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Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000025S
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00:01 - A lot of people have asked me why I spend so much time
00:03 reading ancient history and why we spend so much time 00:05 talking about it on this show. 00:07 It's because the faith of the Bible is a historical faith, 00:11 and you really can't grasp what the Bible says, 00:13 unless you get context. 00:15 So today on Authentic, 00:17 I'm gonna talk about what you need to know 00:19 about first century Palestine 00:22 and what it might say about your faith and mine today. 00:26 [bright upbeat music] 00:48 To try and understand the story of Jesus 00:49 without understanding its historical context 00:52 is to make a little bit of a caricature 00:54 out of the famous Nazarene. 00:56 That makes understanding Christianity pretty difficult too. 01:00 Personally, I have a fear that our generation 01:02 is becoming somewhat historically illiterate, 01:05 and once we lose our historical roots, 01:08 we become prone to a couple of serious problems. 01:11 First of all, we lose sight of the fact 01:14 that the Christian faith is distinctly historical, 01:17 a system of belief that continues a story 01:19 that comes from the Jews. 01:21 It's a story where a personal God 01:24 is accomplishing His purposes by acting in our history. 01:28 Secondly, without historical context, 01:31 it becomes tempting to jettison elements of our faith 01:34 we think are superfluous, or even silly, 01:38 because we lack a good understanding 01:40 of how those elements of the faith 01:42 got there in the first place. 01:45 The story of Jesus as you find it in the gospels, 01:48 takes place under Roman occupation, 01:51 an imperial nation that some people consider 01:53 the world's first truly totalitarian empire. 01:57 The Romans required you to be submissive, 02:00 even though in some respects, 02:02 they granted conquered people quite a bit of freedom 02:06 especially when it came to religion. 02:09 As a new subject to the Roman empire, 02:11 you were allowed to keep your own faith 02:14 as long as you also acknowledged the Roman emperor 02:17 to be a God. 02:19 Now, to be perfectly clear, 02:21 very few people actually thought the emperor 02:24 was some kind of deity 02:26 because after all, a lot of the most powerful people in Rome 02:29 knew the emperor when he was a kid 02:31 and they knew full well 02:33 that he was just as human as anybody else. 02:37 But symbolically, 02:38 the emperor represented the very spirit of Roma, 02:41 the spirit of the empire, 02:43 and so adding the emperor to your list of gods 02:46 became a symbol of loyalty to the Romans. 02:50 Of course, this presented all kinds of problems 02:53 for the Jews because they would not 02:56 and could not acknowledge any God, 02:58 but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 03:02 The first commandment in their moral law said after all, 03:04 "You shall not have any gods before me." 03:08 And so venerating the emperor that was strictly off limits, 03:15 that made the Jews a bit of a sticky problem for the Romans 03:17 because other nations had no trouble adding the emperor 03:21 to their Pantheon, 03:22 because when you already have a dozen gods, 03:25 what's one more. 03:27 It wasn't a problem for people like the Phoenicians, 03:29 but it was a problem 03:31 for the world's original monotheistic religion. 03:36 Add to that, the troubled history 03:38 that other conquerors faced when they came to the holy land 03:41 and the indignities that Jews suffered 03:43 at the hands of other empires, 03:45 and the Romans found the Jews to be well, 03:48 let's say more than a handful. 03:50 During the 400 years between the close of the old Testament 03:54 and the beginning of the new, 03:56 the Jews had suffered persecution 03:57 at the hands of a Hellenistic king 03:59 named Antiochus Epiphanes, 04:02 who went out of his way to make the miserable. 04:06 To begin with, he built a gymnasium 04:09 near the temple in Jerusalem, 04:10 which doesn't sound like much of a problem, 04:13 who doesn't want a gym, 04:15 except for the fact that Greek athletes 04:17 almost always practiced in the nude 04:19 like a bunch of deplorable Gentiles. 04:22 In fact, the word gym comes from the Greek word gymnos 04:26 which means naked. 04:28 Then Antiochus Epiphanes took the temple itself 04:32 and converted it into a temple of Zeus 04:34 where he sacrificed an unclean pig 04:37 to the chief of pagan gods. 04:40 So by the time the Romans came to town, 04:42 it's safe to say the Jews were a little frayed. 04:45 For the Jews, 04:47 a Gentile occupation was not just a political problem, 04:50 it was also a distinctly religious one. 04:54 The land they occupied was not just some plot 04:57 of real estate, 04:58 it was a vital part of the Jewish faith, 05:01 it was an inheritance given to their father Abraham 05:04 by the one true God. 05:06 Here's the way you find that described 05:08 over in the book of Genesis, where it says, 05:12 "And the Lord said to Abram, 05:14 after Lot had separated from him, 05:16 'lift your eyes now, 05:18 and look from the place where you are, northward, southward, 05:21 eastward and westward, 05:22 for all the land which you see I give to you 05:26 and your descendants forever. 05:28 And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth 05:31 so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, 05:34 then your descendants also could be numbered. 05:37 Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width 05:41 for I give it to you.'" 05:45 The descendants of Abraham 05:47 were supposed to get that land forever. 05:50 And when the Romans came, it represented something 05:52 more than just geographical occupation. 05:56 The land was meaningfully tied to the promise of God, 05:59 to the covenant with Abraham, 06:00 and it was a potent symbol 06:02 that God had favored Abraham's descendants, 06:05 to lose control of the land to a bunch of idolatrous pagans 06:09 wasn't just an insult, 06:11 it was a signal that something had gone wrong 06:13 with their entire faith 06:16 and even suggested that maybe just maybe, 06:19 God had abandoned them. 06:21 The historian, James Carroll points out something important 06:24 when it comes to Roman history. 06:26 You and I tend to favor the Romans 06:28 because our whole way of life is built on their empire, 06:31 to one extent or another. 06:33 As Westerners, we got our system of laws, 06:36 system of government, 06:37 a good deal of our architecture, 06:39 and our ideas of good infrastructure from the Romans. 06:43 We can still see, there are amazing roads and aqueduct 06:46 scattered all across Europe, 06:47 and so we think of the Romans as a civilizing influencer, 06:52 a people who brought a bit of order 06:54 to my ancient ancestors, the barbarians. 06:57 So when Rome fell and gave way to barbarian kingdoms, 07:02 we say that's the beginning of the dark age, 07:04 is a time when civilization quite literally fell apart. 07:08 Of course we know how brutal Rome was, 07:10 they persecuted, they had cruel torture and crucifixion, 07:14 but on the whole, 07:15 most of us tend to give the Romans a passing grade, 07:18 they seem like they're kind of a good thing to us, 07:22 which brings me to James Carroll's observation 07:24 from his famous book, "Constantine's Sword." 07:27 He writes, "To the peasant peoples 07:30 of the Roman dominated world, 07:32 to the millions of slaves and petty laborers 07:34 and Rome itself fully 1 million in the population 07:37 of 2 million were slaves, 07:39 to the lepers and beggars, 07:41 to the troublemakers whose lives could be snuffed out 07:43 with little notice taken, 07:45 no characterization of Caesar's evil 07:48 would have been too extreme. 07:50 We have looked back at Rome from above, 07:53 from the point of view that is of those who benefited 07:56 from its systems, traveled its roads, 07:58 beheld its architectural wonders, 08:00 learn to think in its language, 08:03 but what of that vast majority who grew no such benefit? 08:07 There is no understanding either the Jesus movement itself 08:11 or the foundational memory of its violent conflict 08:13 with the Jews, 08:15 if we cannot look back from below, 08:17 from the vantage of those, 08:19 for whom the Roman systems were an endless 08:22 ever present horror." 08:24 Now, personally, 08:26 most people know I'm a big fan of Roman history, 08:28 and I'm one of the few Protestant ministers 08:30 who likes to visit Rome more than I like to visit Jerusalem, 08:34 but as we speak because of my own people's history, 08:36 we were the barbarians, 08:38 members of the Germanic tribes 08:40 that lived in the dark forests to the North. 08:43 And the history of Rome is now inextricably linked 08:46 to my history, especially after the fall of the empire 08:50 when the barbarian suddenly became the Holy Roman Empire, 08:55 a religious empire made up of non Romans 08:58 that just picked up where Rome left off. 09:01 So I'll admit, 09:02 even though the Romans are pretty brutal to my ancestors, 09:05 I still tend to see them with rose colored glasses 09:08 and kind of a big grudging sense of admiration. 09:14 But you know, historically James Carroll is right, 09:16 for the people who lived in Palestine 09:18 during the first century, 09:19 Rome was pretty much a non-stop horror show, 09:23 to the point where the Romans once crucified 09:24 something like 2000 resistors on the hillsides 09:28 around Jerusalem just leaving their bodies 09:32 to rot in the sun. 09:34 And it's not just James Carroll who makes that observation, 09:37 there was an ancient Hebrew prophet who knew exactly 09:40 what the Romans would be like 100s of years 09:43 before the Roman empire even existed. 09:45 And I'll be right back after this 09:47 to show you what I'm talking about. 09:50 [upbeat music] 09:51 - [Announcer] Dragons, beasts, cryptic statues, 09:55 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 10:00 If you've ever read Daniel or Revelation, 10:02 and come away scratching your head, you're not alone. 10:05 Our free focus on prophecy guides 10:08 are designed to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 10:10 and deepen your understanding of God's plan for you 10:13 and our world. 10:15 Study online or request them by mail, 10:17 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 10:21 - In the seventh chapter of Daniel, 10:23 a young Hebrew captive living in Babylon 10:25 experiences this really strange vision, 10:29 receives odd looking animals coming up out of the sea. 10:32 It's absolutely fascinating 10:33 and here's the way he records it, 10:35 Daniel seven verse one, 10:37 "In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, 10:40 Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed. 10:44 Then he wrote down the dream telling the main facts. 10:47 Daniel spoke saying, 10:48 'I saw in my vision by night 10:50 and behold the four winds of heaven 10:52 were stirring up the great sea, 10:54 and four great beasts came up from the sea, 10:57 each different from the other.'" 11:00 So let's get a little context for this 11:02 because this is really, really important. 11:05 This is not just some senseless nightmare 11:07 somebody had because they ate too much before bedtime, 11:10 this is a deeply and profoundly symbolic vision. 11:14 Belshazzar was the last reigning king of Babylon, 11:17 or to be more accurate, 11:19 he was actually just a vice region 11:20 because his father Nabonidus was the king, 11:25 but dad liked to go out fighting wars 11:27 instead of sitting on the throne, 11:29 so what he did was install his son Belshazzar 11:31 in the palace instead of him. 11:33 Now, for those of you who know the story, 11:35 you'll remember it was Belshazzar 11:36 who threw a massive party 11:38 the night that Babylon fell to the Persian army. 11:41 And that what that means for us right now 11:43 in Daniel chapter seven 11:45 is we know this dream is taking place 11:47 near the very end of the Babylonian empire. 11:52 Daniel himself standing on the shore, 11:54 and he's watching the winds of heaven churn up the seat, 11:58 kind of creating massive white caps in waves. 12:02 And in the biblical world, 12:03 the wind was a symbol of warfare and political turmoil. 12:07 As the water gets more and more violent, 12:09 suddenly four strange looking animals 12:11 walk up onto the beach one after the other. 12:15 So what in the world would that represent? 12:18 It represents international warfare in the ancient world 12:22 were pagan Gentile empires 12:24 tried to seize power from each other 12:26 and establish themselves as the world's dominant superpower. 12:31 To the Jews, God's promised land, 12:34 the land that the Romans would eventually call Palestine 12:37 because of the Philistines who lived there, 12:39 that land was an island of God's promise 12:43 in the middle of this violent Gentile sea. 12:46 To the Jews, the sea was the Gentiles, 12:49 I'll show you what I mean, 12:50 listen to this passage from Psalm 144, 12:53 where David is praying and he says in verse seven, 12:56 "Stretch out your hand from above, 12:59 rescue me and deliver me out of great waters 13:02 from the hand of foreigners." 13:05 So the great waters are the troublesome foreigners 13:08 that surround the land of promise. 13:11 Here's another example 13:12 now from the book of Isaiah chapter 17, 13:14 where it says, "Woe to the multitude of many people 13:18 who make a noise like the roar of the seas, 13:20 and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing 13:23 like the rushing of mighty waters." 13:27 What Daniel is witnessing in Daniel chapter seven, 13:30 is a series of Gentile nations 13:32 coming up on the shores of God's promised land, 13:36 and they're about to dominate the children of Abraham. 13:39 And the reason this is allowed to happen 13:41 is because way back when after God established 13:44 the Israelites in the land of promise, 13:46 they started wishing they could be like the other nations, 13:49 like the Gentiles, 13:51 to the point where they actually demanded 13:54 a human king. 13:56 Now that was not part of God's original design. 14:00 What he wanted was a nation of people 14:01 who answered directly to Him. 14:03 And the role of human leadership was simply 14:06 to point people to the will of God. 14:08 But when it looked like the prophet Samuel was going to die, 14:12 God's people kind of panicked about an apparent vacuum 14:14 of leadership that was coming 14:16 one that would be left behind by his death 14:18 and so they demanded a king, 14:21 and here's what God said about that request 14:23 over in first Samuel chapter eight. 14:25 It says, "And the Lord said to Samuel, 14:27 'Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you 14:30 for they have not rejected you, 14:33 but they have rejected me 14:34 that I should not reign over them.'" 14:38 So from God's perspective, 14:40 the request for a human Monarch 14:42 was actually a rejection of God's right 14:45 to govern his people directly. 14:47 And because God does not force people to love Him, 14:51 He gave these people what they wanted, 14:53 and the inevitable result of human leadership 14:56 was corruption and wickedness. 14:58 And it got so bad 14:59 that eventually God allowed the Babylonians 15:01 to come and sack the city of Jerusalem 15:04 and destroy the temple and take His people captive. 15:09 That's how the prophet Daniel gets to Babylon 15:12 the first place. 15:13 And now he sees the future of God's people 15:16 and it is not a happy story. 15:18 They wanted human leadership 15:20 and they're gonna get exactly what they asked for. 15:22 They wanted to be like the Gentile, 15:24 so they're going to be living with Gentile domination 15:26 until the very end of time, 15:29 one kingdom after another is gonna walk up onto the shore 15:34 of the promised land. 15:35 Now the first animal Daniel sees in chapter seven 15:38 is a lion with Eagle's wings, 15:39 or rather well-known symbol for the Babylonian empire. 15:43 In fact, if you go to the British Museum 15:45 or the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, 15:47 you'll find all kinds of examples of winged lions 15:49 that came straight out of Babylon. 15:52 After that, we get a bear that's raised up on one side 15:55 with three ribs in its mouth. 15:58 And it was during the reign of Belshazzar 15:59 that the Persians came and sacked the city of Babylon 16:02 and then went on to build 16:04 the world's first truly international empire. 16:08 Now, the most likely reason this bear has lopsided 16:11 it is because the Persian empire itself was lopsided. 16:14 It was a coalition between the Medes and the Persians 16:17 and the Persians were more easily the dominant half. 16:21 The three ribs in its mouth 16:22 probably the three provinces of Babylon, 16:25 Babylon, Egypt, and Lydia. 16:28 Then we get a four headed leopard with two sets of wings, 16:31 and that represents the Macedonians or the Greeks 16:34 who conquered the Persians under Alexander The Great. 16:38 Of course in time Alexander died, 16:40 and his empire was divided among his four generals, 16:43 which is why we suddenly have a four headed beast. 16:46 In an aside note, 16:48 we know the Greeks demanded that their subjugated peoples 16:51 learn to read and speak Greek, 16:52 which is why it became the universal language of learning 16:56 even for the early Roman empire, 16:58 which is why the new Testament was composed in Greek, 17:01 even though it was written during the Roman period. 17:05 Then we get the fourth piece, 17:06 which of course would be the Romans. 17:08 And here's where I wanna slow down a bit 17:10 and read the description carefully 17:12 because it completely anticipates 17:14 the reality of living in first century, Palestine. 17:18 This comes from Daniel seven verse seven where it says, 17:22 "After this I saw in the night visions, 17:25 and behold a fourth beast dreadful 17:27 and terrible exceedingly strong. 17:30 It had huge iron teeth, 17:32 it was devouring, breaking in pieces 17:34 and trampling the residue with its feet, 17:37 it was different from all the beasts that were before it 17:39 and it had 10 horns. 17:42 Now that was exactly the experience 17:44 of the first century Jews who lived in Palestine 17:47 during the time of Christ. 17:49 The Roman empire was completely brutal, 17:52 more so than any of the three previous Gentile kingdoms. 17:57 I mean, don't get me wrong, 17:58 the others were pretty brutal too, but Rome took the cake. 18:02 Rome was willing to devour, to break in pieces, 18:05 and to trample anything or anybody who got in her way. 18:09 And that's not even the end of the story, 18:11 so you sit tight because I'm coming right back after this. 18:17 - [Instructor] Here at the voice of prophecy, 18:19 we're committed to creating top quality programming 18:21 for the whole family, 18:23 like our audio adventure series, Discovery Mountain. 18:26 Discovery Mountain is a Bible based program 18:28 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 18:31 Your family will enjoy the faith building stories 18:33 from this small mountain summer camp, Penn town. 18:36 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 18:39 and fresh content every week, 18:41 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 18:44 [upbeat music] 18:48 - Try to imagine the impact 18:49 of 2000 of your fellow countrymen, 18:52 your friends and family crucified 18:54 right outside the city walls. 18:56 It happened after the death of Herod The Great, 18:59 a king that while most Jews despised, 19:01 because they thought of them is nothing but a Roman puppet. 19:06 A massive rebellion against Rome broke out 19:09 in the wake of Herod's death. 19:10 And the Roman governor of Syria, 19:12 a guy by the name of Publius Varus 19:15 sent in his troops to squash it 19:17 by putting 2000 rebels to death 19:19 in the most cruel way imaginable. 19:23 This happened, incidentally, 19:24 not too far after the birth of Christ, 19:27 who we believe was born sometime between five and four BC. 19:33 And I know it seems like a mistake because, 19:34 well, how could Jesus be born 19:36 four or five years before Christ? 19:38 Well, it's because we made a mistake with the dates. 19:41 So, imagine today the impact of getting in your car 19:45 and driving out of town, 19:46 and seeing the tortured bodies of your friends and family 19:50 lining the shoulder of the road for miles on end. 19:54 And you'll get a sense of just how devastating 19:56 this event really was. 19:59 What we have back in the first century 20:01 is a season anti Roman incentive. 20:04 But at the same time, 20:05 we find that the Jewish nation itself was hardly unified 20:08 in its approach to the Romans. 20:10 I mean, most people shared a hatred for the Romans, 20:13 but they also harbored resentment against each other 20:16 because of their perspectives on the problem. 20:19 On the one hand, 20:20 you had the Pharisees 20:21 who saw the occupation by a Gentile nation 20:23 as a corrective measure from God 20:26 that would bring people back to a strict observance 20:29 of the law. 20:30 Then you had the Sadducees who were the aristocrats, 20:33 and they control a lot of what happened at the temple, 20:36 and they liked cooperating with Rome whenever possible 20:39 just to keep the peace because, 20:41 well, maybe because they had so much power to protect. 20:44 Then you had the Aetius 20:46 who saw any cooperation with Rome whatsoever 20:49 is sheer treason. 20:51 And they spent a lot of time preaching repentance 20:53 kind of in the style of John the Baptist. 20:57 And of course on top of all of that, 20:58 society was also divided into liberals and conservatives. 21:02 Some people were Hellenistic who loved Greek culture 21:05 and tried to bring it into the Jewish faith, 21:08 and other people were Zealots 21:09 who didn't mind resorting to arm resistance. 21:13 There was no end to the divisions 21:16 among the Jews of the first century, 21:18 which means that a master of conquest like Rome 21:21 could easily exploit the infighting 21:24 to keep the Jews from successfully resisting them. 21:28 That was the world of Jesus. 21:30 And to read the gospels without understanding that 21:33 is to miss a lot. 21:35 There were people who expected Jesus to overthrow the Romans 21:38 because they suspected He might be Messiah. 21:41 And they knew full well that at the end of this prophecy 21:45 in Daniel chapter seven, 21:46 the son of man receives an everlasting kingdom, 21:50 in another part of Daniel and chapter two, 21:52 it tells us that after four key empires, 21:55 a stone comes from the sky, 21:57 smashes all those Gentile kingdoms 22:00 and then fills the earth with the kingdom of God. 22:04 So the Jews of the first century mostly knew 22:09 it was about time for Messiah to appear 22:11 because they were living under the fourth pagan empire. 22:14 And that's why you have people trying to crown Jesus 22:17 as king. 22:18 And it's the reason that so many of His followers 22:21 were so disappointed when He was crucified. 22:24 It seemed like something had gone horribly wrong 22:28 based on their understanding of the Old Testament. 22:32 You might remember the conversation that the risen Christ 22:34 had with two disciples on the road 22:37 to Emmaus over in Luke chapter 24. 22:40 It says, "Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered 22:44 and said to Him, 'Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, 22:48 and have you not known the things which happened there 22:51 in these days?' 22:52 And He, that speaking of Jesus said to them, 22:55 'what things?' 22:57 So they said to Him, 22:58 the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth 23:01 who was a prophet mighty in deed 23:02 and word before God and all the people, 23:04 and how the chief priests and our rulers 23:06 delivered Him to be condemned to death and crucified Him. 23:11 But we were hoping 23:12 that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. 23:15 Indeed, besides all of this, 23:17 today is the third day since these things happened.'" 23:22 when it comes to reading the Bible, context is everything. 23:28 And unfortunately far too many modern Christians 23:30 restrict their reading to just the New Testament, 23:33 which is entirely constructed 23:36 out of the thinking of the Old Testament. 23:38 To read the gospels apart from that context 23:41 in the Old Testament 23:42 is to miss a lot of very important details, 23:46 and to get an inadequate picture of who Christ is 23:49 and what he came to accomplish. 23:52 Now in the very short time that we have left, 23:54 I have one more thing I wanna show you, 23:56 and we're gonna look at the 23:57 all important historical context for us. 24:01 The prophecy of Daniel 24:02 didn't just show a devastating Roman empire, 24:05 it also showed a disturbing development 24:07 that would come after the Roman empire collapsed. 24:09 And before the return of Christ, 24:12 here it is now in Daniel seven and verse 23, it says, 24:17 "Thus, he said, 24:18 'The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, 24:21 which shall be different from all other kingdoms 24:24 and shall devour the whole earth, 24:26 trample it and break it in pieces.'" 24:29 So that's the pagan Roman empire and we've seen that, 24:32 but now watch this. 24:34 Verse 24, "The 10 horns are 10 Kings 24:37 who shall arise from this kingdom." 24:40 That's describing exactly what happened 24:42 after the Western Roman empire collapsed, 24:44 it divided into fragments, 24:46 kingdoms ruled by the barbarian tribes 24:48 who brought the empire to its knees, 24:50 people like the Germanic gods. 24:53 And the rise of the barbarian 24:55 suddenly creates a new kind of Roman empire, 24:58 one word the church starts to fill the power vacuum 25:02 left behind by the collapsed Roman state. 25:05 What it produces is something we now call 25:07 the Holy Roman empire, 25:09 which to some extent or other 25:11 still kind of exists to this day. 25:14 And that the peak of power is the church in Europe 25:16 laid claim to the political power of the failed Roman state, 25:20 it started to behave in reprehensible way, 25:22 something all of us read about in history class, 25:25 and something that every Bible believing Christian 25:28 should be willing to admit. 25:30 Even though we claimed the name of Christ, 25:33 we started confiscating the property of people 25:35 we called heretics, 25:37 and we started burning books and even burning people, 25:41 and Daniel saw that coming to in verse 24, 25:44 "And another shall rise after them, 25:46 he shall be different from the first ones, 25:47 and shall subdue three Kings. 25:49 He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, 25:52 shall persecute the saints of the Most High, 25:55 and Shall intend to change times and laws." 26:00 The philosopher, Santayana once famously said, 26:02 "Those who do not learn from history 26:04 are doomed to repeat it." 26:06 You know, something he's absolutely right. 26:10 It's one thing to miss details in the New Testament, 26:11 because we lack historical context, 26:14 it's another to repeat the kinds of atrocities 26:17 committed by the Roman empire for the very same reason. 26:21 We like to call the time after the collapse of Rome 26:24 the dark age and it certainly fits. 26:26 Not only did we lose things like culture and learning, 26:28 we also forgot what the Roman empire did to God's people 26:31 in the past, 26:33 and once we achieved a little bit of power, 26:35 we started to do the very same things. 26:38 I'll be right back after this. 26:41 [soft upbeat music] 26:42 - [Narrator] Life can throw a lot at us. 26:44 Sometimes we don't have all the answers, 26:48 but that's where the Bible comes in. 26:50 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 26:53 Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 26:55 we've created the discover Bible guides 26:57 to be your guide to the Bible. 26:59 They're designed to be simple, easy to use, 27:01 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions, 27:04 and they're absolutely free. 27:06 So jump online now, 27:08 or give us a call and start your journey of discovery. 27:12 - It's easy to point to the pagan Romans 27:14 and condemn them as the merciless brutes that they weren't, 27:17 and frankly, they would deserve it. 27:19 But if you read the whole story, the prophetic context, 27:22 you read everything in this book, 27:23 you discover we're no better. 27:25 The moment the church in the West had a little bit of power 27:28 we just picked up where the Romans left off 27:30 and we behaved abysmally. 27:32 And the sad thing is this, 27:34 if we had paid attention to context, 27:36 if we had continued reading the entire Old Testament 27:39 and paid attention to the prophecies of Daniel, 27:42 we would have seen the warning, 27:44 we would have seen it coming. 27:45 This is why it is so important to compare everything 27:48 you're going to choose to believe, 27:49 not against human opinion, 27:52 but against this book. 27:53 And not just parts of this book, 27:55 not just your favorite parts of this book, 27:56 not just the gospels, not just the New Testament, 27:59 this book is meant to be read in its entirety. 28:03 Context in Bible study is everything, read the whole book. 28:09 I'm Shawn Boonstra, 28:10 this has been Authentic. 28:12 [bright upbeat music] |
Revised 2021-10-06