POLITICS AS WELL AS PAGANISM CORRUPTED THE EARLY CHURCH

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

POLITICS AS WELL AS PAGANISM CORRUPTED THE EARLY CHURCH

We resume from where we left off as we trace from cause to effect to be properly guided as to what to pay attention to, which have been taking place behind the scenes (that are not more “conspiracy theories” but prophetic facts) and thus be spiritually and mentally prepared for what greatest crisis mankind will ever face. Thus, in review we see that:

“The church at that time [even now and at the close of probation time] consisted to two widely different kinds of church members:

1. The OLD class, with their devoted leaders, had accepted Christianity in the PRIMITIVE [original apostolic purity] way, by genuine observance and SEPARATION from the world [in their religion and life practices], suffering for Christ and His unpopular truth. This class lived mostly in the country and out-of-way places.
2. The NEW converts lived mainly in the large cities, and had come through a MASS MOVEMENT, following the CROWD on what was MOST POPULAR, attracted by the hopes of TEMPORAL gain of honor, or they had been FORCED in by the SECULAR arm. These were DEVOID of any personal Christian experience, but constituting the MAJORITY [as in the more recent ‘Moral Majority,’ and lately, the growing “Christian Nationalism” movement], they ELECTED [political process] bishops of their own kind [or ‘political party’ on strictly party lines].

“The election of bishops were attended with SECRET CORRUPTION AND BLOODY VIOLENCE, which was only too natural for that ‘kind of Christians.’! The respected historian Edward Gibbon says of these elections:

“While one of the candidates boasted the honors of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered, offered to share the PLUNDER OF THE CHURCH among his accomplices of his SACRILEGIOUS hopes.’ – ‘Decline and Fall,’ chap. XX, par.22.

“Rev. H.H. Milman says:
“Even within the Church itself, the distribution of the superior dignities became an object of FATAL AMBITION AND STRIFE. The streets of Alexandria and of Constantinople were deluged with BLOOD by the partisans of RIVAL BISHOPS.’ – ‘History of Christianity,’ Book 3, chap. 5, par. 2, p. 410. NY. 1881. (From ‘Facts of Faith,’ C. Edwardson, (Revised), p. 115. Southern Pub. Asso. 1943.

Be a blessing, not a burden, to someone today. NMF