God's Work Throughout the Ages

It goes to show sometimes you plan something out and then it doesn't work quite the way you intended. Things change over the years. And speaking of things changing, you know, in our age, that brings me to the subject I wanted to speak on today. And of course, with Pentecost being tomorrow, it's a time we look at the church and its importance and are calling into it.

And I find that those two subjects are somewhat related because our view of being in God's church and what we think that should be like tends to vary quite a bit depending on when we came into it. The church has changed over the years in its physical characteristics. Now spiritually, the church has always been the body of Christ and we believe the same things. But the physical circumstances have changed. I know because I deal with teens at summer camps a lot, they don't always appreciate me talking about the old days because it probably sounds silly to them.

I talk to them about how when I was a teenager in the church, we had somewhere from 60 to 80 kids, you know, teenagers in our congregation. And we had organized sports that were so extant and organized that it was like being in a traveling league. I think about it. It was good for me because it was a league that had different rules. I even got to play. In most traveling leagues, you have to have some skill. But many of you could remember back when you'd go to a feast site and there'd be 10 to 14 or 15,000 people attending the feast in one location. Some of you might remember seeing leading ministers of the church being interviewed on 60 Minutes or a time when the church put on a radio program that was on the air across the nation every day of the week.

And if you remember those things, you might look around us now and it seems maybe a little depressing. Perhaps even distressing. You wonder, what happened? The church isn't supposed to be this way. You know, we're a smaller church, a smaller group, and doing a work that seems much smaller. And I wanted to add the seams to that because there are some ways it's different. The Internet didn't exist back when we were on the radio every day, but now it does.

And we've got much more information available all around the world, all 24 hours a day. So there are some ways that our work is bigger. But it still doesn't seem that way to those of us that think back to those, as I said, 10,000 member feast sites. Not to mention, there's also the fact that in addition to being here in our church, there are several different church organizations, sometimes, I think dozens of them, that teach pretty much the same thing. And, you know, they have many of the same goals, and yet we maintain separate identities.

And sometimes that's discouraging. We wonder why. And we might think, what is God's church supposed to be like? Well, let's consider our first scripture. We're going to turn to Luke 12. Luke 12, beginning in verse 32. And I'll warn you, this is one of the sermons where I've got several scriptures in clusters. So we'll turn quite a bit at certain times, and other times you can sit and I'll talk at you. But Luke 12, verse 32, we focus on this scripture quite a bit during the kingdom of God seminars, focusing on the latter part of it. But I want to focus on the first part, where Jesus said, Do not fear little flock.

It is your Godfather's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. And of course, it's his good pleasure to give us the kingdom. But he mentioned right there that it's a little flock. That's what he called the men. We might also consider a prophecy that Christ quoted if we'll turn to Matthew 26.

Matthew 26, and we'll read verse 31. Here, Jesus is talking to his closest disciples, those would be the apostles, just before he's crucified, and it says, Jesus said to them, All of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it is written, and he quotes an Old Testament prophecy, It is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. No doubt this prophecy has the immediate interpretation that Christ meant. Later that very night, he, the shepherd, was going to be stricken, and they would all run for their lives.

But it, of course, had a meaning earlier in the Old Testament when it was first given, and I think it also applied to later circumstances. If we'll turn to Acts 8, there's a circumstance where I believe that very prophecy applies. The shepherd struck, and the sheep scattered. Acts 8, verse 1.

Of course, this is shortly after Stephen gave that long sermon and then was stoned, and it says, Saul, who later changed his name to Paul, was consenting to his death, and at that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. So there was persecution, and the church was scattered. And that seems to fit with what Christ said the church would be like. Now, it wasn't all bad. Of course, God would use it to accomplish his purposes. If we look down in verse 4, it says, Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. So the church was scattered, but they still kept doing the work that they were called to do. They went preaching the word. And I think with that in mind, it shouldn't greatly surprise us to see the current state of the church. That we are a small, seemingly scattered group. We don't have the great power that some of us might have thought we had before, that we want to have. But still, it's exciting to think of the times when the work was greater. And I want to look at some episodes in the history of the church going back 2,000 years, as I said, coming up to Pentecost, where we think about the formation of the church and what God has done and is doing through it. So I want to consider starting off a special time when God decided the church would not remain quite so small and scattered. He decided to use his church to do a powerful work and be a witness within the world. To do this, starting out, God called a certain man who had been quite successful in business. This man had traveled a lot. He'd met many influential people of wealth. But then that man went through a dramatic change. He was shocked and goaded into studying his Bible, studying it very intensely, along with other historical works and philosophical works to help him have understanding. And when he applied the common sense that he had learned and that had made him successful in business to the Scripture, he found and he came to see that they taught almost the exact opposite of what most churches were teaching. That the Bible seemed to oppose Christianity as it was taught.

This former businessman came to an understanding of various Bible prophecies that led him to believe that the end of the world was coming soon, or at least the end of the age. So he began teaching people, teaching them that they needed to pray, to study the Bible, and that they needed to obey God's law. He began publicizing this truth. He traveled the land to teach and to preach, set up congregations of believers in relatively large numbers. Relatively large numbers responded to his message. They began providing financial support as co-workers with him. To provide help in doing this work, he established a school to train ministers who he would appoint to pastor congregations that had begun.

This church believed that it was the true successor to the apostles of Jesus Christ. In contrast to the surrounding society, these believers kept the Seventh-Day Sabbath. They taught their children to read the Bible, but they baptized only adults. They refused to keep Easter and the other Roman holidays. Instead, they kept the Passover on the 14th day of the first month on the Jewish calendar.

What was interesting when I learned this story was that the man I've been describing was not Herbert W. Armstrong. Some of you might have been leaning that way, some of you might have been otherwise. The followers of that man did not become the worldwide Church of God. But rather, the businessman I'm discussing was named Peter Waldo. His followers were called by others the Waldensians in the Middle Ages when he did this work. Of course, they didn't call themselves that. They called themselves the Church of God. Peter Waldo began his ministry in southeastern France in 1161 A.D.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, his work spread to southern Germany, and it reached its greatest influence in the early 1200s. The Waldensian work was very powerful for its time. It seems almost certain from our view in history that it was part of the true Church. And I say part because we can look at historical documents and see that there were others in other areas unbeknownst to the Waldensians who seemed to be teaching and believing the same thing. Unfortunately, the Waldensian work did not endure longer than a few decades. It was powerful, unified, and reached a lot of people.

But over time, the children and the grandchildren of those who were affected by Waldo and those who followed him began to compromise. The Catholic Church dominated Europe at that time, in a way far more than it does today. And the Catholic Church did not easily tolerate dissent. So to avoid persecution, some parents in the Waldensian movement began allowing their children to be baptized by Catholic priests.

The reasoning was, well, it doesn't matter, it's just them getting wet a little bit. We still know the truth. But similarly, then others began attending Mass on Sunday to obey the laws that said they had to do so. Many of them started off attending secretly on Saturdays with true believers and then publicly on Sunday.

But over time, the compromises grew. Over a few generations, what had been a strong Church and a united work began to fade. Divided, believers became scattered and eventually very few in number. By 1487, which is over 300 years after Peter Waldo. So remember, things changed a little more slowly in that era. But 300 years in 1487, Pope Innocent VIII issued a proclamation calling for the complete extermination of the Waldensians. Some of them converted to Catholicism. To their credit, I guess if we want to say credit, some were killed, refusing to change. It seems that a small number went further into hiding. We know that at least some of them continued calling themselves that and were around a few decades later when a group of them approached the Lutheran Church wanting to join and get protection.

But from what we can see of the documentation of what they did and believed, those who were called Waldensian by that time were no longer really a part of God's true Church. They no longer believed and lived the same way. But still, God's Church never ceased to exist. It had been around long before Peter Waldo began his work. And God would make sure that the true Church survived, whether it was in a different area called by different names, even after the followers of Waldo had ceased obeying God.

Jesus promised that, and it's a familiar Scripture I'm not going to ask you to turn to, but in Matthew 16, verse 18, He said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Meaning that death would never encompass the Church. The Church would survive. And careful study of history, and it's sparse documentation we have, but that shows that God's true Church does endure. It always has, even though it might seem different and look different in different eras.

I read a couple of Scriptures earlier about the first century Church being scattered from Jerusalem. But at first, that only made it stronger. Let's go, and well, I'm still turning to Acts, so if we'll go to Acts 2, let's see how different the Church was early on from the small scattered group that we saw later. Acts 2 and verse 1, now we'll probably read this tomorrow, of course, talking about the day of Pentecost.

And this was that fateful day of Pentecost, the first one after Christ's crucifixion, when the Holy Spirit would be poured out. It says, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Suddenly, there came the sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.

It filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat on each one of them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. What an exciting event! Those who were there, and I believe this says another place, there were 120 names. And we debate, was it 120 individuals or 120 families? Either way, that's a fairly small group.

But the Holy Spirit was poured out, and there was visible cymbal and an audible sound. Shortly after that, the Apostle Peter gave a very powerful sermon. And I quoted the response in the Kingdom of God seminar, but let's look beyond that to verse 41. Acts 2 and verse 41 shows what happened when the church was rapidly growing and gaining an influence.

Then those who gladly received His word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. That's exciting! That's some growth! I saw recently the numbers for attendance on the days of Unleavened Bread, and we were a little less than 9,000 on the first day of Unleavened Bread. Imagine if the United Church of God suddenly increased by 30% in one day.

We would be excited about that. Let's look in verse 47. It says, So God continued adding. Let's go to chapter 6, Acts 6 and verse 7.

This is spread and influence. Numbers were multiplying. Even some in the priesthood were converting. Then, as we read in Acts 8, persecution arose. The people were scattered. But at that time, it just gave them opportunity to preach the gospel. They couldn't put a program on the Internet because Al Gore hadn't invented it yet. I didn't grab that in my notes, but it just seemed appropriate.

But the church grew. If you read through the book of Acts, much of it is an account of the Apostle Paul traveling and bringing people to the truth. God gave him a vision as he was going into Corinth, saying, Don't be afraid. They're not going to hurt you. I have many people in this city. So God was adding people left and right. And they probably thought, those who were brought in, probably thought it was just going to keep on going like this. This is never going to stop. It's just going to keep getting bigger and bigger until Jesus Christ returns, which they believed would be in their own lifetime. There are several scriptures that show they thought it could be any day. That kept them excited and encouraged. So they might have been a little confused when things seemed to change. If we look to 2 Thessalonians 2, we'll see that some divisions began to arise.

2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7.

Here, the Apostle Paul is writing a letter to the church in Thessalonica, and he says, The mystery of lawlessness is already at work. And he says, Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. But there was a mystery of lawlessness at work, even as the church was growing. In Galatians 1, verse 6. A few pages over. Galatians 1.

Paul writing again to the church in Galatia. I marvel that you're turning away so soon from him who called you to the grace of Christ to a different gospel. So, apparently, as I said, and I'm surmising or guessing that they thought the church would continue to keep growing, but it's a logical thought. Many of us who were in the church in 1980 probably thought the church would just continue to keep growing as it had been. And then suddenly division, false teachings come in.

Other apostles also had to deal with that. Let's go to the book of Jude. Jude is the one just before Revelation. It's about a page and a half, so it's easy to miss. Revelation's not because it's much longer and it's at the end.

Jude will begin in verse 3.

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, so I was planning to write about this, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ. So, it wouldn't have been necessary for him to write this if there hadn't been some people starting to teach a different doctrine that caused division. There was contention. He said, I'm urging you to contend for the truth once delivered. So, it was causing an argument. The Apostle John had a similar situation. In my Bible, it's right across the page in 3 John, verse 9. And remember, the Apostle John, we believe, was the longest-lived of all the original Apostles. There's dispute in the tradition whether he lived to die of old age or some say that he was boiled in oil, but we know that he lived longer and most of the others were persecuted and martyred. So, this is decades after Christ is gone, apparently, but only decades, not hundreds or thousands of years. He says, I wrote to the church, but the autrophies, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us. Here's the Apostle, the one who leaned on Christ's breast and asked him who's going to betray him, the disciple whom Christ loved, and this guy won't receive him. He says, therefore, if I come, I'll call to mind his deeds, which he does. And then he describes those deeds, prating against us with malicious words and not content with that. He himself does not receive the brethren and forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church. In a relatively short time, the church changed from growing, doing a powerful work, to being divided by false teaching and fighting amongst various leaders. Now, that was division within the church. I'll mention, of course, the largest division which we can see in historical records arose between those who wanted the original teachings of Jesus Christ and those who wanted to compromise with pagan practices. And that would come partly because of false teaching and the influence of Satan, also because of persecution and wanting to avoid looking like the Jews.

I'll mention, the Roman government, at first, when Christianity appeared to the Romans, they said, well, it's just another sect of Judaism, that weird religion that we don't understand. And sometimes the Jews were tolerated, sometimes they were persecuted. When the Jews revolted against Roman rule at around 70 AD, and then again in 135 AD, all the Jews were persecuted. And because the Romans considered Christians as Jews, they were persecuted, too.

Except those who decided they didn't want to suffer that persecution and didn't care that much about the truth in the Scripture. In the year 135, the bishop of what was called the Christian Church in Jerusalem formally renounced the law of the Old Testament. He said, we don't live by that law in the Old Testament. Those who wanted to continue keeping the Seventh-Day Sabbath and eating only clean meats and keeping the Passover on the 14th of Abib were classified as heretics. They couldn't be included in the Christian Church. Of course, controversy over these matters was widespread, especially in the decades from about 50 AD to around 200 AD. So for about 150 years, there was sharp contention arguing back and forth of what the truth was. Finally, the resolution of what would prevail with the majority of people was reached with the edicts that came out of the Council of Nicaea, which was in 325 AD, and the Council of Laodicea in 363. Usually, when I'm giving dates and I see people taking notes, I feel like I'm in a history class. So don't feel like you have to get all this down. This is for information purposes, although I don't mind if you want to write it down. Now, during the midst of the controversy, in 140 AD, a Christian leader named Polycarp, who was a leader among Christians in Asia Minor, an area we think of as Turkey. Now, tradition says Polycarp was taught personally by John the Apostle, but in 140 AD, Polycarp traveled to Rome to convince a fellow named Anacetes, who was bishop there, of the correct teaching of the Passover. So Polycarp, who was taught personally by John, went to the so-called Christian leader at Rome, and they had an argument over how to keep the Passover. Neither one convinced the other to change their ways.

Fifty years after that, Polycarp's successor, a fellow whose name was Polycrates, and for those who were taking notes, you can spell it Polycrates, if you want. I don't know why Greeks do that, but Polycrates wrote, as part of his argument, and he wrote this, let me read it, he says, We therefore observe the genuine day, and he was speaking of Passover, neither adding thereto, nor taking therefrom. For in Asia, great lights have fallen asleep. By great lights he meant former teachers and leaders in the church, which shall rise again in the day of the Lord's appearing, in which he will come with glory from heaven, and raise up all the saints. All these observed the fourteenth day Passover, according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. I am now sixty-five years in the Lord, and I am not at all alarmed by those things which I am threatened to intimidate me. For they who are greater than I have said, We ought to obey God rather than men. So that was his thinking, and some followed him, but they were a small number. He was being threatened and intimidated. A few people said, We ought to obey God rather than men. But, unfortunately, not all were as steadfast as Polycrates. In response to the persecution that followed Jewish revolts, as I said, the Jews in Jerusalem decided to fight for independence, and the Roman army came and crushed them. And when that happened, many who called themselves Christians abandoned the Seventh-day Sabbath, and started keeping Sunday instead. They abandoned other teachings of the truth. Their teachers claimed that the Bible was just an allegory. Most of that stuff is just symbolism and allegory, and they adopted the Gnostic teaching of the immortality of the soul, and that God was a Trinity. With Christianity seeming to become more acceptable, by 313 AD, the emperor of the Roman Empire issued an edict of toleration. Now they didn't seem like those Jews who had been so pesky, so the Empire tolerated them. And within a few years, he made it the official state religion.

But of course, all of that came at a high price for those who are now being tolerated or in the official religion. When Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea, he had the final say over what decisions would be made. He would issue the edicts that mandated Sunday worship, and that said that the holiday to be kept was Easter rather than Passover. And of course, by this time, this was not the church that Jesus Christ had founded.

Those who were part of that church had long ago fled Jerusalem. By the 300s, they could be found only at the edges of the Roman Empire, particularly in the places that we now call Armenia and the Balkan Mountains. The Balkans are that area sort of north of Greece, and it's an area where if you study modern history, you're just studying a lot of fighting amongst small groups fighting each other. And it's partly because of the landscape. It's very mountainous, subdivided. Perfect place for those who want to live in isolation and be left alone to have a village in a small valley. And there were small scattered groups who we can see record of who kept the truth, observed the Seventh-Day Sabbath, understood God's nature. But they didn't often know who was in the next valley. They were scattered about, separated from each other.

For hundreds of years, the true Church, the one started by Christ, was a small, scattered, and only loosely organized. I was going to say loosely organized organization. It was small and scattered and loosely organized. There were some exceptions. I mentioned one when Peter Waldo was called by God, and suddenly, loosely organized groups came together, and many were added to the faith.

And that lasted a few decades. Earlier, a few hundred years before him, in 654, a man by the name of Constantine of Mananali became active in the congregations in the area of Armenia. And he organized them. He got the work going and spread the gospel. He traveled and preached. But, of course, a few decades later, it dissolved. It became a small, scattered group once again.

Over those years, hundreds of them, the Church was known by many different names to those from outside. Other people called them Waldensians, Bogomils, Paulicians, Lollards, and several other names. In historical references, I said, it's those who were not part of that Church who gave them these names. By the 1500s, in parts of Germany and England, those who kept the truth were classified amongst a group called Anabaptists.

And that's from basically derived from the term Anabaptist. Because those in the true Church would not baptize their children, sprinkling water on them. They believed only in baptism of adults who had repented. And so, of course, those in the Catholic Church thought that they didn't believe in baptism at all. But it doesn't matter what others called them. Most of these people simply called themselves the Church of God. They would call themselves the Church of God at and whatever village it might be. Church of God at, well, we could say in West Portsmouth, if that was the case here. I don't know if there were any West Portsmouths in Europe. Well, there's a Portsmouth in Britain, so... Anyways, there are records showing in London, England, there was a Millyard Church that consisted of Seventh-day Sabbath keepers founded in the 1500s. Around 1618, a man named John Trask published a book that taught the Seventh-day Sabbath. He was arrested and put in jail for his beliefs. And because of that, he recanted. He said, okay, I'll go back to Sunday. But interestingly enough, his wife refused to recant. She remained in jail for 15 more years until she died. Now, I don't mean to smile about somebody being in jail and dying there, but talk about division. This divided a family. The man gave up the truth, and the woman stuck with it.

And 1665, a Sabbath keeper by the name of Stephen Mumford came to America with his wife. They settled in Newport, Rhode Island. Newport, by the way, Rhode Island, it's separated from Massachusetts by Roger Williams. With the idea, it was the only colon... one of two colonies that started with the idea of having freedom of religion. Because, well, religion was involved in all the other colonies, but they wanted religion their way. And of course, we don't blame them. We want religion our way, but we understand that we can't force it on people. Only God can call someone to the truth. When Mumford and his wife settled in Newport, they helped establish a small church of Sabbath keepers. And it was mostly people who had been considered Baptists, but understood the further truth being taught. Over the years, a number of such churches came to be founded in New England, primarily Rhode Island, and in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania also allowed freedom of religion because it was led by the Quakers, who had been persecuted in other areas. But most within a few generations, or in most of them within a few generations, children or grandchildren of those who had been enthusiastic about the work, tended to start compromising and falling away. And so, congregations became subverted by false doctrines.

Several became what is now called Seventh-day Baptist, and retained only the Sabbath. When a general conference of the Seventh-day Baptist churches was organized in 1802, it officially adopted the teaching of the Trinity and of the immortality of the soul. But there were some ministers of some congregations who refused to join in that conference.

And for decades, throughout the United States, there were a number of different independent congregations. Some joined in organizations with varying amounts of understanding of the truth of the Bible. Many of them would get caught up in the 1840s in what was called the Millerite movement. This is an interesting story I always like to tell when I was teaching American history, because it's church history, but also history of the United States.

There was a fellow by the name of William Miller who had taught the Seventh-day Sabbath. And he also studied prophecies, and he believed in the literal return of Jesus Christ to earth, which we believe. He'd done a very intense study of these prophecies, and as many of us have sometimes done, decided that he would put the numbers together. And when he did, he determined that Jesus Christ would return on October 22nd of 1843.

And it makes me wonder, I'm not sure if he understood about the Holy Days, but October is often around the time of the fall Holy Days. Many people were convinced, and they joined in this movement. Now, of course, many of them Sabbath keepers, but some non-Sabbath keepers who also were convinced by his numbers. Those who did began preparing, some of them by selling their property or giving things away. And on the morning of October 22nd, many of them put on white robes and gathered on hilltops to wait for Jesus Christ to return.

Yes, I had to turn the page to see what happened. He didn't show up. Miller was not too discouraged. He went back and re-figured his numbers, and he found an error in his calculation. And I didn't write it down. I believe it was that he forgot that there was no year zero. And he went back and said, oh, it's next year, October 22nd of 1844. And some, many, good numbers stayed with him, but that October 22nd, Jesus still did not appear. And that's when it became known in American history as the Great Disappointment. And it's not in many of the newer history books, but some of the older ones would have a subheading during the 1800s and talk about the Great Disappointment. Many of the people who had been involved in the Disappointment just gave up on religion. But a significant number of them continued to believe in both the Seventh-day Sabbath and the literal return of Jesus Christ. There's a word for the literal return. It's Advent.

Among these was an elder named James White. He rose to prominence, and his wife Ellen began to have visions and revelations from God, or she claimed that she did. So in 1860, a conference representing these scattered congregations officially came together to form a conference and adopted the name Seventh-day Adventist. The majority chose that. They specifically voted down a proposal that they take the name just simply Church of God.

But a small number of independent congregations refused to follow that lead or to accept Mrs. White's revelations, and they took for their name the congregation Church of God. And it was among these congregations who later would send a delegation to meet with President Abraham Lincoln to establish the conscientious objector status for that war, while most of the Seventh-day Adventists were willing to fight.

In 1863, some from among this movement in Michigan began printing a small church paper. It was titled, The Hope of Israel.

Now, later that year, it relocated to Iowa, Marion, Iowa. Then in 1888, it moved to Stanbury, Missouri. And that's when that caught my eye, because I remember it. I'd heard of that town before. The paper changed names a number of times. In 1900, it finally took the name Bible Advocate. Most of those years, it was edited by a minister by the name of Jacob Brinkerhoff. But he was joined, also enjoying much of the writing, by a man named Alexander Duggar, whose son followed him in the ministry.

The Bible Advocate carried articles that discussed Bible prophecy, the proper observance of the Passover, the real meaning of born-again and what were clean and unclean needs. In 1900, understanding the need for legal incorporation, many of these congregations came together and formed what was called the Church of God Seventh-day, incorporated in Missouri.

They printed and distributed the Bible Advocate to a readership of just under 1,000. And this was an organized work going on that was considered powerful in its day. They were happy to be approaching the 1,000 mark.

But even as small as it was, the Church still went through some serious difficulties. In 1905, its business manager, William Long, was fired for allegations of mismanaging funds, and only half of the Church remained.

Although, some of those members that left trickled back over the course of the next decade.

Now, I want to make a side note here as I'm recounting some of this history. In 1902, a minister who had been a part of the Seventh-day Adventist separated from them. He was a fellow by the name of G.G. Rupert. And I haven't found out what the G.G. stood for.

It's interesting, there in Athens this morning, we had Gary Jenkins and George Grounds. I said, well, maybe it stands for George and Gary. Maybe not.

But he left the Seventh-day Adventist because he had come to understand the need to keep the seven Holy Days listed in the Old Testament. He raised up several congregations in South America that followed his teaching. Mr. Rupert established communications with the Church of God Seventh-day, but he had some disagreements with Mr. Duggar about Church government. And so, although they had some communication, there remained separate organizations. Church government.

Mr. Rupert did maintain and do his work. He printed a magazine called The Remnant of Israel until he died in 1922. What's interesting, I didn't find reference to it in any of the works that I studied, but my father-in-law told me that he had heard of Mr. Rupert. And he said, oh yeah, he did this. And he said it was in the late 19-teens, I think, that he actually held a conference for ministers in Pasadena, California.

I thought, that's interesting. I heard that town was important later in the work.

No chuckle is there. Maybe the irony is too strong to laugh.

Well, we can see the work continued. Most of us are familiar with the story of how, not long after this time, an advertising professional by the name of Herbert W. Armstrong began associating with members of the Church of God Seventh-day in Oregon. This was in 1927. He had been challenged by his wife on what day was truly the Sabbath taught in the Bible.

And he had also been challenged by other family members to prove whether or not there really was a God, and if so, was the Bible his word.

Mr. Armstrong engaged in very detailed, in-depth study and became convinced that the Bible was the word of a God who did exist, and also that the Sabbath was the Seventh-day, very different from what other churches taught.

As a result of his study, he began submitting articles to the Bible Advocate, and in 1931, he was ordained into the ministry by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God Seventh-day.

Now, we've seen that those living by biblical truths in America had been scattered and separated as far back as the 1600s, and the 1930s and 40s would not be any exception. In 1933, the Church of God Seventh-day held a conference that led to a split.

One side believed the Passover should be kept on the 14th day of A-Bib, and thought that pork was not fit for human food, and also that tobacco was harmful.

The other faction wanted to keep the 15th of A-Bib, and they believed eating pork was good and tobacco was okay.

So that led to one group being headquartered at Stanbury, Missouri, another group in Salem, West Virginia.

Meanwhile, that was in another part of the country. In Oregon, Mr. Armstrong accepted an opportunity in 1934 to begin doing a weekly radio program on a very low-power station. He called it the Radio Church of God.

Soon after that, he began publishing a mimeograph. A mimeograph is...we don't even have those anymore, but it's something you'd crank out, a magazine that he called the Plain Truth.

Eight years later, the radio program's name would be changed to The World Tomorrow.

But before that, in 1937, a conference of the Church of God Seventh Day had held a formal consideration of a proposal by Mr. Armstrong. He had submitted documentation showing that Christians should keep the seven Holy Days listed in Leviticus 23.

The conference, though, ruled against his teaching, and when Mr. Armstrong refused to stop teaching it, they revoked his credentials.

He said, I was ordained by the Oregon Conference, not by the organization in Stanbury.

And he continued doing the work that he felt that God had called him to do, which he believed was the mission of the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Let me give you some numbers from these early days. In the spring of 1939, that radio program reached an estimated 100,000 listeners.

That fall was the first time that the Feast of Tabernacles was kept for all eight days. There was some confusion over understanding the first day was a Holy Day and the eighth day.

Then they came to see that we should keep all eight days. Forty-two people were at that feast site.

By 1950, it jumped up to a whopping 46 people.

And in 1944, the Plain Truth magazine was reaching a circulation of 35,000.

In 1947, Ambassador College opened.

And these are things many of us have heard before. That first year, they had four students and eight instructors.

But I thought, wow, sometimes we get disappointed when ABC has a class of only 20.

Four students was pretty small.

And I like that in 1949, two Ambassador students conducted the first nationwide baptismal tour.

Mr. Call and I were discussing that when we were driving down to Pressensburg, what it would be like for these kids that were probably 22 years old, getting in a car and driving across the nation, meeting people and baptizing those that they counseled with.

That must have been very exciting and scary.

And Feast of Tabernacle's attendance jumped from 150 in 1951 all the way to 450 the following year.

By 1953, the World Tomorrow program began broadcasting daily on the ABC radio network.

To me, this story sounds somewhat familiar to that of Peter Waldo, someone called out of a business background, starts preaching the truth, and suddenly the work is growing, getting busy.

The work that Mr. Armstrong started continued to grow throughout his long life.

It had ups and downs, of course, and many people focused on him.

And it was easy to think, wow, this fellow, because of what he's done, he's built this great work.

But if you ever listen to what he said, he always said, I didn't do this. He said God is doing work. And he just said, I want to be a tool in his hand.

But for a relatively brief time, the church and his work grew phenomenally in a way it hadn't done even in earlier periods.

We should notice, though, that as we look back in that history, this was the aberration, the time when hundreds or thousands of people were coming into the work was the unusual time.

The norm has been for the church to be small and scattered and disorganized, and sometimes different groups competing against each other. Not that that's what we want, but that's pretty normal.

It's unusual for it to be closely organized and doing a powerful work.

Now, before I go to see how that happened, let's remind ourselves of what a level it did reach.

I found some numbers that even surprised me when I first read them.

At the end of Mr. Armstrong's life in 1986, the worldwide Church of God had 725 congregations in 57 countries.

Weekly attendance averaged 120,000 people, served by 1,200 paid ministers.

That's a few more than we have today.

The World Tomorrow program was the most popular and the most widespread religious program in the country.

It aired on 382 TV stations and 36 radio stations.

The second biggest religious program was on 197 stations.

Second, number 2 was 197, number 1 was 382.

The Plain Truth magazine was published in 7 languages with a worldwide circulation of 8.4 million.

At that time, Time magazine had a circulation of just under 6 million.

One more fact. During the course of Mr. Armstrong's ministry, the Church had given away more than 40 million books and booklets.

What happened next, though, even after all that and how extensive the work seemed to be, what happened next was what had happened in God's Church throughout the ages, as we've seen evidence.

And it's also similar to what happened after the time of Peter Waldo.

Those who succeeded Mr. Armstrong in authority in the worldwide Church of God began teaching compromises with false doctrines, and they eventually adopted beliefs that were the exact opposite of much of the truth.

As a result, many groups of people and ministers left the Church.

Some determined that they would continue living by the same doctrines they always had.

Others left so that they could join mainstream Christian groups.

And I remember my wife telling me, she said, Well, if all this is true, I can just go to the Church down in the corner.

And many people did that.

And some people gave up altogether on religion, became discouraged.

Now, my sister calls herself agnostic now.

This was what happened previously.

After the great disappointment of 1844, it was a lot like it was in the 1990s.

After the persecution of those who followed Peter Waldo, after the Church of the original apostles was scattered and persecuted, then infiltrated and hijacked by false teachers, those who left the worldwide Church of God and wanted to continue living by the truth, formed different groups and adopted such names as the Global Church of God, the Philadelphia Church of God, the United Church of God, the Remnant Church of God, the Church of the Great God, the Living Church of God.

And I wrote down, the Church of God, blank, followed by whatever name or region.

I know there's a Church of God, Waco, because I lived in that area, Church of God, East Texas. There are several.

And I wonder if... and I'm making a note, I'm sure I left out a lot of significant organizations and quite a few small ones.

You know, when true... I wonder if it was like this in the 300s A.D.

when true Christians could not remain in what then became called the Universal Church of God.

Universal being another word for Catholic.

And perhaps then, in the 300s, there were many new associations of small congregations or individual members who were separated and scattered.

Certainly through most of European history, God's Church was comprised of scattered organizations and congregations that often didn't know about each other and may not have trusted the others if they did.

And so here we are now, 25 years after the end of Mr. Armstrong's personal ministry, attending one of those several church organizations that claimed to be carrying on the mission that Christ gave His Church.

And I say one of... I don't want to mean... I don't want by any means to seem like I'm talking down about United.

I believe that United has its place and has a legitimate reason to exist.

My purpose today is to show that our current situation is not unusual in church history.

So given this situation, though, what do we do?

We've seen it's happened before, perhaps it's going to happen again. What do we do as individual Christians?

Well, for one thing I'll say, don't be discouraged. Don't be discouraged by knowing this.

We might feel like the disciples of the 300 AD who knew the church had formally been growing and doing a powerful work, but now has become the scattering of small groups overshadowed by a powerful church that's called Christian and teaches falsehood.

We might feel like Christians living in the mountains of southeastern France and southern Germany, remembering that they once were part of a powerful work in a growing and dynamic church that had been led by Peter Waldo, but now with small in number and continually abandoned by members who compromised with the Catholic or Lutheran churches.

And there were many other periods in the history of God's true church when a high point was followed by a period of division and conflict.

But after each of those times, the church continued.

After each time, the church continued and other high points yet lie ahead.

Peter Waldo followed a time of many years of division and conflict, but the church rose and accomplished a lot.

Always, the end goal for true Christians was the same, to be in God's kingdom, to look forward to Christ's return.

Let's turn to the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Hebrews 11 will begin in verse 36.

Now, this set of scriptures is referring to many who were persecuted in the Old Testament, but I think it could apply to many true Christians since the New Testament.

So let me begin reading in verse 36.

So what should we do? Well, we should do the same thing that Paul went on to say.

What should we do is what he says in Hebrews 12, verse 1.

And we don't get to choose what race God puts before us. It might be a sprint, it might be a marathon, it might have hills, but whatever challenge he gives us, where he puts us in the race is the one we have to run.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the sheep, and the sheep, and the sheep, and the sheep, we must know how to run to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

And that was my point. We need to not become weary or discouraged.

He says, you have not yet resisted the bloodshed striving against sin.

And that's true. We haven't... We might have it rough.

The situation isn't like it was 30 years ago, but so far we're not being thrown in jail and beaten. Of course, that doesn't mean that won't happen, but if so, that's part of what we sign on for. We need to look to Jesus because He is the head of the church. Not the Apostle Peter, not the Apostle Paul, not Peter Waldo, not Andrew Duggar, not Herbert Armstrong. And today we could say not Dennis Luecker, Rod Meredith, Gerald Flurry, David Hume, and certainly, of all, not Frank Dunkel, Jesus Christ is the head of the church. He was the head of the church when 3,000 were baptized in one day, but also head of the church when Christians were tortured and executed. Christ was the head of the church when Peter Waldo traveled Europe, preaching the gospel and raising up congregations, founding a school for ministers. And he was told ahead of the church when members of those congregations began leaving to attend Catholic Mass and allowing their children to be sprinkled by their priests. Jesus was the head of the church when the World Tomorrow program aired every night on stations across the nation and around the world, and the Plain Truth magazine went to millions of subscribers. And He's still the head of the church today when we struggled to broadcast a TV program and when we send literature to a mailing list that's a fraction the size of a few decades ago. And since Jesus is the head of the church, no matter what era we're in, we should do what He already told the church to do. We want to be in that church. Let's turn to Matthew 16. Matthew 16 and Mark 16. We're going to go to Matthew in a moment. If you're already there, you're going to stick your finger there.

But shortly before Christ rose to heaven at the end of His work, He spoke to His disciples, and He said this, Matthew 16, verse 15, He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

If I say, What are we supposed to do? This is it. The account in Matthew says it only slightly differently. Matthew 28 and verse 19, Christ said, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. These two scriptures together demonstrate not two different works, but one and two aspects of it. We're to preach the gospel. And, well, as it says, I think it's right in front of me there, preach the gospel and prepare a people. It's up there, too, isn't it? That's easier to read. Okay, preach the gospel, prepare, or go into all the world preaching the gospel. Make disciples. Christ might have been only speaking to 11 people when He said that, so we shouldn't be discouraged if our congregation here is only around 100.

The church and its work has usually been small, usually been small and weak. And because of that, sometimes when it does seem relatively powerful and strong, we get discouraged when we look at the small and weak times. But even when we were powerful and big, we were tiny compared to organizations like the Catholic Church or the Baptist, the Methodist, or even relatively small groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. That doesn't mean that we can't do a large work and have an important influence. We're called by God to do this work. It's His work.

Jesus Christ didn't give the church a commission to count heads or to see how loud we can be, although it's nice to be loud. He told His disciples to preach the gospel, make disciples of those whom the Father would call to be part of that church, teach them His ways. And that's what the church of God has done all through the ages, sometimes through a well-organized and effective manner and sometimes not so much. But Jesus didn't give an expiration date to that commission. He didn't say, go preach the gospel until 2012 AD when the world will end. He didn't have the Mayan calendar, so He wasn't looking forward to that. He did tell His disciples this, though. For our last scripture, let's go to Matthew 24, verse 46, just a few pages away.

Matthew 44, 46, at the end of a parable to make some other points, this is a very important one.

Blessed is that servant whom is master when he finds will find so doing.

There's not much more important to say than that. Looking at through history, the church has sometimes been larger, sometimes smaller, but Christ's words to us are to be found so doing. The state of the church today might seem quite different from the way it was when many of us were called to it, but that was the time that was an aberration. What we're going through now is much more normal. Most Christians have been called into a church that was small and disorganized and striving to preach the gospel without means to do so. But there is something now that's different than for most of that time. The one thing we want to keep in mind is as we look at world events around us, it looks like we might not be here a lot longer. And I'm not going to set a date. I'm not going to say that Jesus Christ will return during our lifetimes, but I would say it'd be foolish for us not to live as though that could happen, because it sure looks like it could. We want to be ready. Only one generation of true Christians will be here when Christ returns. Wouldn't it be something if we were that generation? But if not, if we're not, perhaps 200 years from now, there'll be another young pastor giving a sermon on the history of the church.

If so, I hope that he talks about the time, the period after Mr. Armstrong had arisen and done a powerful work, and then the church sort of disintegrated and became disorganized. But I hope he'll say the members that were in those small disorganized congregations stayed the course.

They were found, or ready to be found, so doing, because that's what we need to do. So, brethren, as we celebrate the establishment of the church and we think about its long history, let's all of us, when Christ returns, make sure that he finds us so doing.