When Evil Rules
There is much evil in the world today. God’s people are extremely weak. Many have been deceived into believing that God changed His mind and will end the world before all the nations become godly. What went wrong? How did we get so far off-track? Very simply, God’s people disobeyed God. They were obedient for two or three centuries in the Roman empire but no longer have the strength of faith they had then.
Those early believers could not meet together in any public gathering as we can today. They lived and studied God’s word together in small communities formed by the Apostles. There were no churches with ordained ministers to teach or lead them. They were on their own most of the time. This highly restrictive and oppressive environment, however, produced true faith. It grew to such an extent that in 320 A.D. the Roman Emperor Constantine had to declare Rome to be a Christian Empire.
Sadly, the vital spirit of those early centuries did not continue. Christian Rome was increasingly tolerant toward the faith. The closely knit small groups of believing families became larger groups that were less closely knit. These were led by specially trained men called pastors. Surely, these men were godly and taught well but they relieved the people of the need to study on their own. As a consequence, the faith began to fade. Churches that held regular weekly services were formed and gradually supplanted home Bible study.
The faith continued but as centuries passed it grew increasingly structured. By the 16th century, the rigid Roman Catholic Church dominated the West. It ruled over the religious lives of essentially all believers. It was so strong it was able to put serious dissenters to death. It enforced its version of Christianity with an iron fist, putting objectors to death in an open display of their power.
The invention of the printing press enabled those that resented the oppression of the Catholic hierarchy to voice their opposition, and The Reformation was born. It divided the Christian West into two camps, the Protestants and the Catholics. These fought against each other in the 30 years war that ended in a draw and a sad compromise. It weakened the power of the Catholic Church but left it standing as a continual alternative to the true faith. The inability to unify the West seriously impacted the Protestant’s ability to govern in accordance with God’s Word. The Western World remained divided religiously and could not act as a unit.
The subsequent five centuries saw little growth in the faith and a very significant setback. Satan, seeing the weakness of the Christians had his servant C. I. Scofield write a bible called the Scofield Bible. It was a traditional King James Bible with Scofield’s (Satan’s) notes embedded adjacent to the text. It met with instant popularity in that it made the simple readers believe that with it they were competent theologians. The book swept through the then very weak Christian community very rapidly.
Church pastors that objected and refused to teach from Scofield’s notes were replaced and the poison spread to cover the entire landscape. The world’s Christians and their churches were swallowed up in Satan’s trap. The great majority of the world’s Christians abandoned the true faith and became Dispensationalists. They are waiting, now over 50 years, for a supposedly imminent rapture.
The expectation of a very-soon rapture event is beginning to wane but work on the Great Commission to make the world a Christian world is still at a virtual halt. It will not resume until God’s people set aside their foolish expectations and get back to doing God’s work God’s way.
Evil rules today only because God’s people have been immersed in a foolish dream. When they wake up they will shake off this nonsense and the world will change.