Okay, Daniel chapter 2, I'm going to be reading from verses 31 through 45. This is Daniel's interpretation to Nebuchadnezzar of the vision that Nebuchadnezzar had seen of this great colossus of gold, silver, brass, and clay, and iron. We'll pick up the reading in verse 31. Thou, O King, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou saw'st till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet, and that were of iron and clay, and break them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them. And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is the dream, and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the King. Thou, O King, art a King of Kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory. And wheresoever the children of man dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, For as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that breaketh all, these shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes part of potter's clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided. But there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, for as much as thou sawest the iron mixed with the miry clay. And as the toes of feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. And the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. inspired word. Now this week we come in our second week on a class on the progress of Christ's kingdom. In this semester, the next 12 weeks, we'll be considering basically the ancient period of church history from 70 AD up to 590 AD. Last week we had an introduction to church history in general. We considered The nature of church history, that there's a divine side and a human and demonic side. We could say that there's a first mover, a first cause, God, but God works through means ordinarily. We also saw the sources of church history, primary sources that we considered as well as secondary, a primary source that I didn't have with me, but here's one volume of the 48 volumes of the original writings of the fathers, the post-apostolic fathers before Nicaea and the period of Nicaea as well as after the Council of Nicaea. This is just one volume of 48 of the original writings. They're still available of those men. We also discussed the periods of church history. Usually church history is divided into ancient, medieval, reformation, and modern. We also discuss the branches of church history or what I would call the focus areas that we'll consider over the next several weeks. We'll look at missions. We'll see the church in its extension going out, carrying out the Great Commission of Christ, but then we'll see how the church interacts with the culture, the philosophy of the world at the time, as well as the political structures of the time. We'll also consider the worship of the church, the doctrine of the church, its government, and its life. And then last week, in closing, we considered what I call the uses or the benefits of church history. We said that as we study church history, we should do so to grow in our understanding of God's providence and Christ's rule in the age that we live in. And we said it ought to cause us to grow in faith, hope, and love. Secondly, we said thirdly, it ought to cause us to grow downward in humility. and watchfulness when we see how God's people and the church as individuals and corporately has fallen and drifted away from the faith. We also said it ought to give us an appreciation for our forefathers. We ought to recognize that we're pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants and that We wouldn't be where we're at today if it wasn't for our forefathers in the church throughout the centuries and God's grace in their lives. We also realized that we need to study church history to grow in our ability to serve in the church. And we said lastly, studying church history ultimately encourages us to be more heavenly minded. We looked at a quote from C.S. Lewis that commented that, in fact, the people that were the most useful in history have been those who have been most focused in their attention in heaven and not had their minds set on the earth. Now again, I mentioned the textbook is R.B. Kiefer. I hope you all have a copy. If you don't, I encourage you to go in the back there in the box and get one because We are going to look at it in a few minutes, but on page 2, Kuyper makes the mention that as you're reading the book, take note of the period of history in which the book or the chapter is covering. Like chapter 2 covers from 33 to 313. What you'll find is the book doesn't just go 50 years a chapter or whatever. There are going to be some times where there's a theme that runs through a whole section of ancient history. So chapter 2 is going to be on the broad theme of the persecution of the church in those first couple hundred years of ancient history. Then it'll come back in chapter 3 and 4 to start looking at some of the what are called the apostolic fathers, the apologists, and the church fathers, what some of the theologians of the time were saying. Now, we're going to be basically covering three periods of history in this semester. The first is really the ministry of Christ and the apostles. Then we'll get into the ancient period in general and we'll consider the period of persecution. This is basically 70 through 312 A.D. and then we'll consider the period of popularity. Who can tell me what ushered in the period of popularity from 312 up to the close of the period in 590 when Pope Gregory becomes the Pope. Anybody know what great event swing in history occurred there in 312? Okay, the edict of bond or edict of toleration, there's a couple of them in there. But Constantine, the Roman emperor, is converted. We'll talk a little bit about his conversion and what that may have been and what we think of that. But clearly, all of a sudden, there have been 10 or 11 emperors that persecuted the Church at some level, some more or less, through this period. And all of a sudden, Constantine I legalizes Christianity, and then, shortly thereafter, favors it. So, that's the big shift here. But I think we have to set the context for the ministry of Christ and the Apostles. So that's what we're going to consider next week, so we can kind of blow into ancient church history improperly. But today, what I want to do is set the context in which Christ and the Gospel came to the world. In other words, what did the world look like in the fullness of times, as the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 4. So, let's set the context by considering the political scene of the time, the Jewish scene of the time, also the philosophical scene of the time, and then the religious scene of the time. The time being 0 AD. What was going on? Well, clearly there have been great civilizations before in Sumer, in Egypt, in Assyria, then the great kingdom of Babylon and Persia and the Medes, and then Greece, and then now the Roman Empire is on the scene. We just read from Daniel. Here Daniel, while he's in the Babylonian captivity, has an interpretation for Nebuchadnezzar to answer Nebuchadnezzar's dream that God had given him. And God through Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, you're this great king, you're the king of Babylon, but there's another kingdom coming. the Persians and the Medes, then there's another one coming after that, the Grecian Empire under Alexander, and then there's another one coming, the Roman Empire, and it's at that time that God plans to send his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to the earth. So we have a prophecy in the book of Daniel about the coming of Christ. What's so sad is many today want to try to tie the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation to prophecies particularly related to things that haven't even happened yet. when it's very clear that any sane reading of the book of Daniel will tell you that the prophecies of Daniel are predominantly about the coming of Christ and what will take place there and these nations that will arise before the coming of Christ. So, we're talking about the Roman Empire. It's very interesting that Luke, physician who was also a good historian, takes a great deal of interest in the book of Luke and the book of Acts about recording some secular history markers for us to remind us that this isn't just some fictional story, but it's set in a political context. By this time, 0 AD, the city of Rome has been around for about 750 years. Palestine had been under the rule of the Empire since 63 BC. Palestine didn't become a province of Rome until 6 AD. But at this time, if you look at page 26 of Kuiper, you'll get a picture of just how widespread the Roman empire is. See all these white children? That's all the Roman Empire. And at the time, that's where things were happening in Western civilization, all right around the Mediterranean Sea. And so Rome was over Egypt, over Libya, over Galatia, Armenia, They were over Italy, Gaul or France and a good portion of Western Europe as well as Spain. They also ruled in England. So they had a great spread of their empire at the time. Now what was the government like? About 509 BC, Rome was a republic. The Roman Empire was a republic. It had a representative government from about 500 BC to 27 BC. In the last hundred years of that period when they were republic, there was some civil wars going on. During that period as well, around 55 BC was the first time that Julius Caesar had his first military campaign into England. But in 27 BC, at the death of Julius Caesar, the Republic, or representative government, clearly moves to an empire. It clearly moves to the Caesar-maker. We've seen a little bit of transition like that in our own government over a couple hundred years. Right? The man who's the titular head, the representative, of the country often can take to himself powers that aren't his. And the Caesars continue to do so incrementally, but generally historians say in 27 BC at the death of Julius Caesar is that great switch. It wasn't just like a switch in our life. It happened progressively. People's rights were taken from them. At that point, Julius Caesar's nephew, Octavius, begins to rule. He's known as Caesar Augustus. He's the Caesar Augustus that Luke refers to in Luke 2.1. Caesar Augustus reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD. So he was in charge during Christ's period. After that came Tiberius and then some others and then eventually Nero comes to the throne in 54 AD and reigns through 68 AD. We'll see in a couple weeks that most historians believe that Nero is the individual responsible for the crucifixion of Peter upside down as well as the beheading of the Apostle Paul in Rome. But what we can say about this period is that Rome had spread its empire, and though the Caesar was beginning to dominate, nonetheless there was what was called the Pax Romana. Anybody know what that is? Remember that in history? The peace. Right, so there's peace. Rome was pretty powerful, so they pretty much subdued the pirates at the sea. They established a great road system. In general, it was safe to travel on those roads. And so, God is, we see in his providence, working out for the spread of the gospel. Christ was on the scene when it was possible. Good, that's true. And those Roman roads were built much better than most of our roads. They haven't fallen apart as quick as our roads. I'm sure they are. But if you go on Google and just put in roads of the Roman Empire, you'll get quite a few maps. And it's kind of interesting just for you children to look at all the roads and all that aerial surrounding the Mediterranean Sea there on page 26. I encourage you to do that. So, you see that. But we also have to realize that this time, during the Republic, the people of Rome generally were sacrificing to the gods of the state, which were the Roman gods, which they basically took over from the Greek gods. But as things transferred slowly into the empire, sacrifice began to be offered to the emperor. Now if you ask the emperor, and you ask people, do you really think the emperor is god, they would have generally said no. But what they were saying is that the emperor represented the state. They were worshipping the state. They weren't exclusive in that worship. They promoted pluralism. They allowed people in their empire to worship God as they pleased just as long as they would be willing to offer incense once a year to Caesar. How do you think the Jews handled that? Remember the Shema of Deuteronomy chapter 6? How many gods did the Jews think there were? One. Well guess what happens? The Jews generally aren't going to bow to me. So what is Rome going to do? Okay? That's one option. What else can you do? Is that what the state of Pennsylvania does to the Amish? Oh yeah, that's another option, right? This is going to be nasty, right? So, they got an exception. And then, what happens? You might want to get in on the exception clause if you can. And this is going to explain some of the Jews in the next couple of lessons distancing themselves from the Christians. You see that in Revelation 2 and 3, where in two of the churches, God, through God, is prepared to save the synagogues or synagogues of Satan. The Jews want to say, they're not part of us. They're not a branch of Judaism. And so the Jews will persecute the Christians directly, and then they will say, the Christians aren't us, so have Adam. So this is just setting the context for the things we're going to be considering. Secondly, the Jewish background or the Jewish theme. Okay, Stephen says in Acts 7.38 that there was a church in the wilderness. So, we can say that there was a church in the 40 year wilderness wandering. The people of God came up as a nation, they were a church, they were an assembly. And yet, you read Daniel 2, and you see that there is a kingdom going to be established. When this one who is the stone, What's made without hands destroys this colossus of all the great political powers of the time that have preceded it. And so we see some continuity between the Church in the Old Testament and the New Testament, but we also see significant discontent. The Messiah has come, the Messiah is going to say to Peter and through the Church of Peter and Caesarea Philippi, that upon this profession I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. So it's a unique aspect of us being part of Christ's Church. He's come. But again, through the ancient civilizations, the Hebrews have always been there. Remember, Abraham was called out of the area of the Chaldees, an area just north of Babel. And that family, the 70 people we've seen in recent sermons that go down to Egypt, they're going to come up out of Egypt 430 years later, to the tune of about 2-3 million people. Half a million fighting men, 30 years or older, come out of Egypt. And they rise in significance to the period of David around 1000 BC. David reigns for 40 years, his son Solomon reigns for 30. Then the kingdom is divided. The northern tribes which are called Israel and sometimes you'll find them in the prophets called Ephraim because Ephraim was the largest tribe in Israel. So that can be somewhat confusing when you're reading The prophets, and you see Ephraim referred to, it's not always referring to just the tribe of Ephraim, often times it's referring to the northern kingdom. But they're taken into captivity by Assyria, the great power at that time in 721 BC. Then the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin are taken into the Babylonian exile in 605. Now some people say it's not 585, which is probably the great exodus, but 605 B.C. was when Nebuchadnezzar took the very cream of the crop away. That's probably when Daniel and his companions got taken away. 605 B.C. The reason I like that date is because I believe God speaks truth, and if he says the people of God were in exile for 70 years, I believe that's the case. Whether the historians try to suggest it's 53 or 50 years, God said it was 70, it was 70, so we know when they return, they go back and say 70 years before, that's when God was counting from, that's when the clicker started. And so they return under Cyrus in 535 BC, and then we have some of that history recorded in what we call the post-exilic books of Ezra, and Nehemiah we also have the post-exilic book of Esther which tells us about what was going on with God's people back in the Persian kingdom while some of God's people were back in the promised land building the temple and building the wall and then we also have the prophet Malachi speaking in that time as well as Zechariah and Habakkuk So, they return, but as the people of God return, what's interesting is that Daniel's prophecy concerning his coming kingdom begins to grow amongst the people of God. There's a growing consciousness that the kingdom of God is at hand, that something radical is going to happen, that Messiah is going to return. And now I'm clear that the true Jews, the remnant of the Jews, must have connected that with the promise of Genesis 3.15. The one that would come from the seed of the woman to crush the heavens. Another prophecy of Messiah, the servant of the Lord, of Isaiah. But then we come to what's called the intertestamental period, from 400 BC to 0 AD. I can't cover that very much. Josephus in his works speaks of it. Josephus was a Jewish historian, and I think clearly he has some bias, but he has two great works, his work of the antiquities of the Jews, as well as the wars of the Jews, and in these he gives us some of that intertestamental period. A lecture on that, if you go to Sermon Audio, do my last name, Worrell, then Old Testament Survey, and then you'll see a lecture on the intertestamental period. But it's often a period of history that most of us know very little about. But it's pretty important. Alexander, the Macedonian, comes on the scene in 334 and begins his great campaign. Anybody remember some great man that went with Alexander on that campaign? Any philosophy? Yeah, he took Aristotle with him. Not so much for his philosophy, though Aristotle had been his tutor, but mainly because as they went on these campaigns, Alexander was a pretty bright man, though obviously an egotistical man. He took Aristotle mainly as a traveling scientist. There were a lot of great finds during those military campaigns. You see some of that even in World War I and World War II. Whatever side that you were on, whether it was the Germans or the powers, our powers, the United States and others, when people were in strange places they were looking for archaeological finds as well as biological things. But at this period, shortly thereafter, Alexander dies, his kingdom gets spread out, and the Ptolemies family take over in Palestine. They take over until about 200 BC. They basically let the Jews practice their religion during that time. But then the Seleucids take over after that. and a man named Antiochus Epiphanes comes on the scene and he ruled from 175 BC to 164 BC and it's Antiochus Epiphanes that is spoken of in the book of Daniel significantly the one that would bring desolation to the temple that would cause the temple sacrifices to cease but the Jews rebel under the Maccabees and by 141 they defeat the Seleucids and they become independent That independence only lasts for about eight years. And then in 63 BC, there's a civil war in Palestine. The Jews begin to fight with themselves. Why do the people of God always do that? The Scots were good at that too. When they were clans and painted themselves blue and fought, but also once they became reformed, they found ways to fight as well. And so do we today. But at that point, Rome didn't like that a whole lot, so they established their authority there. In 37 BC, Herod the Great began to reign, then his son Archelaus. reigned and he was deposed in 6 AD and then in 26 AD a man named Pontius Pilate takes over in the area under Roman approval and he reigned from 26 AD to 36 AD so he's going to be alive at Christ's feet and be responsible for it. One thing else we need to know about the Jews is that though the temple had been rebuilt after the return there were a lot of Jews that hadn't gotten back and so there's still a great dispersion of Jews and so synagogue worship begins to play a bigger part and Jews are spread out throughout the Roman Empire you see that in Acts chapter 2 where at Pentecost people come from all the whole known world all around the Mediterranean to celebrate that sacrifice there's a large colony of Jews in Alexandria in 250 B.C. and apparently 70 scholars there are authorized to write the Greek Old Testament. They complete the Septuagint. But there's another man that's very influential in the time and his name is Philo. He lived from 20 B.C. to 42 A.D. He was a Jewish philosopher and we'll talk about him in a couple minutes. But because the Jews were spread all over, this is going to affect the way Paul does his missionary work. Remember, he says in Romans 1.16, to the Jews first and to the Gentiles, he's going to go to the synagogues that are spread throughout. Historians say that between 10 and 20% of the population of the Roman Empire were Jews at the time. They were either Jews, Proselytes, these are followers of the Jewish religion who are willing to undergo circumcision. The males were willing to undergo circumcision. And there were also what were called God-fearers who attended worship services in the synagogue but hadn't yet committed to submit themselves to the law and undergo circumcision. The other thing we need to know about the Jews is that there were three dominant, and I could say four dominant groups within the Jewish people. There were the Sadducees. They were willing to Hellenize. They were willing to become like Greeks. They were willing to compromise with Rome politically. They denied the existence of angels, the resurrection. and the afterlife. So these are political compromisers and liberals. That's who the Sadducees are for simplifying things. Then there's the Pharisees. They don't come from wealth like the Sadducees generally did. The Sadducees were generally from priestly families, well-to-do families. The Pharisees were originally a reform movement which grew formal and external. They had the right idea, but then they started developing a list of do's and don'ts. Does that sound familiar in Southern Evangelicalism? Fundamentalism? Formalism? Jesus said in Matthew 23, 2 and 3, to obey them, but don't follow what they do. In other words, they generally tell you what's right, they just don't live what they tell you. Jesus in Matthew 23 in his woes for the Pharisees says in verse 15 that they confiscated land to make one cross away. In other words, Jews used to be very evangelistically aggressive. They're not so anymore. They'll tell you about their faith if you ask, but they're not aggressively evangelized. There were also the zealots. They strongly opposed Roman rule. They were willing to rebel against it. They believed they had a right to their national sovereignty, and you could say that they were maybe more politically bent in general than spiritually bent, but that's a generalization. And then there was the remnant, what I call the remnant. There were those who, as Luke says in Luke 2.25, when he's describing Joseph and Mary bringing Jesus to the dedication and they lay him in the hands of Anna, it says that she was one of those that was waiting for the consolation of Israel. And then, just a few verses later in verse 37, as they now meet Simeon, it says that he and others look for the redemption in Jerusalem. So the consolation of Israel through redemption in Jerusalem. So these are the true Jews of the talk. These are the people that were regenerated, the people of God waiting for Messiah. They're the invisible church, so to speak, the talk. They're the people that are the real deal. So we consider the political background The Jewish background, any questions, comments? This is a little bit more scholastic than the rest of the classes will be because we'll start getting into actual people and times and events in the next couple of weeks. Yes Ed? Great. Good. We're going to get to that. Good. Good point. Thanks for leading. So, let's consider the philosophical background for a scene. Some of us may say we don't really care for philosophy, but if we understand that philosophy comes from two words, phileo, to love, and sophia, wisdom, we have to say that we all should be interested in philosophy. It's a view of reality, right? It's a view of God and us and the created order. But Greek culture, though the Greeks had been dominated by the Romans, the Greek culture dominated the Roman culture. The Romans won politically, but the Greeks won culturally. And the Greek language, as Ed said, was the common language of the time. And now they have a Greek Old Testament. But Socrates in Athens around 450 BC trains Plato, Plato trains Aristotle. Aristotle's theology is going to be recovered in the Renaissance period, just pre-Reformation. It's going to be picked up there, but it's going to be picked up much before that in the medieval period, middle medieval period, and then that's going to usher in what's called the period of scholasticism within the Roman Catholic Church. And that's scholastic patterns and some Aristilian thought and philosophy and logic is going to come down into the Reformation period. In general, for whatever reason, Aristotle wasn't too popular. There were faggots back then too. Plato was in, and Aristotle really wasn't. At the heart of Platonic thinking was that matter is the source of all evil. That there's two worlds, a physical world and a spiritual world, and they're separated. That's not going to fit real well with Christian theology, with this survivalism. But Philo was a Jew who had already started incorporating Platonic thought into Jewish thought. And he revised the doctrine of creation to accommodate this Greek dualism. He had a mediator who was less than God but more than man. He called that mediator the Logos. Now, when John's going to use the Logos, he's not going to be talking about the same concept, the same person or the same concept. He's going to actually be confronting that Platonic concept. So, Platonic thought was big, Stoicism was fairly big. In Acts 17-18, when Paul comes to Mars Hill, we find that there were Stoics and Epicureans there. Basically Stoics, real simple kids, Stoics say grin and bear it. Keep it up, stiff upper lip. Suck it up. That's the simple Stoic. The Epicureans we normally think today are eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you shall die. The early Epicureans actually were very moderate. But they did enjoy their pleasures and thought there was a place to enjoy the things that God's given. Is that not somewhat? Comparable to the biblical model? Yeah, yeah. But the problem is what happens with most philosophies is they have the seeds of dissolution and so they fall apart. And so Epicureanism has basically become, what's the philosophy of today? Hedonist, full blown, everything to be max pleasure. So Zeno was the starter of Stoicism. It's really a form of pantheism. He basically said everything is material. He held that determinism or fatalism, that's different than the Christian view of God's sovereignty and providence. They held to a strict morality, but they also believed that everything repeats itself. They also believed there was a universal spirit which draws all back to itself. Sounds a little bit like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to me. But that's what was on the scene. And I think particularly we're going to see that Platonic thought is going to have a negative effect on theology as we keep going. Quickly, religious scenes. Up to this time, a lot of people were agrarian, they were farmers. 85% of all people were in farming up until the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s. So even in this period, most people are out in the rural areas. They see the forces of nature and they honor them. They honor their forefathers as well. They believe in good and bad spirits. In general, these nature religions are group religions. They're not religions where one person practices it with God himself. But it's groups of people gathering to honor the stars, honor the sun. Dominating. But people in the Greek and Roman cultures had gone beyond that. They had adopted Greek and then Roman gods. They were a lot like them. But Greek and Roman god worship had fallen out at this point. But state religion, worshipping, sacrificing to the emperor once a year didn't seem to solve it either. Matter of fact, people now that they were under an empire really didn't feel like they were part of the community. When you're a republic, when you're represented in government, you're actively involved in the welfare of the state. But what happens when one person is going to give you all your bread, all your needs? And it all focuses on the emperor. So state religion was not satisfying either. There were new mystery religions coming up. Gnosticism is going to be one of those. A kind of elite religion where you're going to be told some secrets and you're going to have some initiation rite, something akin to baptism, you're going to have some sacred meals, but you're going to be the enlightened one. You're going to be the ones that are special. But there's a great dissatisfaction at this point with all those, and people are wanting to go back to ancient and old ways. Now that seems totally contrary to our culture, doesn't it? Everybody wants something that's new. If there's a new iPhone out tomorrow, there will be millions of people lining up for, even if it's marginally better than the last bird, But people wanted the old. Some showed a renewed interest in the gods of Egypt, particularly Osiris, who was the god of the afterlife. But there were also a lot of military people that were impressed with the false god of the Persians, Mithra. But many saw the Jewish religion as an ancient and old religion that went back to the beginning. And so people were trapped there. That's why there were so many God-seekers, so many non-Hebrews in the synagogues at the time. So what is God doing? Paul says in Galatians 4, 4 and 5, When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. God was weaving all these things, the Roman Empire, the Jews, the Greek culture and Greek language, as well as a religious unsettledness on the part of many. He was bringing all this to bear when he sent his son to do it. So the Roman Empire, the good roads, safe travel, the Pacramana, The Jews, 10 or 20% of the population, worshipping in synagogues throughout the empire. The Greek culture, the common language, the Septuagint, but also false views of reality that are going to affect the church's theology. And then this religion, this dissatisfaction with false religions, the Greek and Roman gods, the worship of the emperor. So we see how this leads to the mission of the church, The fields were white for harvest. The world was shaken upside down by the New Testament Church. The Gospel went forth in great power after Pentecost, and we'll see that. But as soon as it does, immediately there's an interaction with the Church and the Roman Empire, right? So the Empire helps the Gospel spread. The Empire is not going to like Christians. And though the spread synagogues are going to be used as a tool to help spread the gospel, shortly thereafter the Jews who don't come to Messiah are going to be opposed to the church. And then also the Greek culture. We've got a Greek Bible and Paul is going to quote from it sometimes, sometimes he's going to interpret it, sometimes he's going to make up his own translation when he quotes from the Old Testament and the New Testament. But the Greek Bible is available, and guess what? Culture does get translated to words. Don't be mistaken. We can be opposed to mission work that contextualizes the gospel, and we ought to be in a significant way, but we've got to recognize when you translate a Bible into another language, you've hit some level. placed that culture on the bottom of the earth. That's why Luther's translation as well as Tyndale's translation of the English Bible and Luther's German Bible were so influential in cultural development in Germany and England. So let me close with this. We talked last week about B.C. and A.D. Do you children want to remind us what BC means? AD? What's AD mean? After Christ, that's right. But the D doesn't mean Christ, right? So, it's in Latin, right? Anno Domini. And what does that mean? This is in the year of our Lord. That's correct. So, the fullness of time, the Lord's come. Now we live in a different period of time, don't we? From before Christ. There's a church in the wilderness, but Messiah's come. Messiah's building his kingdom. We see that in Daniel 2.44, in the days of these kings, this is the kings of the clay and the iron, in the days of these kings, during the kings of Rome, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people as other kingdoms were. but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. Once the church is fully built, all the scaffolding is taken back. And all the cultural and all the political schemes that have been there and God used for the good of the church, they're all removed. The Kingdom of God is what's left standing. So what I want to leave you with today is that we live between D-Day and D-Day. What was D-Day? What happened on D-Day? They went in and at least for Americans we'd like to think that the day after D-Day it was over. The war was going to be won. That's the way we view it. Whether that's actually true or not, that's the way we Americans have chosen to see it. There's no way we're going to lose at that point. After Christ's death, burial and resurrection, the victory is assured. And ascension. He's the messianic king. Listen to this, and we'll close with this. 1 Corinthians 15, 24 and following. Then come at the end. That's V-Day, right? When He, Christ, shall have delivered up the kingdom to God. That's the Father. even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and all power. For he must reign, Christ reigns now, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet, that he is the Father. He hath put all things under Christ's feet, But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did put all things under him. Get that verse? That just says that the Father put all things under Christ, but he didn't put himself under Christ. That's what that verse says. And when all things shall be subdued unto Christ, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him, that put all things under him, so that God may be all in all. Christ has been given a kingdom. It's His. When He puts all things under, as well as death, He's going to give it back to the Father. 1 Corinthians 15, 24-28. So we live in this time. It's the year of our Lord. He reigns. But it's still between D-Day and E-Day. It's as good as done, but the mop-up operations are still going on in our own hearts, as well as in the world. Let's close in prayer.