In 1871, An American Named Heinrich Schliemann ...

In 1871, an American named Heinrich Schliemann began excavating an ancient city in Turkey. To the amazement of many, this retired businessman had discovered the lost city of Troy. To-day, you can still see the ruins of its towers and its walls, which were 16 feet thick. According to the Homer’s Iliad, the Greeks besieged Troy for ten years without success. After the death of the warrior Achilles, many wanted to give up the fight. But the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, came up with a plan to get the Greek army into Troy. Odysseus built an immense wooden horse. He and his warriors hid inside it. After leaving the horse at the gates of Troy, the Greek army sailed away. The Trojans thinking the Greeks had given up and had left the horse as a gift, brought it inside the gates.

That night, while the Trojans were sleeping, the Greek ships quietly returned. The soldiers in the horse slipped out and opened the city

gates. The Greek army quietly entered Troy and started fires all over the city. The Trojans awoke to find their city in flames. As they tried to flee, they were killed by the waiting Greeks.

The story of the Trojan horse and the fall of Troy have come to represent the subversion of anything from within. That is what was happening to the church at Pergamum and that is what is happening to the churches in America.