We are now into the beginning of the Church age. Judea has fallen. This is not the final triumph of the Church because Rev. 20: 2–3 (below) predicts that Satan will be loosed after 1000 years to seduce the nations.
REVELATION 20:1–6
1 And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
3 And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.
4 And I saw seats; and they sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 The rest of the dead lived not, till the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. In these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ; and shall reign with him a thousand years.
Now that Judea has fallen, and Christianity has started—the fall of the first chosen, the rise of the last chosen—the world has entered the beginning of the end times. In these end times, which began when Christ established his church, human souls, for the first time, can enter heaven when they die. This is the first resurrection. Actually, their souls were resurrected to spiritual aliveness when they were baptized. There is no longer a need to wait for the Savior. The Savior is already active and has opened heaven, which had been closed ever since the sin of our first parents. After our first parents and their offspring died, even the souls of the righteous were barred from the kingdom of Heaven until Jesus opened it. The great majority of Adam’s and Eve’s offspring, for thousands of years, spent their entire earthly lives in exile, in this earthly “valley of tears,” never knowing how they came into existence nor why. Only one nation was told when God began the public revelation to the Israelites through Moses. A few patriarchs, previously, were given private revelations, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And through the years, a few people from other nations were given private revelations, like the three wise men when Christ was born.
There was only one public revelation, starting with Moses and embellished through the years with revelations given the prophets, including John the Baptist. Finally, the Savior arrived and completed the public revelation with what Jesus taught the Apostles. Since then, there have been some additional private revelations, but the public revelation meant for all people and sealed with God’s truthfulness and authority, ended with what Christ taught his Apostles.
The end times are the times given to the Gentiles. They span the entire Church age from Pentecost to the end of the world. At the end of the end times, the Gentile nations will experience the same stern discipline that Judea experienced at the beginning. Perhaps the world is right now approaching the end of the end times. Probably, just like the Judeans before them, the Gentile nations will not read the signs of the times. They will not believe the end is upon them even when they experience it.
Many people anticipate a future "rapture," the snatching of the faithful while the unfaithful are chastised during the future "tribulation." After the "tribulation," the faithful will return to earth with the resurrected Christ, to help him start the future "millennial kingdom." They will then live and reign on earth with Christ in the flesh for one thousand years. Then God will bring the world to an end. I do not accept this view. I think the rapture, the tribulation, and the millennium happened, but they happened differently. First the souls of those who were baptized and who died faithful to Christ were taken to heaven. Then, in A.D. 66–70 and again in 131–5, the unbelieving Judeans experienced the "great tribulation." Then Christianity replaced Judaism to motivate people to actively promote the fullness of God's revelation, and they built a Christian political kingdom on earth.
The Roman Empire tried to destroy Christianity but was, instead, swallowed by Christianity. This happened early in the fourth century when Constantine became Christian and made the Roman Empire a Christian state. I wonder if the Christian victims of Rome’s early persecutions anticipated this spectacular conversion. The Empire in only 230 years would accept Christ as Savior. The Roman people would reject, outlaw the old pagan religions. They would build a Christian empire—could the early Christians have imagined it—an Empire dedicated to Christ. Secular rulers would work with Christian leaders to build one Christian society ruling the then whole known world.
This event marks the beginning of the thousand-year Christian political kingdom. The core of the Christian kingdom is the rule of saints with Christ in heaven as described earlier. That heavenly kingdom began when Christ rose from the dead. It spread at the grass roots level with individuals who believed and accepted baptism. A political dimension was added when the Roman Empire accepted Christianity. Now we have, besides the spiritual kingdom, the earthly rule of Christ's followers on Earth. This was not Christ's return in the flesh. Christ will return at the end of history similar to the way he left: visible to all. Christ, however, is present on the Earth through those who are baptized (and living Christian lives). Christ works through them, as St. Paul described, just as our heads (under our control) work through the other parts of our bodies. “For as the body is one, and hath many members; and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ . . . Now you are the body of Christ, and members of member” (1 Cor. 12:12 & 27).
Jesus Christ is still on earth, present in his faithful followers, yet he reigns in heaven. Jesus starts the rapture. He is the first one. In like manner, the good thief's bodily remains are still on earth; yet his soul is with Jesus. The good thief is the second to experience the first resurrection, the rapture. The souls of the righteous, whose bodies lie yet on earth, along with all the righteous who died before them, have already ascended to meet Jesus. The rapture started with Jesus who by his death opened heaven's gates. The rapture is still occurring as additional saints die, some as martyrs, and their souls join Jesus. The rapture will continue until: "Their fellow servants and their brethren who are to be slain, even as they, should be filled up" (Rev. 6:11). This is the first resurrection: the reign of saints in the heavenly kingdom. These persons reign now with Jesus. Their reign is hidden from us who must live by faith. It is not hidden from angels and devils. Those raptured souls interact with people on earth. They inspire us humans and help us refute the influence of devils when we are tempted. They are the part of Christ that is already triumphant. They interact with us who are the part of Christ that is still struggling and suffering. Both parts belong to the body of Christ, one foot in heaven, the other on earth.
Satan’s power was diminished (bound as Rev. 20:3 and 20:7 puts it) so that Satan could not prevent the spread of Christ’s teaching. Satan still had power to confuse people, and people were confused throughout the entire Church age. Even the apostles had to deal with people who contradicted what the apostles taught. Sometimes big ruptures occurred, as when the Arab nations followed Mohammed, and when the Church split into Eastern and Western divisions. Christ’s teachings, however, continued to spread. Both the Eastern and the Western divisions, incidentally, even though they are not united through leadership, still teach substantially the same Christian message.
The situation remained that way for approximately one thousand years. Then something happened that greatly confused the Christian message. I think this happened when Satan was released (Rev. 20:7) to, once again, attempt seducing entire nations. The predicted thousand-year Christian reign, I think, started off as the political Christianized Roman Empire, which continued, after the fall of Rome in the fifth century, as the Holy Roman Empire or Christendom. After the Eastern Schism in 1054, The Holy Roman Empire continued as European Christendom. This political Empire was one manifestation of the earthly foot of Christ’s kingdom. This Christian political kingdom did last approximately one thousand years if one counts its inception as the year A.D. 321 when Constantine defeated Licinius (Carroll, p. 543) and its demise sometime in the fifteenth century.
After the barbarian invasions in the fifth through ninth centuries, when the Roman Empire finally became too weak to defend northern Europe or send Christian missionaries to the northern tribes, Charlemagne, of France, spent thirty years subduing Western Europe, France, Switzerland, Belgium, half of Italy and Germany, and parts of Austria and Spain. He was the undisputed leader of Western Europe by A.D. 800. Pope Leo XIII crowned him Holy Roman Emperor or emperor of Christendom. This was prior to the Eastern Schism. The idea was that the pope would be the representative of Christ in spiritual matters and the emperor would be the representative of Christ in earthly matters. Charlemagne was succeeded by Otto I of Germany who was crowned by Pope John XII. By 1530 (after the Eastern Schism) the Holy Roman Emperor was Charles V. The Western Christian political Empire, was comprised of Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary, Flanders, Pomerania, Schleswig, Hostein, France, Denmark, Poland and parts of North and South Italy.
The nations within the political empire did, at least for a time, try to govern themselves more or less in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Though no nation is without sin, many of the nations within the empire had at least one monarch who actually ruled the nation and whose Christian piety was outstanding enough that the memory of that person was held up before others as an example to be followed in leading Christian lives. Between the years 945 and 1326, which by my thinking would be during the later half of the Christian political empire, the following monarchs were held up, at that time, as examples of loyal Christians who now reign with Jesus in his heavenly kingdom with power to intervene in the lives of us living on earth. In other words, they experienced the first resurrection and are active with Christ in protecting even us still on Earth today.
St. Olga, Duchess of Kiev, Russia, 945–57
St. Vladimir I, king of Russia, c. 989–1015
St. Stephen, King of Hungary, 975–1038
St. Henry, king of Bavaria, 972–1024
St. Ladislaus, king of Hungary, 1040–95
St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1050–93
St. Edward I, King of England, 1066
St. Ferdinand III, king of Castile and Leon, 1198–1215
St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, 1207–1231
St. Louis IX, king of France, 1214–1270
St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal, 1271–1336
(Foy, pp. 252–7)
In the fourteenth century, the political Western Christian Empire in Europe began to show signs of disintegration into separate and hostile nations. Later, during the fifteenth century, the European nations comprising the Western Empire began to express sentiments of nationalism. I think this coincides nicely with the release of Satan to deceive the nations. The nations who put their own interests ahead of everything else really were deceived, especially when they put their own interests ahead of Jesus Christ. This is exactly what many of the nations spun off from the Western Christian political Empire did, and still are doing.
The Reformation occurred at a time when the development of the printing press and worldwide exploration made possible the spread of Christianity all over the world in response to Christ's request. No matter which side of the fence any of us may be concerning the Reformation, if all European Christians had been faithful to Jesus Christ, the Western political Christian Empire (Christendom) would have grown and have become a powerful force in evangelization. Instead, because of the shortcoming of human beings, humans themselves destroyed the political empire.
If I'm right and Christendom was the human, political, millennial kingdom, then we, today, are five hundred years closer to the end of human history and the final judgment. In the sixteenth century, many European nations withdrew from the Holy Roman Empire, changed their religious convictions, and fought war after war, many over religious differences.
REVELATION 20:7
7 And when the thousand years shall be finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, and shall gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
In the fifteenth century, Satan is finally released so that Satan can try seducing whole nations. As I described above, I think this seduction destroyed the Christian political empire and was the driving force behind the Reformation. The breakup of the political empire and the rupture of the Church coincide nicely with the release of Satan.
The Reformation is a touchy subject depending which side of the controversy one finds oneself, but it set the stage for the dissolution of Christendom and the confusion of the Christian message. What potent credibility Christianity might have had in the eyes of other nations if the Reformation had not happened. It would not have happened had sufficient Christians, especially churchmen, been personally steadfast and loyal to Jesus Christ, the suffering Jesus, the Christ who acts through us human beings. He limits his reprisals against Satan to what he can do through our co-operation. He makes himself vulnerable to Satan's attacks through the sins we commit. He allows our disgrace and our defeat to become his disgrace and his defeat. This is his way of showing mercy to all his enemies and granting them time to reflect on what they are doing.
A comparison of events happening in Christian Europe to events happening in the newly discovered pagan world across the sea, where, from the beginning, Christ was not known, is very interesting. Satan was not bound in the new world. Conflicting sects of dissenting Christians arguing with each other have not considered a possible connection with events leading to the Reformation and events leading to the conversion of Aztecs in Central America and the first, widely known, public apparition of Christ’s mother on her son’s behalf.
The Reformation, though brewing for a long time because of the bad example of many clergy, came to focus on October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg castle church (Grimm, p. 91). The clash of different points of view intensified in July 1519 when Luther defended all his views in the eighteen-day Leipzig Debate. The reigning Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillan had passed away on January 12, 1519 (Grimm, p. 97). He had intended for his grandson, Charles V, to succeed him but failed to confirm his choice. Upon Maxillillain’s death, three candidates were then considered: Charles V of Spain, Francis I of France, and Henry VIII of England (Grimm, p. 98). Signs of the dissolution of the Christian secular empire were already manifest by the rivalry of the three and the sentiments of the European people. On June 28, 1519, Charles V was chosen and crowned Emperor (Grimm, p. 99). He was the last Emperor of a united Christendom. His career was so frustrating because of the political infighting that, near the end of his life, he retired in 1556 and spent his remaining days in the monastery of Yuste. Two years later, he died (Columbian Encyclopedia).
At the same time, in Mexico, a fifty-two-year astrological cycle had ended (Burke, p. 34). The year 1519 was the year “Ce Acatl” (one Reed), the first year of a new cycle (DeAndelo, p. 12). The Aztecs had experienced frightening omens that confounded the Aztec chiefs from 1509 to 1519. Lake Texcoco suddenly boiled up despite fair weather and flooded Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), the Aztec capital. A fire destroyed the war god Huitzilopochtli’s temple. Strange and frightening comets flew through the sky for days on end. Bright flaming lights arose from the East. Women’s voices were heard wailing at night warning their children to flee (Ruiz, p. 38). All of these were taken as signs of Quetzalcoatl’s return. Aztec legend had it that Quetzalcoatl, meaning precious twin and dressed as a feathered serpent, a cultural hero king, was forced to leave his throne in A.D 890. He went to the Gulf and sailed east, promising to return in the year Ce Acatl (1519) (Franciscan, p. 32).
In February 1519, Hernando Cortez sailed from Cuba to the Yucatan peninsula with a five hundred-man army, sixteen horses, and ten cannons in a fleet of eleven ships manned by one hundred sailors (Franciscan, p. 35) (DeAngelis, p. 24). His purpose was to explore the mainland, look for fame and riches, bring the people into the Holy Roman Empire, and convert them to the true God. He marched toward Tenochitlan, conquering any tribe that tried to stop him. Tenochitlan, at that time, was the largest city in the world, at least one hundred fifty thousand people (DeAngelis, p. 7). The city ruled an empire of three million people (DeAngelis, p. 27). There were also several million more people in Central America not subjugated by the Aztecs.
The principle gods worshipped by the Aztecs, were Huitzilopochtli, the war god, and Tlaloc, the rain god. These gods were propitiated by human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale. Twenty to eighty thousand victims were sacrificed during a four-day celebration dedicating Huitzilopochtli’s new pyramid in Tenochitlan (Franciscan, p.140). Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, was nourished by human blood. Victim’s hearts were removed and placed, still beating, in a bowl in front of the god. Priests ate the choice body parts. The torsos were thrown down the pyramid steps to be consumed by wild beasts. The attending priests also routinely practiced human sacrifice in their private homage, sometimes torturing a young boy before the sacrifice. Such were the gods worshipped by the Aztecs.
On November 8, 1519, Cortez began his march toward Tenochitlan. Montezuma was frightened of Cortez, believing Cortez might be the returned Quetzalcoatl. When Cortez arrived at Tenochitlan, Montezuma invited Cortez into the city. Cortez set up his headquarters within Montezuma’s palace. Cortez tried to convert Montezuma and showed him a statue of the Virgin Mary explaining who she is. Montezuma then took Cortez to the pyramid housing Huitzilopochtli. Cortez, horrified by what he saw, struck Huitzilopochtli between its emerald eyes, toppled it down the steps, and placed a statue of Mary in its place (Franciscan, p. 38).
Meanwhile, in Europe, on December 10, 1520, Martin Luther burned the Papal bull criticizing his stance against the mother church and burned a copy of Cannon Law (Bainton, p. 58). In the same year, Cortez built a fleet of ships so he could destroy the Aztec navy and besiege the city. The siege lasted eighty days. On May 8, 1521, Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X and outlawed by the Emperor, Charles V (Grimm, p. 116). The excommunication document became official on May 28, 1521. In the same month, Cortez began his final Assault on Tenochitlan (Burke, p. 44). The city was conquered on August 13, 1521. For those critical of the Spaniards, let it be conceded that the vastly greater number of Aztecs could easily have overwhelmed the brutality and greed of six hundred invaders as the Aztecs react to the less-than-perfect treatment they received from the invaders. There is no human way such a small number of soldiers could hold such a large number of people in subjugation. But let us not overlook that the Spaniards overturned the Aztec gods and liberated the people serving those barbaric gods that demanded human sacrifice on an unprecedented scale. Whatever success Satan achieved deceiving the nations in Europe was more than offset by what Satan lost in America.
In 1530, Luther published ”The Confession of Augsburg” consolidating his opposition to the mother church. In 1531, Protestant nobles in the Holy Roman Empire formed the Schmalkaldic League to oppose Charles V. This, in my opinion spelled the end of a unified thousand-year Christian political Empire. Vestiges of the Holy Roman Empire lingered on, but Christendom, as a unified European political kingdom was gone forever.
In the same year 1531, December 9, 1531, when the splintering of the church and Empire in Europe was beyond repair, and the seething hostility of the abused Amerindians in America seemed ready to destroy the Spanish, the Virgin Mary appeared to fifty-seven-year-old Aztec Juan Diego near a hill known as Tepeyac. She identified herself using a Nahuatl word that sounded like Guadalupe (a shrine in Extremadura, Spain), but was later (in 1666) identified as “Tlecuautlapcupeuh” meaning “She who proceeds from the region of light like the fire eagle” (Franciscan, p. 182). She had the appearance of an Aztec maiden and wore clothes with symbols and colors very meaningful to Aztecs but not so meaningful to Spaniards. She could have started a new religion but, instead, asked Juan Diego to visit the Spanish bishop and ask him to commission a shrine where Juan Diego could bring his defeated people for healing and conversion. The bishop, not believing Juan Diego, asked for a sign.
Juan Diego was concerned about his uncle who was very ill. The next day, instead of returning to Tepeyac, Juan Diego headed straight for his uncle’s home. Mary intercepted him and said: “Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, I who am your mother?” (Franciscan, p. 200). Notice how Mary does not identify herself as part of the white people’s religion. She identifies with the Native Americans, same as she does in her later apparitions around the world. The mother of Jesus told Juan Diego to gather some flowers and take them to the bishop.
Juan Diego made a container by lifting the bottom of his tilma (cloak) and placing the flowers between the folds. On December 22, 1531, he opened his tilma in front of the bishop and let the flowers fall to the floor. To the bishop’s surprise, the flowers turned out to be flowers the bishop recognized as native to Spain, flowers that do not blossom in December. More to the bishop’s surprise, an image began to appear on the tilma (Franciscan, p. 56). Over the next ten years, greatly assisted by Juan Diego’s testimony and many miraculous cures, virtually all his people entered the mother church. Early during the conversions, an Aztec nobleman, with the Christian name Antonio Valeriano, wrote a detailed history of this apparition in Nahuatl. It is know as “Nican Mopohua.” from its first two words (Franciscan, p. 51). The original was lost, but a copy was found in 1649. An English translation of the document is in Franciscan, pp., 193–204.
Tilmas are made of cactus fibers and do not last more than forty years. The fibers are coarse and do not accept paint very well. Nevertheless, Juan Diego’s Tilma has lasted almost five hundred years, and the image is as vivid now as when it first appeared. Scientists have examined the Tilma and can find no explanation of how the image was produced. It shows no evidence of being painted. X-ray analysis shows no brush marks or underlying sketch. It has an optical quality similar to colors of bird feathers and butterfly wings, something that cannot be achieved by painting (Franciscan, p. 84). It has amazing detail. One scientist enlarged the Virgin’s eyes twenty-five hundred times and saw, reflected in the pupils, images of the people who witnessed the opening of the Tilma (Franciscan, p. 99). In a sense, the Tilma is like the Shroud of Turin. It defies scientific explanation. The world’s best scientists, with the latest equipment available today, can not reproduce either the image on the Tilma or the image on the Shroud. The Tilma has survived some potentially dangerous situations. In 1778, nitric acid was accidentally spilled on the Tilma but caused very little damage, (Franciscan, p. 60). In 1921, terrorists placed a bomb in front of the glass-enclosed Tilma in order to destroy it. The bomb severely damaged the church, but didn’t break the glass protecting the Tilma (Franciscan, p. 62).
These events, the Reformation and the defeat of the Aztec Empire, seem to be linked together. They seem to reflect a spiritual battle between some spirits who claims to be gods and what all Christians know to be the one and only manifestation of God, Jesus Christ. While Satan was loosed in Europe to, once again, deceive the nations, people on the other side of the world, who never knew Jesus or his father, are liberated from different gods by human endeavors, just as brutal in America as the sectarian wars were in Europe. However, behind the scenes, in the case of America, what God wants done gets done, no matter how unworthy the human beings are who accomplish it. While approximately five million Christians left the mother church in Europe and began the disintegration that led to at least fifteen hundred conflicting sects we have today, five to eight million human beings in Central America left worship of gods other than Jesus and his father and came into the mother church.
God’s hand, without a doubt, entered into the conversion of the Aztecs and neighboring tribes in America. The Spanish conquistadors, after the suppression and cruelty they had shown, could not have encouraged the Aztecs to embrace the Spaniard’s religion, even though the Spanish Emperor, Charles V desired that the Indians be evangelized. God sent the mother of Jesus to bring about the conversion.
The Reformation occurred because many people, scandalized by the misconduct and laxity of Catholic clergy, lost confidence in the mother church. There were political dimensions to the Reformation also, as powerful men strove to increase their power and gain more land under their control. However, the driving force behind The Reformation was widespread distrust in The Catholic Church. People were now able to read Scripture for themselves. Learned people formulated and published their own understanding of Scripture.
Eventually European Christians divided into two camps: those who remained within the mother church, and those who formed autonomous churches, separated from the mother church and protesting church abuse. These Protestant churches rallied behind leaders like Martin Luther in Germany, John Calvin in France, Huldrych Zwingli in Switzerland, and John Knox in Scotland. Some, like the English, rallied behind their governments, who only wanted full autonomy from Rome.
Those who left the mother church quickly divided into many conflicting groups, each with their own concept of Christ’s teaching, all of them hostile to the mother church and to each other. This broke up Christendom, both Church and Empire, into separate and hostile groups. During the struggle, Martin Luther bitterly opposed the papacy and those who remained loyal to the papacy. Martin Luther wrote two commentaries on Revelation (Luther, VI, pp. 479–488). In his longer one, he identified the sea beast as the Holy Roman Empire (the Catholic secular empire) and the land beast as the papacy (Luther, VI, p. 483).
Other Reformation leaders, especially John Calvin, thought the same (Haydock, p. 337) and amplified it. They soon developed a new school of interpretation. It held that Catholicism was an apostate church and was the whore of Babylon and had persecuted true Christians ever since Constantine's time (or, as others put it, since an early Church council), and that the papacy was antichrist (Patrides, pp. 131 and 269 & Haydock, p. 332). This school of interpretation is still evident today (but not so hostile) with commentators who claim the letters to the seven churches prophesy Church history in seven successive stages, which stages can be summarized as follows:
EPHESUS covers the condition of the Church during Apostolic times.
SMYRNA predicts conditions during the early persecutions by Rome (A.D. 100 to 313).
PERGAMUS predicts the Church entering into error during the years A.D. 312 to around 600–606. This phase of Church history is given similar names by some authors: “licentious church” (Larkin, p. 21); “indulged church” (LaHaye, Revelation Illustrated and Made Plain, pp. 37–40); “church of worldly alliance” (Liberty Bible Commentary, p. 2661); “infiltrated (imperial) church” (Morris, p. 56); and “church merged with state” (Lindsey, There’s a New World Coming, p. 54). These authors are referring to the Catholic Church, which, they claim, allowed itself to become a pawn of the Roman Empire.
THYATIRA predicts the Church era from around A.D. 600 to the Reformation. Larkin names this era “the lax church” (Larkin, p. 29). LaHaye calls it “the pagan church” (LaHaye, op. cit., pp. 43–8), but LaHaye claims the time period is A.D. 606 to the future tribulation, making this phase co‑existent with some of the later phases. The Liberty Bible Commentary (on page 2662) calls it “the church of continued sacrifice and clerical domination.” Morris (on page 59) calls it “the adulterous church.” And Lindsey (op. cit., p. 58) calls it “the counterfeit church of image worship, superstition, and priestcraft.” These authors are referring to the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.
SARDIS covers the Reformation until 1720, which era is named as the “dead church” (Larkin, p. 25 & LaHaye, op. cit., pp. 49–50); “the church of empty profession” (Liberty Bible Commentary, p. 2664); and “the church of empty orthodoxy” (Lindsey, op. cit., p. 62 & Morris, p. 67). These authors are all referring to the original Protestant churches. Some of these authors are members of various dissenting sects branched off from the original Protestant churches.
PHILADELPHIA covers the years 1750 through the nineteenth century. This is the era of the “favored” or “loved” church because of the missionary activity during that period.
LAODICEA refers to the churches in the twentieth century as the “lukewarm” church.
Christianity rapidly splintered into conflicting sects. On the European continent, several religious groups, separated from Rome (or from state-sponsored Protestant churches) tried to establish the millennial kingdom. One was the Anabaptists. They founded the "New Jerusalem" in Münster, Germany. Their movement started on Holy Thursday in 1531 when they revolted against the state‑sponsored religion and formed their own dissenting sect. It remained primarily a religious revolt until early 1534, when Jan Brokelman and Jan Matthys added a political dimension. These two men encouraged city leaders to convert the city's government into a millennial kingdom and invite outsiders to join. They renamed Münster "New Jerusalem" and severed political ties with other cities. They introduced polygamy, citing Old Testament authorization, and decided that all eligible young maidens in New Jerusalem must marry. Some they forced into marriage. Their enemies felt forced marriage was thinly disguised rape. Public sentiment turned against the city. Finally an army was sent to settle the dispute. New Jerusalem was destroyed in 1535, the last leaders beheaded on January 23, 1536 (Chamberlin, pp. 59–86).
Between 1820 and 1830, many Protestants in England felt that Jesus Christ would return in their lifetimes. Three hundred Anglican and six hundred sectarian clergymen fueled the expectation (Rosten, p. 248). A similar movement arose in America, led by William Miller. Two hundred clergymen: Baptist, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, and others supported the movement. The Millerites predicted Christ would return in 1844. When Christ did not return, their movement dissolved. But some Millerites reorganized their thoughts. They felt that, even if they did not know the exact day Christ would return, they still needed to warn the world to be ready when Christ finally does come. They felt, among other things, that Saturday was the correct Lord’s Day and that humanity ought to be keeping Saturday holy for the advent, or second coming, of Christ. Probably for that reason, this new group became known as the Seventh Day Adventists. They hold to the one thousand‑year millennium, but it will take place in heaven, not on earth. During the heavenly millennium, the earth will be a desolated, depopulated wilderness (Rosten, p. 249). At the end of the millennium, the earth will be reactivated, the wicked will rise, the righteous will return from heaven, the New Jerusalem will be established on earth, and the final judgment will take place.
Charles Russel split off the Watchtower and Tract Society from the Adventist movement in 1872. Russel thought Christ would return to earth invisibly in 1874 (Rosten, pp. 169–79). He later argued that the time of the Gentiles ended in autumn, 1914, when World War I started. Christ then went to the heavenly Zion to await the hundred and forty-four thousand elect while “the world empire of the Babylonish religion approached the most critical period in world history” (Babylon the Great Has Fallen, p. 500). “Babylon the Great” then fell. When Babylon fell, the followers of Russel imprisoned for preaching against world government were released. This happened in March 1919 (op. cit., p. 504).
Russel later changed the society’s name in 1931 from “Watchtower and Tract Society” to “Jehovah Witnesses” (op. cit., p. 516). By 1935, most of the hundred and forty-four thousand elect had been gathered, although there is still a remnant yet to be gathered. The gathering of the “others” the “great crowd,” is being done through the activity of the Jehovah Witnesses (op. cit., p. 632). Both Jehovah Witnesses and The Worldwide Church of God actively spread their message to the American public: Jehovah Witnesses by door to door evangelists, the Worldwide Church of God by a TV ministry and a widely circulated, no‑charge magazine Plain Truth.
In 1820, a fourteen-year old American experienced visions of spiritual beings. Three spirits told him the church founded by Jesus Christ had long ago been destroyed by sinful men, but God was now, in these latter times, going to re-establish the church and had appointed this young American to select twelve men and re-institute the twelve apostles and set up The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The youth was Joseph Smith: the spiritual beings were what Smith understood to be Jesus, his Father, and the angel “Moroni.” Moroni, along with other angels and Jesus, instructed Smith on what he was to do (Smith, The Book of Mormon, introduction) (Whalen, pp. 179–191).
On April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith officially founded and registered The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He wrote (as the church's tenth article of faith): "We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion will be built upon this [the American] continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory" (A Small Mormon Leaflet).
Joseph Smith said Christ and an angel told him that the American Indians descended from Israelites who migrated to America in 600 B.C. They started two racial stocks, the Lamanites, who survive today as the American Indians, and the Nephites, whom the Lamanites long ago destroyed. Plus, an earlier migration of Semitic people, the Jaredites, came to America shortly after the Tower of Babel was built. Joseph Smith said he was told that Jesus Christ ministered to the Nephites after his resurrection until they were destroyed, and that the Church in Europe was destroyed by the papacy. Smith received the Book of Mormon on gold plates given him by an angel (Smith, The Book of Mormon, introduction).
Here are some verses from the first book of Nephi describing the condition of all Christian churches, Catholic and Protestant (1 Nephi 9–10):
9. (An angel tells Nephi) And it came to pass that he said to me: Look and behold that great and abominable church, which is the mother of abominations, whose founder is the devil.
10. And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only, the one is the church of the Lamb of God (Latter Day Saints), and the other is the church of the devil (all other Christian groups); wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of the earth.
The Mormon apologist Coke Newell claims The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the first world religion organized since Islam (Newell, p. xi), and it is growing at a very rapid rate (Newell, p. 224). His description of Mormonism shows how different Mormon theology is than mainstream Christian Theology. Bushman claims this church is one of the fastest growing religions in the world, doubling its membership every fifteen years (Bushman, p. 1). Mormons, today, outnumber both Presbyterians and Episcopalians (Bushman, p. x).
In the 1820’s, the Illuminati, a sect within the Freemasons, developed plans to overthrow all European monarchs and destroy the Catholic Church. Adam Weishaupt formed the Illuminati on May 1, 1776. When their plans were discovered and the Illuminati suppressed, the members went underground in Masonic lodges already influenced by the Illuminati. They continued planning within some Grand Orient Lodges and formed more secret societies within those lodges (Flynn, p. A12).
In the 1830’s, the Alta Vendita, the highest Italian Carbonari lodge, gained supreme control of the Masonic secret societies in France, Germany, and England. In 1834, Giuseppe Mazzini became the Illuminati’s leader. He and his fellow Illuminati developed a plan they felt would take generations to fulfill. Part “A” of the plan was the destruction of European monarchs; part “B” was the destruction of the Catholic Church. These people, the Alta Vendita, through a subgroup, “The League of Just Men,” financed Karl Marx, who composed The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels. They supported the Communist Revolution in Russia. Lenin, the first Communist leader in Russia, said: “Atheism is a natural and inseparable portion of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. Our propaganda necessarily includes propaganda for atheism” (Flynn, p. A13).
In addition to confusing the Christian message, humans have, over the past 150 years, shown a growing interest in the occult: in non-Christian spiritualism, in extra-terrestrial life forms, and in astral powers that might influence humans or be controlled by humans. Much of it started off as seemingly harmless adventure stories, fiction, and make-believe entertainment; but all of it opened our minds to possible contact with non-human, extra-terrestrial intelligences.
This interest in the occult started on March 31, 1848, when the Fox sisters in New York claimed to have had contact with spirits. They later publicly demonstrated communication with spirits. Their demonstrations launched the modern interest in spiritualism, which is still in vogue today. In 1890, there was founded in England “The Order of the Golden Dawn,” an organization of people interested in the occult. In 1910, in America, interest in spiritualism grew due to the influence of Edgar Casey, who had many communications with spirits. His heirs have maintained public interest in Casey by popularizing his work after his death through the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), which they founded in 1932. Fueled by the above events and many others, interest in such matters continually increased. Today, everyone can perceive the obvious influence of spiritualism in music, movies, television shows, fiction, computer games, and in various cults and self-help programs that have become popular.
In the twentieth century, many non-Christian cults have sprung up. The most influential is The Church of Scientology, founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952. Hubbard proposes that belief in God or gods is something personal. Scientology offers no specific dogmas about God. There was no human incarnation of God. All humans are immortal spiritual beings (called Thetans) who are capable of achieving a godlike state through Scientology practices. After death, there are many rebirths until the individual develops to the ability to escape the cycle of birth and death, to operate independently of the physical universe and become one with God.
Another non-Christian group that has generated much notoriety is The Church of Satan, founded by Anton Szandor LaVey in the 1950’s. The Church of Satan is the antithesis of Christian churches. In 1957, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi founded The Spiritual Regeneration Movement (Transcendental Meditation), a popular movement based on Hindu theology. Both are major departures from Christian theology.
D. H. Lawrence and C. G. Jung have published books promoting anti-Christian interpretations of Revelation. Both Lawrence and Jung criticize Christianity and argue that Revelation was based upon pre‑Yahwist pagan lore. D. H. Lawrence starts with the seven seals. He claims the seven seals are based on ancient pagan rites that initiate aspiring humans into service to the gods. Due to redactions and reinterpretations by Jewish and Christian editors, this lore is now corrupted. Lawrence thought the pagans had discovered the true correspondence between the individual and the universe, which correspondence was exact and perfect. But Christian writers destroyed it. He also thought that God is not a person. God is an impersonal force behind nature (Lawrence, p. 35).
Lawrence then relates the four horsemen to certain aspects of human nature. The white horse represents our jovial or sanguinary (bloody) nature, but is depicted as white because blood represents our life. The red horse represents our warlike or choleric nature. It is not merely anger, but natural fieriness or passion. The black horse represents our saturnine, our phlegmatic nature. The pale green horse represents our mercurial nature, which signifies death (Lawrence, p. 102).
Jung argues that the four horsemen point out the sinister side of God. Jung calls the seven seals “a veritable orgy of hatred, wrath, vindictiveness, and blind destructive fury” (Jung, p. 125). Jung starts his commentary with a long criticism of God. He claims that God is not a conscious being (Jung, p. 33), but rather the unconscious force behind nature. The visions of Revelation stem from the collective unconscious of humans, a racial memory of primordial events that all humans sometimes glimpse (Jung, p. 134). He then describes the relationship between Job and God.
Lucifer was one of God’s sons who, more so than the others, was inclined to make use of God’s omniscience. God was omniscient; but, because of God’s state of unconsciousness, God did not take advantage of this omniscience. This consciousness of God, to begin with, was not much more than a primitive awareness that knows no reflection and no morality (Jung, pp. 67–8). Lucifer took advantage of God to goad God into treating Job in an unfair and immoral manner. Job, for his part, displayed a greater sense of morality than God did. Jung claims Job showed himself superior to God both intellectually and morally (Jung, pp. 14 & 68). God then, to expiate this wrongful treatment of Job—and through Job, all of humanity—decided to become human to suffer as Job was made to suffer (Jung, pp. 85–91).
The preceding is enough to show how Jung’s conception of God differs from the Christian conception. His commentary is, not surprisingly, highly anti‑Christian. He, like D. H. Lawrence, views the woman of Rev. 12 as a pre‑Christian, pre‑Yahwist image stemming from our collective unconscious. This image portends the birth of a divine child. He identifies the woman as “anima mundi” (earth’s soul), a peer of primordial cosmic man. She is in a perennial process of birth that has occurred over and over again throughout history. Briefly stated, this indicates that we are part of God. We are becoming more and more aware of the God that is within us (Jung, p. 158) through a birthing of what was in the unconscious bursting forth into our consciousness (Jung, p. 163). Jung’s main theme is the repressed hostility in the visions. This hostility stems from God’s unreflexive and amoral interaction with the universe.
Worse than the above are the widespread political, atheistic movements that have dominated the twentieth century, like Nazism and Communism. The prophesied deception of the nations by Satan has reached very far indeed. Who can look upon the past four centuries and not see the divisions, hatred, contradictions in doctrine, and unchristian attitude by those who profess to be Christian? Their bad example has destroyed the mission of the baptized to convince the whole world that Christ's Gospel is true. Those divisions and contradictions developed along with nationalism. In fact, both movements, the division of the Church and the rise of nationalism, augmented each other. Neither one could have developed to the extent it did without the influence of the other.
How different might the world be today had all Christians remained steadfast. I think the Reformation, combined with nationalism, tore apart the Christian Political Empire and the Christian message. The political millennium, here on earth, would have lasted from the fourth century to the fifteenth century, approximately one thousand years. Since then, what was once the Christian Empire fought war after war as its individual nations clashed. Christianity has steadily declined as a world influence due to contradictions and rebuttals of Christian doctrine by people within the Christian community. Today, all can see how little influence Christianity has on the nations, as nation after nation pursues its own rejection of Jesus Christ and his teaching. These same nations now tell us we are in the post‑Christian Era.
Oh yes! The thousand-year reign started long ago. Christ bound Satan at the beginning to insure that Christ’s Church becomes firmly established. Then came the great seduction, to be followed later by the end of these end times, the end of the world. Following that, God will raise the bodies of all humans. God will reunite each soul with its resurrected body. The wicked will find damnation because of their refusal to obey God, but the righteous will find everlasting blessedness. That will be the second resurrection. The righteous, the ones whose souls went to heaven, will have participated in two resurrections.
Christ released Satan, not to wreak havoc for us, but for us to subdue and frustrate Satan, for we all by now should be ready to subdue temptation and assert our own faithfulness to our king. If we fail in this great task given us, then we are the ones who—just like first and second‑century Judeans before us—will bring tribulation upon our countries. Our failure will propel our own Gentile nations into history's great watershed when God will end all defiance and requite all persons according to their deeds.
The first books I read about the end times warned that Revelation predicted a nuclear war when the Soviet Union invades Israel. That caught my imagination. Today, the Soviet empire is gone, so a Soviet invasion of Israel is preposterous. It was possible, though, in the early seventies. The best‑selling interpretations predicted that the Soviet Union would invade Israel. The Western nations would enter on Israel's side. Both sides would launch nuclear attacks. Among the many flaws in this interpretation, the most troublesome is the unlikelihood that civilization could survive the first nuclear exchange. Six were proposed.
The prediction that the European Economic Community will be the revived Roman Empire and that the Soviet Union will invade Israel was first voiced right after World War II (Hailey). During the war, a different pattern had developed, a pattern involving a new Roman Empire under Mussolini. When the Italian army conquered Ethiopia, Mussolini said he restored the Empire. In a May 1936 speech to his army he said: "Legionnaires! In this supreme certitude raise high your insignia, your weapons, and your hearts to salute, after fifteen centuries, the reappearance of the Empire on the fated hills of Rome" (Fermi, p. 327).
For those who then interpreted Revelation, this was the resurrected Roman Empire. Mussolini was the Roman dictator who revived the empire. Mussolini restored the fasces as his symbol of political power. The "fasces" was a cylinder of reeds, three feet by four inches, tied over an axe. Ancient Rome used it as a symbol of authority. Mussolini also restored the ancient Roman salute of the outstretched arm. Other leaders set up similar governments in their countries, notably Hitler in Germany. Hitler started out admiring and imitating Mussolini. He soon surpassed Mussolini and wound up controlling the Axis coalition. Hitler's career abruptly ended when he lost the war. Knowing his character during the war, especially his conduct toward the Jews, he could, had he lived, easily have done many things expected of the antichrist.
Had the Axis won and Hitler continued his career until he was seventy, he would have controlled the Axis powers until 1959. This coalition of a victorious Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Finland, Japan, and the countries they conquered, would make a more believable revived empire than what might come out of the EEC. The war, of course, destroyed the Axis coalition. I think the EEC nations found themselves in postwar interpretations as a substitute for the more believable Empire Mussolini revived. Later when the 1990's brought the Gulf War, and still later when the twentieth-first century brought the war against terror, we have “The Left Behind” interpretation presuming that the Moslem nations will form a coalition with the European nations to destroy Israel.
I would compare today's problems of drug abuse, sex abuse, murder, rape, robbery, and international and ethnic terrorism to a plague of locusts. These problems, if not stopped, will destroy the resources of all Gentile nations just like the Judeans destroyed their resources during the second woe. I am delighted that we escaped nuclear war with the communist nations. But that does not mean we no longer face danger. We have moved into the post‑Christian era. The Gentile nations have rejected Christ. They are fascinated with extraterrestrial life forms. They try to communicate with them by scientific space probes and ultra high‑frequency radiation. They try also through occult means: spiritualism, channeling, hypnosis, and séances. I wonder what we will do if God allows fallen angels to answer. Perhaps we face a more perilous danger than the one we escaped.
The Gentile nations doubt that God will respond to their apostasy. Even when prophecies come true before their eyes, they will not believe. Perhaps that is the way it should be. After all, God does not send prophets to tell the wicked how much more time they yet have to pursue their own pleasure. God sends prophets to warn the uncommitted to change their hearts. Hearing God's plans might shock them to seek God's mercy. God sends prophets also to those already faithful that they might retain their faith when these dreadful events finally arrive. The human race will then thresh and beat itself, as wheat is threshed, to separate chaff and impurities before the Lord arrives.
When all this began, around 1820, the situation in America and Europe was similar. Christianity had fragmented into hostile groups who were voicing unfair accusations against fellow Christians and were contradicting the convictions of their rivals. In the three hundred years since the Reformation, these accusations and contradictions had reached a level where just about every tenet once held sacred by their ancestors was challenged by at least one sect of Christians. If an outsider were viewing Christianity at that time, who could blame him for not believing the Christian message? And how blameworthy are those who were reared within Christian families in subsequent years but grew up to reject Christianity for Deism, or Humanism, or Nazism, or Communism? Perhaps the disintegration of Church unity is what paved the way for the acceptance of these and other non-Christian ideologies. The most militantly atheistic of these non-Christian ideologies, and one that found widest acceptance, was Communism. Communism had its birth in the mind of its formulators during the early 1800’s. It was finally put into its finished form, The Communist Manifesto, in 1848.
One could present a logical hypothesis arguing that Satan was released five to six centuries ago, and attacked Christ’s Church in a systematic way. First, during the fifteenth century, Satan tempted clerics to present scandal within the Church; then, Satan encouraged people to react to the scandal by rejecting the Church and dismantling it; then Satan fostered rival theological systems to replace the Apostle’s concept of God; then, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Satan encouraged atheistic ideologies to motivate people not to believe that God made a public revelation and then enticed humans into a resurgence of spiritualism, paganism, occultism, and even witchcraft and Satanism to bring humanity back to the state it was before Christ came into the world.
Today, all the previously Christian nations tell us that we are in the “post-Christian” era. All governments of previously Christian nations try to separate themselves from all connections to religion. In the United States, public religious symbols, like plaques and monuments depicting the Ten Commandments” are being removed by court order. Prayer and serious discussions about Christianity are forbidden in public schools. Efforts are being made to remove the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance” and “In God We Trust” from coins. At the same time, abortion, even partial-birth abortion, is legalized in every State. Homosexual activity, clearly described as sinful in Scripture, in now legitimized by homosexual marriages in many States. Homosexuality is portrayed approvingly in our movies, literature, and is promoted on TV as a wholesome and perfectly acceptable alternate life style.
These are the perils coming from every direction, even from within the Church that are confronting Christians in the nineteenth through twentieth-first centuries. I mention all this to drive home my main point: Satan is deceiving the nations and has been doing so at an accelerating rate ever since the events leading to the Reformation. This confrontation and contradiction of Christ's teaching must disappoint Jesus Christ. He knows the truth. He revealed it. Why is it that so many Christians argue about it? This, I think, is Satan's work. The Devil sowed the seeds of dissension, and dissention now flourishes in our lives.
Revelation: Fall of Judea, Rise of the Church
Copyright 2009 Maurice A. Williams
http://www.mauriceawilliams.com/
Labels: Atheism, Aztecs, Church, Cortez, Illuminati, Luther, Nazism, Reformation
posted by Maurice A. Williams @ 9:55 AM
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