You recall that the elevation of one elder over the other elders, the elevated ones being titled “bishop,” and how the ones who held this title of “bishop”—one from this congregation and that congregation and another congregation, etc.—began to meet together. And history tells us that their primary purpose in those initial meetings of these “bishops” was to talk about the persecution that was going on, and to try to do things to help the brethren to avoid and overcome persecution. Also, some of the initial meetings of these “bishops,” like the one at Nicene there in AD 325, were actually called by the Emperors, and “leaders” of the “church” attended that. And the reason that the Nicene meeting was called was because the Emperor was concerned that the “church” (again, in quotes—generally speaking, those who claimed Christianity)—“leaders” of the “church” were fighting among themselves over several different doctrinal matters, and Constantine was afraid that the “church” was going to fly apart. And so, he urged them to come together—the leaders, these ones who were in apostasy. But, the point is that, what led to these things that would become what we know they did become through history, and what they even continue to be today, in many instances were done for, shall we say, “good reasons”—shall we say, “out of expedience,” “out of need,” and so on. Now, that does not JUSTIFY what was done, because we can look back and see the results of it.

But, one of the things that we notice here is that the history—what we have in the way of history—is largely what is contained in this “Path to Apostasy” [see “Path to Apostasy” above]. From the end of the apostolic age, as I said, the light of revelation went out at the end of the 1^st Century. We really have very little in the way of the HISTORY of the Lord’s church. We’ve discussed this. I know that most of you, like me, believe that the Lord’s church—from its establishment in AD 33 until this very day—has always been. But we have very little in the way of the history of it. Why? Well, we don’t know exactly, but none of the least of reasons would be, perhaps, because of the persecution that they underwent—first, persecution by the Jews; then persecution by the Romans. The Lord’s true church went underground in many places. They met in secret. They didn’t advertise their meetings. They didn’t have a building with a sign out front, you know, which would have been an open invitation, you see, to “Come get us here!” And so, we don’t know a lot about what the Lord’s church was doing through this period.

But, here is something that we do know: You know, as we talked about, for example, the persecution that these people suffered, especially up into the 4^th Century under Rome, and we talked about the severity of that; we talked about how that the Roman government gave the people, in effect, a choice—either choose the Emperor or choose Jesus; if you choose Jesus, “Off with your head. We’re going to run you through with the sword”. There were many who chose the “off with you head” part, or the “we’re going to run you through with the sword” part.

Now, were some of them, perhaps, on this path to apostasy? No doubt. Were some of them on the path of the Lord’s true church? No doubt. And so, when we talk about “Christians” being persecuted in the 2^nd Century, the 3^rd Century, the 4^th Century, and so on, who are we TALKING about? Well, again, the record is not clear, but besides the multitude on the path to apostasy, surely we are talking about brethren—those who were doing everything that they could to remain faithful, to genuinely follow the New Testament precepts for the government of the church, the organization of the church, the worship of the church, practicing baptism for the remission of sins—ALL of those things.

Last week, we talked about the rise of Islam—about the followers of Mohammed. We mentioned the fact that, once again, “Christians” found themselves at the point of the sword, because with this rapid rise of the followers of Mohammed and their move into areas where people accepted Christ, where people were attempting to follow Christ, there were people who, once again, were no doubt on this track—the Path to Apostasy. But there were also, no doubt, people in that 6^th and 7^th Century who were given the choice, “either the sword or,” this time, “the Koran” who were true Christians, genuinely following the New Testament pattern. And so, we see, then, that this is just a very broad, a very general characterization of where we have been going, and what we have been trying to cover.

Now, about where we stopped last week, one of things that we are going to talk about when we get back to Lesson 6 [on August 18, 2004] is going to be that very major schism that took place. Now clearly…clearly, we are talking here about what would develop into the Roman Catholic Church. When did that happen? Well, we can’t put a finger on a calendar and say it was “this date.” What we’re looking at here is, of course, the rise of the Roman Catholic Church and then that major break that is characterized as “the great schism,” one that was quite profound, at least on the part of those who were “claiming” to follow Christ.

[A comment is made] that those who were attempting to follow the apostles doctrine were, in fact, labeled as “heretics.” [John says,] As I mentioned a moment ago, if you wouldn’t adopt, if you wouldn’t state a creed, then you were labeled as a heretic. But again, history about that is so sketchy that we see very vague references to that.

I want to give you an idea of where we are going in these studies in future lessons. We will see a major split resulting in what is referred to either as the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. And then, in about the 16^th Century, we’re going to look at something that’s called “The Reform” [the “reformation” of the Catholic church]. We’re going to see the activities of Martin Luther, of John Wesley, of John Calvin and others, and we’re going to see, then, that out of this “reformation” of the Catholic church come these various denominations.

After we have waded through some of this history—we’re not going to get bogged down in a lot of details; we’re not going to spend a lot of time looking at the Crusades and this kind of thing—we will identify some of the characters of the Reform to see where these denominations had their beginning, because I think that is useful to us.

But we want to arrive at the RESTORATION. I indicated the date of AD1809 [on the handout—see information near the beginning of this lesson]. There could be several dates there. I just selected that date—that was the date that Thomas Campbell gave his declaration and address. We could have put 1801 when Barton W. Stone preached at Cambridge, Kentucky. There are a number of dates that could be indicated.

We just wanted to show that in the latter part of the 18^th Century and the early part of the 19^th Century, there is going to be some activity which we are going to see—some independent activity initially, not just from this continent, but in Britain and some other places as well. What that is going to be about is not to reform the Catholic church, but rather, to RESTORE THE LORD’S CHURCH.

Now, we are not going to suggest that the Lord’s church died somewhere on the “path to apostasy,” and that it was only after 1809, then, that the Lord’s church was restored. No, not at all--we are not implying that, nor will we imply that. As I said before, the Lord’s church has gone on from AD 33 continuously. But what we will see, though, are going to be the efforts of some individuals, like Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, Barton W. Stone, “Raccoon” John Smith, and others, who are well-known in the Restoration Movement, as it is referred to, to call people out of denominationalism and call them back TO the apostles’ doctrine—call them back TO the New Testament church. And so, we want to eventually, in a few weeks, arrive at the Restoration Movement and look in some level of detail at this Movement and see where that began, and see where it went.

We might look at this study that we’re engaged in and say, “Well, what’s the purpose? Why are we doing this? Why are we going to this trouble and into this level of detail that we are? I’d like to submit to you that there are 3 reasons, at least 3 reasons that I have in mind.