identifying a place on earth that it's calling the throne of Satan where Satan dwells. He's talking about Pergamon, which is in Asia Minor, what is now Turkey. I actually just went there for the first time. I didn't plan it together with writing the book, but I just came back from it.

Pergamon is called the throne of Satan. It was a pagan place, and there was a high place where they worshiped the gods. On the high place of Pergamon was what they called in the ancient world the Great Altar. It's actually the largest altar the Greeks ever built on earth. It was a massive mega-altar to the god Zeus, and yet the place is called the throne of Satan.

This altar, the Great Altar, becomes the embodiment of Pergamon. When you follow it, strange things are going to happen with this object that's embodying Pergamon as the throne of Satan. It's going to move into the modern world. In Isaiah, Lucifer is quoted as saying, "I will exalt my throne. I'll be like the Most High." Now in Revelation, it's called the throne of Satan.

When the Gospel came into the Roman world, the people abandoned the gods and the temples, and the Great Altar was abandoned. It fell into ruins and was underground and buried. In a sense, it's almost symbolic because with the Gospel coming into the world, there was a restraint on the power of evil. There's always evil, but there's restraint when you have the Gospel prevailing in a culture. But what would happen if that altar or that object was ever uncovered?

Roger Marsh: It's very fascinating. Tell us about how in your story and your paralleling scripture, what this means because you're seeing the Third Reich, which leads to the Soviet Union, which leads to all sorts of totalitarian regimes here.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: If you follow this ancient object, you can actually see world history. At the same moment that he stumbles upon this throne of Satan, this altar, another German man is in the same area in Asia Minor, looking for the ancient city of Troy. His name is Heinrich Schliemann, and he ends up discovering this ancient sign and he discovers almost 2,000 versions of it. It makes headlines and the sign becomes a big hit in Germany. That sign was the swastika.

So you have the throne of Satan coming back into the world, you have Germany coming to the world at the same moment, and you have the swastika coming into the world at the same moment. Now what happens is that Germany decides to actually dig up this altar. They're going to unearth it and excavate it. They go there and they start digging it up in the year 1878.

In the Jewish world, every Sabbath there is an appointed scripture to be read for that Sabbath. As soon as they start digging up this altar, the scripture read all over the world was about an altar on a high place, and that's a cursed altar from Deuteronomy. That brings curses to the Jewish people. It says in that same passage that the enemy will come upon you to Israel like an eagle swooping down. Interestingly, the power that's digging up the altar, Germany, had the eagle as its symbol.

They put the pieces of the altar in crates, they put them on animals, and they put them on ships. The altar goes across the ocean to Germany and then it's put on trains to Berlin. At the same moment, something starts happening in Germany. The Bible says that the enemy in Revelation is a dragon warring against a woman who gave birth to the Messiah, which is Israel. The enemy hates the Jewish people.

This hatred starts erupting in Germany. As soon as the altar comes to Germany in 1878, the modern form which we call anti-Semitism is actually new as an ideology. When did it come into the world? It came into the world at the exact moment that the Altar of Pergamon came to Germany. As soon as the pieces of the altar appear in Germany, the word anti-Semitism comes into the world in Germany, and anti-Semitism starts spreading through Germany. Again, it's like all the pieces, you can see where this is going to go.

Roger Marsh: We looked at World War I and World War II and the Holocaust and we saw this literally as Germany trying to take over the world and eliminate the Jews. It was really geopolitical. We didn't see the spiritual component. You're bending our minds a little bit to really embrace the spiritual component because it seems like that was the real driver, not so much the geopolitical.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: That is exactly what the Bible says. The Bible says behind all these things that we see on earth, there's a spiritual realm. There is a real enemy. The devil is real and God is real. If God is using a people to bring the word and the scripture into the world and to bring Messiah into the world, then of course the enemy's going to try to destroy them. That makes sense and it's right there in Revelation in the vision of the dragon and the woman.

This is behind World War I and World War II. These are acts of destruction. Not only does anti-Semitism start spreading in Germany, but another thing starts spreading when the altar comes to Germany, and that is Germany has an explosion of the occult. A lot of people don't realize this. It explodes throughout Germany really up until the time of the Nazis. So the occult world and anti-Semitism is going to converge.

When they get the pieces of the altar in Berlin, they start piecing them together. It comes in thousands of pieces. They piece it together in private. For the first time since ancient times, the altar appears back in the world. That's in 1889. At the same moment that the throne of Satan appears in the world, something else appears in the world. A baby is born whose name is Adolf Hitler. He comes into the world with the altar, and his whole life is going to be linked to the mystery of this object.

Roger Marsh: So let's get into Hitler's life a little bit here because a lot of people just see this guy who was mad for power. He's easy to dismiss I think in the modern culture, but there's a lot more to Adolf Hitler and the rise of evil and the Third Reich and everything that came up, and the Altar of Pergamon plays a pivotal role in that story.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: My father was born in Germany when Hitler was rising. My father is Jewish and when he was 10 years old, Hitler takes over. So this is real. I wouldn't exist if Hitler had his way. My father was put on a train to get him out; it was called the children's transport. They got a few of them out. If Hitler had his way, I wouldn't exist. On the other hand, because of Hitler I exist because he came to America because of Hitler and then met my mother. So it is a personal thing on one hand, but this has affected everybody.

What happens is you've got this occult explosion going on and Adolf Hitler is rising. Germany decides they want to build the altar a massive house to house it and display it to the world. In ancient times, the altar would be in a temple, so they build a modern temple called the Pergamon Museum. It starts rising in the 1920s. At the same moment, it parallels Hitler's rise. Both were rising together.

There was a German man who goes to Turkey, the land of where the altar was, and he picks up occultic knowledge and he wants to bring this occultism to Germany. He comes back and starts an occult society called the Thule Society. That occult society decides to start a little party which becomes the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party was started by an occult organization. One day, Hitler walks in on them; he's actually spying on them. He walks in on them and decides to join them and becomes their leader.

In the 1920s, Hitler's rising and the altar is rising. They're preparing to reveal the altar and put it together for the world. In 1930, the house is finished and they're going to reveal the altar put together. Just before that, the Nazi Party had a setback. They had an election in 1928 and the Nazi Party got 2% of the vote. Everybody said it was finished. But then something happens when the altar is revealed to the world in 1930 in the autumn. At that same moment, Hitler and the Nazis are all of a sudden catapulted from 2%. Now they're the second-largest party in Germany suddenly. Then about the next year they're the number one party, and then Hitler takes over. But the turning point is when this altar is opened up.

Roger Marsh: Desecration. He takes the things of God and he desecrates them, whether it's man, woman, life, or holy things.

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn: The day that the throne of Satan was revealed to Germany and the world, it was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Bible. The Day of Atonement is also the day of God's altar and it's a day of salvation for the Jewish people. Yet he turns it around; it's the devil's altar and it's going to bring destruction to the Jewish people. This is the secret thing of history you will never hear.

What kind of an altar was it? The Altar of Pergamon was an altar of burnt offerings. The Greeks are the ones who built it. In the Greek language, the word for burnt is kaustos, and the word for an entirely consumed offering is the word holos. Put it together and you get the word holocaust. That is where the word comes from. It comes from this Greek altar.

So the throne of Satan is an altar of the Holocaust. The moment that these pieces arrived in Germany in the 19th century, it was an altar foreshadowing a holocaust that is yet to come. A lot of people don't realize this, but the word holocaust is actually in the first translation of the Bible, which is the Greek Septuagint. The New Testament uses it. In the Septuagint Bible, when you read that God says to Abraham, "Take your son Isaac and offer him up," it says to offer him as a holocaust.

Then when it talks about in Leviticus, it talks about the sacrifices and says, "These are the laws of the holocaust." It actually talks about burning and ashes and keeping the fire. So the Holocaust goes like an inversion of something holy from the Bible, and now it's against the Jewish people. When they revealed the altar to the world in 1930 in Germany and it was Yom Kippur, the scripture that they're reading of Yom Kippur has the word holocaust in it four times. They're reading about the holocaust as this thing comes in as a foreshadow.

What was the first sacrifice that the Jewish people offered to God as a nation? The first sacrifice was done on Passover; it was the Passover lamb. Do you know when the Holocaust began? It began on the day of Passover. The first person who was killed was a Jewish man who actually was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest of Israel who offered the sacrifices. So it's like another inversion of this.

In the Bible, there's a verse that says the altar of burnt offerings was in the holy place. What happens if you translate that into the language of those who have the altar? We already said burnt offering, the word is holocaust in the Greek. In German, there's a word that comes from Polish actually and it speaks of a holy place. Do you know what the word is? The word is Auschwitz. The altar of burnt offerings in the holy place translates to the Holocaust in Auschwitz.

Roger Marsh: I have to say, Rabbi Cahn left us right on the edge of our seats. So you're going to have to join us again next time to hear part two of this conversation. You've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk and my conversation with Rabbi Jonathan Cahn about his brand new book called The Altar of Pergamon. If you've missed any part of today's program, or if you'd like to share it with a friend, go to drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org.

Programs like this one reach families all across America, and it's families like you who make that possible. Your support of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute helps us preserve and promote the institution of the family and to introduce as many people as possible to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We encourage you to pray for us and we invite you to partner with us today. Your gift of any amount makes it all possible. You can donate securely online at jdfi.org or call a member of our constituent care team at 877-732-6825.

I'm Roger Marsh and on behalf of all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for joining us today. Be sure to tune in again next time right here for part two of my conversation with Rabbi Jonathan Cahn discussing his brand new book called The Altar of Pergamon. That's coming up next time on the next edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.