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[0:00] Thank you, Gary. All three of those passages that we just considered refer to the importance of teaching and the source from which the teaching comes.

[0:12] This is a very legitimate tool. In fact, it is the principal tool that God uses for the communication of doctrine and for truth. And the idea, of course, is that the source has to be a worthy source.

[0:28] In the case of Paul reminding Timothy about his origin of his faith, he says, your mother and your grandmother were both adherents of this, and they, of course, passed it on to you.

[0:42] And then the other passage has reference to what you have learned. You are to communicate to other individuals who are faithful individuals so that they will be able to communicate the truth and pass it on.

[0:55] This is the way that God has designed for teaching to be communicated. However, it's the same way that error is communicated. There's no difference.

[1:08] We need to understand the principles that are involved in why people believe what they believe. Because that which is true of truth that is communicated is also true of error.

[1:26] It has to do with the difference of the sources. One of them is rooted in the truth and in the reality that God has set forth as truth.

[1:37] Others are rooted in error. And you must be able to distinguish between them. I do not suggest that the best way to learn error is by studying error.

[1:54] I think the best way to learn error is by studying truth. You perhaps will recall an illustration that I'm sure used here. I just don't know how long ago it was.

[2:05] And probably every preacher has used the illustration. But it is a very, very apt one. And that is when treasury agents are taken on board.

[2:16] And these are people who are going to be responsible not only for the protection of our president. But they are responsible for the protection of our currency.

[2:27] They are those who are the ones who operate and prosecute counterfeiters and counterfeiting rings and things of that nature.

[2:38] These are called the T-men, the treasury men. And one of their responsibilities is to look out for the integrity of our currency. And we know that there are counterfeiters that abound and try to pass off phony bills, etc.

[2:52] And we are told that in order to train a new group of treasury agents, they subject them to intense scrutinizing of our real genuine currency.

[3:10] And they make them go over these bills with a fine-tooth comb, if you will. A microscope noting all of the details and everything to do with what a genuine bill looks like.

[3:26] And they study it meticulously on both sides. On the facial features of the president who is featured on that particular bill, whether it is a 50 or a 100.

[3:38] And all of the fine print and everything to look for. And they get it down just to the minute detail. And they do not even allow them to see a counterfeit bill.

[3:52] All of the emphasis is placed upon the real. And then, for their examination, they present them with counterfeit bills.

[4:02] And they can almost immediately spot them just by looking at them without any detailed examination. Now, granted, technology has advanced the cause of counterfeiters immeasurably over the last 20 years.

[4:16] So it makes it more and more difficult for the real bills to survive in that fashion. And we know that they are kept busy trying to weed out the counterfeit bills.

[4:29] And they proliferate not only here in the United States but even in foreign countries where it is the business of some foreign governments to counterfeit American money.

[4:39] Because these people are not our friends. And they are trying to do us harm through flooding the world market with counterfeit U.S. currency. And it becomes a real major problem.

[4:50] So there is true and there is the false out there. It is not only true of our currency and money. But it is true in every area.

[5:01] There are lies and there are truths. And one of the things we are called upon is to a spirit of discernment so that we are able to understand.

[5:13] I have often been criticized here. Well, I wouldn't say I've often been criticized. But I have been criticized by some of my considered to be well-meaning individuals in the past because I am not more specific in some of the things that I recommend.

[5:30] And some are of the opinion that you should not recommend any books. You should not recommend any tapes. You should not recommend anything that remotely disagrees with your position, particularly when it comes to dispensational truth.

[5:48] Because that will confuse people. And yet I take the position that I want to recommend things. And by the way, if I limit myself to recommending only the things with which I am 100% in agreement, I won't recommend anything.

[6:12] I can't even recommend my own stuff. Because there are things with which I disagree regarding positions that I held 10 or 20 years ago.

[6:23] So what you've got to try and do, and I do not have any idea to what degree we've succeeded in doing this, what we are committed to doing is trying to teach people the truth in such a way, in quantity and in quality, that they are able to develop a personal sphere of discernment so that you can sniff out error on your own without having someone looking over your shoulder pointing out, believe this, don't believe that, believe this, don't believe that.

[7:02] You need to develop a sense or a spirit of discernment where you can spot error when you see it. And the best way that I know of doing that is the same principle as the counterfeit bills.

[7:17] You need to saturate yourself with the truth of God, and when the error pops up, you'll be able to identify it. To me, that is the ultimate, and I think that is the intent of Scripture.

[7:31] So we are talking about why Christians differ doctrinally. I really hope you will be able to crank up your gray matter and stay with me through all of this, because this is really important stuff today.

[7:48] I know I don't have any business teaching anything that isn't important, but sometimes I feel more strongly about something than others, and I think this is a key kind of session.

[8:01] We are going to be examining some of the roots of particularly religious beliefs and how it is that people adopt these beliefs, where they came from, how they are perpetuated, in other words, how we got where we are today.

[8:19] And the passages that we have just read, that Gary just read for us, from Paul's protege, young Timothy, set forth the principle and the legitimacy of sound teaching being perpetuated.

[8:34] But it has to be rooted in the revelation of God. If it is rooted in anything else, it will be error-filled, and the source of our information is absolutely everything.

[8:48] Why do people believe what they do? And may I just remind you that very often it simply has to do with place, time, and circumstances of birth.

[9:01] Most people who are Hindus are Hindus because they were born into a Hindu family, and that's the religion that they practice. Same thing is true of Buddhists.

[9:12] Same thing is true of Jews. Same thing is true of Christians. It makes a huge difference where you are born, and what the faith is that those to whom you are born are practicing.

[9:27] And the most logical thing is for you to adopt that. That is perfectly natural. That's the way most of us do worldwide. But that is no guarantee for truth.

[9:42] It is just a guarantee that you are perpetuating the faith in which you were born. It may be true. It may not be true. But that's where most of us get the beliefs that we have.

[9:55] We were born that way. That's what I've always believed. That's what my mom and dad believed. As the old spiritual goes, it was good enough for Moses. It's good enough for me. It's good enough for mom and dad.

[10:05] It's good enough for me. Well, it may be something that your mother and father believed deeply. But that is no guarantee that their position was rooted in truth.

[10:20] And we need to understand that. Secondly, we may believe what we believe because we are identifying with a respected teacher, and we are becoming a disciple or a follower of that person.

[10:35] Again, this works with error as well as truth. Works the same way. Karl Marx had his disciples. Adolf Hitler had his disciples.

[10:49] Charles Darwin has his disciples. Jesus Christ had his disciples. They had different agendas, different motivation. But the point I want you to understand is the dynamics are the same.

[11:03] It doesn't make any difference. If the cause is evil or the cause is good, the principles work the same way. Truth doesn't have some special kind of way.

[11:16] It is just the same as it is for everything. So, place, time, and circumstances of birth are responsible for people believing what they do.

[11:28] Identifying with a respected teacher and becoming a disciple or a follower of that teacher, which is exactly what the apostles did regarding Christ, and what the people did regarding the apostles.

[11:42] Because we read in Acts chapter 5 that the church, the people were growing in grace and knowledge, and they were growing and learning the apostles' doctrine.

[11:54] Where did the apostles get their doctrine? From Christ. Where were the people after the apostles getting their doctrine? From the apostles. And it is perpetuated generation after generation.

[12:07] It would be wonderful if you could start with truth, and then it would never be corrupted. It is just truth handed down from one person to the next, to the next, to the next.

[12:19] And it is always the same, and it is always true. It doesn't work that way. And I'll tell you why. Because error. Error. Error is always seeking a foothold.

[12:35] And usually finds one. And the next thing you know, error creeps in and starts corrupting the truth. And the truth begins a process of erosion.

[12:49] The truth is eaten away and overcome by error. And the next thing you know, you've got more error than you have truth.

[13:02] How did that happen? Ask Harvard University. They are a prime example.

[13:13] There is more error there in their philosophy than there is truth. Didn't start out that way. Do you realize John Harvard founded Harvard College for the specific purpose of training clergy?

[13:33] In 1635, pilgrims had only been here for 15 years when Harvard College was founded.

[13:49] And today it has, what do you call it, an endowment of probably hundreds of millions of dollars just sitting there drawing interest for them.

[14:02] And it is a school that even though it was founded as a bastion of biblical integrity and truth that has virtually all eroded.

[14:16] And there is little semblance of anything scriptural or biblical about it. Why is that? I'll tell you why it is.

[14:28] This is the way, you know, the second law of dynamics, how everything goes from order to disorder, how everything goes from decay to ruin, how everything is breaking down.

[14:39] You are not getting younger and stronger. You are getting older and weaker. If you aren't convinced of that, time will convince you.

[14:53] What do you call that? That's the aging process. That's moving from order to disorder. And do you know, it seems to apply to truth as well.

[15:06] Truth goes through a process of erosion and contamination because people contribute to it, things that are untrue. And it takes away a little bit of the truth and replaces it with error.

[15:19] And more error replaces more truth. And the next thing you know, you're apostate. You have fallen away from the truth. Let me explain.

[15:31] This is the natural course of events. This is the way it works. This is life in a fallen world.

[15:42] This is the way truth works. This is the way error works. Someone has said, whenever truth compromises with error, truth always loses.

[15:54] Because error has nothing to lose. The truth is the only commodity that is priceless and precious and must be guarded and must be upheld and must be contended for.

[16:12] Error just flourishes. Error grows like weeds. Does anybody here plant weeds when you plant a garden? Error grows like weeds. Error grows like weeds. Boy, you have to get out there and weed that garden.

[16:24] You know why? Because the weeds will take over. They will take over. They will just squeeze all of the nourishment and everything out of the soil.

[16:36] And they will overpower and overcome the good stuff that you plant. What do you call that? You call that a fallen world.

[16:47] That's the way it is. It is that way in every aspect of our being. It is also that way as regards truth. There is nothing wrong with identifying with a respected teacher and becoming a disciple or a follower of that teacher.

[17:04] The apostle Paul even encouraged that. He said, be followers of me as I am of Christ. But that's the key. Be a follower of me as I am of Christ.

[17:15] If he just said, be a follower of me, period, then you've got a problem. There is nothing wrong with following a respected leader.

[17:26] So long as you are convinced and as long as he demonstrates that he is tracking in Scripture. And when he ceases to track in Scripture, you cease to be a follower.

[17:40] The problem is people become so imbued and so inured with someone and so captivated with someone that they tend to overlook error because he's a nice guy.

[17:54] And they just appreciate him. And they just like him so much. So everything he says must be true. No, it isn't. Don't fall for that. Whether it's coming from me or someone else.

[18:06] You must always keep your antenna out for things that look suspicious. Because nobody, myself included, is above or beyond imparting error.

[18:20] Last thing in the world I want to do. But I know that we are all capable of it. Paul chided the Corinthians for some of them were followers of him.

[18:31] Some were followers of Apollos. Some were followers of Cephas. And Paul himself was a student of Gamaliel. Probably the most respected rabbi of his time.

[18:42] So he learned a lot of truth from Gamaliel. And you know what? He learned a lot of error too. Saul of Tarsus learned a lot of error from Gamaliel.

[18:55] A very respected Jewish rabbi of his time. So this means, of course, that the source of information is everything. It is okay to respect a leader and to receive his teaching so long as you remain a Berean and search the scriptures to see whether those things are so.

[19:18] We believe what we believe because of our parents, because of our peers, because of celebrities. It is amazing. I've used this illustration before. I don't want you to think I'm picking on these guys because I know some of you.

[19:32] I won't say you worship the ground that the Beatles walked on, but you came close. But when the Beatles got all excited about the Maharishi Yogi and Eastern mysticism and started taking his classes and learning from him and all the rest of it, many of the youth in the Western world were utterly fascinated.

[20:00] How could anything that is so enchanting to the Fab Four have anything wrong with it?

[20:13] And it wasn't, but within a year after the Beatles had embraced transcendental meditation, Maharishi Yogi, Eastern mysticism and all the rest of it, you could walk into any bookstore in the country and find the shelves lined with this stuff.

[20:34] It wasn't there before. What happened? The Beatles, that's what happened. They were celebrities. They were honored and they gave a legitimacy to something that was horribly in error.

[20:50] Everything about Eastern mysticism is rooted in the demonic. There I said it and I stand by it and I don't have any problem proving it.

[21:04] Am I saying that the Beatles were demonic? No, I'm saying they were sucked in. They were enraptured. They were captivated by it. And then that led many of our youth to be captivated by whatever captivated the Beatles.

[21:19] Because the association thing was just so dynamic. This is one of the reasons that people believe what they believe. A personality, a cult-like figure legitimizes it, is taken by it.

[21:35] Madonna, nothing to do with mother and child. Madonna is now into or was into Jewish Kabbal, Kabbalism, which is a kind of like a super mystical type of Judaism that is rooted in the mysterious and numbers and hidden signs and signals.

[21:59] And it is amazing how people... Madonna, ooh, ooh, ooh. If Madonna is interesting, that means there's got to be something to it. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't.

[22:12] We just can't be gullible and fall for this stuff. Someone who is a professional athlete, if he gives indication of interest in something, then all of a sudden, there's a big run on that.

[22:28] And when somebody who is a star running back makes a pronouncement on global warming, wow! Well, what does he know about global warming?

[22:40] Nothing! But he's got a name that is recognized and that people look up to. And we tend to think that we respect somebody in a given area of their expertise.

[22:52] That makes them an expert in every other area. No, it doesn't. It doesn't even come close. It just means they've got a big mouth and a platform. And they use it. And people are impressed by that.

[23:03] And it's pathetic. But that's our non-thinking America. Christianity is a thinking faith. That does not mean it is limited to intellectuals, but it does mean that it is rooted in logic and it is reason-based.

[23:24] At the same time, logic and reason can be faulty. Because of the fall, man thinks with a corrupted logic, a corrupted mind.

[23:43] This is why we have got to appeal to Scripture as our base of authority. Because the mere mind of man is not sufficient. It's not adequate.

[23:55] Not mine, not yours, not any other human being. God has given us His mind in Scripture. It is a revelation of Himself.

[24:06] And that's that to which we must appeal. Rabbi Zacharias has a radio program. He's one of my favorites. Okay? He's kind of like my philosophical guru.

[24:19] I really appreciate this man and his ability to articulate difficult areas of philosophical thinking. And I admire him greatly.

[24:33] But he is no guarantee of truth. He is not the authority any more than the reformers are the authority. And, of course, he would be the first one to tell you that. There is an anecdote told about Zaza Gabor, this beautiful Hungarian sex symbol bombshell, was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter.

[24:56] And he asked her, he said, Zaza, suppose you had your choice of being a beautiful woman with good looks or just being an average looking woman with a great mind and intellect.

[25:13] Which would you choose? She said, oh, darling. Darling. I would choose the good looks. Definitely. And he said, why is that?

[25:24] And she said, because, darling, men can see better than they can think. And she's right. She's right.

[25:35] That's the way it works. And you know we would rather see than we would think. And some of us, some of us are so intellectually lazy, we would actually be willing to let someone else think for us.

[25:57] And that is about the most dangerous thing you can do. Don't let anyone else think for you.

[26:08] God has given you a mind. You are accountable for how you use it. Don't be lazy minded and let someone else think for you.

[26:18] You've got to be an independent thinker. Our thinking and reasoning must always be scripture based. And if not, it will be human based or worse yet, as the apostle referred to, doctrines of demons.

[26:34] Now, I want to give you some historical background because history is the only way that we got where we are. And if you don't understand history, you will not understand why and where we are.

[26:46] We've talked a little bit about allegorical interpretation of scripture, where the belief is that the scriptures have a hidden underlying meaning beyond the plain literal sense, and that the plain literal sense of scripture is okay if that's as far as you can go.

[27:12] If that's all that you are gifted for in understanding, then you'll just have to settle with that and settle for that. But the real meat of the word is being able to go underneath the text and root out the deeper hidden meaning.

[27:29] And we gave you some examples of that earlier, and I will not belabor them again. But this kind of allegorizing of scripture was promulgated by Philo, a man by the name of Philo, who was an Alexandrian Jew, a very intelligent man and very influential.

[27:51] And he propagated that among many of the Jewish people, particularly there in Egypt. And then later it was also picked up and engaged in very heavily by a man by the name of Adamantius Origen.

[28:05] He became the father of the allegorizing of scripture. And that simply means that scripture is not merely to be taken for what it says at face value, but you must always look beneath the surface for the real kernel of truth, for the deeper hidden meaning that is planted within and below the surface of the text.

[28:27] And when you do that, of course, you come up with some really bizarre interpretations that are limited only by the imagination of the mind that is pursuing it. And some people have a very active imagination.

[28:39] And we gave you illustrations of the four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden, the Pishon and the Gihon and the Euphrates and the Tigris.

[28:51] And those four rivers are four actual rivers. But when you allegorize the text, you look below it and you see what those rivers really mean. What do those rivers really mean?

[29:02] Well, they mean truth and honor and justice and love. That's what they really mean. Well, how did you get that? Well, that ought to be obvious if you're intelligent enough. So there is an area there for a little bit of, what shall I say, elitism, for those who are so gifted and able to look beyond that, and others who are less gifted stand aside and say, Wow, how did they get that out of there?

[29:29] Isn't that wonderful? I never saw that in there. How did they get that? Well, they got it out of their imagination. They didn't get it from the text because it isn't in the text. It isn't there. They imagined it.

[29:42] They put it there. That's allegorizing scripture. That is making it say something that it does not say. We gave you examples of genuine allegories in 1 Corinthians and also in Galatians.

[29:54] The Judeo-Christian development that took place in the first century is really key to all of this.

[30:08] And one of the reasons is because it is of a transitional nature. And there is a movement away more and more from things Jewish to things Christian.

[30:21] But it was very gradual. Took place over several decades. Did not take place with the announcement of any particular date or any time of demarcation.

[30:31] It just kind of Judaism as it was practiced by believing Jews. And by believing Jews, I mean Jews who received Jesus as their Messiah and as their Savior.

[30:48] And they were almost exclusively Jews at the beginning. But over a period of decades, this strictly Jewishness who were believers began a slow morphing into Jewish slash Gentile.

[31:13] And that continued on for several years. So that Jews who were believers in the Messiah continued to go to the Jewish synagogue. They had roots there.

[31:25] They had relatives there. They had parents there. They had siblings there. It was natural for them to continue on in the Jewish synagogue. But they had real differences with people.

[31:39] Because when you take a Jewish synagogue and comprise the makeup with maybe 75% Jews who do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

[31:53] With 25% of that same assembly who believe he was the Messiah. You're going to have some differences of opinion. Some strong feelings.

[32:04] Some conflicts. And they are going to surface. And they are going to be formidable. And eventually what happened was... The Jewish ecclesiastical establishment just decided, you know what?

[32:22] We can no longer countenance these people. We can no longer put up with these people. They are just absolutely adamant. We had hoped that they would return to their Jewish roots and maybe denounce Jesus as the Messiah.

[32:36] And confess and admit that they had it all wrong. And we would welcome them back to the fold. But they aren't going to do that. They are still trying to convince us that Jesus was the Messiah.

[32:46] And frankly, we're tired of it. We're just not going to put up with these people any longer. So what happened? That effect was they were excommunicated. They were persona non grata.

[32:58] They said, look, as long as you insist that Jesus is the Messiah, we know he wasn't. We're just not going to be able to welcome you any longer. You're just going to have to do something else.

[33:09] Meanwhile, what was happening with the Gentiles, the non-Jew, is that more and more non-Jews were embracing Jesus, not only as the Messiah of Israel, but as their personal Lord and Savior sent from God to redeem the world.

[33:33] And they began growing in numbers. We saw the heads that were turned in Acts chapter 10 when Cornelius, who was a Roman army officer, came to faith in Jesus as his Savior.

[33:50] And the typical believing Jewish establishment was not inclined to accept him because he wasn't a Jew.

[34:04] I mean, a Gentile, a pagan, a pagan can't put his faith in our Jewish Messiah. He's a pagan.

[34:16] Jesus is for Jews. No. Jesus is for everybody. He came for the whole world. So what happened when this arch enemy of Jesus Christ came to faith in Jesus as his Messiah?

[34:36] Saul of Tarsus was radically transformed into Paul the Apostle. And he is raised up as the Apostle to the Gentiles.

[34:48] And he begins preaching to the Gentiles. And guess what? The Gentiles start responding. And more and more, wherever he goes, they'd never heard anything like this.

[35:04] His missionary journeys were tremendously successful because multitudes came to faith in Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.

[35:14] He came out of paganism and embraced that. And what we have, especially as the first century starts winding down, is less and less Judaism involving Jesus and more and more Gentiles involving Jesus.

[35:36] And that which started out with an almost exclusively Jewish involvement has become an almost exclusively Gentile involvement.

[35:51] It's a great switch. Now, it didn't happen overnight. It happened over decades. One was going down and the other was coming up. And the next thing you know, there is a formidable number of pagans, non-Jews, pagans, Gentiles, who have come to faith in Jesus as their Messiah.

[36:15] And there are certain individuals who come to the fore as leaders. They are Polycarp, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Athanasius, names that we've never heard of.

[36:34] These are not Jewish names. These are Greek names. These are Gentile names. Where are these people coming from? They're coming from the general population of Mediterranean paganism.

[36:47] And they are embracing Jesus as their Messiah, as their Lord and Savior. And they are growing in number. And these are going to be referred to as church fathers.

[37:02] Why are they called that? Because they are some of the first individuals to embrace Christianity. Judaism has its fathers.

[37:19] Who are they? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.

[37:30] They have all of their prophets. They have their fathers. Now, the Christian church has its fathers. And as I pointed out to you last, that many in the reform position, the reform theology, or call them covenant theologians or reform theologians, these are where most of the Presbyterians are and the reformed.

[37:56] It's where most of the Roman Catholics are. You would not call them reformed, but we'll be talking about them a little bit later. But this is where this all started.

[38:08] We're talking the end of the first century and into the second century. And they began embracing more and more of the teaching that had been exclusively Jewish.

[38:24] But here's the problem. We don't have the New Testament completed yet. These people are surfacing. What are they believing?

[38:36] All they have available to them is the Old Testament. We do not have a completed canon of the New Testament. That is, all 27 books of the New Testament are not completed and recognized until probably the third century.

[38:54] I mean, we had them, but they were all not adopted officially as the canon and recognized as a canon. So, they are limited pretty much to the Jewish scriptures and to what historically had taken place in the lives of people like the Apostle Paul and the other apostles and men like Polycarp.

[39:14] Polycarp has a lot of authority behind his name because he was a personal disciple of John, the beloved, who gave us the gospel of John. He was a contemporary of John, the contemporary of John, the contemporary of John.

[39:25] So, we know that he could speak with some authority and some experience. And these men became known as the church fathers. What church?

[39:36] What was the church? The church was just loosely comprised of people who were Gentiles and Jews, but who had a common conviction that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that he died on the cross for the sins of the world.

[39:59] And this number continued to grow. And it came under persecution. First, by the Jews. We know how they received this truth in the book of Acts when the Apostle Paul and Peter and others were on the receiving end of persecution.

[40:15] And that continued on because when Rome was dominating the Mideast and dominating the whole Mediterranean world, they didn't take great pains to maintain distinctions between Jews who were Christians and Jews who were Jews.

[40:33] They just kind of lumped them all together and, you know, they were an equal opportunity persecutor for a long time. And this went on. And as the church, as these believers, just a disorganized group, no real hierarchy, no real establishment, no real organization, just a loose conglomeration of believers here and believers there and believers there.

[41:02] And all of them had a common faith in Christ, but they had little or no organization to them. They had not banded together and drawn up bylaws and all of that. That was to come later.

[41:13] But it would come. So meanwhile, they are undergoing this intense persecution from the Roman government who sees this embracing of Christianity as a political threat.

[41:26] They didn't care about the religious thing, but it was a political thing. Because when you take a number of people who insist that this Jesus is kurios, is Lord, that's a threat to the state.

[41:49] Because the state takes the position that Caesar is Lord. And how do you define Lord? Lord means that one above whom and beyond whom there is none other.

[42:03] That's the meaning of Lord. It's an exclusive term. Lord, ultimate, absolute Lord, cannot have any Lords. He is Lord.

[42:17] But Caesar is Lord. No, Caesar is not Lord. Jesus is Lord. Okay? Okay? You die. We are not going to tolerate a threat to the political stability of the government of Rome, the head of which is the Caesar.

[42:37] He is Lord. And only if you are willing to say Caesar is Lord, which means Jesus is not, are you welcome in this domain.

[42:49] So many of them simply would not utter two words. And it cost them their life.

[43:01] All they had to say was, Cicerem kurios. They didn't even have to mean it. They just had to say it.

[43:13] Cicerem kurios. Okay, you're good to go. Goodbye. If you won't do that, take his head off. Now, we just can't conceive of something like that.

[43:24] But that was standard fare in that day. That went on for quite some time until a man by the name of Constantine came to the throne.

[43:39] And all Constantine was was a political animal in my estimation. He saw the writing on the wall. And he saw the state versus this thing called Christianity.

[43:50] And you know what? There's getting to be more of them than there is of us. And it isn't going to be long until we are going to be outnumbered.

[44:02] We might as well give in now while we can control situations. So Constantine, the emperor, issued an edict called the Edict of Constantine, which required all inhabitants in his realm to become Christians.

[44:23] Well, we know you don't become Christians that way. But that made it official. And there was a long line of pagan priests who were lined up waiting to be baptized into the Christian faith.

[44:43] Well, you don't become Christians that way either. But they did. And what that did was it effectively established Christianity as the state religion, no longer subject to persecution, but now endorsed and promoted.

[45:01] Christianity has never recovered. It was probably one of the worst things. It took the heat off, took the pressure off of persecution.

[45:12] But it immediately introduced a contamination element, the likes of which neutralized much of the effectiveness of the church, sapped it of its real spiritual energy, and left just a small pocket of really committed believers who really understood the score.

[45:33] And God has always operated with a minority like that, always has, and still does even to this day. Now, I want you to understand, more and more Jews were rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.

[45:47] More and more Gentiles were embracing Jesus. And in 70 A.D., And this is really, really important. In 70 A.D., I got ahead of myself with Constantine.

[46:03] That's 4th century. But we're back to 70 A.D. Rome marched against Israel, Jerusalem, destroyed the city, destroyed the temple, sacked the city, burned it, ruined it, reduced it to ashes, and murdered, crucified 10,000 Jews.

[46:27] Can you imagine? Can you imagine 10,000 crosses with a body hanging on each one, crucified up and down the thoroughfare? And Jerusalem was reduced to rubble.

[46:43] Now, what is the net effect of that on all of the surrounding area? And how did Gentiles regard that?

[47:02] How did Gentiles who had come to faith in Jesus Christ regard the destruction of Jerusalem? Because this is very, very key.

[47:14] And this is one of the reasons there is so much divisiveness in Christianity today. I'll tell you how they regarded it. How many of them did at least. When Jerusalem was leveled, the temple was destroyed, how did that affect the Jewish religion?

[47:37] What is key? What is the very core of Jewish religion? It is the sacrificial system. The system of Moses.

[47:49] The system established under the law. But how can they sacrifice when they have no altar? They have no temple. Jewish religion, religion as it had been practiced for centuries, is now kaput.

[48:08] It's done. Temples in ruins. Cities in ruins. Walls broken down. Jerusalem is a wasteland. And Jews have taken it on the land.

[48:21] And they are fleeing, leaving the country, going all over the world, scattering everywhere in the diaspora, running for their lives. They are a people still under persecution.

[48:32] They are on the run. And how do you think, now, follow me, this is very, very important. How do you think a great number of non-Jewish but pagan Christian believers came to regard Judaism in light of the destruction of Jerusalem?

[48:55] How do you think they interpreted that? I'll tell you how they interpreted it. How the vast majority of them interpreted it.

[49:06] How most of them interpret it today. And that is Judaism is finished. It's over.

[49:19] God is done with the Jew. He has had it up to here with the Jew. Judaism is no more.

[49:31] Through their disobedience and through their rejection and their crucifixion of their Messiah, God has written off Israel.

[49:43] They are finished. Well, what's God going to do for a people today? God has always had a people. Oh, yes. God still has a people.

[49:56] Do you know who he has now? Now he has the church. He has replaced Israel as his chosen people with a new chosen people, the church, which is the body of Christ.

[50:18] Oh, we do have one problem. What are we going to do about all of these scriptures that begin with Genesis and end with Malachi that are Jewish, Jewish, Jewish, Jewish, Jewish, and Jewish?

[50:41] What are we going to do with them? Oh, not a problem. we will Christianize them. How are you going to do that? Well, we'll just suggest that all of those scriptures that talk about Israel and God's promises to Israel, we will allegorize them and spiritualize them and we will transfer them from Israel to the church.

[51:16] Well, then we've got another problem. What are we going to do with all of the pronouncements of cursing? God cursing Israel in the Old Testament.

[51:28] Oh, well, we'll let them have those. They're still applicable to the Jew. But all of the blessings that are promised have been transferred from the Jew who was their original intent, but because of their disobedience they are taken from them and placed upon the church.

[51:49] And now the church has become the new Israel. We are the new people of God. And I want to leave you with this thought because this is critical and I hate to break it off here, but we've got to.

[52:07] Do you think they brought no baggage with them? When they morphed from an ecclesiastical Judaism into what is going to become Christianity, do you think they brought no Jewish baggage with them?

[52:22] They brought a lot of baggage with them. A priesthood? Got a new order of priests. The garb of the priest?

[52:36] sacrificial system instituted in the mass. Many things are going to be carried over from Judaism into Christianity and we are talking about what will become a very fledgling new Roman Catholic ecclesiastical system.

[53:03] Judaism became thoroughly corrupt and apostate.

[53:17] So a new thing came up and it will be identified as the Roman Catholic Church and it will have a head priest or a high priest only he will be called the Pope and he will be a descendant, not a descendant but a follower or a replacement if you will of Peter whom they believed to be the first Pope and what happened with Roman Catholicism?

[53:48] What happened with the Catholic Church? Same thing that happened with the Jewish ecclesiastical system. It fell into corruption and what happened then?

[54:00] There was a band of men who were Roman Catholics intent on rooting out the corruption and they were called the Reformers. They were not appreciated.

[54:13] They were excommunicated and kicked out. And the Reformers resulted in what we know as Protestantism and the Protestant movement.

[54:24] And what has happened to the Protestants? same thing. Corruption has taken over. Corruption is not a Catholic problem. It's not a Jewish problem.

[54:36] It's not a Protestant problem. It's a human problem. The tendency is toward corruption. The Protestant Church in general is fully corrupt today.

[54:51] Doctrinally morally priests clergy in sodomite practices openly acknowledged homosexuals in the pulpit.

[55:14] Incredible. What do you call that? I'll tell you what you call it. You call it what it is. It is corruption. Utter total corruption.

[55:25] And it is the tendency of everything. That is the way it works from order to disorder. The only thing that can stem the tide is the injection of biblical truth which is not any more enthusiastically received today than it was in Acts chapter 5 because the problems are the same.

[55:52] The problem is the human heart. We will pursue this in our next session and it will tie in more and more and more with where we are today. You'll be able to appreciate it a lot more I'm sure.

[56:04] Thank you Father for this time to share together. thank you for men and women of God in the past who have stood for truth. Church fathers who aligned themselves with scripture who revealed error and many of them paid an ultimate price for it.

[56:26] Thank you for the reformers who sought in a loving kind of way to bring truth into the error and root out the error.

[56:39] Thank you for their dedication to the truth and for the sacrifice that they made. We today are beneficiaries of it. And thank you for those in our day who stand for the truth when it is very often politically incorrect and unpopular.

[57:01] Thank you for being the God of all truth and thank you for having revealed the precious truth in this wonderful old book.

[57:11]  In Christ's name we pray. Amen.