Satan has managed to keep the world in constant turmoil since our parent’s first sin in the Garden of Eden. As you may have observed, he has managed to turn the world into a seething cauldron of division, anger, rebellion, murder, and greed.
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.
“But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. Jude 17-19.
Christ’s church has suffered terribly from its inception around 33 A.D. to the present, with the most violent persecution coming by the hand of the Roman Empire about 100-312 A.D. about two hundred years.
It was Roman persecutions which most folks are familiar with, when Christians were thrown to the lions and suffered many other unmentionable tortures and indignities.
This was hundreds of years before the Inquisition during the medieval period where many hundreds of thousands of innocent Christians and Jews were tortured and murdered in a manner that only a demonic mind could think of.
It should be added that there were many other innocent folks who were accused of witchcraft or heresy of one sort or another, then guilty or innocent they were brutally tortured then burned at the stake.
This was a good way for the church or their accuser to pick up the victim’s property since they no longer needed it. Property was confiscated even if the widow and her children needed it to survive.
The Inquisition began circa 1100 A.D. but did not reach its height of cruelty until it was established in 1229 A.D. and remained in full force for about 600 years.
God hating atheists and their ilk like to point to the Medieval Church and blame Christians (the very victims!) for the atrocities committed or authorized by ungodly men who claimed to be the Vicar of Christ!
The Lord’s last words to the disciples in the gospel of Matthew are as follows.
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” Matthew 28:18b-20.
Read the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, can you find anywhere that Jesus coerced or threatened death or bodily harm if people did not become His disciples?
Did Jesus teach His own disciples to be arrogant sadistic brutes? Was it not Jesus Christ who was persecuted throughout His life?
Can you find anywhere that Jesus tortured people by walling them up, putting them on the rack, flaying their flesh, and even more devilish things to force them to recant or confess to crimes against His gospel?
Yet the vicars of Christ did all these things. This was not Christ’s church even though there have been many true Christians in it throughout its history.
The Inquisition is dormant, but not over, it’s still in existence on paper having been reinstated under a new name in 1965. The inquisition will be used during the tribulation period when the world church again achieves worldwide domination.
“So he [an angel] carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman [the world church] sitting on a scarlet beast [Antichrist] which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.” Revelation 17:3-6.
The Roman persecutions ended when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion in 312 A.D. This was Satan’s greatest triumph against the church.
Because many pagans joined the church for the social advantages, and money to be made of course, they brought with them their pagan myths and rituals.
And because ungodly men soon worked their way into the hierarchy of the church they were able to make changes to the way it was run. Eventually reaching the point where true Christians were persecuted during the Inquisition.
A great deal of this decline of the church took place between 312 and 590 A.D. It certainly had no resemblance to the church that the apostles had set up from the beginning.
After the Roman Empire fell circa 500 A.D. the Roman Catholic Church filled the void from about 590-1517 A.D.
The ungodly men in positions of power in the church continued to add the traditions of men just as the Pharisees who crucified Jesus had done in His time.
The church was often run by Satan himself who corrupted it still further until they instituted the Inquisition, torturing and murdering men and women in ways that only a demon could think of.
After a thousand years of conditioning by the medieval church even the reformation churches, 1517-1750 A.D. which started out well enough, soon sank down to using many of the same tactics as the one they tried so hard to reform, and then finally were forced to escape.
There have been very few bright spots in church history and today is no different with men denying the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, and His miracles all of which are the basics of salvation in Jesus.
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Matthew 5:13.
When Christians cease to be the salt of the earth it is no mystery that men begin to hate Christianity, slander those in the church, and then begin to persecute God’s people.
“If anyone teaches [God’s word] otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.” 1 Timothy 6:3-5.
These men like to argue, and nit pick at words tearing them apart, “Well, the Greek word is indeed this, but the root of that word comes from two other Greek words meaning this, therefore this word actually means what I have contended all along.”
These corrupt minded men who do not know the truth will argue until they win, and the truth is corrupted as they are. They do these things because they are greedy for money and power over people. “From such withdraw yourself.”
“But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.” Titus 3:9-11.
“As charcoal is to burning coals, and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife.” Proverbs 26:21.
“[we must be trained in the doctrine of Christ] That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight [trickery] of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive…” Ephesians 4:14, King James Bible.
Every Christian must know and realize that there are men who lie in wait to deceive them. Godless men who hate God and only want to pervert the church and to profit from it; these men are not clamoring atheists; they are respected liberal theologians who hate God in their hearts.
“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 3-4.
Not just the Christian, but every Christian has the obligation to contend earnestly for the faith which Scripture has plainly shown us.
“But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 3:13-15.
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
The phrase “inspiration of God” literally means God breathed. We must never, never, never give way to the divisive deceit of the devil and man; we must stand together as one body.
Though we have been fragmented into many parts like, Baptists, Brethren, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Catholic, or Lutheran, all who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior are of one body, of which Christ is the head.
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Ephesians 4:1-6.
“Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition [eternal destruction, i.e. hell], but to you of salvation, and that from God.” Philippians 1:27-28.
“I am not yielding and I will not yield to the time in which I live!” – “We can say that to our Lord, to ourselves and, betimes, maybe, over our shoulders to the Devil.” A.W. Tozer, from “Tragedy in the Church; the Missing Gifts”.
Long Division, Part 2, Persecuted Church taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 12-7-15, updated on 4-10-24 ck.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.