Christ Un-barred - Church History 9 - 13

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [Music] We are now in Part 9 of Church history, and things really start to get very interesting at this point. After the time of peace, those 50 years were the church, and then persecution came in. We're going to go up to the late 200s at the turn of the century, and the emperor at that time was a man named Diocletian. Diocletian was the Roman emperor for 20 years. This was year 284 AD. Rome was now a crumbling empire. Chaos and anarchy had spread throughout the empire. What was once something that was unimaginable for the Roman Empire to be in power, and the reach that it had, was now crumbling. Diocletian was a soldier, and became commander all before the age of 40 years old. He was raised to emperor by the generals and officers of that time. They respected him so well that the military backed him up in becoming emperor. Unfortunately, he became the most savage of emperors, and the most brutal toward Christians. The Roman Empire was at this time impossible to manage. This is what was causing the crumbling of Rome. So what he did was never done before. He divided the empire into four parts. He divided the imperial power with himself and three other leaders. Two of them, himself to be the emperor and a co-emperor, and two others to, in a sense, be junior emperors or Caesars. And with these four emperors, they had four courts. And this was a lot easier to manage and to control the empire as a whole.

And in these four courts, where he was at was in Nicomedia. This is where his court was, or I guess in a future term, we could say his administration was in Nicomedia. In the northwestern corner of Asia Minor. So in a sense, there was four two emperors, two Caesars, but he was the main emperor. There was constant attacks on the frontiers of the Roman Empire. If you recall, there's a movie called Gladiator, and it begins showing a battle with the Germanic tribes, which was the European tribes, or even you could say Germany. That's who they're fighting because they were trying to hold down, you know, basically the borders of the Roman Empire, but invaders continue to come and try to attack. And that's exactly what was happening in the battle, in the beginning of the movie, the Gladiator. So those constant attacks on the frontier. So from his court in Nicomedia, he was able to keep a close watch on invaders. So that was very important for him, obviously, because he was the emperor of Rome. But out of the 20 years that he was the emperor, after serving 18 years, In those 18 years, he hardly paid any attention. was full of Christians, his wife Prissa was a Christian, his daughter Valeria was a Christian, and huge churches were built in all of the important cities of Rome. So after 18 years, matter of fact, the largest church was in his capital of Nicomedia, but after 18 years, his last two years, something happened. We don't know what happened, but all of a sudden, he ordered his army to purge the Roman Empire of all its Christians. He ordered them to destroy all the churches, to prohibit any worship in Christian churches, and to burn the scriptures. After 18 years, his own family, his own wife, his own daughter, the biggest church being in his province. He rounded up all the bishops, had them arrested, jailed, tortured, and many executed, and he loosened his army to completely wipe out Christianity. After 18 years, and all of a sudden, in his last two years, this happens. One of those rulers, because remember, I said there was four, one of them was named Maximeon. He was a co-emperor, he was in the West, and we could say that if Diocletian, the emperor, the one that caused all this to happen, if we would say he was a political mastermind, then we could say Maximeon was the military force behind

him. He was a soldier, he was a man of war. Matter of fact, he was respected by other men of war and commanders. But after Diocletian came another emperor named Galerius, and Galerius took what Diocletian did against the Christian church, and he pushed even further to completely exterminate the Christians. To this day, we don't understand why this happened, but obviously those of us who believe in Christ know that they're spiritual warfare. We know and understand I believe that behind any persecution is Satan who wants to destroy the church. We are told, even in the book of Revelation, that Satan was thrown out of heaven, and the Bible says that knowing that he has a short time and his wrath is very great on those who follow Jesus. But it's shocking to read how everything just suddenly just changed like the wind that changes into a different direction. One of the other four leaders, though, his name was Constantius Chlorus. He was, I guess, a junior emperor, he was a Caesar. Remember, so Diocletian split it into four, two emperors, him being the main, and then two Caesars, which had a lesser power, but nevertheless, so over these four different provinces, so out of one of them was this junior Caesar, his name was Constantius Chlorus, which was toward where Britain is, where England is, so he was in the far reaches of the Roman Empire. He, in his province, actually never pushed for Christian persecution. Matter of fact, he actually suspended persecution against the church in his province, or his quarter of the Empire, and was interesting that he had a son named Constantine, who would completely forever change Christianity. I do want to make a note, that during the persecution of Diocletian, of Maximeon, is that the average everyday The regular people did not like it, and matter of fact, it turned pagans into Christians against the government and against the military. This caused thousands to come to Christ. Historically speaking, any time there's persecution against the church, the church grows. This is a historical fact. So because of the pressure from the citizens of Rome, even the pagans, Galerius had to

reluctantly issue an edict of toleration, he realized he was losing the backing of the people. So he released this edict basically tolerating Christians. He didn't want to do it. He was hesitant to do it. But when he saw the people turning against him, he had to do it. And historically speaking, this was the last persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire that would continue to be persecution against churches, against Christians. But as far as from the Roman Empire itself, this ended it. It would never be again the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire. But by this time, Rome was drowned in the blood of Christians. When Galerius died, a fight for imperial power broke loose. Galerius, if you recall, was the next emperor. And remember, it was split into four. And when he died, being the main emperor, a power vacuum began and Constantine, remember, the son of Constantius led the armies of the northwest over the Alps. And he advanced against Rome. His rival was Max-Tentius from Italy. And Constantine overtook Rome. He captured it. What's a famous story is that when he was right outside of Rome, it could have went either way. He didn't know if he was going to win. He didn't know if he was going to lose. And the story goes that Constantine cried out to the Christian God and said, "Help me." And the story goes that that night he had a dream. And in a dream, he saw the sky and he saw a huge cross. And when he saw that, he saw the words written in the sky that says, "In this sign, conquer." This is why when you see photos, illustrations and drawings of the soldiers back then, they had crosses on their shields.

In this sign, conquer. So October 28, 312 A.B., he succeeded. He got victory. And when he got the victory, he took that as proof that the Christian God was superior over all other gods. You know, many historians to this day debate, wrestle with, and call his conversion a political maneuver. He knew that the reason the people turned against the emperor at that time was because of the persecution against Christians. So many have said, "Was this conversion a real conversion or was it a political maneuver to get the Christians on his side?" He knew that the people would follow him. But the thing is, is that his paganism and the paganism of many others also remained. And I almost caused a m- true conversion as Christians, can we? Because he continued to plot, he continued to conspire, he continued to murder. Matter of fact, he took on the title of Pontifis Maximus, in other words, almost declaring himself a god, as head of the state of the religious cult of the Roman worship. Remember how people would worship the emperor? He took on that title. But we do know these things. He did favor Christians once he came into power. He allowed Christian ministers to have tax, tax exemption, just like the pagan priest. He abolished crucifixion or death by crucifixion. He stopped the gladiators from having to, as a punishment, fight in the gladiator games. And in 321, he made Sunday a public holiday. Remember in the beginning of this church history, I said that as we go through these lessons in church history, we would start to understand our church today, how we do church, why we do certain things, why do we celebrate on Sunday? And I'm curious to know, did he make Sunday a public holiday as a way to change and control? Or were churches and congregations already gathering on Sundays? So because of that, he made it a public holiday. It's a good question to think about, because depending on what you believe or which one is true, changes how we should see Sundays today. It's just a thought. So because of these things that he allowed, it allowed churches to grow.

And the church began to grow and the tenants began to grow because of the emperor support of Christianity. Even in his private life, he allowed his sons and daughters to be raised with Christian teachings. And matter of fact, when Constantine was an old man and he was about to die, he called upon the bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, where his capital was at, to baptize him before his death. And after Constantine was baptized, he refused to wear the imperial robe, the color purple. And that's interesting. He chose to live out his last days in his baptismal white robes. So it almost seems like he did not want that title of emperor or, in a sense, emperor as God. We don't know. But we do know this, that after Constantine, Rome had a new official religion, Christianity. And before he died, they had a new capital. Remember the Roman emperor was always in Rome, in Italy. But he chose to change the capital to a whole other city. See, Rome's enemies usually came from the east. So he moved from Rome into a city called Byzantium. And when he moved the capital, an officially inaugurated Byzantium to be his new capital for the Roman Empire, he changed the name to Constantinople. It was in a strategic place, a strategic site, and that changed everything. He did a lot of changes in his time, brought Christianity as the official religion of Rome. Moved the capital completely out of Rome, where it had always been to Constantinople. This is a big deal when you look at the whole picture. And it's interesting to see this whole thing unfold. What does this all mean to the church as a whole? With all of these changes, and an even better question, the bishops of Rome felt that they had more authority than all the other bishops because they believed that they'd derive from Peter because Peter died there. And maybe they were able to get away with it because in Rome was the empire, the emperor, government, everything official. So it was easier for the Roman church to almost use that authority of that city to supersede all other bishops. But Constantine moved away, moved his administration, moved all the power of government outside of Rome into Constantinople. Where did that leave the church in Rome, the leaders and the bishops in Rome? That's a question we need to think about. Now, now that the church had favor throughout the empire, was there a price to pay for that favor? It's something we need to think about. Yes, there was. Because now by Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome, that meant every single bishop was ruled by Constantine and he wanted unconditional obedience.

So in order for them to have favor, they were now under the Roman emperor. For the first time, government controlled the church. Because Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome, it caused a flood of people to come into the church. Was that good? Or is that bad? You see, in persecution, the church was full of convinced Christians that were willing to die. There was nothing to gain in being a Christian other than torture and imprisonment and death. But now that Christianity was the official religion. Now you had people coming into the church who were politically ambitious. You had people coming into the church who were religiously disinterested. You had people coming into the church that were still half rooted in paganism. And it began to cause something different that the church had never had to deal with ever at a scale like this. It's almost like it's secularized religion for political purpose. You couldn't be in the empire. You couldn't be in political power. You couldn't have authority. You couldn't have prestige unless you were a Christian. So now being a Christian came with perks. And that caused an influx of people that would have never died for Jesus. Now serving in the church, not only that, but rising in the ranks, because the church was now owned, controlled by the government. Matter of fact, by 380 AD, not being a Christian. There was now penalties. Emperor Theodosius sent out an imperial command. I will read it. It is our will that all the peoples we rule shall practice that religion, which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans. We shall believe in the single deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, under the concept of equal majesty and of the Holy Trinity. We command that those persons who follow this rule shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, whom we a judge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas. Their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance, which we shall assume in accordance with divine judgment. 10 years later in 390 AD, there was a chariot here, somebody's a road chariot. He was in a city, see chariot games were a huge deal. It was a big deal, the way NFL is today in basketball is today and thousands of people would go and to see the chariots.

And he was, this certain person was accused of homosexual practices. Well, the governor of that region threw him into prison. And the people, the pagans asked for his release, saying that what he did, these accusations shouldn't throw him into prison. And the governor refused. Well, the people Rosa killed the governor and released that prisoner. So, Theodosius, he ordered the people there to be punished. So, the next time there was a chariot event in Thessalonica, thousands of people went. And while they were there, the emperor caused his army, his military to be standing at the gates and the doors of the exits. And in one fell swoop, I mean, within three hours, 7,000 Thessalonian citizens were massacred. Now, remember government was Christian. This governor was a Christian. The one that was killed was a Christian. The emperor was a Christian by name. So, when this happened, the people couldn't believe it as new spread that the Christian emperor of Rome caused a massacre of 7,000 people. So, the bishop, his name was Ambrose of Milan. He spoke up. This was a bishop that had a lot of authority in the church. And he spoke out and said, the emperor has to admit his crime.

And he has to repent. And if he does not, he will be excommunicated from the church, which means he won't be able to participate in communion. And I will read something. He says this. He wrote Theodosius, the emperor, and said, I cannot deny that you have a zeal for the faith and that you fear God, but you have a naturally passionate spirit which becomes unforgivable, ungovernable, I mean, when you're excited and I call you to repent. You can only atone for your sin by tears, by penitence, by humbling your soul before God. You are a man, and as you have sinned as a man, so you must repent. No angel, no archangel can forgive you, God alone can forgive you, and he forgives only those who repent. This is a bold move. This is the emperor of Rome. And the bishop is telling him you are excommunicated from the church unless you repent and admit the crime. Well, at first, the emperor just avoided the church. But over time, even the emperor gave in. Even emperors had to bow. But my question is this. Was he being forced to bow to Jesus? Was he being forced to bow to the church? You decide.

Thank you, and God bless. (gentle music) Okay, we are now in part 10 of church history. Things are getting really exciting, very, very interesting. And I'm gonna call this no persecution all the way now to 300 years later, and so many things have changed. But if we had to label the fourth century, or 300 ADs, we would have to say it was the century about doctrine, building doctrine because now that there was no persecution in the church, now that there was not mass killings and torturines and arrest of believers, now the bishops had time to truly just formulate their doctrine. And this is very key and very important because it helps us to understand where we are in Christianity today, and also why is there different denominations, denomination of beliefs, and just for the sake of definition, most denominations still fall under the Christian banner. They might have differences in some things, but they mostly hold to the essential things, but it helps us to understand. And one of the things that they had question was, what is the Trinity? Who is this? What is this Triune God? How do we make sense of it? How do we understand it? Because if the church is quarreling, if the bishops are quarreling, and they're divided, and it's a divided Christianity, this was not going to help a crumbling empire. The Roman Empire is being attacked from different fronts, and the pagans are turning to Christianity, and we cannot have churches divided with their beliefs. So this was very crucial and very important in order for the kingdom to stay strong. Very important. So the Emperor Constantine had a huge issue that he could not ignore or cannot leave unaddressed. So the same bishops and leaders that were tortured at one time are now in differences of each other. What was Constantine going to do? What could he do? What were his options? And we have to understand this in order to understand church history. So one of the issues was Arius. He was from Alexandria, and actually he was a pastor there. Alexandria was a big city in Egypt, but there's an issue, and there's a problem, because there's a conflict that he had with his own bishop in 318 A.D. And what Arius said is that Jesus was not the true God, that he was a lesser being, that there was God the Creator, and Jesus was a lesser being, almost a half God in a sense, that he was not eternal, and he was not the Creator. Now you got to remember Alexandria was a very big influential city. It was a very

intellectual city. So this could be a dangerous teaching that Arius was saying. Here's the thing though, is remember a lot of people were pagan. They believed in many gods and many half gods and many different deities. So this form of teaching that Arius was starting to share, it almost connected and appealed to former pagans. It was almost easier for them to grasp. You know, converts from paganism were finding it really hard to grasp and understand that Jesus, that he was here on earth, that he was born through a Virgin Mary, but yet he was God, but yet there's God in heaven, and it was hard for them to really figure out that he was an eternal God, but yet he was equal to God, and they had a real issue with that. So when Arius began to share that there was God, the Creator of all things, and then there was Jesus, a lesser God, it was almost easier for or easier for pagans to understand Christianity. But the bishop in Alexandria would not accept this teaching. He was against it. He was adamant. Matter of fact, he called a meeting, a synod in Alexandria in 320 AD. And he had his pastor, Arias, excommunicated. You're a false teacher. You don't belong here. You don't belong in the church. You are banished from the church. And you are teaching falsely. You are teaching something that is not inscripture. So this put the pastor and the bishop at odds. So Arias wasn't going to go away and just disappear. He actually went and he was close to Eusebius, who was the bishop in Nicomedia. If you remember, Nicomedia was the center of the political power. Before Constantinople, this was where Constantine was at. So Arias, excommunicated from Alexandria by his bishop, goes to Eusebius, the bishop of Nicomedia, where there's a lot of political power there. So I guess you could say that Nicomedia was a political capital, but Alexandria was an intellectual capital. So they're at odds now. And it got to the point where Constantine, the emperor, realized that these theological issues and differences and problems, it had to be stopped. He's trying to hold the empire together. He's trying to hold the Roman empire together and solidified. He's fighting wars on all fronts. And here the church is about to implode because the leaders don't agree on doctrine. So many of you have heard of this meeting called the Council of Nicaea. And this was put together by Constantine. It is the first ever imperial, in other words, federal or government, Sainade. This was 300 bishops. All of the bishops were invited to the Council of Nicaea by invitation, by Emperor Constantine himself. He could not have this happening in a crumbling empire. So he came, invited them, many of them, their way was paid

for them to get there. A lot of these bishops were the same ones that were tortured. They were scarred. They had gone through prison. They had gone through tribulation. And here they are now, all expense paid by the Roman government and the Roman emperor himself to go and have this meeting in Nicaea. And here they are, all 300 bishops or so. And there's Constantine sitting there in the midst of them all. And he spoke to them briefly. He reminded them that they needed to settle their differences and figure out what is the Christian doctrine. So there can be no differences. You guys have to come to terms, talk it out, figure it out. And that way we can have a unified church in the Roman Empire. Because a division in the church can be worse than war. So after that, guys, he stepped aside. He wasn't going to be involved. He was not at the elosion. He was not a pastor. He was not biblically literate. He was the pending on these bishops to figure this out. Now fast forward to our day now. Some of you maybe have never heard of the have been given false information about this meeting and I think that's what this lesson is should be important about because if you haven't been questioned about this, then maybe you will in the future. This will come up and people will say, "Well, I don't believe the Bible because of whatever, whatever, whatever." No, go back to the Council of Nicaea and they'll put blame on this meeting on these bishops on Constantine or even the content of this meeting. And that's why I wanted to educate you on this lesson and talk about that because I don't want to gloss over this meeting because it's important. And even though this lesson is probably going to end up being shorter than the rest of them, it's very pivotal and important for us to understand what this meeting was about and what this meeting was not about because there's a lot of false belief out there, especially on social media of what this meeting was meant for and they get it all wrong. This meeting was about settling theological doctrinal differences. Nothing else. Let me give you an idea. I have a list of things that people have said what this meeting was about and we're going to put an end to that right now. I will go by the numbers. Some of the biggest misconceptions of the Council of Nicaea. Number one is on Nicaea decided which books belonged in the Bible. That is the most common thing many people will say and repeat only because they heard it said because they heard somebody else say it because they heard somebody else say it that our Bible is put together not only by Nicaea but some go as far as to say that Constantine told these bishops which books he allowed in the Bible. It's a very common myth. The Council of Nicaea did not decide the biblical canon.

There is no record, no surviving record at all discussing that they even talked about which books were in the Bible. Matter of fact by 325 AD 325 years after Christ. Almost every church already used the same New Testament books that we use now. This was not even a vote or even a conversation in the Council of Nicaea. Number two, another misconception is that at this meeting Constantine invented the deity of Christ that he got these 300 bishops together and basically created this religion on Jesus being God. Some claim that Jesus was viewed only as a man until Constantine made him a God. Again a misconception this was not even talked about. There was no way a Roman emperor was going to educate 300 Christian bishops and convince them of something that is impossible. That is not what happened. Early Christian writers that we have their writings before Constantine was even born including Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Aranius all said that Jesus was God. These were bishops before the time of Constantine. So for clarity they did discuss this deal with Arius about him saying that Jesus was a lesser God compared to his bishop and Alexandria say no Jesus and God are one. They're the same. That's where they discuss the Trinity but yeah that is a misconception. The third misconception about the Council of Nicaea is that the vote was very close whether Jesus was God or not and people have actually said this. It's a popular story that they say that the bishops barely voted that Jesus was actually divine. The historical records suggest that the overwhelming majority supported the the Nicene position. They already believed Jesus as God. This was not even something to vote about. This was not a discussion for 325 years. Christians had already worshiped Jesus as God. So this was not something that was talked about. It was not some razor thin decision that Um, another misconception is that Constantine himself controlled the council. Um, partly true, but exaggerated. Let me give you an example. Yeah. Constantine called the meeting. Constantine financially paid for the bishops to come, Constantine, I'm sure accommodated them. Constantine wanted unity in the empire with the bishops, but he did not control their beliefs, nor their theological statements that they were going to say. Constantine was not a bishop, Constantine did not write theology, and he allowed the bishops to debate theological issues themselves. He simply went and addressed them, thanked them for coming, said, Hey, guys, we need to come, you know, with a united front, we need to settle our differences. But other than that, um, Constantine did not control that council.

The fifth belief is that some say misconceptions that Nicaea created the Trinity. That is not true either. Um, Christians already believed in the father of the son and the Holy Spirit. We know this by early church writers. Um, they responded to this teaching of Arias saying Jesus was a lesser God or he was a creative being that they did discuss. You know, but they did not create the Trinity, um, in the council of Nicaea. Uh, the sixth misconception was that everyone became Christian after Constantine as if paganism completely, um, disappeared. Uh, no, paganism continued to remain widespread. Uh, yes, Christianity became the, uh, the religion of the government, but it did not stop paganism. Uh, also many people were, I'll be honest with you, watered down Christians, they mixed their paganism with Christianity. Um, this Arias, um, just because they had this council didn't mean his teaching stopped. It continued for decades that Jesus was a lesser God. So it didn't stop it. It just brought a, all the bishops into one belief, um, and also a persecution still occurred in pockets of the empire. It was just never a widespread persecution like the way it was before. Um, number seven misconception is the council of Nicaea settled every theological issue. No, that is false. No, um, the council of Nicaea answered one major question is, is the son, uh, is the son fully God or is he a creative being? That was the main thing at hand here. That's what they were talking about here. So, um, many later questions still required more councils. This was just the first of many, the council of Nicaea, um, in 381, uh, in Constantinople, they had a council about who is the Holy Spirit? What is the Holy Spirit? And shall the, shall sit on? I'm not sure I'm probably pronouncing it wrong in 451 AD. They talked about Christ to, uh, natures, um, and other different doctrinal controversies that they've had to had councils and meetings later on. Uh, number eight misconception is the council was entirely political. That's very overstated. That is not true. Um, yeah, politics played a role because Constantine needed unity in the church because he's trying to hold together an empire, guys. He's trying to hold together in the same way as the president of the United States. The president of the United States is the president, regardless of which party he is. He's the president of the democrat. He's the president of the republic and he's the president of the libertarian. He's the president of those that don't vote. He's the president of the Christian and the atheist of the, um, whatever it may be. He's the president of the United States. So ultimately, the president's job is to hold the nation together in the same way right here. Um, was it political? Not necessarily. I think it's overstated.

Constantine, did he have any political hopes in, in holding us? Of course he did. He wanted the empire to stay united, but the big, Um, gotta remember many of these guys, they suffered imprisonment. They suffered torture. They, they, they, they suffered persecution under Diocletian. These were not men that were going to compromise just to make Constantine happy. They were really ready to be killed by the empire itself. So they were not going to change now. Number nine misconception. This is another big one is a council of Nicaea removed the lost gospels from the Bible that they had a council and they said, Oh, we're going to take out the gospel of Thomas. We're going to take out the gospel of Judas. We're going to take out the gospel of Peter. These books were already viewed as false teachings way before this council. There was, there was no talk of which books are going to be included or not included in the Bible in the council of Nicaea. Um, these were rejected by many churches. Why? Because they were written years, decades, many years later after the apostolic period. Remember, the only books allowed in the Bible were those that had apostolic authority. They put a stop to that. So they knew that the gospel, these gospels were written way later. And the teachings in them did not match the teachings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the letters of Paul and the law and the prophets of the Old Testament. It did not line up. So that is not true that Nicaea, the council of Nicaea banned these books. That is not true. Uh, 10, the last misconception is after the council of Nicaea, the controversy ended. No. Actually, the debate intensified. It got even worse.

A perfect example is even to this day, the Jehovah witness believed Jesus is a lesser God than Jehovah God. So this, this is still a very prominent teaching that is still going around today. So for several decades, even after the council of Nicaea guys, there was several emperors that favored Arianism, that Jesus was a lesser God. There was many bishops who would change positions at the Macias of Alexandria was exiled multiple times for defending the Nician creed because they came up with the creed of what they were going to believe after this meeting. So yeah, man, it, it, um, the council of Nicaea did not create Christianity. That is a silly thought that is a very lazy argument for somebody to try to debate against you as a Christian to tell you that Christianity wasn't even invented until, uh, Constantine in the council of Nicaea. That is just obviously false. Um, matter of fact, the council of Nicaea and summary defended what the church had already been teaching from scripture. It did not invent the deity of Jesus. It did not choose the books of the Bible. It did not establish Christianity by political vote. Um, instead it clarified biblical doctrine in response to false teachings that were going on while preserving the apostolic faith that believers had confessed all the way since the first century, since the time of Christ, since the time of the apostles, you know, so this is a really important lesson for us to get through. And I didn't want to gloss over it. And I know it seemed like we kind of zeroed in on only this council of Nicaea in the span of church history, but this is an important one to talk about because this is one that many will cause you to stumble if you don't know about this. People that don't believe the Bible, people that don't believe Christianity, people that are completely against what the Bible is, that the white Bible says they won't even take the Bible into account because they will say it was put together at the council of Nicaea and they will use a lot of these 10 excuses that we're talking about here.

You know, so I, I pray that this helps you. And I want to end this by reading the Nicene Creed. So this is what all these 300 bishops and I believe there was only two that did not agree to it even then. So we're talking 298, I believe bishops agreed under this creed and I'm going to read it now and we'll end it. The Nicene Creed emerged that day and matter of fact, it is the standard of orthodoxy in the Roman church, the Eastern church, the Anglican church and many other churches. visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and siteth on the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life who proceeded from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets, and I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, amen. Every bishop signed this except two. One of them was Arias himself, who was exiled and excommunicated. And Constantine was happy because he says, "Finally, we have this issue settled. He had a huge banquet for them, and it was beyond anything the Christian leader could have ever imagined, that the head of the empire and the bishops of the church sitting together celebrating the coming happy days of the church." Wow. So God bless you, and I'll see you on Part 11.

Alright, so we are back now with church history. This is Part 11. I want to title it, "Who do men say that I am?" Obviously, I'm quoting Jesus. When he was in Caesarea Philippi, he went with the disciples, and he went where it's in Mount Herman, and this place, Caesarea Philippi is actually where the spring of water came out, and that's where the Jordan River began. And he asked the disciples, "Who do men say that I am? Why am I bringing this up?" Because we got to remember that now that many years have passed since the time of Christ, we are now in the imperial age where Christianity is the official religion of the Roman Empire. But before we got to this imperial age, I just want to remind you again that this whole thing started obviously the time of Jesus. So I guess if we split it into ages, it would be the time of Jesus. Then when Jesus was crucified and rose again and ascended to heaven, it became the apostolic age. Why is it called that? Because it was the time of the apostles. It was the time of the church where the actual leaders of the church were the actual apostles, those that walk with Jesus, those that were in that timeline of Jesus. So it's the apostolic age. Out of all the ages, it's probably the shortest compared to the ones that come after because it could only last the lifetime of men. So we have Jesus, then we have the apostolic age. But once the apostles began to die, I guess you can say it's like a second generation of Christians, it was those that were now learning Christianity by those that walk with Jesus, but they had never walked with Jesus themselves. And that became what we call the Catholic age. Catholic is again the term universal or the whole church and it was not the Roman Catholic And that Catholic age lasted until the time of Constantine.

So now Rome takes on Christianity. Christianity becomes the official religion of the empire. So because of that, it is now called the imperial age. So the time of Jesus, the apostolic age, the Catholic age and now the imperial age. And you know, what I'm going to say next is, well, let me say it first, and then I want to just give a simplified explanation with the way I see it, is that when Christianity became official, you see, once government gets involved, they need things to be clear, concise and precise. And so after Christianity became the official religion of Rome, the emperors began to press on the spiritual leaders for creeds and for them to accurately express the Christian faith. It needed to be expressed. You can imagine you can't have a nation in the United States or any nation and just kind of based on ideas, it's got to be written down. There must be a constitution. There must be a bill of rights. There must be something to go by as a standard, you know? So once it became official, it needed to be standardized. It needed to be accurate because this was no longer just a group of believers, a group of Christians, a group of apostles. This was something much bigger. So in the same way, think about it, all the disciples are gone and whoever takes over now has to have a deep understanding of what the previous leader believed or else things would just go astray. For instance, imagine House of Rest Church. House of Rest Church is we don't have books and books and books of how we do things because I'm the founder. I'm here. If somebody has a question, they could ask me. But what happens once I'm gone? Can you imagine once I'm gone and let's say House of Rest is continuing and there's church

leaders saying, well, this is what we believe about baptism. This is what we believe on tongues. This is what we believe and if I didn't leave nothing behind, it's going to be left to the interpretation of these leaders. And so what starts happening is imagine everything is fine if everybody agrees, but what happens and they disagree. And all they have to go by is my YouTube videos. But even then, the interpretation is going to be different. But let's say, just for the sake of this conversation, that House of Rest churches start to pop up across the country, I'm no longer here. So now you have different leaders talking about this and now basically it's like imagine if there's 50 House of Rest churches and all of them have a say so and all of them are trying to run it a certain way. So they make a committee and they make a committee saying, hey, we can't have the 50 House of Rest churches all disagreeing on the basic beliefs of tongues and baptism and this and that whatever. So this is what we're going to do. We're going to come together and we're going to figure out what House of Rest stands on this on this on this on this. So that's what started happening. That's what the Roman Empire, I don't fault the Roman Empire for doing this, even though whether I agree or disagree of Christianity becoming an official religion of a empire. But that's besides the point, I understand the Roman Empire or the Roman Emperor trying to say, hey, if this is the official religion, then we need to get things right. You need to get some creeds and some accuracy. So that way it passes on from leader to leader because this thing is far longer than our own lives. This is an empire. So I want to talk about a few of these because it wasn't just the Nicene Creed. It wasn't just the Council of Nicaea.

That was just the first official council, but there was many more that started happening after that. For instance, one of the things that they started mean? We know he was God, but how was he also a human? And it would go back and forth with these leaders. And, and some would say, well, he was just Jesus. He was just a simple Jesus. And some were like, no, he was a spiritual genius. And some were saying, well, he was a Jewish Jesus. And, and the debates continued because it seemed like everyone wanted to put in their two cents. And they didn't all coincide. So they had to have a council. For instance, a emperor theodosius. By the time he was emperor, the structure of the church at this time centered on a few powerful men. Remember, we went to the apostolic age where it was the apostles. Then we went through the universal Catholic age when there was bishops in different cities and, and they would come together and they would talk. But now we start noticing that the bishops from the bigger cities almost had more of an authority than the other bishops, which was different because before all the bishops were on a even plane. But now because bishops were in major cities, they were calling them archbishops. So for instance, you had an archbishop over this city of Alexandria. And he would raise up bishops in his district who would then have pastors under them. So it was like a hierarchy. And at this time, during this time of the imperial age, these archbishops had under their jurisdiction. Like for instance, you know, here in California, we have the governor who's the state of the governor of California. And then there's somebody that's over the county. And then we have some, it's over mayor. And the mayor is over the districts of Modesto. You know, and, and so in this talk, the bishop under his authority was called the sea, S-E-E, not S-E-A, the sea. So that was his, the the sea was his realm of authority and the boundaries of his authority. And so now we had these bishops in these big cities or archbishops. One of them was Rome. That was one of them that started to rise in influence. The second one was Constantinople, because we know that the emperor, you know, moved to Constantinople. So obviously that was a big city and there was a lot of political power there. So obviously the bishop of that city had a lot of connections. And because of that, a lot of authority. We have Alexandria. Alexandria was a huge educational center of the world. So the bishop in Alexandria had a lot of authority and a lot of pull. And also the city of Antioch. So it's almost now, because of these cities, these are the higher of the hires. They were not only the bishop, they were the archbishops, he was the major cities. So they were called the patriarchs.

So you have the patriarchs, remember Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, over other big cities who were called the archbishops, who had smaller cities, who were led by bishops, and those bishops led pastors. And out of these patriarchs, it seemed like within those four, they were constantly trying to push the borders of their sea or of their authority. And they would try to extend the power of their office, I guess, you know, out of these four. And out of these four, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, we see that Alexandria, which is in northern Egypt and Rome, they tended to support each other, because if you look on the map, you have Alexandria, and right above that was Rome. So they kind of work together. At the same time, on the eastern part of the empire, we have Antioch and Constantinople. So even though there's four patriarchs, two sided together, and the other two sided together, almost splitting Christianity from the west and the east, you know, so there's a lot of moving parts that are going on for us to understand in church history, this is a huge part of to get a better glimpse of today. Why is there so many denominations? Why is there a Roman Catholic church? Why is there the Greek Orthodox church? Why is there the Coptic Christians in Egypt? Why is all of this happening? Why is this happening now? So this helps us to understand what was happening then. So now that that is taking place, we're gonna go up to the years 350 AD to 450 AD or 350 years since Christ and 400. So that's a long time now. I mean, the church started at a humble beginning with some Christians that were in the upper room, afraid to be arrested to the point now where there's churches everywhere and pastors and bishops and archbishops and patriarchs and churches and they have influence in government.

This is a big difference of what we started off with. And in this time, new heresies started to rise up that was forcing the church to come into more clarity, more creeds, more meetings, more councils because some of these leaders and bishops were saying things that was contrary to what the other ones believed, you know? And I gotta make this footnote is that, you know, as we're going through this church history, I can't help but to think something that Jesus said. He said that unless we are like children, we can never see the kingdom of God. Well, this doesn't seem like anything of children. Christianity became very complex and very political. And you have people in power and people in authority now. And it just seems to be getting away from the time of Jesus, but I think this is natural. It's part of humanity and I'm not making excuses for it, but for instance, you know, when I started as a church with 20 chairs, it's a lot different than having a church with 225 chairs and you have to be more clear on raising leaders. You have to be more clear on who's gonna teach your children. You have to be more clear. I think that's a natural because you can't treat a group of 20 in a prayer group, the same as 200 plus or 300 plus or 400 plus. So I understand, but at the same time, sometimes it's like you lose that innocence, you lose that simplicity of Christianity.

I think that's the reason why we need to learn church history because we need to learn these things, but we need to remind ourselves of where it started. In an upper room with 120 believers afraid to be arrested where Jesus told them stained Jerusalem until the helper, the comforter comes. So you know, so I just wanted to talk about that because you know, another thing that makes me think of is what I found interesting, I didn't know about this until later on in life, that when people would join a debate team or people would go to classes and universities to learn to debate, I didn't realize that for somebody to be a good debater doesn't mean that they're a good arguer of what they believe in because they believe in it so strongly that they studied it up. You know, in debate classes, they would actually give you a subject, didn't ask you where you stood on it. For instance, they would say, okay, we were gonna debate water rights. They wanna send water to Los Angeles and farmers saying you're taking the water away from us so we should keep the water for the farms because of the agriculture, without agriculture, the United States doesn't eat. But at the same time on the other side, Los Angeles needs water

because they don't have their natural water. And then they would get two students and say, you argue for the LA water, you argue for the farmer. They didn't ask the debaters what they believed in themselves. They said, this isn't about what you believe, this is about you being a better debater. And they would actually learn to debate whether they believed it or not, why the water should go to LA and this guy would argue why the water should stay with the farmers and then they would switch roles. Kind of the same thing like, for instance, prosecutors and lawyers, I find it very interesting that sometimes you will meet a criminal lawyer that used to be a prosecutor. This person's job was to court and and convince the jury and convince the judge that this person deserve to be in prison for the rest of his life. But then a law firm comes along and offers him twice the money that he's making from the courts being a prosecutor. And you know what he does? He switches over and becomes a criminal lawyer. So all of a sudden he's very convincing on why his client should not go to prison for the rest of his life. But yet his whole career was putting people in jail. And vice versa. Sometimes you get the criminal lawyer, you know, and and he's fighting to get people out of prison. He's fighting. He's sitting there with with people that did heinous crimes and horrible crimes. And he's convincing juries to to to doubt and reasonable doubt and to keep his his client out of prison. But all of a sudden he gets an opportunity to be a prosecutor. And even though it's less pay, he'll take it because if he's a prosecutor, then maybe in the future he can become a judge. So this pays to the same person that would stand for the criminals. Now to change his over to prosecutor. Now he wants to throw them in prison. What's my point? My point is this is that we have to be really careful when we see this church history and these debates and we see these

cities and these archbishops and these bishops arguing with each other over doctrine. Because it just seems like, you know, those on the east or those on the west were just debating for the sake of debating to debunk the other church so they can make their church more powerful and more influential than the others. And of course, none of us were alive at that time. But when I read between the lines, this is what I see. You know, so there was other councils, there was other heresies rising up. And if somebody didn't like a bishop, they would just say, oh, he's he's a heretic. He's preaching this or he's saying this. And many times, what if the bishop didn't even say that or he was taken out of context? But because the bishop against him was from a bigger city with more influence or more political power, they would oust that bishop. So this is the kind of stuff that started happening. And this is what's dangerous when Christianity, I can't say it any other way, but hijacked by the Roman Empire, because once you bring in politics and influence, it becomes dangerous. This was not what Jesus was preaching in the Gospels and in the book of Acts. We have to be very careful about this. There was another council in 381 and Constantinople. It was called the general council. There was a leader, a preacher named Nestorius, also in 428. And he kind of bumped heads with a patriarch from Alexandria. Remember, the patriarchs were the four heads and his name was Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria. And he was ruthless in his debates. And he went after this pastor, Nestorius. And so because of that, remember, Cyril, he is the patriarch of Alexandria. Alexandria worked real close with Rome. So he went to Rome and slandered this pastor, Nestorius, to the patriarch there, Celestine, which right now the Roman Catholics claim that this was a pope. But this is after the fact that this time he was not known as a pope. They didn't even use that word. He was a patriarch. His name was Celestine. And he was upset because Nestorius welcomed exiles from Rome. See the politics of that. So remember, Alexandria and Rome were two patriarchs and Alexandria, I'm sorry, Alexandria had an issue that patriarch with the pastor. And then so he goes and talks to Rome and he turns Rome against that pastor because he says, you know, when you kick people out of your church, you know what he does, he welcomes them into his church. So obviously the church in Rome was like, well, we can't have that. I don't like that. So because of that, they wanted to basically oust him out of the church this pastor, because of these two political leaders, these two patriarch leaders who had a lot of influence. So this is just an example. It's not so much what I'm talking about, but what happened between them. But I'm trying to give you an example of the kinds of things that were happening when somebody had

church leaders that are actually using their influence to kick others out of the church. So in 431, this general counsel, an Ephesus, it was called together by Emperor Theodosius II. Now here's the problem. Even though the two patriarchs from Alexandria and Rome didn't like Nestorius the pastor, guess who did? The Emperor Theodosius. He supported Nestorius. So now you have the Emperor of Rome that likes the pastor that the two patriarchs don't like. But apparently looking at history, Cyro, the Patriarch of Alexandria, he got into the Emperor's ear, he talked to him, he convinced him or whatever, and Nestorius was deposed. He was kicked out. So these are the kinds of things. I mean, when do we see in scripture that a worldly leader has any say so in the church, but we see this happening now. And I want us to recognize the dangers of this because this is really important because Emperor Theodosius was pressured to expel this pastor. How could he do that? How could somebody, how could these patriarch pressure the Emperor of Rome? You know how? Because the church said if you do not belong to the church, you go to hell. If you don't have communion, you go to hell. And guess what? Nobody was allowed to have communion unless you were part of the church. So it's almost like they held or blackmailed leaders. And we're going to see that later on. They did this with kings. They would control kings by basically withholding heaven from them. You know, so this pastor, Nestorius, he eventually died in 450 AD in Egypt as an exile. But this pastor, Nestorius, now what his teachings were or not were or not really the focus of this study. My focus is letting you know where things start to split off into different, I guess it wasn't used back then, but denominations. So because of this, Nestorius being exiled, and by the time he died, he started a church, and that church grew to be the Nestorian church that to this day right now, there's 80,000 members of that church. At the time when I read this, I know this, the facts that I read was probably written about 20 years ago. So I don't know where it sat right here, 2026. But at the time of the writing of the study I did, the Nestorian church continued on 80,000 members in, and that's in the Middle East. In India, it was 5,000 members. And in America, 25,000 members of the Nestorian church. Then in 451, there was another council of Shausodon, and it was there where 400 bishops got together, and they indicted Dioscorius or Duscorus, the patriarch of Alexandria. So now you have 400 bishops going against an archbishop. So let's back up here, the different councils. We have the council of Nicaea, and they were talking about if Christ is fully divine or not. Then in 381 AD, you have Constantinople, and you have the council where is Christ fully human,

or is he fully God? And they debated that. And then you go to 431 AD, and they're saying, well, Christ is a unified person. He is fully God and fully man. In 451 it continued. Christ is human, and he's divine, and he is one. So you had to have these different councils because they needed this stuff written down, I guess, through these councils, some in the Church of the East did not agree with these things. After that council and Ephesus 431, a third heresy arose. Eurek is the spiritual leader of a monastery near Constantinople defended the one nature in Christ, monophysitism. So what he did, he combined the two natures so intimately that the human nature appeared completely absorbed by the divine one, just as a drop of honey which falls into the sea dissolves in it. So again, they had their certain ways of teaching of Jesus that he was so divine that he was no longer human. But that's an issue and that's a problem, you know, and so just, you know, again, I'm touching upon these because each of these are actually whole studies unto themselves. I'm here to give an overview of church history. There's no way if we would stop and talk about each one of these, this would take years to go through. So consider this church history and overview of church history. You could always go back and do your own study to get a little beeper into them, you know, but this way of thinking, this church broke away. This church broke away from Eastern Orthodoxy. And that's what we call the Coptic Church in Egypt and Ethiopia, they're called Jacob, Jacobites in Syria, you know, so it, it doesn't stop. A lot of times, most people think that the reformation or Protestants, that's when the church split weighed, you know, 500 years ago with Martin Luther. And that as if as if the church was all united under the Roman Catholic Church and in Protestants came and now we have, you know, Baptist and Pentecost and all this stuff, there was breakaways way before this. And a lot of people that don't do their due diligence, they actually think that the church split with Martin Luther. But there was, so right now we're talking about splits even in the, in from Rome to Constantinople. And then even within Constantinople, which is, which would later become the Eastern Orthodox Church, even within them, they started breakups starting to happen, this being one of the examples right here, you know, so this is something that we need to know and understand. And and for us to just, I guess realize that there have been splits and separations from the beginning. I don't know what to do with that information, but I will say this for myself.

When I first got saved, I was raised in a, in a Pentecostal home, my uncle was a Pentecostal pastor, my other uncle was a Pentecostal worship leader. And one of my other uncles was more of a Baptist preacher. And I was raised a certain way of Christian, I was raised to see a certain way of Christianity. But when I started to read the Bible, I started to see things that not were not that they were different, but I noticed that Christianity in my house, my family's house, I didn't see a lot of the things they followed in the Bible. So I started to question it. And, and then I started to study a little bit about Catholics, a little bit about Baptists, a little bit about Lutherans, a little bit about Presbyterian Methodist, and you name it. And there was a moment of confusion, to be honest with you. And I remember being in prayer. And I was incarcerated at the time, I'd give my life to the Lord in solitary confinement. And I had a Bible in front of me and I said, Lord, I don't want to learn who you are through a filter of a denomination, because from my understanding, Pentecostal started early 1900s. I don't want to learn who you are through the filter of a group that started 100 years ago, or the Baptist that started 150 years ago, or any filter of any denomination. So Lord, I want to know who you are and I want to follow you according to who you are without the filter of a denomination. And the Lord showed me that in the book of Acts, in the book of Ephesus was the original Apostolic Church. before the divisions. And all my Christian life, even up to now, my goal has been that. You know, so I just wanna share with you these things for this class, things for you to ponder about and things for you to think about, that we ultimately want to follow Christ as close to the original as we can, even though we don't speak Greek, even though we don't speak Hebrew, even though we aren't Jewish, even though with the word of God,

we can get to the core of what following Jesus truly is before it became what it is that we are learning up to this point. So thank you so much. I look forward to the next lesson. God bless you, and I hope you enjoyed this. (gentle music) We are now in part 12 of Church History. I like to title this one, "Exiles from Life." Exiles from life. There's a word that I'll be using quite a bit in this, which is ascetics, which in simplified terms means a monk. You know, I myself, I remember hearing about monks and or hermits, and I never quite understood where they fit in, where they came from. I had no idea, and so I think many of you maybe have thought the same thing, so you're gonna find this teaching very interesting here in Church History. But ascetics is basically someone who self-disciplines themselves in fasting, they deny physical comforts, they're in complete self-denial ascetics. And eventually that meant a monk. So this is at a time when we started to see this happening, and I think it deserves a whole chapter to talk about it, because I think it comes into play later on of our understanding of why people do what they do, and it'll just bring some clarity. So when we hear that a monk would be self-discipline, always fasting, always working, always studying,

denying his own physical comforts, literally wearing clothes that made him uncomfortable all day long on purpose, I guess some of the key questions that we need to ask is how does this relate to the gospel? And I'm not saying it does or it doesn't. These are just questions we should ask as we study about the rise of these monks. How does this relate to the gospel? Second, is it a form of self-salvation? Is it a form of self-salvation? Third is, is it a works righteousness? Is it a works righteousness? And is it an atonement for sin based upon denial of self? So let me just break some of those things down, so we get a better understanding of what it is that I'm asking. Is what is the gospel? The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus tell us to do? Go and share the gospel and make disciples of all nations. So a monk that is self-discipline fasting, denying his own physical comforts and self-denial, how does that lifestyle relate to the gospel? Or the gospel message? Does it relate or does it not relate? And if it is that, then is it a form of self-salvation? In other words, in essence, are we saying then that what Jesus did on the cross is not finished?

That there's more things we have to do in order to self-save ourselves. When Jesus says it is finished on the cross, was it not a complete salvation? Because these are questions we got to ask. Obviously, this is at a different time. We're looking back, so maybe their perspective of life was different. Maybe their perspective of things were different, but looking back is being a monkey form of self. to be in right standing. So was being a monk a way of works, a way of working toward being in right standing with God. And again, it goes back to the same thing. So if it's a works righteousness, does that mean that what Jesus did on the cross was not complete? Was there more things to do in order for our righteousness, in order for us to be found righteousness? Did was it imperative that we fast and deny ourselves or deny our physical comforts and self denial of self? Was that Christianity? And lastly, the last question was, is it an atonement for sin based upon denial of self? Am I, am I being a monk because I want a tone for my sin? Is it a way to punish myself for being born in a sinful nature, staying with sin, infected with sin? You know, we can see why many believe that a monastery life, a monk life, a hermit, we can see maybe where they got it from. Number one is, is it from the apostolic age? When the church was early, we see John the Baptist. Perfect example. He lived and wore camel's hair. He ate locusts and honey. He was out in the wilderness. So was that a an example for the monks to see that say, well, look at John the Baptist, look how he lives. So I need to live in the same way. We also know Jesus told the rich man to sell everything he had because we know that this is what the monks did. They sold everything they had. So were they getting these cues by seeing John the Baptist and then they saw Jesus telling the rich person without understanding the context of it, just reading it, saying, well, maybe this is what he wants. And then later on in pause letters, we see that he argued that the flesh lust against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. So, so we have to allow the spirit to win over the flesh. So we're going to deny our flesh. You know,

so maybe it's a mixture of these things that led to a few hundred years later. So we start seeing these monks begin to live a certain lifestyle. So in 140 AD, I know I'm backtracking because we're now in church history talking about an 4th century, but in 140 AD, there was a written document named the shepherd of hermas. And the shepherd of hermas, he offered advice for those that wanted to do more than what is required for the ordinary Christian. So this is the document that we still have today that we have and he offered advice for those that wanted to do more. You're serving the Lord, you're serving Jesus, you gave your life to the Lord, you surrendered, you're living a Christian life, but if you want to do more. So this shepherd of hermas offered this advice and one of the things was to renounce marriage, to renounce sexual relationship, to renounce that. So when people would read this, many people started following after it, even though the Bible never says that. They started to renounce marriage and renounce physical comforts and they were in self-denial of anything they're flesh wanted. And it was almost seen as if it was a way of penance. Penance is it encourages acts as a means to remove sin. So it's almost as if like, you know what, I'm going to make it real simple. I like chocolate. So all of a sudden, it's my body that wants chocolate, so I have to fight against my body. So I'm going to make a vow to never eat chocolate the rest of my life because I want to remove that sin from my life. And so they looked at that, maybe not at chocolate, but at other things in life, whether it was the comforts of life or having a home or having a marriage, a family, a wife or whatever it may be. And they said, well, those are the things to satisfy my flesh. So I have to deny my flesh because I want to remove this sin away from me. And that's kind of the mindset of what started people living a monk lifestyle. And I think it's very fascinating and interesting. Before there was So we had these people that were hermits, they kind of lived by themselves, they isolated themselves and they stayed away from the cities and stayed away from the politics and but eventually that hermit began to be known as a monk. There was a man named Anthony and in church history now, many people look at him as the first monk. He was born in 250 AD. He sold everything he had and he took up his life of living in a tomb. He lived in a tomb, some place where you bury the dead because what better place to deny yourself of any pleasures of life than to live in a tomb. So this was who we historically look at as the first official monk and as he began to live in a

tomb and deny himself of any pleasures of life at all, his example created imitators. His example people started to see what he was doing and they wanted to go above and beyond a regular Christian life. So they followed after the same life that he lived. So it was a self-denial but I do want to say this as a footnote because again, we're reading this through the lens in 2026 or whatever year you're listening to this and sometimes it's dangerous to try to look at these monks in our worldview. So I want to give a little insight as to maybe these are the reasons why and I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's wrong but I'm just saying let's look at some context of what life was like at that time. So remember, Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire and by him bringing in Christianity, the result of it was a decline in Christian commitment. What do I mean by that? You would think if the Roman Empire was made officially Christian, you would think Christianity would rise. Oh, Christianity rose but I'm not talking about Christianity. I'm talking about the Christian commitment. Why is that? Because when Diocletian was killing Christians, nobody was going to follow Christ unless you were all in. But the moment Christianity became official, the moment Christianity became safe, you weren't going to get thrown to the lions. You weren't going to get beheaded. Matter of fact, to be a Christian, you could actually rise in political power and because of that, it's almost like it brought in a mixed multitude of half-converted pagans. Half-converted pagans that were becoming Christian because maybe the benefits, maybe the peace it brought, maybe the non persecution, for whatever reason. In the past, Christians would lay down their life for the truth. They were slaughtered. They were massacred for the truth. And now instead, these Christians that had mixed pagan thoughts slaughtered each other to secure the prizes of the church. And I don't really mean slaughter as in killing, but they were stepping over each other because there was something more to gain than Christ. There was power, authority, political power. And that wasn't a good thing to happen because it began to water down the church because maybe at that time, for those that wanted to follow Jesus, they couldn't live in a pagan world because they rejected it. But they may will go to the church and there was half-converted pagans. I'm sure there was some believers in it that had to because the Lord always has a remnant. But I imagine the majority because even Jesus says that the gate is wide for destruction. And somebody wants to go above and beyond serving the Lord. They said, "You know what? I don't even want a part of the church.

I don't want part of politics. I don't want a part of any of that. I'm just going to isolate myself and serve Jesus on my own. And so I'm not making an excuse for the hermit or the monk, but I'm just trying to shape us into that mindset that maybe just maybe because of what was happening in the church at that time, it seems like the hermit or the monk fled away from the world and the church at the same time. Wanted to completely get away from it all. And so they went to extremes as humans tend to do. We go to extremes. So there was a man named Simeon. He was a hermit in a cave. He lived in that cave for 30 years. And he wanted no contact with anybody. He had disciples or followers that would bring him food. He lived up high so nobody could visit him and they would send food up every single day for him. There's stories that once in a while people would come to see him, but he wouldn't even show his face. But once in a while, when I was a large crowd, he would stand up where they could see him and he would share a sermon with them, a message or the gospel. I'm not sure. I mean, obviously we weren't there. We don't have any recorded messages of what it is that he preached. But whatever it is that he said, converted thousands of people to follow Jesus.

So we can't say that it was all negative. Obviously this brought people to their knees for Jesus. But the fact that people were running to caves and isolation, it's one thing for us to say, "Okay, Christians are getting away from the world." But when we see people that were following Christ get away from the church, that should raise a red flag for us today. Because it seems like more in the last ten years or so, more and more people are leaving the church. And these monks, not necessarily that they didn't love God. Actually, they loved God with all their heart and they thought they were doing right by getting away from the world and living this monastic life or this isolated life out in the desert and caves. But I almost sense the frustration of, "I don't belong in the world and I don't even belong in the church." And I have seen a wave of this happening in our time, of people loving God, but don't like what they see in the church. So, I don't know, I think that raises a red flag. By 320 A.B., we see the first monastery pop up. So, these monks were isolated by themselves. There was no rhyme or reason, no communication, no umbrella, no set of rules to go by. And somebody came along and built the first monastery and said, "I'm going to build a place where monks can live together so we can work together." And that's where monastery started in 320 A.B.

By the late fifth century, which is in the 400 A.B.'s, we see that this lifestyle was now widespread. And we saw monasteries popping up everywhere. There was a man named Benedict from Nursia, which was 85 miles northeast of Rome. So, he was very close to one of the main capitals of Christianity. And he decided to live as a hermit in a lonely cave. This man named Benedict. He went in a lonely cave for three years, doing nothing but studying scripture and denying his own self. And over those three years, there was a monastery that asked him to be the abbot of their monastery. An abbot would be like the principal or the senior pastor, or in other words, he was like a fatherly spiritual leader of a monastic group. And they asked him to come and be their abbot. So, he agreed and he went. And he was his way of living a monk lifestyle was so strict that his own monks over which is 85 miles south east of Rome. Remember, so he started 85 miles north east of Rome, but then he was 85 miles south east of Rome. He founded what is to this day Europe's most famous monastery. And that monastery is still there today. It was tore down and rebuilt, especially at World War II, but it's called the Abbey of Monte Casino. And what he did was he kind of set a precedence for all other monasteries after that, which was prayer, work, study, and rest. Every day, prayer, work, study, and rest. Prayer, work, study, and rest. And what he did, what he established, the strict rule or this law or this rule, was eventually adopted by all other monasteries. One interesting note is that even though these monks individually took a vow of poverty, during this time, the monastery itself grew very, very rich because people would give toward their last down. I imagine a lot of times it's people that just wanted to help. I think people

knew that the monks, if they weren't given food, they weren't going to eat. If they weren't given, you know, material to build things, they weren't going to build anything. So people would give, maybe some would give out of guilt. Maybe some said, man, I can't, I don't have what it takes to be a monk, but you know what? I will give. So the monasteries grew extremely rich, but the monks themselves lived the life of poverty their whole lives. So I know this is a shorter lesson, but I think it's important. I didn't want to gloss over it. I wanted us to have an understanding of where the hermit and the monks and the monasteries came. Eventually, we know that even nuns came in to live a monastery. So it gives us an understanding of where this whole thing started from. It was a lot safer, especially for women. It was really hard for women to isolate themselves from the world. It was very dangerous, but now there was places, monasteries being built. We're not only the monks, but eventually nuns, and we'll talk about where they came about later on and later on chapter in part, but we start to see and understand where that started to form from. So thank you so much. God bless you, and hopefully you enjoyed this lesson. God bless. [Music] Amen, and God bless you. I'm really excited to be bringing part 13. I'm going to title this Rome Falls. This is church history, and it's been really interesting following it all the time from Jesus up to now, and just seeing how things progress, and I'm hoping my main prayer is this, is to give you an overview of church history. I understand that each time the church separates, each group has its own history, whether it's true or not, or based on facts, or best on bias, or whatever, but we have to respect the fact that each of these groups, so I say that to say this, as we go later on, as we go further and it breaks into groups that maybe we recognize more nowadays, Pentecostal, Baptist, whatever it may be, you know, you got to understand that I'm trying my hardest to give an overview of church history, because I understand that each group is going to have its own perspective on church history, and with that, you know, we have to keep that in mind, because if I try to say the church history of every single group, I don't think there's a lifetime long enough to be able to break each of those down, so consider this an overview, and I think Up to this point, we have seen that the power of the empire, of the Roman Empire and the Roman Emperor, but Rome didn't last forever. And it's interesting because we just celebrated 250 years of United States and we think that's a long time. But in actuality, we're only three or four people

away from the start of this nation. Think about that. Think about your age, your father, your grandfather, and your great grandfather. That's as far back as our nation goes back for the most part here in the United States. So for 620 years, that's almost three times the length of the longevity of United States now. For 620 years, Rome had not seen foreign invaders outside of its walls. And that's a huge feat. You know, but in 410, 400 years after Christ, a leader named Alarach, the Visigoth leader, which was a group of basically Germanic tribes, he had his armies around Rome. The people tried to beg. They tried to bargain. But finally, nothing was going to stop and they broke through and the city was plundered after 620 years. Nobody would have ever imagined this in prior decades before this. And they went temple by temple, palace by palace, devastating and causing ruin everywhere. What does this mean for the church? And that's what's interesting because this leader Alarach considered himself a Christian. And because of that, they plundered the entire city, brought the entire city to ruin, accept the churches, accept the churches. But this caused refugees to flee in all directions. This caused people from Rome to go everywhere. And the Christians of that time, especially from Rome, had some serious questions they needed answers. Why had Rome fallen if this is where the church is? And did the ruin of the Roman Empire mean that Christianity would collapse? And another serious question is, was this now the end of the world? I can imagine how that must have felt with an empire such as Rome. I mean, how would we feel if the United States collapsed and fell? I think we would have some of these same questions or other questions that are similar. But during the time of the fall of Rome, there was a bishop named Augustus, or Augustinus, Bishop of Hippo, I'm sorry if I butcher the name, but he was a bishop in Hippo, which is a seaport in North Africa. And he began to shed light and provide light about this situation. At that time, because he was in North Africa, the North African Christian community was very torn between the Catholic teaching and donutism or donutism. I'm not sure exactly how to say it. It was about 100 years old, this belief, this movement. And the donutism is a group that stood for a holy church. They believed in church discipline, and they resisted unworthy bishops. You got to remember by the time that this was happening in Rome, a lot of corruptness had come into the church, especially the Roman Catholic church, especially in Rome and outside of Rome, It's not just just Rome itself. I'm not picking up

unworthy bishops, bishops that are in it because of influence or political power or whatever other reason other than a calling from God. And the Donatists said that Catholics had surrendered all of these. They said that they had surrendered all because they had ordained immoral priests and immoral bishops. So Agisthenes, Bishop of Hippo, was right there where Rome was at and the Roman Catholic Church. And then you had the Donatists teaching from Africa saying, hey, you know, something's got to give. Things are not being done right. And Agisthenes or Agisthen rejected that belief. He rejected the belief of the Donatists saying that some people were being chosen and they were immoral and they were the they were immoral bishops and an immoral priests. And Agisthenes used the scripture Matthew chapter 13 24 to 30 talking about the wheat and the tears. So his thing was, listen, it is not our job to judge. There's going to be wheat and there's going to be tears. It's up to God to separate them at the end. And this is what he held on to. Again, we go into biblical context. Is that talking about the world? Is that talking about those in the world? Are tears and those in Christ or wheat? Or is it like the Donatists were saying, I'm sorry, Agisthen was saying, no, that's within the church that God's going to choose the wheat and the tears. But he had an issue with that type of belief and he had a lot of influence. And because of that, he defended the Roman Catholic Church and he supported the use. Now, listen to me, because things can go really dark when you begin to support the force of any belief, any church belief or anything. And he supported the use of force by suppressing any rivals against the Roman Catholic Church. So he supported and he used Luke 1423 to compel them. Let me read that to you. And it says this in a word to Jesus. And the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled. He used that scripture to support to suppress any rivals against the church. And even if it meant using force, he used that word compel and said that means we need to force the church on the people. And whether he meant that to the extreme or not, we can't deny the fact as we read later on in church history, that Agisthen's belief in this, because he was so well respected during this time, that they used his words that we need to compel, that we need to force. And they use his words to justify the horrible acts of the inquisitions of the Roman Catholic Church, that it was going against anyone that would oppose the church in Rome. And as you'll learn later on, horrible, horrible acts and many people were killed because they refused to submit to the

Roman Catholic Church. Another controversy that was happening was the Pelagian debate. And this was also during the time of Rome falling. Pelagius was a British monk. He had come to North Africa. And he had a disciple named Colestias and Agosthen attacked his teachings also. And because the monk denied that human sin was inherited from Adam. So he would say this person but there was no direct connection from Adam to us. In other words, that when Adam fell at the fall, that sin didn't infect mankind all the way to up to this point. So this teacher Koelestius was saying that they're, that Adam just gave an example of sin, but we were not infected with sin. And obviously, Augustine went against that. So Pelagius found no need for, in other words, then there was no enabling power of the Holy Spirit. So in other words, if man was not infected with sin, then that was, there was no need for the power of the Holy Spirit to enable man to reconnect with God. So we can clearly see that's an issue and a problem. You know, so that was a huge debate also of, and I know for most of us now, we, we believe and stand in the fact that Adam fell and because of Adam, according to the Scripture, we were all infected with sin, whether you sin like Adam or not. And because of that, we need a Savior. Because of that, we need the washing of the blood of Jesus Christ. We understand that, but this was an issue at that time. We understand that we are saved by grace, that man cannot save himself. We cannot save ourselves. But these are the kinds of things and debates that were happening at that time. Augustine put that teaching, which is biblical and he bound it. But here's the problem that Augustine, I know I keep saying his name differently because I don't actually know how to how his name is properly pronounced, Augustine or Augustine, which he said, no, all man is infected with sin, which is correct. That's what the Bible says, but look what he did. He took that truth and he bound it together with saying that man can't be saved unless you were a member of the Roman Catholic Church. So he put a truth and a non-truth into one. So he said, no, this man is wrong. Adam is not just giving us an example of sin that we follow. No, we are infected by sin. And because of that, we're saved by grace. We're saved by the power of the Holy Spirit that comes upon us. And he added to be members of the Roman Catholic Church. So this is a dangerous teaching depending on what side of history you're on. Because in essence, what he is saying then is that you cannot be saved unless you are a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Augustine was 56 years old when Rome fell. And he wrote a book that is very popular to this day called The City of God. And you know, this is an important lesson for us because

even though this is a short chapter or part, it's important because we need to start seeing the direction that the church is going or the church is because we can see that Rome is taking a prominent seat. And when you have Rome falling, the nation falling, and everybody is looking for a leader. And Augustine stands up and begins to bring correction or these things like that. We can understand how little tiny things can become big things in the future. So I pray that this blesses you. I pray that you learned something from this and that you start to think and understand and maybe where the church was right and maybe where the church was wrong because this affects us today. Thank you so much. God bless you. And we'll see you on the next part. [MUSIC PLAYING]