The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 67

Constantine Conquers Nicea

Constantine the conqueror!

He did not get to be emperor by being a mild mannered, slow moving guy. He had outmaneuvered, outfoxed, and outkilled all other would-be emperors.

So if he wanted to unify his empire under Christianity and sun worship, what would Constantine do with the Christians? How would he get them to be part of the unified religion that all Roman emperors wanted?

The Encyclopedia Britannica, as cited before, explains the timing of Constantine’s seizing power.

In 305 Constantine assisted his father, the newly appointed Western emperor, with a campaign in Britain. Their army proclaimed Constantine emperor after his father’s death the next year. A multisided civil war ensued between Constantine and the several other factions vying for the throne. Constantine defeated his main rival for the Western emperorship in 312 and defeated the Eastern emperor in 324 after years of strained relations, thus making Constantine sole ruler of the Roman Empire.

After Constantine became emperor of the west in 312, in 313 he and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, bringing Christianity up to the level of sun worship and other pagan religions. Then in 314, Constantine summoned the western Christian bishops to the Council of Arles, to end divisions among Christians.

In the same way, as soon as Constantine became sole ruler of the Empire in 324, what did he do?

He called the Council of Nicea in 325.

Why?

Wikipedia
This ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.

To attain consensus in all Christendom.

All Christendom united, under the Roman Empire.

Constantine, the no-nonsense conqueror, didn’t defeat all other armies by beating around the bush, so when he heard of Christian division, he attacked it. First, he wrote a letter to Alexandrian Christians taking them to task for their differences on the date of Pascha. When his letter did not end their differences, Constantine went to war.

Eusebius
For as soon as he was made acquainted with the facts which I have described, and perceived that his letter to the Alexandrian Christians had failed to produce its due effect, he at once aroused the energies of his mind, and declared that he must prosecute to the utmost this war also against the secret adversary who was disturbing the peace of the Church.

The Nicean Council was part of that war.

Constantine sent out 1800 invitations to bishops and offered to pay their way to come to his council. Forward, march!

However, you might say those Christian bishops acted Christian by saving Constantine a lot of money. They didn’t go to his council. 1500 of them did not go. Only about 300 of the 1800 invited actually attended.

So much for the assembly representing all Christendom!

Why would Christian bishops go to Rome, the seat of Satan’s world government, to seek the will of God?

They didn’t.

What about those 300 or so bishops who did attend Constantine’s council?

Whoever calls a council is ultimately in charge of the council. Those who accepted Constantine’s money also accepted him overseeing the Christians. Imagine that. The flock of Christ being overseen by the emperor of Rome!

How did Constantine feel when 1500 bishops did not accept his invitation to unify them?

Probably not real good.

How could he achieve unity when the bishops won’t even talk about being unified? Not a great start to his unity campaign!

Elders are to “reprove, rebuke and exhort,” 2 Timothy 4:2. Constantine was an unbaptized, unrepentant sinner, personally involved in sun worship and the killing of thousands of people, yet not one of those ~300 bishops reproved or rebuked the unrepentant, unbaptized emperor.

“Repent and turn to him to have your sins blotted out!” Acts 3:19, ISV.

Nobody said that, to the emperor.

Wonder why?

All those men, there to argue about Christian doctrine, ignored the most fundamental part of Christian doctrine — to be covered by the blood of the Lamb. Humans — even hoity-toity emperors — have to be redeemed by the blood and spirit of their Creator. What good does it do to dispute the date of Passover when the guy running the whole show hasn’t even accepted the Passover Lamb?

What a farce!

Notice that it was Constantine — not the Christians and not the bishops and not even the pope — who summoned the councils. Those Christian councils were called by Constantine and overseen by Constantine for the purpose of ending dissension in Constantine’s Empire —

Or to get people to agree with other people.

Not to get people to agree with God.

He did what people usually do; they put unity with each other ahead of unity with God. The absentee bishops, at least some of them, focused on agreeing with God more than agreeing with Constantine. And they didn’t need to go to a council to do that.

For those ~300 who did take the bait, though, Constantine really put on a show!

Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Book 3, Chapter 10:
Now when the appointed day arrived on which the council met for the final solution of the questions in dispute, each member was present for this in the central building of the palace, which appeared to exceed the rest in magnitude.

Notice that Eusebius said that the bishops met in the showiest part of the palace, “which appeared to exceed the rest in magnitude.”

These are guys who 15 years earlier were at risk of being slaughtered by Roman emperors. There they were meeting with the emperor in the most magnificent room available. What does that remind us of?

Matt 4
8) Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.
9) He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Constantine was the most powerful king in the world, with all the glory thereof. He obviously went to some effort to remind those bishops of that, starting with meeting in the most magnificent room in the palace.

Eusebius goes on:
On each side of the interior of this were many seats disposed in order, which were occupied by those who had been invited to attend, according to their rank.

You will recall that when Christ traveled with the twelve disciples, He always had them sit according to rank.

Well, maybe not.

No, Yeshua and the early flock did not do things that way. The rabbis did and Rome did. So the Christian bishops were seated not the way Christ wanted but the way the emperor wanted, according to rank.

That is pretty rank.

And if everyone was seated according to rank, then who ranked highest of all?

King Constantine. And as brought out elsewhere, he sat in a gold chair.

Eusebius
As soon, then, as the whole assembly had seated themselves with becoming orderliness, a general silence prevailed, in expectation of the emperor’s arrival. And first of all, three of his immediate family entered in succession, then others also preceded his approach, not of the soldiers or guards who usually accompanied him, but only friends in the faith.

Shhh!

The great emperor is about to enter, in the usual manner of kings, preceded by members of his royal family and then his personal entourage.

Members of his family?

Here’s a representation of them from the cover of the centuries later Ada Gospels.

By Palauenc05 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38781275

In that work you see a wife (Fausta), a husband (Constantine), an older son (Crispus by Constantine’s first wife), and two younger children of Fausta by Constantine, including Constantine II.

At Nicea, Constantine’s family strolled in just before his majestic appearance. How heartwarming that must have been for those Romish bishops, to see the emperor’s sweet young family joining the Christian conference on unity.

Unfortunately the very next year after that conference on unity, Constantine experienced extreme disunity in his family. He had his wife Fausta and son Crispus killed.

Crispus had been a major asset in helping Constantine win his emperor wars. Fausta had borne Constantine 3 other children. Yet Constantine had killed the son who had risked his life in battle for him, and he made his little kids motherless.

What did he say to them on the evening of killing their mother? “Hey, kids — I have a little surprise for you…”

“What, Daddy?”

…

And after that, he still did not get baptized!

But at Nicea, the emperor’s family strolled in.

Then his entourage.

And then —

Eusebius
And now, all rising at the signal which indicated the emperor’s entrance, at last he himself proceeded through the midst of the assembly, like some heavenly messenger of God, clothed in raiment which glittered as it were with rays of light, reflecting the glowing radiance of a purple robe, and adorned with the brilliant splendor of gold and precious stones.

People love to go by appearances. Constantine, in his glittering raiment, radiant purple robe, with gold and precious stones — he had the appearance!

By contrast, we recall a king who did not have that majestic appearance —

Isa 53
2) For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3) He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

Celebrities are known by their entrances and exits, and Constantine made some entrance. Was he trying to make an impression on those guys?

Jas 2
1) My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality.
2) For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your synagogue, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in;
3) and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing, and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool;”
4) haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

When Constantine emperor of Rome entered the most magnificent room in the palace, wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, a purple robe and precious stones — surely the bishops did pay special attention to him who ‘wore the fine clothing!’

Then Constantine oversaw his Christian council. He who did not seek baptism, he who did not have the spirit of Christ, and he who simply was not a Christian was the overseer of all those Christian bishops, to make sure they achieved unity.

In both councils of Arles and Nicea, the emperor went to war to quell dissension among Christians to achieve unity in his Empire. And as with his struggles against Maximian, Maxentius, and Licinius, Constantine won. He did get those bishops who attended — except for two — to agree to all speak the same thing. Then they all agreed to cast out those two, who were exiled and anathematized.

As the Britannica article said:
He made one of his largest contributions to the faith by summoning the Councils of Arles (314) and Nicaea (325), which guided church doctrine for centuries afterward.

Guided church doctrine for centuries afterward?

17 centuries!

Till when?

Till now!

Constantine’s Councils set doctrine for the Romish Church, much of which continues to this day, in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches.

What doctrine?

There were a number of points discussed at Nicea. One of the most important carried through what Hadrian began in 135.

You recall that Hadrian, in his new Jerusalem dedicated to Jupiter, forbid anything “Jewish.” This included Sabbath and Feasts, and even teaching the Hebrew scriptures themselves. Since the original flock followed the Hebrew scriptures, the only Bible at that time, and they kept the Sabbath and Feasts taught in that Bible, the early flock could not go into Hadrian’s new Jerusalem.

Not that they’d want to.

But some Gentile Christians did want to, and Jerebombed the Sabbath and Feasts so they could enter Jupiter’s city.

Later Polycarp and Polycrates contended with Rome over Passover, whether to keep it as instructed by the Bible and Christ and the apostles, or to keep it like Rome on the day of the sun. Then in 321 Constantine issued his Venerable Day of the Sun Decree when he ordered the Roman Empire to observe Sunday as a holy rest day.

Following that, in 325, the Council of Nicea finished what Hadrian began.

They ecclesiastically established that Passover was not to be observed when the Bible said, as Israel had done for centuries, and as the original flock and all the apostles had done, on the 14^th of the first month, on whatever day of the week. Nicea decided that Pascha was to be observed on the weekly day of the sun.

So Constantine decreed that Sunday was the weekly day of rest and his Council determined that Passover would also be on Sunday — all of which was acceptable to Roman Christians and sun worshipers.

That led to Rome keeping more Roman pagan days, by the same process. That process was to take part of sun worship or other pagan religions and recast it as Christian. This included the pagan festivals of Saturnalia/Christmas, Lupercalia/Valentine’s Day, and Feralia/Halloween. The same practice led to adopting many Roman pagan doctrines, such as Mary worship and having the pope be called pontifex maximus, like the Roman emperor.

Such huge changes, for Christians to go from Bible teachings to pagan practices — but with “Christian” names!

Renaming!

Have we seen this renaming technique more recently?

Remember when pro-abortion became pro-choice?

How about when sodomite transgendered into homosexual?

And living together in adultery became the acceptable practice of cohabiting with your partner.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, Shakespeare wrote. Likewise a skunk spray still stinks the same, even if it’s called kitty cologne.

So the seventh day Sabbath, begun at creation to remember the Creator, morphed into the venerable day of the sun. And Passover and the Bible Feasts, God’s prophetic time plan, morphed into the old Roman festivals.

There is no Bible command having anything to do with the venerable day of the sun. To change the Sabbath destroys the Ten Commandments. To change a festival is the sin of Jeroboam.

Big changes.

So who is the authority for these great changes?

The Church. The Church had the authority to do that.

Who said that?

The Church.

The authority for those changes was not the Bible, not the apostles, not Christ Himself. The authority was the Church, which was a small minority of bishops under the thumb of a Roman emperor who was still the companion of Sol Invictus. They decided what all Christians must believe to be Christian

Unity!

Further, they made a writing, the Nicene Creed, that all Christians must accept — in the same way that earlier Roman emperors had made proclamations commanding religious unity. Since they say that salvation depends on accepting that writing, that puts the Nicene Creed on a par with the Bible itself as holy writ.

Do you see what happened there?

It wasn’t just the points that were changed. It changed who people were pointed to — the spiritual authority in life. Someone got in front of Christ the King, and declared what days were holy, what writ was holy, and who was holy.

So who then was holy?

The holy father and his Church that everyone had to go through to get to Christ.

Not really.

Rev 4
8) The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within. They have no rest day and night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come!”

The Roman Church had just merged with the old Roman Empire and then positioned itself between the people and their Creator. The Romish Christians did just as Israel had done in the time of Balaam. They mixed with Moab.

Num 25
1) Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab:
2) for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods; and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods.

Instead of the King of the Jews, the Jews chose Caesar as their king. Three centuries later the Romish Christians also chose Caesar as their king, instead of the King of Kings.

After the council, their king sent the bishops home, mission accomplished.

The business of the Council having been finished Constantine celebrated the twentieth anniversary of his accession to the empire, and invited the bishops to a splendid repast, at the end of which each of them received rich presents. Several days later the emperor commanded that a final session should be held, at which he assisted in order to exhort the bishops to work for the maintenance of peace; he commended himself to their prayers, and authorized the fathers to return to their dioceses, newadvent.org, The First Council of Nicea, 11/2/19

People always want to put somebody between them and their King. Will they ever learn?

Not yet.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 66

Constantine’s Various Visions

Were Constantine’s visions prophecies, or just propaganda?

Constantine claimed he was told in a dream to fight his battles under a Christian symbol.

Or — he saw a vision telling him to fight with the words “in this sign conquer.”

Or — he was told to fight because he had seen a vision of the sun god Apollo.

Encyclopedia Britannica, article Constantine I —
He fought the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in the name of the Christian God, having received instructions in a dream to paint the Christian monogram (Chi-Rho, known as the sacred monogram, is formed by the conjunction of the first two Greek letters of the word Christ.) on his troops’ shields. This is the account given by the Christian apologist Lactantius. A somewhat different version, offered by Eusebius, tells of a vision seen by Constantine during the campaign against Maxentius, in which the Christian sign appeared in the sky with the legend “In this sign, conquer.” Despite the emperor’s own authority for the account, given late in life to Eusebius, it is in general more problematic than the other, but a religious experience on the march from Gaul is suggested also by a pagan orator, who in a speech of 310 referred to a vision of Apollo received by Constantine at a shrine in Gaul.

Three heavenly visions, all different, from 2 different divinities. Were Constantine’s visions real prophecies or really just propaganda?

Galerius, a junior emperor, persuaded emperor Diocletian to persecute the Christians. When Diocletian abdicated his position in 305, Galerius became emperor. Then he got to do his own persecuting.

However, that tenth persecution no more ended the Christian wave than the first nine did. After a few years as persecutor maximus, Galerius came down with his final illness. He then called off his persecution with the Edict of Toleration in 311.

Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. II says,
The experience of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflection which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people or to subdue their religious prejudices.

On his deathbed, Galerius requested the Christians to pray to their God for the emperor. They probably did, but he died anyway and he did not get baptized as a Christian.

By 313, only two emperors of the Tetrarchy were left, Constantine in the west and Licinius in the east. Together they issued the Edict of Milan, which accepted the Christian religion as it did all others. This approach of pluralism, accepting all gods or religions, seems good to human reason. The big flaw in that thinking, however, is that the Christian God is real; all others are just human fairy tales.

“Galerius [in his Edict of Toleration] thus recognized the divine authority of the Christian God and the pagan deities, but maintained them as separate concepts. Later Licinius and Constantine [in their Edict of Milan] carried the development a step farther by combining them, and by showing devotion … to an unnamed and impersonal deity, — variously called summus deus, summa divinitas, mens divina, — who was not the exclusive property of the Christians or any sect, but might be common to all religious faiths, although differing in aspect and emanation to each and every faith.”
The Edict of Galerius (311 A. D.) re-considered [article], J. R. Knipfing, Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire Année 1922, https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1922_num_1_4_6200, 9/11/19

Notice the concept there. God is in all religions, but with a different appearance in each. So in the Edict of Milan, Constantine did not name any one specific god, like Apollo or Mithra or Yahweh. Since they are all aspects of a common religion, he only used terms that were acceptable to all religions. No Christ or Jesus in there.

In 321, Constantine issued his famous Sunday decree, “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” As with his titles for God in the Edict of Milan, the Sunday decree was acceptable to both Romish Christians and sun worshipers.

Constantine chose Sunday to be the day for Christian worship as it already enjoyed special status in the Roman week. Named after the Pagan Sun God Invictus, Sunday had become the day when wages were traditionally paid to workers, leading it to be seen as a day of celebration and thanks. In corresponding the Christian Sabbath with an already established day of rest, Constantine ensured that his decree would be accepted swiftly and harmoniously.
Constantine Decrees “Sun-Day” as Day of Rest, 7 March 321, History Channel, This Day in History.

Sun worship has had many forms and names. One was Mithra.

Sunday, the day of the Sun, was especially sacred, as was the 25^th of December, the birthday of the god Mithras. This day was celebrated by sacred festivals.
Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age, By Antonia Tripolitis, 2002, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI

Another form of sun worship was Sol Invictus, Unconquered Sun. Emperors, including Constantine, often issued coins imprinted with their own likeness and Sol Invictus, to show that the sun god was with the emperor. On his coinage, Constantine frequently used the phrase SOLI INVICTO COMITI, or “companion to the emperor.”

Coin of Emperor Constantine I depicting Solis Invictus with the legend SOLIS INVICTO COMITI, c. 315, by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.
http://www.cngcoins.com, used by permission.

The Arch of Constantine stands to this day next to the Colosseum in Rome. It was built to glorify Constantine for his victory over a fellow co-emperor, and included a scene of “sacrificial ceremonies in honour of Hercules, Apollo, Diana and Silvanus.” It also has “river gods above the two smaller arches,” and “a single round sculpture depicting the Sun (east side) and Moon (west side), both riding chariots.” https://www.ancient.eu/article/497/the-arch-of-constantine-rome

In fact, the Arch was specifically built to align with the huge statue of Sol. Someone approaching the Arch of Constantine would see big Sol right behind the emperor.
E. Marlowe, “Framing the sun. The Arch of Constantine and the Roman cityscape”, Art Bulletin 88 (2006) 223–242.

The Arch of Constantine, with this inscription
To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, the greatest, pious, and blessed Augustus: because he, inspired by the divine, and by the greatness of his mind, has delivered the state from the tyrant and all of his followers at the same time, with his army and just force of arms, the Senate and People of Rome have dedicated this arch, decorated with triumphs.
By RClay – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25978188

Since Constantine still allowed and participated in paganism —

Did he really see Christian symbols in a dream, or did he just see the writing on the wall?

What writing?

Roman emperors had long used religion to help unify the Empire. That’s why they made emperors gods.

Vespasian, “In his last illness he said, “Vae, puto deus fio.”

Translated, the dying Vespasian said, “Oh dear, I think I’m becoming a god.”

Sure enough, “after his death he was immediately accorded deification,” Encyclopedia Britannica, “Vespasian”.

Would he have preferred being a live human or a dead god? It does make you wonder.

All the emperors who persecuted Christians were simply trying to use religion, including emperor worship, to unify the Empire. The Christians wouldn’t offer sacrifice to the emperors, so the emperors sacrificed the Christians.

Over the centuries, emperor worship declined in emphasis but emperors still wanted religious unity. Aurelian, who reigned a few decades before Constantine, tried to create religious unity in the Empire under one form of sun worship. That was a logical choice, since sun worship was already the most common religion in the Empire.

He sought to subordinate the divergent religions of the empire to the cult of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus) and so create the kind of religious unity that came only later with Constantine, Encyclopedia Britannica, Aurelian.

Aurelian strengthened the position of the Sun god Sol Invictus as the main divinity of the Roman pantheon. His intention was to give to all the peoples of the Empire, civilian or soldiers, easterners or westerners, a single god they could believe in without betraying their own gods…During his short rule, Aurelian seemed to follow the principle of “one faith, one empire”, which would not be made official until the Edict of Thessalonica. Wikipedia, Aurelian, 9/16/19.

Notice the crucial points there:
1. a single god they could believe in without betraying their own gods;
2. the principle of one faith, one empire.

Rome had tried to unify the Empire religiously by eliminating Christianity. After about 250 years, from Nero to Galerius, any fool — or emperor — could see that didn’t work. When centuries of trying to unite Rome without Christianity failed, did Constantine see the writing on the wall and then shrewdly decide to unite Rome —

Under Christianity and sun worship?

Did he simply carry on Aurelian’s principle of one faith, one empire —

And then combine ever popular sun worship with Romish Christianity to make a faith that sun worshipers and Christians would accept?

Remember that from the time of Hadrian there were 2 Christian groups, those who were like the original flock and those who were like Rome. The original flock kept the Bible days, as did the Jews and only looked to Christ to govern them. The Romish Christians adopted Roman days — which were the same days that pagans kept. And their government was Rome.

The Encyclopedia Britannica explains how Constantine seized power, to move from the Tetrarchy to the Con-archy.

In 305 Constantine assisted his father, the newly appointed Western emperor, with a campaign in Britain. Their army proclaimed Constantine emperor after his father’s death the next year. A multisided civil war ensued between Constantine and the several other factions vying for the throne. Constantine defeated his main rival for the Western emperorship in 312 and defeated the Eastern emperor in 324 after years of strained relations, thus making Constantine sole ruler of the Roman Empire.

Notice the dates of his accessions. In 312, Constantine became emperor of the west. In 313, he and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan. Then in 314, the very next year, Constantine summoned the western Christian bishops to the Council of Arles.

Encyclopedia Britannica
Council of Arles, (AD 314), the first representative meeting of Christian bishops in the Western Roman Empire. It was convened at Arles in southern Gaul in August 314 by Emperor Constantine I, primarily to deal with the problem of the Donatists, a schismatic Christian group in North Africa.

Who called this council? The Christians as a whole, or the elders, or the big bishop of Rome, later called the pope? Did any of those call that council?

No.

Constantine called this council —

To eliminate schisms among Christians.

No other emperors had fretted about differences among Christians. So what did he care if there were differences among the Christians?

Like all other emperors before him, Constantine wanted to achieve unity in religion in his empire.

Encyclopedia Britannica
At Arles the Donatists were again condemned, but they rejected the decisions reached by the council and again appealed to Constantine to review their case.

Donatists refused to accept ruling bishops who had caved in to Rome during the recent persecution, a fairly conservative group. Yet to whom did the Donatist Christians appeal to settle this Christian dispute?

They appealed to Constantine.

Constantine wasn’t even a Christian!

He deliberately refused to be baptized, until he was on his deathbed. Obviously, he did not think he needed the Redeemer until he was ready to die. The King of the Roman Empire did not bow to the King of heaven until he was about to be dethroned into the dust of the earth.

In refusing to be baptized, Constantine did not think that he individually needed the spirit of Christ to overcome himself. Somehow he — the emperor! — was above that personal need. Apparently, Constantine just wasn’t that carnal, OK?

By contrast, this woman had a great personal need.

Luke 7
36) One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered into the Pharisee’s house, and sat at the table.
37) Behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of
intment.
38) Standing behind at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
39) Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner.”
40) Yeshua answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” He said, “Teacher, say on.”
41) “A certain lender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42) When they couldn’t pay, he forgave them both. Which of them therefore will love him most?”
43) Simon answered, “He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the most.” He said to him, “You have judged correctly.”
44) Turning to the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered into your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head.
45) You gave me no kiss, but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet.
46) You didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
47) Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
48) He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Now who was Emperor Constantine like, the repentant woman or the proud Pharisee?

Baptism is to be washed clean of your sins, if you have any.

Acts 3:19
19) “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,

Acts 2
36) “Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Yeshua whom you crucified.”
37) Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38) Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Yeshua Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Constantine was not cut to the heart.

He did not see the need to be washed clean of his sins, he refused to repent and humbly seek baptism to cover his sins with the blood of the Savior, and he saw no need for the Holy Spirit in his life. He was Constantine the Great.

In short, Constantine, the great Christian emperor — DENIED CHRIST!

More than his contradictory visions, more than his sun god support, and more than his participation in pagan rites, Constantine’s refusal to seek baptism shows his real view of Christianity. It was not a faith to change a person’s life, to change his life, but just a tool to help unify the Empire — his empire. One faith, one Empire, combining old sun worship with Roman Christianity.

So this is the guy that the Donatist Christians wanted to settle their Christian dispute. But Constantine the non-Christian had called the Christian council to seek unity and when the Donatists did not go along — surprise, surprise! — he refused their appeal.

When centuries of trying to unite Rome without Christianity failed, did Constantine shrewdly decide to unite Rome —

Under Christianity and sun worship?

Absolutely. We know he decided to do that because that’s what he did.

Constantine did follow through with Aurelian’s principles of Empire religion.

1. a single god they could believe in without betraying their own gods;

That means a religion that is above all other religions, but accepts practices from those other religions.

2. the principle of one faith, one empire.

Such an empire means that humans have achieved unity without the Holy Spirit of God.

Constantine and the Christian Roman Empire that followed him did mesh much of Roman paganism right into Roman Christianity. Pagan peoples had little difficulty accepting a Christian religion that included their doctrines and days. All they had to do was change a few names and then keep on truckin’.

Constantine and his Christian successors did not fully succeed in one faith in their Empire. There was always a remnant of those who did not give in to Hadrian, who would not offer the emperor a pinch of incense, and who would not — even at cost of their own lives — accept Rome’s pagan-Christian combo religion, when Rome again persecuted them. This scattered flock was not under the government of Rome, even Christian Rome, but only under the government of Christ the King.

Those principles of Rome, a single god, accepting but above all other gods, and one faith, one empire —

A religion over all religions, that everyone must be in, but that accepts all other religions, except for those hardheaded, intolerant, judgmental Christians —

That Rome will be seen again as Satan ends his rule.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 65

Balaam, Emperor of Rome

The Jews declared that Caesar was their king. “We have no king except Caesar,” John 19:15.

Would the Christians do the same thing?

Actually, the whole world had some kind of Caesar or king, except for the Christians —

Who had the Son of God.

Soon after the Flood, Nimrod set himself up as the first emperor, king or Caesar. Yahweh did not set Nimrod up as a king. God didn’t even set up Noah or Shem as king. God did not set any human being as king of the earth.

In fact, He did the opposite.

Instead of putting everyone under one ruler, God told them to spread out around the earth, so it was geographically impossible — at that time — for one human king to rule over all people. Yahweh Himself was their king and He was the only one who could rule over all humanity, spread all over the world.

But Satan has another system —

Centralized human power.

So all over the earth, humanity rejected their heavenly King and set up human kings, with each king trying to climb above all the others. The best killer became the biggest king. “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh” — a mighty hunter of people.

Later, Yahweh rescued Israel from Pharaoh in Egypt and carried them to the Promised Land. Instead of giving them another Pharaoh, He gave them judges to teach His laws and judgments. Yahweh Himself was still their king.

But Israel rejected Yahweh as king and demanded a king they could see. Judah did have some good kings, perhaps 7, but none were perfect as Yahweh is. Most of Judah’s and Samaria’s kings were bad, like 34 out of 41, leading the people into lawlessness. The kingdom of Israel/Samaria was destroyed and in Judah, the throne of David was in ruins.

When the Jews returned from Babylon, they again had a nation but they did not have a king of David’s line. They had wanted a king like the world, so they were put under the kings of the world. However, they were promised that a descendant of good King David would be given the throne of David.

Ezek 21 Jewish Publication Society Tanakh 1917

25) thus saith the Lord GOD: The mitre shall be removed, and the crown taken off; this shall be no more the same: that which is low shall be exalted, and that which is high abased.
26) A ruin, a ruin, a ruin, will I make it; this also shall be no more, until he comes whose right it is, and I will give it him.

The kingship was in ruins and would be no more, until He came whose right it is.

And then He came…

Yeshua, the King of the Jews, came to rebuild the ruins of David’s throne and to establish the Kingdom of God.

Matt 13
47) “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet, that was cast into the sea, and gathered some fish of every kind,
48) which, when it was filled, they drew up on the beach. They sat down, and gathered the good into containers, but the bad they threw away.
49) So will it be in the end of the world. The angels will come forth, and separate the wicked from among the righteous,
50) and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.”

The King of the Kingdom of Heaven is gathering the subjects of His kingdom. Like Israel in Egypt, these subjects were slaves — but slaves of sinful human nature. They are redeemed by Yahweh from sin and their sinful nature, and follow no other king but Him. Only He can free them from the slavery of sin.

The King gathers His subjects together into a scattered flock, leading them through the wilderness of Satan’s world. He gives them His spirit to overcome Satan, Satan’s world, and their own human nature.

The earliest Christians wanted to huddle together in Jerusalem and wait for the Kingdom of God. After the Flood, “Yahweh scattered them [the people] abroad on the surface of all the earth,” Gen 11:9. In the same way, Yeshua had the Christianos scatter from Jerusalem, to spread the message of the King.

Yeshua did not appoint a pope, chief apostle, or overarching archbishop to rule His flock. In reality, no human could rule over all those dispersed people. Only Yahweh Himself, as Yeshua the salvation of Yahweh, could reign over His scattered flock.

However, this scattered assembly soon wanted to set up visible human rulers to follow. Corinth tried to do that with Paul, Peter and Apollo. Later Marcus became the first Gentile bishop over the Jerusalem area and he led the Christians who stayed there into anomia, or Commandment breaking. In time, many other bishops gradually acquired elevated titles, distinctive dress, and pontifical prestige and power — like Christian rabbis.

Matt 23
5) …They make their phylacteries broad, enlarge the fringes of their garments,
6) and love the place of honor at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues,
7) the salutations in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’ by men.

Christian religious rulers ruled a diocese like mini-kings, following the common pattern of putting human kings between them and the heavenly King. The most prestigious bishop of all came to be the bishop of Rome. Since the emperor of Rome ruled the carnal world, it seemed natural that the bishop of Rome should rule the ecclesiastical world. Caesar was the pontifex maximus of the empire. The bishop of Rome would be the pontifex maximus of the religious empire.

However, there came a time when the pontifex maximus of the Roman Empire became like the pontifex maximus of the Roman Church.

The emperors of Rome persecuted Christians for two and a half centuries. For  as long as the history of the United States from the late 18^th century to the early 21^st century, Rome tried to exterminate the people of Christ.

That didn’t work.

Then Satan tried a new tactic, a subtle approach, a different twist, a different fist —

Constantine.

Constantine was a fairly typical Roman emperor.

Not good.

One writer for the Foundation for Economic Education, Lawrence Reed, tried to answer the question, “Who would you rank as the Empire’s worst Emperor?”

I deplore concentrated power so I really don’t like any of them. Of the grand total of 178 emperors—81 in the Western Empire and 97 in the Eastern—dozens of them were loathsome tyrants with little redeeming value.

Power does so much more than corrupt. It attracts the already-corrupted and gives them the wherewithal to administer their corruption. It feeds on arrogance, narcissism, and self-deception. It dements the mind until it embraces schemes that ruin the lives of others. It rots the soul. I can think of no more destructive motivation than the lust for it. Rare is the individual who emerges a better person for having possessed it. Roman history demonstrates these truths vividly.

Power rots the soul. This is true of political or church positions. The more power, the more rot.

Reed then mentioned some of the worst of the rotten Roman emperors, like Nero who used Christians for torches; Commodus, who had a harem of 300 young women and 300 boys, and could have passed for a modern day Democrat; and Elagabalus, of whom one historian said, “The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” on account of his “unspeakably disgusting life.” Reed then concludes that Caligula was the worst of all. History calls him the mad emperor, but often tries to say that his evils were caused by a mental disease instead of a spiritual one.

In trying to pick the worst Roman emperor, Reed observes, “Picking a really bad despot out of 178 despots is like shooting fish in a barrel. You’ll get one no matter where you aim.”

He concludes his article this way.

The intoxicant known as power knows no equal. It is malevolent by its very nature. It has enslaved, tortured, and murdered more people than any other poisonous impulse in history. Perhaps the philosopher Eric Hoffer put it best when he wrote,… “absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes.”
https://fee.org/articles/caligula-plumbing-the-depths-of-ancient-tyranny, 9/24/19

Interesting concept — “absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes.” Was there ever a dictator, political or ecclesiastical, who wasn’t trying to do good for his people?

And then there was Constantine.

Constantine is not called just Constantine, as Nero was called Nero or Tiberius was called Tiberius. Even to this day Constantine is called —

“Constantine the Great!”

Why?

Because he was the first Christian emperor and set the course of the Empire and the Church for centuries.

How can the one who is hailed as the first Christian emperor, who formed European and Christian culture, be a typical Roman emperor?

For one thing, Constantine got his position, like Augustus and others, by killing off his competition. Then as emperor, he fought repeated wars, including civil wars against his fellow Romans, to secure his own position. Pretty typical emperor there.

Diocletian had reorganized the Empire government into the Tetrarchy, rule of four. He appointed fellow officer Maximian with the title of augustus or co-emperor in 286. In 293, Diocletian appointed Galerius and Constantius, Constantine’s father, as caesars, or junior co-emperors. Those four men, the Tetrarchy, each ruled over a quarter of the vast empire, from Britain to Egypt.

Diocletian and Maximian both abdicated in 305. That raised Galerius and Constantius to augustus or full emperors, and then they appointed two new caesars or junior emperors, Maximunus and Severus.

Well, can you guess what happened?

That’s right. Power hungry men do not like to share power, so the Tetrarchy led to anarchy —

Civil war. Each emperor wanted to be the new Nimrod.

Constantine prevailed. In those civil wars, he was the most uncivil.

Constantine killed Maximian, his wife’s father, who had returned from retirement. Later Constantine defeated Maximian’s son Maxentius — Constantine’s brother-in-law — and paraded his head through Rome. Finally Constantine defeated Licinius, another co-ruler, and had him executed, along with his son, who was Constantine’s nephew.

Thus Constantine defeated the Tetrarchy and Rome again had a monarchy —

Actually a Conarchy — just Constantine.

So Constantine became emperor in the typical way. He killed off all the competition.

Those weren’t all he killed.

Remember what Augustus said about King Herod, that it was better to be his hog than his son? Herod didn’t kill swine because he didn’t eat pork, but he did kill his sons to protect his own position.

Constantine was a little different. He killed his hogs and his wife and son. It seems that his wife Fausta condemned Crispus, Constantine’s son by another wife, and Constantine had Crispus killed. Later it seems that Fausta implicated Crispus only to augment the position of her own sons by Constantine, so Constantine had her killed. Such actions are not that unusual for a dictator.

Constantine was a superior military leader. He had to be, to kill off all his competition.

Encyclopedia Britannica, article Constantine I —
In military policy Constantine enjoyed unbroken success, with triumphs over the Franks, Sarmatians, and Goths to add to his victories in the civil wars; the latter, in particular, show a bold and imaginative mastery of strategy. Constantine was totally ruthless toward his political enemies, while his legislation, apart from its concessions to Christianity, is notable mainly for a brutality that became characteristic of late Roman enforcement of law.

Constantine ruled brutally. That’s what emperors did; that’s what he did. That’s not what Christians did.

He is hailed to this day as the first Christian emperor, who changed Rome from an empire that killed Christians into a Christian empire.

When Balaam couldn’t curse Israel, he brought a curse on them by getting them to mix with Moab. Almost two millennia later, Satan did the same thing with the Christians. When the power of Rome could not eliminate the Christians, Satan simply got the Christians to join Rome. And that’s where Constantine came in.

God uses power centered in Himself. Satan uses power centered in people. But Satan often leads the multitudes to think these power mongers are led by God. What’s more, the power mongers, whether in religions or in reichs, themselves often believe they are led by God.

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work. Adolf Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

This is a great lesson of the past and for the future. Satan deceives people to believe that power mongers are led by God. And the power mongers are so deceptive and effective in their role because they believe it themselves. ‘Follow me as I follow God!’

So did God use Constantine to make the Roman Empire Christian? Or did Satan use Constantine to merge the Roman Church into the Roman Empire? Was Constantine a great Christian emperor who helped make Europe Christian? Or did Constantine pull off one of the greatest con games in history?

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 64

If the Right One Don’t Get You…

Satan is the great deceiver. He deceives the whole world. People underestimate him, at their peril.

The human heart is also deceitful above all things.

So when you combine the natural human tendency to deceive itself with the power of the great deceiver –

You get a lot of deceived people.

What does it mean to be deceived?

It means that they think wrong is right, and right is wrong. Most of all, the deceived think they are right, regardless of what the Word of God says. They simply twist the words of the Bible to say what they want them to say.

In 1955, Tennessee Ernie Ford had a hit song that was number one for ten weeks. That song, Sixteen Tons, about a coal miner, had this line.

One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don’t get you, then the left one will.

Satan uses that left-right approach. He tries force, and if that doesn’t work, he tries seduction. As he did with Balaam and Israel.

Balak, the king of Moab, tried to bribe Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam was a strange guy, for sure. In Joshua 13:22, he is called, in English, a soothsayer. That same Hebrew word [qacam] is used elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures for a diviner or sorcerer.

Deut 18
10) There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices sorcery, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer,

14) For these nations, that you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice sorcery, and to diviners; but as for you, Yahweh your God has not allowed you so to do.

An Israelite who was a diviner was to be put to death.

Lev 20
27) “‘A man or a woman that is a medium, or is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones; their blood shall be upon them.’”

But Balaam the diviner was a Midianite, not an Israelite, so he was alive and well.

He obviously had a reputation for communicating with the spirit world, which is why the king of Moab went to him. The modern world with its emphasis on “science” totally discounts a spirit world beyond the physical that can be seen. These scientists and rationalists conceitedly think they can see everything that is. As the end time draws on, these folks are in for a big shock, as Satan and his demons become more apparent. Somehow Balaam was familiar with the spirit world and was able to communicate with it, as was the witch of Endor that Saul went to, who had a “familiar spirit.”

Balaam knew who Yahweh was, knew how Yahweh was and, in a bit of a surprise, the spirit of God gave messages through him, just not the ones that Balaam wanted.

Num 22
2) Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.
3) Moab was very afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.
4) Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this multitude will lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.” Balak the son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time.
5) He sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the River, to the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, “Behold, there is a people who came out from Egypt. Behold, they cover the surface of the earth, and they are staying opposite me.
6) Please come now therefore curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: perhaps I shall prevail, that we may strike them, and that I may drive them out of the land; for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”
7) The elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came to Balaam, and spoke to him the words of Balak.

The rewards of divination = prophecies for sale. It said there that by whatever power, whoever Balaam blessed was blessed and whoever he cursed was cursed. So Balaam wanted to curse Israel and get the rewards of divination. Like many would-be prophets, he thought prophesying should be profitable. Many modern evangelists also think they should be well paid. After all, important executives in worldly corporations make high salaries, don’t they?

But when Balaam took the proposal to curse Yahweh’s people to Yahweh, Yahweh heard him, answered him –

And disagreed with him.

12) God said to Balaam, “You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people; for they are blessed.”

Well, what little lesson can we learn from that?

Simply this. If you are really part of spiritual Israel, you are blessed and uncursable.

Ok, that’s not a little lesson, that’s a big lesson.

So Balaam gave Yahweh’s message to Balak. The Moabite king then upped the price, but Balaam answered —

18) Balaam answered the servants of Balak, “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can’t go beyond the word of Yahweh my God, to do less or more.

Strange – Balaam there called Yahweh his God.

Balaam did double check with Yahweh, though, about cursing Yahweh’s people and getting the bribe, just to make sure it was still a no-go.

19) Now therefore, please wait also here this night, that I may know what Yahweh will speak to me more.”
20) God came to Balaam at night, and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak to you, that you shall do.”

You recall that when Yahweh planned to destroy Israel after the golden calf, Moses protested.

Exod 32
9) Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.
10) Now therefore leave me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of you a great nation.”

That was quite an inducement to Moses, to have Yahweh’s people come from Moses. They would still be from Abraham, but only through Moses. Moses, though, overlooked his own glory and pleaded with God not to destroy Israel.

11) Moses begged Yahweh his God, and said, “Yahweh, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, that you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12) Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘He brought them forth for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people.
13) Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky, and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.’”
14) Yahweh repented of the evil which he said he would do to his people.

Moses refused the inducement. But when Yahweh told Balaam to go ahead and go to Balak –

Balaam did not protest.

In fact, he left early the next morning. He wanted to curse Israel, or at least he wanted Balak’s bribe.

Num 22
21) Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab.

It seems that Balaam was too eager. His income seemed too meager. It’s like he got Balak’s boys out of bed — “Hurry up, guys. Let’s go!” Perhaps that’s why God, after telling him to go, got angry when he went.

22) God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of Yahweh placed himself in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.
23) The donkey saw the angel of Yahweh standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and the donkey turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam struck the donkey, to turn her into the way.

Who was this angel of Yahweh looking to kill Balaam with the sword? Consistently in the Old Testament, the angel of Yahweh refers to the one who became the Messiah.

Balaam was on his way to get riches and power, and he couldn’t get his donkey to stay on the road. Haven’t we all had a morning like that, where we just couldn’t get our donkey to stay on the road? Poor Balaam was out in left field, and he didn’t even play baseball.

24) Then the angel of Yahweh stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.
25) The donkey saw the angel of Yahweh, and she thrust herself to the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall: and he struck her again.
26) The angel of Yahweh went further, and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.

That was a pretty smart donkey. When he saw the heavenly messenger in the road, he just walked off the road out into a field. That’s pretty smart. Then when stuck between two walls, the donkey crashed into one of them. Finally, with no place at all to go, the donkey just lay down in the road. Pretty smart donkey! Don’t mess with a sword swinging angel!

27) The donkey saw the angel of Yahweh, and she lay down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff.

Oh, yeah – that smart donkey could also talk.

Usually donkeys bray. That donkey talked.

28) Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”
29) Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have mocked me, I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would have killed you.”
30) The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Was I ever in the habit of doing so to you?”

We need to visualize the scene here. Balaam apparently was used to receiving certain supernatural visions, but we can say with some confidence that he had never before discussed his travel plans with his donkey.

In spite of that unusual situation, Balaam continued this conversation and honestly answered the donkey’s question.

30) He said, “No.”

Again we have to keep the visual picture before us. The donkey asked Balaam, ‘Have I treated you like this before?’ What happened then? Balaam raised his right eyebrow, thoughtfully rolled his eyes upward, then his voice trailed off as he said, “Nooooo…”

Surely by this time Balaam must have been thinking, ‘That is one smart donkey…’

And the donkey was thinking, ‘That is one dumb dude.’

31) Then Yahweh opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of Yahweh standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand; and he bowed his head, and fell on his face.
32) The angel of Yahweh said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come forth as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me:
33) and the donkey saw me, and turned aside before me these three times. Unless she had turned aside from me, surely now I would have killed you, and saved her alive.”

This brings up one of the great theological questions in the Bible, about Balaam and his donkey, which through centuries of time theologians have never satisfactorily answered –

Which one of those two was really the donkey?

34) Balaam said to the angel of Yahweh, “I have sinned; for I didn’t know that you stood in the way against me. Now therefore, if it displeases you, I will go back again.”
35) The angel of Yahweh said to Balaam, “Go with the men; but only the word that I shall speak to you, that you shall speak.” So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

So again, there is the angel of Yahweh giving the word of Yahweh — the word that I shall speak to you, that you shall speak. And that would seem to be the one who became the Messiah.

Even Balaam’s donkey could have figured out that Yahweh did not want Balaam to curse Yahweh’s people. But when Balaam was told to go to Balak, the greedy prophet again did not protest.

When Balaam met Balak, the Moabite king took him to a worship place of Baal, a high place where they could see the multitudes of Israel.

Num 22
41) It happened in the morning, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal; and he saw from there the utmost part of the people.

So there you have Balak, Balaam and Baal. They went to a high place of Baal to get Yahweh to curse Israel.

That won’t work. The intended curse became a blessing.

Num 23
7) [Balaam] took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.
8) How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy whom Yahweh has not defied?
9) For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.
10) Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous! Let my last end be like his!”

Isn’t it interesting that Israel, who later wanted a king like all the nations, was not to be counted among the nations? They were to be different than all other nations, different than Moab and Midian, and were not even to intermix with them.

Just as happened with Satan and Job, the curse of the devil became the blessing of God.

11) Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them altogether.”
12) He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which Yahweh puts in my mouth?”

Then Balak took Balaam to another high place, maybe hoping that the God of Israel wasn’t over there. But He was, and Yahweh again put words in Balaam’s mouth.

20) Behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can’t reverse it.
21) He has not seen iniquity in Jacob. Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel. Yahweh his God is with him. The shout of a king is among them.
22) God brings them out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox.

Or as the Jewish Tanakh puts it, “the shouting for the King is among them.”

Balak was Moab’s king. Yahweh was Israel’s King. So if Balaam knew that Israel’s king Yahweh was among them, why was he so eager to go with Balak? Ah, the rewards of divination, the profits of a prophet, gold before God.

Balak took Balaam to still another high place, thinking the curse might work from there.

Nope. Didn’t work from there, either. Balaam blessed Israel again.

Num 24
8) God brings [Israel] out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox. He shall eat up the nations his adversaries, shall break their bones in pieces, and pierce them with his arrows.
9) He crouched, he lay down as a lion, as a lioness; who shall rouse him up? Everyone who blesses you is blessed. Everyone who curses you is cursed.”
10) Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together; and Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times.
11) Therefore now flee you to your place! I thought to promote you to great honor; but, behold, Yahweh has kept you back from honor.”

But before Balaam left, he apparently did two things.

One, he blessed Israel again and included a curse on Moab.

Num 24
15) He took up his parable, and said, “Balaam the son of Beor says, the man whose eye was closed says;
16) he says, who hears the words of God, knows the knowledge of the Most High, and who sees the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open:
17) I see him, but not now. I see him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel, and shall strike through the corners of Moab, and break down all the sons of Sheth.
18) Edom shall be a possession. Seir, his enemies, also shall be a possession, while Israel does valiantly.
19) Out of Jacob shall one have dominion, and shall destroy the remnant from the city.”

So the first thing that Balaam did was to further bless Israel and then to curse Moab. After that, Balak went back to his kingdom and Balaam went back to where he had come from.

So what was that second thing that Balaam did?

Balaam in mentioned several more times in the Bible.

2Pet 2
15) forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing;

Jude 1
11) Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

Rev 2
14) But I have a few things against you [Pergamum], because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.

At some point, Balaam, who couldn’t curse Israel, taught Balak how to bring a curse on Israel. He simply got Israel to mix with Moab, so they absorbed their pagan morality, which included sexual immorality.

The same thing has happened in America’s government anti-Christ schools. Baal wasn’t real. There was absolutely nothing there. All pagan religions are just human reason, idiotic ideas in the absence of God. In the same way, modern scientism and humanism are just human reason — idiotic ideas in the absence of God. Scientism and humanism are religious beliefs, about creation and existence, just as Baalism was. America’s young people, including almost all from Christian families, mix with Moab almost every day when they are taught the religion of Baal — human ideas about life, without including God.

And the plague of opposing God has now fallen on the nation of America, as it fell on Israel.

Num 25
1) Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab:
2) for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods; and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods.
3) Israel joined himself to Baal Peor: and the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel.

And against America.

In one of his prophecies, Balaam had said that he who curses Israel is cursed. Balaam did bring a curse on Israel by getting them to mix with Moab, so what was the curse on him? When Israel attacked Balaam’s people Midian, the blood of Balaam was shed with theirs.

Num 31
8) They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they killed with the sword.

16) Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, and so the plague was among the congregation of Yahweh.

Balaam, or really Satan, did bring a curse on Israel. When Satan couldn’t eliminate them with a curse from God in his right fist, he simply turned to his left fist and advised Moab to mingle with them. Almost two millennia later, Satan did the same thing with the Christians. First he tried the right fist of force and persecution. When that didn’t work, then he cleverly used the left fist of seduction.

Clever being, that Satan!

One fist of iron, the other of steel,
If the right one don’t get you, then the left one will.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 63
A Light, not a Mirror

Two groups of Christians?

That sounds illogical, but after Hadrian, there were two groups of Christians, both periodically persecuted, but headed in different directions.

When Marcus and the Gentile Christians in Hadrian’s new Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina, forsook the weekly Sabbath and the annual Bible festivals, that created two distinct Christian groups. One group followed what the apostles and original assembly had done on Sabbath and Feasts. The other group — in those matters, at least — chose to follow Rome.

The Sabbath and Feasts are spiritual connecting times with the Creator. The Sabbath is God’s memorial of His creation. The Feasts are God’s plan for His creation.

Throughout Israel’s history, giving up the Sabbaths and festivals was catastrophic. When Jeroboam dropped the Feasts, the ten tribes never recovered from that sin. When Hezekiah’s father Ahaz shut up the Temple and forsook the Sabbath and Festivals, Judah was cursed. When Josiah’s father Amon did the same, that brought on more curses.

On the other hand, when Yahweh personally spoke and wrote the Ten Commandments, including the Sabbath commandment, at Pentecost time, a festival time, Mt. Sinai shook and smoked with the very presence of God. Solomon’s dedication of the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles was one of the most spiritual times in the Bible. When Hezekiah reopened the Temple that his father had closed and then observed Passover, God heard their prayer in heaven. When Josiah found the book of the law and set his heart to obey, one of his first actions was to observe the Passover-Unleavened Bread festival. In the New Testament, Yeshua was born at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, He was executed at Passover, He was accepted as the wave sheaf offering during Unleavened Bread, and He began His flock at the Feast of Pentecost. The fall festivals in God’s plan for man have yet to occur, at the second coming of the Messiah.

The highest points in the Bible were at festivals. The Sabbath and Feasts are spiritual connecting times with the Creator of the universe. Yet some Gentile Christians were willing to forsake that, because they were “Jewish.”

As pagans, Gentiles had been cut off from God, with no prior knowledge of Sabbaths and Bible Feasts. So naturally they had other traditions.

What traditions?

Sun worship.

Sun worship was common around the world. In the Roman Empire, the form Mithraism was prevalent during the early Christian era. Gentile Christians had a history of pagan traditions, such as the pagan annual festivals of the winter solstice and the spring mating season, and dies Solis, the weekly great Day of the Sun.

When the Roman led Christians stopped observing the fourth commandment Sabbath and the Yahweh festivals, where would they naturally turn?

They gradually turned back to what they were used to — their pagan heritage. As Israel did when they made the golden calf, the Roman Christians simply turned back to Egypt.

After the Bar Kochba rebellion, Rome hated everything about the Jews. Government and social pressure opposed the “Jewish” Bible Sabbath and Feasts.

Most people will always yield to social pressure. Everybody likes to be part of the in-crowd. An old rock and roll song said, “I’m in with the in-crowd. I go where the in-crowd goes. I’m in with the in-crowd and I know what the in-crowd knows.” People try very hard not to be frowned upon by family, friends and their in-crowd.

An old television show, Candid Camera, had a gag where an unsuspecting victim got on an elevator with several of the show’s actors. The victim faced the front door of the elevator, as is common, but when he noticed everyone else in the elevator facing the rear, he then turned and faced the rear. This happened with person after person, facing the rear where there was no door, just because everyone else was.

The “in-crowd” is one of the strongest tools that Satan has. And the Roman in-crowd hated Sabbath and Feasts.

Christians were mocked and persecuted for doing anything “Jewish,” and they were surrounded by friends, family and the whole society keeping days and festivals that Rome approved. There was heavy “in-crowd” pressure on Christians to abandon the Bible Sabbath and Feasts and to keep pagan days and festivals that the Gentile Christians had always kept, anyway.

One Christian group, centered in Rome, gradually adopted the organization and religious customs of the Roman Empire — a visible Church with a pyramidal government, socially acceptable Roman days, and many other Roman religious vestiges. The other group, mainly located east of Rome including many Gentile assemblies, had only local shepherds under Christ the King, no expansive visible government, and aimed to go only by the Bible and not by traditions of men or religious rabbis.

The contentious issues of government and holy days appeared very early among Christians. When Hadrian banned anything Jewish in his new Jerusalem in 135 CE causing Gentile Christians there to forsake the Sabbath and Feasts, that was only about one generation after the apostle John had passed on. An article on the Passover controversy by David Rudolph gives insight on this battle.

Second century Gentile churches followed two calendar traditions concerning Passover. Almost all of the churches in Asia (where Paul devoted much of his ministry [1 Cor 16:8, 19; Acts 19:10, 26), as well as churches in Asia Minor, Cilicia, Syria, Judea (until c. 135) and Mesopotamia, observed Passover in accordance with the Jewish calendar, on the fourteenth day of the first month, the month of Nissan … Far from being a minor schismatic group, Gentile Christians who celebrated Passover on Nissan 14 stretched across a vast geographic region that represented the heartland of apostolic Christianity.

By contrast, the churches in the West—in Italy, Greece (including Corinth), Spain, Britain, Gaul (which included the present-day area of France, Belgium, the south Netherlands, south-west Germany)—observed Passover on the Sunday following Nissan 14. These churches retained the name [pascha] (Passover) but they moved away from celebrating Passover on the same day as Jews, with Jews and in the manner of Jews.
Passover Controversy in the East and West, David Rudolph, Cambridge University, 2004,(unpublished).

As shown there, assemblies that Paul founded and taught were sticklers about keeping Passover, although not by the current Jewish calendar as the calculated Jewish calendar was not used until later. The assemblies that Paul taught were doing what he taught — to observe the Feasts, and correspondingly the Sabbath.

So when did this great controversy over Passover begin?

When did the split between East and West over the dating of Passover occur? According to Epiphanius (Pan. 70.9.2), who sought to answer this question, most of the churches in the East and West until c. 135 followed a common tradition of observing Passover when the Jerusalem church did, on Nissan 14. The Jewish overseers… of the Jerusalem church were instrumental in determining the proper date of Passover for the Gentile wing of the church…

Epiphanius comments that the unifying influence of the circumcised overseers ceased during the reign of Hadrian when all Jews, including Christian Jews, were expelled from Jerusalem (c.135).4 The subsequent two centuries, from the Hadrianic exile until the Council of Nicaea (c. 325), was marked by controversy in the church over the dating of Passover.

The controversy over Passover — really the attack on Passover — began when Marcus and the Gentiles in Aelia Capitolina capitulated to Hadrian.

Only about 20 years after that, Polycarp, who had been a personal associate of John, and Anicetus, bishop of Rome, disputed the date of Passover.

The 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, article Easter, says:
Generally speaking, the Western churches kept Easter on the first day of the week, while the Eastern churches followed the Jewish rule, and kept Easter on the fourteenth day. St Polycarp, the disciple of St John the Evangelist and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that see, on the subject; and urged the tradition, which he had received from the apostle, of observing the fourteenth day. Anicetus, however, declined to admit the Jewish custom in the churches under his jurisdiction, but readily communicated with Polycarp and those who followed it.

That article also says that:
There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers…The ecclesiastical historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl. v. 22) states, with perfect truth, that neither the Lord nor his apostles enjoined the keeping of this or any other festival. There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic Fathers…[Socrates] attributes the observance of Easter by the church to the perpetuation of an old usage, “just as many other customs have been established.”

In other words, Rome was following an old custom that came from somewhere other than the Bible. They claimed they were following traditions handed down to them from the apostles Peter and Paul. They had no record of that, and again the assemblies that Paul taught kept the Feasts.

In this Passover dispute, also commonly called the Easter dispute, both sides called the day Pascha, or Passover. At that time, Rome did not say they were trying to substitute Easter for Passover. The difference was over what day to keep Pascha.

As the Britannica pointed out, Christians from the east, less under the influence of Rome, kept Pascha on the 14^th of the month, as instructed in the Bible and the same as the apostles and early assembly had done. Christians tending toward Rome kept Pascha on the Sunday following the 14^th.

When Anicetus differed with Polycarp about the date of Passover, the Roman bishop did not dispute that Polycarp was doing what he was taught by the apostle John. Yet Anicetus and his cohorts still insisted that Pascha must be kept differently than John and the apostles did.

What does that mean?

It means that the Romish Christians were saying that the apostle John — and all the other apostles — were wrong. John leaned on Christ at the Passover and wrote 4 books of the New Testament, yet the Roman Christians thought that John was spiritually stupid to observe Passover as Christ had taught Him.

Why were those Christians in Rome so illogical?

Surely it was because they were surrounded by old customs they were comfortable with. “The first day of the week was the Mithraic Sunday before it was the Christian, and December 25 was Mithra’s birthday,” E. Royston Pike, Encyclopedia of Religion, article Mithraism.

The New World Encyclopedia, article Pope Anicetus, says, Although the Roman church did not yet celebrate a special Easter festival, it held that Jesus had been resurrected on a Sunday, and that this day should therefore be considered Easter rather than 14 Nisan.

The Bible never said to do that. There are no Bible examples of anyone doing that. So why honor Sunday?

That’s what they had known and that’s what they were surrounded with.

Polycarp did not agree with Anicetus about changing the date of Passover. If you keep Passover on a different date, even though you still call it Passover, you’re not keeping Passover. To change the date of a holy day is to cancel the holy day, just as Jeroboam did when he moved Tabernacles from the seventh month to the eighth month.

When Polycarp visited Anicetus in the middle of the second century, the bishop of Rome was not considered to be preeminent over all other bishops. Anicetus thought Polycarp was wrong, but he did not assume power over Polycarp or the Christians to the east of Rome.

That soon changed, though.

The Britannica article further explains:
About forty years later (197) the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bishop of Rome, and Polycrates, metropolitan of proconsular Asia. That province was the only portion of Christendom which still adhered to the Jewish usage, and Victor demanded that all should adopt the usage prevailing at Rome. This Polycrates firmly refused to agree to, and urged many weighty reasons to the contrary, whereupon Victor proceeded to excommunicate Polycrates and the Christians who continued the Eastern usage.

Upon urging from others, Victor was persuaded to withdraw his excommunication. Although those others disagreed with his casting out Polycrates, apparently they did accept that the bishop of Rome had the power to cast out Christians far from Rome. To accept such a power was a huge change in the Church, when the bishop of Rome became like the spiritual emperor of Rome.

A pope.

In a letter to Victor, citing the apostles John and Philip in Ephesus earlier as support, Polycrates rejected Victor’s Passover. He also rejected Victor’s excommunication.

All these observed the fourteenth day of the passover according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. And I also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have closely followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops; and I am the eighth. And my relatives always observed the day when the people put away the leaven. I, therefore, brethren, who have lived sixty-five years in the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the world, and have gone through every Holy Scripture, am not affrighted by terrifying words. For those greater than I have said ‘We ought to obey God rather than man,’ Eusebius, Church History, Book V, Chapter 24.

To move a holy day is to miss a holy day. This cannot be overstated. Polycrates went to the wall with the Roman bishop rather than keep a fake Passover a few days later.

About a century after that episode, Rome set out on its most horrible persecution of Christians, under Diocletian. Diocletian became emperor in 284. After three centuries of the totalitarian empire, the Roman dictators were having trouble holding conquered peoples under control so Diocletian reorganized the government. He appointed three other co-rulers besides himself, and each of the four men was responsible for holding four different areas of the empire in check.

One of those four, Galerius, convinced Diocletian to try to eliminate the Christians because they did not accept the authority of Rome in religion.

Oddly enough, that was the same approach that Victor had taken with Polycrates, punishing him because he did not accept the authority of ecclesiastical Rome.

At least one pope, Marcellinus, purportedly caved in to the Diocletian persecution. And when the persecution eased, that pope’s successor, Marcellus, did what Diocletian had done with the Roman government. Marcellus reorganized the Roman Church government.

New World Encyclopedia, article Pope Marcellus I
Marcellus showed himself a capable leader in reorganizing the external administration of the church. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Marcellus divided the territorial administration of the Church into 25 districts (tituli), appointing over each a presbyter, who saw to the preparation of the catechumens (prospective new members) for baptism and directed the performance of public penances.

Notice there is no example for any of that government in the New Testament. That type of government came from Rome, not from the original flock.

The Romans did martyr a number of Christians during that last persecution. Many Christians also caved in to Rome’s demands, and later insisted they had only told a little white lie.

New World Encyclopedia article Pope Eusebius, 8/28/19
Marcellus I had become pope during a period of great turmoil which left the Roman church badly shaken, with rumors that his own predecessor had committed apostasy during the persecution. After Maxentius ended the persecutions, apostate Christians began to return the the church in large numbers… Marcellus thus required strict public penance from the apostates, whom the Catholics referred to as merely lapsi (lapsed). The prescribed penance, however, provoked a severe reaction from many of the lapsi, who believed that they had never truly turned apostate but had only told a white lie to preserve their lives. Conflicts soon arose among the Catholics, some of which ended in bloodshed. Riots broke out throughout the city, and Marcellus’ inability to control the situation resulted in his banishment.

The same article points out that one group —
held that apostates could not receive absolution from mere bishops, and that only God could forgive “sins unto death” like apostasy, murder, and adultery. The Catholic Church took its name (catholic meaning “universal”) from its position that the church must accommodate sinners as well as saints, and that the bishops, as Christ’s representatives, were authorized to absolve even the most grievous sins.

That was quite a debate! The Roman Church said that Christians should not have given in to persecution and denied Christ, obviously right. But those who had so compromised themselves said that only God could forgive their sins and not Roman bishops, also very correct.

What an enormous increase in power the Roman Church claimed — that their bishops were authorized to absolve sins. Merriam-Webster says absolve is “to pardon or forgive (a sin.)” Christ forgave sins. He is God. No one else in the Bible forgave sins. But nearly three centuries after Christ, Roman bishops could!

The Roman Church also had internal riots, causing bloodshed. The just cited New World Encyclopedia article said that contemporary writers described the conflict inside the Roman Church “in very strong terms, using such terms as sedition, discord, and even warfare.”

Sedition, discord, and warfare, right inside the Roman Church!

Look at that Church at that time, almost three centuries after Christ. It had a Roman type emperor, its bishops could forgive sin, large numbers of its people had apostatized during the persecution, and afterwards they went to war with one another.

Quite a contrast between that Church and the original assemblies.

Now here is the stunning, incredible point about that Christian transformation.

Those Christians became like Rome, even while Rome was persecuting them.

This is almost unbelievable.

At least from the time of Marcus and the Jerusalem Gentiles in 135 to the end of the Diocletian persecution in 311, Romish Christians absorbed the religion of the ones who attacked them. They copied their worship day, began to pick up their festivals, and imitated their humanly centralized government, where even priests could forgive sin.

Some of these Christians were martyred for their faith, including some of those who were later called popes, yet as a group they absorbed the ways of the anti-Christ society that surrounded them.

Remember how Yahweh told Israel not to have anything at all to do with the Canaanites? Yet every tribe of Israel left Canaanites among them.

Ps 106:34-39
34) They didn’t destroy the peoples, as Yahweh commanded them,
35) but mixed themselves with the nations, and learned their works.
36) They served their idols, which became a snare to them.
37) Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
38) They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom
hey sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted with blood.
39) Thus were they defiled with their works, and prostituted themselves in their deeds.

Israel was sent into Canaan to replace those perverse people, who sacrificed their own children to demons. Then what did Israel do? The same thing.

Why?

Because Moses’ people underestimated the power of osmosis. They picked up the beliefs of those people. Slowly but surely they became like Canaanites.

Second and third century Christians also underestimated the effect of the Canaanites, or in this case, the Roman society. It was easier to allow some conformity with Rome, particularly with a constant threat of persecution. People who spend their whole lives as outcasts sometimes want to join the in-crowd.

So how about today?

Modern Christians have also underestimated the effect of spiritual osmosis, absorbing what you’re surrounded with. Most Christians are still under the weight of Roman customs, yet they are now going far beyond that. They are absorbing the ways of the world that aims to destroy them.

The whole world is in the process of becoming Sodom and Gaymorrah. The wealthy cities of the Jordan plain were the prototype of the wealthy end time world, with its ease, luxury, and debasement. Surrounded by this world, Christians are doing the same as Israel in Canaan and the early Romish Christians. Instead of being a light to the world, they are mixing, mingling and melding with it.

They allow Satan’s worldly governments to control the education of their children, sending them to be raised in anti-Christ seminaries called schools. From that base comes predictable results in the whole society. Child rearing has totally forsaken Bible principles, and any who try to follow the Bible will be prosecuted — persecuted — by Satan’s world. Marriage has been largely destroyed, first with rampant divorce, then with open adultery, where we now commonly see people listed not with husband or wife but with “partner.” “Gay marriage” is already an accepted custom, even by most Christians. Women preachers and pastors now lead many churches, humbly proclaiming that they are justified in contradicting God and the Bible because of their enormous “gifts.” Homosexual preachers now follow that same course, being absorbed into Christian circles because their “gifts” are too great to be denied. All this is socially acceptable and becoming more so and creates enormous social pressure to get all Christians to conform and be part of the in-crowd.

Romish Christians justified their Bible disobedience by claiming other traditions. Modern Christians say that the archaic Bible was written for different cultures and does not apply in the same way today. Romish Christians did not follow Christ the King directly and individually, but followed human religious rulers between them and their King — those bishops who could forgive sin. Modern Christians follow spiritually decadent denominations, which are almost never willing to speak out against evil. Modern Christians believe that the greatest sin is to point out the sin of a sinner. That is Christianity today.

Christians are to be a light to the world. Instead they usually wind up being a mirror.

Modern Christians think they have found amazing new truths, when all they have done is copy the world around them and call if Christian. This end time society will get much, much worse as the whole world becomes like the five cities of the Jordan plain. Surrounded by all this, don’t underestimate the power of osmosis, copying the world and calling it Christian. Most people will always yield to social pressure. Everybody likes to be part of the in-crowd. Remember that Romish Christians absorbed the ways of Rome, even while Rome persecuted them.

So where did this Roman Christianity, which copied Rome while being persecuted by Rome, ultimately lead?

And where will today’s worldly version of churchianity lead to, in the very end time?

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 62

Taking the Easy Road

Marcus, the first Gentile bishop of Jerusalem, and the Gentile Christians there did what Roman emperor Hadrian wanted, gave up the Sabbath and Feasts, and avoided persecution. They took the easy way out.

When Yahweh led Israel out of Egypt, He did not lead them on the easy way out. He led them into a wilderness, where Pharaoh thought he had them trapped. Israel thought so, too.

When Yeshua began His flock, He did not let them lead an easy life in Jerusalem. At first, all the Christianos were camped out in Jerusalem, fussing over food and happily waiting for the Kingdom. Many churches are like that. But soon that party was over.

Acts 8:1
1) Saul was consenting to his [Stephen’s] death. A great persecution arose against the assembly which was in Jerusalem in that day. They were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles.

Persecution scattered the Christians. The easy life was over. The hard part had begun.

Yeshua Himself did not lead the easy life. During His 3 1/2 years of teaching the way to life, He was constantly mocked and maligned. Finally, He gave up His own life, in the most ignominious and excruciating way possible.

Luke 22
44) Being in agony he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.

Sweating like great drops of blood is not easy.

Christ does not intend for His followers to have an easy life, either.

Matt 10
16) “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
17) But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you.
18) Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations.

Christians are as sheep surrounded by wolves. That’s not an easy life.

Matt 16
24) Then Yeshua said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25) For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.
26) For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?
27) For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will render to everyone according to his deeds.

Whoever gives up his life for Christ will be given life. The Christian must deny himself. To deny the self is the single hardest thing for the self to do. The natural self naturally wants to take the easy way out — placate the self, indulge the self, save the self.

Paul was an incredible example of giving up the self.

Acts 14
19) But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.
20) But as the disciples stood around him, he rose up, and entered into the city. On the next day he went out with Barnabas to Derbe.
21) When they had preached the Good News to that city, and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch,
22) confirming the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that through many afflictions we must enter into the Kingdom of God.

After being stoned, Paul looked stone dead. The other Christians stood around him, wondering what to do. Then Paul got up and showed them what to do.

Get on with the work.

Paul immediately went on doing what he had just been stoned for. He told the new Christians that through many afflictions we must enter the Kingdom of God; he had just suffered an affliction.

And that was his whole Christian life.

2Cor 6
3) We give no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our service may not be blamed,
4) but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses,
5) in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;
6) in pureness, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love,
7) in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
8) by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true;
9) as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and not killed;
10) as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

Punished, and not killed. Having nothing, yet possessing all things. Commending ourselves as servants of God… in afflictions. And notice when Paul wrote that, he did not even exalt himself by using the pronoun “I.” Instead he said “ourselves” and “we.”

As Paul had warned, the new Christians had afflictions, too.

1Thess 2
13) For this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when you received from us the word of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you who believe.
14) For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Yeshua; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews;

Paul told them that afflictions are just part of the Christian calling. Christians in Judea were persecuted by Jews. Christians in Thessalonica were persecuted by Thessalonians. When Christians accept Yeshua as their Redeemer, their past is wiped clean, their future is eternal life, and their present is affliction.

1Thess 3
3) that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we are appointed to this task.
4) For most certainly, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it happened, and you know.

I told you so, Paul reminded. “We told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it happened.”

Then Paul bragged on them, because they had endured their affliction so well.

2Thess 1
3) We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of each and every one of you towards one another abounds;
4) so that we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you endure.
5) This is an obvious sign of the righteous judgment of God, to the end that you may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you also suffer.

Appointed to the task of affliction, Paul wrote. As our example of this, Yeshua not only had to die for the sins of others, He even had to carry the pole they hung Him on.

John 19
16) So then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Yeshua and led him away.
17) He went out, bearing his cross (stauros, stake or post), to the place called “The Place of a Skull,” which is called in Hebrew, “Golgotha,”

Christ’s true followers have to be willing to give up their lives, as He gave up His. And in doing that, they have to be willing to carry their stauros on the march to their deaths.

Luke 23
26) When they led him away, they grabbed one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it after Yeshua.

Simon is you and me, suddenly called out of the crowd to help carry that pole.

And if you put down your pole and take the easy way out —

Matt 10
32) Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven.
33) But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.
34) “Don’t think that I came to send peace on the earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword.
35) For I came to set a man at odds against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
36) A man’s foes will be those of his own household.
37) He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.
38) He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me, isn’t worthy of me.
39) He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Following Christ is a very narrow road. There is no easy way out.

Matt 7
13) “Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it.
14) How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it.

On a personal note —

I grew up in a coal camp in southern West Virginia. The one lane road to the community was hung on the side of a mountain, with just enough dirt scraped out to let one vehicle through. One S curve that I remember curled up a slope, nothing but steep hill on one side and steep drop-off on the other. You couldn’t see what traffic might be coming, that traffic might be a big coal truck, and there was absolutely no room to get over and let someone pass. Especially a big coal truck.

That was, and still is, a narrow road. Even after growing up there, when I occasionally drive on it now, that narrow road scares me to death. Narrow roads do scare people, so most just choose to stay on the freeway.

Marcus and the Gentile Christians chose the freeway instead of the narrow road. Common sense should have told them that being approved by Rome meant being disapproved by Christ. But they really wanted Rome, so they went with what was in their hearts.

Jer 17
9) The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?
10) I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

Marcus’ heart did not want affliction. What heart does?

Christians often take the easy way out, and leave the narrow road for the broad road.

What are some of the broad roads Christians take?

Rome’s approval of the Marcus Christians was not long term. Eventually just being a Christian was a crime, like a hate crime today. Finally, Christians in the Roman Empire were required to offer a pinch of incense to the emperor, to show that he was God.

Yet — in spite of periodic persecutions by Rome — the history of the post-New Testament Church is a history of adopting the ways of Rome and calling them Christian. Early Christians were persecuted for not accepting Rome’s religions, yet Christians gradually began to copy those religions, their days, doctrines, and approach.

They were in the Roman Empire and began to be like Rome. That was the broad, easy road. Since that time, most Christians have followed that pattern, keeping the ways of Rome simply because that’s what most people do. People would not and will not give them up. They don’t want the narrow, lonely road. They want to be accepted by friends and family and government.

A second way of taking the easy road — and one of the most common — is what the Corinthians did.

1Cor 5
1) It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.
2) You are puffed up, and didn’t rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.

Your boasting is not good, 1Cor 5:6, Paul wrote. How in the world could the Corinthians be puffed up over fellowshipping with such an impudent, flagrant sinner?

They told themselves how good they were for allowing the unrepentant sinner to be with them. They were loving Christians, hating the sin but loving the sinner, approving his sin while passing him a biscuit — or gyro — at pot luck.

Instead of confronting the adulterer, which was the hard way, they simply comforted him. Nobody rebuked him for the open adultery, so they all silently approved it. They loved him, he loved them, no one was upset, no one caused discord. It was great! The congregation was cosy and rosy.

And what they did may be the most common way of taking the easy way out. This happens during times of persecution and times of peace. Which is to say, it happens all the time. They did not stand up against sin!

Like the Corinthians, many Christians emphasize their love — agape (Greek).

John 13
35) By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love (agape) for one another.”

So Christians often follow this reasoning —

Love allows all sin, because all have sinned. Love is not judgmental, because Christ said not to judge, so no one speaks against sin. Love is all inclusive, because everyone is to be loved. Love is unconditional, so everyone with every sin is approved by the ‘agape’ Christian.

Wait a minute —

That’s the religion of Rome!

All in, none out, all approved by all. This is just anomia (lawlessness) lathered up with agape.

Christian commandment breaking!

But Paul told the Corinthians “not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Don’t even eat with such a person…Don’t you judge those who are within?… “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.””

The love of God is never anomia. The love of God, both for God and people, is always shown by obeying His Commandments.

1John 5
2) By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments.
3) For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous.
4) For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith.

John mentioned love perhaps more frequently than any other Bible writer, and he defined love as keeping God’s Commandments. However, Christians often follow cosmopolitan Corinth with a religion that approves all others, regardless of what they do, as long as they call it Christian.

Christians were accused by Rome of being atheists because they did not accept the Roman gods. Modern Christians face the accusation of being loveless, if they make a stand and rebuke the sinful behavior of others.

On the other hand, the ‘love’ Christian doesn’t have to do anything at all — doesn’t have to make a stand, doesn’t have to offend anyone, and doesn’t have to put himself at risk. He does nothing, other than to say he loves the sinner.

That’s just the easy way out.

Yeshua met with sinners — to call them to repentance.

Mark 2
15) It happened, that he was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners sat down with Yeshua and his disciples, for there were many, and they followed him.
16) The scribes and the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
17) When Yeshua heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Christ spoke often about gehenna, the lake of fire.

Matt 10:28
28) Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

To not warn a sinner — to not call them to repentance — is the gateway to gehenna. And Christians who don’t rebuke sinners are on the same road as the sinners. They may be in a different lane, but they’re still traveling the same freeway.

Ezek 3
17) Son of man, I have made you a watchman to the house of Israel: therefore hear the word from my mouth, and give them warning from me.
18) When I tell the wicked, You shall surely die; and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand.
19) Yet if you warn the wicked, and he doesn’t turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
20) Again, when a righteous man does turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteous deeds which he has done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.
21) Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning; and you have delivered your soul.

What happened in Corinth was the people did not warn the sinful man. Paul did. Then the sinful man turned. The people did not show love to the sinful man by not rebuking him. Paul did.

The hallmark of the puffed up, agape/Corinthian Christian is that they never rebuke sinners and they are very proud of that. America’s great problem is that Christians don’t warn sinners of sin, but instead join lawless liberals in condemning Christians who do speak against sin. There’s a lot more preaching about ‘agape’ than there is about ‘gehenna.’

A third and most obvious example of taking the easy way out is when Christians did offer incense to the Roman emperor, and thus saved their physical lives. They did not have the heart to endure.

Giving up life itself is the greatest of all tests. Obviously many have failed this test, and many will fail this test and take the easy way out.

Christians are called to take the narrow road, yet most take the broad road — the easy way out.

Almost all Christians today follow the religious customs picked up from Rome. Most Christians also follow Corinth by refusing to condemn sin. And soon, we will see persecution against Commandment keeping Christians that will make the tortures of Rome seem miniscule.

Matt 24
20) Pray that your flight will not be in the winter, nor on a Sabbath,
21) for then there will be great oppression, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.

Great oppression, such as has never been.

Taking the easy way out is the natural way. Self-love is naturally the strongest force in people and so taking the easy road is the most natural thing to do.

But it’s wrong. That’s just putting yourself first and God’s people always must put Him first. Love of self must yield to love of God.

Only by a radical change of heart can this self-love be overcome. Only by a complete change of heart can we avoid wanting to take the easy way out and be able to persevere through persecution. This change of heart can come only by seeking God with the whole heart for a whole lifetime.

Being able to deny the self in a time of persecution comes from denying the self every day. This requires never going along with society just because it’s easy, never going along with friends and family just because they’re friends and family, and never indulging yourself just because it’s your self. This requires dedicated discipline in daily devotions, renewing your heart day by day. This requires frequent fasting. God describes fasting as affliction, necessary training for the affliction that a true Christian will always face.

Great oppression, such as has never been —

We cannot overstate how difficult it must be to face such persecution. We have never faced it. We have never known anyone who faced it. We have only heard of Rome requiring Christians to offer incense to the emperor.

What would we have done?

What will we do?

If we cannot escape the religious trappings of Rome that the Christian Church absorbed just to fit in with Rome, and most have not; …

… and if we don’t have the courage to condemn sin and rebuke sinners, and most do not;

… then we surely stand no chance of enduring through a Romish persecution. We will surely take the easy way out and ask for the incense.

Matt 24
9) Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.
10) Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.
11) Many false prophets will arise, and will lead many astray.
12) Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
13) But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.

To endure to the end, whether of this age or of this life, means that we don’t take the easy way out. We stay on the narrow road, with only a few people on that road, but with the Messiah Himself.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 61

Twisting and Wresting

When Marcus became big bishop — the religious ruler – of Jerusalem, that marked a big difference between Jewish and Gentile Christians.

All the earliest Christians were Jews or Hebrews.

Acts 2
5) Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under the sky.

Those Jews or Hebrews included Peter, John and all the other original disciples, except for Judas. Those men who lived with Christ for 3½ years were gifted with the spirit of Christ at Pentecost, as were thousands of other men and women. And they were all Jews or Hebrews.

Every one of them.

They all observed the Sabbath and Feasts as holy times to meet with their Creator. That’s why they were there at Pentecost — keeping the Feast. That’s why the disciples had to wait ten days after Christ ascended — “Don’t depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father,” He commanded them. And that’s why God the Father also waited until Pentecost to send His spirit — He was keeping the Feast, too.

But they were all wrong!

Just ask Marcus, who convinced the Jerusalem Gentile Christians to go with Hadrian instead of going along with Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Yeshua, and with his brothers. They were all wrong!

What did God give His people at His Feast?

His spirit.

And what does that spirit give?

Luke 21:15 – for I [Christ] will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.

Acts 6:3 – Therefore select from among you, brothers, seven men of good report, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom.

Acts 6:10 – They weren’t able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he [Stephen] spoke.

What does the holy spirit give?

Wisdom!

So all those early Christianos had a great measure of the Holy Spirit, and that spirit gives wisdom, but according to Marcus, they were all deluded. So Marcus and the Gentiles ignored the example of the Father, of Christ, of the original 120 and of the first thousands of spirit led Christians. Instead, Marcus and the Gentiles went with what Hadrian wanted — they forsook the Sabbath and Feasts. Then Hadrian allowed them to be in his new Jerusalem.

Except it wasn’t New Jerusalem, with the Temple of Yahweh. It was New Jupiterem, with the temple of Jupiter. And that’s where Marcus and the antinomians – those against law — wanted to live as Christians: in Aelia Capitolina, named after Hadrian and Jupiter.

Why would a Christian even want to live in Jupiter’s city?

Why did Mrs. Lot want to stay in Sodom?

So the Jewish Christians got out of New Jupiterem and the Gentile Christians got in. Suddenly there were two Christian groups, following different ways of life.

One tried to follow Christ their King and not Rome. The other tried to follow Christ and Rome.

Marcus and the Gentiles, who forsook the Sabbath and Feasts, lived in Hadrian’s city. Those who followed Christ and the apostles fled Rome’s city.

As cited before from Mosheim:
Nothing, in fact, can be better attested than that there existed in Palestine two Christian churches, by the one of which an observance of the Mosaic law was retained, and by the other disregarded. This division amongst the Christians of Jewish origin, did not take place before the time of Hadrian, for it can be ascertained, that previously to his reign the Christians of Palestine were unanimous in an adherence to the ceremonious observances of their forefathers. There can be no doubt, therefore, but that this separation originated in the major part of them having been prevailed on by Marcus to renounce the Mosaic ritual, by way of getting rid of the numerous inconveniences to which they were exposed, and procuring for themselves a reception, as citizens, into the newly-founded colony of Ælia Capitolina.
(Mosheim JL. Commentaries on the affairs of the Christians before the time of Constantine the Great: or, An enlarged view of the ecclesiastical history of the first three centuries, Volume 2. Translated by Robert Studley Vidal.)

By rejecting God’s holy meeting times, times to meet with God, the Gentiles got “rid of the numerous inconveniences to which they were exposed, and procuring for themselves a reception, as citizens, into the newly-founded colony of Ælia Capitolina.” And when they received Rome’s blessing, they doubtless bragged that God Himself was blessing them for their piety.

The Gentile view was that the Sabbath and Feasts were only ceremonial. Most historians who have written about those times had the same view, even while admitting the whole original assembly had the opposite view.

There was then a marked difference between the Marcus-led Gentile Christians and those Christians who were looked on as Jewish. But Paul said there was no difference between Jews and Gentiles.

Rom 10
12) For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him.

Gal 3
28) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Yeshua.
29) If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to promise.

Col 3
10) and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
11) where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.

Yet Marcus established that Jews and Gentiles were not one in Christ.

It is said that the Jewish ceremonial law included the Sabbath and Feasts, and that Paul did away with that law. However, when Paul went to the Gentiles, week after week he taught both Jews and then Gentiles on the Sabbath. Sometimes he observed the annual festivals in Jerusalem, but usually he kept them with the Gentiles in their home areas. Paul argued extensively with the Pharisees about circumcision, and wrote about circumcision in half his letters. The conference in Acts 15 was about circumcision. In Romans, Paul wrote at length against circumcision; He told the Galatians that “if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing;” He warned the Philippians to “beware of the false circumcision;” and so forth in half his letters. Yet he did not do that with the Sabbath or Feasts.

Yeshua was repeatedly accused of breaking the Sabbath by healing on that day.

John 7:22-23
22) Moses has given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a boy.
23) If a boy receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me, because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath?

We see how the Jews repeatedly attacked Christ for healing on the Sabbath. If Paul had taught against the Sabbath as he taught against circumcision, he would have been forced to write whole volumes to defend his position against the Jews. That didn’t happen because he did not teach breaking the fourth Commandment, or any other of the Ten Commandments.

So the Christian flock was divided between those who believed the Ten Commandments are moral law and those who believed that some or all of the Ten Commandments are just ceremonial.

The commandment keeping Christians were not headquartered in earthly Jerusalem, because there was no earthly Jerusalem, nor were they headquartered in any other earthly city. Their headquarters and their King was in heaven. The Gentiles who sought to fit in with Rome eventually became headquartered in Rome.

The lawlessness of Marcus and his Gentile Christians was not exactly a new development. Notice Peter’s warnings, from a time two generations before Marcus.

2Pet 2
1) But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction.
2) Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned.

What were those destructive heresies?

18) For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error;
19) promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.

The heretics promised liberty. Not liberty or freedom from sin, but liberty from law. They themselves were bondservants of corruption — practicing sinners. They believed in breaking the Ten Commandments as a way of life.

Remember how John wrote his letters to tell Christians what sin is and not to do it? The heresy of liberty from law was evidently already widespread.

Peter writes further about the ‘liberty from law’ heretics.

2Pet 3
15) Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you;
16) as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17) You therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware, lest being carried away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness.

The King James Version says “unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures.” Wrest, as in wrestling – “to twist or turn from the proper course,” dictionary.com.

Twisting and wresting, leading to the error of the wicked!

What is the error of the wicked?

The error of the wicked is transgressing God’s Law. The Greek word there rendered “wicked” is Strong’s G113 – athesmos, lawless, and is translated that way in a number of versions, like the ISV.

2Pet 3 International Standard Version
16) He [Paul] speaks about this subject in all his letters. Some things in them are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, leading to their own destruction, as they do the rest of the Scriptures.
17) And so, dear friends, since you already know these things, continually be on your guard not to be carried away by the deception of lawless people. Otherwise, you may fall from your secure position.

The deception that Peter warned against was the deception of lawless people.

So how were these lawless people twisting Paul’s writings?

They were saying that Paul taught lawlessness.

Peter said these twisters were lawless people, so their twist was to say that Paul taught lawlessness.

Jude wrote about the same problem. He and Peter were writing to Christians only about one generation removed from the physical life of Yeshua Himself. Yet Jude had to tell them to contend for the first faith.

Jude 1
3) Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

What was the faith that was delivered to the saints, like Peter and John and the original disciples, as learned from the Master Himself?

That was a faith of obedience, following Christ’s example of obeying the Ten Commandments. They accepted Christ’s sacrifice for their sins and then they stopped practicing sin. They did not follow Satan’s example of sinning by breaking the Commandments. And that first faith was under attack among the Christians, as Jude explained.

Jude 1
4) For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into indecency, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Yeshua Christ.

Or, as the New English Translation clearly states, turning the grace or favor of God into a license for evil.

Jude 1 New English Translation
4) For certain men have secretly slipped in among you – men who long ago were marked out for the condemnation I am about to describe – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Look how Jude described such Christians, who turned grace into license for evil.

Jude 1
12) These are hidden rocky reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13) wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

Was Jude rude? Clouds without water, wild waves of the sea, wandering stars – Mercy! Jude might have offended someone!

Paul even admitted that he was accused of teaching the twisting and wresting that Peter and Jude mentioned.

Rom 3
8) Why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), “Let us do evil, that good may come?” Those who say so are justly condemned.

God forgives our sins and that’s good. So the more we sin, the more we can receive God’s favor or grace, right?

That’s what some were teaching, and that is quite a twist. Paul emphatically denied gracism, the license to break God’s Commandments.

Rom 3
31) Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.

All this twisting and wresting leads back to the same old result – breaking God’s Commandments.

Sin.

Except this sin is made out to be holy – sacred sinning. And those who try to obey the Commandments are made out to be sinners. Those early Christians who maintained the example of Christ, of the apostles, of the 120 in the upper room, and of the thousands at Pentecost were themselves condemned as being –

Heretics, as Gibbon’s book on Rome recalls.

When the name and honours of the church of Jerusalem had been restored to Mount Sion, [when Marcus and the Gentiles became citizens of Aelia Capitolina] the crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes which refused to accompany their Latin bishop...The name of Nazarenes was deemed too honourable for those Christian Jews, and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous epithet of Ebionites. In a few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation… [Justin Martyr] confessed that there were very many among the orthodox Christians who not only excluded their Judaising brethren from the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social life...an eternal bar of separation was fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates, and from the other as heretics...
Fall In The West — The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Chapter 15

So those who contended for the faith once delivered were hated by Jews for being Christians, were condemned by Gentile Christians for being Jewish, and were persecuted by Rome for being Jewish Christians. They were called legalists, for wanting to obey the Ten Commandments and they just did not fit in this world.

Marcus and the illegalists, though, were approved citizens of Jerusalem — Jupiterem — because they did fit in with Rome. They convinced themselves that doing what Rome wanted, and what they also wanted by avoiding persecution, was what God wanted. So they gave up what God really wanted — obedience — and did what Hadrian wanted — disobedience — and pretended they were serving God.

Twisting and wresting — Those who obeyed God’s Ten Commandments were made out to be lost sinners and shunned by those who disobeyed the Ten Commandments, who were made out to be holy.

I wonder who was the mastermind behind that idea?

Whatever the theosophical theological arguments are, whoever the compelling personalities are, it always comes back to the question —

Should we break God’s Ten Commandments? Should people ignore Christ’s example and follow Satan’s example?

Over and over in history, from Adam and Eve through the Christian Church to the end time beast, Satan’s answer is yes – follow his example!

Satan gets people to agree with him by using the deceitful human heart. People don’t want to be unpopular, don’t want to be misfits in society, don’t want to be persecuted —

So they convince themselves that disobeying God’s Ten Commandments is what God really wants us to do.

In these end times, or in any other time, it’s enormously important to understand these two points.

1. Breaking the Ten Commandments is always sin and God never wants you to sin.
2. The deceptive human heart has an amazing capacity to convince itself that what it wants is what God wants.

When the Romans substituted the city of Jupiter for the city of Jerusalem, that was a type of what happened in the Christian Church. The Christian Church became not like the city of Jerusalem, with its Temple to Yahweh, but became like Aelia Capitolina, with its temple to Jupiter.

And when the Gentile Christians began to forsake the Bible holy days to fit in with Rome, how long would it be until they adopted the holy days of Rome?

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 60

The Religion of Rome

Marcus, the 16^th bishop of Jerusalem, and the early Gentile Christians began to copy the government of Rome, with one-man rule. Adopting the government of Rome set the stage for adopting the religion of Rome.

What is the religion of Rome?

Egypt and Pharaoh had ten tests, ten plagues that gave them ten chances to repent. They failed those tests, never really repented and Pharaoh and his army wound up flailing in the sea after the water walls fell in.

After they left Egypt, Israel also had ten tests.

First they faced Pharaoh at the sea, then walked through the sea on dry land. Three days later, the only water they had was the bitter water of Marah, which was healed. Soon after that Israel ran out of food and God gave them manna.

In those tests, Israel never believed that Yahweh would save them. He always did.

And so on until the tenth test, when Israel refused to go into the Promised Land.

After seeing all the plagues on Egypt, after seeing Pharaoh’s army swallowed up by the sea, and after following the cloud for a year through the wilderness – Israel wanted to go back to Egypt.

Num 14
1) All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
2) All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would that we had died in this wilderness!
3) Why does Yahweh bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey: wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”
4) They said one to another, “Let us make a captain, and let us return to Egypt.”

After failing the tenth test, and the other nine, Israel wandered in the wilderness for another 39 years, before a new generation finally went into the Promised Land.

The early Christians also had ten tests. In Revelation 2 and 3 are 7 letters to 7 churches of Asia and the letter to Smyrna may refer to these ten tests.

Rev 2
8) “To the angel of the assembly in Smyrna write: “The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life says these things:
9) “I know your works, oppression, and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
10) Don’t be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have oppression for ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life.
11) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. He who overcomes won’t be harmed by the second death.

“You will have oppression for ten days. Be faithful unto death…” Other translations besides World English Bible say affliction, tribulation, and suffering.

Sobering words. Who said that?

Verse 8 that we just read says “He who was dead and has come to life says these things.”

And He, Yeshua the Messiah, warned of ten days of oppression, affliction, tribulation, suffering — ten days.

Apparently, like Egypt and Israel, the early Christians had 10 tests, going from Roman emperors Nero in 64 CE to Diocletian/Galerius up to 311 CE. These tests were 10 periods of intense persecution, as distinguished from ordinary everyday persecution. The exact time periods may be somewhat arbitrary according to the analysis, but indisputably there were periods of intense persecution of Christians, lasting two and a half centuries, about as long as the US has been a republic.

That’s a long time.

Foxe’s Book of Martyrs categorized the Roman persecutions under these emperors.

Nero, 67 [64]
”Nero even refined upon cruelty, and contrived all manner of punishments for the Christians that the most infernal imagination could design. In particular, he had some sewed up in skins of wild beasts, and then worried by dogs until they expired; and others dressed in shirts made stiff with wax, fixed to axletrees, and set on fire in his gardens, in order to illuminate them. This persecution was general throughout the whole Roman Empire; but it rather increased than diminished the spirit of Christianity. In the course of it, St. Paul and St. Peter were martyred.”

Domitian, 81
”…a law was made, “That no Christian, once brought before the tribunal, should be exempted from punishment without renouncing his religion.”“

Trajan and Adrian, 108-138

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, A.D. 162
Polycarp, the venerable bishop of Smyrna, hearing that persons were seeking for him, escaped, but was discovered by a child. After feasting the guards who apprehended him, he desired an hour in prayer, which being allowed, he prayed with such fervency, that his guards repented that they had been instrumental in taking him.

He was, however, carried before the proconsul, condemned, and burnt in the market place.The proconsul then urged him, saying, “Swear, and I will release thee;–reproach Christ.”

Polycarp answered, “Eighty and six years have I served him, and he never once wronged me; how then shall I blaspheme my King, Who hath saved me?”

Severus, A.D. 192-232

Maximus, A.D. 235
“numberless Christians were slain without trial, and buried indiscriminately in heaps, sometimes fifty or sixty being cast into a pit together;”

Decius, A.D. 249
A young Christian man was “stretched upon a wheel, by which all his bones were broken, and then he was sent to be beheaded,” others were “put to the rack;”

Valerian, A.D. 257
”Began under Valerian, in the month of April, 257, and continued for three years and six months. The martyrs that fell in this persecution were innumerable, and their tortures and deaths as various and painful.”

Aurelian, A.D. 274
[A Christian man] “was stretched with pullies until his joints were dislocated; his body was then torn with wire scourges, and boiling oil and pitch poured on his naked flesh; lighted torches were applied to his sides and armpits;”

Diocletian, A.D. 303
”Racks, scourges, swords, daggers, crosses, poison, and famine, were made use of in various parts to dispatch the Christians.”

The persecution by Rome was ended by the Edict of Toleration in 311, and the Edict of Milan in 313 made Christianity an accepted religion in the Roman Empire.

Why did the Romans persecute the Christians for two-and-a-half centuries?

Because of the Roman religion.

What is the Roman religion?

From the book A Pinch of Incense:
The Empire from the start had proclaimed itself tolerant of all authorized religions, and it had certainly authorized some strange ones. But these religions must be considered by the Romans subject as “a personal thing.” The only common “public” religion must be the state paganism of the Empire — often embodied, by law, in the person of the emperor. To reject this, to refuse to enshrine the Imperial ideal as uppermost in the very soul of the subject, was viewed therefore as a blatant defiance, tantamount to rebellion. And it was precisely this commitment that the Christians refused to make.

Nero had shrewdly discerned in the Christian mind this implicit insurrectionism, and on this ground had pronounced Christianity illegal. In Roman law, this was unprecedented. You could be prosecuted for doing something but not for believing something. Thereafter, by proving a person Christian, the state could establish him as a criminal. But how could it prove a person Christian?

An ingenious formula was devised. The suspected Christian need merely be asked to take a pinch of incense and ceremonially burn it to the “genius” of Caesar, [genius, general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place, or thing, Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary.] Surely a modest demand. But, astonishingly, Christians refused to do it. Their God, they said, was not Caesar. The sentence could then be passed immediately: seizure of property, imprisonment, often death — by the sword, by fire, by the cross, by being fed to starving animals in the arena as a public spectacle, whatever local sentiment called for.
A Pinch of Incense : A.D. 70 to 250, from the Fall of Jerusalem to the Decian Persecution, by Charlotte Allen, Christian History Project.

Bronze Incense shovel

1. A.D. 200–256

Photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery

Roman religion is all in, none out, and everyone must accept all other religious beliefs. All were accepted, none were excepted. Everyone was allowed in. No one was allowed out. Each person had to approve what every other person did.

That is the polar opposite of freedom of religion. That is required religion, for unity in the church, which was the Roman Empire. This unity was enforced by centralized one man rule.

This Roman religion reappears in history under different guises, with a church, with governments that don’t even call it religion, and with those who call it “freedom from religion.” The crux of this religion is that no one is allowed to disagree.

As we just read, under Rome, by proving a person Christian, the state could establish him as a criminal. In other words, to be a Christian was a hate crime, a crime for what a person believed and thought.

Christians were not persecuted so much for worshiping Christ as for not worshiping the emperor and the other Roman gods. Some Christians did gain their physical lives and sold their souls for that pinch of incense. In doing so, they then received a certificate from Rome saying they had sacrificed to the emperor god and were allowed to live.

By Unknown – Egyptian papyrus from 250 AD – www.forumancientcoins.com

A libellus (Roman sacrifice certificate) from the Decian persecution 250 AD. Possibly found at Fayoum, Egypt in 1893. Text reads: To those in charge of the sacrifices of the village Theadelphia, from Aurelia Bellias, daughter of Peteres, and her daughter, Kapinis. We have always been constant in sacrificing to the gods, and now too, in your presence, in accordance with the regulations, I have poured libations and sacrificed and tasted the offerings, and I ask you to certify this for us below. May you continue to prosper. Under the above text, written by another hand: We, Aurelius Serenus and Aurelius Hermas, saw you sacrificing. A third hand: I, Hermas, certify. First hand: The 1st year of the Emperor Caesar Gaius Messius Quintus Traianus Decius Pius Felix Augustus. (Based on description at http://www.cachecoins.org/decius.htm)

But those who truly worshiped Christ the King would not mix His worship with any hint of idolatry. They didn’t need a certificate. They had a Saviour.

Remember when the Jews said, “We have no king but Caesar?” The early Christians, by their lives and actions, declared that they had no King but the King of Kings. Caesar wasn’t even on the ballot.

By standing fast, they lost their physical lives but preserved their eternal lives, as the Master had said.

Matt 16
24) Then Yeshua said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25) For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.
26) For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?
27) For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will render to everyone according to his deeds.

John 12
24) Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25) He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.
26) If anyone serves me, let him follow me. Where I am, there will my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

To follow the Messiah’s example of being killed by the Romans was an honor, a spiritual privilege, the last step in this life toward eternal life in the future.

As He said to Smyrna, “Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

So the Romans persecuted the Christians in the most horrific manner. The great Roman Empire was the most cruel government in human history to that time. All because of the Roman religion, which was —

Everybody in, nobody out, and all had to approve all others.

You can easily see that the Roman religion is the religion of Satan. Satan was disapproved, condemned, and cast out of heaven. He wants to be included and approved, regardless of what he does.

You can also easily see that the Messiah’s religion is the opposite of that. The ‘no pinch of incense Christians’ accepted no idolatry whatsoever, they would not approve the sins of those around them, and they gave up their lives rather than give in to the world. Just as Yeshua Himself had done.

Today the Roman persecution of Christians is being denied. Today even the existence of Christ is denied, so it is logical that anti-Christ people will also deny that Christians were persecuted. This is just a Socialist rewriting of history, as the German National Socialists did under Hitler. All of this denial is just an extension of the Roman religion, pushing toward forcing all in with acceptance of all beliefs. And as the Romans did, today people are being punished not for what they do but for what they believe.

Ironically, the Christians began to accept the government style of Rome at the same time that Rome persecuted the Christians for not accepting the religion of Rome. When the Christians accepted Roman style government, though, that set the stage for accepting the religion of Rome.

Should Christians have offered a pinch of incense to the emperor?

What was the big deal?

After all, the idols that pagans worshiped weren’t real and everyone really knew that the emperor wasn’t really a god. What was the actual harm in the merely symbolic ritual of offering incense? Wouldn’t Christ understand that the Christian was only doing it to preserve his life? Wasn’t saving a human life more important than avoiding a silly pagan rite? What about all the friends and family — friends and family! — that would be crushed at the death of a loved one? Offering the incense would just be a way of protecting them. Aren’t all religions basically the same, anyway, people just trying to do good?

Many Christians, though, refused to follow that reasoning. They would not offer the pinch of incense. That’s why the Romans were so furious at them — they just would not listen to reason!

Human reason.

The Roman Empire persecution officially ended in 313, but the Roman religion stayed around. What is the Roman religion? All in, none out, no choice.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 59

Kings, Bishops and Popes

At about the same time that the Jews were setting up Bar Kokhba as a Romish ruler, what were the Christians doing?

Well…

The two spiritual leaders of the world are Yeshua the Son of God and Satan, the Father of sin. Satan is the god of this world and Yeshua calls his people out of this world.

These two leaders have opposite spirits.

Christ obeys the Ten Commandments. That’s why He was accepted as the blood sacrifice for all who break the Ten Commandments.

Satan disobeys the Ten Commandments. Eve and Adam and all their descendants who, like Satan, have broken the Ten Commandments must have the blood sacrifice of Christ. As with Eve and Adam, the devil made us do it.

Satan tries to get people to follow his example instead of Christ’s example. Satan tries to get people to break God’s Law.

He does this by seduction, making sin appear attractive.

He does this by coercion, using force to harm and kill those who do try to obey God’s Commandments.

He does this by deception, to get people to think they are obeying God by breaking His commandments.

Needless to say, Satan is a dangerous adversary for us.

Job 1
6) Now it happened on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them.
7) Yahweh said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

And what was Satan doing when he was going back and forth on the earth?

1Pet 5
8) Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Seduction, coercion, deception – anything to get you to break God’s Ten Commandments. That’s Satan’s desire.

Sin by seduction is easy to understand. Eve saw the forbidden fruit and it looked good. Fornication and adultery seem enticing. The pride of life and lust for the world are natural for human nature.

Sin by coercion is easy to understand. The early Christians had to sacrifice to the Roman emperor or face death. One pinch of incense would appease Caesar and Satan. Many Christians chose that one pinch path, willing to trade their souls for their lives. Many did not and their dying prayers were incense to God.

But the third way that Satan gets people to follow him is harder to perceive.

Satan gets people to think they’re following God by following a ruler between them and Christ. This may be a political king or a religious ruler. This ruler may say that he himself is following Christ. In fact, the ruler may be largely obedient.

However, in an attempt to achieve human unity and physically control the carnal human spirit, the obedient ruler urges people to follow him personally. Since people can see and hear that ruler, it’s much easier to follow him than it is to follow an invisible God. So they follow God by following a man of God.

They think.

With that government in place, at some point that ruler, or more likely a successor of that ruler, stops obeying God’s Commandments. He then orders his followers to follow him in breaking God’s Commandments. Most of those followers do that, because they’re following the religious ruler, who they think to be righteous because he’s the religious ruler. The people then break God’s Commandments while they think they’re obeying God. Thus Satan gets people to follow him, while they think they’re following Christ.

It didn’t take long for that to happen with the Christians.

John was the last writer of the New Testament. In his three short letters, even though he was probably the only original apostle left, John did not make himself out to be a pope. He never wrote about everyone needing to be loyal to him personally. He hardly mentions himself at all.

He was the opposite of Barack Obama.

In his little letters, John talks about not sinning, about false brethren who had gone out, about having love for one another – but he never sets himself up as a powerful pope or rabbi.

He never says, “If you don’t follow me, you’re not following God!”

He never says, “You can be saved only if you’re in my group!”

On the other hand, apparently Diotrephes did.

3John 1
8) We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
9) I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn’t accept what we say.
10) Therefore, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words. Not content with this, neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the assembly.

Diotrephes accused John — Yeshua’s bosom buddy! — with “wicked words” – or in the Good News Bible:“the terrible things he says about us and the lies he tells!” And those who believed like John and not like Diotrephes, Diotrephes kicked out of the flock. He deflocked them.

Notice that it was Diotrephes alone who kicked people out of the assembly. It wasn’t the assembly who put people out. It wasn’t a small group of elders or shepherds who put people out. The kicker-outer was solely –

Diotrephes.

How could Diotrephes do that?

Because he loved to be first among them. He was the religious ruler, the rabbi, the archbishop, the popino – the one man in charge whom everybody had to agree with.

Diotrephes had set up the government of Rome in the flock of Yeshua.

Some people call this one man rule the government of God. Actually it’s the government of Satan. One man ruled in the government of Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome, the four powerful historical governments of the world –

Satan’s world.

And at some point, gradually or suddenly, that government of Rome, the government of Diotrephes, the government of one man rule, –

Became the government of the Christians.

Obviously, by the time John wrote his letters – when he had to tell them what sin was and that they shouldn’t sin! — the Christian assemblies were having great spiritual problems. And if Diotrephes was trying to set himself up as a popino, it’s doubtful that he was the only one.

With human nature erupting in the Christian assemblies – chaos, confusion, and carnality – it’s not surprising that Christians would resort to the same human government as Israel long before them.

“Give us a king to lead us!” 1 Samuel 8:6, New English Translation.

Eusebius, Christian historian of the fourth century, was a Constantine crony. Since Eusebius supported the Roman emperor, he obviously supported Romish government. Eusebius listed what he said were the first 15 bishops of Jerusalem, as if they were sole religious rulers of the area.

Then along came bishop number 16….

1. The chronology of the bishops of Jerusalem I have nowhere found preserved in writing; for tradition says that they were all short lived.
2. But I have learned this much from writings, that until the siege of the Jews, which took place under Adrian [Hadrian], there were fifteen bishops in succession there, all of whom are said to have been of Hebrew descent, and to have received the knowledge of Christ in purity, so that they were approved by those who were able to judge of such matters, and were deemed worthy of the episcopate. For their whole church consisted then of believing Hebrews who continued from the days of the apostles until the siege which took place at this time; in which siege the Jews, having again rebelled against the Romans, were conquered after severe battles.
3. But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord; the second, Symeon; the third, Justus; the fourth, Zacchæus; the fifth, Tobias; the sixth, Benjamin; the seventh, John; the eighth, Matthias; the ninth, Philip; the tenth, Seneca; the eleventh, Justus; the twelfth, Levi; the thirteenth, Ephres; the fourteenth, Joseph; and finally, the fifteenth, Judas.
4. These are the bishops of Jerusalem that lived between the age of the apostles and the time referred to, all of them belonging to the circumcision. (Eusebius. The History of the Church, Book IV, Chapter V. Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. Digireads, 2005, p. 71).
   Translated by Arthur Cushman McGiffert. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2501.htm 5/25/19.

We have already discussed how James was not the head of the flock. Jerusalem was the birth place and focal point of the early assembly, and if James had been a local pope in Jerusalem, then he would have been pope over the whole worldwide flock. But Paul said that James, Peter and John seemed to be pillars. He did not say that James seemed to be pope. The decision on circumcision in Acts 15 was sent out not by James, but by all the apostles, elders and the whole assembly at Jerusalem.

James was not a pope, a monarchic mega-ruler, either over the whole world or over just Jerusalem. He was a respected apostle who wrote one letter in the New Testament.

So Eusebius’ assumption that the earliest flock had the same type of government as Constantine’s Rome, with James being the sole head of the assembly in Jerusalem, was wrong. In the same way, succeeding Jewish or Hebrew bishops also may not have been popinos. They may have followed the example of the first assembly, unity by spirit and not by compulsion.

Ultimately, though, the worldly approach to government prevailed among those who were not to be of this world.

For example, during the reign of Hadrian, who put down the Bar Kokhba rebellion, Eusebius lists these bishopricks among the Gentile Christians.

In the third year of the same reign, Alexander, bishop of Rome, died after holding office ten years. His successor was Xystus. About the same time Primus, bishop of Alexandria, died in the twelfth year of his episcopate, and was succeeded by Justus. Eusebius Church History, Book IV, chapter 4.

So the practice of one man ruling over an area took root very early in Christian history.

The principle of bishoprics or pastorates is similar to the principle of denominations. Christ forbids denominations because they pit Christians against one another. The ultimate purpose of denominations is boasting, as Paul brought out in the first five chapters of 1 Corinthians. Paulites were better than Peterinos who were better than Apollonesians. To whatever degree, then, Baptists think they’re better than Methodists, who consider themselves better than Episcopalians, who look down on Baptists. That’s why people are in their particular denominations, because they think theirs is better than the others.

Similarly, setting up bishoprics or dioceses or pastorates is defining a territory where one man rules; and when any other Christian comes into that territory, he’s not an equal brother but a subject of that bishop.

Physical requirements like sacrifices, circumcision, garment fringes and blue threads, were given to Israel to remind them to be obedient. They did not work. Often those with the showiest physical signs were the most disobedient in spirit. The New Covenant is based not on physical reminders of sin and obedience, but on a change of heart. If the heart is changed from disobedient to obedient, then the physical signs, which didn’t work anyway, are not needed.

Human government faces the same quandary. Dictatorial type governments are set up to control the people under them. Conflicts and chaos, from uncontrolled human nature, lead people to turn to this type of government. However, if the hearts of those people are changed and their human nature is overcome, then those all-controlling governments, which cannot change human nature and don’t work long term, are not needed.

People who rule themselves do not need a dictator.

So the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem, according to Eusebius, were of the circumcision, meaning they were Hebrews.

What about number sixteen?

Eusebius goes on:
The war raged most fiercely in the eighteenth year of Adrian, at the city of Bithara, which was a very secure fortress, situated not far from Jerusalem. When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst, and the instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment, the whole nation was prohibited from this time on by a decree, and by the commands of Adrian, from ever going up to the country about Jerusalem. For the emperor gave orders that they should not even see from a distance the land of their fathers. Such is the account of Aristo of Pella.

And thus, when the city had been emptied of the Jewish nation and had suffered the total destruction of its ancient inhabitants, it was colonized by a different race, and the Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Ælia, in honor of the emperor Ælius Adrian. And as the church there was now composed of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus. Eusebius Church History, book IV, chapter 6.

So after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Hadrian ordered Jews not to even come near Jerusalem.

How did that affect the Christians there?

Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire gave his version of the change in the Jerusalem assembly, and how it became a church.

The emperor founded, under the name of Alia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, to which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages.

They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles, and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion the most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices they purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian…
Gibbon E. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I, Chapter XV, Section I. ca. 1776-1788.

Marcus left his mark on the Jerusalem church. They “renounced the Mosaic law,” and changed the “practice of which they had persevered above a century.” Those who did not follow Marcus were called Nazarenes. The Jerusalem assembly was split between commandment keepers and commandment breakers.

The Mosaic Law means different things to different people.

Sacrifices were a central part of the law of Moses, yet obviously the Jerusalem Christians did not offer sacrifices, even when the Temple stood.

Circumcision was included in the law of Moses, and some Jewish Christians wanted to maintain that practice. However, Paul was adamant that circumcision of the heart was required of all Christians, circumcision of the flesh was required of none. Peter was wrong when he refused to eat with uncircumcised Christians because there was no spiritual difference between Jews and Gentiles. Therefore circumcision has no spiritual effect and is useless for any Christian, including Jews.

The Ten Commandments were included in the law of Moses, but they preceded and succeeded that. The Ten Commandments, first written on tablets of stone with the finger of Yahweh, are now written in the hearts of believers with the same finger. The Ten Commandments are in the Ark of the Covenant at the very throne of God in heaven, right under the Mercy Seat. Breaking the Ten Commandments is the whole problem with humanity. Breaking the Ten Commandments is the religion of Satan. Breaking the Ten Commandments is what Christ never did. Those Commandments include the Sabbath, the sign of the Creator.

The Law of Moses also included the Feasts, which told of Christ’s first coming and still tell of His second coming. Yeshua was born at a festival time, He died at a festival time, and He began His flock began on a festival. That flock, Jews and Gentiles, observed those holy Feasts.

It’s widely believed that the Law of Moses includes all of the above, not only sacrifices and circumcision but also Ten Commandments and Feasts. So when Marcus led the Christians away from the “law of Moses,” he led them away from obeying the Ten Commandments and Feasts.

A more modern historian says:
According to rabbinic sources, he [Hadrian] prohibited public gatherings for instruction in Jewish law, forbade the proper observance of the Sabbath and holidays and outlawed many important rituals. (Barron SW.  Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume 2: Christian Era: the First Five Centuries.  Columbia University Press, 1952, p. 107).

Johann Lorenz Mosheim, a German Lutheran historian in the first half of the 1700’s, discussed why the Christians in Jerusalem changed so radically under Hadrian’s rule.

Feeling it was the first importance to their well-being, to procure for themselves the liberty of removing their effects into the city of Ælia, [Hadrian’s new Jerusalem] and to be admitted in the rights of citizenship there, a considerable number of the Christians came to the resolution of formally renouncing all obedience to the law of Moses. The immediate author of this measure was, in all likelihood, that very Marcus whom they appointed as their bishop: a man whose name evidently speaks him to have been a Roman, and who doubtless was not unknown in his nation that had been the chief command in Palestine and might possibly have been related to some officer of eminence there. Perceiving, therefore, one of their own nation placed at the head of Christendom, the Roman prefects dismissed at once all apprehension of their exciting disturbance in the newly-established colony, and from this time ceased to regard them as Jews….

Nothing, in fact, can be better attested than that there existed in Palestine two Christian churches, by the one of which an observance of the Mosaic law was retained, and by the other disregarded. This division amongst the Christians of Jewish origin, did not take place before the time of Hadrian, for it can be ascertained, that previously to his reign the Christians of Palestine were unanimous in an adherence to the ceremonious observances of their forefathers. There can be no doubt, therefore, but that this separation originated in the major part of them having been prevailed on by Marcus to renounce the Mosaic ritual, by way of getting rid of the numerous inconveniences to which they were exposed, and procuring for themselves a reception, as citizens, into the newly-founded colony of Ælia Capitolina.
(Mosheim JL. Commentaries on the affairs of the Christians before the time of Constantine the Great: or, An enlarged view of the ecclesiastical history of the first three centuries, Volume 2. Translated by Robert Studley Vidal.)

So Marcus left his mark.

Before him, all the Christians in Jerusalem had believed like the first Christians on Pentecost. They believed like James, the brother of Yeshua, who was used by God to write a New Testament book. They were all Feast observers, knowing their flock had begun on a festival. They were all Sabbath keepers, who tried to obey the Ten Commandments. When James said, “For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath,” he was talking about Jewish and Gentile Christians being in synagogues every Sabbath. The first Gentile Christian Cornelius was “a devout man, and one who feared God with all his house.”  That means that Cornelius and his whole household observed Feasts and Sabbaths. And all those first fifteen bishops and those Jerusalem Christians had believed like that for over a hundred years.

Then along came Marcus.

No Jews or Christians who observed God’s holy Feasts and Sabbaths were allowed in Hadrian’s new Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina. The Aelia was from Hadrian’s family name — he humbly named the new city after himself! — and the Capitolina was named after Jupiter. [Jerusalem] “was made a Roman colony, inhabited wholly by foreigners, the Jews being forbidden to approach it on pain of death: a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus was erected on Mount Moriah, and the old name of Jerusalem was sought to be supplanted by that of Elia Capitolina, conferred upon it in honor of the emperor AElius Hadrianus and Jupiter Capitolinus,” Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, article Jerusalem.

Why on earth would any Christian want to be in such a city? Who wanted to be in Aelia Capitolina, Hadrian’s New Jerusalem, with the temple of Jupiter on the Temple Mount? Who wanted to see a statue of Hadrian and his horsey where the Holy of Holies had been?

Who?

Only those Christians who wanted to fit in with Rome.

Marcus led those Romish Christians in their new beliefs that Rome accepted. And those Christians also accepted the Roman kind of government – one man rule. And that one man rule – Marcus – led those Christians into anomia – lawbreaking.

Having just one man as the spiritual leader of a group lifts up that one man. He gets to thinking more of himself than he should. The people also think more of him than they should. It’s bad for him; it’s bad for them. And at some point, such a government always leads to apostacy and anomia, as with Marcus.

What’s more, if you accept the government of Rome – one man rule – on a local basis, then it’s logical to accept it on a worldwide basis. If it’s good to have a local bishop or priest or pastor, then by the same reasoning, it must be good to have a worldwide bishop or priest or pastor. You logically progress from a local bishop to the pontifex maximus, the “greatest priest” –

The Pope in Rome.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 58

The Missing Messiah

What do you do when you reject your Messiah?

You look for another one.

That’s just what the Jews did.

John 5
39) “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.
40) Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life.
41) I don’t receive glory from men.
42) But I know you, that you don’t have God’s love in yourselves.
43) I have come in my Father’s name, and you don’t receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

Another did come as the Messiah and the Jews did receive him.

Yeshua had warned His followers not to follow another Messiah.

Matt 24
4) Yeshua answered them, “Be careful that no one leads you astray.
5) For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will lead many astray.

The English rendering of Christ is from the Greek Christos. Christos or Christ is not a name but an equivalent of the Hebrew word for messiah, meaning “anointed one.” The International Standard Version translates the passage like this.

Matt 24 International Standard Version
4) Yeshua answered them, “See to it that no one deceives you,
5) because many will come in my name and say, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many people.

That passage can be taken two ways. One way is people will say Yeshua is the Messiah and then will lead many astray with false teachings that He didn’t teach. Another way is some will say “I am the Messiah,” applying the title to themselves personally.

That second option is what happened 62 years after the Temple fell.

In 30 CE, when they were calling for Yeshua to be executed, the Jews declared they had no king except Caesar. Yet in 66 CE the Jews rebelled against Caesar Nero, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70. Then 62 years later in 132, they rebelled against another Roman Caesar, Hadrian.

Had the Jews chosen the wrong king?

Perhaps they shouldn’t have rejected the one who came as the King of the Jews, and as the Messiah, and as the Son of God. But they missed all that, so they were still looking for their messiah.

When the Jews revolted against Rome in 132, a bold leader emerged.

Who was this guy?

New World Encyclopedia – There is little historical information about the early stages of the revolt. It apparently began in 132, when the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a Roman city damaged the supposed tomb of Solomon. According to the ancient historian Cassius Dio, (Roman history 69.13:1-2):

Soon, the whole of Judaea had been stirred up, and the Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance, were gathering together, and giving evidence of great hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly by open acts; many others, too, from other peoples, were joining them from eagerness for profit, in fact one might almost say that the whole world was being stirred up by this business.

In this situation Simon ben Kosiba emerged as a decisive and effective military and political leader. His surviving letters make it clear that he was in a position of authority among the revolutionary forces by April 132 until early November 135.
New World Encyclopedia, “Simon bar Kokhba.” 5/11/19

Simon the son of Kosiba was not seen merely as a military leader. He was seen by many Jews as the king and messiah they had been waiting for, a messiah who was a human king who would lead them against Rome. Ben Kosiba became their king and gathered an army of 400,000 men, to lead them against Rome.

Originally named ben Kosiba, he was given the surname Bar Kokhba, meaning “Son of the Star,” by the leading Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva, who believed him to be the promised Messiah. (Ibid)

That rabbi said of Simon ben Kosiba, “This is the King Messiah” (Yer. Ta’anit iv. 68d). That’s the reason he was called – even to this day Bar Kokhba — Son of the Star.

Encyclopedia Judaica says:
The appellation Bar Kokhba was apparently given to him during the revolt on the basis of the homiletical interpretation, in a reference to messianic expectations, of the verse (Num. 24:17): “There shall step forth a star out of Jacob.” Bar Kokhba was general midrashic designation for the “king messiah”, and customarily used before the destruction of Jerusalem. Thus, in the verse “a star out of Jacob … a scepter … out of Israel” (ibid.), Onkelos renders “star” as malka (“king”) and “scepter” as meshiḥa (“messiah”), a midrashic interpretation current among the Zealots who joined in the war against the Romans.
Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Bar Kokhba.” 5/11/ 19
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bar-kokhba.

Livius.org, a collection of articles on ancient history, said this about the Son of the Star.

According to the Christian church historian Eusebius (c.260-c.340), Simon claimed to be a luminary who had come down to the Jews from heaven (History of the church 4.6.2). On some of his coins and in his letters, he calls himself ‘Prince’ (Nasi), a word that had very strong messianic connotations (cf. Ezekiel 37.24-25 and several Qumran documents). His loyal followers liked to make a pun on his name: his real name was Simon ben Kosiba, but he was usually called Bar Kochba (son of the star), which again is a messianic claim.

Rabbi Aqiba, the president of the rabbinical academy at Yavne and the official religious leader of the Jews in this age, declared that the successful Jewish commander was the Messiah; at least two rabbis – rabbi Gershom and rabbi Aha – agreed…

The revolt was clearly religious in nature. The rebels were convinced that this was the apocalyptic war that had been predicted by prophets like Daniel and Zechariah.
Livius.org, “Wars between the Jews and Romans: Simon ben Kosiba (130-136 CE).” 9/30/11

Maimonides, who lived in the twelfth century and was one of the most respected Torah scholars of the middle ages, wrote this about Simon ben Kosiba, but with still another name, Ben Koziva.

“Rabbi Akiva, the greatest of the sages of the Mishnah, was a supporter of King Ben Koziva, saying of him that he was the king messiah. He and all the contemporary sages regarded him as the king messiah, until he was killed for sins which he had committed.” Maim. Yad, Melakhim, 11:3.

Although sometimes denied, the belief that Bar Kokhba was the messiah was widespread, supported by “the greatest of the sages” and “all the contemporary sages.” Apparently, the Sanhedrin gave their approval to Bar Kokhba.

The basically authentic statement about a Sanhedrin at Bethar (Sanh. 17b) suggests that at a certain time a bet din participated in Bar Kokhba’s rule. Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Bar Kokhba.” 5/11/19”
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bar-kokhba

The Jews gave fanatical allegiance to this new leader, even in the face of the overwhelming force of Rome’s armies. Hundreds of thousands of them fought to the death behind their new messianic leader.

So what was this new messiah like?

You recall what the rejected Messiah was like.

Matt 20
25) But Yeshua called the disciples and said, “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them and their superiors act like tyrants over them.
26) That’s not the way it should be among you. Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant,
27) and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave.
28) That’s the way it is with the Son of Man. He did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many people.”

The new messiah wasn’t quite like that.

As a dictator, Bar Kokhba declared that all the land was his.

The economic documents found in Wadi Muraba’at show that leases were made in the name and with the sanction of Bar Kokhba: “On the instructions of Simeon b. Koseva.” Apparently the land belonged nominally to the nasi, it being clearly stated in a lease, “You have leased the ground from Simeon, the Nasi of Israel.” In his name the lessors laid down the quota of grain that was to be given to them. As was to be expected in a time of war, the authorities insisted on the cultivation of the fields and confiscated the lands of those who neglected to till them. They “were dispossessed of the land and lost everything.” In effect, Bar Kokhba regarded himself as holding the authority of the Roman emperor and transferred the lands of liberated Judea to his own possession. Encyclopaedia Judaica, “Bar Kokhba.” 5/11/19
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/bar-kokhba

When Israel first entered the Promised Land, the land was divided up among all the families. It was not owned by a Nasi but by the people.

The Messiah that the Jews rejected for Caesar did not rule like Caesar at all. The messiah they accepted did rule like Caesar, as an “imperious dictator.”

Jewish Virtual Library
Bar-Kokhba was an imperious dictator who was in charge of both the army and the economy during the Jewish revolt against Rome… Bar-Kokhba had unlimited authority over his army and was concerned with even the most minor details. He was not afraid to threaten senior officers of his army with punishment. The 400,000 soldiers in his army were said to have been initiated either by having a finger cut off or by being forced to uproot a cedar tree. Bar-Kokhba relied on his own powers and, according to aggada, when he went to battle he asked God to “neither assist nor discourage us.” Jewish Virtual Library, “Shimon Bar-Kokhba.” 5/11/19

The Son of the Star was cruel, even to his own followers.

In other letters found in Naḥal Ḥever, the nasi writes to Masbelah b. Simeon and Jonathan b. Bayahu, who were apparently in command of the En-Gedi front… His language is harsh, and he frequently threatens them with punishment if they fail to carry out his orders (“and if you will not do this, you will be punished”). Ibid

And those were his own right hand men.

As might be expected, this messiah was also cruel to followers of the rejected Messiah.

Ancient Christian historian Orosius wrote:

He [Hadrian] also finally exterminated and subdued the Jews, who, roused by up troubles caused by their own crimes, were at that time laying waste to the province of Palestine which had once belonged to them. In this way, Hadrian avenged the Christians whom the Jews, under their leader Cocheba, had tortured because they would not join them in opposing Rome. Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, by Paulus Orosius, Translated with an introduction and notes by A. T. Fear, Liverpool University Press, 2010, 4 Cambridge Street, Liverpool, copyright 2010 by A. T. Fear

In his First Apology, Justin Martyr wrote: “For in the Jewish war which now occurred, Bar Kokhba, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, ordered that Christians alone should be led to terrible punishments unless they would deny Jesus, the Christ, and blaspheme,” 1 Apol. 31.6

With his dedicated followers and his dictatorial control, Bar Kokhba was able to set up a kingdom independent of Rome, which lasted from 132 to 135. But then —

“Cassius Dio stated 580,000 Jews were killed in the war against Bar Kokhba, with 50 fortified towns and 985 villages being razed. Jerusalem also was destroyed, and the new Roman city, Aelia Capitolina, was built in its place, this time with no accommodation to Jewish sensibilities whatsoever,” New World Encyclopedia, “Simon bar Kokhba.”

We mentioned that Maimonides called Simon Ben Kosiba by the name Ben Koziva. Ben Koziva sounds like the original name, but it means Son of a Liar. That became Ben Kosiba’s title in later rabbinic literature after their messiah fizzled out and was killed by Rome.

That messiah did not arise from the dead after three days.

So the Jews had picked Caesar as their king, which led to their slaughter and the destruction of their city and its Temple. Then the messiah they picked, the Son of the Star, led to more hundreds of thousands of them being killed.

And it led to modern day “Palestine.”

In the aftermath of the war, Hadrian consolidated the older political units of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria into the new province of Syria Palaestina (Palestine), a name that has since passed into most European languages as well as into Arabic.
New World Encyclopedia, “Simon bar Kokhba.”

After the Bar Kochba rebellion, Rome wouldn’t even let Jews into Jerusalem. That included “Jewish” Christians.

And Rome gave the Holy Land a new name, named after the Philistines who had plagued Israel during the time of the judges. To this day that name – Palestine – and those who are called by that name – Palestinians – still plague Israel.

And in Palestine today, the Jews are still looking for another Bar Kokhba, the missing messiah.