Ecclesia

All rights reserved. You may not use or reproduce any part of this publication without the author’s permission, which in most cases will be gladly given. I can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected] Opinions expressed in this work are my own, and are not attributable to any Church, Denomination or Organisation.

Foreword Ecclesia is a concise church history dealing with essential pivot points from Pentecost to the present day. The great blessing is that Roger enables us to see the key issues through 2000 years. It is more than just a survey because the essential focus is upon the definition of the true Christian Church which in the last 100 years has become blurred. He brings very relevant scriptures into the context of the history and the theological implication. It is accessible to those who have little knowledge of Church history, being a good primer also for those who know some basics, but need the kernel arguments clearly explained. Keith R. Mason Glory to Glory (devotional), Know Your Enemy, The Power of Personal Love, The Culture of Glory.

The Church of Jesus Christ Its Origins, Nature and History Preface There is a lot of confusion surrounding the Church, as to its origins, its nature, and its true historical context. It would seem many Christians are not immune from this confusion, which should hardly come as a surprise, as there is much misinformation about this subject, much of it stemming from the teachings of the false church. Indeed, the very idea of a false church may come as a revelation to some, in which case her teachings can successfully masquerade as the truth. The truth however is to be found in the Word of God, and as is so often the case, it can differ quite markedly from what we have been taught and believe. I have divided this project into two parts. The first part looks at the origins and nature of the Church, and the second part at the history of the Church after Pentecost in AD29. The Church as we will see, started with the Covenant God made with Abraham, and consequently has a history for 2000 years before Pentecost. The Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels cover this period more than adequately however, and I would encourage the reader to read the Bible from Genesis 12 to John 21 to discover this for himself.

Contents: Part 1 1. Who are God’s chosen People? 2. The Church is conceived 3. The Effect of the Church on the World 4. The Consummation of the Church. Introduction to Part 1. Church; Ekklesia (Greek) Lit “Called out ones” There is a lot of misunderstanding over the subject of the Church of Jesus Christ. It is my hope to dispel the misconceptions, and at the same time to see from the Scriptures, both Jewish and Christian, what the Church is, and who comprises it. The Church was rooted in Israel and birthed by Jesus from Israel. The delivered Church exploded onto the world at Pentecost in AD 29, but was still comprised exclusively of Jewish believers. Before long it would spread to every corner of the Roman world, and people of every tribe and nation would become a part of it. Firstly I want to go back 4000 years to the conception of the Church.

Who are God’s chosen People? We refer to the Jews as God’s chosen people. The Jews are an ethnic /religious /national entity, defined by their ancestry, history, and beliefs. They are indeed His chosen nation – people, and He has a purpose to fulfil through His Covenant with them; but God has a greater purpose that transcends (but not replaces) the chosen nation. Therefore the scriptures have a tighter definition of God’s chosen people, based on a relationship to God established by a covenant sealed by faith in obedience, through blood. This covenant was made with Abraham and his descendants through Isaac, the child of promise. Now the Lord had said to Abram: \"Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'' Genesis 12:1-3 \"And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.” Genesis 17:7 \"I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.'' They answered and said to Him, \"Abraham is our father.'' Jesus said to them, \"If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham, but now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.” John 8:38-40 (Emphasis mine) The first thing to notice here is that Jesus defines who is a descendant of Abraham, and who is a recipient of the Covenant that God established. He was talking to Jews, to Pharisees, who reckoned themselves as Abraham’s descendants. They were obviously descended from Abraham physically, but Jesus defines a child of Abraham as one who acts like Abraham. How did Abraham act? “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which to boast, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? \"Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.'' Romans 4:1-3 (Read all of Romans 4) The works of Abraham were works of faith. He believed God, and acted on that belief. Because of this, God called him His friend, and chose him to be the father of the faithful. It’s important to notice that God was the instigator in this, and Abraham the faithful responder. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”. Hebrews 11:6

The Church is conceived “But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, \"In Isaac your seed shall be called.'' That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. Romans 9:6-8 Abraham had 2 sons, the older by Hagar an Egyptian, whose name was Ishmael, from whom the Arabs are descended. They are therefore descendants of Abraham. But God established a covenant with the descendants of Isaac, not Ishmael. Why? Because Ishmael was a product of humanity, of the flesh, and Isaac was a product of God’s promise, of the Spirit. To prove this, God waited until Abraham and Sarah were old and reproductively “dead” before fulfilling His promise, so that there is no boasting in the flesh, and no doubt about God’s sovereignty. To establish this principle, God told Abraham to give Isaac back! “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, \"In Isaac your seed shall be called,'' accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. Hebrews 11:17-19 The covenant was established through redemption. God made a covenant with Abraham, with a promise, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you.” God fulfilled the promise through a birth that was impossible and a redemption that was sacrificial. Isaac could only be the fulfilment of the promise by being redeemed by a blood sacrifice. Isaac foreshadows Christ. The parallels between Isaac and Christ are remarkable. They were both children of promise. They both had miraculous births. It is highly probable that Isaac was the same age as Jesus when Abraham took him to Moriah. He carried the wood for his own sacrifice, as did Jesus. He went in obedience without protest, as did Jesus. There the parallels stop, and God provided a substitute for Isaac, as He did for us with Christ! A covenant is sealed by the shedding of blood. The covenant God made with Abraham originally was a promise. Its fulfilment began on mount Moriah, with the redemption of Isaac by the sacrifice of a ram. Here is the Covenant God made with His children, here is the conception of the Church, within the womb of Israel! The gestation period of the Church was 2000 years. The birth of the Church was at Pentecost around AD27/29. Scholars reckon God made His covenant with Abraham on 28th March (10 Nisan) 1953BC. Isaac was born the following year. (But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.'' Genesis 17:21) This would have been 16th March 1952BC (10 Nisan) The 10th Nisan is the day that the Passover Lamb is selected! (Exodus 12:3)

AD52 would be 2000 years from Isaac’s birth. That leaves a discrepancy of approximately 58 years from the birth of Christ for a fulfilment of a 2000 year period. There is a question over the date of Abraham’s birth however, and the disputed date places Abraham’s birth 60 years earlier. If the alternative date is accepted, and allowing for ambiguity over the birth date of Jesus of +/- 2 years (6 or 4BC) then a 2000 year parity with the birth of Isaac is achieved. It is not recorded how old Isaac was when Abraham took him to Moriah, but he was not a child, because he carried the wood for the sacrifice, which had been carried by the donkey. Also Ishmael who was 14 when Isaac was born, was married before Abraham lived in the land of the Philistines “many days”. So Isaac would have been around 10 years old when Ishmael was married. If Abraham stayed in Philistia about 20 years, Isaac would have been about the same age as Jesus was at His death, when Abraham took him to Moriah. From the birth of the church at Pentecost in 27/29AD to the 2000th anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus, we come to 2027/29AD! Jesus promised that he would return in a similar way to that in which he departed… “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.'' Acts 1:11. He departed after His resurrection, so the calculation should be based from that date, not His birth date. It is commonly accepted by bible scholars that we are living in the last days before the return of Christ. (A separate study) 2000 years from His death would be around 2027-2029AD! To sum up: From the Covenant of promise given by God to Abraham in the conception of the church in Isaac, to the promise of God in the conception of Jesus, 2000 years! From the delivery of the covenant in the redemption of Isaac by the death of the ram, to the delivery of the Church by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Messiah, 2000 years! From the birth of the church in 27/29AD to 2027/29AD, 2000 years! Is the duration of the church in the world the same as its gestation in Israel? The history of the Jews is without parallel. The record in the bible of their unique relationship with God is a rich tapestry interwoven with triumph and despair, glory and destitution, blessings and curses, faithfulness and rebellion. God promised them blessings for obedience, and warned them of the withdrawal of His protection and benevolence if they were disobedient. (Read Deuteronomy 28) God delivered them from starvation in Canaan through Joseph, and gave them a refuge in Egypt. Later, through Moses, He delivered them from cruel oppression in Egypt, and brought them to the promised land. In spite of their grumbling and rebellion He fulfilled His promise and gave Canaan to the next generation. The record is one of continual rebellion and disaster, followed by repentance and restoration. God always had his faithful remnant, even in the darkest times….

“I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.'' 1 Kings 19:18 Seven thousand out of a population of about 3 million or more can only be classed as a remnant! Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: \"Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved.” Romans 9:27 For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, \"In Isaac your seed shall be called.'' Romans 9 6-7. Finally, God allowed them to be deported as slaves to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. If it were not for His promise to Abraham, this would probably have been the last that history would have heard of them. The Babylonian and Persian empires assigned other peoples to historical and cultural oblivion, but God had made a covenant with Israel through Abraham, which He was going to keep. Finally when they had been purged and refined by the adversity of captivity, God told Cyrus King of Persia to restore the remnant of His people to Jerusalem, and to provide them with the finance and resources they would need to rebuild the Temple! (Read Ezra and Nehemiah) God blessed the nation of Israel because of His Church (Ekklesia – Called out ones) the remnant spoken about in the above verses and many others. There has always been a remnant in Israel, the anointed of God, who have attracted God’s blessings, and have led the people back to obedience to God. Theirs was a continual battle against the powers of darkness, and they often paid with their blood, treasure and lives to gain victory…. “of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us”. Hebrews 11:38-40 After the Church was birthed at Pentecost, the saints of Israel, the seed of Isaac, joined with the saints worldwide to jointly partake in the promise made to Abraham fulfilled at last in the Messiah, Jesus Christ the Son of God. There is a continuity of promise, covenant and fellowship from Abraham and Isaac through to Jesus, and on through Pentecost to us. “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, \"And to seeds,'' as of many, but as of one, \"And to your Seed,'' who is Christ.” Galatians 3:16 “Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise.” Galatians 4:28 The promise to Abraham is fulfilled in his seed, that is in Christ, and we along with Isaac and the saints of Israel are the children of promise, redeemed by the blood of the everlasting covenant in Christ! God showed His love for His church by His faithfulness to and deliverance of Israel throughout its generations, and in the fullness of time by sending them His Son as a

final sacrifice for their redemption. He even demonstrated His love 2000 years before by appearing in the form of Jesus to Abraham on three separate occasions, See Genesis 14, 17 &18 (A theophany, pre incarnate appearance of Christ) “For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated \"king of righteousness,'' and then also king of Salem, meaning \"king of peace,'' without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.” Hebrews 7:1-3 By appearing to Abraham, the father of the Church, Jesus sealed His covenant of love with not only Abraham, but also to his Seed through Isaac. By being born into the world in the fullness of time, Jesus by His obedience unto death, even death on a cross, sealed His covenant of love to us who would follow from every tribe and nation, grafted into the olive tree of the Church, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God, a wholly acceptable sacrifice provided by Him to reconcile us to Himself. The Church then, “called out ones” has been in existence for 4000 years. The gestation within Israel, God’s chosen Nation was 2000 years from its conception in Isaac, and the birth into the world through Christ’s death and resurrection, 20 years short of 2000 years at the time of writing. At Pentecost the Church exploded into the world, and started to fulfil the great commission Christ had given her. The power of the Holy Spirit was essential to carry this out, but without the example of sacrificial love given by her Lord, and that love working in every member, the task would have been impossible. The Church is a radical organism, driven by a radical love, and empowered by a radical Power.

What effect did the Church have on the world? Some say that the Gospel transformed the world. I don't see any evidence to support that point of view, either in the first centuries after Pentecost or since. The Gospel has only ever transformed individuals who then became part of the Church. The True Church has certainly had an influence on the world for good, but in the light of the history of the last 2000 years, it would be fanciful to say that the Church has transformed the world. If that were the case, then John would not have written this admonition... \"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. \" 1 John 2:15-17 In spite of phenomenal growth in its first 3 centuries in the face of bitter persecution, the Church was always a minority in society, and continued to be so even after a surprising and unexpected event occurred early in the 4th century.

The Consummation of the Church “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'' This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church”. Ephesians 5:29-32 \"Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.'' And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Revelation 19:7-8 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:1-2 This theme of the Church being the Bride of Christ, is a common theme in the New Testament. Jesus regards us as a precious possession, to be prepared and adorned as His bride. He has washed us and made us clean, fit to join Him as King of the universe. Even the Angels will minister to us in the coming Kingdom. Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? Hebrews 1:14 If we are to be His regent in the new Heavens and the New Earth, is it any wonder that He loves us so much? We are told that we are joint heirs with Christ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. Romans 8:16-19 A wedding is a happy event, eagerly anticipated by all who will attend, as well as the Bride and Groom. All of creation is eagerly waiting for this wedding! The Angelic choir will sing praises, and the animals will join their chorus, as the trees clap their hands! The stars will explode for joy, their light pulsing around the Galaxy as the Bride is joined at last to the King of creation! A good husband wants to prepare a home for his wife, and to take her on honeymoon. Jesus is going to create a new universe for His Bride! Can you believe that? This old one is not good enough, we are going to have a new Heavens and a new Earth! A good husband wants to provide for his wife all that she needs, and to see her adorned in the finest wardrobe. He wants to see her respected and admired by others. He wants to protect her from harm and danger.

“And the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life”. Revelation 21:23 “But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. (With us) But you (with them) have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect. Hebrews 11 & 12

Part 2 Ecclesia Saeculo Domini Nostri Iesu Christi The Church in the age of our Lord Jesus Christ Preface I have used Latin for the title of this second installment on the Church to reflect the fact that the Church of the new Dispensation was born into a Roman world, even though it was birthed from a Jewish one. This was no accident, but part of the design of God to enable the Church to break out of its Jewish womb into the world as a whole. The Roman Empire was the best vehicle in existence at the time to enable the Jewish followers of Jesus to take His message to all corners of the world under Roman control, from the deserts of Mesopotamia to the forests of Britain. The “Pax Romana” ruthlessly enforced by the Legions in a brutal world enabled the Gospel to travel with a freedom that would have been almost impossible in another era. The time had truly come for the seed of Abraham to “go into all the world and preach the gospel of the kingdom” Although Satan was temporarily caught napping by the timing of these events, it did not take him long to strike back at the body of Christ, and as we shall see, he used the pagan Roman system that at first regarded the new “cult” as nothing more than an exotic eastern curiosity firstly to try to eradicate it by violence, and when that failed, to subvert and destroy it by deception. Contents 1. AD29 – AD325 The Baptism of fire. 2. AD325 – AD500 The Cancer within 3. AD500 – AD1500 The Dark ages. 4. The Reformation. Early 16th Century 5. The “Enlightenment” 18th Century 6. Salt and Light. Mid 18th to early 20th Century 7. The Preperation. Latter half of 20th Century onwards. 8. The End of the Age.

Introduction. In the first section I looked at the origins of the Church in Scripture, and from the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, sought to establish exactly what the Church is, as opposed to what it is commonly thought to be. We saw that the origins of the Church (Gk. Ecclesia, lit “Called out ones”) go all the way back to Abraham, 4000 years ago, when God established a Covenant with him that was a template for the New Covenant of Grace established by Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice. The Old Testament is a record of the Saints and Prophets from Abraham to Christ, and of their exploits for God in His Kingdom. We saw that the Church was at the core of God’s purposes as they were manifested through His chosen people Israel. Even though Israel was a defective vessel, nevertheless God chose it as the womb for His body the Church, which until Pentecost in AD29 was wholly Jewish. After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on that memorable day, the Church began its long journey of 2 millennia to fulfil Jesus’ commandment to “go out into all the world” It is the struggle to fulfil this command that we shall look at here. It is not my intention to provide an exhaustive academic history of the Church over the last 20 centuries, that has been done elsewhere by others. What I want to do by God’s grace is reveal the spiritual struggle that has been transpiring over this time, and enable the reader to understand what has really been happening, and what its about to take place in the few years left before the Lord returns in Glory as foretold by Scripture. Lets start with a promise from our Lord…. “On this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18 First of all the Church belongs to Him. Secondly it is founded on the Rock of ages, and cannot be moved. Thirdly death (Hades) shall not overcome it. But the way Jesus says this is not just in the negative, (shall not) but also in the positive. Let me explain. In ancient times a king would have a fortress city, which would be a place to retreat to when attacked by an enemy. The weakest point in the walls would be the gates, and that is where the defenders would concentrate their forces. The attackers therefore would face the most powerful warriors of the king at the gates. These would have to be overcome if the city was to be taken. If the attackers failed at the gates, they would fail completely. The picture here I believe is one of the Church assaulting the fortress of Satan at his weakest point, defended by his most fearsome weapon, which is the power of death. Jesus has already overcome the power of death, introduced by Adams fall, and wrested the keys of death from the Devil. So here Satan’s demonic forces are defending a rotten broken down gate to which they no longer have the keys from an army that has already been promised victory! The gates of Satan’s fortress of death shall not prevent us from overcoming! All that is left to the Devil is bluff, bluster and illusion. He is desperate to prevent us from assaulting his gates, because he knows they are already breached by the Lord of Glory! One good kick from the Church is all it takes to cave in the gates of death and we can march in to his fortress of darkness and liberate millions! That is what has been happening since Pentecost, but as we shall see, even though the fortress is breached, Satan is fighting a desperate rearguard action with deception as his main weapon to

sow despair and confusion amongst our ranks, and to poison the minds of the lost against us.

Chapter 1. The Baptism of Fire. Ad 29 – Ad 325 “And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born” …..”And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:4 & 17 The writings of the Apostles give us a unique window on the Church of the 1st Century. Initially exclusively Jewish, it soon became truly catholic as the disciples took the Gospel all over the Empire. We see early struggles over the transferral of Jewish customs and rites to the gentile believers, culminating in Paul’s directive that the gentile believers should not have uniquely Jewish observances thrust upon them. (See 1 Corinthians 7:18-20 circumcision) The gentile believers also brought their baggage to the Church. Jewish believers struggled with “unclean foods” that gentiles ate, and the gentiles struggled to adjust to the stricter standards of morality and dress that Jewish believers brought with them from the Old Testament. Paul spends a lot of his time clearing up these issues so that there was no division in the Body of Christ. As we read through the Acts and the Epistles, we have a ringside seat that allows us to see how the early Church evolved and grew, and reconciled its new catholic situation with the then Jewish Scriptures. The Letters of the Apostles set a new standard of belief and behaviour for the whole Church, both Jews and gentiles, which incorporated what was essential from the Jewish Scriptures, whilst dropping what was peculiar and particular to the Jews, and not relevant to the new Church. The Apostles also set the standard for relationships between parent and child, husband and wife, master and slave, employer and employee, and importantly between Jewish and gentile believers. (see Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 5 & 6) Interestingly it seems that the Jewish believers eventually abandoned most of their annual festivals and holy days, and the gentiles were certainly required to renounce their former pagan rituals and festivals. The Passover however, in accordance with Jesus’ instructions, continued to be observed by the whole Church (albeit in a modified form) until it was replaced by Easter centuries later. What we have left is a breaking of bread observance that is but a shadow of the original which dated back over 1500 years before Christ, and I believe we have lost an important symbolic link to the pre Pentecost Church. In view of the above, and of the rapid growth of the Church across the Empire, It comes as no surprise that the new Jewish “cult of the risen man-god” as it was seen by the Romans (and by the Jewish leadership) should come to be regarded as a potential threat to the Empire and the Roman system. The Jews had always held that there is only one God, Jehovah, and that the gods of the pagan gentiles were false. This did not endear them to the Romans, but as long as they kept their beliefs to themselves and paid their taxes, they were ignored as a curious and irritating people. When this new cult began to spread its subversive message across the Empire however, powerful eyes were raised, and their concern was noted by the enemy of the faithful, Satan himself; who lost no time in turning that concern into fear and anger, and that anger into brutal repression that would see the infant Church bitterly persecuted and driven underground. This was the baptism of fire. The Jewish religious leadership was

complicit in the suppression, but adopting the mantra “my enemies enemy is my friend was to prove a costly mistake, when in AD70 the Legions of Titus ruthlessly crushed a Jewish rebellion and reduced Jerusalem to rubble. The Jewish historian Josephus estimates that over 1 million Jews were slain, and 100,000 sent into slavery across the Empire. The Temple was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. What resulted was the wholesale eradication of the Jewish nation, and the scattering known as the Diaspora. Curiously, the only group to benefit from these tragic events were the Christians. Not that Roman wrath was directed away from them, on the contrary, but many of the exiled Jews were sought out by their Christian countrymen and became converts. There followed over 200 years of persecution. Sometimes, as under Nero it was very severe, and sometimes under other Emperors less so. Christians were always marginalized though, and where the Devil could not destroy the Church he sought by any means to render it irrelevant. As time went by however, the Church’s influence on society increased. The Roman Empire was being weakened as more people of influence were converted. Who knows what would have happened had this been allowed to continue long enough? Towards the end of the third century things were already changing, and given enough time, Roman power might have become more benign and less domineering. Such a change might have avoided the eventual sackings of Rome by Germanic tribes in the fifth century, and the collapse of the Empire plunging Europe into the Dark Ages. One of the most important converts to Christianity in this period was Constantine’s mother the Empress Helena. It was due to her constant persuasion that Constantine (supposedly) converted, and in 313 issued the Edict of Milan, which stated that Christians should be lawfully allowed to pursue their beliefs, and that property confiscated from them should be returned. This edict also guaranteed the right of everyone to religious freedom under the law. (An interesting contrast to what would transpire later after the Roman Church gained ascendancy) It would seem that the problems of the Church were now a thing of the past, and a new golden age was about to follow. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Satan was watching these events unfold with great interest. It was time for a radical change of tactics. He had tried to fragment the Church with lies and heresy before. We see some instances of it in the Bible. (Acts 6:13, Ch 13, 2 Cor 11:13-14, Gal 2:2, 1Timothy 6:20-21, 2 Peter 2;1, 1 John 4:1, etc) The Apostles and their successors vigorously opposed these attempts at discrediting and subverting the Church, with great success. Having failed to destroy the Church from within, Satan adopted a different tactic of violent suppression. This also was now failing, and a new thing was happening, which he saw as a great opportunity to return to the original plan but with a cunning new twist. The Devil was about to put the finishing touches to his master plan, which would exploit the new situation to the full, and plunge Europe into the Dark Ages; so called because for a thousand years the light of the Gospel was hidden beneath a crushing religious edifice of falsehood and tyranny. It would take another 200 years for the

system to be fully in place, and when it finally was, Europe fell under the dominating spell of the Roman Catholic Church

Chapter 2. The Cancer within. “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, \"Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.'' So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marvelled with great amazement.” Revelation 17:1-6 The Church of the first century was heavily influenced by its Jewish heritage and believers. Although this caused some problems for gentile believers initially, they were soon resolved through the efforts of Paul and the other Apostles, who under the guidance of the Holy Spirit cast off the Jewish baggage they had brought with them. However alongside the baggage was a great Scriptural and historical inheritance which served to guide the early Church in its life and doctrine, and which linked it to the pre-Pentecost Church. This spiritual continuity proved to be invaluable to the gentile converts, who coming from a pagan background, had huge adjustments to make in changing their lives to conform to the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. A study of the Acts and the letters to the Corinthian Church shed light on this dilemma. There are two sides to every coin however, and the influx of gentile converts in a Roman world was to have far reaching effects on the development of the Church over the next two centuries. The pattern of Church governance set up by the Apostles carried on for over a century after their deaths, but gradually began to change in the third century as the methods of the world began to creep in, introduced by Church leaders that had lost sight of the Apostles teaching and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Indeed it was not uncommon for Bishops versed in Latin to be unable to read the Greek Scriptures, nor indeed to have ready access to them, as copies were scarce and often the subject of prohibition under Law. By the time Jerome translated the Bible into Latin at the end of the fourth century, the damage had been done, and the Christian Churches were riddled with heretical practice and doctrine. It is important to remember that during this period there were no denominations as we understand them today. There was no Roman Catholic Church , or Greek Orthodox Church etc. Each major city had a Bishop who exercised spiritual oversight and jurisdiction over the congregations in his region. Thus there were Bishops in Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, Byzantium, Antioch, Damascus etc. Naturally the different ethnic composition of these regions, and their

cultural heritage contributed to a wide variety of forms of worship and church life. In addition the relative status and populations of these cities in the Empire would lead to the Bishops having influence in the global Church that reflected their jurisdiction. So it was that the Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus and eventually Constantinople would seek to extend their influence and power. As they did so, alliances would form, and splits would occur. One early split was with the Egyptian Church, which not willing to accept the increasing assertion of the Bishops of Rome, split in AD451 over a doctrinal argument at the Council of Chalcedon to form what would eventually become the Coptic Church, which is still there today. Other splits were the Ethiopian Church, the Armenian Church, (AD554) the Mesopotamian (or Nestorian) Church (AD451) and lastly in Constantinople, (founded by the Emperor Constantine on the site of ancient Byzantium as a replacement capital for the Empire in AD330); which inhabited largely by Greeks became a rival to Rome. There was never any love lost between Greeks and Romans, and so the Greek Church based in Constantinople also eventually split to become the Greek Orthodox Church, from which the Eastern or Russian Orthodox Church sprang. As mentioned above, successive Bishops of Rome saw themselves as pre-eminent, and adopted the term “Pope” which is derived from the Latin papa, a child’s word for father. It would appear that the Bishops of Rome adopted the title sometime in the late first or early second century, although the Bishops of other major cities hardly saw them as pre-eminent, but as equals. Successive Roman Bishops sought to assert their importance over the others by way of titles and proclamations, culminating in the pronouncements of Gelasius (AD492-496). During the Acacian schism, Gelasius went further than his predecessors in asserting the primacy of Rome over the entire Church, East and West, and he presented this doctrine in terms that set the model for subsequent Popes asserting the claims of Papal Supremecy. He was also responsible for abolishing the pagan feast of Lupercalia which was celebrated in honour of Lupa the she wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. This brings me to the core issue of this period, which was the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Empire by Constantine in AD325. The worship of the pagan gods of Rome and their popular festivals was an integral part of the administration of the state. This was inherited from the Greeks, who always consulted the Oracle at Delphi before making any major decisions of state. The entire apparatus of religion in Rome was co-opted in the service of the state. Politicians, Generals and Emperors would pay for sacrifices to be made, and the auspices read from the entrails. If the results augured well, (usually dependent on the fee paid, and the importance of the client) the prospective plan would go ahead, if not, it would be re-thought. This invested great power and influence in the priesthood, not to mention wealth. Temples were paid for by prominent Romans in order to enhance their status. There was a flourishing industry in producing statues of the gods, and of their human patrons. Many of the members of the Senate were involved in these profitable enterprises, which from their point of view made it a virtuous circle, but obviously one with plenty of potential for corruption. When Christianity was approved by the State then, it became part of the establishment. That establishment was pagan, corrupt, decietful, powerful and wealthy. They were not going to simply roll over and die! Temples became churches, statues were made to Christian Saints instead of pagan gods. The pagan

priests gradually saw their influence and income shrink, and in their own best interests switched sides. Old habits die hard however, and loathe to lose their lucrative revenues, introduced fees for all sorts of invented services and artifacts to keep their coffers full. They retained the visual aspects of pagan worship in the converted temples. Statues adorned the walls, rich vestments and jewels the clergy, and gold and silver the communion table. Popular festivals like Saturnalia (December 23rd) in honour of the god Saturn were converted into “Christian” festivals (Christmas) retaining many of the frivolities that endeared them to the populace. By the time of Gelasius at the end of the 5th century, this process was complete, and the Church in Rome became the Roman Catholic Church, and the Bishop of Rome became the Pope, the head of the Church, pre-eminent over all other Bishops who did not have the courage to dissent. Because the Church was now an arm of the state, the split in the Empire into East and West under Constantinople and Rome also produced a split in the Church into Roman and Greek factions that continues to this day. As the Roman Empire disintegrated during the 5th century, the Roman Church laid the foundations for the Holy Roman Empire to follow, where instead of the Church being in the service of the State, the State and Kings would be in the service of the Church! The master plan was complete. The deception was almost total. Only the elect of God, the true members of the body of Christ were not taken in by it, and they were to endure a thousand years of darkness and opression in Europe before the light was seen again.

Chapter 3. AD500 – AD1520 The Dark ages. “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, \"Be holy, for I am holy.'' And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” 1 Peter 1:13-19 The term Roman Catholic is a contradiction. Roman is singular, and Catholic is universal. Thus you have the (singular, particular) Roman and (universal, comprehensive) Catholic. The last time the term Catholic could be reliably ascribed to the Church was sometime back in the third century, before it became flavour of the month with the Emperor Constantine. I may be doing him personally a dis-service; for all I know his conversion may have been genuine. The long term results however were a disaster for the Church of Jesus Christ. On the subject of individual Roman Catholics, let me from the outset differentiate between them and their Church. It is not my intention to judge individuals. Jesus has explicitly forbidden that we judge anybody. (An injunction the Roman clergy would do well to heed!) The parable of the wheat and the tares is instructive in this regard. (See Matthew 13) As servants of the master, we have discernment to distinguish wheat from tares, but not the authority to pull up the tares and burn them. In fact, while they are in the field, we are to love them and afford them the same blessings that the wheat enjoy, namely, sun, rain and soil, in the hope that the expression of the love of God will bring them to repentance. Contrast that with the attitude of the Roman Church towards those that disagree with it! I personally know of Roman Catholics who have had a conversion experience and are Christians. Most of those I have known have subsequently left the Roman Church, finding it a hard place to be in as a Christian. Some however, for reasons best known to themselves, have stayed, and far be it from me to question their decision, which is between them and God. Nor would I cast doubts on the validity of their faith because of that decision. I am sad however that the field they have chosen to stay in offers such poor sustenance, and is strewn about with so many rocks and weeds. As followers of the Master our duty is to love and pray for those caught in error, whilst opposing the error vigorously. The Roman Empire as we have seen had split into two during the mid 4th century, with a much weakened and impoverished Rome as the capital of the western Empire. A century later, the Visigoths and Vandals finally overran Rome and Italy. These events are usually seen as the catalyst that plunged Europe into the dark ages. I beg to differ. These events, by finally destroying Roman power, certainly brought a form of chaos to the lands of the former Empire in the west, but the Christian Church was very active during these times. Patrick, a Roman Briton brought the Gospel to the tribes of Ireland in the mid 5th Century, and 100 years later Columba took the Gospel from Ireland to the wild tribes of Scotland, founding the famous monastery on Iona. For

the pagan peoples on the fringes of the British Isles, the coming of Christianity brought light, and delivered them from darkness. Patrick was born in Roman Britain, the son of Christian parents and British Roman citizens. His religion was far removed from that developing in Rome at the time, and his evangelisation of Ireland owed nothing to Roman hegemony. The Church of Rome did eventually exert its influence over the Church in Ireland and Scotland, as it did in all other regions of Europe, but that was after the collapse of the Empire. The Roman Church and the Popes used the situation to their advantage, to bring Kings and Princes into subjection to the Pope and the Church. With that sort of power and influence, it was the Roman Church that determined what people thought, believed, and practiced. It was that subjugation of the population that brought about the dark ages. By the 8th and 9th centuries, which saw the Norse raids on Britain and the coasts of northern Europe, Papal control was absolute. One wonders what would have been the effect of missionary activity in Denmark and Norway had the Vatican not been in control. Perhaps the worst depredations of the pagan Viking raiders would have been avoided, and Britain would have been a more peaceful place. In any event the Norman descendants of the Norse invaders whilst nominally subservient to the Pope, and building magnificent Cathedrals for the Church, nevertheless had no qualms about exercising brutal control over Normandy, and invading fellow Catholic England on a pretext. It would seem that Papal control of Prince William of Normandy did not extend over his tendency to butcher and pillage fellow Christians for his own gain. Indeed the Roman Church failed miserably to preach the Gospel of Christ, the gospel of peace and forgiveness to its subjects, if it ever tried to, of which there is no evidence. From the beginning the Roman Church presented itself as the only defence of civilisation against the pagans of northern Europe. Had this defence been in the form of the preaching of the Gospel, in humility and peace, that may have been true. Indeed, where this did occur as in Ireland, the results speak for themselves. Patrick himself was kidnapped by Irish raiders, but a generation later, Irish raids on Wales and Cornwall had ceased to be a problem, even though the Legions had by this time left Britain. Sadly the only thing the Roman Church preached was that it was the sole repository of truth, the only way of salvation, the only Church, and that anyone who opposed her would burn in the fires of hell forever. Through this intolerant message of fear she exercised control over pauper and prince throughout her dominions, and through that control she amassed great wealth and temporal power. The story of Charlemagne (AD 742 to 814) will serve well to illustrate this. “the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication” Charlemagne was the king of the Franks, but had ambitions to be Emperor of Europe. The persuit of this prize engaged him in almost constant warfare across the continent for most of his life. In 799 Pope Leo III found himself in serious trouble with the elite of Rome who accused him of adultery and perjury. (This was before the law of celibacy; First Lateran Council AD 1123) They attempted to have Leo killed, but he escaped, and fled Rome. He appealed to Charlemagne for help and protection. Charlemagne had Leo returned to Rome, and held a council to determine what should be done. The result of the deliberations was that Leo’s enemies were exiled, and Leo crowned Charlemagne Emperor. (Karolus serenissimus Augustus a Deo coronatus

magnus pacificus imperator Romanum gubernans imperium - \"Charles, most serene Augustus crowned by God, the great, peaceful emperor ruling the Roman empire\") Far from being peaceful, Charlemagne, with the backing of the Church renewed his attacks on his neighbours with vigour. He fought the Moors in Spain, and received a bloody nose. He defeated Lombardy in Italy, and added it to his realm. He attacked the Bavarians and the slavic lands of eastern Europe. His greatest wrath however, was reserved for the pagan Saxons to the north. Over a perion of 30 years he fought constant bloody wars with the Saxons. In 780 Charlemagne decreed the death penalty for all Saxons who failed to be baptised, who failed to keep Christian festivals, and who cremated their dead. In 782 he instituted a code of law which was draconian on religious issues, and the indigenous forms of Germanic paganism were gravely threatened by Christianisation. This revived the old conflict. That year, in autumn, there was a new revolt, which resulted in several assaults on the church. In response, at Verden in Lower Saxony, Charlemagne allegedly ordered the beheading of 4,500 Saxons who had been caught practising their native paganism after conversion to Christianity. This became known as the Massacre of Verden. (Just in case one should be tempted to think that this was an aberration of the early period of Christianity in Europe, and limited to pagans; in 1572 there occurred probably the worst atrocity perpetrated by Catholics in history. Called the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre, up to 70,000 Huguenot Protestants were slaughtered across France over the course of several weeks. Mobs were incited by the clergy to violence, and after the massacre, clergy and nobility across France, Spain and Italy publicly rejoiced at the death of so many protestants! Unfortunately, this was by no means the only example of such brutality in this period.) The Papacy wanted all of Europe under its control, and the best way to accomplish this was to revive the old Empire in a new form. This was to be a “Holy” Roman Empire, with the Vatican in Rome as it’s centre; and whichever secular prince had the ambition, ability and power to realise it, anointed and authorised by the Pope to bring it about useing whatever force was nessessary! Thus was Europe condemned to centuries of conflict and bloodshed, and Christianity was tarnished as Christendom. The Crusades. \"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you”, Matthew 5:44 Muslim armies took Palestine from The Byzantines in AD 640. Control of Jerusalem passed from Christian to Muslim hands. Palestine was inhabited by many Jewish settlements which continued under the Muslims, and Jerusalem continued to be visited by Christians from Europe on pilgrimage. After a while however the Muslims realised that there was much profit to be made from taxing the pilgrims. Some rulers were less inclined to profit, and more inclined to violence, and so the pilgrims were subjected to periods of harrassment, robbery, violence, and extortion. This situation was a cause of annoyance to the Vatican, but was tolerated for 400 years, until the defeat of the Byzantine Empire by Muslim armies in 1071. The Byzantine Emperor Alexios 1 appealed to Pope Urbane II for assistance. The Pope called on the secular powers of Europe to launch a Crusade against the Muslims to recover Palestine and

Jerusalem. Once again the Roman Church was using its influence over the Princes of Europe to further its own ends, by violent means. The Pope hoped not only to recover Palestine, but also to extend the influence (and thence the wealth) of the Vatican over the East. This involvement in the affairs of the world was once again in direct contravention of Christ’s commandment to “love your enemies” The first of 8 Crusades spanning 200 years of bloodshed and misery was launched in AD1095. Plenty of justification for war against the Muslims could be found. They had long held most of Spain, threatened southern France, ruled Sicily and Palestine, and were rolling up the Bazyntine empire. But Jesus said “my Kingdom is not of this world” so the Church should not have been involved with any scheme to launch a Crusade. The fact that the Roman Church did, just goes to prove that Religion and Politics do mix, and that the Pope far from being the head of the Church (which is Jesus’ position) was in fact the head of a religious power that was in bed with the world committing abominations. One of these was the anti Semitism that the Crusade fanned. Bands of armed men trekked across Europe to Constantinople, and robbed, killed, assulted and burnt out Jews on their way. Local Christians tried to prevent these abuses, but the Roman Church did little to prevent it. The perpertrators were not prosecuted, and the Pope’s promise of heaven to those who died in the liberation of Jerusalem was not rescinded. So their promised reward for persecuting the children of Abraham, was in the bosom of Abraham! When they finally entered Jerusalem, they showed their Christian credentials by murdering every Muslim and Jew in the city. In the process many Christians were killed too, as they were indistinguishable from the rest of the population. King Richard 1 of England during the 3rd Crusade, butchered the entire garrison of Acre after they had surrendered, even though he had previously promised their lives would be spared! During the 4th Crusade they sacked Constantinople in 1204, the very city they were there to protect from the Muslims! Eventually the effort petered out by the end of the 13th century. Nothing good was achieved, Palestine and Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands, and The Byzantine Empire fell, with Muslim domination extending into the European Balkans. The bitterness remains to this day. Only in the latter half of the 20th Century has the Church made headway in convincing the Jews that she is their friend, not their enemy! Muslims remain unconvinced. The association of the Roman Church with Christianity was reaping massive rewards for the Devil in his war against the Child of the woman! The Inquisition, and Foxes Book of Martyrs. “And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” The Roman Church established the first Inquisition in AD 1184 at Languedoc in southern France, to counter the Cathar Heresy, and to prosecute its adherents. Prior to this, heretics had been imprisoned or fined, but now the Church sought to extend these

punishments with torture and the death penalty. The Dominican order was eventually charged with this task, and spread fear across Europe. They did not confine their attention to heretics alone, but with the Spanish Inquisition (in Spain, the Spanish Netherlands and Spain’s overseas possessions) extended it to Jews and Christians who did not submit to Rome, notably the Waldensians and Lollards. They threatened the Jews with loss of possessions, land and life if they did not convert to Catholicism. Those that did were hounded to ensure the validity of their “conversion” and those suspected of reverting were subject to torture and death. Jews fled Spain for Portugal, only to have the Inquisition follow them there in 1536. The Inquisitors, having extracted a confession by torture, would hand their victims over to the the secular authorities for sentancing, knowing full well that the punishment for heresy or apostasy was death by burning. Joan of Arc was executed this way in 1431, as was William Tyndale in 1536. Madame Guyon was imprisoned in the Bastille after years of hounding in 1696, and spent 7 years incarcerated. The Inquisitors spread their terror throughout the overseas possessions of the Spanish and Portugese, subjecting everyone not a Catholic to pressure to convert or face the consequences. Again by this means the Devil had smeared Christianity in the eyes of unbelievers. The Inquisition also set up shop in Italy in 1542, and its most famous victim was Galileo, who was tried in 1633 for the heresy of proving that the Earth revolved around the Sun. For that crime he was sentanced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Now the Roman Church declared scientific knowledge that differed from its own teachings also to be heresy! Christianity had now become the enemy of thinking men and progress! This dispicable instrument of Romanism lasted to the mid 19th century. The Book of Martyrs, (published 1563) by John Foxe, is an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history from the 1st century through to the early 16th century, emphasising the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the 14th century through to the reign of Mary I. It catalogs the death of Christians firstly at the hand of Pagan Rome, and then the Roman Catholic Church through the ages up to the mid 16th century. One of the groups singled out for persecution was the Lollards, in late 14th century England. Their chief proponent was John Wycliffe who translated parts of the Bible into English. The Lollards crime was believing Scripture to be the ultimate and final authority for belief and doctrine, wanting the Scriptures to be available in English for every believer, and criticising the excesses and errors of Rome. For this they were impovrished, imprisoned, and many executed. Nonetheless their impact on the Reformers, Luther, Calvin and Tyndale cannot be underestimated, and they were instrumental in laying the foundations of a movement that would break Rome’s hold over Kings, Nobles and paupers alike across Europe.

Chapter 4. The Reformation \"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'' John 8:32 Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) was a German priest and professor of theology who initiated the Protestant Reformation. Strongly disputing the Pope’s claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money, he confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the emperor. Thanks to the invention of the printing press by Johannes Guttenberg in 1440, Luther’s works were widely distributed and read. Luther’s faith and courage, finally broke the grip of the Roman Church, and the light of the Gospel began to spread all across Europe. It must be said that The Church of Jesus Christ has been represented in every age, and that the light of the Gospel has never been extinguished. When I talk of the dark ages, I am characterising that period between AD 500 and 1500 when the false Roman Church held political and religious domination over Europe. This was a millennium of superstition, ignorance, bigotry, hypocrasy, brutality and fear. A dark age. The world has never been an enlightened place, and mankind is predisposed to these unfortunate traits precisely because he dwells in darkness apart from the light of the Gospel. But this era in Europe is distinctly darker than it should have been, because the false Church so ruthlessly, comprehensively and decietfully suppressed the truth of the Gospel and its followers. The light so effectively dimmed, was only able to illuminate a courageous and faithful remnant, who finally cast off the mantle of darkness in the early 16th century. The Protestant movement born out of the Reformation was at last able to bring the Gospel to all mankind, paving the way for radical changes in society, and the evangelisation of the world. Not surprisingly the Reformation attracted the attention of political figures and rulers. The most notable of these was Henry VIII. His marriage to Katherine of Aragon was a typical political arrangement between Monarchs at that time. This one was meant to create an alliance between England and Spain. Unfortunately for Katherine, the only son she bore for Henry died shortly after he was born. She did produce Mary though, and the young princess was to inherit her mother’s religion, and her father’s ruthlessness, eventually earning the nickname “Bloody Mary”. Henry was determined to have a male heir, and saw in Anne Boleyn the solution to his problem. Unfortunately for Henry, only the Pope could grant him a divorce from Katherine, and Anne had no intention of bearing Henry a bastard as her sister had done. Henry had for a while with the assistance of his lawyer Thomas Cromwell, been maneuvering to extricate England and the Crown from the control of Rome. The situatiion with Katherine served as a catalyst to enable him to kill two birds with one stone as it were. Anne Boleyn meanwhile had been given a copy of William Tyndale’s excellent translation of the New Testament, and his book “The Obedience of a Christian Man” which she passed on to Henry, encouraging him to read it. We have no idea how Henry was influenced by this book, but the eventual outcome of the spat with Rome was a severing of ties, and the establishment of the Church of England in 1533. This momentous event, the first of its kind in history, was to have far reaching consequences both for the Church of Christ, and for the world. England was to

provide an incubator for the growth of the protestant movement, and the ensuing conflicts with Catholic Spain and France over the next 200 years would forge England into a world power. The Protestant Churches that were birthed in the Reformation, found a relative haven in England, and as English hegemony expanded across the globe, especially in the colonies of North America, they took the Gospel to those new lands. \"They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” John 17:16 Some clarification with regard to the Church of England is nessessary here. Like the Church of Rome, it is a misnomer. There is a Church in England, as there is (albeit a much smaller one) a Church in Rome, (not to be confused with the Roman Church) As the Church of Jesus is in the world, but not of the world, so there is a Church in England, but there cannot be a Church of England. When you address the Church thus, you identify it with the nation state. As we have seen, the Roman Church is a religious-political hybrid, a caricacture that is neither a state nor a Church, though it claims to be both. The Church of England was created for political ends. Those ends could have been achieved by purely political means, but due to the claims of the Roman Church on the population of England, the states aims would have been undermined and ultimately thwarted by Rome. Hence the need for a political- religious solution to a problem created by a political-religious organisation. Following the creation of the Church of England and the break with Rome, there followed a period of persecution of Catholics and confiscation of Church property by the state. The confiscation of property can be justified to a degree by the fact that much of that wealth was extorted from the people of England by the Roman Church in the first place, and from Henry’s point of view by the fact that his coffers were badly in need of replenishment. He did not underestimate the determination or ability of the Pope to incite the Catholic monarchs of Europe, especially of Spain to go to war with England in an attempt to restore the authority of Rome. To prevent that happening, he needed to build up his defences, especially the fleet. That would cost a lot of money, which he did not have. The persecution of Catholics however was not justifiable. Certainly those that were engaged in subversion and treason should be prosecuted by the law, but it went far beyond that, and unfortunately it was often done in the name of the Church of England. Such activity put the new Church on the same level as the old one, showing clearly that it was an arm of the state, and not the true Church of Christ. That is not to say that the Church of Christ is not represented in the Church of England. It surely was, and is, as there are many Christians in the Cof E. However as its inception was political-religious, it should come as no surprise that many of the people involved in its creation, probably Henry himself, were not Christians any more than the Pope was. To oppose something that’s wrong does not of itself make you right, particularly if your motives are wrong. However the outcome can often be for the good. If that sounds like a mismash, it is, and so is the Church of England! Over the centuries it has been in existance the Cof E has sometimes opposed genuine movements of God in England, such as the Puritans. Pressure from the Cof E and the state led the Puritans to move to the New World, much to the benefit of the future American colonies. In any case it was the general ungodliness and doctrinal error of the Cof E, (inherited from its Roman roots) that led these people to break away out of frustration in the 16th and 17th centuries. Later in the 18th century John and Charles

Wesley with George Whitfield (all Anglican ministers) found themselves at odds with the Cof E for preaching the Gospel to the poor of all things! It would seem that whenever the Spirit of God moved on someone in the Anglican Church, the result was expulsion (voluntary or forced) and the creation of a new group or denomination. (This time Methodism). Far from invalidating Protestantism as the Roman Church claims, the multiplication of denominations proves its vitality, as God births new things, and abandons the old useless wineskins of dead religion. This fragmentation is still going on, as is evidenced by the threatened splitting of the African Anglican communion from the American and English ones, over homosexual clergy. Because of its human rather than Divine origins, the Anglican Church has always been tainted by error, and fragmented by resulting schisms. This continues to this day. The recent 2010 schism over female Bishops is a powerful testimony to the Roman roots of Anglicanism, as the disaffected clergy have gone back to Rome, and been welcomed with open arms!

Chapter 5. The Enlightenment 18th Century But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 3:17 “Enlightenment was a desire for human affairs to be guided by rationality rather than by faith, superstition, or revelation; a belief in the power of human reason to change society and liberate the individual from the restraints of custom or arbitrary authority; all backed up by a world view increasingly validated by science rather than by religion or tradition”. Dorinda Outram Truth can be discovered in a variety of ways. Some things can be discovered by investigation. Some can be deduced by reason. Others can only be found through revelation. The Bible acknowledges all of these methods of arriving at truth. The truths that can only be received by revelation are primarily to do with God and the way He works. Logic would dictate that our finite minds should be dependent on revelation to discover or understand the infinate. To expect us to comprehend what is beyond our ability with our ability is both illogical and dangerous. Dangerous because it leads us to the wrong conclusions, and based on those conclusions to the wrong actions, (one of which is to replace God with ourselves). On the other hand, to insist as the Roman Church did that we cannot discover anything by our powers of reason or observation that is beyond that which is revealed to us, is equally foolish, as it condemns us to ignorance, poverty and needless suffering. The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment) is the era in Western philosophy, intellectual, scientific and cultural life, centered upon the 18th century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority. It is also known as the Age of Reason. The enlightenment was a movement of science and reason, and at its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. Many but not by any means all of its adherents were anti-christian, anti-church and anti-monarchy. Considering the way the Roman Church and the Monarchs it endorsed behaved towards the common people, is is hardly surprising that this was the case. If people are sufficently against something, and there is no prospect of change, violence in the form of revolution will usually follow. The Reformation, especially in the more Catholic countries of France, Spain and Italy, was not as comprehensive in Europe as in England. Italy was a patchwork of city states, with the Papal States the most dominant. Spain was too far removed from the centre of the reformation to be much affected by it, which leaves France. Political repression by the Bourbon Kings, together with religious repression by the Roman clergy, led to a situation where popular resentment was building up in France through the 18th century. The other incubator for change was the American colonies. British rule was becoming more removed and oppressive. The colonialists were being overtaxed and not given the

degree of autonomy they deserved. The anti-establishment views of the French Enlightenment appealed strongly to the leaders of the colonists. One of the most notable of them, John Adams who was one of the founding fathers, and was influentential in drafting the Constitution, spent many years in France in the company of the leading proponents of the Enlightenment. Developing simultaneously in France, Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the American colonies, the movement culminated in the American Revolution, which resulted in independence from the British Empire. The authors of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were motivated by Enlightenment principles. At its core the Enlightenment was influenced by Freemasonry which is anti-christian and occult. It formented critical questioning of traditional institutions, including the Monarchy, and especially the Church and the Bible, customs, and morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. Masonic lodges originated from English and Scottish stonemason guilds in the 17th century. In the 18th century, they expanded into an extremely widespread collection of interconnected (to varying degrees) men’s, and occasionally women’s, associations which Margaret Jacob contends had their own mythologies and special codes of conduct - including a communal understanding of liberty and equality inherited from guild sociability – \"liberty, fraternity, and equality.\" The remarkable similarity between these values, which were generally as common in Britain as on the Continent, and the French Revolutionary slogan of \"Liberté, égalité, fraternité\" spawned many conspiracy theories. Notably, Abbé Barruel traced the origins of the Jacobins – and hence the Revolution – to the French Freemasons. Freemasonry was officially established on the continent of Europe in 1734, when a lodge was set up in The Hague, although the first \"fully formed lodge\" appears to have met in 1721 in Rotterdam. Similarly, there are records of a Parisian lodge meeting in 1725 or 1726. As Daniel Roche writes, freemasonry was particularly prevalent in France – by 1789, there were perhaps as many as 100,000 French Masons, making Freemasonry the most popular of all Enlightenment associations. Freemasonry does not appear to have been confined to Western Europe, however, as Margaret Jacob writes of lodges in Saxony in 1729 and in Russia in 1731. Famous leaders of the Enlightenment included Freemasons such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Pope, Horace Walpole, Sir Robert Walpole, Mozart, Goethe, Frederick the Great, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. With the demise in the influence and authority of the false church, and the emergence of vibrant Christianity from the ashes of dead Christendom, the Devil had to come up with something new to lead mankind astray. As usual he mixed a good dose of truth in with the lie, in order to make it more believable and acceptable. Trading on the resentment created by centuries of oppression by the Roman Church, he came up with a reactionary counter culture of opposition to authority (plausable because authority was corrupt, but un-scriptural nonetheless) opposition to the Bible (which had been misrepresented by the false church, and was not very widely read anyway) and opposition to custom and tradition (the good discarded with the bad). This counter

culture worshipped the creature rather than the creator, made a god of science, and high priests out of people with half baked theories like Charles Darwin. It sought to re-make society in a new image, and set mankind free from superstition, ignorance and poverty. Scientific thought and discovery, although helped by the Enlightenment did not originate with it, and loosed from the suffocating control of the Roman Church by the Reformation, it was beginning to flower, and would have continued to do so without the Enlightenment. The assertion that we owe the Enlightenment a debt for the blessings of science is a lie perpretrated by the Devil in an attempt to marginalise the Reformation and the Church of Christ. What is indisputable however, is that this occultic inspired movement was responsible eventually for the bloody French revolution, and the subsequent rise of the Republic led by a Corsican captain by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. Driven by revolutionary zeal and territorial ambition, Napoleon would become responsible for the first truly global war in history, one in which millions would perish, nations would be impovrished and Europe would not know peace for 20 years. The Church of Christ would emerge from this holocaust stronger than ever and empowered not only to change itself, but also to change the society around it!

Chapter 6. Salt and Light. Mid 18th to early 20th Century “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth”. 1 Timothy 2:1-4 From the middle of the 18th century there began with the Methodist movement and John Wesley a focus on evangelism. Wesley was focused on England as his field, although he did visit America and preached there as well. He took the Gospel on horseback to the poor across the land. He set the standard for all future evangelists, and set the tone for the Church for more than a century. It is almost impossible to appreciate the transformative effect this had on society, especially the ordinary folk of the country, who during the next hundred years beginning with the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century would form the core of the new middle class, and would carry their faith into every facet of the national life. This would also happen in the new nation across the Atlantic, in which the Church had become rooted since the Pilgrim’s landed in their tiny ship the Mayflower in 1620. England was not immune from the fiery sentiments that fuelled the French Revolution, but the Godly influence of the Church here provided a bulwark to defend this nation from the worst excesses of the Enlightenment. Many in the government and monarchy feared that the infection would take hold here, and probably never realised that the reason it did not was due to the influence of the Church, and the prayers of the Saints. After the defeat of Napoleon, Europe settled down to a century of relatively peaceful development led by the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The church during this period was very active in missionary activity across the growing British Empire, and in the reformation of society at home. William Wilberforce, who was an evangelical Christian and a member of Parliament, succeeded after a long and difficult struggle in getting the Abolition of Slavery bill passed in 1807. The 7th Earl of Shaftsbury Ashley Cooper was responsible for many factory reforms and the improvement of the treatment of children during the mid 19th century. He was also active in the Zionist movement, which was started by Christians in the 19th century, and promoted the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. William Booth formed the Salvation Army in 1865, which was noted for its humanitarian work among the poor. The transformative effect of the Church on British society during this century should not be underestimated. Christians were responsible for almost all of the charitable institutions and laws that protect the rights and property of the individual and the poor and the weak that were created during this time. America is an interesting place when it comes to the Church. All of the Old World false religions migrated to America, along with the prejudices bigotry and violence. It is no accident that the most violent cities in the US had large Catholic populations, especially those of Mediterranean origins. (The Sicilian Mafia, Jewish and Irish gangs etc) The most peaceful and prosperous areas were settled predominantly by Protestants of English, Scottish, German and Scandinavian descent. They formed the

main opposition to slavery. The pioneers who opened up the west were mainly Protestant farmers and tradesmen. Abraham Lincoln himself came from a devoutly Christian family of pioneers. As we have seen, some of the founding fathers were Christians, and some were Freemasons. As a result there is a curious mix in the US Government of Christianity and the Occult. The latter seems to be particularly pervasive in the financial system. (Look at a Dollar bill, there are occultic symbols on it, yet it has the logo “In God we trust”?) The early involvement of Freemasonry in the forming of the United States is not surprising. Satan probably knew that the US would soon become a world power, and dominate the world economy. Being at the heart of the financial system of Wall Street would place him at the heart of the world financial system, as the Dollar became a global currency. Make no mistake; the financial system of this world is implacably opposed to Christianity. This is borne out by Biblical prophecy. This dichotomy is further seen in the religious nature of Americans. The Christian Church is very strong there, as is the Roman Church and its Anglican offshoot. But America is also the home of most of the smaller cults that have sprung up during the 19th and 20th centuries. These perversions of Biblical Christianity are further evidence that Satan the great deceiver has not abandoned that strategy, but merely widened it to introduce more confusion in these latter days. As no one false religion can claim dominance, he has introduced lots of them to create more confusion. So we have Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christadelphians, Christian Science, and Scientology as the main ones, but there have been many more smaller cults formed by crackpots that have come and gone. On the other hand, many of the great revivals of the past two centuries have originated in America, proving that this is a crucial battleground between the Church and its adversary. So in 1811 there was the restoration movement in Kentucky, the Second Great Awakening (Charles Finney) that followed, and in 1906 the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, which began the Pentecostal Movement. In addition, Christians set up lasting and influential institutions during this period, such as the Moody Bible Institute in 1886, and the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital founded in 1876 by Johns Hopkins, a Quaker businessman and philanthropist. As in Britain, American missionaries developed a global outreach as American influence and economic power increased. Missionary activity peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, paving the way for the modern global Church of the latter 20th century. Gideons International was founded in 1899 by two Christian businessmen in Wisconsin to distribute Bibles across the world. Gideon Bibles have been printed in 92 languages and distributed in 192 countries. About 1.5 billion have been distributed since 1908! Gideons is seen as a Para church ministry. This is mainly an American phenomenon, and these organisations can be found across the spectrum of Christian ministry. (Evangelistic - Billy Graham; Discipleship – Navigators; Publishers – Inter Varsity Press; Television – CBN; Humanitarian – Mercy Ships; Social – Prison Fellowship; International Aid – World Vision; Youth – YWAM,) to name but a few. These organisations are non-denominational, often international, and focussed on their particular area of ministry in the Body of Christ and the world. Through them God has been doing a new thing in spreading the Gospel to all mankind, and preparing His people for His return.

Chapter 7. The Preparation \"Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19 \"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days” Joel 2:28-29. The new century was only into its 4th year when a mighty move of the Holy Spirit began in Wales. It’s estimated that 100,000 people were converted over the next 12 months of the Welsh revival. Evan Roberts was a leading figure in the revival, and received many visions from God. As the revival spread to England and Scotland, it is thought that as many as a million people were brought into the Kingdom. The next year in 1906 Christians in Los Angeles experienced the Baptism in the Holy Spirit which kicked off the Pentecostal revival in the United States. This fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church revitalised and renewed it, and made it much more appealing and relevant to the ordinary person. Some of the Churches that sprang out of the reformation had gradually become part of the establishment, and had lost much of their vitality and even some of the truth. Compromise with the world had crippled their witness. Out of these revivals of the early 20th century many new Churches were birthed, and they provided an alternative to those Christians who were becoming increasingly frustrated with the older denominations. Some of the older Churches, especially the Baptists and Southern Baptists of the USA who date back to the 17th century were also affected by these happenings, and experienced growth and renewal. \"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14 This is the background that produced Billy Graham, arguably the most influential Christian of the 20th century. He started his ministry in 1949 with a series of evangelistic tent meetings in Los Angeles. It is estimated that over 2 million people worldwide have become Christians as a result of his ministry, which his children still continue up to the present. Billy Graham Ministries also pioneered radio, television and film outreach, along with magazines like Christianity Today. The Church in the latter half of the 20th century has enthusiastically embraced the use of all kinds of media to spread the Gospel across the globe. As a result, the prophecy of Jesus above is being fulfilled in our lifetimes, as every nation is witnessed to by print, radio, television and internet media. Even the barriers put in place by Communism and Islam cannot prevent the Gospel reaching the people of those countries! By these means God is preparing His Church for the closing of the age that began in AD29. The mid 20th century saw a determined attempt by the Devil to eliminate God’s nation on earth, the Jews, through the Nazi Holocaust, and it is becoming increasingly clear that having failed in that attempt, he is turning his attention back to the Church again. This process began in earnest after the Second World War, when Communism took control in Eastern Europe and China. This atheistic system tried unsuccessfully for 45 years to eradicate Christianity from the territories it controlled. In spite of terrible

persecution by the authorities, the Church survived, even though many were killed and imprisoned. Communism itself became the victim with the collapse of the Soviet Union (where it began), in 1989. The Iron Curtain across Europe was lifted, and the Gospel was free to be proclaimed openly again. In China communism has adjusted itself in order to survive, but as the Church there is growing at an exponential rate, the writing is on the wall for Communism there also. Only in North Korea does the classic atheistic repressive state survive, and Christians there are still suffering terribly. Islam masquerades as a religion, but like the Roman Church of the middle ages, it is a religious / political hybrid. If you live in a Muslim state, you must be a Muslim; no other belief system is acceptable. If you follow any other religion, you are at best a disenfranchised second class non - citizen, or at worst an enemy of the state, to be persecuted and eliminated. Islam sees every other religion as its enemy, but because of the conflict between Islam and “Christendom” down through the centuries, and because of the powerful appeal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to its subjects, it regards Christianity (along with Judaism) as its most dangerous enemy. The paranoia with which Islam regards Christianity is akin to that of the Nazis in Germany in the 1930’s towards Communists. The reaction caused by that paranoia is every bit as extreme and fascist as was the reaction of the Nazis. Islam will only “accommodate” Christianity where Islam is in a position of weakness, and even then the accommodation is superficial and false. The ultimate aim of Islam is world domination, the elimination of the Jewish state and Judaism, and the elimination of Christianity. Where Islam is dominant, as in the nations of the Middle East, that process is already under way. The Church in Iraq has been there since the first century, and since AD 636 when Muslim armies invaded Persia, Christians there have lived under Muslim domination. Life was not easy for them, but they were allowed to practise their faith subject to certain restrictions. Since the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Islamic intolerance, persecution and murder of Iraqi Christians has led to a mass exodus from the country, and now it is estimated that out of 800,000 Iraqi Christians prior to the invasion, there are fewer than 300,000 left in the country. The aim of the Islamic fundamentalists is to forcibly convert, murder or expel every Christian from the country. This process is becoming more common in other countries as well, e.g. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia, Sudan, Somalia, Northern Nigeria, Arabia and Egypt. Where Islam is in a minority as it is in the West, the strategy is different. There is a long-term strategy to erode the Christian foundations of our society, aided and abetted by the liberal atheistic politically correct elite in government, education, the media and the judiciary. Alongside that effort the Muslim communities are becoming increasingly insular and unwilling to integrate. What they are after is autonomy from the laws and institutions of the host country, and the establishment of Sharia law and Islamic customs in their enclaves. They make cynical use of our liberal Human Rights legislation to defend themselves from criticism or sanction, whilst seeking to emasculate those laws and eventually replace them with their own intolerant Sharia law. Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, \"All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.'' Matthew 4:8-9

The Church in these end times faces two new threats, from liberal humanistic atheism, and intolerant domineering religious Islam. These are but new manifestations of the opposition she has faced before from the state (Rome) and religion (Roman Catholicism). There is and always has been a fundamental conflict between the kingdoms of this world and their belief systems, and the Kingdom of God. This conflict is going to become worse, and culminate in the return of Jesus Christ in judgement on the nations. There are many incredible things that have happened in my lifetime. Men walking on the moon, robots running around on Mars, computers and the internet, mobile phones etc. However there are two things that I find so incredible that they are almost unbelievable. The first is the population of the world having doubled in my lifetime, the second is that a nurse in Britain could be suspended for wearing a cross around her neck! At the beginning of the 20th century nurses used to start their day with communal prayer! Sadly this is not an isolated case, but there are many more instances of Christians being marginalized, harassed, fined, imprisoned, persecuted and deprived of their livelihoods, both in this country and in the USA and other western nations. The Church is under attack, because it will not bow the knee or worship the false gods of this world. “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 This is as accurate a description of our society as you can get. Many of these traits of unregenerate mankind can be seen in all ages, but the society of this present end time age uniquely exhibits them all concurrently. We are instructed to turn away from those who behave like this. We know that those who profess to be Christians who behave like this are to be avoided, (homosexual clergy, ministers and leaders who engage in financial fraud and adultery, clergy who deny the scriptures etc) but I believe that the Church in these last days is going to find itself in a situation where it finds itself at odds with an ungodly society heading for destruction. Therefore \"Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.'' 2 Cor 6:17 Already our uniqueness is sticking out like a sore thumb. God is calling his Bride to prepare herself for the coming marriage feast of the Lamb at the end of this age. That preparation will involve us in refusing to be conformed to this world system, and suffering the consequences. This process will produce a great shaking out, and many will fall away under the pressure. We will be called upon to prove that we love God more than our lives, and some of us will be called upon to join our brothers and sisters who live under Communism and Islam and are martyred for their faith. \"And you will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. \"But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; \"for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. \"Now

brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. \"And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:18-22 In order to endure to the end, the Body of Christ, those He has called out from this world, and redeemed by His blood, will have to become more exclusive whilst at the same time being evangelistically inclusive. We will have to hate the world and love those in it at the same time! This is difficult. The world will see our resistance as antagonism, and react negatively. We are already seeing this happen, and it will get worse. Make no mistake, the influence the Church had in the 19th century is gone. Far from seeing us as its bedrock, society is beginning to view us as subversive, and the sanctions against us will increase in both number and in intensity as the end of the age draws near.

Chapter 8. The End of the Age Read Matthew 24 1. Signs of the times 2. The Great Tribulation 3. The Second Coming. The signs of the times. “Take heed that no-one deceives you.” Vs 4 As we have seen, deception and persecution are the two most often used tools of the Devil against the Church. It is not by accident that Jesus begins one of His major teachings with this admonition. Deception will be a major feature of the last days. We have already looked at how deception has been used in the past, and is increasing in frequency and audacity in these last days. Jesus is here warning that as the end approaches, that the deception will move from false religion towards personalities who proclaim themselves as saviours, culminating in the antichrist himself. This form of deception will have great success, and we can already see it beginning to take shape in the form of the personality cult. “Wars and rumours of wars”. Vs 6 In the last century we have had two world wars resulting in about 100 million deaths, several major regional wars, (Korea, Vietnam, Israel / Egypt x 3, Iraq / Iran, India / Pakistan, Iraq x 2, plus civil wars, genocides and local wars too numerous to mention on every continent except North America and Australia, resulting in millions more deaths. No other century has seen as much slaughter as the 20th Century. As I write, in 2011 this process is continuing, with ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, and Yemen; and simmering civil strife in Burma, Nigeria, Palestine, Kashmir, Zimbabwe, Congo, Mexico, Columbia, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Indonesia. “Famines, pestilences and earthquakes” V7 The Russian famine of 1921 cost 5 million lives. The influenza pandemic of 1918 resulted in an estimated 50 million deaths worldwide! An estimated 40 million perished in famines in China last century, plus millions more in India and Africa. There were a total of 950 natural disasters in 2010, including major earthquakes in Haiti, China and Chile, the heat wave in Russia and floods in Pakistan. Then there was the great Sumatran earthquake and Tsunami of 2006, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Pakistan earthquake of 2007, and major droughts in Australia, Africa, India and California, which have hit food production, resulting in increased food prices worldwide. Already this year we have had another major earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, with the loss of thousands of lives and major destruction, estimated to be the most costly disaster yet.

“All these are the beginning of sorrows.” V8 We have seen that the political, religious and financial systems of this world are a part of Satan’s kingdom, and always have been. This world system is broken and is beginning to come apart. There have been major collapses of the financial system in the Great Depression of 1929, and the Great Recession of 2008. Some European nations are virtually bankrupt, the worlds richest nation is in debt to the tune of 1.5 trillion dollars! Ecological systems are collapsing under population pressure and mismanagement. Major river systems in areas of huge populations in India and China are stressed and fragile. Oil reserves are predicted to run out by mid century at projected rates of consumption, as are global fish stocks. (Cod is already extinct in the waters off Newfoundland, and is close to being so in the North Sea and North Atlantic). Due to the depletion of the Earth’s magnetic field, a major solar disturbance could wipe out our electrical grid and plunge us into a major disaster, disrupting food and fuel distribution, water and sewage pumping and shutting down communications. The Great Tribulation. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation…” V9 As the economic, financial and social situation worsens, there will be increasing calls for a one-world government to take control of the global economy. I believe we will see this happen over the next decade or so. Then the stage will be set for a strongman to take control, and to sort out the mess. (We can see an example of this on a smaller scale in Germany in the 1930’s where Hitler came to power in the chaos caused by the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic). This strongman will be the antichrist of Revelation, and the system he controls will be the beast, the political-economic- religious system of Satan’s kingdom. He will have great success in solving at least in the short term many of the world’s problems, and flush with his success and popularity, he will proceed to assume for himself Papal like powers. He will blame the Church and the Jews for the as yet unresolved problems, and instigate a great persecution to rid the world of them. This will be the culmination of all the tribulations the Church and the Jews have suffered through the centuries at the hand of the false religious systems of the world. Revelation calls it the Great Tribulation. When we see these things happening, we should be prepared for the return of the Bridegroom for His Bride. There are some who believe that the Church will not go through the Great Tribulation, but will be raptured beforehand. A reading of Matthew 24 does not support this view. Jesus plainly teaches that the Church will go through the great tribulation. Ever since it’s birth at Pentecost in AD29 the Church has suffered tribulation. “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.'' John 6;33

This is not the same as the Great Tribulation at the end of the age. That will be characterised not only by persecution and deception as before, although on an increasing scale, but also notably by; 1. A falling away and an increase in lawlessness, (vs 11,12 & 24 – see also 2 Tim 3:1-7); 2. The proclamation of the Gospel throughout the world, (vs 14, - achieved in our time by the means of TV and the Internet); and 3. The threat of the annihilation of all life on earth! \"And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. V22 This can only refer to thermonuclear war. Here is a possible scenario for this. By this time China will be the largest economy in the world, as well as the most populous. The European Union could be under the control of the antichrist, who would seek to set up a one world government. To pave the way for this he might seek economic and political alliances with the nations of the Middle East for their oil reserves, and with Russia for Oil and Gas reserves. Europe is China’s biggest market, so an economic tie up would bring benefits to both. An alliance with China would also be necessary to avoid disputes over Middle East oil resources. The antichrist would use his influence with the Muslim nations to broker a peace between Pakistan and India. This would bring 2 more nuclear powers on side. None of this bodes well for Israel. Arab nations opposed to Israel would now have a powerful ally in the form of the EU / Asia alliance. The threat to Israel would bring the USA into a potential conflict situation with this alliance. Oil exports to the US and Britain could be cut off in an attempt to get them to back down, and abandon Israel. The powerful Jewish lobby in the USA, (possibly a Jewish President) resist this pressure, and America makes preparations to defend Israel. The antichrist alliance cannot match the USA in conventional military power, but has a huge nuclear arsenal at its disposal. In addition to economic sanctions, some Muslim members of the alliance pose a real and present danger of a nuclear strike against Israel. Israel decides the threat is too great and imminent, and strikes first. Lacking the ability to strike conventionally at Pakistan, which, now in the control of militant Islamists and Sharia law, presents the greatest danger; Israel launches a first strike at Pakistan’s nuclear missile installations, using atomic warheads. Although civilians are not targeted by Israel, the fanatics in control of Pakistan call for a holy war, and for the alliance to retaliate against Israel. The Arab nations respond, and faced with a dire threat to Israel, America launches strikes against Arab military installations and troops. The antichrist responds to calls for help from the Arabs, and the alliance declares war on Israel, the USA and Britain. The only way the alliance can effectively hit back at US military power in the region is by using its nuclear arsenal. Carrier groups and military bases are targeted. America has no option but to respond in kind, and the M.A.D. doctrine that prevented the cold war of the late 20th century going hot is abandoned……. \"For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together” V27-28.

The Second Coming From the worlds perspective, \"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken*. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory”. V29-30 (*Nb: I believe this refers to the demonic princes of the air, who’s power over the nations will be broken, and they will fall out of their exalted places, and be consigned to a dungeon with their master. Their fall may well be accompanied by atmospheric and cosmic disturbances) From the Church’s perspective, \"And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” V31 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” 1 Thess 4:16-17 The Lord of Heaven and Earth will return to judge the nations, and to prevent them from turning the planet into an uninhabitable radioactive desert. He will restore Israel to the centre stage of world affairs, with Jerusalem as His capital and His Bride will co - reign with Him, and form His government. “Who (Jesus) will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” Phil 3:21 We will be immortal, with a new body that is modelled on His glorious risen body. We will not tire or sicken, nor be limited by space and time. We will no longer be bound or subject to the desires or needs of our old nature or bodies! The antichrist and his allies will be destroyed, and that great serpent the Devil will be bound in chains for a thousand years, during which time mankind will learn to live in peace and prosperity, justice and righteousness will be restored, and war will be relegated to the history books. (See Revelation 20 1:6)

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, (the saints who have gone before us) let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” Hebrews 12:1-3 (Brackets mine) Let us remember who we are by the grace of God. We are the Ecclesia, the called out ones. We are the redeemed of the Lord, the seed of Isaac; and if we suffer for Him, we will also reign with Him! Since writing this in 2008, a trend which was evident then has gotten much worse. That is the adoption by society at large, and by sections of the Church, of liberal left wing attitudes and practices. Since the implementation of homosexual marriage in 2014, this phenomenon has gotten even more pervasive, even in certain parts of the Church, which have enthusiastically embraced homosexual marriage in defiance of God’s law. Unsurprisingly, we now see these same people embracing trans-sexuality, with people in the Church identifying themselves as being of the opposite sex to the one they were born with. I believe this madness is a serious and present danger to the very survival of the Church of Christ, and that people who embrace this godless nonsense can be found in virtually every individual assembly. Where they are in the majority, they will not hesitate to attempt to get the Church to officially sanction these liberal beliefs and practices, in spite of the fact that this will cause a split in the Church (as it already has done in the Anglican Church), and will cause orthodox Christians who have a high regard for Scripture to leave that congregation or Denomination. So I have added to this writing an article I wrote in December 2017, detailing this phenomenon, and warning of its consequences if not resisted by every Bible believing Christian. Liberalism in the Church Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Unfortunately we live in an age of relativism. There is no such thing as absolute truth we are told – paradoxically absolutely! This irony seems lost on the disciples of fundamentalist relativism however! Of course most ordinary people in whom common sense has not entirely been eradicated, regard this as intellectual nonsense, and they are (absolutely) right. Unfortunately ordinary people are for the most part, not in charge of our educational, governmental and media institutions. It is the left wing liberal elite with their left wing liberal university education who are in charge, and who consequently set the tone of the discourse when it comes to matters moral and philosophical. The defining characteristics of the left wing liberal elite, are of course left wing, that is an essentially Marxist political and social world view; liberal, that is an anything goes attitude to morality; and elite, that is an attitude of superiority and entitlement by virtue of the aforementioned and a university education. It should come as no surprise then that people holding this world view are for the most part atheists. (Recently the term “New Atheists” has been coined, to describe true believers like Richard Dawkins, Brian Cox and Christopher Hitchins). The new atheists are not content with a straightforward rejection of the idea of a Divine Creator, and an embracing of naturalism, but are now evangelical in their zeal to promote their ideas as irrefutable scientific facts right across the media and education. As the media and the universities are also dominated by left wing liberals, they have no trouble in being granted a sympathetic airing. On the rare occasions a Christian is invited to share the platform with them, ostensibly in the interests of fairness, it has less to do with fairness, and more to do with portraying the Christian as an ignorant backward bigot, an objective in which the media personalities and organisations involved share wholeheartedly with the atheist participants. The three areas of focus for the educational establishment, government, and media are naturalism, sexual ethics and sanctity of life. Naturalism removes the supernatural from the equation, and replaces it with a naturalistic explanation for everything, no matter how illogical, implausible, or incredible. Something from nothing, all on its own – illogical; biological self replicating life from random intermixing chemicals – incredible; incredibly complex DNA with billions of instructions from simple proteins – implausible. Once this lie is bought into, and it has been remorselessly preached for over a century now; the foundation is laid for the next area to be targeted, sexual ethics. For many in the “swinging” sixties, when the sexual revolution began, atheism was just an excuse to justify self gratification without guilt. If there is no God, there is no one to answer to for immoral behaviour! The inevitable consequence of this was an increase in unwanted teenage pregnancies. Logically then, a legal way of ending these pregnancies was needed, and the Abortion Act of 1967 was passed, tabled unsurprisingly, by a Liberal atheist politician. Abortion is likely to cause even more guilt than promiscuity, so it was relatively easy, seeing as life was a chemical phenomenon, with no Divine cause, to designate the unborn as something not yet human, and so not deserving of the protection of the law; in fact such is the perversity of this neo rationalism, that the law actually disenfranchised the unborn, allowing them to be murdered, as it was to turn out, on a whim. This Doctrine of Death has resulted in the killing of over 8 million babies since 1967, in the UK alone! As the

unborn have no utility, and can be disposed of with impunity, it logically follows that those at the other end of life, the elderly, upon outliving their usefulness, can also be terminated. At present in the UK, they still have the protection of the law, but that protection has already been removed in Holland, Belgium, Canada and certain US states, and it is only a matter of time before the law is changed here as well. It seems inevitable therefore that the Doctrine of Death will eventually square the circle, and enable the insane and severely disabled, having no obvious utility, to be terminated as well. Europe has been here before. The other consequence of the new morality was the normalising of homosexual relationships, (Legalisation as well, but it should have never been sanctioned by the law, only restrained in its expression by the laws on public indecency, as were heterosexual relationships) and as a consequence of that, normalisation of bisexual, transvestite and other aberrations of sexuality. This in turn has led to the current situation where children are being sexualised by perverse sexual and adverse gender propaganda and pornography, resulting in an increase in teenage suicide rates, depression and self harm. In a previous age this would have constituted child abuse; now however, child abuse is teaching children the Bible! The above is of course a simple overview of the history of the moral decline of the west, and of itself would form the basis for a book/s in its own right, and indeed has. Authors such as Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips from the non Christian viewpoint, and Peter Hitchins and Joe Boot from the Christian side, amongst others have already covered this phenomenon and its unfortunate consequences in detail. The reason for this overview is that this spiritual virus (for that is what I believe it to be) has infected the Church. I also believe that the carrier for this spiritual virus was feminism.1 Before the sexual revolution, before the Abortion Act in 1967, before the normalisation of perverse sexualities, before the “new atheists,” even before Christianity had been marginalized from the public sphere, there was feminism. Feminism arose in the late 19th Century as a legitimate movement to enfranchise women. Having achieved that after the Great War, they moved on to other causes. Some were laudable, such as equal pay, educational and employment opportunities; some were noble, such as spotlighting sexual harassment; and some were a solution looking for a problem, such as post natal paternity rights, and gender equality, (the latter being an oxymoron, as different genders cannot possibly be equal, [in abilities] any more than a truck and a van are equal, even though they share the same essential design.) In the end, having achieved all their objectives, the feminist movement was in danger of becoming obsolete, and so cast around for a cause they could adopt, and a last dragon of male privilege they could slay. They found it in the Church. The Church presented them with a many headed dragon however, as it comprised many denominations. However they were all male dominated, and as such were all legitimate targets. As the Church of England was linked to the state, that was 1 Feminism and the Church. Gervase E Duffield

obviously the best place to start, as it would not do for a State institution to be seen as discriminatory! And so the campaign began for women to be ordained. When that was achieved, women had to be Bishops as well – right? Of course, and so it was. Not content to rest on this achievement, the mantra of “equal rights” focussed on other inequalities, and pushed for the ordination of homosexual and lesbian clergy. In fact a homosexual 5th column had already penetrated the clergy, and presented the Church with a fait accompli. This is the thick end of the wedge which is resulting in the splitting of the Anglican Communion into conservative evangelical and liberal “progressive” fellowships. In spite of the warning against church division in the NT, it would seem that the liberal left in the church, spearheaded by their feminist shock troops, place a higher priority on equality than they do on unity. And of course they have no intention of stopping with the CofE! Now the purpose of this article is not to argue the merits or otherwise of women clergy, but to point out the way the Church has been infected by worldly liberal thinking. The penetration of the clergy by women owes more to this phenomenon than to any scriptural imperative, and indeed it is worth noting the following verse in this context….. “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober- minded, of good behaviour, hospitable, able to teach;” 1 Timothy 3;1-2 Now I want to get to the real issue here, which is the adoption of worldly thinking by the liberals in the Church, particularly in relation to the quote at the start of this article. Liberals call themselves “progressives,” and for the most part seem to dislike inflexibility, narrow mindedness and static structures or dogmas. For the most part – I guess they like the educational establishment to be narrow minded enough to prohibit Creationist teaching alongside evolution2, and for health and safety to be inflexible over the enforcement of regulations, and for bridges to be static especially when they are crossing them! So inflexibility, narrow mindedness and static structures can be a good thing in certain situations! Belief of and obedience to applicable3 Scripture is such a situation, or at least should be. The moral prohibitions in the passage from Corinthians above are repeated from similar commandments given 1500 years earlier4, so not time specific then! If they could stand being repeated to the Corinthian Church 1500 years later, then it should go without saying that they still apply to us 2000 years after that. Liberalism however would single out the prohibition on homosexuality as bigoted, homophobic, discriminatory, antiquated and totally inappropriate for the 21st century. Unfortunately some liberals in the Church have been infected by this thinking. Of course this has the potential to be divisive, which is a conundrum for liberals, as the 2 By and large, Liberals adopt the naturalist narrative on origins, and alter Genesis from its plain meaning into a convoluted mythology in a futile attempt to fit the Scripture to the naturalist so – called scientific account. This causes all sorts of problems, not least by undermining the foundations of the Gospel. (Romans 5) 3 By applicable I mean those that are not time limited, or people or culture or circumstance specific, such as certain dietary laws and circumcision, and specific directions in time of war. 4 Leviticus 20

Bible clearly warns against being divisive5. (Liberals usually reckon they are loving and considerate, and divisiveness is un-loving) This spiritual virus wants the Church to reflect the world, when the Holy Spirit wants the world to be influenced by the Church and the Word of God. Would those who push for the sanction on homosexuality to be dropped also be happy to condone adultery for example, or theft? Ah, they say, those are unlawful, whereas homosexuality is not. True, but by mans law, not Gods. Homosexuality is still unlawful in some countries, so by what authority is it either lawful or not? This is the crux of the issue. Who is our authority, God or man? Your life hangs on the answer you give, because God says that people who practise these things will not enter the Kingdom! So at least by condoning such behaviour you may be complicit in someone going to hell! By contrast, God has something better, as it says… And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God God is not excluding sinners from the Kingdom, just unrepentant sinners. We were all disobedient, and according to Paul there were some saved ex-homosexuals in the Corinthian Church! By the reasoning of liberalism, are those with a propensity to sleep with another’s wife, or steal their property to be accepted simply because they can’t help themselves?6 God is in the business of accepting people (including homosexuals) as they are, but not leaving them as they are7. Change is on the menu for everyone8, and so it must be, or none of us has any hope! Why should homosexuals be granted an exception? To be consistent, liberals must arrange an exemption for all the sinful behaviours listed in this passage, an obviously ludicrous suggestion – unless by their reasoning society exempts them first? None of us had any say in how we were brought up, how we were indoctrinated; therefore we are not responsible for the attitudes we bring to the Kingdom, but we are responsible for the attitudes we hold whilst in the Kingdom. We are responsible for rightly dividing the Word of truth and arranging our attitudes and actions according to the revealed Word and will of God. God always holds us accountable to our responsibilities! \"For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5: 18-19 5 Ephesians 4:1-5 6 Kleptomania is a medically diagnosed condition where the “sufferer” cannot stop themselves taking the property of others. Perhaps adulterers include wives in the list of booty! 7 John 8:3-11 8 Romans 6:1-4 & 12:2