And then, over in Galatians, chapter 1 and verse 7, we see that Paul is going to say something that is quite similar to what the Lord has said here. Paul says, “…but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ.” Well, who’s he talking about here? Certainly he’s talking about those who would be Judaizing teachers, those who dogged his every step in his ministry. But, I believe he’s also looking forward here, as well, that in times to come there is going to be a continuing parade of those who will pervertthe Gospel. They are “false prophets,” as Jesus said. They will leave the teaching, the Truth of God’s Word, and teach other things.

And then, finally here, as one of these key Scriptures, we notice Acts, chapter 20, and look at verses 28 through 30. Of course, this is the occasion when Paul is meeting with the elders of the church in Ephesus at a place called Miletus, and this is part of Paul’s discussion with them. Verses 28-30 say, “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His Own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” Paul says that savage wolves were going to come into the church, into the flock. The word image here that he has is, of course, the flock being a flock of sheep, representative of the church. Jesus, of course, is our “Chief Shepherd” [1 Peter 5:4]. We are part of His flock. And what was one of the greatest things that a shepherd feared. It was a wild animal, who would come in and wreak havoc upon the flock, and Paul is predicting and saying, “There are going to be ravenous wolves that are going to come in, and they are going to attempt to destroy the flock.” And then, moreover, there in verse 30, Paul warns and predicts that “from among yourselves [the elders of the Lord’s church] men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.”

Well, there are many other Scriptures that we could, no doubt, look to that would be “Key” in any discussion that we would have like this, but I think that these Scriptures set the stage for us about what is to be expected, about what is going to come to pass. Now, we know that, for example, in the period of time from the establishing of the church in AD 33 until the end of the 1^st Century, or close to the end of the 1^st Century, there were already problems, that there were already things that were going on. All we need do is to read the epistles of Paul, as he writes to the church in Corinth, as he writes to the churches [congregations of the Lord’s church] in the region of Galatia, and so on. There were already issues, already problems, going on. Some of those Judaizing teachers were coming in, and they were perverting the Gospel already.

But then, when the light grows dim, when the light of divine revelation grows dim at the end of the 1^st Century, and we begin noticing and looking at history as our source of information, we see that in history…. And by the way, just a quick explanation, we see the church established in AD 33, and we see the church continuing on over time, even to this day. But we see, then, that another “track” is on-going, so to speak, which is “the path to apostasy,” and this is where we have spent some time over the past several weeks in our study [AD 150 – AD 606], noticing some of these things that have happened, some of these things that have gone on. We’ve only characterized here [on the handout—information seen above] just a very few of the things that we have talked about.

But beginning in about AD 150—and this only a little over a hundred years from the establishing of the church; this is only about fifty years from the end of the apostolic age—we saw that there were already changes underway in the church government [see handout]. We see that as Paul warned those elders in Ephesus that, from among themselves there would rise up those who would draw people away…well, where did we see the first apostasy coming from what we have noticed? Well, it had to do with the elevation of one elder over the other elders [and the “elevated one” came to be titled “bishop” as separate from “elder”]. And we saw where that led. We saw that that really was the beginning of what would become the papacy, patterned very much like the civil government in Rome, with several layers leading up to an emperor on the civil side, and to a pope, or the “chief patriarch”, on the other side.

We saw that, in the 4^th Century, they began to adopt various creeds, and one of the most well-known creeds is known as the “Nicene Creed,” which came out of a meeting, out of a conference, where a group of “bishops” came together in Nicene to discuss problems that were universal problems within the church, and from that, they would develop this creed. From that point on, then, creeds became not just fashionable, but they became required statements of faith. And if you were unwilling to make that “statement of faith,” then you were considered to be a heretic.

Well, we see also—and we mentioned this just a moment ago—that around AD 606, Boniface III made the declaration that we talked about [it was Boniface III who took the title for himself—actually bestowed the title on himself—of “Universal Bishop of the Catholic Church”].

So, in effect, we are looking here, and have been looking here, at the path to apostasy, and it began almost immediately after the church was established, and it continues along this path away from (and we’re characterizing it as being “away from”) the Lord’s church, the true church.

Now, here’s the problem that we have with the terminology, and this is where we’ve not been clear enough to make sure that we are understanding exactly what we are talking about and what we are referring to. We’re probably oversimplifying it to say that we have two tracks going on—there really may have been many tracks, in a sense, but for the sake of being able to illustrate this, I’m trying to explain just two tracks. We saw these things that are going on (changes in government, creeds, the papacy, etc.), and one of the characteristics—at least in the early part of these things that led to the changes in church government (that is, changes that were changed from the apostolic doctrine, the teachings of the New Testament—the adoption of creeds, etc.) of these changes was that many of these things were done as a matter of something that appeared to be needed, something that was “good.”