Christ Un-barred - CHURCH HISTORY SPECIAL W/BIBLE STUDY

This is Church History with Pastor David Rocha. This is part one, and I believe that you're going to learn a lot, not only about Christianity itself, but the history of Christianity. And when you understand the history of Christianity, it helps us understand ourselves. It helps us to understand why we worship the way we worship. Why do we attend service on Sunday? Why do we listen to a sermon? Why do we do the things that we do as a church? And I believe that by learning church history, it brings us to a place of understanding why the church does what it does, and also it helps you understand different denominations and why they stand where they stand, and what are the differences, and what are the similarities. So we're going to go ahead and start at the very, very beginning. Before we go into church history, we got to first start, we're a little bit before the time of Jesus. In the time of Jesus, there was factions that were already split apart and in factions by the time Jesus came. And we know that and we see that. For instance, there was the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the Essenes. Each of these four groups are important to understand what was happening at the time of Jesus and why. So way before, many decades, many years before Jesus came onto the scene, we have to understand that Israel was a great nation at one time with King David and King Solomon. And after King Solomon rose many kings and many of them were ungodly. And because of that, we see many prophets rise up and God told these prophets to warn those kings to come back to the Lord. But the kings refused and instead they brought false gods from neighboring countries. They married wives that were from other countries who brought their religion into Israel. And because of that, God gave a warning, prophet after prophet, that God was going to take away the kingdom. So all of this came into fruition when we see that there was the Assyrians who came

and basically first conquered Northern Israel. Because by that time, Israel was divided into two, which is Israel, Northern Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and Judah. And then after the Assyrians, then the Babylonians. And after them, the Persians and the Medes. And after them, the Greeks. And after them, the Roman Empire. So empire after empire had oppressed Israel. Because Israel was disobedient, the kings were disobedient. And because of that, the nation of Israel would no longer be in the same glory it was when King David was reigning. So this helps us to understand that you've got to put ourselves in a perspective that at the time of Jesus, the average Jew was very frustrated because they knew the promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. They knew the promises to Moses of a land of milk and honey. They remembered the great battles of King David. And now they were oppressed by empire after empire after empire. So in the time of Jesus, there was a lot of friction. There was a lot of problems that the people of Israel were starting to split into different factions with different frame of thought. For instance, the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a religious group that separated themselves from the sinners, who they considered sinners, who they considered unholy, who they considered unclean. And the Pharisees studied the word and they lived by the word. They were very religious to the point to where if they were walking down a street and there was sinners, they would cross the street to not even walk near them. They believed that Israel needed to come back to the Scriptures and this was their faction, this was their group. They had teachers and scribes and everyone knew who the Pharisees were because they let it be known.

Then you had another faction, the Sadducees. A lot of times in the Gospels the Pharisees and Sadducees are mentioned many times within the same verse or the same sentence, but the Sadducees and the Pharisees did not get along. The Sadducees were very political. They were very influential. They were the rich. As a matter of fact, they were so involved in politics that many of them rubbed shoulders with the Romans. So in other words, they had more access to a better life than the Pharisee because of their money or their influence. So the Sadducees also were very political. So they almost, I don't know if they liked the Roman oppressing them, but they learned to live with it and utilize and maneuver within that with influence. So those are two factions, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The third group are the Zealots. These guys were rebels. These guys refused to live under Roman law. These guys would start skirmishes, almost like guerrilla warfare. You can almost say they were what we today would call terrorists. They felt that they had a right to their belief and that the Roman Empire had to be done away with and so they would cause issues and problems. They felt, we need to pick up weapons and fight against Rome. Well, clearly you can see the Sadducees didn't like that because that would kind of ruin what the Sadducees had going. The Pharisees didn't agree with that because the Pharisees said, we need to come back to the scriptures. So all three of these groups had their own idea of the coming Messiah because that was the final hope. They knew that the Messiah was coming. They knew that he would come, but each of them thought the Messiah was going to be a

certain way. The Pharisees believed the Messiah was coming, but he would be a certain way. The Sadducees believed that the Messiah was coming, but in a certain way that fit their life, that surely he would be influential. Surely the Messiah would be powerful like they were. The Pharisees believed the Messiah would come and bring it back to the scriptures and separate himself. And the Zealots said, no, no, no, you guys are all wrong. The Messiah is going to come like King David and be a great warrior. He's going to be like Joshua, he's going to be like Caleb. So each of them had their own idea of who the Messiah was going to be. And then you had another group, the Essenes. The Essenes didn't want nothing to do with the religious showing, walking like the Pharisees did in the streets, let everybody know who they were. They didn't want political ties like the Sadducees. They did not come from money or influence. They did not believe in violence. So they didn't agree with the Zealots. So the Essenes isolated themselves completely away from everyone. They lived out of the cities, out of the towns, they lived in caves, they lived out in the middle of nowhere, and they were going to worship God and not bother nobody and let nobody bother them. And I'm sure they had a belief of how the Messiah was going to be. Each of them waiting for the Messiah, but each one had their own idea. And if we want to add a fifth group, we can add the Levites. These were the actual priests and high priests of Israel, the original tribe who were the ones that were ministers in the tabernacle and in the temple of the Lord. And in a sense, they were controlling everything that had to do with Judaism. And they abided by the law, and they followed after the law, and they added more to the law, actually.

So you had the Levites now. And I'm sure they believed that the Messiah would surely come from the priestly Levites. So we see five different factions, each thinking that the Messiah was going to be who they pictured the Messiah to be. Then along came John the Baptist. John the Baptist, as we know, was, his father was a priest, so he was a Levite. And he grew up and began to preach repentance. And began to baptize people for the remission of their sins. The Pharisees didn't like him because he wasn't one of them. The Sadducees didn't like him because he wasn't a noble, he wasn't influential. The Zealots didn't like him because he wouldn't pick up a weapon to fight. I'm not sure what the Essenes thought of him because they were so isolated, we'd have no idea what they thought about John the Baptist. And the religious leaders, the Levites, most likely disagreed with him because who was he? Yes, his father was a Levite, but why was he out in the middle of the Jordan River baptizing people instead of coming under the order of the temple? And John the Baptist began to preach and teach that the Messiah was coming and they asked John, are you that Messiah? And he says, no, I'm not even worthy to unloosen his sandals. He says, I baptize you with water, but he who comes after me will baptize you with the fire and the Holy Spirit. So John the Baptist was key because right after John, we see Jesus step into the scene. See this is what's so important about church history is to understand all of these things were brewing, Israel was brewing, the oppression was heavy from Rome, the Pharisees were doing their thing, the Sadducees were doing their thing, the Zealots were doing their thing, the Essenes were doing their thing, and the Levites were doing their thing. And in the midst of this, you had this John the Baptist kind of shaking the waters. And Jesus steps on the scene and he begins to preach about the kingdom of God. He came with a message and many times that message did not coincide with the groups.

He challenged the Pharisees because they had followed religion so much that they missed the point. The Sadducees didn't like him because Jesus was an average person. He wasn't political, he wasn't influential in the way that they wanted. The Zealots, well, why would Jesus not pick up a weapon and fight? Surely he can't be the Messiah. He's not a King David, he's not a great warrior. The Essenes are saying, well, why are you out in the middle of these cities? You should hide out in the caves with us. Surely you're not the Messiah. And the Levites were saying, wait a second, you're not even a Levite. Who do you think you are? There's no way you could be the Messiah. So it seemed that Jesus rubbed all of these groups in the wrong way because he did not fit who they believed the Messiah should be like. His message and actions were a direct threat to the Sadducees and to the political privileges. They created unusual alliances with the Pharisees because remember, Sadducees and Pharisees didn't get along, but they had a common enemy now, which was Jesus. So that's why many times you see them in the same sentence, in the same scripture, because it's almost like they ganged up on Jesus, even though they didn't agree with each other. And many of them really, really followed after the Sabbath in a way where it wasn't what God intended. So they would say things like Jesus violated the Sabbath and the laws and the law. So for the first time, regular people, not just the average sinner, but tax collectors, prostitutes, drunkards, all types of different people, regular people that didn't fit in the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, the Essenes, the Levites. When Jesus would preach, he actually gave the regular person hope. He gave them an opportunity to be forgiven. the sick could be forgiven. See you got to understand that many of these religious groups when somebody was blind or somebody was deaf or somebody was

paralyzed they would assume that they must have sinned or the sins of their father and that's why they're sick and so therefore they were unclean they were no good. But Jesus was flipping what they thought was reality and because of that after three and a half years of ministry Jesus had built so many enemies especially with the Sadducees the Pharisees and the Levites that they plotted his death and ultimately paid Judas to betray Jesus and Jesus was arrested, he was accused, he was whipped, and finally he was crucified. But we know that after three days he rose from the dead. After he rose from the dead he ministered and on the day of Pentecost, the day of Pentecost was actually a Jewish holiday, and on the day of Pentecost which is day 50 the Spirit of God came upon the men and women in the upper room with tongues of fire and they began to speak in tongues and prophesy. It's exactly what Jesus told them he says stay in Jerusalem until the Comforter comes and you will receive power and when you receive that power you will make disciples and share the gospel in Jerusalem, Samaria, and Israel and to all the four corners of the world. And because he rose again the church began or the church age began there was no church until he established it matter of fact with the Apostles with the disciples and Peter he took them to Caesarea Philippi and it was a a rock and a cave where the spring came out of and out of that spring was the Jordan River and there was many gods that were carved into that wall and it was there where Jesus says on this rock right here I would build my church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it and this chart this started the church age without it without his rising again there would be no salvation there would be no gospel and there would be no church and matter of fact on the day of Pentecost 3,000 people surrendered their life to Jesus and it created a Christian foundation the death the burial and the resurrection equals the Holy Spirit and for the first 40 years the church spread that concludes part one of church history I pray that you're going to continue to watch this and learn because we're going to continue all the way until the present time and there's a lot to learn so thank you and God bless you

we are now on part two of church history with myself pastor David Rocha and this is the part of church history that I think a lot of people don't know and to me in my opinion this is where it gets very interesting because it answers some of the questions that the church has today that maybe it's a question you've asked or maybe it's a question that you don't realize is actually there but will help fill in some of the blanks so after part one we saw the part where between the different factions in the time of Jesus. And most people, for the most part, know this. They know about the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the high priest, and these are things that most people that are readers of the Bible know about. But what happened after the death, burial, and resurrection, this is where it starts to fill in a lot of the gaps. So the first 40 years of the church is really where the church really spread out, outside of Jerusalem, outside of Israel. So these first 40 years are very crucial to understand how the spreading of Christianity began. But before we go into how it spread, I wanna talk about the very first Christian community after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, because this is important. The very first community was Jewish. And I think for the most part, we know that, we hear that. We inherently understand that. But do we really truly grasp that, because of the way Israel is now, with the way a lot of the Jewish people are now toward Christianity, it can be somewhat confusing as to why is it that the first church

or the first community of Christians were Jewish? How does that, why does that not match today? And I think this is gonna help answer some of those questions. You gotta remember that the first Christians were Jewish and they were devoutly Jewish. They followed the Torah, they followed the Bible, which what we know as the laws of Moses, the Old Testament, and they still remained very loyal. Even though they followed Jesus, they stayed very loyal to the Jewish laws, very loyal to the synagogues, the local synagogues, which were, a synagogue was a, more than a church of a community, it was the social center of a town, and that's where the teachers were. So they were very loyal, they continued to attend, and they were very loyal to the temple in Jerusalem. So even though they were followers of Jesus, they still followed Judaism. And because of that, it started to grow and grow and grow, and it wasn't an issue, it wasn't an issue yet. So after a while, we noticed in the Bible that they were not called Christians, they were called those of the way. People that followed Jesus were called those of the way because Jesus would say, I am the way, the truth, and the life. They didn't have a denominational name. They didn't have the name Christian or Bible-believing,

you know, Christians or anything like that. So they were called of the way. And when they would gather together, they use an interesting word, is ekklesia. That meant the church, which literally means a gathering of people. So when we use the word church today, we're actually using a word that's derived from the word ekklesia, which basically meant a gathering of people. That's all that word meant. And that's actually, that is the word Jesus said when he said in Caesarea Philippi, on this rock, I will build my ekklesia, I will build my church. So it was a gathering of the people. Now, even though Jesus was crucified and he was hated by the religious leaders of that time, they tolerated the Christians because it was the group of leaders of Judaism were called the Sanhedrin. I guess you can compare them to, in a religious way, maybe the Supreme Court. They were the head leaders, the Sanhedrin. They would meet together, they would make decisions together, and whatever the Sanhedrin said is the way it went within Israel, within Judaism. And the Sanhedrin tolerated those of the way because, in a sense, they had to

because they couldn't bring an accusation to them because even though they followed Jesus, they were still loyal to the laws, to the synagogue, to the temple. They were loyal Jews. Jews. And because of that, the Sanhedrin tolerated those of the way. Yet those that followed the way, even though they followed Judaism, there were two distinct things that they did separate from the people that were not following Jesus. One was water baptism and two was a Lord's Supper. As believers and followers of Jesus, these are the things that would separate them, baptism and communion. And this is where the problem begins though. Because even though there was Jews that were in Israel and they spoke the ancient language, you got to remember at that time, if you go to part one, I had mentioned about the different kingdoms or empires that ruled over Israel from the Assyrians to the Babylonians to the Persians to the Greeks, and then finally to the Romans. Well, when the Greeks came and not only conquered Israel but all the surrounding known world at that time, the Greeks created a culture that caused all the people they conquered to speak Greek and to adapt to a Greek way of thinking, a Greek way of talking. And because of that, many Jews that were dispersed outside of Israel started to speak Greek. So by the time Jesus came, was crucified and the church started, there were thousands of Jews that didn't live in Israel and didn't even speak the language. They spoke Greek. They were called Hellenists. Hellenistic Jews were Jews that even though they were of the same descendant of those of Israel, they lived the Greek lifestyle. And we see that here in America. There's many people from different nations, some are from South America, Central America, different parts of the world. But as we are here in America, we no longer speak the original language that our fathers or grandfathers or great grandfathers spoke. We don't dress the way they did. We're very Americanized. But yet our heritage, our culture is still from another foreign place. We have adapted to America. So in the same way, the Hellenistic Jews were Jewish by blood, but their customs and their way of talking was Greek. So they were called Hellenistic Jews and they spoke Greek. And as the Jews in Israel and the church started to spread, it began to spread to the Hellenistic Jews. So the first community was Jewish. The Sanhedrin had no issue with it.

But once it started spreading to Jews outside of Israel that were Hellenistic, that were, yes, by blood, they were Jewish, but not by the customs or the way they lived. And this is where the problem started because more and more began to follow after Jesus. And it got to the point where originally the original church was all traditional Jewish, but because there was more Jews that were Hellenistic than those Jews that were in Israel, by default, the weighing of traditional Jews to Hellenistic Jews became overwhelming. And the Hellenistic Jews did not completely adhere to the Jewish laws, the synagogues, the temple. They didn't have the same loyalty. So as you can tell, this became a problem now because those that followed Jesus were Hellenistic Jews. They began to outweigh the traditional Jews and this caused issues with the Sanhedrin. Now it became a problem. They use Greek. Matter of fact, they didn't even read the Old Testament the same as the traditional Jews. They had the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. So the Hellenistic Jews didn't even read Hebrew or Aramaic. They spoke Greek. So they had the Bible that at that time, which is the Old Testament today, called the Septuagint. You can still purchase this today and read it today and find one today. So we have this group of Jewish people that are in Greek culture and they were there growing. This is why we see in the book of Acts chapter 6, it says, Now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, A complaint by the Hellenists, so the Greek-speaking Jews, arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples, and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procurus, and Nicanor, and Temin, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, and a proselyte of Antioch. These they said before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

So we see here in Acts chapter 6 that the apostles were busy sharing Jesus, and the Hellenistic people, Jewish people, were having issues because there was a food distribution. They kind of would bring their food and share it that way. Everyone could have food distribution and whatnot, because a lot of people, once they became believers of Jesus, they were no longer, if they owned a business, nobody wanted to buy from them. If they had a job, they were no longer, they were fired. So they were having a lot of struggle because they followed Jesus. And because of this, they had a food distribution. But the Hellenistic Jews, the Greek-speaking Jews said, hey, we're not being treated fairly. There's widows of ours that are not being treated the same as the widows of the Hebrew people or traditional Jewish people. And that's where they said, you know what? Gather for yourselves seven men, Hellenistic Jews, that way they can deal with these issues. And so we see this and we read it in the Bible that this was already a problem. And because of that, they raised up seven Hellenistic deacons, and these were servants or ministers of God. So what started happening was in Jerusalem now, you got a mixture now. You have the Hebrew or original Israeli Jewish person that is there, but they're loyal to the temple. So the Sanhedrin couldn't really, they had their hands tied, they couldn't really say anything. But then you have the Hellenistic Jews, which were Christians. And the Sanhedrin began to persecute them, not the original Jewish Hebrew there, but the Hellenistic Jews. And they began to persecute them. And because of that, the original church and disciples, they were okay for the time being staying in Jerusalem, but any other Christian that was a Hellenistic Christian began to be persecuted. So they began to disperse.

They were not tolerated. They were forced to flee. They had to run to Samaria, they had to run to Syria. And guess what they did? They founded churches. So this is where we see the spreading of the gospel because not only were they forced out, but the Hellenistic Jews spoke the language of all the known Roman kingdom. So matter of fact, the fact that they wanted to stop this following of Jesus, they actually made it worse for themselves because now these Hellenistic Jews were going further and outer to other cities where there was more Jews that spoke Greek. And because of this, they founded churches in Damascus, in Antioch, in Tarsus, in Cyprus, in Egypt. And as these churches began to spring up, they would send delegates. The apostles in Jerusalem, Peter would go, John would go to Samaria. And we see this happening that once they would establish churches, people like John and Peter would go and establish them as churches. And because they were coming from Jerusalem, it brought a authority with it. So even we see in the book of Acts, Barnabas, for instance, he was a Jew from Cyprus. The Bible says that he traveled to Antioch and to Syria. Here's problem number two. The first problem was a fact of these Hellenistic Jews. Then not only were Jews being saved, not only were Hellenistic Jews being saved, but now because the Christians had spread, they began to share the gospel. with Gentiles. A Gentile is a non-Jewish person. You have to remember that to the original Jewish person, Gentiles were considered dogs. They were considered just the bottom of the barrel because they did not have the prophets. They did not have the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this became a huge issue. One of the cities that the Christian church was established at with not only Hellenistic Jews but with Gentiles was in Antioch. Now Antioch was a big deal. This was a major city. Matter of fact, Antioch was the administrative capital of the Roman providence of Syria. So this was important politically. This was

an important city influentially. And because of that, Christianity started there with Hellenistic Jews and Gentiles. They say that there could have been a population of 500,000 people there. It was the third largest city in the empire after, number one, Rome and number two, Alexandria in Egypt. The third largest city in the entire empire of Rome. And it was here in Antioch where those that followed the way, those that followed Jesus were called Christians. This was not a name given to them by themselves. This was actually a derogatory name toward those who believed in Jesus because by saying Christians in that language, they were saying little Christ and the church embraced that name. So it was in Antioch where the word Christian came from. And I think that's important because I think many Christians today would like to know why are we called Christians? Well, this was established in a city of Antioch because of persecution and that happened. So in the midst of all this happening, in the beginning of the church foundation, many of you know about the apostle Paul. He was actually a Pharisee. If you go back to part one, you remember what a Pharisee is. We talked about that in detail. Paul was not only a Pharisee, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was a direct student of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was a highly respected Pharisee. And Paul was through and through a Pharisee. And when he started what he believed was a heresy, what he believed was a blasphemy of Judaism was Christians. And because he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, he said he loved God and there was no way he was going to allow this weird faction of Jesus followers to even exist in his land. They were going to cause a cancer in Israel. So he went after the Christian. Paul, who was called Saul, had an encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. Matter of fact, he was on the road to Damascus to go and arrest these Christians so Christianity would not spread anymore. But he himself was encountered by Jesus. He got saved. He got baptized. He went away for three years in Arabia. And he says by his own admission that nobody taught him about Jesus, but Jesus himself. He spent time with Jesus. How that was, he never describes. Did Jesus appear to him? Was it in prayer? Was it revelation? We don't know. But this was a huge blow to those who wanted to stop Christianity because Paul was Jewish, a Pharisee. He was educated and well-schooled under Gamaliel. He was also a Roman citizen, had special rights because you got to remember that the Jews in Israel had no rights. They were an oppressed nation. But because Paul was a Roman citizen, he had the rights as a Roman. So in other words, he had more free

reign than any of the apostles could have ever had. Not only did he speak the language of the Jew, he spoke Greek. And because of that, and because there was basically nothing stopping him from spreading the gospel, God used him to establish. This is why most of the New Testament, much of it is written by the apostle Paul. And the apostle Paul felt this pull between Jew and Gentile. He was, in a sense, you could say a bridge and a pull between the law and grace. And some felt that his teachings were dangerous, that his teachings were too loose because he was sharing with them that we are saved by grace. In other words, not by works. And because of that, the Jew didn't like that because they believed in works, because they believed in the law. And even though the Jewish Christians followed Jesus, they couldn't quite let go of the law, in a sense. And the law was never done away with. As Christians now, we don't say the law was done away with. We say the law was fulfilled, that Jesus was the only one to ever fulfill the law completely. Because the law said that if you broke one law, you broke them all. So therefore, no man could have ever fulfilled the law, but Jesus came and fulfilled it. That's why we're saved through Christ, because he fulfills all things. So some felt that what Paul was teaching was too dangerous, too loose.

Others felt that it was too legalistic. So there's a pull between law and grace. And this was really causing an issue within the church. So now you have three, I guess, communities. You have the original Jewish Hebrew community in Israel. You have the Hellenistic Jew, and now you have Gentiles. So three groups, and this really caused an uproar in Israel, because in the beginning, when the Sanhedrin tolerated the Hebrew Jew, they didn't have any toleration for Gentiles coming to believe in Jesus, and that created a major, major problem. So Paul began to teach something interesting, because he understood that much of his audience weren't people that knew the laws of Moses, especially the Gentiles. So he had to explain the gospel to them in a way that they could understand and comprehend. So he began to preach to them using their beliefs, in a sense, to explain Jesus. For instance, they believed in immortality, and because of that, he would teach them about Jesus resurrected, because they understood that, they would understand that. He would talk to them about good and evil, because they understood in the pagan gods they believed in, in good and evil. So there was different things that Paul was able to explain in a way that the Gentile that was not brought up by the Bible would understand.

One of the cities that Paul established is the city of Corinth. That's why we have first Corinthians, second Corinthians. The Corinthian city was an interesting city because it was a huge port. Many ships and import and export would come from Rome itself, go to Corinth, and from Corinth spread out to the rest of the known Roman Empire, which is toward the Middle East, toward Africa and all that. So by Paul establishing the church in Corinth, it allowed the gospel to spread even further. He stayed in Corinth for one and a half years as he raised up believers, raised up teachers, raised up those who would lead the church there. And once he finished, then he went back to Antioch. Then he went to the city of Ephesus, which is in modern day Turkey. And he stayed there for two years and established a church and built leaders there. And once he would build them, he would send them out to start churches in other villages and towns and cities. And then he went back to Jerusalem. When Paul went back to Jerusalem, he was arrested and he was taken to Caesarea, which was a Roman capital of Judea. And he appealed to Rome. Paul wanted to get to Rome. He felt that the gospel had to be shared in Rome.

What was interesting that is one of the churches Paul did not establish was a church in Rome. So when we read the book of Romans, he's writing to a church that he never established himself. That is why the book of Romans is probably one of my favorite. Because someone asked me once, If only one book could survive in the entire Bible, what would it be? And I answered the book of Romans. And most were surprised. They thought I would say Genesis or the book of John. And I said, the reason why Romans is so important is because it is the only letter that Paul writes to the churches that he establishes Christianity as if he's presenting it for the first time. Why did he do that? Why was he so exhaustive in his breakdown of Christianity? Because it was a church he did not establish. That's why. So he was sent and arrested. And that's why many of his letters were written while he was arrested or on house arrest. Different things happen to other believers. For instance, James, the son of Zebedee, was killed in roughly 41 AD to 44 AD. So we're saying a little over a decade after Jesus, James, the son of Zebedee, was killed by King Herod Agrippa, one, the King of Palestine.

We know that James, the brother of Jesus, died around 62 AD, which was roughly 30 years after Christ. He was murdered by command by the Jewish high priest. In AD 64, the temple that was being built, if you recall the gospels, when Jesus was walking with the disciples and they were in wonder at the temple, it was still not complete. They were still building it. Well, that temple was completed in AD 64. Now, here's the thing. Thousands of people were employed. Israel is still oppressed by the Roman Empire. You have sections of people following Jesus. The Sanhedrin or the Jewish leaders are feeling the pressure because Rome would tolerate the Jew because they kept to themselves, but now there's Jews that are converting Romans to Christianity, and that became a friction point. And then on top of that, once the temple was complete in AD 64, many people were unemployed. Thousands had no work. And within two years of that, in 66 AD, the Jewish finally couldn't take it. And they revolted because at that point, the emperor of Rome wanted to have a daily sacrifice to himself in the temple. And the Jews who were sick and tired of the oppression,

the Jews who had no work and they were out of work, the Jews who were being overtaxed by the Romans, they finally revolted. And this was the last straw. They refused the daily sacrifice to the emperor in 66, and it began a war that lasted for four years against Rome. In AD 70, Emperor Vespasian and his forces led by Titus, who would later be the emperor, but at this time he was a Roman general and commander of the four legions. He besieged, captured and destroyed Jerusalem. He led the Roman armies into Jerusalem, destroyed the city, synagogues were burned down, and most by this time of the apostles were dead. And this ended the Apostolic Age. As we conclude part two, I want us to understand that the Apostolic Age was after the resurrection and ascension of Christ. And for those 40 years, as the church spread, and Paul and the apostles were doing all of these things, but by the end of this age, all the apostles were dead. Paul was beheaded in Jerusalem. And because of that, this ended the Apostolic Age as we know it today. I hope that this answers your questions, and I hope it's starting to put the puzzle pieces together for us to understand why the church functions as it functions today. Why there's so many denominations today? Why is there so many beliefs today?

And I think that by doing that, this church history, it's gonna give you a deeper, richer understanding of church history. And by knowing church history, it lets us know who we are today. God bless. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So we are now in church history part three. I feel like we're finally getting our stride here and we're getting into the deeper parts of church history and many of the church history things that the average person doesn't know about. And that's why I think this is so important for us to know and understand so we can better discern why church functions the way it does today, why we do the things we do, and how did that happen, and why is there so many differences and denominations. And we're gonna get into that

as we learn more church history. But this one is what I like to call the Catholic age. When I say the Catholic age, I know the first thing that comes to mind for many is the Catholic church, the Roman Catholic church as we know it. But I want to dive a little deeper to get a better understanding of what that means and what the word Catholic actually means before we go any further. Because if not, it can create misconceptions, it could create misinformation, and it leads us down a way that maybe we don't fully comprehend or understand. So the word Catholic is actually a Greek word that means a unity, a unifying, or a universal to be together. And there's a reason why that word was used. But one thing I wanna get straight before we dive into it is we have to make sure that, for instance, we don't take a word out of the Bible, name our church that, and then make the claim that, look, the Bible talked about our church or our denomination. And because I think that leads down misinformation and it leads down the wrong path. For instance, it would be as if the Baptist church would say, oh, we've been there from the beginning, look at John the Baptist. Or even Pentecostals to say, oh, we've been from the beginning

because look, the day of Pentecost, it's in the book of Acts. Can you imagine, let's say the centurion, that Jesus healed his servant. And then all of a sudden you decide to call your church the centurion church. And then you make the claim to say, we've always been around, look, even Jesus ministered to the centurion. And the reason I say that is because when we dive into the word Catholic, it's gonna give you a point of view that you have to take yourself out of it and look at it as a whole and make sure that what we're talking about when we say the Catholic age, we're not talking about the Catholic church as we know it today. The years I wanna talk about is after the fall, which ended in part two of church history. So we're talking about the Catholic age, which is from 70 AD or the end of the apostolic age where the apostles were alive, all the way to 312 AD. So that's a span that in this part three, we're gonna talk about a span of 242 years. That's a long time to put into part three, but this is the Catholic age that we're gonna talk about. And just to put it in perspective, 242 year span, United States this year in 2026 has just celebrated or about to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

The United States has been around for 250 years. The span we're talking about is 242 years. So that's a long time to cover in this. So to be honest with you, it is not an exhaustive into the Catholic age, which could probably itself be its own course, but it's an overview of this age. So in the Catholic age, Christianity expanded tremendously. Christianity exploded geographically on the map and socially with all types of people. It was a time of explosion of the Christian church. It was an important age for the church. And this is what gave us a Catholic Christianity, a unifying Christianity, a universal Christianity because that's essentially what the word Catholic means. This age laid plans for the longevity of the church and the vision as one body going forward. The reason we have the Christian church today is a huge part because of what happened during the foundation of this age. So in essence, we can say that the plans of Jesus plus the efforts of Paul expanding and pushing it out created this universal Catholic church. There was bishops that started to rise up. Bishops to simplify it, they are leaders or pastors of pastors because churches began to spring up everywhere. So there was clusters of churches and there was a bishop over those churches. There was a cluster of churches and there was a bishop. So this was really important also. So we went from part one to Jesus through all of the things of Christianity, all the persecution, and the end of this age ends with a Christian emperor in Rome. That is a huge deal to happen between these 242 years of what we call the Catholic age. The word Catholic is actually a Greek word. It was pronounced Catholicos. I mean, it sounds very Spanish and the Spanish language is called Catholicos. So it almost sounds like that because it's Catholicos. And what was happening was during this time, there was a lot of heresy going on. There was a lot of false teachers going around. There was a lot of agnostic

teachings of things that were not biblical. And so in order to keep that from seeping into the churches and seeping into the believers of Christ, the bishops or the pastors of pastors would get together. And because they were together, they were unified. They were one church. They were one universal church. That's where they use the word Catholic. So a matter of fact, the word Catholic was first used in a letter, matter of fact, from a bishop Ignatius. Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch. If you remember in part two, we talked about the importance of Antioch. It was in Antioch where believers were first called Christians. And Bishop Ignatius used the word Catholic in 110 AB. So we're talking 40 years after the fall of Jerusalem, after the destroying of the temple, he wrote a letter to those in Smyrna and he used in this letter, this word Catholicos Ecclesia or Ecclesia meaning a universal church, Ecclesia or Ecclesia or Ecclesia, however you want to pronounce it. It means a group of people. So he used this letter saying that we are the universal Ecclesia. We are the church that needs to stay unified, especially to prevent these false teaching and heresies and heretical teaching from coming into the body. He said that all Christians should be in one body. And by the reign of Emperor Constantine, he reigned from 312 to 337, there was churches in every large city in the empire. Think about that. So in this Catholic age of 242 years after the fall of Rome, by the time this age ended, there was churches even as far as Britain, Carthage, which is in North Africa and Persia, which is modern day Iran. That is far. I mean, think about that. If you look on a map from Britain all the way to Iran, South all the way to North Africa, there was churches in every major city. So how did this happen? And how could it be possible? Well, we talked about the fall in AD. Paul says in Romans 1.16, not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." So once Israel and Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Emperor and the armies of Rome, it no longer could be headquarters for the Christian faith, and by default it moved to Antioch. Antioch is in Syria. We just talked about Ignatius being one of the bishops there later on. And a third city that was sort of related to Antioch was actually in Edessa, Greece. So this is the shifting of, I guess, what you would say the central hub of Christianity, the authority of the leaders of the church at that time. Rome was not even on the map. Rome was not even a big player in this. Rome was not...

There was Christians there, we know that because Paul wrote the letter to the Roman church, but it was not in any place of authority. We had Jerusalem first, then Antioch, and then Edessa, Greek. Matter of fact, they say that as far as east, because we mentioned that up north, we see it traveled all the way to Britain. South, it traveled to North Africa. To the east, for the most part, it stopped at Iran. But many believe in India that it is possible that the apostle Thomas, doubting Thomas, reached all the way to India. Even to this day, there's a section in India where there have been Christians there for almost 2,000 years. Many of the boys are named Thomas after the apostle Thomas. So this was in an area there in India. But what we're going to do is we're going to stay more centralized between Persia, Britain, and North Africa. As far as moving west from Israel, we see Ephesus, which is in modern-day Turkey, also Bithynia. We see there's a person named Pliny, Pliny the Younger. He wrote to the Emperor Trajan. He started to see that the pagan shrines were being deserted. So many people were turning to Christ that he wrote the Emperor Trajan worried about the spread of Christians. And this happened roughly in 110 to 112 AD. Rome at this time was not a huge player, but there was, by the time 250 AD came, you had about 30,000 Christians there. The reason there was not much influence, though, in the Roman church was because those Christians in Rome were very poor. They spoke Greek, which was the common language of the slaves, the poor, the soldiers, because the upper classes, the more political, the more influential people of Rome spoke Latin. So we see a difference here. So even though Rome was a growing church, it was with the poor slaves and soldiers, widows, but we can't take away the fact that Rome was the capital of the emperor. It was the capital of the empire. And because of that, by default, the church began to grow influence. In the same way as today, if a church is in Washington DC, if a church is in New York or Los Angeles or Dallas or Houston or Chicago, it will tend to have more of an influence than an obscure church in an obscure place or in a small town. In the same way, because Rome was the capital of the empire, it began to build influence. But I want to make this very clear. And many times we don't ask ourselves this or realize that never in the Bible, anywhere in the Bible, did God ever give Rome authority or influence over all the other churches. I want you to keep that in mind because this is important as we go through church history because... never does God say, Rome will lead the church.

So beyond Rome, if we go north and west from Rome, the gospel spread, but the progress was very slow. So we can see that in certain areas of the empire of Rome, Christianity was like a wildfire, but there was other areas that it was slower. One place it did reach was in what is called France now, but at that time it wasn't France, it was called Gaul, 150 AD, and the church actually existed in the city of Lyons. So that it would be modern day France. And by the end of the 290s, reaching toward the end of this Catholic era or Catholic age, there was bishops and churches in Spain. By 314, there was a council in South France, and actually it's recorded that three bishops came all the way from Britain. So that gives us clues that even though there was Christianity growing slowly, we see that there was some type of church, some type of communication and leadership all the way as far as Spain, France, modern day France now, and Britain. Now let's move down to North Africa. In North Africa, the church grew powerfully in the city of Carthage. This is interesting, I find it interesting, because even though the city was in North Africa, the church didn't take off with the North Africans. It was actually a section or a community of Romanized people.

And these Romanized people were of the upper class. They spoke Latin. So in Carthage, the rich, the influential, the Romanized, they came into Christianity, but they were of the upper class, which unfortunately didn't mix well with the poor people of that area. But we can say, historically speaking, that this was the first Latin church. All the other churches before that were Greek churches. They spoke the common language of the common people. So in Carthage, the churches that spread were led by bishops. Again, they were very Romanized. They spoke Latin. They were upper class. And this caused problems with the Greek speaking people. Aside from Carthage, if we move down the coast of North Africa, we get to the city of Alexandria. Alexandria was a major, major city in Egypt. It was founded in 332 before Christ. So 332 years before Christ, it was founded by Alexander the Great. That's why it's named Alexandria. And the church in Alexandria began to also grow in influence. So as we see an overview of many of the churches spreading out, bishops rising up,

certain bishops having more influence over others because of maybe the city was a major city or a major port, we start to see this uneven strength. They were called the Catholic Church, meaning universal, united one, but we start to see that some churches had more influence than other churches. And we see this in Syria, which is Asia Minor. We see it in North Africa. We see it in Egypt, a little bit in Rome, and in which is modern day France in the city of Lyon. There was a huge social impact. And again, Christianity began to spread even further. The Catholic vision of the church to be universal, to be one, to be together, of the early Christians, it was very evident in the way it expanded by its growth geographically and socially. For instance, in the first three centuries after Christ, the majority of believers throughout the empire were simple people, humble people, slaves, women, traders, and soldiers. It got to the point where there was a critic of Christianity. Christianity, named Celsus, and he said that the Christian couldn't reach anyone that had any culture, wisdom, or judgment. He basically said that the aim of the Christian leaders was to aim to convince the worthless, the idiots, the slaves, the poor women, and the

children. This is what Celsus, the critic, said. Well, it was kind of true. Christianity did not neglect the poor, did not neglect the despised. This is true. But after 200 years into the Catholic age, many of the smartest people, brightest people, were becoming followers of Jesus. It's interesting because it reminds me of a music genre in my generation, which was rap music. And I'm going to use this as an illustration. Rap music was from the streets. In the very beginning, there was no record labels, no major money. Nationwide album deals had nothing to do with rap music. These were guys that were just rapping and rhyming on the street corners with their friends. But all of a sudden, it caught the attention of record company executives. And they said, we could do something with this. We could expand this. And so what happened slowly is what was purely something that was for the poor, the despised, it turned into something else. And now rap was able to be heard by the average American anywhere in all walks of life, in all cities. And so what happened is it cultivated it to almost become a clone of itself. And it's a catch-22 because if the record companies had never did this, rap music would have never been exposed to the masses. But unfortunately, by the time it got to the masses, it was no longer what it once was in the beginning. I use that same example. What helped Christianity grow, aside from the soldier, the slave, the widow, and the poor, was many of the upper class, more educated, Latin-speaking leaders. And it helped spread Christianity. But unfortunately, we start to see cracks and we start to see it become something, almost a clone of itself in history. We always got to keep in mind though, that God has always said that he will always have a remnant. A remnant meaning there's always going to be a group. There's always going to be those that will be unchanging, those that will follow Christ, those that will not be moved by culture and politics and whatever else was happening in that time. So we have to keep that in mind. So in the midst of all this, we start to see many false teachers rise up. Many that did not want to follow what the bishops were saying. Many that did not want to follow. Many were claiming to have special revelation or they were reading the letters of Paul and they were taking a different understanding from it. So because of that, many of these educated men began to write books as a defense for Christianity. They were called apologists. Apologist basically means to the defense of. They were not apologizing, they were in the defense of. And they began to write books convincing the educated and

the upper class about Christianity. There was many, but some of them are Aristides, Augustine Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Melito, Bishop of Sardis, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in Gaul. He actually wrote five books against Gnostic heresies in his area. Tertullian is known as the father of Latin theology 150 AD. This was now 80 years after the fall of Jerusalem. He wrote books against persecution. He wrote books encouraging those facing death. He attacked heresies. He wrote a book explaining the Lord's Prayer. He wrote a book explaining the meaning of water baptism. And Tertullian was the first person in 150 AD to use the Latin word Trinitas or the Trinity. This is where we get that word. By the end of his age, Christianity became an empire within the empire. The constant travel from church to church, the synods or meetings of bishops, the letters carried back and forth from leader to leader, church to church, bishop to bishop, across the entire empire and loyalty that the Christians had toward their leaders, this impressed even the Roman emperors. What are some of the reasons Christianity spread? Let's look back now. Now that we've gotten through part one, part two, and now part three. Number one reason why the church spread is the event happened. Jesus resurrected. Jesus rose again. God invaded time and therefore the people had a burning desire to share that gospel with every person they came across. That's the number one reason why it spread. The second reason is the gospel filled a need in the hearts of the people. There was an ancient philosophy called Stoicism and that philosophy taught you to focus on only what you can control and just accept what you can't control. So people had almost this nonchalant way of life and seeing life that nothing can be changed. They can't change anything and it is what it is. But Christianity taught that we control nothing, but through Christ we can do all things. So this started to bring a whole different way of seeing life, a whole different way of seeing things. So number one, the event happened. Number two, the gospel filled the need. And number three was a huge one, Christian love. This was something that impacted everybody. You see, Christians now actually cared for the poor. Christians now cared for the widows and the orphans. There was acts of compassion when there was earthquakes or when there was famine or when there was war. And a huge thing is if you were poor and you died, you were not buried. You were left to the elements and the animals. But the Christian said, every person made in the image of God deserves a burial in their honor. So Christians were burying Christians

and non-Christians alike, rich and poor. And because of this, it stirred the hearts of the people because of the love that the Christian had. This helped Christianity spread. And finally, the last reason, which is the unlikeliest reason, was persecution. There was pockets of times, pockets of areas where Christians were being killed, thrown to the lions, brutalized in front of crowds because the pagans wanted to stop this spread of Christianity. But what started happening is the more they would kill a Christian, the more in that moment people were converting from paganism into Christians when they saw the loyalty and the love that the Christian had. So persecution actually caused growth. These four reasons, I believe are the main reasons why Christianity spread and could not be stopped. The church multiplied and Rome could no longer ignore it. One last thing I want to leave you with is it was at this time where the pagans called Christians atheists. And you might think, wait a second, what do you mean? That's not what an atheist is. Well, I want you to keep this in mind that the pagan believed in many, many gods. They believed in Zeus and the Greek gods and the Roman gods. They believed the emperor was a god. But the Christian... Christian denounced all those gods. So because the Christian didn't believe in their gods, they called the Christians atheists. I just thought that would be an interesting thing to throw in there, a little footnote for you to know that the first atheists were Christians because we refused to believe in their pagan gods. So this is now part four of church history. Before going on, because I know part three ended at 213 AD, but I want to go back and talk about persecution because I think that it's important to cover it. I don't want to ignore it, but I also want to explain some of the misconceptions that as Christians that we were told, or maybe things were exaggerated or things were not actually said in the right context. But I want to cover persecution, especially during that same period of what we call the Catholic age, which is 70 AD, all the way up to 213 AD. And to be unbiased, Rome's policy was to tolerate the religions of all the other nations. They had to, because as Rome came, there was many nations, many people, many tribes, many different types of people. So they had to be an empire that tolerated other religions, but eventually we're going to learn and see that they had to add homage to the emperor. Jews were an exception because most other nations had many

gods, but the Jewish nation had only one God. So if they were ever going to force the people of Israel to worship, bow down, pay homage to anything other than God, the God of the Bible, they knew that the Jewish people were ready to die, the entire nation. So basically the entire Roman nation gave exception to the Jew when it came to that. And so in a sense, this was not a threat to Rome because see, the Jewish people were not trying to convert non-Jews to follow Judaism. So they didn't consider it a threat to let them worship their one God. They weren't trying to spread out. They weren't trying to proselyte. They weren't trying to evangelize or anything like that. They were a closed contained nation that worshiped their God. But Christians could not be tolerated because Christians were the complete opposite. What were the reasons for persecution? I think that we can't put a blanket, and of course we know that as Christians, we know that Satan is behind all of this, but we want to get down into more of the details of how actually persecution started and why, and for what reasons, at least in the sense of humans. We know we don't fight against flesh and blood, but against principalities in high places. But the reasoning of the people that were persecuting the Christians, that's what I want to talk about. Christians were different. Even though Christianity started in Israel with the Jewish people, then the Hellenistic Jews, and then eventually Gentiles, Christians were different because Christian life itself condemned paganism. Whether the Christian was vocal about paganism or not, the Christian life itself condemned paganism, and this was a huge problem and a huge deal. You got to understand that the Greeks and the Romans had a God for everything. If it rained, there was a God of rain. If there was wind, there was a God of wind. If there was a war, an earthquake, lightning, water, you name it, there was a God for it. And to the Christian, gods meant nothing. They were non-existent. So when the Christian was living life following after the Lord Jesus Christ, these other gods that these Romans and Greeks believed were an afterthought to the believer. So that was an issue that the pagans started to see and to realize. Now another thing was that many banquets, meals, usually almost exclusively were held at temples by meat that was offered to these gods. So as a Christian, Christians were no longer going to these meals. So not only was a Christian life a condemnation of paganism just the way the Christian was living, but now friends and family who were pagans, the Christian would no longer go to these meals at these temples. So that was another reason that caused a wedge between the pagan and the Christian where the pagan started

to feel animosity, maybe suspicion toward the Christian. Another thing was the gladiator games. It was a normal thing for people to go to the Coliseum and other places. Many of you have seen the movie Gladiator. Even though that movie was fiction, the actual gladiators and the way they would fight was real. And people would watch this as a sport. They would have slaves, they would have defeated people that they fought wars and they would keep them and force them to fight to the death. So this became a sport to the average Greek or Roman citizen, but to the Christian, it was inhumane. So not only was the Christian not going to the meals and the banquets, they weren't enjoying the gladiator games. They were not partaking of it. And in a sense, it seemed on their point of view, like the Christian was boorish, rude, discourteous. And again, this started creating an animosity, a certain type of feeling toward the Christian. And because of this, it was very hard for the Christian to make a living because of his or her Christian beliefs. And this caused an issue, for instance, if a Christian was a Mason, a builder, he could no longer be a builder because many of the Masons were helping build and erect temples and statues. And the Christian felt a conviction about it. So it was hard for the Mason to be a Mason and a Christian. Someone that was a tailor, that was a Christian, now had a conviction because many of the times they were asked to make robes for the priests and the priestesses of these Roman and Greek gods. So the Christian had a conviction about it. So now the Christian could no longer do that with a good conscience. Or an incense maker. How could the Christian make incense knowing that that incense was going to be offered to these gods? There were schoolteachers. Now that they're Christian, how could they with a good conscience teach the children about these gods? That was much of the teaching and curriculum that they gave them, teaching them of the ancient gods. Or a Christian that worked in a hospital. They worshiped Aescapulus. This was a god of healing and they would have the priest of Aescapulus there. So how is a Christian in a clean conscience going to work in a hospital? The Christian had a different attitude toward human life. Different than the average Roman or Greek citizen. For instance, slaves were discarded, sometimes even slaughtered. There was no value to life. Children... If a couple had a sickly child or had a daughter but wanted a son, it was nothing for the child to be left out in the woods to the animals or to the elements.

They saw no value in that. And because of this, it created a wedge between the Christian and the pagan, all of these things that I listed. I want to say this, is that many Christians believe that throughout the span of 200 years, Christians were thrown to the lions, Christians were burned alive, Christians were, you know, all these things. And even though there was persecution, we have to be honest and say persecution was more of outburst in different regions, in different areas, or depending on who was in charge in Rome or what happened. For instance, I'll give you an example. In 64 AD, which was roughly around the time that the temple was finished in Israel, but in Rome there was a huge fire, Emperor Nero was the one in charge and people started blaming him. It was a fire that destroyed much of Rome and Nero was being blamed for it. And instead of taking the blame, he blamed the Christians. This made sense because remember the church in Rome, the Christian church originally was not the rich. It was not the upper echelon. It was not those with influence. It was the poor. It was those that had no representation in government. So why not blame these Christians? Because they were basically looked at as less than, as peasants. So Nero blamed the Christians for Rome catching fire and almost the entire city burning down after six days. So it caused a great uproar and he decided to kill Christians. Many of them were set on fire. He made human torches out of many of them. He made examples of them. And it was during this time, most likely historically speaking, that Paul was beheaded and Peter

was crucified upside down in Rome. Both of them were martyred in Rome. Most likely because of Nero and because of this attack on Christianity. But for the most part, Christians were left in peace. For long periods of time, throughout this era, any little thing, it would burst all over again, whether in a town, a province, a region. It almost seemed like if for some reason it wasn't supposed to rain and there was a storm, they blamed the Christians. If it was supposed to rain and it was dry and the crops were not given water, they blamed the Christians because they felt that the Christians, because they were not acknowledging all of the gods, that the gods felt disrespected. So they were bringing curses or withholding themselves from blessing Rome. So because of that, it started to build animosity and anger toward the Christians. So then persecution would start all over again. Another reason for persecution was slander, misunderstandings. There was many Christian events that the average person was barred unless you were part of the Christian church. So because of that, it brought accusations. It brought suspicions because people were saying, what is going on? Why are we barred from going in? What are they hiding? And they were accused, the Christians were accused of, for instance, sexual orgies. Because even in the Bible, you read to a salutation or say, oh, give them a holy kiss. So they would hear about this holy kiss and they would hear about this event called a love feast, talking about communion. But they heard love, a love feast and an agape feast. And so they assumed their mind went to a dark place and thought they were having orgies. So because of the suspicions and because of all these other reasons why not to like Christians, they started to fill in the blanks of what was happening in these Christian events. And then they started blaming them for cannibalism.

Maybe they're eating people because they would hear that they would eat the bread which was the flesh of Christ and drink the juice which was, or the wine, which was the blood of Christ. So they would hear these eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood. So they said, oh, they're cannibals. So as you can see, this caused a great suspicion and brought persecution to the church. Another thing that I stated toward the end of part three was that they started to call Christians atheists because the Christian refused to believe in the Greek and Roman gods. So they were called atheists. So they were taken that anything that would happen, it was because of the Christians insulting their gods. So all of these different reasons but the main reason for persecution against the Christian was that they refused to worship the Roman emperor. Out of all of these reasons, this was the main one. And to be honest, emperor worship wasn't established in the very beginning. The first emperors actually rejected it. But as time came, you see Rome, as they took over the empire before Rome was there, even though nobody wanted to be oppressed by the Roman empire, but things weren't so good before the Roman empire came. There was bandits, there was pirates, there was just different skirmishes going on,

horrible atrocities going on. And when Rome came, they put a stop to all the piracy. They put a stop to the bandits. They put a stop to these things. And what they called it was the Pax Romana or the Roman peace. And the people were grateful. They were grateful because life was easier. There's a saying that say, all roads lead to Rome because during this time they built in roads that the Greeks started that you can go from one part of the empire to the other pretty much safely. And so this brought a peace and they saw the Christian as a disturber of that peace because everyone began to be so grateful for Rome. Matter of fact, in 29 BC, 29 years before Christ, the Roman emperor at first refused to be worshiped but by the time it was 29 years before Christ in the city of Pergamum, the first temple to the emperor was built. Let me read you a scripture and revelation. Revelation chapter two, verse 12. And to the angel of the church in Pergamum, write the words of him who has a sharp two-edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you where Satan dwells. So we see that the apostle John

as he's writing this seven letters to the churches from Christ himself, that Jesus recognized the city of Pergamum as the place where the throne of Satan was at. That is no coincidence because that was the temple of the Roman emperor. And even though the emperors were hesitant at first, they came to realize that in controlling so many peoples and languages and faiths and traditions, Rome realized that a common religion was the only thing that would unify the Roman empire. Yes, they all had their individual gods and Rome was tolerant of their individual gods, but they had to have one God that was to unite all of them and what more than the Roman emperor because he represented the peace of Rome. Rome was universal. Caesar. was Lord. And by 249 to 251 Caesar worship became law. Emperor Decius and what he instituted is actually something that we see in the book of Revelation. Now for us it's history, but at the time the book of Revelation was being written about the mark of the beast, 666, the beast, all of these things. This is in the future. And in the future of that, when this emperor came in, he stated that every single year, every person that lives in the Roman empire needed to go to the nearest temple of Caesar and they had to burn incense to Caesar. They could worship their gods all they want, but once a year they had to light incense to Caesar and proclaim that Caesar is Lord. And when they did that, they were given a certificate and a piece of paper. And without that piece of paper, they couldn't buy, sell or trade. Does that sound familiar? Let me remind you what the book of Revelation says. Revelation chapter 13, starting at verse 13. It performs great signs, even making

fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. And by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man and his number is 666. John wrote this and now in 249 A.D. it became true. If the Christian refused to say Caesar is Lord and light incense, that Christian was now considered a traitor and rebellious, a revolutionary against the empire of Rome. One might say that the first beast could be the imperial power, the very representation of Pax Romana, of the empire of Rome. And the second beast could be said that it was a worship of the imperial emperor. Many people died during this period, but one person stands out, his name was Polycarp. Polycarp was a direct student of the apostle John and Polycarp became the leader of those seven churches. He became, you could say, a bishop and he was well respected. He was seen as a leader even by the Roman emperor. But when he was arrested, they told him that he had to renounce Jesus and they would let him live. And he refused. And they set him out in front of people and they tied him to a stake and they gave him one more chance to renounce Jesus and he would be let free. And Polycarp said, how can I deny the one who has given me everything? I might burn for a minute, but for what you're about to see, I'm going to burn for a minute, but for what you're to do you will burn for an eternity and polycarp was lit and he died a horrible death for the gospel of jesus christ god bless i hope you learned something from this and i'll see you in part five coming soon so we are now in part five of church history with pastor david rocha you know part four dealt a lot with uh persecution persecution in the church from outside of the church uh from those that were pagans from those that did not like this following of jesus but today before we go even further down um on the timeline i think it's really important that we have to first talk about

gnosticism because in the same way persecution was coming from the outside of the church uh we have to understand what gnosticism is because again the reason for these courses is to help us understand christianity today why we have different denominations why we have different beliefs what do we need to be careful of even though there are differences at what point are those differences dangerous and at what point is it just cultural is it just you know this church likes to do things this way likes to do things that way but they're all in accordance to scripture but then when does it become dangerous and i think that because we don't know about gnosticism and most teachers or most teachers or preachers don't teach about agnostic teaching when we don't know history it tends to repeat itself and we won't catch it because in my opinion the spirit of agnostic that agnostic spirit or gnosticism is still prevalent today creeping into our churches more than ever but let's get into church history um at the basis of gnosticism because we're gonna learn and understand that there wasn't a specific uh agnostic teaching that was uh i guess universal which is interesting because we are talking about the universal church the catholic church the united church the agnostic teaching wasn't united uh but in essence it was separating what jesus said from who he was and maybe that'll make more sense as we go further into this but society nations unfortunately even churches have fell into this where we separate separate and make it about what he said which is important this is why this can get very diluted it can get buried within the church it can hide within the church because you um exalt what he said but not who he is and we need to have both both of those in order to be a healthy christian church and a healthy believer we exalt his teachings but we set aside the supernatural jesus and this is what was happening back then and i believe this is still happening today so instead of the agnostic instead of focusing on a historical christianity instead they chose to stress christian behavior it's all about living good it's all about being fair it's all about treating people right it's all about love it's all and here's see notice there's nothing wrong in those things but when we separate that from a supernatural christ then it becomes an ideology and it becomes something way different um this is why when we read the letters of paul he would stress things like for instance the gospel is about the death the burial and the resurrection And see, as Christians today, we're like, well, um, that's Christianity, but you got to understand that the agnostics, the Gnostic teaching was to even question the death,

even question the burial and question the resurrection. So this is why Paul would say, this is the message. And if you have any other message aside from this, it is false and it is not biblical teaching, the death, the burial and resurrection of Jesus. So like I was stating earlier, part four dealt a lot about the persecution of the church, but part five, this part five is more of an internal conflict that was happening. And it helps us to understand because sometimes we can demonize or even make it seem like some kind of conspiracy that the Christian leaders were trying to control everything. No, actually the bishops and the universal church was unified because of the agnostics trying to come in. Have you ever seen a Western movie when they're taking wagons through a plane and maybe there's bandits or native Americans that were coming? What would they do? Circle the wagon. They will circle the wagon in order to build a protection around them, not only for themselves, a form of defense wall, but also to protect the women and the children and the elderly. So they would circle the wagons. So in essence, when we see the church coming together as a universal church, it was not in spite of to control Christianity, but it was because bandits were coming and they had to circle the wagons. And so that's why we see the bishops. That's why we see the pastors say we need a universal church, a unifying church because of this agnostic way of teaching that was bringing confusion into the church. So in essence, the bishops were not controlling, they were containing. It was their job to contain the teachings of Jesus at its core and not to take away or tear apart the teachings of Jesus. So this is what caused theology to happen. It depends on what church you go to or what denomination you go to. Sometimes theology is a bad word as if it's a horrible thing to have theology. I have seen it abused, yes, but the actual word theology is theos is God, theology is the study of. So theology literally means the study of God. And the reason theology had to take root was because when the agnostics or gnosticism teaching was trying to creep into the church, the bishops and the leaders had to put down the belief system of the different things that the agnostic teachers were trying to attack. They were trying to attack the death. So they had to have a theology on explaining to the church what the death meant. Then the agnostics tried to attack the crucifixion, the death of burial and resurrection, all of those things were attacked. So then it forced the leaders to write theology of what the proper belief is according to scripture. Because if not, the agnostic teachings were

coming in and infecting all the churches that they could. So this is why theology happened. And another word also that I think scares a lot of Christians nowadays that I don't believe was meant to be scary is the word orthodox. Because we hear of orthodox Christianity or orthodox Jew, things like that. But orthodox literally means to be traditional and teach in the traditional established standards. Unorthodox is to teach something that is extra biblical or not biblical. So the early church was being orthodox and building their theology to where they were all in unity of what it was that they believed about the different things that the agnostics were trying to teach or trying to bring into the church. So remember, we talked about this in the beginning, in part one and part two, that there was Jewish Christians who were Jewish, they spoke Hebrew, they spoke Hebrew. spoke Aramaic, and then there was the Hellenistic Jews, which were Jewish by blood, but they spoke Greek. Even though they had their differences, because they were Jewish, they understood once Christ came and the gospel was being preached, they saw it as an extension of the scriptures. They knew it was the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was the same God that created the heavens and the earth. It was the same God of Moses. It was the same God. So he was the God of the scriptures. So it was a continuation to the Jew and to the Hellenistic Jew, because they were raised in the scriptures. Now they began to share the gospel with Romans and Greeks, with Gentiles, and these Romans and Gentiles didn't have the scriptures, didn't have the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel and Elijah and Elisha and Isaiah. They didn't have Daniel. They didn't have that. So they were coming to Christ without any biblical context of who God is. So you got to remember, many of them came from a Greek understanding, a Roman understanding, a pagan understanding, and here they are, they're surrendering their life to the Lord. They wholeheartedly love Jesus.

They surrender to Christ, but they don't have the biblical foundation that the Jew does. So we have two completely different contrasts, two different cultural backgrounds coming in to follow Jesus. One with the biblical understanding of who God is and one without. And so I'm sure just, it brings you to your imagination the conflicts that must have happened. Because even in our culture, right, there are small things that maybe in your household you did, or there's things that you didn't do because that would be rude, or things that are proper in your house. And then you go to somebody else's house and they don't do those things. You're just like, oh wow, how rude, or how improper, or how this, or how that. When to the people in that house, that was not rude or improper. So all of a sudden you come into the same house, you live under the same roof, and conflicts happen because you both have different beliefs on what is right and what is wrong. And that's what was happening in the early church. And another thing is that, so now you have Christians that are Jewish. Now you have Gentiles that are Christian. But now you have a tug of war. You have the Jews that are Christian pushing toward Judaism. And you have the Greeks and the Romans pushing toward paganism. Just because you come to the Lord and surrender your life to God doesn't mean you forget everything you ever knew. We are creatures of habit and we tend to do things the way we know how. So in the same way, they were so ingrained in paganism that even though they surrendered their life to the Lord, they did not know how to live a Christian life because they did not have any biblical foundation. So they would tend to almost philosophize and paganize Christianity. So like I said, you have Judaism trying to pull Christianity toward Judaism, and you have pagans accepting Christ and probably without meaning to started leaning it toward more philosophy. And this became an issue.

So the early church leaders had to have hard lines between true and false. They had to build theology. They had to have the study. They had to write this stuff down in order for all the universal church to be unified. Because if not, it would have gotten ripped apart by those that want to follow Judaism and those that were still engulfed in paganism. So they would come into the church and try to bring their paganism into it. And the Jew would come into the church and try to Judaize Christianity. So the leaders at that time did not have an easy time. So they had to have a hard line to call things true or call things false. Or else we wouldn't have Christianity today. In the worst case scenario... area, it would be so diluted we wouldn't know what was right or what was wrong anymore. So we gotta thank God for the early church leaders for hardlining and calling things out as they should have. One thing that happened was in the very beginning, for instance, water baptism. We see in the book of Acts that they were baptizing in the name of Jesus. This is the way the early church did it. We see that, it makes sense because even the Bible says, Paul says, everything you do in word and deed, do it in the name of Jesus. When you cast out demons, in the name of Jesus. When you lay hands on the sick, in the name of Jesus. Baptism literally meant Jesus is the one, out of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Jesus is the one that was buried. So it makes sense when you're buried in the water, in the name of Jesus, because he's the one that was put in the tomb. But what started happening around 150 AD, which was roughly, we're talking 80 years after the fall of Jerusalem, the agnostics, the agnostic teaching started to separate the Father from the Son and the Holy Spirit, almost creating three complete different gods, three complete different entities, three completely different.

So the agnostics started to separate them saying, well, God, he's the Father of the universe and Jesus is a completely different God. He was the one that was crucified. So because of that, they started to baptize in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because what happened was the agnostics were coming in and attacking and tearing apart biblical theology. So because of that, the church, 150 AD roughly, started to make it a normal practice to baptize in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, because they were defending Christianity against the agnostics, because they were saying, well, I baptize you in the Father, who is the Father of the universe, in the Son, because he was the one that was crucified by Pilate and by the Holy Spirit who testifies of the Son. They would literally have to proclaim all of that as they're baptizing. And nowadays, most baptize in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without any explanation, because there's no agnostic teaching now that separates it other than maybe on the fringe, you know, you have maybe a Jehovah Witness, you have Mormons that separate it, but for the most part in Christianity, we don't have agnostics within the church, at least in this sense, trying to separate. So when we baptize in Jesus' name, when we baptize in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, there's no explanation, but back then, they literally had to explain all of that as they're baptizing you. I baptize you, you know, in the Father, and it's a huge explanation who the Father is, in the Son, because of the agnostic teaching, false teaching that was happening. So out of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Gospel of John was the last one written. And many times, people, many people's favorite Gospel is John, and honestly, if you read Matthew, Mark, and Luke, a lot of it is very similar. Not exact, but similar. But John is really separated. This is why. I sometimes wonder if John was even going to bother writing a Gospel, because he wrote

the Gospel decades later, after Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Why? The reason John wrote the Gospel of John was because of the agnostic teaching that even back then, early in the church, this Gnosticism, this teaching was creeping into the church. So John wrote the Gospel of John to set the record straight. This is why the Gospel of John is so different from the others, because he was dealing with two fronts. One side was completely not convinced that Jesus was God. So you had this group of people that they were convinced that there was no way Jesus was fully God, and then you had the other side that completely believed Jesus was God, but they didn't believe he was fully human. So a lot of times we don't realize that when we read the Gospel of John, but he is saying certain things that maybe doesn't ring a bell to you today, but to the believer that back then that was getting this false teaching from Gnosticism, from the agnostic teachers, it would be very clear what John is doing. He's writing the Gospel of John to those who didn't believe. Jesus was God in the flesh. And he's writing to those believers that didn't believe Jesus was fully human. So there was a group called the Ebionites. They were Jewish Christians and most probably have never heard of these people. But they taught that Jesus was just a regular man who obeyed the law and because he obeyed the law perfectly, he was justified and he became the Messiah. This is what the Ebionites taught. So just to give you an example, Gnosticism isn't exactly a teaching, it's anything that's on the fringes of Christianity. It's almost as if the Gnostic teachers felt they had special revelation or they had some hidden mystery that the church didn't know about. And then when the church would go against it, they would say, oh, the universal church is trying to monopolize Christianity. They don't want you to know these secrets that we know.

That's the way the Gnostic would speak. So these Ebionites believe that. Another group was Dosecism. They taught that Jesus wasn't really a human man, that he seemed real, that he seemed real and that he seemed to suffer on the cross, but that there was no way because the divine can never die. There's no way a God could ever suffer. So then you had that Gnostic teaching. So all of this stuff was creeping into the church because to them, God in the flesh sounded like nonsense. That didn't make sense. How can a God be flesh and actually use the bathroom and sweat and be tired and be hungry? They couldn't fathom a God doing that. So they said, he seemed to be human. It was an illusion. It wasn't real. He just seemed like almost like a hologram or something. So they believe that. And basically, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's like man just kept looking for a substitute explanation instead of just believing the word of God for what it was. God manifested in the flesh. This is what Paul said, great is the mystery of godliness that God is manifested in the flesh. Do you realize that was an attack on agnostic teaching? That very scripture was attacking the agnostics. Great is a mystery. He was mad. I can't explain it. That somehow God was manifested in the flesh, that God was made man. So instead they would look for these substitute explanations that somehow it was a mystery.

It was a myth. It was a movement that these philosophers, they possessed knowledge. They had gnosis. In other words, they had this secret knowledge. So people would run to these agnostic teachers because they knew mysteries that the pastors didn't talk about or didn't know. Remember in the beginning of this lesson, I said, I believe that agnostic teaching is still alive and well now. It hid in the churches then and it's hiding in the church now. Maybe not the same topics, but on the fringes of Christianity. It's almost like, have you ever seen a lion hunting? Which one does it go for? The one that's behind, the one that's separated, not really attached to the flock, not really attached to the herd. Be very careful when you are the one that's detached from the flock. When you're the one that feels a little separated from the body. Because the first one that has a spirit, Gnosticism, sees you as a target because you're easier to get than the flock. So just be careful. So there was a huge divide between the Orthodox Christians, the universal church, the unified church, and the Gnostic teachers. Gnostic teachers and agnostic teaching, this is what brought a lot of confusion, is that there was many things that were very similar. For instance, the agnostics, the Gnostic teachers, they believed in salvation. So did the Universal Church. So when they would creep into the church and talk about salvation, and the Orthodox Christians would hear them,

they're like, oh, they're like us, they believe in salvation. Another thing they believed in was they believed in a supreme God. They believed that there was God in heaven, they believed that. So the Christian unawares said, oh, they're like us, because they believe in salvation and they believe in a supreme God. And third, the agnostics believe in heavenly beings, in angels, angelic beings. And so the Christian unaware said, oh, they're like us. They believe in salvation, they believe in an eternal God, and they believe in angels. So because of those similarities, it was really hard to root out the agnostic teacher in the church. Again, I can't help but to say, it reminds me of the church today. I actually believe that because of social media, because of YouTube, because of TikTok, because of Facebook and Instagram, the spirit of Gnosticism is rising against the church more than ever, and people are falling for it left and right. Why? Because we don't know our church history. And when we don't know our church history, history will repeat itself. Another basic Gnostic belief was dualism.

They believed in good and evil that, now, this is why if you've heard any of my sermons, there's a meme that used to get posted years ago about Jesus arm wrestling Satan. And it was Jesus there and Satan there and are arm wrestling. And I've told the congregation this, I said, I hate that meme, because that is so unbiblical. Because what you're insinuating is that there's a fight between good and evil, and as if there's an actual fight. There is no fight. Jesus reigns, Jesus is king, he is supreme and demons tremble at his name. That is what the Bible says. And I know it's just a meme, but do you realize, you know how many Christians I saw post that over the years? Not realizing that what you are posting is an agnostic way of seeing Jesus. See what I mean? See how it creeps into the church? What you are saying is there's an actual fight between good and evil, and as if evil actually has a chance. Another agnostic belief was that everything that was physical was evil. This is another thing they taught. Now you might say, well, what's wrong with that?

Well, let's follow it. Let's follow that logic. So they said everything that is physical, everything we can touch, a tree, water, dirt, a mountain, a rock, it is all evil. Everything material is evil, and everything non-material is good. And you're like, well, okay, what's the problem with that? I mean, that's weird, but okay. Here's the danger in it. Because remember, Paul said, great is the mystery of godliness, that God was manifested in the flesh. They believed the flesh was evil. So they bucked against that teaching that Jesus actually came and became matter, became physical. So that's why they're like, no, there's no way. If Jesus was God, then there's no way he could have been human because humanity and material things are wicked and evil. And if he's the savior, he can't be man. He can't have flesh and bone. So he must be some kind of illusion or something. See where it leads? It leads to confusion, but they would teach this and it would confuse the church. When we look at scripture and we share Jesus with people, let's say we evangelize or we're preaching. Most people nowadays, here in 2026,

the date I'm recording this, the average person out there that's not a Christian is going to deny that Jesus is God. They will say, oh, he was a great teacher. He had great words. He was a great man. That's not the issue nowadays. The issue is that Jesus is God. You want to know what's strange? Back then the argument wasn't whether Jesus was God or not. The argument was whether Jesus was human. Because they thought human and matter were evil. Imagine if the agnostic way of teaching had won. Let's say the church didn't unify, didn't become universal, didn't become Catholic. Imagine if the bishops didn't communicate and write each other and make sure each other's congregations are learning the same thing and keeping orthodox Christianity together. Gnosticism would have ripped Christianity away from Judaism. It would have separated Jesus from the God of the Old Testament. That would have been a very dangerous thing to do. Because then Jesus would cease to be the second Adam. Jesus would cease to be the one Moses says, one comes after me, listen to him. So if Gnosticism had grown and Christianity had dwindled, then because of that it would have completely severed Christianity from Judaism and because of that we wouldn't have a Christianity we would even recognize this day. It would probably be nothing. It would have been all over the place. This is why the Apostles' Creed was written. There's many creeds in Christianity over time because of this to fight Gnosticism. But this was one of the first creeds written and I'm going to read it to you. It's a direct attack on this way of teaching and it says this. It's called the Old Roman Creed. It says, I believe in God Almighty and in Christ Jesus, his only son, our Lord. Our Lord who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius

Pilate and was buried and a third day rose from the dead, who ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father. Whence he comes to judge the living and the dead and in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, the life everlasting. You would say, well, duh, all that sounds like normal Christianity. Every single one of those lines was put there as a creed so they would teach their congregations. Why? Because the agnostic teaching was coming against every single one of these lines. This is why they said these things. For instance, I'll give you a perfect example. On the third line, it says Christ Jesus on the third line, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Just to show you how different it was. See, now many people who don't believe in Jesus, their issue is the virgin part. The fact that he was born from a virgin, people say, come on, man, how's a virgin going to be pregnant? That doesn't make any sense. See, back then they didn't even have an issue with the virgin part. The agnostics had a problem with the born part. Because remember to be born in the flesh and the flesh was wicked. Flesh is evil. Matter is evil. See what I mean? So that's why they had to put that line that as a universal church, they had to say, I believe in God Almighty and in Christ Jesus, his only son, who was born of the Holy Spirit. That's why they had to put that word born. So it's things like this that we see here. Also, even the second line, the fourth line, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried. Why?

Because they thought Jesus was an illusion. He couldn't have been matter. There's no way he could have died. So they actually had to state that and put that he was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried. So this is what they taught the church because the agnostics were saying otherwise. We have to remember as we go further into the timeline of church history, that this was important to cover because we have to understand this so we can spot it. Because I think it's still prevalent today. The agnostics wanted to make Jesus a teacher, but he's more than a teacher. The world didn't need a teacher. The world needed a savior, and that savior is Jesus Christ. He came, born from a virgin Mary, Raised up in Israel, suffered a horrible death on the cross, in the flesh, and that flesh died and was buried. And after three days, that same body that had piercings and whip marks on his back, was raised up. The resurrection happened. So I pray that this blesses you and gives you a better understanding because part four talked about the persecution of the church. But in a sense, this is an internal persecution of the church that is still prevalent today. So if anything, not only are we learning church history, but I think we need to open our eyes as Christians. Be careful what you watch on social media. Be careful what you listen to. Be careful to be the one away from the herd because you are a direct target for the spirit of Gnosticism to come into your life and catch you unaware because it sounds Christian of what they're saying. So God bless you. Thank you so much.

I pray this blesses you. Amen. God bless all those that are watching online. Thank you so much for being a part of this Bible study and for joining in with us. We have the youth going, young adults, both Angel, young adults. All right. Before we start, I want to mention a couple of things real quick first. A lot of times as this Bible study keeps growing, I just want to share with you that it's getting really, really hard. Why don't you speak to the parents down here? Oh, okay. I'll wait. I'll wait till they hear the bad news. Oh, did they? Okay. Well, we'll wait for the parents so we can drop the bomb. Those of you that are online, thank you so much. God bless you. Welcome to our Wednesday Bible study that we do. Sister Frances, thank you so much. Look, you get the super cat, which is actually the super cat. Thank you so much, and God bless you. Here's one for Anthony De La Garza. I gave him a shout out in a minute, and I just want to make sure he gets that. All right. Amen. How's everyone doing? Blessed. Pastor Armando, how are you doing, brother? Doing good?

All right. Amen. So, parents back yet? I don't know. You sent them to some of them that way. Okay. Well, I got to keep it moving here. So we have been doing this Bible study about the life of Christ and, yeah, the life of following Jesus, I mean. And I hope that it's been beneficial to everybody. To be honest with you, each time I read it, I get something out of it, and it just helps us. My thing here is to learn Bible, but at the same time, how does that apply to our life today? How can that help us today, right here, right now, in our family, in our marriages, in our friendships, in our church? So I'm really liking this, because especially we started in 1 Corinthians, and I think it's important. It's important that we learn what it is to be a biblical Christian. Not what some church says it should be, but actually reading from the word of God itself. So as we're going to start, let's just bow our heads. We're going to pray, Lord God, we thank you so much for this opportunity to read your word, to study, to discern, to understand, to talk about, to ask questions, and we just thank you. We thank you for this moment, Lord, this opportunity. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. We are in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, starting at verse 12. 1 Corinthians. 15 verse 12 before I forget I want to remind you if you haven't got a flyer

for Monterey and you want to go or thinking about going do we have some left still I think so yeah you could take a picture of the flyers right there on the table and has everything if you're going on Friday it shows you the hotels we're going to be at and we're going to where we're all going to meet for dinner and if you're going to go for the day on Saturday then what we're going to meet is on there also where we're going to meet on the beach and if you're going to do the bike ride where we're going to meet and all all the goodies so everything's on that flyer okay verse 12 this is now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead but if there is no resurrection of the dead then not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain we are even found to be misrepresenting misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ whom he whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised I'm going to talk about this this is powerful but I want to read it in the message Bible it says it a lot easier it says now let me ask you something profound yet troubling if you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive risen from the dead how can you let people say that there's no such thing as a resurrection if there's no resurrection then there's no living Christ and face it if there's no resurrection for Christ then everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors and everything you stake your life on is smoke and mirrors not only that but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ sheer fabrications if there's no resurrection okay why is he saying this so again remember if you found a letter from somebody and like you know I've been to antique stores there was this I don't even know where I saw this but it was it was this aisle with all these old pictures like these old black and white like you don't even know who these people are they're just selling them though they're like super old some of them look like they're like the early 1920s and then it was interesting though

is that is that there was letters you could just buy them I guess people that are just like historical things or whatever you could just buy them imagine reading that letter you have no idea who wrote it you have no idea who wrote it too and we're reading it now in the 19 at 2026 you're not gonna grasp everything you're just gonna kind of maybe get an understanding but you're just gonna be like man I wish I knew who wrote it who there what was going on what if they're talking about some event some carnival some circus and you didn't know that and there start talking about elephants so you'd be you would think like man there was elephants in California because the person writing it knew they went to the carnival and the person wrote it to knew they went to the carnival or whatever but we wouldn't know that so they're talking about elephants walking up and down you know 9th Street that would make no sense so this is the the struggle of reading the Bible because Corinthian is a letter from Paul to the church in Corinth so a lot of times historically we can figure out what's going on or church history we can figure out what's going on but we're still in a place where we're left to wonder now when I read this I will say this it seems like Paul was addressing something that was an issue at that time I'll tell you what I mean because clearly he's telling them hey for those that don't believe in the resurrection of the dead so I think Christians maybe at that time some false teaching was coming in telling people hey man when you die you die like that's it there is no resurrection you're not gonna go to heaven there ain't none of that stuff I can only assume that this is what was being said and this is what they're believing because why is Paul bringing this up but he brings about a great point because he says guys if there's no resurrection of the dead then that means Jesus didn't resurrect and if Jesus didn't resurrect we're still in our sins and we're fools because we're over here preaching about Jesus forgiving our sins so so that's he's making a point and it's a strong point that he's making right so with that kind of talk let's read it again he says in 12 now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead how can you say that there is no resurrection of the dead but if there is no resurrection of the dead then not even Christ has been raised and if Christ is not raised then our preaching

is in vain he says then we're preaching for nothing we're wasting our time then Constance thank you so much let me see what am I going to give you the pirate cat thank you thank you so much for the super chat so he's making a point he's like so really you don't believe in the resurrection that means Jesus hasn't been raised and we're just preaching for nothing we're wasting our time he says our preaching is in vain and our faith is in vain we're believing for nothing he says we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God that he raised Christ in other words he says not only are we preaching in vain we're liars because we're over here telling everybody that Jesus rose again so what is it going to be guys do we believe in a resurrection or not you know and um so obviously um I don't believe this is a an issue in the church now I don't think we have some congregations here some congregants that believe there's no resurrection I think we know that but this was an issue at that time clearly because why is Paul addressing it so um and I like that because in 16 he says in 16 it says for if the dead are not raised he's still making a point then that not even Christ has been raised and if Christ has not been raised your faith is futile futile and you are still in your sins wow 18 says then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished if in Christ we have hope in this life only we are of all people most to be pitied so in the message it says if corpses can't be raised then Christ wasn't because he was indeed dead and if Christ weren't raised then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark as lost as ever it's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection because they're already in their graves if all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years we're a pretty sorry lot but the truth is that Christ has been raised up the first and the long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries that's verse um 20 uh it says in fact Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep and it makes sense i remember i i talked to this guy he was not a christian i was a christian maybe two years at that time and he says david he goes i have a question i said yeah he was you know you seem like a real nice guy seemed like a good guy he goes i i i'm worried about you though i'm like i'm like worried about what he was he was he didn't believe in god and he says i'm worried that someday they're gonna find the bones of jesus and you're gonna go back to your old life he was i just want to tell you man it's a good thing what you're doing keep doing it and when when or if they find his bones man be encouraged because

at least you're living a good life and i laughed and i said you know what would happen if they found the bones of jesus he was what i said i'll go get a couple pounds of some dope and start making money again and he's like what why would you do that what i said because if he did not resurrect and they found his bones that means i have no hope and if i have no hope the only pleasure i get in this life and if the only pleasure i get in this life then i'm gonna live it up i said because then we have no hope there's no hope for us at all and he goes wow david i said but you don't got to worry about it i said because they will never find his bones i said because he has been raised from the dead he has been resurrected and he reigns and sits on his wrong. But that's what Paul is saying. Yes. I know for a fact that there's these intelligent scientists. Yeah. That um are teaching our our college students that there is no God. No creator. I mean that is so ridiculous. Yeah. That they can even teach that and say that and proclaim that. When you can only but know that there is a creator. And they debate it still. Yeah. They still want to debate all that. Yeah. They'll say well I'm not trying to mess up your your your faith or this or that. You know just Christianity is just it has it helps you live a good life and I'm like dude this are you crazy. Francis Chan did an interesting sermon one time when he pastored a megachurch. People came in on Sunday morning. He had those those real thick ropes like you could find at Home Depot. You know like just a rope. And he had it wrapped around the whole megachurch. All the way around the walls. And behind him a part of it was painted red like this much. And everybody's sitting there and they're going through worship. They're like why is there's big this big rope? Why does it have a red a red tip in the beginning of it? And and finally he gave his message. He said see this rope. He was noticed the the the red on about four inches of the beginning of the rope. He was that that red represents your life from the moment you were born

to the moment you die. And he was in most of you or almost to the end of your rope of the red part. He'll see the rest of this. That's eternity. He was in so many of you or have already wasted most of your red. And you're worried about your retirement and and your vacation home and and you're worried about everything else not thinking of eternity. And I'm just like when I heard that like man I wish I would have thought of that. But it's true. The atheist, the person with no hope of Christ, they worry about the little red. Not realizing that the decisions we make here according to the word of God are eternal. You know it's interesting how Jesus says that that like who can quote me John 3 16. Somebody. Okay. Shall not perish but have everlasting life. So like oh so I surrender my life to the Lord to have everlasting life. Let me say something and I want to clarify that verse. You and I have everlasting life regardless of you believing in him or not. It's where you're going to spend that everlasting life at. So when Jesus talks about everlasting life he's talking about an abundant life with him. But we're all gonna we're all eternal beings. People think that they can I'm gonna take myself out. That doesn't matter. You're still an eternal being. You are not gonna sleep in a grave. You're going somewhere. Regardless of how you feel. If the atheist, the Hindu, the Muslim, the Christian. We are eternal beings and we're going somewhere. We can't stop it. There's nothing you can do to stop that. The only thing that's goes back to dust is our bodies.

That's it. That's wild right? Like 500 years from now you will be conscious. A thousand years from now you will be conscious. A million years from now you and I will be conscious. Nothing will stop it. Where are you going to spend it at? That's a wild thought. I remember Brother Dale. He comes here. He always has a Vietnam hat on. He used to say when he would meet people he'd be like man you know hopefully I'll see you again but if not I'll see you in a thousand years if you serve the Lord. Maria let's see what am I going to give you. dark cat thank you jesus is king she says amen and i love so i love the fact what paul is saying you know is that he's like guys we're not doing this for fun we're not doing this for nothing this means something and i love the fact that he still ends it with he goes he even though he said all those things he goes but you know what christ is risen christ is risen in verse uh 21 it says for as by a man came death by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead for as in adam all die so also when christ shall all be made alive do you remember what it says or yeah what does it say and uh now that we have died with christ we believe that we will also live with him we know that christ being raised from the dead will never die again death no longer has dominion over him for the death he died he died to sin once for all but the life he lives he lives to god so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to god in christ jesus amen you know before we read on that that verse reminded me of something that since we're talking about eternity well first uh maria i'm gonna give you the cheesecake cat that's sharon's favorite um you know speaking of eternity is just the the heaviness of the fact that nothing could defeat death from the beginning of time see we might be able to beat cancer if you catch it early you could take medicine you know if you

if you have an infection you you could they have antibiotics um there's all kinds of things that have been defeated nobody's walking around with polio nobody's walking around you know with a leprosy here in america you know and they find vaccines they find all this stuff but the one they find vaccines they find all this stuff but the one thing was death every prophet no matter how great no matter if the red sea parted moses still died no matter fire came down from heaven and burned the altar elijah still died no matter how powerful how anointed how whatever you know godly a man or a woman was death still won no matter what until jesus think about that nobody could defeat death and here comes jesus he came to undo what adam did because adam brought death to us because remember adam and eve were they were supposed to be eternal they weren't supposed to die but because of the eight of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because of that they began to die you know and because of that death it caused us to have death and it was like death one i don't understand how anyone can worship santa muerte people will pray to that false god which looks like a grim reaper i i eat i might even say you know what i get it if you worship it before christ because it was undefeatable death won but jesus came who wants to go for the second best team who wants to go for it who wants to be like you want to be number one now i want to be number two nobody wants that everybody wants to be with the winning team and two thousand years ago jesus came and defeated death it says that he took the keys of hades and of death nobody could defeat death none of the prophets could defeat death but here comes jesus defeated death that's powerful man and not only that but see here's this guy's when he says he took the keys so he didn't just escape death for himself he says matter of fact every person and i always imagine jesus looking at santa Santa Muerte, Santa Muerte, cowering like a coward that it is. And Jesus says, not only have I defeated you, but everyone else who believes in me defeats you also. That's why Jesus says those who are in Christ do not die, they sleep. Oh, death, where's your sting? That's what scripture says. So that makes no sense to me. You want to worship what's powerful?

Worship Jesus, the one that defeated death. I'm going to start preaching here. So let's go back to, um, where am I at here? Oh, I'm going to read, uh, 21 to 23 in the message. It says this. It says, there is a nice symmetry in this, that death initially came by a man. Who's that? Right? Adam. The resurrection from death came by a man, Jesus. Everybody dies in Adam, but everybody comes alive in Christ, but we have to wait our turn. Christ is first, then those with him at his coming, man, that's, that's just, that is powerful, man. This is why it's, it's, it's, it is dangerous as a Christian. I'll tell you why it's dangerous. It's dangerous to say this, and I don't like this. Don't say this around me because I'll probably look at you funny. Oh, I'm just, I'm just under construction. God's working on me. I'm still a sinner. Oh, oh, so are you, okay, so you haven't accepted Christ yet? Oh no. Yeah. I accepted Christ. Well, scripture says that you were an Adam. Jesus came to give you life. He says he will take out your heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. He says that you're a new creation in Christ. All that old stuff has passed away. All things are made new.

So you're telling me then that Adam is stronger than Jesus. No, I'm not saying that. Yeah, you are. Because if you accepted him and you've been washed in his blood, then why are you still claiming Adam has a hold of you then? So what you're telling me is Adam is stronger. I don't know what Jesus you serve, but the Jesus I serve completely destroyed the works of Adam. You're calling him a liar. Yeah, I don't, I don't claim Adam. I claim Christ because his blood is more powerful than sin. I'm going to start preaching, man. So again, everybody dies in Adam, everyone comes alive in Christ. So verse 24 says, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. In the message it says that the grand consummation when after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. That's tight. That is so awesome that he delivers it once he crushes the enemy. This is why if you have taken my identity class, I always say that when you bring somebody to Christ, when you lay hands on the sick, when you cast demons out, that it is not about you. It's not even about the person being delivered. It is about Jesus getting his reward that he deserves because he suffered for it 2000 years ago. He's worthy. He's worthy of it. You know, so every time you talk to somebody and you bring them to the Lord, you just gave Jesus the reward that belonged to him. I love giving Jesus rewards because he's worthy.

He paid the price. Exactly. Imagine if I went to Winco and put $1,000 on a gift card and I told the cashier, hey, this is for Enrique or this is for Gloria and I write your name, your full name on it. And then I come and tell you, hey Enrique, and you're just like, man, I'm hungry. I got no food in the fridge. And I'm like, hey, go to Winco, man. There's a gift card with your name on it. Imagine if you don't believe me. Gloria, imagine if you don't believe me and you just go hungry today and hungry tomorrow and you're over here trying to, you know, figure out what you're going to eat. And I'm just like, there's $1,000 waiting for you. All you got to do is talk to the cashier and go take what I paid for. I paid for it with my sweat and blood already. I worked hard for that $1,000. dollars but you gotta go get it. Imagine for a whole year all you do is eat nothing but Top Ramen and finally the Top Ramen's run out and then you say man you know Pastor David always said to go to Winko and talk to Shirley because she has a gift card for me. Let me go. And you go and you get what was already paid for a year ago. That is salvation. That is salvation guys. That 2,000 years ago the price of our sin was so high that the blood of Jesus paid for it. Past, present, and future. Imagine how powerful that blood is. It is the living blood. That's why demons hate when you talk about the blood because it's so powerful. Think about it that Jesus died and he died for the sins of the world past, present, and future. I like to say like this imagine the globe full of sin after Adam and Eve fell and imagine if you could see from in a spiritual sense the the earth from far away and all of a sudden when it was a bright earth and then Adam and Eve fell and all of a sudden as as humans started to grow and populate the earth it just turned black like like that was that venom that like looks like spider-man but he's black like and he can't rip the the suit off

just covered and then you're just looking at the earth and you're just like man who's gonna save the earth who's gonna save that there's no way there's no way nothing can take that thing off like I seen that movie and he he keeps trying to take that that black stuff off and then it just snaps right back and then all of us and then all of a sudden you see this little baby born from a woman named Mary and you see this little light in the midst of darkness and darkness does not comprehend the light and you're just like whoa what's happening what's happening down there and all of a sudden you see this child and then becomes an adult and begins to preach and in the midst of this dark you see this one little person that's light but then after 33 years you see him being whipped and taken to Golgotha and you're just watching you're like what is happening how can they do this how can they treat this beautiful light so horribly this ugly earth that can't take this stuff off and then you see them nail him to the cross and they lift them up he says draw he says lift me up and I will draw all men unto myself and the craziest thing happens as you're watching this all of a sudden all the black all the muck of the world starts to go and like a magnet starts to stick to him the one that had no sin the one that all he did was love and all of that yuckiness starts to just boom boom just starts to stick on him and you're watching and you can't believe that for the first time this light being starts to diminish because of all the blackness starts to cover his light and finally you can almost hear him say it is finished what is he finished the whipping no the cross no all the sins of the world have now stuck on to him the Bible says that we he nailed our sins to his cross and all of a sudden all the dark all the sin all the filth went on him and he paid the cost of sin for the world that is what he did see I I tell you these scenarios because I want to make it hard for you to go back to the world that's why I say these things because anytime if it for one second my mind wants to entertain my old life I remember what he did on that cross for me that's the way he suffered on that cross for me and that's why I can just with all of my heart say I will worship you I will

Preach your name. I will proclaim your name. I will follow you when I'm broke. I'll follow you when I got money I'll follow you my car works. I'll follow you if I don't i'll follow you if this church falls apart. I will follow you Because of what you did lord Because all of my stuff and you nailed it to your cross Wow I remember one time somebody said man think of the worst thing you've ever done And i'm like, bro, there's a lot of them He says think of the worst one maybe the one you've never told anybody He was he took that one too He says Even while we were yet sinners he loved us wow How can we not Shout his name. How can we not worship? How can we not serve him? How can we not just lay down and surrender at his feet? The one that defeated death the one that spoke planets and suns into creation And yet he still comes and suffers for us that's wild man That's wild Where are we Um, is it 28 or 27 Okay, 25 says for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet 26 look at this the last enemy to be destroyed is death For god has put all things in subjection Under his feet. Oh, okay. This is a good one right here Can't wait to talk about this. But when it says all things are put in subjection. It is plain that he is accepted who Who put all things in subjection under him? When all things are subjected to him Then the son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him That god may be all in on you're just like whoa, whoa, whoa what we're gonna read it in the message It says this He won't let up until the last enemy is down

And the very last enemy is death As the psalmist said he laid them low one and all and he walked all over them And When scripture says that when he walked all over them, it's obvious that he couldn't at the same time be walked on You understand what that's saying that what that is saying is that when he walks on the enemy that means nothing can walk on him When everything and everyone is finally under god's rule The son will step down taking his place with everyone else Showing that god's rule is absolutely comprehensive a perfect ending Man This is the part I got excited about because Do you realize it says that he puts all his enemies under his feet? You know what's exciting about that? Is who's his body? We are Bible says we're the body of christ and he's the head So even if you're not the pastor the evangelist if you even if you're just You're not you're not god's shoulders. You're not god's hands. You're not god's heart. What if you're just the callus on his toe? I'm excited to be that you know what that means. That means the enemy is still under you That's exciting Super cub for sharon. Okay, let's see boom super cub happy well first he's sad and then he starts laughing All right. That's for those of you in pando and edovo. Love you guys And abraham rodriguez I see you there, too. Let's see Let's see. Let's see the cholo cat All right, thank you So I'm a bunion A bunion on the body of christ is better than what this world could offer think about that Yeah Man doesn't that doesn't that make you feel good? That we're

body of Christ and his enemies are under his feet. So that means he uses us to stomp on the enemy. Amen. In verse 29 it says, otherwise what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Okay, there's another thing that was happening back then. We're gonna, let's read it in the message. It says, why do you think people offer themselves to be baptized for those already in the grave? If there's no chance of resurrection for a corpse, if God's power stops at the cemetery gates, why do we keep doing things that suggest he's going to clean the place out someday, pulling everyone up on their feet alive? So apparently back then, we don't know much about this. A lot of scholars have debated on this, talked about it, tried to find. Apparently people that died in Christ that didn't get a chance to be baptized, people were getting baptized in their place. Like Joseph, if something happened, if you just got saved and then something happened to you, a train hits you or whatever before, and I'm just like, man I'm gonna get baptized in Joseph's place. So apparently they were doing that. Nobody does that now that I know of, you know, but apparently that was a thing back then. Oh do they? Oh I didn't know that. So in verse 30 to 33, it says this, it says, why are we in danger every hour? I protest, brothers, by my pride in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die every day. He says, what do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts in Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, then let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived, bad company ruins good morals. I'm gonna read that in the message. It says, and why do you think I keep risking my neck in this dangerous work? He says, I look death in the face practically every day that I live. Do you think I do this if I wasn't convinced of your resurrection and mine as guaranteed by the resurrected Messiah Jesus? Do you think I was just trying to act heroic when I fought the wild beast at Ephesus, hoping that it wouldn't be the end of me? I love that. He's just like, so I'm risking my life every day. He goes, I am convinced that you're gonna resurrect and I'm gonna resurrect. He goes, why would I risk my life? He says, hoping it wouldn't be the end of me? Not

on your life. It's resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection. The undergirds what I say and do, the way I live. If there's no resurrection, then we eat, we drink, the next day we die. That's what I'm saying. If there are no resurrection, let's sell some dope and make money. That's my version of it. If he goes, if we eat, we drink, next day we die and that's all there is to it. He says, but don't fool yourself. Don't let yourself be poisoned by this anti resurrection loose talk because bad company ruins good manners. So in other words, he's saying quit hanging around with people that are giving you false teaching, that are just giving you itching ears, that are just telling you these things that are not biblical, things that are not of God, things. We got to be careful. Our ears are like gates. What are you letting in your gates? We got to be really careful. Don't just go and run to things just because it says it's a Christian event. Don't just go and run to things just because of this or just because of that. Be careful. You know, people, people, a lot of people, um, have a lot of faith and want to know everything about their car insurance or your life insurance. You know more about that than you do about your eternal life. I mean, that stuff doesn't even matter at the end of it all. What does it matter? I mean, is it important? Yeah, of course. I mean, I got, we got T-bone and look, I got my car back fixed, so I'm glad. But ultimately, what if that car had gotten so smashed because it hit on Sharon's door that I didn't have her anymore? I could care less about that car. At the end of all things doesn't even matter I could get another car I can't get another Sharon So why is it that we Sometimes we know more and worry about more about the things of this world than the things that are eternal So we got to be careful I'm gonna read it that part again in the message don't let yourselves be poisoned By this anti-resurrection loose talk cuz bad company ruins good manners Jimmy Blaze, let's see. What am I gonna give you? Cat the baptizer Is it because they don't have the full knowledge Well, okay, here's the thing right is that

If if if all there was was fast food and there was no places to get a real burger, right It's all fake anyways, yeah You would know the difference Because all these frozen patties McDonald's right Reuben And All of a sudden, you know Can you imagine all there is is Burger King? McDonald's and Wendy's and all this and that then all of a sudden one day somebody opens up this little hole in the wall that makes burgers out of fresh meat and You finally get it and you're just like oh my gosh Why did nobody tell me and I think that's so so back to answer your question. I Think it's two people's fault. I think it's us that we get lazy and don't want to search the scriptures ourselves and two You have preachers that care more about How much tithe comes in then your eternity? So they will water it down they will water the message they give you feel-good messages They'll maybe quote one scripture and give you a more of a how-to-feel-good type of sermon and it fills the place up And people are going straight to hell Or at the very least let's say they are saved But we stunt their growth Imagine it's cute to teach a kindergarten or the ABCs. It ain't cute to teach them ABCs when they're in eighth grade anymore You know, I think that goes with every well, I don't know the answer to that but I'll say this I'll say this though in the Jewish culture in Jewish culture You were considered under your parent until you're 12. I Don't know if that's what you're asking or not

I Don't think there's a definite answer for that. I think that's exactly why the enemy attacks our children and Exposes them to things they shouldn't be exposed to because the quicker that's exposed to them The quicker innocence is lost and now they're accountable for their stuff I think that's exactly why the enemy wants to bombard our children with drugs and sex and pornography and all this stuff That's why I that's just my opinion I can't tell you a scripture that you know says that But I believe that the enemy wants to strip our children of that innocence so they can now be held accountable for it And know right from wrong and we will never really truly know at what point they know right from wrong We expose them to the things of God Then I I do believe Maxine are you there? Yes She shared something to me that was so powerful yesterday about the baby She's five years old Having a nightmare She wanted the first thing that she wanted to do is she wanted to put a YouTube of this Bible study She was so focused on the study it gave her peace Listening to the Word of God and listening to this Bible study from last week. It was last week's last week's Bible study That's all she wanted to watch was Pastor and to listen to and that's what gave her peace So for a child to be able to comprehend that she knew that that's what she needed That's because she's so used to being here so used to wanting that and she knows that that's what brings her peace So if we expose our children if we expose and she knows that that's what brings her peace Then I believe that a child will know What brings them peace? What is good for them? And I believe that fathers You know is the head And I believe in Proverbs 22 6 raise your children up in the way of the Lord

And when they grow old they will not depart. I Really strongly believe in that order because God loves order and I Believe that men should raise up their children in the way of the Lord and there weren't always and there won't always be Men there won't always be because I was a single mom, right? And there was times where I was backslidden There was times where I wasn't there and I will tell you that it was my children There was times that it was my child That mom are we going to church mom? Are we going to church mom? Are we going to church? It was my children that were bringing that conviction It was my children that were bringing me back to the things of the Lord So sometimes it is our children if we expose our children because of my exposing of my children My children were speaking life back into me. If we do that our children will be the ones that will push us back But we have to be the ones to expose that to them So I think there is no real answer at exact one age But if we put that in them, it is true. They will never depart from it if we expose our children Do we have to be the ones that expose it to them? Period. I don't think there is an age Amen we got a couple super cats here number one. We have Marcello and Let's see. I'm gonna give you the evangelist cat brother. Take that prophetically. You should go evangelize And also who else we got Another one Barraza you get the spread cat and then a b 1 a b 1 What are we gonna give you? Oh, you get the cowboy cat Amen and this is just for the lost soul. We got J cat trying to get saved over there still he's just mad on this phone just sweating, but Yeah, he's upset man Moses cat to sunset free. How you doing brother? He has the ten co-meow mints all right, I Forgot where I left off

34 amen. All right He says wake up from your drunken stupor as Is right and do not go on sinning For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame in The message says think straight awaken to the holiness of life No more playing fast and loose with resurrection facts Ignorance of God is a luxury. You can't afford in times like these Aren't you embarrassed that you've let this kind of thing go on as long as you have? So he's just remember this is a letter. He's rebuking he is rebuking and So in verse 35 He says all but someone will ask how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? 36 you foolish person what you sow does not come to life until it unless it dies and What you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel He says perhaps of Wheat or some other grain But God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body It's a good. It's a good Analogy here, but I'm gonna read it in the message. Is there some skeptic is sure to ask show me how resurrection works Give me a diagram draw me a picture What is this resurrection body look like and I know I think because he's asking because obviously we know that When somebody goes in the grave their body decomposes, right? So so Paul is kind of making this example like oh, so somebody's saying oh show me the resident What does that look like? I mean, what are you talking about? He says if you look at this question closely you realize how absurd it is There is no diagrams for this kind of thing but we do have a parallel experience in gardening you plant a dead seed and Soon, there's a flourishing plant. I

Love that. He's just like listen, but it's a dead seed. I was walking into food for less the other day right here What is it Orangeburg? and Right in the front where you walk in right? I mean the Sun is right on it that that rack with a bunch of seeds you see like different vegetables and stuff You see I seen it. Okay, so I'm not crazy. I did see it, right? And I and it just we walked in real quick and in my mind because it was hot and I'm just like That's crazy those bags of seeds in this hot hot Sun because it was like a hundred degrees that day I'm like, but you get that dead seed and you plant it and put water and it'll actually grow to something Like this is just weird stuff. I think about guys as I'm walking into the store and Sharon has no idea what I'm thinking She's probably like wow, he's in deep thought I'm thinking about these dry seeds You know and and so it's funny because He says you plant a dead seed and there's a flourishing plant He so he compares that to us when we get put in the ground when we're buried It's just a dead shell, but out of that's gonna come out something else So he says you plant a dead seed and Soon, there's a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant If somebody you know, if you didn't know any better somebody said you how'd you get that plant out of this dead seed? You people be like what I don't get it He says you can never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed if you've never seen a tomato Right and you saw tomato seed you couldn't guess what that was gonna look like So it's kind of the dumb question of somebody asking old show me resurrection He says what we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different I Love that the fact that he's pointing that out Makes sense, right? In verse 39 He says for not all flesh is the same But there is one kind of for humans another for animals another for birds and another for fish There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies

But the glory of the heavenly one is of one kind and the glory of the earthly is of another 41 there is one glory of the Sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars for star differs from Star in glory. You're like, okay. What what are you talking about? Let's see what the message says He says you will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning Just as there are different kinds of seeds There are different kinds of bodies for instance humans animals birds fish each Unprecedented in its form You get a hint of the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth, but in the sky The Sun the moon the stars all these varieties of beauty and brightness and we're only looking at pre-resurrection seeds Who can imagine what the resurrection plants will look will be like? So he's making this point of saying yeah Of course, we know what a tomato is gonna look like because we know what tomatoes are So when we see a tomato seed, we understand it makes a tomato a watermelon seed We understand we get that because we're here on earth But imagine if all you had was seeds of tomatoes and vegetables and peaches and apricots and and You never had the plant. We would just be like wow What is it? This is gonna look nothing in its second life or its afterlife and in the same way he says We're all a bunch of pre-resurrection seeds all of us We're dry seeds We have no idea what we're gonna become and that's the point that he's making so he's just clearly somebody was was was pushing up on him saying well if there's a resurrection then show me what that looks like because the body decomposed and this and that's what's it going to look like so i i think that's why he's making this point and it's it's kind of silly but he's being silly back verse 42 he's still with this resurrection thing so it must have been a big issue back then

he says so so is it with the resurrection of the dead what is sown is perishable what is raised is imperishable 43 it is sown in dishonor it is raised in glory it is sown in weakness it is raised in power 44 it is sewn a natural body it is raised a spiritual body if there is a natural body there is also a spiritual body in in the message it says this image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised we're raised for good and alive forever the corpse our corpse that's planted is no beauty it's no beauty but when it's raised it's glorious put in the ground weak right when they bury us we're at our weakest we're just weak we're dead we have no life in us but put in the ground weak but it comes up powerful the seed sown is natural but the seed grown is supernatural it's the same seed the same body but what a difference from it when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality wow wow i remember my grandma died i was i forgot how old i was 20 and um i was not a christian i wasn't a christian until i was 32 so that's nine years before that and she died in texas and i remember going to the funeral and my grandma served the lord for a few decades and she died of cancer and i remember it was an open casket and i walked up with my mom and then i walked away and i said that's not my grandma i said my grandma isn't here as a sinner i understood that i was like that's just her shell i said my grandma is not there and it reminds me of that because they buried a body that was racked in cancer and she was wrinkled up but she didn't stay that way how do i know that because the lord gave me a vision when i did get saved and it was about 10 years later after that and i was saved and i was praying and in the middle of the praying the lights were out i began to weep because i said lord my grandma never saw me saved she prayed and prayed and prayed for my salvation and she died while i was still in my sin and she doesn't even know i serve you and i promise you man i saw a vision i saw a dream or a vision i don't know what it was but all i know is i was in the throne room of god

and he was on this throne and he was so bright that he there was no light in the room but yet light emanated from him and i couldn't see him because it was too bright and the and and and the throne room was empty except one person i saw a woman and she was twirling in his presence and she was like in her 30s with long black hair didn't know who that was and then i looked and it was my grandma dancing in the presence of god in her 30s no gray hair no wrinkles no cancer and she was having the time of her life buried in cancer in a body that killed her, but raised in power. This is the hope that we have. This is why we follow after him. This is why we love him. This is why we adore him and worship him because he is worthy to be praised. These songs we sing ain't just something to do for 15 minutes before we do a sermon and announcements. If that's what that is to you, you know the way when you go to the movies, you go 15 minutes late because it's trailers anyway. Like, ah, the movie says it starts at three, but it ain't really starting till 3.15, so you go late. Don't ever treat Sunday service, don't ever treat worship like that. You're robbing yourself. You ain't robbing God, you're robbing yourself. We don't have to worship, we get to worship. It is a privilege. There are people that have passed away in the Lord and they are worshiping him day and night. And they, think about that. Can you imagine the Lord saying,

hey, do you wanna come into my throne room and worship? Are you gonna be like, nah, I'm good, I got my mansion, I got a big screen, I'm good, Jesus. I'm good.