THE ETERNAL CHURCH (part 4)

Now the Church entered it's 1000 year period of "deterioration" referred to as the "dark ages" of church history. Here is a quote from page 87 of Brother Hamon's book that explains the main cause of this decline, "Most church historians agree that the Edict of Toleration was the most damaging to the

Spiritual Church, even though it brought life and liberty to the Structural Church which prospered greatly with it's new-found social acceptance, political power, and material possessions". Constantine encouraged his constituents to become Christians, but Emperor Theodosius made it compulsory 70 years later when he made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. Now everyone had to belong to the church in order to be a Roman citizen. This resulted in many people becoming church members in name only, without repenting of their sin and being born again. This gradually opened up the church to the military spirit of "Imperial Rome", which then ruled the Roman Church even after the Empire collapsed. When the Church became a political organization patterned after the Roman Empire, the very nature of church gatherings changed. Gone were the simple gatherings of born again believers in Jesus led by elders, and now "worship had developed into elaborate, stately, imposing ceremonies which had all the outward splendor that had once belonged to heathen temples". The Emperors forced the pagans into Christianity, and the pagans forced Christianity to accept many of their religious customs, and these became part of the traditions of the "Structural Church", many of which remain to this day!

We need to realize that there is a vast difference between the organization of Satan's kingdom of darkness and God's Kingdom of light. The original Church that Jesus said He would build, was patterned after God's Kingdom, and the example of Jesus. The leaders were humble servants, who submitted to one another, and were accountable to those placed over them. The structural church that emerged from this merger with Rome was patterned after Satan's kingdom, where the leaders competed with each other to see who would be the chief ruler. Many pagan customs were brought into the church at this time, along with false teachings such as the worship of certain saints, and elevating Mary to the position of "Queen of Heaven" or "The Mother of God". Probably this was based on the Pagan worship of Diana, or the Egyptian Goddess Isis. Unfortunately many of these customs remain in the Structural Church to this day!

Sincerely submitted

Gramp