Church History Series - Part 5 — Mike Attwood

Revelation 17 and the Dark Ages

Just want to read from Revelation 17 I'm going to read the first six verses and Just because it's sometimes when we're dealing with church history We want to make sure we get some scripture thrown in there because that's the that's the bright spot of some of these dark ages Is just even a scripture reading kind of bring some light into the darkness so reading from verse 1 there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and Talked with me saying unto me come hither.

I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore That sitteth upon many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and The inhabitants of the earth have made been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast Full of names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and Decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication and upon her forehead was a name written mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and Abominations of the earth and this is the verse.

I want to draw our attention to verse 6 and I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration and as we study the dark ages today, we're Continuing on from this morning because we've got a thousand years to cover.

Papal Power and the Rise of Reformative Movements

So it's taking us a bit longer than I was hoping for but in this time The Catholic Church is really at the pinnacle of its power and God is going to raise up Movements that will be protest movements before the Protestant Reformation in a sense groups that will will be so Disgusted with the corruption of the church that will want scriptural simplicity and God is going to raise up this remnant but this remnant is going to be persecuted mercilessly by The Roman Church, and so we mentioned this man called Gregory the seventh.

He was Hildebrand a 1097 a monk that became a Pope. He's the guy that introduced celibacy to keep expenses low so on and so forth into the church and There's an interesting incident that I think is just worth highlighting that really stands out during this time frame in that there was he also made a decision as well as Saying that priests had to be celibate.

He also made this decree that only Pope's could appoint a bishop. Prior to that bishops could be appointed by Kings by by princes, you know could whoever could do that basically Not biblical at all. But at least it was open to anybody who had some kind of power or authority could appoint a bishop.

But he said no only the Pope can now officially appoint a bishop. So there was an Emperor at the time the Emperor of the Roman Empire Henry the fourth and he didn't like that. He was losing his power to appoint bishops.

So in defiance of the Pope he Decided that he would appoint a bishop so Gregory the seventh got mad at him and There's a kind of standoff between them. And so he basically came out with a papal interdict.

This papal interdict said that no priests could serve Mass in any place in the Empire. And these people at this point, they're so duped by Roman ideas that in their thinking and they don't have communion.

They're on their way to hell, there's no there's no salvation outside of the the basic sacraments of the church and so all of a sudden all these people are petrified. Because hey, we can't we can't have communion.

It means we're lost now. They're lost but it's not because they can't have communion. So they don't have Christ. That's why they're lost but in their minds. Their hope is they lost and so there's tremendous pressure put on Henry and so Henry Ultimately has to apologize because his whole Empire is crippled now by all these petrified people so the Pope is in his summer residence.

At Canosa Castle in the Alps, you know, just having a kind of nice vacation all the rest of it. But it happened to either was there in early April. It was snowing. And it does that thing in the Alps sometimes and so anyway Henry had to go and apologize.

And the Pope made him stay outside barefoot in the snow for three days. Before he would come to see him and eventually he was allowed in and he had to bow to the Pope. And so again, you can see this papal power, you know, isn't it wonderful that one day every knee is gonna bow to the Lord Jesus now men even men who are Emperors and all the rest of it bowing to the point you see it today.

And all this kind of stuff just nauseating. To even witness it. But basically this is this is the power of the church at this point and then there's another guy comes on in 1200 innocent the third and he kind of made Transubstantiation.

Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of Christ

The official dogma of the Catholic Church is going to be a big thing when it comes to the Reformation. And so let me just talk about that for a minute. What does transubstantiation mean? When the priest offers the Communion what he does he'll raise it up and I remember.

Remember this and when the altar boy rings the bell an amazing miracle takes place that wafer Becomes literally the body and blood of Christ and I can remember the kid Put it on your tongue don't bite it because you're actually fighting the body of Christ.

Right. That's that's Catholicism 101. And so basically that the Christ is really physically present in the wafer and He offers himself he comes down at the bidding of the priest and Christ offers himself again as an unbloody sacrifice.

Now let me just say this. The Catholic Mass is a blasphemous act. It's a blasphemous act because what it's saying is that when Jesus said it is finished it wasn't finished. He's still offering himself now in an unbloody manner.

Every time the priest calls him back down to the altar, right? And it undermines the whole teaching of the epistle to Hebrews that there's one Sacrifice for sins forever that is never to be repeated because he got it right the first time and he never has to do it.

Again, it doesn't need tweaking. It was a perfect sacrifice that perfectly satisfied all the demands of a righteous Holy God against sin done by a perfect person. I'm glad a perfect sacrifice paid perfect work and God is perfectly satisfied and those That come to God by him are perfected forever through that one sacrifice.

Yeah, praise the Lord, right. So so this transubstantiation along with that another doctrine is introduced. Called purgatory. It's going to be very significant this purgatory thing. And so the idea is this that because Catholic salvation and maybe I should arrange explain what I mean by Catholic salvation.

Catholic Salvation, Purgatory, and the Black Death

The basic formula for Roman Catholic salvation is this faith in Christ? Plus good works equals justification. Now you ask them point-blank. Okay, how many good works do I have to do in order to be justified?

They can't tell you. So you never really know you've done enough. Right because if good works is necessary how many I have to do so so people like Mother Teresa. You read her writings destitute of any hope that she was good enough.

Because I'm not sure of the last Pope dies clean unto his Mary metal because he's not sure he's done enough. Right and there's no assurance of salvation in the Catholic system. The best you can hope for is to go to purgatory.

Where your sins will be purged for as long as it takes before you're ready to go to heaven. I love. When he by himself had purged our sins. Right. There was. Christ has already purged our sins. There's nothing left to purge.

But Catholicism brought in this idea purge purgatory. And so the best that you could hope for. Because nobody's really sure if they've done enough is is to go to purgatory. I think the better you are the less time you spend in purgatory the worse you are.

Well, you might go straight to hell or if you were kind of halfway there you might go to purgatory. But you have to spend a long time. I mean thousands of years. But however, if you make a nice donation to the Catholic Church, they might knock a few years off.

Wish I was joking. This is this is serious. This is this is what's going on. So so basically introduces this and this is gonna have some bearing. So we're saying this is kind of the zenith of the power of the Catholic Church when these things are going on purgatory is introduced transubstantiation is introduced and but in the year 1300.

Some massive changes began to occur. Actually, there's other things going on as well, but I want to just talk about the year 1300 because something comes to Europe called the Black Death the bubonic plague.

30 of the population perished. 200 million people died. Most of them without any hope. Because the Catholic system doesn't give you any hope or any assurance. And so there was tremendous despair. Throughout Europe you can just imagine it 200 million souls going into eternity.

No real hope you just imagine the despair that was in people this is all God in a sense preparing the world. For the Reformation it really was there's this disillusionment. There's no hope here. And then another thing happened in 1378 that's gonna shake the papacy to its core.

The Great Schism and the Challenge to Papal Authority

It's called the Great Schism. What happened is There were two Popes. One was in Avignon in France. The other was in Rome both claiming to be the successor of St. Peter both claiming authority for the church and These guys were nasty towards each other.

They keep excommunicating each other and the excommunications are getting worse. And so there's a kind of council that's held the Council of Constance to try and sort it out and they appointed a Third Pope, but the other two won't step down.

So now you've got three Popes. But that caused a lot of disillusionment. That caused John Wycliffe in England the fact that there were two Popes to look at Scripture. And he came with a different conclusion.

He said no Christ is the head of the church. Wow, that's a revolutionary discovery right not the Pope. And so we're going to see these things are going to cause a lot of ferment this this going on. Some other things that were preparing the way for the Reformation as well as this Great Schism.

Universities, Classical Learning, and Luther's Ideas

Oxford University opened its doors in 1096. Isn't it amazing to think of that? 1096 Cambridge University. Johnny come lately. That was 1209. Those two schools and universities in other places like Paris were open and what it would do is that Instead of now education only being available for the clergy.

Other people were now able to go and get some learning and it was classical education. So they learn Greek and they learn Latin and they had access to the Vulgate they had access to the. Eventually, they would have access once Constantinople fell to the Greek New Testament.

And so these places are going to be key places. Oxford University is going to be a Ultimately in the Methodist revival. We already heard about the Holy Club from our brother. He mentioned Wesley and Whitfield.

That's gonna have but but Cambridge University is going to have a big deal in the English Reformation and It all started in a pub. What else would you expect in England? Right, the White Horse Inn in Cambridge is where students would meet together and discuss Luther's ideas.

So, you know this these universities are going to be a key player in the coming Reformation. Actually Wycliffe was a teacher at Oxford and His Lollards. His that he would instruct in the things of God would have a great impact in England, too.

Pre-Reformation Movements and the Waldensians

So I want to mention some of the these groups that were raised up. I don't have a lot of time to go into that. I'd love to because they're fascinating different groups groups like the the Paulitions from 600 to 1 ,200.

So again 600 years they practiced the teachings of Paul mainly. Believe essentially the things that we believe but were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church the the Bogomils and the Cathars in Bulgaria.

Simple brothers in Christ. They they were purists. They wanted a pure church and they were getting back to the basics of Scripture. Petro Bruce Ian's Followers of Peter Debreu a French priest and he didn't believe in baptismal regeneration.

He opposed buildings. He destroyed crosses that were worshipped and venerated that didn't go down very well. It was not a popular thing because there's a big business in selling crosses and religious art and this guy Destroyed them.

He was an iconoclast. I'm an iconoclast. I hate idols and I remember going to an assembly and they had a big portrait behind the baptismal thing of Jesus. And I said to one of the elders what is this abomination of desolation.

Again it's idolatry. It's making basically impressions in our minds that may not be biblical at all. And the Henrichians followers of Henry of Luzon. And then of course the Waldensians. Peter Waldo and what was remarkable about him?

He was just a merchant. A lot of the others were priests who had access to learning and and they began to see that there's something wrong here and they They began to try for reform and teach scriptural truth, but this guy He was just a simple merchant from Leon.

He was gloriously saved. Was never ordained by anybody and he had a group of men to be trained called the poor men of Leon. And they went preaching the gospel all the way through much of the Alps region of Europe.

Amazing work done by the Waldensians and They taught that that only true believers were part of the Church of Christ. They they taught that the festivals and all the things of the church were no value.

You know all the holy days and all the rest of it that there was no baptismal Regeneration they denied transubstantiation. They denied purgatory that they believed that salvation was simply on the basis of faith alone in Christ alone these are great people and They they were gonna suffer tremendously in fact in 1209 There was a papal crusade not to Islam.

But a crusade organized to hunt down the Waldensians and murder them. Another group the Albigenses. Now, let's talk a little bit about the Crusades. Remember back to if you can remember this Helena was the mother of Constantine.

The Crusades, Indulgences, and the Mixture of Church and State

Remember and she she loved The Holy Land and she had made trips to the Holy Land and she even had Basilicas built there and all this kind of stuff. Well, the Muslims started making it difficult for Christians to make pilgrimage and since the days of Helena this was the thing to do.

You should and you might even pick up some relics on the way. So there was this this idea of keeping the pathway open to the Holy Land. But the Muslims were now making it somewhat difficult so there were eight Crusades that were organized against Islam.

But even in these Crusades and by the way, how do you get all these people to volunteer to do it? Well, it's simple. If you die in the Crusade all your post-baptismal sins Will be forgiven you which means you don't have to go to purgatory.

Because all your sin post-baptism is forgiven right? So what an incentive program, right? So so all of a sudden everybody's and of course, there's the several reasons why the Pope's did this one is that They they wanted to subdue the power of the growing nation states.

And if we can get say England to send all their best men on the Crusades, they're not going to be a threat to papal power. Right, and so there's there's kind of method in their madness, right? Let's let's get them all fighting our battles rather than challenging us so these eight Crusades and The irony is.

Remember our black hymn book you ever heard of this guy Bernard of Clairvaux. Jesus the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast beautiful him isn't it? Also head once filled with bruises another one of his hands.

He organized the second crusade. He also organized the create crusade against the Waldensians. Now you might show up next time you sing that him but but he was a again these some of these guys is. Almost like split personalities, right?

Seems to have a wonderful devotional life coming out in these hymns and yet a loyal son of the church. Arranging crusades for Pope's and the the the whole the templars, you know kind of. That were kind of holy nights for the crusade they were monks that were kind of cheered on by bird of Clairvaux to go and and You know, whoop the Muslims and and so some tremendous things going on at this time.

These various crusades one of them was the children's crusade and these children were so convinced that because of their innocence they could actually March to Jerusalem and take it and God because of their innocence would give it to them and most of them starved to death.

On their way to the promised land. Tragic tragic time of history put reaching Islamic world with a gospel back centuries. Because again, here we go. The mixture of church and state is always deadly. Now I believe in the power of the sword the sword of the spirit.

Right. That's the weapon way to use. Persuasion the preaching of the gospel. That's the way it's not through compulsion and using the sword of the state or These armies this is this is not the way the gospel goes forward.

John Wycliffe and the Translation of Scripture

So remember we said John Wycliffe. Well, he this Oxford scholar. He opposed transubstantiation. He was disgusted by the two popes and he saw Christ was the head of the church and he began to preach and he trained a lot of young men called the lollards these poor preachers and Translated the scriptures so that they could carry copies of the scriptures and preach from the scriptures not far from where I grew up.

There's a little kind of memorial to lollards who would be martyred. Trying to reach the north of England with the gospel and they're dotted all over the English landscape you can find these little kind of places and memorials to the martyred lollards and but Interestingly enough and again, this is where we're gonna see a weaving connections here.

This is what's so interesting to me so during the time of Wycliffe. The king in England was King Richard the second and he married Anne of Bohemia Czechoslovakia and so there was a lot of coming and going between the court of England and the court of Bohemia and somehow Wycliffe's writings Managed to find their way to Bohemia and there was a guy there called John Huss.

John Huss and the Bohemian Brethren

Remember John Huss? I've heard of him a priest in the Catholic Church got hold of the writings of Wycliffe and Began to preach the same message. Justification by faith. Christ is the head of the church just scriptural simplicity and and That was going to have a big impact and and there was a whole group called the Bohemian Brethren who were followers of John Huss but really following a lollar lollar teaching and so there's this connection this cross-pollination if you like and Of course that they invited Huss because he was still a Catholic priest.

To come to the Council of Constance where they were trying to settle the issue of the two popes. Okay, so he's invited and he's promised safe passage. Both to the Council of Constance and back to Bohemia.

But when he got there They tried him and burnt him at the stake anyway, because they said you can say anything you like to a heretic. He has no rights. And remember a heretic is anybody that disagrees with them at this point.

Actually may be more scripturally correct than they were but he's a heretic. And so John Huss is burnt at the stake the Bohemians Bohemian Brethren would be would be Persecuted mercilessly and Eventually as a result of the persecutions they would migrate and they'd be given respite by a guy called Count von Zinzendorf.

You sing some of his hymns as well, right. And He had an estate in Moravia and they became called the Moravian Brethren said the Bohemian Brethren. But it's the same people followers of Huss. Another web of connections is that it was through the Moravian Brethren that John Wesley would get converted.

So, can you see this you're going from Wycliffe to Huss to Zinzendorf to Wesley? Now we'll we'll bring those out more fully when we get to John Wesley. But I just think it's kind of amazing how these things spread and how these connections Go together just amazing things.

Revelation 3 and the Incomplete Reformation

So All these things are preparing the way for the coming Reformation now, let's go now to saw this for a moment and look at Revelation 3 as we. We're kind of ready, right? We're tired of the Dark Ages.

We're ready for the light already. Wycliffe is the morning star of the Reformation already. John Huss has caught the gospel light from Wycliffe. And so already light is breaking and all these other smaller groups that the Waldensians the Albigenses Have already been preaching the true gospel Throughout Europe and now we come to Revelation 3 and I want you to notice verse Verse 1 it says to the church to the angel of the church in Sardis.

Write these things say if he that had the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. Notice thou hast a name. And one of the things that's going to happen in the Reformation is we're gonna get a lot of things named after individuals.

Calvinism Lutheranism right in other words you have a name and we've been hearing all week long about yeah, but that name is the name of the Lord Jesus, but you have a name and Denominations are going to come about as a result of the Reformation now.

I was listening to a Catholic radio program one day. I just happened to be in, Oklahoma. Just driving down the highway, and I was looking for something to listen to and I came on this Catholic station.

And they were talking about why? Sola scripture doesn't work why you need the teaching Magisterium of the Catholic Church why you need all the traditions of the church all these various church documents and all the rest of it these canons of The church and they said because look at Protestantism look at all the denominations.

It's clear that they can't interpret the Bible themselves because there's so many different groups. And I was dying to call in. The reason is all these denominations is that you guys had made such a mess of Christianity that when they came out.

They each coming out there was a lot of baggage still to get rid of right. Luther comes out. But he still carried on some of the old baggage. And there's another group comes out of them because they can still see the back so it's divesting ourselves of years of Catholic garbage.

That's caused all these denominational splits basically because people want to get back to the scriptures. They're just taking a long time to get there. But that's their whole argument you see that well.

There's just one of us the one true church. Don't believe that for a minute. They're divided Constantly within the Catholic Church to that's just anyway you have a name so all this idea the Presbyterians the Baptists Lutheran Episcopalian Methodist gone and so on and so forth and Then it says that you live in the Reformation began with genuine life.

Wonderful life. But for the most part the churches of the Reformation today are dead. And there's reasons for that. One of the reasons we're going to see when we look at the Reformation the church state.

So all the German princes in North Germany sided with Luther South Germany went with Catholicism and so basically masses of unconverted people Became Lutheran because they happen to live in North Germany not because they believed in justification by faith or personally born again.

So you have a lot of dead people. Coming in he says in verse 2 your works are not perfect before God. Strengthen the things which remain and are ready to die for I have not found I work perfect before God.

And again the problem with the Reformation. This is why I'm not a fan of reformed theology. It just didn't go far enough. The clergy lady system. Nicolaitan ism. Came with it right. So that instead of the Catholic priest you really have the Protestant priest.

Who does everything and you watch well, he does it. Same thing. In fact, Henry Craig going back to the early days of the assembly movement. He was George Noah's Co-laborer, he wrote a book the the potpourri of Protestantism.

I Love the titles in those days. They just kind of told it like it was right the potpourri of Protestantism and There's a lot of potpourri in Protestantism. Repulsive titles were carried on like reverend or right reverend or very reverent.

Titles that are reserved for God and him alone not for men. Priestly vestments. Still carried on so the Anglicans many godly evangelical Anglicans, but some of them still dress up in their frocks and gowns.

Infant baptism. Continued on instead of believers baptism dead ritualism. Marriage of church of state and church and state that carried on right instead of the Catholic Church. Where my son is in Norway part of your taxes in Norway support the Lutheran Church government taxes support the church.

All right, so the church state marriage still going on in these things. Augustinian theology. Calvinism a millennial ism. Allegorical interpretation of scripture still carried on. It's all pulp ish baggage.

Right so It didn't go far. In fact your works are not perfect. Before God. I have not. I have not found your works perfect before God. So. But nevertheless the Reformation was an amazing thing. Now, I want to just go through the five solas of the Reformation just quickly.

The Five Solas: Scripture, Faith, Christ, Grace, and God's Glory

You you know them all but sometimes I think it's good to refresh ourselves what they were and we'll do that. And then we're done for this session because the time is almost gone first one of the Reformation instead of the church plus tradition.

So la scriptura. It was the the the soul guidance for faith and practice is now meant to be the scriptures. Did the Reformation hold on to that. No, we've got the Westminster Confession and the Augsburg Confession.

Augsburg. Luther's smaller catechism right. Lewis they still managed to mess it up a little bit, but nevertheless the Original idea of the Reformation is that that this is the sole authority for faith and practice.

The Word of God and in that sense. It's a wonderful thing. Sola fide faith alone sola Christus Christ alone sola Gratia grace alone sola Deo Gloria for the glory of God alone. Now put that together. And I say a hearty amen to the five solas.

Yes scripture is our final authority for faith and practice and salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone plus nothing not faith plus works equal justification. Faith alone in Christ alone equals justification and It's by grace alone.

By grace you're saved. And it's for the glory of God. So we have a lot to be thankful for the Reformation. But tomorrow morning we learn about the causes of the Reformation and we've already looked at some of them.

But we've got a few more to look at and then we're going to look at the main players of the Reformation. And how they came onto the scene, so let's just pray father. We're so grateful. For what was accomplished at the time of the Reformation?

Prayer for Conviction and the Sufficiency of Scripture

And we're thankful grateful for the courage of men like Martin Luther. Who could say that his conscience was captive to the Word of God? That here I stand I can do no other God help me. Lord we pray that as we go through this series that we might be men of increasing deepening conviction.

That the Word of God is enough. That Christ is enough. That faith is enough. That it's all for your glory Lord that we would get back to those wonderful simple truths. And help us Lord to divest ourselves of things that might be baggage that we're bringing with us.

So there might just be simple believers. Following the best of masters the Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray.