‘Day 265

Thus far we have seen a grand panoramic view of the history of the church over 2000 years. Without the presence of Christ’s physical appearance, the church moved forward through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit provided wisdom, power, and comfort to the messengers of the Gospel in those early years. People everywhere could tell that Christians were different. They had embraced Jesus, and they had authority behind their message. Christ was living in their hearts through the Holy Spirit. Others could tell that they had been with Jesus, even though Jesus wasn’t on earth (Acts 4:13).

Through the Holy Spirit the church had been given special gifts for the spreading of this message. (see e.g.1 Corinthians 12,) Members chose a vocation in the church designed to spread the message of Christ. And they did a good job, too. At least as first. The church grew quickly, even under fierce opposition. But, then, over time, worldliness crept in, and people in the church started resisting the power of the Holy Spirit. As a result of losing the power of the Holy Spirit, the church used other means to sustain itself. And the results were not pretty.

As anyone who knows early church history can tell you, within a few centuries after Jesus left the earth, the church fell into apostasy. It began entangling with false teachers and false beliefs. Inequality quickly entered, and the hunt for power prevailed. The church eventually became pagan in practice and, instead of keeping God’s commandments—it sought to change them!

To make matters worse, it went from being persecuted to, once it gained power, being the persecutor! First, it began to persecute non-Christians. No longer having the power of the Holy Spirit behind them, church leaders sought the power of the state instead to do for the church what, without the power of the Holy Spirit, it could not do for itself.

It even started persecuting Christians who were not doing what the church leaders told them to do. They withheld the Bible from people and let only some priests read it. Later they had traveling friars who lived on alcohol and tricked people out of money by telling them that they would go to “purgatory” if they didn’t pay. Then they started having people pay to get their families out. The whole system itself became corrupted from beginning to end.

The church was now not only corrupt, but also became terribly powerful. A single man at the helm of the religious and civil power took the title of “Christ” on Earth. He had supreme authority over the church. And he had killed or ex-communicated anyone that wouldn’t bow to him. In short, the church stopped being “Christian,” regardless of what it called itself.
The church entered a truly powerful and treacherous historical period. But guess what? The Bible predicted that this would happen. Jesus predicted it in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. Paul predicted it in 2 Thessalonians 2. Daniel predicted it in Daniel 7, 8, and 11. And Revelation predicted it in Revelation 12, 13, and 14. It didn’t just predict that this would happen, but it also predicted the downfall and end of this apostasy as well. That is, it ends on a good and hopeful note!

Revelation says that God’s people—the Remnant—will keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 12:17). Then Revelation tells us that the testimony of Jesus is “the Spirit of Prophecy” (Revelation 19:10). Thus, the gift of prophecy will be made manifest among God’s faithful people because they have God’s Spirit.

Paul says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). God doesn’t ask us to believe without evidence. He doesn’t give us so much evidence that we do not need to have faith. (Very few things, if any, can we believe without some level of faith, anyway.) Yet God has given us enough evidence for us to make an intelligent and even rational choice about what we will believe and who we will follow. We can either believe God and His Word, or we can believe what others say. Prophecy, however, does give us powerfully compelling, and powerfully rational, reasons for trusting in God.