{"id":18883,"date":"2017-06-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-18T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-003\/"},"modified":"2017-06-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-18T05:00:00","slug":"protestant-reformation-003","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/protestant-reformation-003\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestant Reformation 003"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[480],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18883","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-matthew","series_event-protestant-reformation","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Protestant Reformation 003","sermon_date":"20170618","sermon_month":"6","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4744,"sermon_slides":4750,"sermon_mp3":4751,"sermon_id":"618171015221","series_or_event":480,"service_type":[473],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"16:18","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The Protestant Reformation 003\n\nMatthew 16:18\n\nWe\u2019re going to open in a word of prayer.\u00a0 Father, we thank You for this morning and thank You for Your truth in Your Word.\u00a0 We thank You that You love\u00a0 Your church and\u00a0 You\u2019ve worked in history to protect and preserve Your church.\u00a0 And I pray You\u2019ll be with us in the Sunday School class as we try to gain a better appreciation for the events leading to the Protestant Reformation and what it means and that kind of thing.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said Amen.\n\nOpen your Bibles to Matthew 2:21 and Happy Father\u2019s Day.\u00a0 If you need a handout just put your hand up and we\u2019ll get the handout to you.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been getting a lot of questions, are these notes the ones from last week and refresh those every week so sometimes I keep some of the slides from last week and add new ones so we\u2019re not just handing out last week stuff.\u00a0 It should say Part 3 on it.\n\nWe started a series of studies on the events leading to and then covering the Protestant Reformation and the reason we\u2019re doing this is we\u2019re coming up now on the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and most Christians really don\u2019t know much about it.\u00a0 They know it\u2019s some kind of blimp in history or footnote in history and they really don\u2019t know what God did.\u00a0 So we\u2019re trying to fill in the gaps and talk about it.\u00a0 A study like this involves leaving the Scripture.\u00a0 The canon of Scripture closed in the first century with the writing of the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 And so what in the world happened for the last 2,000 years after the canon of Scripture shut.\u00a0 Well, the Bible doesn\u2019t tell you but church history tells you.\u00a0 So I\u2019m trying to kind of move us into church history to help us sort of understand and explain this time period a little bit better.\n\nSo here\u2019s the outline that we\u2019re following, we\u2019ve already covered the early church and we\u2019ve seen what the early church, that would be the church of the apostles, handed off to the first generation of Christians and I tried to explain that the first Christians following the generation of the apostles established a school in Antioch, that would be that circle up north.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the exact area that Paul launched his three missionary journeys from, you\u2019ll recall, from the Book of Acts.\u00a0\u00a0 And at Antioch they developed a school of thought that took the Bible literally, including the study of prophecy.\u00a0 So they were what we call chiliasts or premillennialists.\u00a0 And in this study you\u2019ll notice I keep focusing on Bible prophecy because what you do with Bible prophecy is sort of a bellwether\u00a0 \u00a0regarding how you\u2019re going to treat the rest of the Bible.\u00a0 So if you start spiritualizing away Bible prophecy it\u2019s just a matter of time before you start doing that in other areas of Christian thought.\n\nSo the school of Antioch we would say, basically, were literalists, they took the Bible literally from Genesis to Revelation.\u00a0 Here\u2019s another map that might be\u00a0 a little clearer showing you Antioch and the mentality of the school of Antioch reigned supreme in the church for two centuries.\u00a0 And so if you are an orthodox Christian, according to the statement I gave you from Justin Martyr, you agreed with what they were teaching there at the school of Antioch.\u00a0 So the first couple centuries of the church, although the church was under persecution, I would say doctrinally speaking it was in pretty good shape, not perfect shape but the ship was moving in the right direction.\n\nHowever, everything began to change in Alexandria, Egypt, which is the circle down south, at the bottom of the map.\u00a0 Here\u2019s another map that shows you where Alexandria, Egypt is relative to Antioch.\u00a0 And in Alexandria, Egypt they developed a rival school and these folks began to introduce what we would call the allegorical method of interpretation.\u00a0 And as I\u2019m going to show you today the allegorical method of interpretation begins to dominate the church for about a thousand years and this is what Martin Luther and the Reformers in the 16th<\/sup> century are largely pulling us out of.\u00a0 So unless you understand this background you really can\u2019t understand why God raised up the Reformers and what their fight was.\n\nSo the allegorical method of interpretation actually started before Christianity came on the scene, in Judaism, largely through a man named Philo.\u00a0 And in Alexandria, Egypt they would say well, what\u2019s in the text is really not what\u2019s important; you have to use the text as a vehicle to bring in a higher spiritual meaning.\u00a0 So Philo, as I\u2019ve tried to explain, said the four rivers in Eden, the Pishon, the Gihon, the Euphrates and the Tigris, he would say oh, you can\u2019t take that literally, those are just four parts of the soul.\u00a0 And when you go to Nehemiah 3 you see the various gates around the walls of the city of Jerusalem and I\u2019ve shown you how allegorists would basically say well, that\u2019s really not the point, to describe a boring gate; there\u2019s a higher spiritual meaning here.\u00a0 So each gate was assigned some kind of spiritual significance, even though when you read Nehemiah 3 it just says there\u2019s a wall and gates in the wall.\n\nSo is the method of allegorical interpretation the proper method?\u00a0 And last time I gave you four reasons why it is not a valid or good method to follow.\u00a0 Probably the most important reason here is authority transfers from the text to the mind of the interpreter because the allegorist is really the only one that has the \u00a0subjective meaning.\u00a0 And there\u2019s really no way to test the allegorist because he\u2019s using the Bible in a way that\u2019s going outside of what the Bible says.\u00a0 So I took you through those four reasons why we at Sugar Land Bible Church don\u2019t embrace allegorical interpretation.\n\nAnd what in the world caused the church to shift from the time and tested method of interpretation established in Antioch, which was handed to Antioch by the apostles, which reigned in the church for two centuries, why in the world would the church shift from that method to this wildly speculative allegorical method of interpretation?\u00a0 And you might remember from last time I gave you five reasons for the shift.\u00a0 Any of this ringing a bell?\u00a0 Okay.\n\nLast time I gave you five but I thought on the way home I should have given you six, so can I give you my sixth one?\u00a0 The sixth one is right down here\u00a0 at the bottom, it\u2019s the events of A.D. 70.\u00a0 So what happened in A.D. 70?\u00a0 Well, A.D.\u00a0 70 is when Rome came, about forty years after the time of Christ, and they pushed the Jews out of their homeland, the land of Israel.\u00a0 They destroyed, under Titus, the temple; the temple was burned, the temple was torn apart brick by brick.\u00a0 You recall in the Gospels, particularly Matthew 24, almost forty years before this happened Christ predicted this as discipline for the nation because they rejected their King.\n\nSo A.D. 70 is a seminal event.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the Jews are thrown out of the land and they went into worldwide dispersion and they didn\u2019t return to the land until modern times, 1948.\u00a0 So as long as there was a functioning temple in the land of Israel, as long as there were Jews in the land of Israel the allegorist who would explain away Bible prophecy really couldn\u2019t get very far because it looked like those prophecies in the Scripture related to the Jews in the Old Testament were very literal, because the kingdom, as it\u2019s portrayed in the Old Testament, predicts the nation of Israel with a functioning temple in the millennial kingdom, Ezekiel even says with animal sacrifices.\u00a0 And it talks about the nation of Israel being the head over the nations, and as long as Israel is in that land it doesn\u2019t take a lot of speculation to see, well, my gosh, these prophecies are literal and God is setting the stage.\n\nWell, everything changes in A.D.\u00a0 70 because now there\u2019s no Jews in the land and there\u2019s no temple and there\u2019s no land of Israel.\u00a0 And so that creates the right environment or it creates the right climate for someone to come along and say you know, you guys in Antioch are taking these prophecies too literally related to the nation of Israel.\u00a0 We all know that these aren\u2019t literal prophecies, they refer to something else and we know that because there\u2019s no Israel any more.\n\nSo A.D. 70 kind of creates the right intellectual climate, if you will, for the allegorical method of interpretation to take off.\u00a0 And it was the Roman Emperor Hadrian who ruled for about twenty years, A.D. 117-138.\u00a0\u00a0 This was, you\u2019ll notice, several decades after A.D. 70.\u00a0 He goes into the land of Israel and he renames it, not Israel but what?\u00a0 Palestine.\u00a0 Now why in the world would he name it Palestine?\u00a0 Because he was trying to de-Judaize the land and he was trying to act as if the Jews were never in that land, the Jews have no historical claim to that land and he deliberately picked the name Palestine because it\u2019s a derivation linguistically from the word Philistine.\u00a0 The Philistines were ancient enemies of the land of Israel, ancient enemies of the Jewish people.\u00a0 So he deliberately picked this name to mock the Jewish people, to humiliate the Jewish people, to pretend like the Jews have no historic claim to that land.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the significance of Hadrian and Palestine.\n\nAnd most people don\u2019t understand this, they use the word Palestine all the time, even Christians today use the word Palestine when they\u2019re referring to the land of Israel.\u00a0 Even in some of the dispensational material, like Dwight Pentecost refers to the covenant made with the nation of Israel as the Palestinian Covenant.\u00a0 The Ryrie Study Bible (these are all my heroes, Pentecost, Ryrie) uses the word Palestine.\u00a0 The MacArthur Study Bible uses the word Palestine.\n\nBut you need to understand something\u2014words mean things!\u00a0 And when you use the word \u201cPalestine\u201d you are essentially using a Jewish slur because that\u2019s how that word was originally intended by Hadrian.\u00a0 The Bible itself never uses the word Palestine.\u00a0 It referred to the land of Israel as the what?\u00a0\u00a0 The land of Israel.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why I had you open to Matthew 2:21, it says, \u201cSo Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe land of Israel\u201d is the proper designation for that land.\u00a0 When you use the word Palestine you\u2019re using terminology developed by Hadrian who had an anti-Jewish mindset and philosophy and was trying to rewrite history or revise history.\n\nSo A.D. 70 happens, the land starts becoming known as Palestine, in other words, the Jewish claims to the land are almost erased unless you are a Bible reader you would never know the Jews were once in there.\u00a0 And so now the right intellectual climate is in place for an allegorist to come along and say look, all of these prophecies in Isaiah, Ezekiel, about Jesus reigning from Jerusalem, first over Israel then over the world, those are just figures of speech, those are allegorical.\u00a0 So you put these six reasons together and you begin to see why the church shifted away from a literal approach to Bible prophecy into more of an allegorical approach.\n\nAnd I want to introduce you, if I could, to two major allegorists coming out of the school of Alexandria, Egypt, who exercised a huge influence over the thinking of the church in the subsequent millennium.\u00a0 The first one was named Origen and let me give you the dates for Origen\u2019s life; Origen lived about A.D. 185 to A.D. 254.\u00a0 So he\u2019s fairly early in church history; he\u2019s influenced not by Antioch but by Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 And Ronald Diprose, in his excellent book, I recommend it to you, called Israel in the Development of Christian Thought<\/em> says this about Origen. \u201cOrigen was also influenced by the example of Philo,\u201d see, Origen picked up this allegorical approach from Philo who promoted that idea earlier, Philo lived just a little before the time of Christ and he was already allegorizing Scriptures related to Judaism and Origen just brought it into Christian thought.\u00a0 \u201cOrigen was also influenced by the example of Philo, a first-century Alexandrian Jew who had interpreted the Old Testament Scriptures allegorically in order to make them harmonize with his Platonism.\u201d\n\nNow backing up for just a minute on this list of six one of the things I said last week is what gave rise to the allegorical interpretation is the desire to mix human philosophy with biblical thought.\u00a0 And when you start mixing human philosophy with biblical though you\u2019re eventually going to hit a contradiction between the Bible and your philosophy.\u00a0 And at that point you have to figure out what\u2019s more important to you.\u00a0 If your human philosophy is more important than what the Biblical text says then you will gravitate naturally towards allegorization because that gives you the intellectual tool to, in essence, rewrite the Bible.\u00a0 So this is the kind of thing that Origen was enmeshed in.\n\nAnd it says here, \u201cAllegorism played an important part in Origen's theory of interpretation and, as he was the first biblical scholar to work out \u2018a complete hermeneutical theory,\u2019\u201d see, Origen took the ideas of Philo and he brought them into Christian thought and he just developed them further intellectually.\u00a0 So \u201cAllegorism played an important part in Origen's theory of interpretation and, as he was the first biblical scholar to work out \u2018a complete hermeneutical theory\u2019, \u00a0his work\u201d Diprose says, \u201cwas destined to exert great influence on the Christian approach to the Hebrew Scriptures, for centuries to come\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 And that\u2019s not an overstatement there; Origen had a huge effect on the way people began to think.\u00a0 \u201cOrigen is remembered for his philosophical speculation as the allegorist par excellence<\/em> among Biblical interpreters.\u201d \u00a0[Ronald Diprose,\u00a0 Israel in the Development of Christian Thought<\/em> (Rome: IBEI, 2000), 86-87.]\n\nSo I\u2019ve explained to you what they were doing in Alexandria, Egypt.\u00a0 I want to highlight a couple of people that are very significant.\u00a0 One of them is Origen.\u00a0 Now with these guys I\u2019m mentioning here they always do something good.\u00a0 Origen contributed other things that were very helpful to Christian thought and people have a tendency to think that if they do one good thing then everything they do is good.\u00a0 People are like that today sort of with their favorite Bible teacher that they listen to or hear or read and they think that person blessed them in an area that therefore you let your defenses down and you let your guard down and you think everything the person says is right, because Paul confronted and I follow Paulus, I follow Cephas mentality, didn\u2019t he?\u00a0 In Corinth.\n\nAnd we\u2019re sort of like that, we kind of follow people that have blessed us not understanding that because they blessed us in an area doesn\u2019t mean they can\u2019t have false teaching elsewhere.\u00a0 So Origen does some good things, no doubt about it, but he also brings into Christianity this allegorical approach, which as I\u2019ll be showing you is very, very negative.\n\nSo Origen would be one interpreter and the only other one I want to call your attention to is Augustine.\u00a0 Some people refer to him as Saint Augustine.\u00a0 After seeing what this guy was all about I don\u2019t refer to him as Saint Augustine anymore, because Augustine\u2026 and you might want to go over to Revelation 20:1-4 just for a second, Augustine was probably the most influential theologian in church history. \u00a0He has exerted more influence on how Christians have thought over the last 2,000 years than any other single figure.\u00a0 So Origen has some influence but Augustine, also influenced by the Alexandrian method of interpretation, had the most influence.\n\nLet me give you the dates for his life.\u00a0 Augustine lived from 354 to 430 A.D. and his contribution is a book entitled The City of God<\/em>.\u00a0 The City of God<\/em> is probably the most influential Christian book that\u2019s ever been written and here I\u2019m not talking about influence for good, I believe that his influence was negative.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t discount the fact that it\u2019s a true statement that Augustine is probably the most influential theologian.\n\nIn The City of God<\/em> Augustine intellectually develops, you see, Origen had given Augustine the hermeneutic; Augustine started to apply the hermeneutic, or method of interpretation, to all kinds of areas of the Bible, particularly eschatology.\u00a0 And he is the one that really took what we would call today the doctrine of amillennialism, \u201ca\u201d is a negation, an amillennialist means no millennium; there is no future reign of Jesus Christ on planet earth.\u00a0 Well, what do you do with all the prophecies in the Old Testament, particularly that say there will be a reign of Jesus Christ on the earth.\n\nWell, what method of interpretation did Augustine embrace?\u00a0 The allegorical method.\u00a0 So the Dead Sea coming back to live as is predicted in Ezekiel 47, coming back to life biologically, it talks about the river flowing from the temple and into the Dead Sea and we call it the Dead Sea because everything in the sea is what?\u00a0 Dead, because of its high salt content.\u00a0 In fact, you can go to Israel today and float in the Dead Sea.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done it twice, it really works.\u00a0 The salt content just buoys you right up.\u00a0 So in my retirement years, when I\u2019m looking for an easy job I think I\u2019m going to apply to be a lifeguard there on the Dead Sea, because they have lifeguards and I was thinking about this, well what do these guys do?\u00a0 I mean, no one ever drowns or anything, so it\u2019s a pretty cushy job, you just sit there all day in the sun and read a magazine or look at Facebook of whatever you want to do.\n\nBut anyway, Ezekiel 47 talks about this Dead Sea coming back to life biologically.\u00a0 Now when I read I think what does it mean?\u00a0 Well, it means the Dead Sea is going to come back to life biologically.\u00a0 But Origen and Augustine, they would take that prophecy and say well, that doesn\u2019t mean that!\u00a0 You don\u2019t really believe that, do you?\u00a0 What that means is it\u2019s the unbeliever becoming a believer and your soul goes from death to life, which we\u2019ll preach, right.\u00a0 I mean, that\u2019s an interesting application and interpretation.\u00a0 The problem is that\u2019s not what the text says.\u00a0 So Augustine develops the amillennial system in The City of God<\/em> he gravitates towards the allegorical method of interpretation, handed to him like a gift from Origen and Alexandria, Egypt, and that becomes his intellectual tool to explain away all of the earthly kingdom promises and tell everybody that we\u2019re in the kingdom now.\n\nSo how did Augustine, in The City of God<\/em>, interpret Revelation 20:1-4.\u00a0 [Revelation 20:1-4, \u201cThen I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. [2] And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; [3] and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it<\/em> and sealed it<\/em> over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.\u00a0 [4] Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw<\/em> the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.\u201d]\n\nAs\u00a0 you look at the end of that verse, verse 4, it says, \u201cthey came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.\u201d\u00a0 So Augustine said the thousand\u00a0 years is not a literal period of time, it just means an age.\u00a0 And coming to life is not actually talking about someone being resurrected and under Christ\u2019s delegated authority ruling over the earth; what it\u2019s really talking about is regener\u00adation.\u00a0 The Christian believes in Christ then the Holy Spirit comes inside of him and the Christian is regenerated.\u00a0 So that\u2019s how Augustine, in The City of God<\/em> allegorized away Revelation 20:4.\n\nThis passage also goes on earlier and it says \u201cthe devil and Satan,\u201d God took \u201cthe devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.\u201d\u00a0 And Augustine said well, you know what, Satan is already bound; isn\u2019t that nice, to know that Satan is bound.\u00a0 As one interpreter said, well, if he\u2019s bound he must be on a pretty long chain, or a pretty long leash because he\u2019s wreaking a lot of havoc in the world.\u00a0 So Augustine found some passages in Matthew 12 and things where Jesus talked about the binding of the strong man and those kind of things and he said Satan is bound now.\u00a0 You have to ignore vast quantities of divine truth to believe that because Paul in his writings tells us that Satan is the god of this age.\n\nAnd by the way, just off the topic here, this is why believers should not be binding Satan in their personal prayer life because the Bible is very clear that Satan is not going to be bound until the operation of the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 I hear believers all of the time saying Satan, I bind\u00a0 you and all of these kinds of things and that is well intentioned but it\u2019s just a not a biblically informed prayer.\u00a0 The New Testament tells us to \u201cresist the devil and he will flee\u201d \u00a0and to \u201cput on the full armor of God\u201d because we\u2019re living in his earth, on his territory, so we\u2019re basically in defensive postures.\u00a0 So we\u2019re not binding Satan.\u00a0 [James 4:7, \u201cSubmit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.\u201d\u00a0 Ephesians 6:11, \u201cPut on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.\u201d\u00a0 Ephesians 6:13, \u201cTherefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.\u201d]\u00a0 And for people that think they bind Satan I always ask them, well, how did he get loose again if you just bound him.\n\nBut anyway, Augustine basically argued, using the allegorical method of interpretation, that Satan is already bound, the resurrection unto life is regeneration.\u00a0 Now that creates huge problems because in Revelation 20, I think it\u2019s verse 4 and verse 5 what God is doing there is called \u201cthe first resurrection.\u201d\u00a0 [Revelation 20:4-5, \u201cI saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. [5] (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.\u201d\n\nAnd the Greek word for resurrection there is anastasis,<\/em> if I\u2019m pronouncing that right, and as you do a word study on that particular word\u00a0 you\u2019ll discover it never refers to regeneration\u2026ever!\u00a0 It always refers to a physical resurrection.\u00a0 So what Revelation 20 is really talking about is the physical resurrection of Tribulational martyrs and Old Testament saints ruling and reigning under delegated authority alongside Jesus Christ for a thousand years.\u00a0 But if you don\u2019t care about literal interpretation the way Antioch taught it and you\u2019re interested in promoting a philosophy then you gravitate towards an allegorical interpretation and you ascribe to all of these things some kind of higher spiritual meaning.\n\nAnd when it says there they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years what you have to understand is Augustine taught that the church is the reigning kingdom of God on the earth right now.\u00a0 Augustine, his belief system, gave way to what we call Roman Catholicism.\u00a0 Roman Catholicism teaches the exact same thing, that the church is the reigning kingdom of God on the earth right now.\u00a0 That\u2019s why they have a Vatican city and when the Pope travels he\u2019s got a virtual army that surrounds him.\u00a0 I mean, why would you have a capital city and an army and these kind of things.\u00a0 Why is it that the Roman Catholic Church wants a seat at the United Nations and all these kinds of different things?\u00a0\u00a0 Because of their theology; they view themselves as the kingdom of God on the earth now.\u00a0 That is what you call amillennialism.\u00a0 That is totally contrary to what the church taught for 200 years but it becomes a dominant thought\u2026 thank you Origin, than, you Alexandria, Egypt and thank you Augustine who took these ideas and formalized them in an academic treatment called The City of God.<\/em>\n\nSo Augustine, in The City of God<\/em>, and I give you the chapter and verse where you can look this up and I like the fact that we\u2019re in the age of the internet because you can just go read it for yourself online and see if these things be so.\u00a0 Augustine writes the following: \u201cthe saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years, understood in the same way, that is, of the time of His\u201d what? \u201cfirst coming\u201d\u2019 see the thousand year kingdom we teach is part of his what?\u00a0 Second coming.\u00a0 Well, why do we teach it\u2019s part of his second coming?\u00a0 Because we\u2019re following the Antiochian literal method of interpretation.\u00a0 But if you move into an allegorical method of interpretation and the Bible kind of becomes silly putty in the hands of the interpreter, you can make it however you want it to be.\u00a0 And so he said the thousand years is related to Christ\u2019s first coming and coming to life is not a physical resurrection, but it\u2019s regeneration.\n\nI didn\u2019t mention this but if you go to Revelation 20:4-5 you see a huge conundrum in amillennialism.\u00a0 John says, \u201cI saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. [5] (The rest of the dead did not\u201d what? \u201ccome to life until the thousand years were ended.) \u00a0This is the first resurrection.\u201d\u00a0 Now resurrection, as I indicated before, is the word anastasis, <\/em>which never means regeneration, anywhere in the Bible.\u00a0 It\u2019s always talking about a physical resurrection.\n\nBeyond that you see how there\u2019s two resurrections here?\u00a0 There\u2019s a resurrection unto life for the believer at the beginning of the millennial kingdom, and then a thousand years pass and there\u2019s a resurrection unto damnation for the who?\u00a0 Unbeliever.\u00a0 Now the same Greek verb, za\u014d<\/em>, describes both resurrections.\u00a0 The amillennialist will look you straight in the eye and say well the first resurrection is regeneration; the second resurrection is what? that\u2019s literal.\u00a0 This is what happens with the allegorical method of interpretation; it allows\u00a0 you to be very inconsistent and if you watch amillennialists in action they will switch their method of interpretation right here in the middle of these verses.\u00a0 Za\u014d<\/em> means regeneration in one verse and one verse later it means something physical.\n\nAnd this is something that needs to be brought to the attention of people that are under the spell of amillennialism.\u00a0 And they\u2019re also interpreting the word \u201cresurrection\u201d in a way that\u2019s never interpreted anywhere else in the Bible.\u00a0 And so this is what you get with allegorization; you can interpret parts of the Bible that fit\u00a0 your pre-made philosophy one way and parts of the Bible that you like to keep around another way.\u00a0 And this is what Augustine promoted in the book, The City of God,<\/em> and this is where you get this idea that the church is the reigning kingdom of Christ.\u00a0 He writes, \u201cTherefore the Church even now is the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven<\/u>. Accordingly, even\u201d what? \u201cnow His saints reign with Him.\u201d\n\nThat continues to be taught today in Roman Catholicism and very sadly this is a problem that the Protestant Reformers never corrected.\u00a0 They corrected allegorization in a lot of different areas related to the doctrine of salvation; they never corrected it though, in this area.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll be explaining to you why they didn\u2019t correct it as we get into this series.\u00a0 But the problem with the churches that they founded subsequent to the Protestant Reformation is they took the progress that they had made in the 16th<\/sup> century and froze them into creeds, and they assumed in freezing their progress into creeds and confessions, like The Westminster Confession that there\u2019s no further progress to be made.\n\nAnd this is why you can go into a Reformed church today and it will be Protestant soteriologically but it will still be Augustinian or Roman Catholic or Alexandrian or Origenistic eschatologically.\u00a0 You say well Andy, why don\u2019t you like Reformed Theology?\u00a0 Well, it depends what part of Reformed Theology you\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 Reformed theology is a hybrid, it\u2019s a mixture of Protestantism using the Antiochian hermeneutic in certain areas but it largely remains Roman Catholic today and Augustinian today in other areas, particularly eschatology.\n\nSo this idea that the church is the reigning kingdom of God on the earth, you might look at this and say well who cares about that, this is just an academic discussion, whether I\u2019m an amillennialist or a postmillennialist or a premillennialist can\u2019t I just be a panmillennialist, everything is going to pan out in the end.\u00a0 I mean, why should we care about this?\u00a0 Here\u2019s the reality of the situation; watch this very carefully.\u00a0\u00a0 Your eschatology controls\u00a0 your philosophy of what?\u00a0 Ecclesiology.\u00a0 What is ecclesiology?\u00a0 The doctrine of the church.\u00a0 Churches today are totally confused as to what their missions is because many of them are acting as if they\u2019re in the kingdom of God now.\u00a0 John Calvin, as I\u2019ll be showing you in this series, a man who did a lot of good in certain areas, politically took over a\u2026 do you realize this, that John Calvin took over a city politically in Geneva and started in the case of Michael Servetus\u2026 the Calvinists don\u2019t want to hear this at all, they just bend over backwards making excuses for this.\u00a0 But the reality of the situation is John Calvin took over a city politically and put people to death that disagreed with him.\u00a0 Now as a pastor who gets criticized all the time I\u2019ve been tempted to try to do that\u2026 [laughter]\u00a0 But you see, the reality is my ecclesiology won\u2019t allow me to even try to do that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I could succeed anyway, I have a hard time getting my own family\u2026 besides myself in line.\n\nBut the reality of the situation is Calvin did what he did in that area\u2026 now people don\u2019t want to hear this because we\u2019ve got Calvin on a pedestal.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because if someone does something good in one area we assume they\u2019re good everywhere.\u00a0 Well, Calvin is a mixed bag; you\u2019re a mixed bag, I\u2019m a mixed bag.\u00a0 Peter, was not Peter a mixed bag?\u00a0 Peter opened his mouth one time and was praised by the Lord for making a statement about Christ, identifying Christ, but he opens his mouth the next moment and Jesus says \u201cGet behind me\u201d what? \u201cSatan.\u201d\u00a0 So in our fallen state we\u2019re very mixed.\u00a0 This is the danger of idolizing people.\u00a0 People are always going to let you down.\u00a0 I love a lot of the things John Calvin said and did but there\u2019s other things I\u2019m like wow, hold the phone.\u00a0 And he did what he did because of his model of ecclesiology which never got corrected and Augustinian lives to some extent in Calvinistic Reformed thought today.\u00a0 So that\u2019s what Augustine contributed to the church is the kingdom of God on the earth.\n\nSo what began to happen in this climate now, going back to the fourth century, with the arrival with The City of God<\/em> is chiliasm, the literal interpretation of Bible prophecy, began to be looked at as a relic; that\u2019s something for the less enlightened.\u00a0\u00a0 And this is a statement from Eusebius, let me give you the dates of Eusebius.\u00a0 Eusebius is a well-known church historian; he wrote a very important lengthy book on the history of the church called Ecclesiastical (<\/em>or church) History.\u00a0 <\/em>Eusebius lived from about 260-340 so Origen, Alexandria, Egypt, allegorical interpretation is already taking off and people are looking back on the old fogies of Antioch as that\u2019s\u00a0 your grandfather\u2019s grandfather\u2019s system, that\u2019s not new thought today, is what they would say.\u00a0 And they would look at chiliasm, which is the belief in a literal thousand year kingdom yet future as something archaic.\n\nSo I quote this because Eusebius is quoting, referring to Papias who was a literalist and a chiliast and a premillennialist coming from Antioch.\u00a0 And look at what Eusebius\u2026 let me give you the dates for Papias, Eusebius is looking back on the works of Papias.\u00a0 Papias lived very early in the church history, that\u2019s why he was a chiliast, a literalist.\u00a0 He lived from about A.D. 60 to 130.\n\nAnd notice what Eusebius, living later, says about Papias.\u00a0 \u201cPapias . . . says that there will be a millennium after the resurrections of the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this earth.\u201d\u00a0 Now I\u2019ll sign on to that theology, that sounds like good theology.\u00a0 But Eusebius goes on and he says, \u201cI suppose that he got these notions by a perverse reading of the apostolic accounts, not realizing that they had spoken mystically and symbolically.\u201d\u00a0 What a flat-earther Papias is to interpret these prophecies literally; everybody knows, thank you Alexandria, Egypt or Origen, Augustine and so forth, that these prophecies are not literal.\u00a0 And look at what Eusebius says about Papias; notice the pride and total condescension.\u00a0 Eusebius says about Papias, and I have the relevant part underlined, \u201cFor he was a man of very little intelligence, as is clear from his books<\/u>. But he is responsible for the fact that so many Christian writers after him held the same opinion, relying on his antiquity, for instance Irenaeus and whoever else appears to have held the same views.\u201d\n\nSo if you are a literalist the allegorist always looks at you as if you\u2019re intelligence can be questioned.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because you don\u2019t see what the \u201cenlightened\u201d see.\u00a0 What do the enlightened see?\u00a0 They see some kind of mystical symbolic thing that sounds more spiritual and draws a bigger audience and if you have the audacity to sit there and read the Word of God, Genesis 2, and say these don\u2019t have anything to do with the four parts of the soul, they\u2019re just four rivers, you\u2019re looked at as if you\u2019re intelligence itself is lower.\n\nNow those of you that follow politics, do you see that going on today?\u00a0 One of my favorite Supreme Court justices is Clarence Thomas.\u00a0 I like Clarence Thomas; do you know why I like Clarence Thomas?\u00a0 Because when you read his judicial opinions they\u2019re text-based.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t just make things up like many of them do; he argues his point from the Constitution and its original intent.\n\nBut you see, if you\u2019re in the legal community today, particularly having risen to the highest court in the land and\u00a0 you\u2019re still following that approach your intelligence is questioned because everybody knows that the Constitution is a what?\u00a0 \u201cA living document\u2026\u201d \u00a0which is another way of saying there is no Constitution other than what comes out of the mind of the judge in any particular day.\u00a0 Because in law schools you\u2019re taught, with Constitutional law, allegorical interpretation.\u00a0 Now they don\u2019t teach that relative to contract law; that\u2019s literal.\u00a0 And when I was reading the syllabus regarding what to do and what not do and how much reading I had to do\u00a0 and what kind of tests I had to take the professors demanded that you read the syllabus literally.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t say well, professor, I didn\u2019t want to take the test today because my allegorical interpretation means April 3 doesn\u2019t mean April3.\u00a0 That\u2019s not going to fly.\u00a0 But when it comes to the Constitution all the rules are set aside. \u00a0Then how do you get this allegorical interpretation?\u00a0 You have to graduate from Alexandria of the Ivy League and sit under the smartest people in the world to get this new insight.\u00a0 And if you\u2019ve never bought into this new insight you\u2019re looked at as kind of stupid.\n\nSo this is just a blog I found on someone commenting on Clarence Thomas and they say this:\u00a0 \u201cHe is the dumbest<\/u> Justice to ever sit on the bench...He waits to see how Scalia votes, and he votes the same. He rarely issues comments or engages in questions during any Supreme Court hearing...He rarely grants media interviews (because he knows he will look stupid<\/u>). He rarely writes opinions.\u201d\u00a0 Now why is his intelligence questioned?\u00a0 Now we\u2019re getting to the bottom line.\u00a0 \u201cHe believes in a narrow interpretation<\/u> of the Constitution.\u201d\u00a0 Therefore\u201d he is a what? \u201cTherefore he is an idiot<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 [http:\/\/juneauempire.com\/opinion\/2011-09-22\/outside-editorial-law-and-clarence-thomas#.Tn5rqNSo1_p]\n\nI\u2019m just trying to give you a modern day example of\u00a0 how the allegorist looks at the literalist and you find that same pride, condescension, ridicule, in the writings of Eusebius as he looks back on Papias.\u00a0\u00a0 What begins to happen in church history is chiliasm, which dominated for 200 years, is now looked at as just kind of your grandfathers grandfather\u2019s theology that no one believes any more.\n\nAnd here\u2019s a statement from Jerome, I\u2019m quoting here Tertullian, who was quoting Jerome, let me give you the dates for Jerome\u2019s life.\u00a0 Jerome now has been heavily influenced by Augustinian thought; he lives from 347-420 and look at what Jerome said about chiliasm.\u00a0 He says, \u201cHow must we understand what the Saviour says in Matthew:\u201d quoting Matthew 26:29, \u201c\u2018But I say to you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the Kingdom of my Father\u2019? (Matthew. 26. 29). This passage is the origin of a certain fable of a thousand years<\/u>, in which they say that Christ will reign in the flesh and will drink that wine which He has not drunk since that time until the end of the world\u2026For the kingdom of God isn\u2019t food and drink<\/u>, but justice, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit\u201d quoting, I believe, incorrectly abusing Romans 14:17. [http:\/\/www.tertullian.org\/fathers\/jerome_letter_120.htm.\u00a0 \u00a0[Rom. 14:17 \u201cfor the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.]\n\nSo dominant has Augustinian thought become that they now look at the former chiliasm taught by Antioch as progenitors of a certain fable that died away a long time ago.\u00a0 And those folks back then and there really weren\u2019t that bright anyway; we\u2019re going to question their intelligence because they didn\u2019t understand this higher meaning.\u00a0 You know, this chiliasm, this idea that Israel is going to be head over the nations, we all know that the Jews have been out of that land for centuries.\n\nNow my friend, David Regan who has his TV show, I like what he says about this.\u00a0 He says:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cD-day for amillennialism was the restoration of the Jews to the land in 1948.\u201d\u00a0 That just freaked them out because for centuries, over a thousand years they had been telling everybody that those prophecies aren\u2019t literal, and then God moves His little finger in history and the Jews go right back into the same land that they\u2019ve been out of for 2,000 years, speaking Hebrew, having their religion intact, which is a sociological miracle, going to the Temple Mount Institute, which I\u2019ve been there twice, where they have a desire to rebuild the temple and all of a sudden you start saying wait a minute, all of this allegorical symbolic interpretation, I think it kind of looks literal to me.\u00a0 I mean, it\u2019s not the end game, but certainly its reasonable, isn\u2019t it, to take these prophecies literally.\n\nSo that was almost D-day for them and that\u2019s why they\u2019re so hysterical, that\u2019s why they\u2019re\u2026 see, what you have to understand is that\u2019s why Christian denominations of the Reformed tradition, I could name certain Reformed traditions that you all know, if I called the name out you would know exactly who I\u2019m talking about, they are taking up formal economic boycotts against the Jewish people as I speak. \u00a0Do we realize that?\u00a0 Do we realize that there\u2019s a huge segment of Christendom which is involved in not blessing the nation of Israel but engaging in a formal economic boycott against Israel.\u00a0 Why would they do that?\u00a0 Because they are still Augustinian or amillennial in their theology and their theology is just logically naturally working its way out.\n\nSee folks, this is why theology matters.\u00a0 Theology, what you believe about certain things, controls your behavior in the present. Calvin did what he did in Geneva because of his theology.\u00a0 Economic boycotts amongst Christians denominations against the land of Israel are a logical outworking of an amillennial Augustinian Roman Catholic system which the Protestant Reformers would all be showing you never corrected. \u00a0\u00a0So this background that I\u2019m giving you transitions us into a period of time called The Dark Ages.\u00a0 The Dark Ages, another name for the Dark Ages is the Middle Ages and I want to\u2026 I\u2019m just going to talk about four or five more minutes and then I want to open it up for some questions.\n\nBut just a couple of points on the Dark Ages.\u00a0 The Dark Ages last from the fourth century, roughly the time of Augustine all the way to the 16th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 The Dark Ages are reigning for how long?\u00a0 Over a thousand years.\u00a0 And this is why God starts touching the hearts of the Protestant Reformers, because God loves His church.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 And He begins to touch these men as a rescue operation of a mindset that was literally controlling Christendom for over a thousand\u00a0 years.\u00a0 You think how long a thousand years is, I mean, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom right there, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 America has only been here for 230-240 years; think about a mentality reigning in Christian thought over a thousand years.\u00a0 And now with this background you can start to understand what God is doing with these Protestant Reformers.\u00a0 And it\u2019s during this period of time that the study of prophecy is totally obsolete and what dominates during this time period is Augustinian amillennialism.\n\nRenald Showers puts it this way: \u201cAugustine's allegorical amillennialism became the official doctrine of the church, and Premillennialism\u201d or chiliasm, what the church believed for the first two centuries \u201cwent underground. \u00a0Some aspects of Premillennialism were even branded as heretical. The Roman Catholic Church strongly advocated and maintained Augustine's amillennial view throughout the Middle Ages. During that span of time occasionally\u201d not the norm but little blips on the radar screen, \u201coccasionally pre-millennial groups formed to challenge the doctrine and political power of the major part of organized Christendom, but they were not able to restore Premillennial\u00adism to its original position as the accepted, orthodox view of the Church.\u201d [John Ankerberg and Renald Showers, The Most Asked Prophecy Questions<\/em> (Chattanooga, TN: ATRI, 2000), 327-28.]\n\nAccording to what I quoted a few sessions ago with Justin Martyr, Justin Martyr said if you don\u2019t believe in what we today call premillennialism or chiliasm, if you don\u2019t believe these prophecies, that there\u2019s going to be a literal kingdom on the earth yet future you\u2019re not even an orthodox Christian.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the church believed to a man for 200 years, but with the influence of Alexandria and the allegorical method and they really kicked into high gear, they tried to explain with Augustine that that reigning sentiment almost disappears from Christian thought.\u00a0 And what did Jesus say?\u00a0 \u201cI say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build My church and the gates of\u201d what \u201cHades will not overpower it.\u201d\n\nGod always has a remnant in every generation.\u00a0 In Elijah\u2019s day there were how many that hadn\u2019t bowed the knee to Baal?\u00a0 I think 7,000.\u00a0 Every generation has got a remnant and you can look back in the Dark Ages and you can find people, little blips of light on the radar screen, that stood for the truth.\u00a0 But they are few and far between!\u00a0 And they have virtually no position of influence and they do not represent the way organized Christendom thought or the sentiment of organized Christendom.\u00a0 One such individual is someone called Pseudo Ephraem, a Syrian; they use that name Pseudo in front of Ephraem because we\u2019re not sure if this was the actual Ephraim that wrote this or someone using the pen name Ephraem to escape persecution.\u00a0 And this is a fragment that has been discovered between the 4th<\/sup> to the 6th<\/sup> century A.D.\u00a0 and you read what it says here and it expresses, basically, the doctrinal system of Sugar Land Bible Church.\n\nEphraem in this sermon says: \u201cWhy therefore do we not reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that He may draw us from the confusion, which overwhelms all the world\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Gosh, sounds like he\u2019s talking about a seven year tribulation period, doesn\u2019t it.\u00a0 \u201cFor all the saints and the elect of God are gathered, prior to the<\/u>\u201d what? \u00a0\u201ctribulation<\/u>\u201d now if I were to cover the name up and I asked\u00a0 you who said that you would say well, our pastor said that, or going up the food chain a little bit, Charles Ryrie said that, John Walvoord said that.\u00a0 No, this is a guy who was just reading the Bible and taking it literally and he really didn\u2019t care what everybody else in Christendom thought, he was just taking it literally.\u00a0\u00a0 And it looks to me like it\u2019s a pre-trib rapture statement.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c\u2026elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation <\/u>\u00a0that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins.\u201d\u00a0 [Pseudo Ephraem (4th<\/sup>-6th<\/sup> century A.D.)]\n\nSo we have always a remnant there but that remnant is just that, it\u2019s a remnant, it doesn\u2019t represent a reigning sentiment the way it reigned from Antioch for two centuries.\u00a0 And there is, during this time period, you have to understand this because in Houston we have 4,000 churches; if I don\u2019t like First Baptist I\u2019ll go to Second Baptist, and if the pastor over there parts his hair the wrong way I\u2019ll go to Third Baptist, or 500th<\/sup> Baptist because we have a \u201cThirty-one flavors\u201d mindset, right.\u00a0 We have churches on every corner.\n\nYou don\u2019t have that during the Dark Ages; you don\u2019t have Protestantism.\u00a0 You have one church and that is the Roman Catholic Church which had bought into Augustinian allegorization, watch this, which had the effect of removing the Bible from the people.\u00a0 All over Europe, prior to the Protestant Reformation the Bible is not accessible.\u00a0 In fact, the Bible in your typical cathedral is literally chained (I\u2019m talking physically now) to the pulpit because your average person is told they can\u2019t understand the Bible for themselves.\u00a0 Well why can\u2019t they understand it for themselves.\u00a0 Well, we all believe in allegorical interpretation and I<\/strong> have the training because I went to the Ivey League to understand your constitution.\u00a0 You can\u2019t understand it, I have the training to understand the allegorization and how to interpret it.\u00a0 You can\u2019t understand it so you don\u2019t read the Bible on your own.\u00a0 The Bible is always given to you through the lens of a priesthood.\u00a0 So you see the priests way up here, and you see the laity way down here.\u00a0 You have this laity\/clergy distinction which means that the people are gullible for manipulation.\n\nThink about this for a minute.\u00a0 If I\u2019m the interpreter of the Bible and I have the only Bible in the church, you don\u2019t have one and you\u2019re told you can\u2019t interpret it, I can get you to do anything I want, can\u2019t I?\u00a0 Even pray your relatives out of purgatory because you don\u2019t want grandpa to stay in purgatory do you?\u00a0 Well Mr. Priest, how do I get him out of purgatory?\u00a0 When the coin in the coffer rings the soul from purgatory springs.\u00a0 That\u2019s Johann Tetzel, I\u2019ll be showing\u00a0 you one of his sermons where he terrorized people by telling them this:\u00a0 Well, why don\u2019t you just get out your Bible and validate that purgatory is an unbiblical doctrine.\u00a0 Well how do you do that if you don\u2019t have a Bible?\u00a0 How do you do that when the Bible hasn\u2019t even been translated into your language?\n\nSo it puts the people in a place of total gullibility and manipulation and you see, this is what really is ticking Luther off.\u00a0 The poor people, the working class love Luther because they saw Luther, here\u2019s a guy on our side.\u00a0 And what really upset him was what\u2019s called the sale of indulgences in manipulation of the people.\u00a0 That\u2019s what really set his soul on fire.\u00a0 It\u2019s how\u00a0 you feel when you\u2019re channel surfing and you see some televangelist misrepresenting God, doesn\u2019t that make you angry?\u00a0 Think of that emotion multiplied a hundred times and that\u2019s what Luther is experiencing.\n\nSo this is all the background that you need to grasp the Reformation that\u2019s on the horizon.\u00a0 So we\u2019ll finish the Dark Ages when we\u2019re together next time and we\u2019ll finally getting to the Reformation.\u00a0 Well, I interpreted the clock allegorically [laughter] so I\u2019m going to close in prayer.\n\nFather, thank You for this morning, thank You for church history.\u00a0 I pray You\u2019ll bless our worship service that follows and I pray that as we continue through this people will get their questions answered and we\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t