All right, let's get started in Sunday school this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Yeah. Ed Norris in Pensacola, they wouldn't take the grandkids home. And so they'll be traveling back sometime tomorrow or today. I don't know when. And to continue to be in prayer for Brother Vernon, they decided not to do surgery because they said that it would be cutting into his nerves and that would be a real bad issue, especially with the recovery. He's 81 years old. And so they're going to try to treat it with radiation. So pray for him and Alice. And we'll keep you updated with that as we check on them each week. And I believe that's it. Let's pray and we'll get started. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You're such a great, wonderful, loving God. And we ask that you'll bless our time together and be with our morning service. And we pray that our desire is that everything that is done glorifies your name. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, we've been doing this study on men of a great God and we've been trekking through church history and we started with Clement and about the time of the apostles we went through Clement, Ignatius, And then Justin Martyr, and then Irenaeus, and then who was it, Tertullian, and then we talked about, I just forgot who we talked about last, Cyprian. Talked about Cyprian of Carthage. And today we're going to cover a guy that I'm excited, I've been waiting on to get to, and this is a guy named Athanasius. Athanasius. Athanasius. In order for us to understand what Athanasius was going through in his life, we have to put our minds in the time that he lived. And that time was around the 4th century, early 4th century. And Christianity has been in persecution, heavy persecution, on and off persecution for the last 200 years, 200 plus years, and then comes to the throne a man by the name of Constantine. Now most of you probably have some knowledge of the name Constantine. How many of you have heard Constantine before? Yes, you should raise your hand because I've mentioned it before. Constantine. Constantine came to the throne and he was really concerned about expanding the empire west. At this time, all of west was under control of the Roman Empire. He wanted to re-establish control to make sure that Rome was all united because different factions had started rising up. thinking that the Empire's power was declining, and so Constantine wanted to show that it was not declining, but an interesting thing happened to Constantine. While he was out at battle on his horse, he looked up and saw in the sky a cross, and a voice came from the cross that said, And so Constantine believed that that was the sign of Christians and there says that he converted to Christianity. And they won the battle. They won the battle that day. And so from that point on he ended all persecution towards the Christians. Now, there's a debate among theologians, whether they're Protestant or Catholic, was Constantine really converted? Was he really a Christian? And there's a lot of doubt in that area. One being the fact that it was not unknown through history that one of the best ways to unite your empire was through religion. and Christianity was growing rapidly and this could have been a political tactic by Constantine to unite the empire through religion and Christianity. Well, 313 rolls around and he establishes what's called the Edict of Milan, the Edict of Milan, which makes Christianity legal and any type of persecution towards Christianity and tolerance to all that is in Christianity. The official acceptance of Christianity brought with it significant dangers, however. Hordes of unregenerate Roman citizens came into the church and were baptized as believers. So what was the great danger? Well, let's see. What would you say from the time that the church started up till Constantine, what was probably the biggest threat to the church? Just from what we've discussed here, what do you think the biggest threat was? Okay, that was one threat that is mentioned even in 1 John. That is one threat. And I would agree with Sally. I would say that I think that when you look at the Bible, the biggest threat is always considered false teaching and false believers. Now, many people would say that it's a persecution of the church. But you have new dangers come in when you give freedom to the church. And I see, personally, I see many parallels with what happens during this time in the church that we see today in America's church simply for the reason of the freedom of Christianity that they had. And this happens in the church at this time. Popularity proved to be a greater threat to Christianity than persecution, and the church was weakened significantly. Because when you have an influx of unbelievers saying they are believers, and then they start to gain control, then what happens? Then the church's teaching starts to change. and heresy begins to dominate. And you have the remnant becoming the persecuted faction once again. We need to understand another fellow during this time and his name was Arius. Now this is not to be confused with the Aryans. This is not to be confused with the Aryans of Nazi Germany. It's spelled differently. This guy named Arius was a bishop. Arius was He was a guy that purported this idea, and that is this, and he was just using human thinking without biblical instruction, and that was this, that if Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and He was the true Son of God, and God the Father is the true Father, then with the relationship of Father and Son, then therefore, at some point, the Son had to have a beginning. And that's what Arius taught. And he brought about this heresy, and that's what it was, it was a heresy, that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the second person in Trinity, was a created being. He was the greatest of God's creatures. And at one point, Arius carries his belief to the point of calling Jesus nothing more than an archangel. Now again, we see this creeping up again in our time. Who teaches this? Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses. I mean, we see this already today. This is not something that has just a time, a thing of the past. So Arius taught this, the deposition of Arius unleashed 60 years of ecclesiastical and empire-wide political conflict. Because when Constantine made Christianity legal, another issue came into the church that plagued the church. And that was not just doctrine, but politics. Politics. A synod, or a synod, which is like a council or a convention or something like that, convened in Alexandria in 321 to hear the matter. The synod judged Arius to be a heretic and stripped him of his pastoral office. What was the synod called? It was called the Council of Nicaea. How many have ever heard of the Council of Nicaea or the Nicene Creed? All right, this is what happens here. You don't have a pope yet. There is no papacy. There is no one person to govern the church and everybody reports to this person, or everybody reports to this one church. The church is still, for the large part, in the same status that it was from the book of Acts. independent congregations throughout. And a lot of these independent congregations did look towards the main city as the representative group that helped the little churches such as Rome or Alexandria and Africa and different places like that. At this time, and maybe it was because of Constantine, you were able to get 318 bishops, 318 pastors together during this time without the communication of text message or Facebook or cell phones or anything like that. And 318 of them, plus other Christians, came to this council in Nicaea in 325. Now, what happened in Nicaea? Athanasius was not a pastor yet. Athanasius was not a bishop. He was a young man. He was only about 25 at the time. And Athanasius came in sort of as the assistant pastor, if you will. Not really an assistant pastor, but he was like the guy in training under his pastor, Alexander. Now remember this, Alexander was the pastor in Alexandria. Fitting name, right? Alexander pastored in Alexandria, and he took his young helper and servant guy, Athanasius, with him. Athanasius was, and we're going to get to a little bit about his life, but this is just sort of introduction, so I don't want to get too far into that. Single-minded love for Jesus Christ expressed itself in a lifelong battle to explain and defend Christ's deity and to worship Christ as Lord and God. is what Athanasius is best known for. The council lasted from May to August. Now think about that. Getting over 300 pastors and more Christians together, meeting every day, just about, from May to August, discussing nothing other than doctrine and what will be considered the doctrine of the church. It ended with a statement of orthodoxy that has defined Christianity to this day. Now, I want to read you a portion of the Nicene Creed as they established it during that time. Because whenever the council ended, they established what was going to be the church doctrine of the Trinity and they wrote it out in a creed. And we still have that today. In fact, there's many churches today that still recite this creed all the time. And so let me read this to you because I think this is really excellent what they did. This portion of it reads this, quote, We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, from the essence to the Father, God from God, and light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not created, of the same essence as the Father, through whom all things were created both in heaven and on earth, who for us human beings and for our salvation came down and was incarnate, was made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven, and is coming again to judge the living and the dead, and we believe in the Holy Spirit. That's pretty phenomenal. And these guys put this together in 325. Athanasius became, he was actually, it's said that he was one of the guys that was responsible for writing this out. Like they hammered all these things, they fleshed out all these things, they got together what they wanted and they said, they looked to a couple of other men and Athanasius being one of them and said, alright, write this out for him because of his education. He became the preeminent guardian of the doctrines of the deity of Christ and the triune nature of the Godhead. So let's jump into Athanasius. This is what's going on here. So let's look at Athanasius' life. He is known as the father of orthodoxy. He is known as the saint of stubbornness. The saint of stubbornness. How many of you know what an epitaph is? An epitaph. You go to a graveyard and you look at the tombstone and it has, here lies this and then somebody puts a little inscription on it. That's an epitaph. What are they remembered by? When you go to their gravestone, what is that person remembered by? It is said that the epitaph on Athanasius' life was Latin, Contra Mundum. Contra Mundum. That's Latin for against the world. Against the world. Because as we're going to see in Athanasius' life, with the inclusion of the Roman Empire into the church, and the politics that ensued, Athanasius was the only one, it seemed like, that was taking a stand for this belief. I didn't mention this. At the Council of Nicaea, 316 of the 318 pastors signed off on this. 316. Say, who were the other two? One was Arius, of course. Arius didn't agree with it. And a friend of Arius. So two men didn't agree with this. But as we're going to see, there's a shift that happens because of politics, and Athanasius is left alone to still claim this as true and orthodox doctrine. So that's why he is tagged with the saying, contramundum, against the world. He had a Christian upbringing. Athanasius was born of a wealthy parents in Alexandria. As a young man, he received a strong theological education in the catechetical school at this time. In his early 20s, he became the personal assistant to the Bishop of Alexandria, a man named Alexander. Now, the Council of Nicaea happened in 325. Three years after that, the pastor, Alexander, died on April 17, 328. The logical choice to succeed him as bishop for that church congregation was his protege Athanasius. They really didn't have a problem with this. They said, well, obviously everybody expected Athanasius. In the three years or in the time that he served with his pastor Alexander, not only did he grow and Alexander loved him, but the people in the congregation loved him. And that's one of the things that we're going to see in Athanasius' life, is the congregation of that church and him as their pastor had such a love for each other. And we're going to see that Athanasius is exiled many times, and every time he's exiled, there is a pastor that comes in, or a bishop that comes in to replace him, and this church congregation basically rejects each one that they send, and they're like, give us back our pastor. And each time Athanasius comes back to be with his people and it's like he never left. They just loved on each other again and he went on teaching the Word. Interesting. In the following years, Arianism was virtually eradicated from the churches of Egypt. Egypt. Now Arianism grew in other places, but in Egypt, especially Alexandria, thanks to Athanasius' influence, boom. Arianism was done with. But the rest of the world, the Christian world, the rest of the church world, Arius spread it. Here's what happens with Arius. Arius, after a little bit of time, you have Constantine in power. Years pass by, and Constantine wants unity. But he sees that this is a growing division, and in fact, he has one of his church counselors, because now that he's a quote-unquote Christian, and he's now big time into the church, he gets some church guys to be his personal counselors. some Christians would be his personal counselors. Well, one of them really jumped on board with Arius' teaching and convinced Constantine to bring Arius back into the fold. So years later, Constantine even decides to reestablish Arius as a bishop take away the title of heretic from him, and then comes to the point where he says, I want to send you back to Egypt and give you back your bishopric, your pastorate. And he sends everybody ends up going along because who's giving this order? It's the emperor, and everybody wants to be in good with the emperor. Do you not see this today, how so many pastors have just dipped their biblical stance on morality to get nosy and shake hands and rub elbows with the President of the United States? I mean, there's a pastor that shows up on Fox News all the time that I think has made himself look like a complete buffoon. used to have a great influence in conservative evangelicalism. He wants to be so cozy with the President of the United States that he has dropped a lot of what the Bible teaches about biblical morality. And so this is what happens in the 300s with Constantine. So you have, when Constantine sends this to happen, a lot of these guys that sign the Nicene Creed, they're like, yeah, we agree with the emperor. We should have a unified church. We need to have unity. We need to get along. So let's accept Arius back, except for one man, the bishop in Alexandria, Athanasius. He said, uh-uh. This guy's still a heretic. He never changed one bit of his belief system. Why are we going to let him come in here and continue to give false teaching to a congregation? Well, who was, in a sense, who was he standing up against? The emperor. So because he stood up against the emperor, Constantine ordered Athanasius to accept Arius back into his position, but true to his convictions, Athanasius refused. Within two years of taking office as the Bishop of Alexandria, most of the bishops who signed the creed did not like the fact that Athanasius was calling people heretics. You're being divisive, Athanasius. You're being too cruel. They wanted to get rid of Athanasius and his passion for this cause. Athanasius was accused of levying illegal taxes on the people of Alexandria, that he used magic, and that he subsidized treasonable persons and more. Every time they brought a trial against him, the facts acquitted him. So then we get into the persecution that Athanasius went through. So Athanasius was sent into exile five times by the Roman authorities. He spent 17 of his 45 years as bishop in exile from Alexandria. So what I want to do is I want to take you as quick as I can through these five exiles because they're absolutely fascinating stories what this guy went through. The first exile The bishops around the area bribed another bishop or another pastor by a guy named Arsenius. Arsenius was the bishop of Hypsile, which is around southern Turkey. They got him to disappear and they started the rumor that Athanasius had arranged to have him murdered and cut off his hand so he could use it as magic. So this is what they spread. Athanasius had this guy murdered, cut off his hand so he could use it as magic in his worship service. So Constantine ordered to have him arrested and brought before him, so they bring Athanasius before him. And Athanasius during this time had some bishop friends of his go on a detective search for Arsenius. Well, they found him. Well, I've skipped a whole part of the story just because I didn't think I had time, but Athanasius grew to have a very good friendship with some guys that were monks in the desert. One of them was a guy named Antony. And these guys were monks. They would go out into the desert. They left all of the worldly things. They weren't monks like you find in the monasteries later on. Because these guys were monks that I could agree with. They were guys that devoted themselves to the study of Scripture and helping the poor. And so they gave their lives, they went to the desert, and they went to the poor of the area, and they would serve them, they would clothe them, they would feed them, they would work for them. At the same time, they would devote themselves to the study of the Scripture. And Athanasius really fell in love with these guys, and they developed a very good friendship. So he sent these guys to look for Arsinius, and they said, Well, they find Arsenius. So while they're bringing Athanasius for his trial to Constantinople before Constantine, the monks are bringing Arsenius at the same time, and they don't know it. So it's just like some kind of courtroom drama. They bring Athanasius, they level all these things, and they say, Athanasius, what do you have to say for yourself? And he asks them if he can bring in a witness. So the monks show up and these guys are just flabbergasted. They bring in a man, they had him cloaked, as the story goes. They had him completely cloaked, they removed the cloak, and of course all these bishops that have been trying to get Athanasius are like, it's Arsenius! They found him! And so Constantine doesn't know what's going on. He said, well what do you have to say about using his hand for magic, Athanasius? Athanasius walks slowly over to Arsenius who was cloaked, pulls his arm up, pulls the sleeve down and says, well there's one hand, walks to the other side of him, pulls the other arm up, pulls that sleeve down, well that's the other hand, and he looks at the guys that were behind all this and he says, tell me, sirs, where is his third hand? Well, you would think that he won the case right there, right? Well, that's not the way it went. Constantine ordered him to be seized the monks grabbed him they ran out they jumped into a boat and They tried to get out of there and escape with Athanasius. He was then blamed for some kind of attack of a supply ship and That sent him into his first exile and that first exile lasted for just about a year He was then able to be when things started to die down. He made his way back to his church and And then two years later, another bishop who did not like him, Eusebius, who was the leader of the Arians at this time. I think I forgot to mention that before Arius was able to make it back to where he was going to go back to being a bishop, he actually died. So Constantine had re-estated him as the pastorate that he once had, but he passed away before he was able to make it there. So Eusebius is now the leader of this Arian group and he persuaded Constantius to get rid of Athanasius. So after this Constantine dies. When Constantine dies he leaves the empire to his three sons. So the empire sort of splits up. Now, you ever seen somebody that is, you know, I know some people like to name their kids after them, you know, you got juniors and stuff like that. And then you got some people that name their, have you ever seen somebody that names all of their kids after them? You know who George Foreman is, the boxer? George Foreman has four kids, three boys and a girl. He named all three of his kids George. And he named his daughter Georgette. Well Constantine is like this. Constantine names one of his sons Constantius, he names one of the other sons Constantine II, and he names the other son Constans. And so these guys take over different areas of the empire. Well Constans and Constantine II sort of agree with Athanasius. Constantius though carries on his dad's mantle. Eusebius convinces Constantius to get rid of Athanasius. So, again, they send Roman soldiers, they send a military group out there to threaten to start killing civilians unless Athanasius turns himself in. Well Athanasius, the monks grab Athanasius and they escape and Athanasius goes into his second exile but the military guys, they just decided not to kill anybody. They went back home. Athanasius stayed in exile for seven years, seven years over this threat from 339 to 346. He makes his way back and on January 18, 350. Constantine II, who was sort of an advocate for Athanasius against his brother. See it got so bad that Constantine II threatened his brother Constantius that if you don't stop the threat on Athanasius' life, we're going to go to war with each other. So Constantius said, okay, fine. So that allowed Athanasius to come back to his church, but then and maybe this was from his brother. But Constantine II was murdered and so now Constantius has no threat of war against the other side. So he goes to find Athanasius again. What he did, let's I think I have this third... I may get them confused with the third and fourth exile, but what he did is he had the same situation almost. He sent the military down there to get him. And when the military went down there to get him, they had the whole church convened. And Athanasius was concerned about his congregation. He didn't want any of them to get hurt. So Athanasius made sure that these monks were there, that they helped the people get to safety, and then he'd let them have him. And they said, no, we're not going to let our pastor do that. So they, against Athanasius' will, they smuggled him out through the back door. When the military commander, Sirianus, got there and noticed that Athanasius was gone, he took it out on the people. And he brutally murdered many of the people in the city and in the church. Much bloodshed happened during this time. And then eventually, when nothing happened, he ended up going back home. And this exile lasted from 356 to 362. The third exile proved to be the most fruitful for Athanasius, however. Protected by the faithful army of monks, no one could find him and he produced his most significant written works. We're going to talk about his writings briefly in just a second, but he wrote the Arian history, four tracts against Arians, four dogmatic letters to a guy named Serpion, and he wrote on the councils of Arminium and Seleucia. during this time. Then you have the fourth exile. In October of 362, Athanasius was again driven from his office by Julian's wrath. The Emperor Julian came to power when he realized that Athanasius took his Christianity seriously enough to reject the pagan gods. Julian was not a Christian emperor. He wanted to go back to the way things were without Christianity and worship the Roman gods. But whenever he started establishing this, when he found that Athanasius was not going to go along with this, he said, all right, I'll have you killed, big boy. And so this brought Athanasius into a two-year exile from 362 to 364. He was restored on February 14, 364, and then his fifth exile. A year and a half later, Emperor Valens ordered that all the bishops earlier expelled under Julian should be removed once again by the civil authorities. Athanasius was brought back on February 1, 366. He spent the last years of his life fulfilling his calling as a pastor and overseer of pastors. He carried on extensive correspondence and gave great encouragement and support to the calls of orthodoxy around the empire. He died on May 2, 373. No doubt this man served God, lived for God, and had a very exciting life. under fear of death many times. His writings. We already mentioned a couple. He had the Discourses Against the Arians. On the incarnation of the Word is probably his most famous. This is the Treatise in 355, teaches the full deity of Christ, demonstrating that it was his deity that made his saving work efficacious. He wrote the Discourses Against the Arians, written from 356 to 360. This is considered Athanasius' polemical masterpiece. A four-volume set was a frontal attack against Arianism. He also, well let me skip that. This is something that I want to include in there. It wouldn't be considered under his writings, but he also wrote letters. These are called festal letters, meaning what we would consider Easter. And he wrote these letters to the church, even in his exile, every year for Easter to be read in the church. His 39th festal letter is very important for this reason. He decided to discuss the issue of the canon of Scripture. The New Testament canon that we have of the 27 books of the New Testament was first established in this letter by Athanasius. Athanasius was the guy God used to establish which of the letters or which of the books of the New Testament were to be divine, holy, inspired scripture. Athanasius was the one to take a stand for it, and his stand stood by those that looked back at his study and life on this subject, meaning Jerome, Augustine, and these guys agreed with Athanasius and went forward. And today we have the 27 books of the New Testament because of what Athanasius' work was done. Surely we can look to that and say God was in that as well. So that's Athanasius' life. Let me finish up with talking about Athanasius' theology. We'll run through this quickly like we normally do as well. Athanasius understood that each member of the Trinity is uniquely involved in redemption. Divine sovereignty. What did Athanasius teach about divine sovereignty? He wrote this as sort of a lengthy quote. He said, himself according to his likeness to the Father. But because he is ruler over all things which through the Son he has made, and has given the authority of all things to the Son, and having given it, is himself once more the Lord of all things through the Word, again when they called God Lord of the powers, they said not this as if the Word was one of those powers, but because while he is Father of the Son, he is Lord of the powers which through the Son have come to be. For again the word to, as being in the Father, is Lord of them all, and sovereign over all. For all things whatsoever the Father hath are the sons." You say, well that was long. What he was saying was this. Again, he's working out the aspects of the Trinity during all of this. But he's saying that you can't discount Jesus Christ as being any less sovereign than God the Father because they are equal. And therefore what God the Father is sovereign over, Jesus Christ is sovereign over as well. Radical depravity, radical corruption. What did he teach about this? He recognized that sin devastated the entirety of God's creation. He says, quote, Sovereign election. Athanasius wrote, True to scripture, Athanasius believed that the salvation of the elect was ordained in eternity past. He writes, quote, how did we receive it before the world was? when we were not yet in being, but afterwards in time, but that in Christ was stored the grace which has reached us." In agreement with Ephesians chapter 1. He has chosen us before the foundations of the world. Which makes you think the wording similar that maybe Athanasius was maybe commenting on Ephesians 1 when writing this. And what about irresistible call? Although there to be one Son by nature, true and only begotten, we too become sons, not as He in nature and truth, but according to the grace of Him that calls. So Athanasius affirmed these things. So even what we're seeing is that these guys may have things that maybe they didn't have, but these guys affirmed this was not something new that came onto the church in the Reformation. These were truths that were being taught in the church in the earliest days of the church. Athanasius fleshed out. We owe a great debt to what God had used Athanasius for. The work done on the Trinity. What we understand, the triune Godhead. He is not one God in three different modes or in three different offices. He is one God and three distinct persons, but all yet deity. Again, we say this over and over again, but we are not going to understand that. The best human language to try to convey what the doctrine of the Trinity is, is the Nicene Creed, I think. And when you read that, you think, wait a second, you've got to explain that. You can't explain it. It is another one of those doctrines about our God that are above human intellect. It's above human intellect. And as we get into the doctrine of God, which next year we're going to cover that. We're going to go into theology proper in Sunday school, and we're going to cover the doctrine of God. And we're going to find quite often there are many things that are taught in the Bible about God that we are just going to be left to going, huh? Explain that. And we're left with, this is the best we can do. because He's God and we're not. He's God, we're not. And that's Athanasius. Athanasius to me is just a fascinating guy, a guy that stood for the truth against the world. Stood for the truth against the world. politics, the sway of the society and everything told him, just listen, everybody's on board with this. Why can't you be on board with it? Athanasius said, no, no. And he didn't relinquish. There's something to be said about that. There's something to be said about that. And so I think that we can take a lot from Athanasius. God definitely used this man's life. Next time we're going to be talking about a guy named Basil. not a leaf, not a plant or a spice, if you will. But this guy's name is Basil of, I think, Carthage. Basil of Carthage. Let's pray. No, Caesarea. Basil of Caesarea. Sorry. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for everything you've done for us. You're such a great, wonderful God. We ask that you'll help us to learn from Athanasius' life, but at the same time, Realize that He is a man just as we are, and that the one that we go to to emulate their life is Christ. We thank you for what you did in Athanasius' life, and as Hebrews says, being dead, he yet speaks, and that his life speaks to us today because of what He did for you. We ask that you'll be with our morning service. Everything that is done glorifies your name. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen.