This History of the Church Pt 2 - The Falling Away - James Minison

Welcome to the official podcast of the Church

of Christ Wheeler area. We're so glad that you've

tuned in for today's message. Whether you're

on your morning commute or if you're relaxing

at home, we're here to share the strength and

truth of God's Word with our community. If you're

in the neighborhood, we'd love to meet you in

person. Come see us at 1500 South Allen L. Bean

Boulevard right here in Wheeler, Texas. We gather

every Sunday morning at 1030 a .m. and in the

afternoon at 230 p .m. We meet again on Wednesdays

at 7 p .m. Right now, let's open our Bibles together

and dive into today's sermon. We're excited for

another opportunity to continue the series we

have going on of the history of the New Testament

Church. There's a lot of history. And there's

a lot of ground to cover. And every single one

of the guys that's going to stand before you

and share with you what they've studied is going

to have a lot of ground to cover. And so we're

going to ask you to bear with us a little bit.

Last week, Zane talked with us about the establishment

of Christ Church, how Christ had a will. And

he set a pattern in how the church ought to follow

that pattern. Because if it's not the original,

it's not Christ Church. And he talked about Alfredo,

I think y 'all remember that. This week we're

talking about the fulfillment of falling away.

The Bible predicted, it made a prediction or

a prophecy that there would be a great falling

away of the church. Now that doesn't sound good,

does it? I'm gonna tell you, it wasn't good.

And so in the span of our discussion this morning,

we are going to be covering about 1 ,447 years.

That's a lot of ground we're covering, and the

disclaimer I wanna give is that if you're a history

nerd, if you absolutely love the details of history,

You're not going to get that this morning because

there's a lot of ground we have to cover and

a lot of events and individuals we need to talk

about and we're going to be giving the highlights

and the overview of the history that happened

during this time period from 70 AD to AD 1517

and we just won't be able to be bogged down in

details. Unless we want to be here for multiple

hours, and that's not what we're gonna do this

morning. We're gonna start in AD 70 where Zane

left off for us to begin with. During this time

period, the church was practicing as Christ had

intended. People were baptized, souls were added,

proper leadership of the church existed. This

is the ideal. This was the pattern This is how

Christ wanted his church to be set up and it

was happening during this time period And then

what we're gonna end up at the end of our time

period that we're gonna cover this morning church

The way Christ set it up wasn't even visible

in history I'm not gonna tell you it didn't exist

at all because I believe and I think that they

were a good -hearted people trying to do what

was right throughout all of history, but throughout

This section of history we're studying during

the worst parts of this falling away, the way

Christ set it up wasn't even visible in history

or recorded for us to see. Doctrines of baptism,

church leadership, salvation, and even morals

were severely tainted by 1517. And this stuff

didn't happen overnight, folks. It took time,

long. Periods of time for this falling away to

happen for people to begin falling away from

the way crisis set it up But I hope that you

can see as we go along That's how it happened

slowly Over time and so we're starting off in

AD 70 talking about the New Testament church

Acts 2 42 says and they continued steadfastly

in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship in the

breaking of bread and in prayers That's what

was happening during this time period They were

continuing in the Apostles doctrine the Apostles

were still alive for a time And so they were

still able to give verbal instructions inspired

by the Lord himself as to how he wanted his church

to operate and then as the Apostles died off

during this time around 72 100 AD Guess what?

These people were still following that that Apostles

doctrine pretty closely pretty directly We see

some of that Apostles doctrine in Philippians

Philippians 1:1

chapter 1 verse 1 Paul and Timothy bond -servants

of Jesus Christ to all the saints to Christ Jesus

in Christ Jesus who were in Philippi with the

bishops and the deacons what we see here is the

setup of a local congregation here in Philippi

we have Paul and Timothy writing this letter

and They're the evangelists and they're writing

this this letter to the saints that are in Philippi

That is just the Christians that would be Regular

old saints saints are Christians and Christians

are saints and then you had the bishops when

you study in your New Testament Bible the word

bishops bishops Overseers elders shepherds. They

all mean the same thing. It's all talking about

the same office and doing the same work so what

we find here is that Paul and Timothy wrote this

letter to Christians and wrote this letter to

the elders that were there at Philippi a Plurality

of them and then we have the third office mentioned

here at Philippi deacons. This letter was written

to the deacons So that's the way the local congregation

was set up by Christ And that's how it was practiced

by the early church for a pretty good period

of time Okay, Acts chapter 8 verse 38 the Bible

Acts 8:38

says so we commanded the chariot to stand still

and both Philip and the eunuch went down Into

the water and he baptized him one of the fundamental

things of the church was that Baptism was for

the remission of sins and how did they perform

these baptisms? Well in this example here in

Acts chapter 8 with Philip and the eunuch You

Acts 8 · chapter mention

know what they did they both went down into the

water and he baptized that means that the eunuch

was immersed in water. He was buried in a watery

grave of baptism to have his sins washed away.

That was the practice. That was the pattern that

Christ set up. And that's what was happening

within the early church. Second Thessalonians

2 and 3, this is where we get the letter from

Paul that was the warning or the prophecy that

this great falling away was gonna happen. The

Bible says, let no one deceive you by any means.

For that day will not come unless the falling

away comes first and the Sun Excuse me, and the

man of sin is revealed the son of perdition He

says there's going to be a great falling away.

Don't be deceived folks This is going to happen

as sure as the world and in this time. There's

going to be the man of sin Also called the son

of perdition and I'm not gonna get into specifics

right now on who I believe that is But as we

go throughout studying this history I think you'll

be able to understand pretty quickly who this

man of sin or the son of Perdition is or at least

what my belief is on it We get more details about

this falling away in first Timothy chapter 4

1 Timothy 4:1

verse 1 says now the spirit expressly says that

in latter times Some will depart from the faith

giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines

of demons. This is talking about that falling

away and it says they're going to depart from

the faith. That doesn't sound good, does it?

Departing from the faith. What is it that's causing

them to depart from the faith? Well first off,

they're listening to spirits that are deceiving.

There's gonna be these spirits that come and

then trick people into falling away and using

doctrines that are not. Christ doctrine, they're

not Christ teachings. They're not according to

Christ pattern the way he set it up and inspired

his apostles to set it up They were doctrines

of demons. They were demonic They were wrong

and they were false and they were causing people

to depart. They were going to cause people to

depart from the faith To fall away we get more

details about this falling away in Acts chapter

Acts 20:29

20 verse 29 for I know this After my departure

savage wolves will come in from among you These

deceiving spirits that are coming gonna gonna

come and cause the church to fall away with their

demonic Practices and doctrines where are they

gonna come from? Are they gonna be enemies of

the church that are gonna come from outside and

cause people to fall away? No, they're gonna

come in from among yourselves Within the so -called

church these savage wolves are gonna rise up

verse 30 also from among yourselves men will

rise up speaking perverse things To draw away

the disciples after themselves this falling away

is gonna happen from the inside out folks This

is not gonna be good now the exact time frame

of when this falling away actually happened.

It's hard to tell Okay, but in the prophecy that

Paul made in the letter second letter to Thessalonians

here in chapter 2 verse 7 He gives us a little

bit of details on that. He said for the mystery

of lawlessness is already at work During the

time that Paul was warning about this falling

away that was gonna happen in the future in these

latter days He says that it was already at work

There were the beginnings of the falling away

was already happening. They were already dealing

dealing with Judaizers with the Gnostics with

moral corruption people getting drunk at the

communion service There was all sorts of corruption

already happening little by little That really

was gonna be the beginning of this falling away.

It was already happening. We're gonna get to

our next period of time here in AD 100 to 110

to a man named Ignatius. Ignatius was a man who

wrote, and we have recorded in us, a certain

part of history, early church history. This would

have been just a few years after the... Disciples

maybe 10 to 30 or 40 years after the last of

the disciples were either really really old or

had passed away So they didn't have direct revelation

from the lord from the apostles at this point

They still had some if not most or all of the

writings Of the new testament maybe not in a

full collection of the books and the bible that

we would have today But they had those writings

inspired by god from the apostles We have this

man named Ignatius and in his writings he distinguishes

One bishop from the elders early steps toward

a centralized hierarchy So this is interesting

because this was just a few short years after

the Apostles Who were setting forth the doctrine

of Christ in the early church just a few years

after they died We already see the doctrine of

the church leadership the way Christ set it up

being deviated from They had one bishop that

stood above the plurality of elders. That isn't

how Christ set it up Folks imagine we had David

and we had Brandon as our elders but there was

something special about brother Garland and Garland

was our bishop above our elders because he was

special and he Was the one singular bishop and

he had authority over our plurality of elders

and in the writings Early writings in history

recorded for us by this man Ignatius who had

some sort of influence at this point in time

We already see that very early on these these

doctrines of church leadership were already being

altered and changed And we're gonna unfortunately

see it get worse and worse we see this Direct

quote from his epistle here from Ignatius It

says while your bishop presides in the place

of God and your presbyters in the place of the

assembly with the Apostles Alongside with your

deacons or along with your deacons. So he talks

about deacons. He talks about Apostles then he

talks about bishops and Presbyters now remember

if we study bishops and presbyters in the New

Testament Bibles, it's talking about the same

office the office of elders But here Ignatius

An early church history makes a distinction or,

if you will, comes up with a distinction between

the two offices. So during this section of time,

starting in AD 100, we see persecution happening

toward Christians very heavily. Now, I'm talking

to you early on about some of these slight deviations

from Christ's doctrine, but I want you to know

this was not the overwhelming majority. During

the time of persecution shortly after the Apostles

died a majority of churches were still practicing

the way Christ set it up Okay, but there were

still Little inklings of information you see

here and then here and there that show that there

were people even early on departing from the

way Christ set it up, but during persecution

the church was thriving and During persecution

these congregations was for the most part They

were following the way Christ had intended it

So in 100 to 300 AC we see AD we see severe persecution

of the early church and the martyrdom of polycarp

I want to read you an excerpt out of that says

this history tells us when they were so torn

talking about Christians by lashes that the mechanism

of their flesh was visible even as far as the

inward veins and arteries they endured patiently

These people are being tortured so that their

bodies were being what were visible Were being

lashed and whipped and beaten so harshly that

they're they were being their insides were visible

It was disgusting. It was torture and For a couple

of hundred years. It was this bad And I want

you to think about this for a moment during the

time That the church was being persecuted the

most That was the time that the church was thriving

the best It was following Christ the way Christ

wanted it intended it to be practicing and following

those rules and they the Least amount of deviation

from Christ doctrine was happening during the

time they were persecuted the worst and it wasn't

till after essentially persecuted Persecution

ended that they started falling away from Christ

Think about that We have in about 80 100 to 80

50 a writing in the early church called the didachi

We already saw a little bit of deviation of the

doctrine of church leadership happening from

the man Ignatius But now we see the doctrines

of baptism being written about in this didachi

the didachi was essentially a Christian literature

that was Unonymous or unanimous? That people

would just read and learn from it wasn't inspired

scripture But it talked about scripture it talked

about the writings of the Apostles and it talked

about just Christian beliefs Now there were some

signs of deviation from Christ doctrine in this

Christian literature where in a section allows

pouring when sufficient water is not available

in the context of baptism and It is essentially

the first that we know of exception to immersion.

Here's what the Dadachi says about that. But

if thou have not living water, baptize it into

other water, and if thou canst not in cold and

warm. But if thou have not either, pour out water

thrice upon thine head, upon the head into the

name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Dadachi, again, during this time of persecution

in the early church, just within 50 years or

70 years after the apostles died, there is a

small sect of an inkling of falling away of the

doctrines of baptism already happening. Imagine

this. The apostles are here teaching us the way

Christ wants it done. And then guess what? The

apostles die. They go to their resting place

and just a few short years later, People and

their corruption are already trying to mess it

up Already messing up church leadership already

messing up doctrine now. I want you to know this

wasn't a majority I want to stress that this

was not a majority This was just a small Section

of people that were reading and writing and talking

about this didachi and learning from this didachi

that came up with even just an exception It wasn't

even the rule they didn't all of a sudden change

how baptism was done the universal This was just

an exception that this person came up with or

that these people came up with as they wrote

this didachi That was an exception to baptism

by immersion and the exception was only in the

minimal case where Sufficient water was not available.

I'm not telling you that this is how Christ set

it up I'm telling you that these people intended

it to be an exception not I'm not saying Christ

okayed this exception, but what I'm saying is

the overwhelming majority still believed in baptism

via burial, in water, via immersion. That was

the overwhelming majority during this time, but

this is the first time somebody came up with

the idea of an exception to that rule. And if

there's not enough water in whatever area you're

in, maybe just take the water and pour it thrice

upon thine head. That's the first example we

see of Christ's pattern for baptism beginning

to be changed. After the Dadachi, we have a man

named Cyprian, and that's how we're going to

pronounce his name, is Cyprian. In this exception

to baptism, this exception that they said pour

over people's head three times, there begins

to be a little bit more exceptions. This was

about 100 years after the reading from the Dadachi.

This man named Cyprian defends sprinkling or

pouring for the sick and it was in the context

of clinical baptism. Somebody that, based on

his judgment, was not able to be immersed in

water, what do you do? You come up with an exception

so that they could be. baptized via sprinkling

or pouring. And this was a direct quote that

we have from history here from Cyprian of Carthage.

You have asked also, dearest son, what I thought

of those who obtained God's grace in sickness

and weakness, for they that are not to be washed

but sprinkled with the saving water. I want you

to notice what he's about to say. Because he's

about to make a claim that a lot of people take

out of context. And the claim that he was about

to say was taken out of context, and rules were

created from this claim. Because he went on to

say, the sprinkling also of water prevails equally

with the washing of salvation. Okay? I don't

believe that. Let's just make that clear. Christ

didn't set it up that way. However, He simply

meant this statement as an exception, not to

create new rules. He was saying the sprinkling

of water is just as valid as a baptism as immersion

in water in the context of clinical baptism,

people who are sick. That was the exception he

came up with and wrote about. But people were,

over history, gonna take this idea and make it

a law or a rule. Now we see a man named Diocletian

in 303 AD 303 and he gave his last and final

attempt of persecution from Rome to Christianity

This was the great in history known as one of

the greatest if not the greatest attempt to wipe

out Christianity and in this period of persecution

You know what they did they failed and Christianity

prevailed Christianity stayed around and so you

know what happened the next Emperor Galerius

grants toleration just a few years later for

Christianity. After this intense persecution,

Why were they all of a sudden going to grant,

okay fine, we're going to tolerate you Christians

being in Rome, it's going to be okay. This is

why. This is what they wrote. History tells us

many were subdued by the fear of danger, talking

about Christians. Many even suffered death and

yet since most of them persevered in their determination,

we thought that we ought to grant our most prompt

indulgence also to these so that they may again

be Christians and may hold their... Conventicles.

So essentially what we see is these people were

subdued, they suffered, they faced danger, even

to their death, okay, and they persevered and

they stayed faithful. And so maybe now we ought

to take it easy on them. And so they granted

an edict of toleration in Rome for Christianity

in 311. And I want you to know from this point

on, When persecution was essentially ended, this

is where things really started to spiral. Because

even before the persecution, we saw these little

inklings of the falling away begin to just take

root, but they weren't the overwhelming majority.

After the end of persecution, the deviancies

from God's plan begin to become overwhelming.

It just gets worse and worse, and people begin

to fall. away farther and farther. We get to

a man named Constantine and this time the the

emperors of Rome would come together and battle

each other and whoever won the battle would become

emperor of Rome and Constantine wanted to be

emperor and so he was traveling towards this

the battle of the Milvian bridge and he was going

to fight this battle so that he could become

emperor of Rome and on his way to this battle

he claimed that he had a vision. And in his vision,

he saw a cross made out of light. And underneath

that word spoke to him that said, by this, conquer.

And so he took this supposed vision as, this

is Christ, and I am going to help you win this

battle and help you become emperor of Rome. That's

what Constantine claimed. That's what Constantine

believed. And you know what happened at this

great battle of the Milvian Bridge? He won. and

he became emperor of Rome. Now something started

to change here. Because just a couple of years

ago, Rome was intensely persecuting Christians.

Now all of a sudden, they have an emperor, a

leader that is saying, I got in this place by

the help of Christ. That's a total flip of the

script there, isn't it? And so what happened?

The next year, after Constantine became Emperor

of Rome, there was something called the Edict

of Milan. And essentially, not only Christianity

received legal toleration, they were legally

supposed to, in Rome, tolerate Christians, they

were now legally receiving imperial favor. They

were receiving favor from Rome, favor from the

emperors. And that was all stated in the Edict

of Milan. Free and unrestricted opportunity of

religious worship history tells us Their property

talking about the Christians property that was

taken from them by Rome Should be restored to

the Christians without payment or any claim of

recompense see guys. This sounds great freedom

of religion That's what we I believe we have

in our country today that we ought to be thankful

for and that's what this sounds like in this

edict in 313 ad the freedom of religion That's

what it sounds like. People ought to not only

be able to practice Christianity and be tolerated,

but also be supported to do these things. We're

going to give them their land. They started getting

along with Rome. Christianity and Rome now were

becoming friendly when they were once enemies.

During this time of the rule of Constantine,

when this first church and state began kind of

working together, This was the influence that

Rome had over the church at this point in time.

The emperors of Rome would gather together bishops.

And by this point, this role of bishop has grown

into something that was not at all how God intended.

Originally, bishops were the elders of the congregation.

And then they morphed into, they were above the

elders in the congregation. They were the one

bishop of a congregation. And then those bishops

gained more power. and popularity, and now they

were a bishop over a region. And they had control

and power over multiple elderships and multiple

congregations in an area. That's what these bishops

had turned into. They were really well -known

figures and very powerful figures. And so the

emperors of Rome were friendly towards these

bishops because they were well -known and powerful.

and when there was a church dispute or a church

discussion or disagreement the emperor of rome

who had no business being involved would conjugate

a group of bishops that they would call a council

that we would call a council to settle church

disputes and church issues and a famous one that

you've probably heard of is the Council of Nicaea

in 8325 when the divinity of Christ was an issue

that was disagreed upon and Constantine he convoked

a general council and invited the speedy attendance

of bishops from all quarters and he got a bunch

of bishops together created this council to come

excuse me to terms and make a decision on these

church issues. Not only did these bishops have

power to settle agreements and make decisions

that they had no right to do, now the emperor

of Rome had the power and authority to take these

bishops to do those things. You see the power

that Rome had over the church at this point was

not at all a good thing. Then we get to emperor

Theodosius. And what we see here loosely is that

Christianity becomes the official religion of

the empire. Now we don't have, that I can find

any documentation that expressly states this.

But what we do find is some writings from Theodosius

that makes it sound like that was the case. Okay,

and so in this period of time in 83 AD, when

Theodosius was emperor, we see the church and

state become deeply. intertwined. This is what

we see here happening in AD 380. It is our will

that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration

of our clemency shall practice the religion which

the divine Peter the apostle transmitted to the

Romans. the single deity of the Father and of

the Son of the Holy Spirit under the concept

of equal majesty and of the Holy Trinity. Now

there was this idea becoming increasingly popular

that Peter himself had been given some sort of

special authority by Christ. And where this came

from was a very gross misunderstanding of when

Christ said thou art Peter and upon this rock

I will build my church. Well the reality is Peter

was never the rock. Christ has always been the

rock, has always been the foundation of his church,

okay? But he gave Peter those keys, and Peter

unlocked the gates of the kingdom when he preached

that very first gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost.

But what these people thought was that Peter

was given special authority by Christ because

he was the rock on which Christ's church would

be built upon. And not only did Peter have this

special authority, but Peter, when he was gone,

passed down this special authority to Rome. That

doesn't really make sense in our minds, but in

their minds at some point in Peter's life as

an apostle, he was loosely associated with the

church at Rome. And so they thought because Peter

was associated with them, he passed down this

special authority from Christ to Rome. And so

what we see here in this codex from Theodosius

is that it was written by the emperor himself

that these people ought to worship this way.

It was no longer freedom of religion. It was

Christianity being forced upon people. It was

the will of Rome that people were to start practicing

Christianity, but not just however they wanted

in a very specific way, the way that he believed

the Apostle Peter had practiced. He keeps going,

it says, history tells us, we command that those

persons who follow this rule shall embrace the

name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however,

whom we adjudge demented and insane shall sustain

the infamy of heretical dogmas. Their meeting

places shall not receive the name of churches

and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance

and secondly by the retribution of our own initiative.

I just. Clear that I am not here to stand before

you and trash talk any other people or their

belief systems or what they've believed in the

past. My assignment was to teach this portion

of history and this is a very important part

of this portion of history and it was a very

not good part of the history of the church and

it has to be talked about. They said the people

that were going to follow this special authority

that Rome had given to them by Peter They had

to follow it in this way. And if they were gonna

follow it in this way, they were gonna go by

the name Catholic Christians. And to my knowledge,

this is the first time in history that we see

this name. Anybody else who did not practice

in this way, anybody else who chose any other

direction, they were labeled as heretics. And

they were called crazy and insane and demented.

And then they said, these people that are not

Catholic Christians, not only will they face

the vengeance of God on that day of judgment,

but they will also face the vengeance of Rome.

They will face our authority. If they were not

gonna follow this teaching that Rome thought

they had authority over, they were going to punish

these people. Folks, that's not good. That's

a great falling away. What ended up happening

here is that Christianity started off persecuted

and then a few years passed and then they were

tolerated and then a year passed and then all

of a sudden they were favored by Rome and now

essentially Christianity was established by Rome

not just Christianity the way Christ intended

it the way Rome wanted it to be. The influence

that Rome had over the church was established

and you had to follow it. And then we get to

the late 300s and 400s when there were people

beginning to recognize this corruption. And so

we see this thing called monasticism. Essentially,

monks decided that the... Solution to this problem

of all this corruption was to just go live an

isolated life and just get away from all the

corruption And I want you to know that was not

the right answer But I point this out to show

you that there were people with sincere hearts

that wanted to try to have a solution That wanted

to try to recognize the corruption and that wanted

to do something about it all along There were

people that wanted to do right but in this section

of history the overwhelming majority was corrupt

Okay, then we see a man named Jerome and he produced

what is known today as the Latin Vulgate and

it was essentially the Bible that the Roman Catholic

Church used and they essentially still use that

today and it was entirely in Latin and it included

the books of the Apocrypha and all of those types

of things and that was the Bible that they exclusively

used in this period of time in this Church of

Western Rome. Augustine greatly influences teaching

on original sin on grace predestination and infant

baptism so we've already seen earlier in history

that infant baptism was already kind of talked

about and it was more of an exception than a

rule that it could be done but now they're starting

to come up with the reason why this this man

named Augustine wrote about what we would call

today Calvinism and Augustine came before John

Calvin John Calvin was not the originator of

these doctrines of predestination and original

sin and all those things we studied in one of

our previous series. Augustine wrote about these

things. History tells us, inasmuch as infants

are not held bound by any sins of their own actual

life, it is the guilt of original sin, talking

about the sin of Adam and Eve. which is healed

in them. Infants ought to be baptized. It remains

for us to believe that infants inherit original

sins. Doctrines of baptism and of sin and God's

grace were greatly being corrupted during this

time as well. Then we get to a man named Damasus

in AD 366 to 384 and he was a bishop of Rome

and what we see is this idea of the special authority

that Peter had really being handed to Rome, not

only was it being handed to Rome, it was being

handed to the Bishop of Rome. By this time, the

bishops were not just over multiple congregations

in a region or in a quarter, is what they would

call it. Now they were a bishop over Rome. They

had gained so much power and what they thought

was authority given to them by Peter, the very

first bishop, if you will. They had power. They

were the most powerful influential person of

all the church. Zane covered this last week,

but I want you to know that Christ has always

been and will always be the proper head of the

church. And that's how it was designed and that's

how it was set up. And when we see that plan

of Christ being the head of his church deviated

from, when we see a corrupt man put in charge

and have this much influence over the entire

church, we see corruption. And that's what we

saw in this period of time. What essentially

happened here is what they believed was Christ

gave special authority to Peter, Peter was associated

with the church at Rome at one point, and so

the bishop of Rome occupies Peter's seat. And

this special authority in the seat that Peter

sat in was passed down from generation to generation

to the next bishop. Therefore, the Roman bishop

possessed special authority. That's what they

believed. Then we get to Leo I, who was in 440

AD or AD 440, he was the bishop of Rome. And

what we see here is, the authority of the Roman

bishop in this period of time, the time of Leo,

was greatly increased. Why was that? Y 'all remember

Attila the Hun? I, for a long time, thought Attila

the Hun was just some dude we read about in history

books. He was a character in Night at the Museum

movies, you know, really fun to read about. He

was actually a horrible, disgusting guy and plundered

places and he stole and he killed and he destroyed

and... He went into Northern Italy and he was

going to plunder the place. And there was a group

of men that went to Attila the Hun and convinced

them to not go into this battle and to not plunder.

And this Roman bishop, Leo I, was in that group

of men. And so now Rome is looking at the bishop,

the leader of the church, and seeing how much

power he really has, the power over war. the

power to keep somebody from plundering another,

how much power they have. And so now we start

to see, instead of Rome controlling the church,

we begin to see it teeter the other way, where

the church almost begin to control Rome. And

you're gonna see a little bit more of that as

we go along. At this point in time, in this section

of time, Rome as an empire began to weaken. but

the authority that Rome had over the church or

the authority that was in Rome by the bishop

began to strengthen. And then we get to the 400s

AD to the 1000s AD. And a lot of this is about

to begin the dark ages where we just don't have

a lot of information about, but during this time

period of about 600 years, there were a lot of

things that happened. A lot of deviancies where

all of these things that we've been talking about,

were just exceptions, and they were things that

were just beginning to grow, and they were at

their beginning stages. Well, during this 600

years, they all became institutionalized. It

all became set in stone, and that's how it was,

and there was no other way. That's just how it

was for 600 years, and it got worse and worse

and worse. By the way, during this time of the

falling away was when we see the New Testament

church worship using instrumental music for the

first time. That ought to tell us something.

If the Bible predicted a falling away, and in

the worst part of the falling away, when Christians

began to deviate from God's plan, the worst was

the first time in history we see instrumental

music being used in worship, that ought to tell

us something. During this time there was a rigid

hierarchy Developing this this bishop over Rome

began to be referred to as the Pope which you're

familiar with that concept today and the Pope

and there was higher clergy and there were people

under the Pope there were bishops and there were

priests and then there was laity the laity was

essentially just the regular saints the regular

people the people that came to to worship that

came to mass and They couldn't even understand

what was being read because they didn't know

Latin But they were still reading out of Latin

out of that Latin vol And so essentially all

Christians were dependent on the clergy to teach

them and to tell them God's way. And so during

this time, this hierarchy, the Pope, all the

clergy developed great power, power that they

shouldn't have had, and they had great power

over regular Christians. On Christmas Day, 8800,

Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor in Rome.

Church and state are now deeply intertwined.

The Pope had so much power that he now crowned

this Emperor of Rome. That power began to shift.

And then we get to the Middle Ages, the beginning

of this, what we call the Dark Ages. At this

point in time, worship became very formal. and

clergy -centered. Clergy and laity are clearly

separated and a system of sacraments develops.

So there's regular people and then there's important

people. The clergy were the important people,

okay? And they controlled worship. Everything

about worship was not like what we're doing today,

coming together and singing praises to God and

singing with the understanding, praying with

the understanding and with the spirit and lifting

each other up. That's not what worship was. People

were coming together and they were essentially

trusting in the clergy to perform worship for

them and to do things that they hoped that God

wanted because they couldn't even read the Bible

because it was in Latin, the Bible that they

were reading in worship. There was a lot of trust

in this clergy. And so there was a system of

sacraments developed. Essentially in the church

at this time, there were seven sacraments that

they based their belief system off of. Baptism,

confirmation, the Eucharist, which is similar

to what we would call communion today, penance,

anointing the sick, holy orders, and matrimony.

That's what their worship was centered around.

It wasn't those five things that we already talked

about, the singing and the giving and the communing

and the teaching and the praying. It wasn't those

things. It was these things that man had come

up with. And if man hadn't come up with them,

they altered the belief and the doctrine around

them. I want you to know the priests that they

believed that had power to perform all of these

sacraments, they had it all wrong. The Bible

clearly teaches in the New Testament church who

the priests are. And folks, that's you and me.

First Peter, the person they believed was the

first pope, taught us who the priests are. And

that's us. We are that holy priesthood because

we... It says, as also as living stones by being

built up a spiritual house, we are that spiritual

house. A holy priesthood, we are that holy priesthood

to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to

God through Christ Jesus. We have the right to

offer up our spiritual sacrifices of worship

to Christ and not depend on clergy to do it for

us. And then, in the later part of these Middle

Ages, we see this idea of confession, penance,

and indulgences begin to really popularize. So,

you've probably heard of it. You get in a wooden

box, and the priest is on one side, and there's

a wall, and the Christian's on the other side,

and they confess their sins to the clergy. And

that's what happened. And then, they would confess

their sins, and then the clergy, or this priest,

would assign penance, assign things that these

Christians had to do to make it right, so their

sins could be forgiven. At this time, they had

a very interesting separation of forgiveness

that they came up with. They said that if you

confess to the priest, you can be forgiven of

the guilt of your sin, but the punishment of

your sin after you die is not gonna be taken

away. So if you want the punishment to be lessened

after you die, when you go to purgatory and you

don't wanna be punished, you wanna be punished

less, you gotta do these acts of penance. And

these acts of penance are written about, we're

gonna talk about, history tells us here, let

every one of the faithful of both sexes, after

he has reached the age of discretion, faithfully

confess all his sins at least once a year to

his priest. That was what they were commanded

to do. And these penance, included things like

prayers and fasting and almsgiving or other prescribed

acts. The priest would say, if you want your

sentence for your sin to be lessened when you

die, you just do these things. And the more you

do, the less your sentence will be, your penalty

will be for your sin after you die. And then

they were told, after they confessed their sins

once a year, at least, to the priest and performed

to the best of their ability the penance imposed.

And then we get to this point of history where

we have a very well known and influential man

named Thomas Aquinas. That's how we're gonna

say his name. And he acknowledges immersion.

more clearly represents Christ's burial in the

context of baptism, but he defends pouring or

sprinkling as valid baptisms. The exception is

now accepted theology. So at this point, it wasn't

an exception anymore. It had deviated so far

that essentially probably sprinkling and pouring

was happening more than immersion was happening,

but it was just as valid as immersion. And it

was a very regular practice in the church at

this time. And then we have just a couple of

years later in 13, The Council of Ravenna also

recognized immersion and pouring as equally valid

forms of baptism. Let me get to the end of our

timeline here. 1517 -80. I can't even stress

how much corruption there was. You've read about

it. We've been talking about it. It had gotten

bad. And this is the end of our timeline of what

we're going to cover today. And chance is going

to pick up. In 1517, there were some people that

decided they had enough of this corruption. And

then the Reformation begins, and that's what

chance is gonna cover. But by this point, the

church had a papal hierarchy. That means there

was the pope, there were the people under the

pope, there was all the clergy, and they were

so special and important and had all of this

authority that, by the way, was never granted

to them by God. There was infants being baptized.

there were traditions of men being influenced

and taught there was councils put together that

they weren't turning back to the Bible to go

find their answers they were taking these high

influential men that by the way were being paid

by Rome by the emperors to be friends and these

councils were making important church decisions

and essentially deciding doctrine there was non

-immersion baptism happening regularly there

was sacramental worship and indulgences The church

had gotten so far from 70 AD. Christ set it up

so beautifully and simply and wasn't it amazing

when people were following that? And then slowly

there was a change that began that brought the

church to this point where there was a lot of

sadness, a lot of evil, a lot of corruption.

My question as we wrap up is how does a falling

away happen? Did the church during this period

of time when the Bible the Bible very much prophesied

and promised that there will be a great falling

away And it happened. I hope you can see that

that promise from the Bible was fulfilled But

did the church? Universal wake up one day and

say I'm gonna decide to abandon God today and

all of a sudden they invented infant baptism

and instrumental music and this hierarchy of

the Papacy and all of these things just happened

overnight. That's not how it worked It happened

very slow. People began to slowly fall away and

to deviate from God's plan. How does a falling

away happen in your life? That's a timeline of

your life. Would you wake up one day and just

decide, hey, I'm gonna abandon God today, and

then you change your entire way of life? That's

not how it happens. You've seen people fall away

from God before, haven't you? Did they wake up

one day and it just happened like that overnight?

There's a risk of falling away. The Bible makes

that clear for each individual person. That's

what it looks like. At some point in your life

you quit reading your Bible. Not because you

woke up one morning and made a drastic decision,

I'm gonna quit reading my Bible, but because

eventually you just, life gets busy, there's

stresses, you get out of the habit. You lose

interest. It's not as interesting to you, and

you're not as zealous about it as you were once,

and you just get out of the habit. You don't

make it a priority. You quit reading your Bible.

And then what happens? You go on through life

and you fall away from His authority. Because

the Bible is the ultimate authority for man.

The Bible is the number one authority in your

life, and if you're not reading it, you fall

away from that authority. that God gives. And

when you fall away from His authority, you fall

away from His doctrine. The things and the ways

that He had set up for you to live your life

and for you to worship and for you to practice,

you don't know because you're not reading your

Bible. And so you fall away from His doctrine.

Then when you fall away from His doctrine, you

fall away from His designs and patterns. He set

certain designs and patterns in a way you ought

to live your life. the way you ought to conduct

your parenting, the way you ought to conduct

your marriages, all of the things he's given

you a pattern to in that word. But when you're

not familiar with that word, you don't know what

it says. And you fall away from those things

and you start doing things your own way. And

ultimately when you start doing things your own

way, when you start doing things man's way, you

see corruption in your life. So that happened

in the history of the church, right? They started

doing things man's way. Man had all this power

and authority and we saw corruption. You fall

away from his design and pattern and eventually

you fall away from his morality. Sin creeps into

your life and you've fallen so far away from

God. You've lost interest. You've departed from

the faith. Eventually you've fallen away from

his grace. You know the Bible teaches you can

fall from grace. A lot of people out there tell

you that the Bible don't teach that, but it does

in multiple places. When the apostle Paul made

this prophecy about this great falling away that

was going to happen when he wrote in 2 Thessalonians,

what did he say was going to happen to those

people that fell away? Those wolves, the savage

wolves, the people that taught those demonic

doctrines, the people that departed from the

faith. What did Paul say was going to happen

to them? Second Thessalonians chapter 2 verse

2 Thessalonians 2:8

8 and then the lawless one will be revealed whom

the Lord will consume with the breath of his

mouth and destroy with the brightness of his

coming the coming of the lawless one is according

to the working of Satan with all power signs

and lying wonders and with all unrighteous deception

among those who perish Because they did not receive

the love of the truth They might be saved the

people that had fallen away that God promised

would happen in his word, they were gonna be

consumed with the breath of God and destroyed.

They're gonna face God's judgment. And the Bible

gives each and every one of us a warning about

when you depart from his faith, when you have

fallen away from God, you're gonna face his judgment

at the end of your life. Folks, there's a chance

that the same corruption that has been around

all through the history of the church, because

of hearts that grew distant from God, that heart

could be in you. And it might not be at this

level and it might not happen over the span of

1 ,400 years, but it can happen in the span of

80 years in your life if you're not careful.

The farther away your heart gets from God, the

more corrupt your life is gonna get. When your

life is filled with corruption and you've departed

from the faith, it's not gonna be good for you

in the end. And that's the warning that history

gives us. You ever heard the phrase that history

repeats itself? I don't think the Bible says

that there's going to be a second great falling

away. And that's not what I mean by history repeats

itself. But this history that's been in the hearts

of mankind to fall away from God and to not care

about his word and his authority anymore, it

can happen in your life. And total destruction

can happen. And I don't know where your heart

is today. I don't know the habits you have of

reading your Bible. I don't know the love that

you have for the Lord. I don't know the practices

that you make a point in your life to do. But

if you feel distant from God, I want you to know

that's dangerous and I hope you can see that's

dangerous. Today we want to give an opportunity

to be restored back to God. We want you to have

a healthy relationship with God. I hope you want

to have a healthy relationship with God. Thank

you for listening to today's sermon from the

Church of Christ Wheeler area. We hope this message

encouraged you and strengthened you in your faith

this week. Don't forget the doors always open

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