A
Short Summary Of Church History
By
Dr. R.D. Smith
Knowing church history can keep lone rangers
from being lone rangers and from re-inventing orthodoxy on the anvil of
anti-historical provincialism.
There is a theory that the paradigms of history can show where we are
now, what we should do now, and that they serve as a gauge for the
possibilities of the future.
The
Patterns That Show Where America Is Now
After
Rome was converted it began to fall because of the invasion by Barbarians. This brought about the conversion of
those same barbarian nations.
Christian America has been/is being invaded by various humanist/pagan
interests today. This will
probably result in more furtherance of God’s Kingdom. Britain was Christian in the 6th Century, but after
Rome retreated it fell to pagan Anglo Saxons and became pagan again. Then came the Irish missionaries and
converted the Anglo Saxons.
Perhaps America will be re-converted by Chinese missionaries like
Britain was by the Irish. Moslems have invaded Europe and there are now more
mosques than churches there.
Perhaps Europe shall be re-converted by the Chinese just as England
was. Jesus promised, “I will build
my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The little stone that destroys the
nations is becoming a great growing mountain that is destined to fill the whole
earth. The Kingdom of God is the
leaven that will leaven the whole lump of planet earth.
China
An
article in Asia Times by Spengler illustrates where church history is headed.[1]
Ten thousand
Chinese become Christians each day, according to a stunning report by the
National Catholic Reporter's veteran correspondent John Allen, and 200 million
Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians by
mid-century, and the largest missionary force in history. If you read a single news article about
China this year, make sure it is this one.
I suspect that even the most enthusiastic
accounts err on the downside, and that Christianity will have become a
Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st
century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been
during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization. If this
occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it. Islam might
defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers
with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East.
The World Christian Database offers by far the
largest estimate of the number of Chinese Christians at 111 million, of whom
90% are Protestant, mostly Pentecostals. Other estimates are considerably
lower, but no matter; what counts is the growth rate. This uniquely American
denomination, which claims the inspiration to speak in tongues like Jesus' own
disciples and to prophesy, is the world's fastest-growing religious movement.
In contrast to Catholicism, which has a very long historic presence in China
but whose growth has been slow, charismatic Protestantism has found its natural
element in an atmosphere of official suppression. Barred from churches, Chinese
began worshipping in homes, and five major "house church" movements
and countless smaller ones now minister to as many as 100 million Christians.
This quasi-underground movement may now exceed in adherents the 75 million
members of the Chinese Communist Party; in a generation it will be the most
powerful force in the country.
While the Catholic Church has worked patiently
for independence from the Chinese government, which sponsors a "Chinese
Catholic Patriotic Association" with government-appointed bishops, the
evangelicals have no infrastructure to suppress and no hierarchy to protect. In
contrast to Catholic caution, John Allen observes, "Most Pentecostals
would obviously welcome being arrested less frequently, but in general they are
not waiting for legal or political reform before carrying out aggressive
evangelization programs."
Allen adds:
The most audacious even dream of carrying the
gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim
world, in a campaign known as "Back to Jerusalem." As [Time correspondent David] Aikman
explains in Jesus in Beijing, some Chinese evangelicals and Pentecostals believe that the basic
movement of the gospel for the last 2,000 years has been westward: from
Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to Europe, from Europe to America, and from
America to China. Now, they believe, it's their turn to complete the loop by
carrying the gospel to Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once
that happens, they believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire
world.
Aikman reports that two Protestant seminaries
secretly are training missionaries for deployment in Muslim countries.
World Net Daily Article:
The
Earth is becoming Christian at a very fast clip. My best estimate is that there
are 64 million more Christians now than a year ago. That breaks down to 175,000
a day. History has never seen such a rapid and vast shift in loyalty and
identity. Muslim authorities have admitted they are rapidly losing Africa.
Indonesia, Earth's largest Muslim nation, is now 25 percent Christian. In
Bangladesh, a stunning 522,000 Muslims have turned to Isa (Jesus) since 1997.
Iran is also experiencing a huge underground
revival among their youth. The Mullahs shout and holler while their children
are becoming the underground Christians.
VOM reports there are over 500,000 born again
believers in underground house-churches in Bangladesh, another of the largest
Muslim nations on earth. This growth rate started with less than 50,000
believers five years ago. This is occurring in a nation where apostasy from
Islam to Christianity, is punishable by death.
Scripture Promises Of Success (NKJV)
Psalm 22:27
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the
families of the nations shall bow before thee.
Hab
2:14 The earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Psalm
72:11 All kings shall fall down
before Him: All nations shall serve Him.
Psalm 67:7
All the ends of the earth shall fear Him.
Psalm
62:2 O you who hear prayer, To You
all flesh will come.
Psalm 138:4
All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O LORD, When they hear the words
of Your mouth.
Dan 7:27 All
dominions shall serve and obey Him.
Isaiah 65:20
A child shall die at the ripe old age of a hundred.
The
Place Of War In God’s Providence
Although
the disciples of Christ are forbidden to take up swords for the kingdom of God,
the Lord, nevertheless, has used others in war to bring about His
purposes. “The LORD is a man of
war: the LORD is his name” (Exodus 15:3).
God put it in the hearts of the ten kings in Revelation 17:17 to
accomplish His purpose by destroying the Great Harlot. God used the sword of Constantine to
bring peace to the Church and said, “By this sign conquer.” Charlemagne and Alfred the Great, as
civil magistrates, did not “bear the sword in vain” by defending their kingdoms
from pagan invaders. They then
baptized the vanquished and God used that to bring about their
conversions. This brings up the
place in history for Christians governments.
The
Pattern Of Christian Governments
When
the king of the first Christian nation state, Armenia, was converted as the
result of an apostle (i.e. missionary) healing his son, the whole nation was
baptized as in a day. Some will
say, “Yes. But what kind of Christians
were they?” Well, they were most
likely just outward Christians, but is that bad? The good thing about Christian governments setting up
Christian laws is that people will be more likely to be born again first
because of the freedom to preach the Gospel and secondly because the law is our
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that if porn, sodomy, and
evolution, for example, have free reign, it corrupts the youth and tends to
harden their hearts from believing in Christ. Alfred the Great and Charlemagne would not have allowed an
education system such as America permits today. That cannot be bad.
Look at what Holland permits and observe the results. The only legitimate government is the
rule of King Jesus in the public arena.
David served as the model.
Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the
earth. Serve the LORD with fear,
and rejoice with trembling. Kiss
the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is
kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him (Ps
2:10-12).
It was
a government that protected Luther and made the Reformation possible.
So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after
the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the
earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed
out of his mouth (Rev 12:15-16).
It was
a government (the earth) that protected Calvin. Scotland set up the kingdom of God that even listed the
death penalty for adultery. Is
that bad? If it was, then Moses
was not inspired by God and was draconian. The whole purpose for these models was to show how it shall
be and should be now. Only the
fallen nature of man can keep that from happening.
Even
though the governments of the Byzantine Empire and the Papacy were not perfect,
they were still to some extent the best the world had yet seen. Revelation is progressive. We underestimate the Fall of man. It takes time for truth to be
revealed. The Reformation brought
great light and republican government.
But even the early Puritans in New England did not permit freedom of
religion. Today, however, that
“freedom” has become libertinism.
It
appears that the prophecy of Joachim Fiore (1135 –1202 A.D.) has largely come
to pass since the Reformation of 1517.
He said a day was soon coming when there would be no need for hierarchy
and papacy.
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom
to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority
and power (1 Cor 15:24 KJV).
Mysticism
And Miracles
Abraham
Kuyper says three things are necessary in order to change society: the hand,
the head, and the mystical. Luther was the hand for action and Calvin was the
head for doctrine. We see the mystical in many places such as in the Stewarton
Sickness of Stewarton, Scotland around 1630.[2]
Gregory
the Great (AD 600) tells his story of Benedict of Nursea (AD 520). As a young man he went to a cave to
seek God. Suddenly one day he remembered an old girl friend and was seized with
a strong temptation to leave. To
overcome the temptation, he threw himself into a bramble bush and rolled
around. The temptation left and
never returned. A man found out he was there and with a rope lowered bread to
him daily from a cliff above the cave.
When that man died, a priest had a vision in which God told him about
Benedict needing food. The priest
searched and searched until he found him and then proceeded to supply him. As time went on, Benedict was asked to
head up an established monastery, he told them he did not think they were
compatible, but they insisted. But
then they got tired of his discipline and decided to poison him. After he said the blessing the poisoned
cup burst.
He left
there and started the monastery at Monte Cassino and initiated the rule of St.
Benedict that was followed for the duration of the medieval age. He had the gift of prophecy and there
were many miracles by his hand.
Mystics
like St. Patrick, Columba, Benedict, Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, and
Savonarola played a very important role in church history. Savonarola prophesied many things he
said would happen soon and they did.
This paradigm is largely missing today. The pattern more prominent today is the heresy of
Montanism. The manner of
submission to authority understood by these mystics is what is also missing
today. Those men and women of God
would never have dreamed of making merchandise with their gifts or predicting
(like the Montanists did) the soon end of the world. The enlightenment not only did away with the idea of the
miraculous among Protestants, but also the discipline of authority is
missing. Even the early
Covenanters in Scotland still believed in miracles. The son-in law of John Knox, John Welch, struck a man dead with
the word of prophecy and raised another from the dead by prayer. Seventeen of the 71 Scots Worthies
mentioned in Howie’s SCOTS WORTHIES exercised the gift of prophecy (including
John Knox himself). But that was
before the enlightenment. We are
too enlightened to believe those things now.
It is
interesting to note the progressive invention of new doctrines during the
Medieval age. The desire of the
Papacy to rule over the other churches developed after the sixth century;
purgatory after Gregory the Great (AD 600); transubstantiation after AD
800. Not only is revelation
progressive, but backsliding is also.
Backsliding
characterizes God’s church all the way back to Moses and before that to Jacob’s
sons. This tells us that we have
this treasure in earthen vessels and only Christ qualifies as the True Israel
of God. He shall, nevertheless,
build His church until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth
as the waters cover the sea. So we
must be reformed and always reforming or corruption sets in.
