Once again, we welcome you to our assembly.
We're thankful for the presence of everyone who is here tonight,
we're going to study again about the history of the church.
And what we want to do is we want to rewind just a little bit
and talk about how the departure actually occurred talk about
some of the things that occurred.
Well, before we do that, I want to review the facts of how and
what the church was we know that the church in the Bible is
called The Church of Christ. Just Romans chapter 16 and 16.
We know that the church began in the city of Jerusalem as the
prophets foretold in Isaiah chapter 2, and not a chi chapter
2 and, of course, we have the history of this event in Acts
chapter 2, we know that it occurred about a t-33 after the
first Pentecost on the first Pentecost.
After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we know that Peter began
to preach somewhere around 9 a.m. in the In Acts chapter 2,
verse 15, we know that Jesus Christ is the Builder.
We know that he is the foundation, he's the Cornerstone
along with the apostles and the prophets, the Bible says, the
foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the Chief Cornerstone. Now, we know that even though
there was only one church had one Faith, some departed from
that Faith, some left, that faith.
And we were warned about this early before it happened.
We know that these men Follow doctrines of demons or doctrines
that came from the Devil Himself.
Now we know that the Bible identified, the second Church in
identified the departure by stating that this subgroup of
people would forbid, some to marry and command certain foods
not to be eaten. So here we have the Church of
Jesus Christ and we have a departure predicted.
And at first there were no denominations.
There were no no religious sectarian Ins.
There was only one body, there was only one church now.
I think we need to understand something the word church
ekklesia means called out and literally translated it should
have been assembly. In fact, if you study the Bible
and you look to Acts chapter 19, you'll notice that the word
ekklesia is translated in reference to a town meeting.
And all the word means is assembly so it's not wrong to
say the Baptist Church because that is the Baptist assembly,
but it's wrong to call it the Church of Christ because it's
not the Lord's assembly. And so when we talk about one
Church, we're talking about one saving Church.
There are many religious bodies. There are many assemblies in the
world but they will not save. You only the church that you
read about in the Bible only the religious institution that is
recorded in the scriptures and we pointed out last evening
there are 3,000 Mainline churches.
Well how was it that the Church of Jesus Christ?
Those who were brothers and sisters in the body and ranks of
Our Lord left the true faith and entered into darkness friends.
It was not one giant leap Into Darkness.
It was one small step at a time. One day after another one, small
error after another and of course, over a period of 100
years, all of those steps became such a Giant Mountain.
Those You were born under that hundred-year departure had no
idea of what the truth even was they didn't know how to get back
and so that's of course how the departure occurred.
So we want to talk about some of those details.
Listen to what Paul says to the church at Ephesus.
He's talking about this, same problem, you see?
The problem is still real. It's still an issue today that's
why the old preachers told us Brethren were drifting.
It reminded us of the fact that we need to be aware of the fact
that we can drift away from the truth that we can leave.
Leave the truth and we can do it in such a unconscious way.
We don't even realize that it's occurring until it's too late.
You know, what's so dangerous about leaving the truth?
You know, the best way to illustrate it.
You know I've been in the church long enough now to see this
happen, many times, I mean a woman decide they're not
satisfied at the truth and so they leave.
Maybe they go into what we call the digressive church, maybe
they going to denominationalism, they'd been raised in the truth
and they go off in into the world away from the truth and
raise their families and Finn finally one day they wake up.
And they come back. But the children stay where they
were. That's what drifty.
That's one of the reasons why drifting is so dangerous.
It's not just where we are going, but where is the next
Generation going to go? And often the next or the second
generation, the third generation.
They are so far removed from the pure that they don't know how to
get back. Now, think about this, this is
very important. Therefore Paul says he's talking
to the elders at Ephesus. He's called them to my leaders.
He's hastening his journey to get to Jerusalem by certain
time. And so he sends word ahead for
these men to meet him, at the Seacoast, town of my letus and
he gives them A Farewell Address.
He thinks that this is the last time he's going to see them, but
it isn't the last time he sees them several other occasions.
Now, this is the same church that he had spit.
Some Three years working among, and working with a previous to
this, he had established this church, and he had gone in there
later, and spent three years of working and laboring among them.
Now, notice what the Bible says, therefore take heed to
yourselves talking to the leaders of the church, the
elders, take heed, therefore unto yourselves and to all the
flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to
Shepherd the Church of God, which he purchased with his own
blood for. I know this that after my
Departure Savage wolves will come in among you not sparing
the flock, listen to this. Also from among yourselves.
Men will rise up speaking perverse, things to draw away to
the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember
that for three years. I did not cease to warn every
one night and day with tears. Notice now, Paul says they're
going to be problems in the church.
Both from without, and from within Now, I'm not so afraid of
the problems out there of the enemy out there because we know
who he is. But, you know, the people that
are dangerous are people who are on the inside people, we love
People, we esteem people, that we believe are faithful who do
their Dirty Work behind the scenes in secret, so, to speak.
That's the way it always is. Who work on prey on the weak who
work and prey on those who are troubled and have problems.
Paul says, there's going to be trouble on the inside and on the
outside, that's the way. It's always been.
There's going to be trouble ahead, it plans wrong, we have
to face that fact. There's going to be problems in
the church in the future. There always will be.
The Bible says that evil men, and seducers shall wax worse and
worse deceiving and being deceived.
And so we have to recognize that fact, at first, the church was
pure and John told the rather. He said you try the spirits and
he qualifies with those Spirits were by saying that they were
preachers or teachers in the church, they were false prophets
that had gone. The word he says, test.
It put them to the test, try to make sure they are what they
claim they ought to be. Now again, I want to emphasize
at first, the church was pure, but there was one small change
after another. Now, what's interesting about
this, if you go through and you study this we there's no we
don't have time tonight to talk about all of it but every one of
these early departures had something that they affected
that it affected later on. Long and this apostasy grew and
grew and grew until you had the Roman church and it was one
little step at a time that maybe people didn't have much thought
about or concerned about now, one of the first things that was
introduced was about 20 years after the last Apostle died.
And that was holy water. Now, how did that start?
I don't know for sure but I will tell you this.
I noticed one day and Zambia. Well, they always pray before
they you know, we pray afterwards.
They do too, but they prayed before they baptized too.
I don't always understand. Didn't always wasn't always able
to hear. What was being said by?
Notice one day the brother said, Lord, will you bless the water?
And I thought, hmm. And so, you know, we have
studied, we had studies and we had dialogue.
We've got too sophisticated for that, kind of teaching you in
America, you know. But Paul the Bible says, talk
did and that word taught means that he dialogue with him and
acts 20:7. It was not just getting up.
And given the 45-minute discourse, he actually dialogue
with brethren in the audience. That's what we do.
This van via Bill Davis taught me how to do that and there's a
great deal of learning when that happens.
Well, anyway, we're dialoguing about this and I Ask the
Brethren. I said how do you think people
started blessing the water in the first century?
How do you think holy water came about?
And you know there were some in that audience.
So these are all church leaders about 100 church leaders and
there were some in that audience that thought when the brother
was praying for the lord, to bless the water that he was.
He was creating holy water. Now, the brother who made that
prayer said he didn't mean anything, but he was just he
just asking the Lord's blessing on what they're about to.
Do. That's all he meant by what he
said, but you see sometimes good intentions lead to bad things.
We have to realize that. Maybe that's how holy water came
into Vogue in the first century, I don't know, or the second
century actually. Maybe that's how holy water was
introduced, I don't know, maybe it was innocent.
It was still water. It still was the same water
after they blessed it as it was before it still had the same
saving power. But of course, it's set them up
for other changes later on and we'll talk about that.
Another departure that came about. 140 was lent and Easter
another departure and 157 ad was the doctrine of penance.
Now, this developed from something that was good and
right. you know, when somebody commits a sin, their
consequences, When a church leader is immoral.
He don't make a confession this Sunday because he got caught.
And then next Monday, you have him up there leading singing and
praying and leading the service in the teaching.
That's not the way it works. The Bible says, you know, those
who labor among you, if a man's an immoral person?
What do you know about him, when you put him up there, the next
Sunday, you know, he's young person that said I'm sorry and
that you know that he's an immoral man.
That's what All about him. Now we need to put it in proper
perspective. Bible says, test the spirits.
That means something that's not put in there to fill in space.
We are too quick to put men in positions of authority.
Now, listen to me, when a man's a gospel preacher, If I go out
here and commit adultery and I have a meeting plans, Road, you
don't cancel it. You're going to be accountable
to the Lord for that. It doesn't matter if I make
10,000 confessions, there are consequences for my action?
Yes, I can be forgiven. Yes, I can be forgiven but there
are consequences to my action and I need to be responsible and
when I'm in a trusted position and I betrayed that trust it's
very very difficult to know if I really he repented because if I
repented after I got caught, that might be the only reason I
repented And I know that happens and we're too quick to put
people in the Pulpit too quick to put people back in a position
of authority when they when they spoil that position.
Now, that's where that dr. Drew Pinsky came from.
It was good intentions. It just wasn't enough for him to
make a confession and sit on the bench.
She see. They started having different
things. Sometimes, they paid money.
That's where the idea of paying money for sin, came from it
developed into all kinds of corrupt fames.
Well, the doctor appendix was forward to.
The Bible is forward to the teaching of the Bible.
Now there's some there's some connection to the Bible in that
Doctrine, but it's carrying the gospel too far carrying, what's
written too far, 1980, the Apostles Creed was developed in
the year 200. Now this is interesting and I in
fact, Act. I want to write this on the
board because I want you to keep this in your heart and in your
mind in the New Testament Church.
There were elders. And of course, those Elders were
known as Shepherds. Those Shepherds were known as
pastors. Those pastors were known as As
let's see, there's another term. We receive a shepherd's pastors.
O Bishops. And there were Bishops in the
church. Now, all of these terms refer to
the same thing All of them referred to the same offers for
the same work, but now think about this.
What men decided was the ownership is not.
It is not have the respect, it needs.
It does not have the authority. That it needs.
People didn't listen to the eldership like they should.
And so they took a breath and to task instead of teaching them,
the what they needed to know instead of teaching them the
truth. They of course, Decided, this is
what we'll do. Will change the name of the
Elder to priest will exalt him. Now, they might have recent like
this, the Elder is a priest because all Christians are
priests in 1st Peter, chapter 2. The Bible says that we make up a
royal priesthood. We're all individual priests.
And we're to all offer up spiritual sacrifices under the
Lord. There is no clergy laity
relationship in the Church of Christ.
This is one of the main differences between us and the
rest of the religious World. There are no big eyes and little
use. We're all members one of
another, they're all connected, one to the other, but in the
year 200 ad, they exalted the leadership and started
designating the local Elders as priest separate from the church
separate from the membership. Now, that was a major change, it
seem like small but that's what led to the great apostasy or one
of the things that led to the great apostasy into 2080
Purgatory was introduced now. Of course, that was R.
If you had a loved one who was lost, he go to hell or go to
Purgatory for a period of time and after a while he suffered
and he endured a great deal of pain but you could actually buy
his way into heaven. And that was a Doctrine people
wanted rich. People were willing to pay for
that. We rich people were willing to
donate, lots of money to the apostate church because of this
Doctrine. Well, it was rejected in the
beginning but it was reintroduced in 1070 ad in the
Cayman part of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.
Well, now, I'm 250 ad. Now, you can see a connection
here. The water were using is Holy.
You know, it might be that we want we don't have a priest down
at so-and-so place, but we got a priest here and he's he's he's
blessed. This water, it's become holy
water, we don't have to dump people anymore.
So, and so's on a sick bed and he's not able to be immersed in
water. So we got this holy water.
Let's just sprinkle them See how it works, one departure
encourages a donor. That's why it's so important to
investigate everything, we practice everything we believe
and make sure that what we're doing is according to the
dictates of God's word and not just something that Mom and Dad
did or that. The preacher says, we ought to
do. Well, the departure from the New
Testament pattern is very slow. There a lot of other things that
I could talk about but I don't have the time But it's one step
at a time, one minut change at a time.
One day after day, one change after change and through the
years the departure becomes a terrible thing and it actually
develops into what we call the apostate Church, its gradual and
it takes a long time. However, something changed that
help this departure now, according to mr.
Brownback the public functions of religion were solely
entrusted to this. Babish, Ministers of the church,
the Bishops and the presbyters. Now, look at this, you see into
20 or so, they took elders and decided that their priests.
Now what they've done that elevated the, the elders above
the membership, just a little bit.
Now, the next step is these. This clergy that's developing
decides. That not everybody has a right
to wait at the Lord's table. Have you ever discussed with the
Catholic priest about the communion, you know, they
believe that, that none of us eat the Lord's body bread
because you have to have that connection to Peter all the way
back to Peter and you have to be a certain individual that's had
that Authority passed down through him to him, through the
ages to bless it and make it the Lord's body.
In the Lord's. Blood And of course the Bible
doesn't teach that it is the Lord's body or it is the Lord's
blood anyway, the word is in Matthew, 26, 26, and 27 is a
copula and it means it's a symbol of representation.
It represents the body of Jesus, it represents the blood of
Jesus, it does not become the blood of Jesus nearing.
The communion, when we bless the law of it is a representative of
the body of Jesus, and it remains that representative
until Party in the assembly. Each from that one loaf.
When the last person eats from that one love, it's finished and
it's no longer the body of Christ.
And we get that all confused and we have great debates about what
you got to do with the bread, when the service is over.
But it's just bread and the service is over. and we get that
from the Catholic idea that it becomes the body of Christ,
whether we want to admit that or not, we better be careful.
Now, what they do next, they take away the jobs from the
church, the clergy starts leading all the singing.
They start leading all the parade, they start waiting at
the Lord's. Supper they start doing all the
preaching and so they're developing its clergy laity
relationship, they're making a distinction, the separation
between those who lead the church and those who attend
church. That's the beginning of them of
the Catholic Church, taking the Bible away from people.
You know, when they took the Bible away from people, you know
how they did that. They made Bibles and Latin
language that had been dead for hundreds of years.
Nobody could read it when a Wycliffe translated the Bible,
he was so hated that 75 years after he was dead, they dug up
his bones and burn them and stir them to the Four Winds.
I don't know what difference has it made, but they hated him so
much because he translated the Bible.
They did that as an act of of hatred toward him because they
said people said the authority of the church said, the common
man can't read the Bible. He can't serve God.
You got to have a special people, a special group.
Now listen to me. The Bible says we're all priests
When you sin, you had a right to approach God and ask him to
forgive you. There's not a clergy laity
relationship in the church. Some people have this idea that
they have to have the preacher pray for.
I'm gonna tell you something. That is not the Bible.
That is our thinking from this idea of clergy laity
relationship. Now, don't misunderstand.
Me. If you committed public, seeing
you need to publicly acknowledge that sin.
But if you realize you send on Monday, you don't have to wait
till Sunday to pray. To God, to forgive you, and wait
till Sunday to be forgiven because you're a priest.
If you're Christian seeming, you're a priest in Lord service
and you have access to God. Now, I want to give you an
example of that, under the Old Testament during the makes the,
the morals of suppose a college. They had a priesthood, the
descendants of Aaron, during the patriarchal age, they had no
priesthood. In that sense, but the patriarch
of the family served as the priest he offered the sacrifice.
For example, in job, the first chapter, the Bible says that job
made sacrifices for his sons, just in case they send, you see
why there is no priesthood as such the patriarch acted in the
place of the priest. Now, Abraham was a patriarch.
Now, he went down to Egypt and he told Pharaoh, Sarah.
Sarah is my sister. Now, what did your dad do when
he found out? You told half of the truth and
you told half of the truth because you wanted to fool him
and then he found out that you told him half the truth so that
you wouldn't get in trouble. What did he do?
I'll pay with my dad. Did he took his belt off?
And he wore my bottle bath. Because a half, truth is a lie.
Abraham lied to pharaoh. Now it's true.
That Sarah was his half-sister. They had the same father but not
the same mother. But now listen folks, he lied.
Now, Pharaoh took Sarah to be his wife.
Now, evidently he didn't commit any immorality with her but it
just took her into his house and when that happened, the Bible
says that God calls plagues to fall, upon pharaoh.
Now, Pharaoh did this in ignorance, he didn't know that
he had a man's wife. But because he took Sarah
pledge, were put down upon his house, and he realized that he
had made God unhappy. And so, he found out from the
Lord, that Sarah was Abraham's wife.
In addition to being his sister, and he brought him in here
addicted. But you know what happened?
When, when Pharaoh wanted to be one of this plague to be
removed, you know what God Said. He said you have Abraham, the
priest, the Prophet, The Prodigal or the patron of the
patriarchal of the, his family, the go-between for you.
And God, he said you had him off or sacrifice for you.
Now, the point is this, the point I'm trying to make is this
when I sin, because I'm a priest, even though I've sinned,
if I approach God according to his terms, I can ask for
forgiveness. And it doesn't matter if I have
sinned, I can still ask God, I can still pray to God just like
Abraham did for Pharaoh. Well, that's a sideline but I
think we need to talk about that like we did when I was a kid.
I remember dr. McCord, if the sizing that
meetings that he held, I remember Linwood emphasizing
that in meetings held him and we didn't have a problem with it.
They had like we have sometimes. Now people have this idea that
that you got to walk down. In the island and confess your
sins. But that is not what the Bible
teaches. The Bible teaches that there is
no priesthood separate from the church, every Christian is a
priest. Well, the point is, they took
the work away from the members as small change in church,
government occurs, the elders are elevated.
They're called priests now. And of course, the work of the
church was done by all qualified members, but now it was only
those who were Sanctified for that purpose in the eyes of men
notice now, Romans 15:4. It says they were able also to
admonish one another. That is to teach one another
therefore comfort each other first Thessalonians 5:11 each
other and edify. One another just as you also are
doing. In other words, everybody in
early church who was qualified. Every man in the early church,
who is qualified, could serve at the Lord's table.
Every man who was qualified and faithful Could Teach the
audience, Every man who had the ability every man who had the
faithfulness could stand and lead the assembly in a song.
There was no clergy laity relationship all were equal as
far as the church is concerned. So the leadership takes all the
work from the membership and this started about 100 years
after the last Apostle died. Just about the time 100 years
after the last Apostle died, I remember what Paul said.
He said Sun would rise up Among Us, speaking perverse, things to
draw away disciples after them, this truly was the beginning of
the end. Now The Bible says our history
tells us rather that in the major metropolitan areas, they
had large churches now just like it is today.
The church at plans Road, the Church of Brundage Lane.
Sends help to hatch be right. Y'all help help set right door.
Set right. Darrell innocent you guys help
to hatch me they don't said help them here.
You see any help up there because their country Church
small Church. Well, that's the way it was in
the first in about the third Century, you had these large
shirt, large churches and you had these churches in the
country side, and what would happen is the churches in the
country, didn't always have the leadership they needed, and so
they sought help from other places.
It was it wrong for these other places to help them but that set
them up for a great departure from the truth.
And so the elders have been exalted Excuse me.
They took the work away from the people and then they decided
that when there was a problem but among the elders, that could
not be settled. That what they should do is
exalt one of the Elders above the others and called him Bishop
now In every church or in a lot of the congregation's, what
developed was a head Elder? That's what they had.
They, that they had five elders and they ran into a problem.
Couldn't be solved. They had one man that made the
final decision. Now, it's natural for some men
to have more influence than other men.
It depends obviously on their ability.
It depends on how much time they spend in the work.
It's natural for some men have more influence than others.
But what happened was? They took that That simple
logical thing and made it more than it should have been exalted
him as Chief Elder. Now that of course led to
something else. In fact, what they did is, they
develop their brought in a new name, they borrowed a name from
the Old Testament, Patriarchs and made one of the elders in
the local eldership. A patriarch.
Now, we have the scriptural situation, Elders, ruling in
every Church, Deacon serving under the eldership.
And of course the bishop was an elder he was equal to the Elder.
He was not over the Elder but of course this attitude of the
apostate Church LED. They just Parcher from the
truth. And so now all of these churches
are looking to these to these Town churches for assistance.
And now the town Church, appoints a man to be over all
these country churches and he develops, what is called a
diocese and they have an Archbishop.
And this we know historically occurred in Rome constant Noble
Ephesus, Antioch and Alexandria. Now the next step is logical.
Because you see what happened, was the church at Alexandria,
had a problem out here in the country somewhere?
They couldn't get it solved. They've been working on for a
long time. Couldn't be solved so they
called over to Antioch and pretty soon, maybe the church at
Ephesus call over to constant Noble, they couldn't get the
problem solved so they had to put somebody else over all the
churches. And finally, it ended up that
there was a papa in the city of Rome.
Now this was caused by a lack of knowledge, not by the people in
charge, but by the membership you see there has to be a check
and balance situation and if there's not Then we're headed
for trouble. Every member has a
responsibility. You have an obligation.
When I teach something, it's wrong to talk to me about that,
listen to me. If you're a teacher in the
church and you don't like it when people object to something
you've said or talk to you about, what's what you said,
then you better change your attitude.
Because the audience has a right to question everything that said
publicly. And if I is a gospel preacher or
as a teacher leader in the church and not willing to be
question that I have not had no right to even teach because the
church is to protect the truth, your to protect the pulpit.
Listen folks, it's still just Frankie's job.
It's your job brother. It's your job.
It's your responsibility. And that's how the church is
protected. That's why I'm the Church of
Christ. We don't have this cool clergy
lady relationship, we're all members.
One of another. Now we all have ability and
sometimes because of our ability we may develop more influence
than someone else, but we had no Authority that the Bible is not
give us Authority comes from the Bible and this problem was
caused because people didn't study.
I'm going to tell you something, if we don't, if we don't have a
knowledge of the Bible, we're headed for trouble.
Hosea said, my people are destroyed for a lack of
knowledge. Me ask you a question.
If you're a teacher in the church Brundage or your teacher
of the church here at plans Road, Have you read the New
Testament through? How many times have you read it
through? How about if your sister here?
Now you're not a public teacher. You don't teach?
In the church. Your responsibility in any
public situation. As far as the Bible's concern is
silence and submission. But you supposed to have a Bible
knowledge so you can teach your children so you could teach your
neighbor. How many times have you read the
New Testament through? Do you realize that if you're a
slow reader and you spend 20 minutes a day now who among us?
Could not get up, 20 minutes earlier than we normally do in,
read the Bible for 20 minutes. What's 20 minutes?
if you read 20 minutes a day every day and one year, you read
the Bible through But suppose you're really slow reader and
you only get halfway through. So what read it in two years.
But make it your lifetime goal. To continue absorbing the will
of God. David said, Thy word?
Have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
David said, the entrance of Thy word, giveth light, when have we
ever lived in a time? When we needed a lot more
desperately? We need to know what the light
says. We need to absorb the light.
We need to memorize it. We need to.
Read it. We need to think about it when
you discuss it. The departure occurred because
people didn't study. There are a lot of reasons why
we don't have the Bible knowledge.
We used to have but the main reason, is because we're not
studying, we've gotten so busy It's so incredible, how busy we
are. We spend our life. and the
things that are most important sometimes remain on the back
burner and our life passes by Well, another thing that caused
this problem was a desire for preeminence.
You know, anybody in the church wants to be the boss, I do.
That's dangerous. Leadership is not being the boss
folks. In fact, Jesus teaches us that
leadership is servant ship. A Bible leader that's going to
lead the church and the right way is serving the church is
exhausting his life in service. That's what a leader is in God's
eyes. It's not being the boss but all
the doctor fees Have not passed away, have they?
Preeminence that also led to the departure a desire for a new way
of worship. Be careful when you want to
change studies. It's not always bad to change
unless the changes compared to this book.
So, be careful when you change things because that attitude
might lead you in the wrong direction.
Well, there's no denominations, there's only one Church all of
these departures occur, many others that we could talk about,
and then of course, they put pop ahead of the whole church
universally and in 60 680. He was appointed and they called
it. The Roman Catholic Church.
The headquarters was in Rome Italy.
And of course some believe that the papacy success And when all
the way back to Peter, but of course, we know that the Bible
does not teach this. Now it's interesting.
There's only one church now, I don't know exactly when this
occurred but there was a division in the Roman Church
between the Western Empire and the Roman Empire and the Eastern
Empire. And when that division occurred,
there were three churches. And of course there's the Roman
Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic church and the Church
of Christ for over 1,000 years. There's only three churches.
An amazing Church down here at church guy came tonight.
He's looking for a church on plans, road, we tried to get him
to stay, but he's looking for somebody else, somewhere else
that was supposed to be right here in this area.
Well, there's every flavor of church that you can imagine or
desire, but there's only three there.
For over 1,000 years. And then Luther took a trip to
Rome. and when he got to Rome, And he saw what had been done
with the Indulgence has, it was more than he could stand.
In fact it's kind of interesting to read his history.
A few years back, there was a major writing in the in the
National Geographic about Luther.
You know at first he thought when all this corruption occur
to the Catholic church that the pope surely didn't know about it
and of course when he made his trip to Rome he found out that
he was right the middle of it. Now, Luther did not have a
desire to start a church. That was not his desire.
In fact, he told people don't call yourselves Lutheran's, call
yourself Christians, his thought was to reform the mother church,
but listen, folks, it had gone too far.
They were so far away from the truth.
There was no way to bring that church back.
There was no way to reform it in such a way that they, it could
come back to the truth. Well, when he died in 1534, the
followers of Luther organized, the Lutheran church.
Now we have four churches. Now a few years later, Henry
King Henry, the 8th wanted to divorce his wife.
Now he's still connected to the Roman Church and so he writes it
appeal to the to the pope and he says he wants to divorce his
wife and the pope wrote back and said Ed.
No. well, Old King Henry, the 8th decided That he wasn't a
listen to that and he wrote a letter to Parliament and he
said, you're going to separate the Church of England from the
Roman Church and you're going to make me the Pope.
Are you know what's good for you?
And so he formed the Church of England that was in 1538.
Now John Wesley saw the ritualistic form of worship the
empty form of worship that existed in the Church of England
and so he started What's called the Methodist Church in 1795.
The Baptist Churches were organized in Europe and 1605 by
a man by the name of John Smith now.
These names and dates are given in the encyclopedia.
You can't find them in the Bible.
You can read about the Church of our lord of the Bible but you
can't find these other churches in the Bible but you can find
them in secular history. The SDA as they like to call
themselves and Sandia, or The Seventh-Day Adventist started in
the mid 19th century. They were led by a man with the
name of William Miller. Now at first, they weren't
called The Seventh-Day Adventist, they were called
millerites. But now Miller predicted just
like this fellow that's predicted.
Jesus would come a few days ago that Jesus is going to come back
in 1843 well that day came and went and Jesus didn't come and
guess what Miller became a backslide.
And when he died in 18-49 lmg white, her husband took up his
cause and they changed the name to Seventh-day Adventist.
Well, there's a lot of other churches we talked about the
fact that there are three thousand churches.
But the problem is all of these churches where the wrong name,
all of these churches started in the wrong place.
All of these churches are too late for the Church of our Lord
and Savior. Jesus Christ, all of these
churches have Earthly heads, other, Then the Lord, Jesus
Christ, wrong name wrong place wrong time wrong man.
They're not the church that you read about in the will of God in
the Church of Jesus Christ that started in Jerusalem. 8033 this
is the one saving Church, the one saving body.
The one saving Christ, he built his church and that of course is
the Church of Christ. Now, listen to this.
Therefore in conclusion, listen to this.
Therefore whoever here as these sayings of mine and does them, I
will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock and
the rain descended, the floods came and the winds blew and beat
on that house and he did not fall for it was founded on the
Rock. But everyone who hears these
sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man
who built his house on the sand and the rain, descended the
floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it
fell and great. Was its fall.
Now we have a choice tonight, we can build on the Rock of Ages,
or we can build on this, and there's only one saving church.
And tonight, if you're not a member of that one saving
church, we invite you to become a member.
Now listen to the words of Jesus.
Jesus said he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
Jesus said look 13 Verse 3, I tell you nay but except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Obviously repentance has to do with changing our minds and then
as a result of repentance, we change your life.
And that's evidence of our dependents.
Jesus said whosoever shall deny me before men him alive.
And I also before my father who is in heaven whosoever,
therefore, shall confess me before men him will?
I confess also before my father who is in heaven, once you make
that good confession tonight, if you've never done that, and then
be buried with him in baptism for Jesus says that baptism
saves us. We thank you for listening to
our podcast, put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.
Road in Bakersfield, if you would like any additional
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