What Is God's Church Supposed to Be Like?

Thank you, Mr. Gunn. Good afternoon, everyone. I miss that. We don't do that down in Portsmouth.

It is a pleasure to be here. In case you're wondering, I'll give a little bit of background.

I know a lot of people would have questions. I'll just mention that Sue and I were coming up this afternoon because my youngest niece is getting married in almost exactly two hours.

So we won't have a lot of time to stick around afterwards. We have to scoot downtown. I'm really looking forward to that. Connor will get a chance to meet some second cousins that I don't think he's ever met. It's interesting because Sue and I got such a late start. All of his cousins are old enough to be his aunts and uncles, and they've got children his age or older. But we're excited about that, and it's always a pleasure to come up to Columbus.

We do every now and then on shopping trips. But the Sabbath is the one time when, of course, we have obligated to be elsewhere. But I would invite any of you, if you'd like to come down, we love to have visitors. And I've discovered Portsmouth is one of the best-kept secrets in this whole region. I was surprised how much I didn't know about it before I went down there. For one thing, I assumed it was this tiny little church barely surviving, and it's about the size of the Columbus church. And it's a great mixture. We've got senior citizens and families and young adults, and Connor's not even the youngest baby there.

We've got quite a few little ones running around. So it makes for a pleasant time. And I'll mention our hall is very well lit. I thought you might enjoy that. Actually, we've got a nice situation. I've been told stories years and years how they'd move, and then it'd be at a hall, and something had changed, and they'd have to look for another hall.

And then eventually one of the members there found an old church building that was for sale in West Portsmouth. That's across the river. And it was at a pretty good bargain, so he bought it. And he does construction work, and he and several others renovated it, and now he leases it to the congregation. So we've got a full-time building that we can use any time we want. We're the only tenants there, and it makes a very good situation.

And a matter of fact, I'll mention that a couple... I don't want to take people away from here, but I thought, well, I've got to put in a plug for some of our activities.

Two weeks from tonight, we're having a family... we're having a costume dance. And any of you that like to dress up, or if you like to see other people dress up, invite you to come down. It won't actually be at our normal church building. We have some employees that work for GE at their Peebles plant, where they test aircraft engines. That's another one of those secrets that I didn't even know about, living in Ohio all these years. But it's a nice facility, and they've got a building that the employees can rent for next to nothing.

So we'll have services there in the afternoon and then the dance in the evening. And I thought I'd put in a plug. Since we do have quite a number of teenagers, we like to do activities, and we're going to work on upping our number of activities. On December 8th, we're renting a gym that's near where our church building is, and we're having... we call it gym night.

We get together and play volleyball and basketball, and speed away is really popular down there.

Although after summer camp this last summer, I'm not sure why, because we kept sending kids to the hospital playing speed away. But since we have that building all the time, once or twice in the winter, the teenagers will have what they call an overnight, and we just go back to the church building and we watch movies and eat bad junk food and play board games and things like that. So if any of you are up for that kind of thing, we're tentatively planning one for December 8th. When I say you, I mean the teens and any parents that are daring enough. I went to the one we did last winter, and we actually have pews in our church building there, too, and I discovered they're not bad for sleeping.

I did get a few hours' sleep that night. A lot of people have asked me what it's like, the change in profession. I have told people every now and then I miss my little office in downtown Columbus, where I could just look out and it was nice and peaceful. The best way I could describe what it's like going into the ministry is I felt like a juggler who often had too many balls in the air, and trying to just scramble and keep track of all of them. I've gotten more on pace. Now I feel like I'm under control with most of those balls as they come in, but every now and then a stray one gets thrown in and you've got to duck and try to catch up with things. But it's going along very well, and we do miss being here, but not because we don't like being there. Like I said, it's a wonderful, warm congregation. I think of all the new hires that came on into the employee of the church a year and a half ago, soon I got the best deal, because the Portsmouth congregation was so stable and so solid, we didn't have to deal with a lot of problems. And of course, I thank Gary Smith a lot for that, who moved down to be near his adult children that live in Houston. Ah. But thinking back, coming to Columbus makes me think of those old days.

And I thought, you know, what we think God's church should be like, it varies a lot depending on when we came into the church. I work with the teens and at camp, I found that a lot of them will tend to glaze over when I tell the stories of what it was like when I was a teenager, when we had a YOU group here in Columbus that had nearly as many people as we have in this room now. And they look at me and, you know, it just doesn't relate, so I finally stopped telling them about it. Well, actually I do tell them about it because I like to tell old stories. But I want to think, some of the things that many of you remembered, you remember feast sites where there were 10 to 14,000 people? You know, we're seeing leading ministers of the worldwide church of God doing interviews on 60 Minutes, our radio program being on the air every night across the country. If you remember those things, the current situation of the church could seem distressing or maybe even depressing.

Now we're a smaller group, and we're doing what might seem like a smaller group. I could challenge or smaller work. We could challenge that, but in some ways it seems smaller. And not to mention, back in the time when I was a kid, there was the church and there was nobody else that believed or taught what we did. Now we're part of, we're one of many different groups that call themselves Church of God that seem to have a lot of the same beliefs and some of the same goals. So what is God's church supposed to be like? Let's take a look, if you will, in Luke 12, verse 32. A couple scriptures I want to look at as part of this introduction. Luke 12, verse 32. I don't know that Jesus Christ was giving a, meant to give a description of the church here, but it's something for us to consider.

This is part of a teaching he was doing, so I'm going to pull this out of context. But it's worth noting, he says here, at the end of a lot of things he said, he said, do not fear little flock. It's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. But he said, little flock. Now, we quote that a lot of times, but we might have a different view and mind of what a little flock should be. Let's also consider, if you'll turn back to Matthew 26, Matthew 26 and verse 31. Now, here Jesus was quoting a prophecy from the Old Testament that did apply to his life and time, but I think we could make a good case that it would apply more than just that one night when he was about to be crucified.

Here in Matthew 26, verse 31, Jesus said to them, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night, for it's written, I'll strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Now, we know that it happened that very night. He was arrested and the apostles ran for their lives. Mark ran away naked, if we believe the account of that. But we can see some examples where it seems to fit other cases. If you go to Acts chapter 8, I'm not going to have you turning back and forth the whole time, but I tend to do this down in Portsmouth. I have clusters where we go back and forth, scripture to scripture to scripture. I say that helps them stay awake. But this happened in Acts 8, verse 1. This is early before Saul became known as Paul. It says, Saul was consenting to his death. At that time, great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered. They were all scattered just as the apostles were when Christ was arrested throughout all the regions of Judea, Samaria, except the apostles. Now, it wasn't all bad. It's worth remembering what Mr. Hand brought out in his sermonette that God uses these things for good. Down in verse 4, we see, therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

With that in mind, it shouldn't greatly surprise us to see the current state of the church, to see it scattered somewhat and small. But still, it can be exciting and a little inspiring to look back sometimes and remember what it was in the past. So, one of the things I want to do today is look back at some incidents in the history of the church. I'm not going to give a thorough history of all that's happened in the past of the church, but look at some particular times and see if we can gain some instruction from them. I want to consider one special time when God decided to use his church to become a powerful witness in the world. At that time, God called a certain man who'd been quite successful in business.

He had traveled a lot. He'd met many influential people of wealth. Then that man went through a dynamic change. He was shocked and goaded into studying the Bible intensely, and he compared what he read in the Bible with several other scholarly works. And when he applied the common sense that it made him very successful in business to the Scriptures, he came to see that they taught pretty much the opposite of what most professing Christians believed.

So this former businessman came to an understanding of various Bible prophecies that led him to believe that the end of the world, or we might say at least the end of the age, was coming soon. He began teaching people the need to pray, to study the Bible, the need to actually obey God's law. He began publicizing the truth, and he traveled across the land to teach and to preach. He established several congregations of believers. Relatively large numbers of people responded to his message. They started providing financial support as co-workers with him. To provide help in preaching this gospel message and leading the congregations that he established, he started a school for training ministers. This church that he founded believed it was the true successor to that of the apostles. In contrast to the surrounding society, these believers kept the Seventh-day Sabbath. They taught their children to read the Bible, but they only baptized adults. They refused to keep Easter and the other Roman holidays, but instead they kept the Passover on the 14th day of the first month on the Jewish calendar. Now, here's where I want to pause and tell you. The man I've been describing was not Herbert W. Armstrong. His followers were not the worldwide Church of God, but rather the businessman I'm describing was named Peter Waldo. His followers were called by others Waldensians, though they called themselves simply the Church of God.

Peter Waldo began his ministry in southeastern France around 1161 A.D. His work spread to southern Germany and reached its greatest peak of influence in the early 1200s. Nearly a thousand years ago, the Waldensian work was powerful for its time. Looking back from the records we have now, it seems almost certain that it was at least a part of the true Church of God. Although it is interesting, studying the records, they are somewhat scant and incomplete, but it seems that there might have been other groups even then at the same time that held the truth and believed the same things as the Waldensians without knowing about that work. Unfortunately, the Waldensian work did not endure longer than a few decades as united in powerful work. Over time, the children and grandchildren of those affected by Peter Waldo began to compromise. The Catholic Church dominated Europe and it did not tolerate different religious views very easily. So, to avoid persecution, many families that were in this Waldensian movement began allowing their children to be baptized by Catholic priests.

As they said, well, that does not mean anything anyways. Similarly, some of them began showing up at Sunday Mass to avoid persecution. Of course, some of them would also go to the private worship services on Saturday, doing both for a while. But over a few generations, what had been a strong church and a united work faded. Divided, believers became scattered, very few in number. By 1487, and that was 300 years after Peter Waldo, but remember the world hadn't been changing as rapidly then as it is now, but by then Pope Innocent VIII issued a proclamation calling for their complete extermination. And when that happened, many conferred to Catholicism. It seems that a small number retained their practices and went into hiding. But from what we can see, by that time, what was called the Waldensian Church had stopped being God's church. Still, we know God's church never ceased to exist.

It had been around before Peter Waldo, and God would make sure that it survived, even after the followers of Peter Waldo, who had once also been followers of Jesus Christ, but later on, followers of Waldo might have ceased obeying God. Jesus promised in Matthew 16-18, I'm not going to turn there, you know what it says, the gates of hell would never prevail against the church. It would not die. History shows that that's true. God's church endures. It always has. Even though history shows it's gone through some dramatic changes.

We read the earlier accounts of the first century church being scattered from Jerusalem, but that made it stronger at first. Let's read back in Acts again and see what happened.

Acts 2. You'll all be glad to know I've cut down my water intake. I usually don't go through more than two glasses during a sermon. Acts 2 and verse 1. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came that sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat on each of them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. We know that following that, when people questioned what was going on and accused them of being drunk, Peter stood up and gave a very powerful sermon. We see the result of that down in verse 41. I'm moving ahead because I don't want to recount the sermon, but what happened as a result. Those who gladly received His word were baptized. That day, about 3,000 souls were added to them, and God would continue adding. We skip down to verse 47, and we see within the church, praising God, having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

This work was growing. Let's go ahead a few pages to chapter 6. Chapter 6 and verse 7.

And the word of God spread. The number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.

A great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. To me, that brings back memories of a radio program going across the country every night, the size of the church growing dramatically, even 30% a year. As we read, though, in Acts 8, persecution would arise.

Disciples would have to leave Jerusalem, but that provided the opportunity to still preach the gospel. The church continued growing. Much of the book of Acts is an account of the Apostle Paul traveling around and going into places that knew nothing of Jesus Christ in his ministry and explaining it to them and people being converted, God calling them.

I remember what he told him while he was in Corinthians. He came to him in dream and said, Don't worry, nothing's going to hurt you. I've got a lot of people here. So God was adding to the church. It was growing. A lot of those people probably thought this is going to keep on happening until Christ returns. I'm sure. After they were scattered, they said, OK, we survived that persecution, but look at all the people coming in. This will continue. But we know that it wouldn't. Let's go to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians 2. Because that state of growth would not continue forever. Paul himself, although he'd seen much of it, God must have opened his mind to know what was coming. And he warned that even though the church was growing and he was active, there were some subverting the truth already.

2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 7. These are scriptures we're familiar with. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restains will do so until he's taken out of the way. So the mystery of lawlessness was already working even as the church seemed to be growing or was growing. Over to Galatians chapter 1. Galatians 1 and verse 6. Here Paul's writing to the church in Galatia, I marvel that you're turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel. How soon it happened.

And other apostles had to deal with the spread of false teaching. I want to look at just a couple more of those. If you'll turn to the book of Jude. Jude is that pretty much one page just before Revelation. No, I spoke amiss. It's a page and a half. Jude verses 3 and 4. And I said, read these in context of how fast the church was growing and the attitude that the people must have had who were on fire for that work and looking for it to continue until Christ returned. Here Jude says, Beloved, I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation. And you could almost see him, you could insert the word instead. He said, I was diligent to write that, but instead I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for once, let me say that again, which was once for all delivered to the saints. I wanted to write about this, but I've got to tell you to contend for the faith that was delivered.

Certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. It wouldn't have been necessary for him to write this if there had not been people teaching something different, different from the truths first taught by Christ's disciples, and it was causing contention. We can see similarly, if you're where I am, just across the page in 3 John, 3 John, verse 9. He says, I wrote to the church, but Diatrophies, who loves to have their preeminence among them, won't receive us. Therefore, if I come, I'll call to mind his deeds, which he does. What were the deeds that Diatrophies was doing?

He was preying against us. John was perhaps the only living apostle, so he was preying against the leaders of the church 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, with fighting going on amongst various leaders.

And of course, we all know, over time, the largest division would be between those who wanted the original teachings of Jesus Christ and those who wanted to compromise with pagan practices. The Roman government at first considered the church as just another sect of Judaism.

And of course, in Rome, in the Roman Empire, at times, Judaism was tolerated. At other times it was persecuted, especially when the Jews decided to revolt against Rome, which they did at 70 AD and again in 135 AD, when that happened not only the Jews in Jerusalem, but all across the Empire, would come under persecution, and many Christians with them.

At that time, in 135 AD, the bishop of what was called the Christian Church in Jerusalem formally renounced the Old Testament, or the law of the Old Testament. So 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 called heretics. They would have to leave if they wanted to keep those practices. Controversy over these matters was widespread, from about 50 AD until about 200 AD. And by widespread, I mean the arguing back and forth. By the time you get into the 300s, culminating at the Council of Nicaea, it became largely settled. The bulk of the Church chose to worship on Sunday and keep Easter. And of course, that was proclaimed at the edicts of the Council of Nicaea, and later the Council of Laodicea. It was during those years of controversy, though, before that climax, that Polycarp, who led Christians in Asia Minor, traveled to Rome, trying to convince the bishop there, named Anasidus, of the correct teaching of the Passover. Fifty years later, Polycarp's successor, Polycrates, remember Polycarp was supposed to be the disciple of John, the apostle, and then Polycrates followed Polycarp. Polycrates wrote this. It says, We therefore observe the genuine day, Passover, neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom. For in Asia, great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again in the day of the Lord's appearing, in which he will come with glory from heaven, and will raise up all the saints. All these observe the fourteenth day of the Passover, according to the gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. I am now sixty-five years in the Lord. I am not at all alarmed at those things with which I am threatened to intimidate me. For those who are greater than I have said, we ought to obey God rather than men.

So Polycrates was standing up for the truth when it was largely abandoned. Unfortunately, not all were as steadfast as he was. In response to the persecution that followed the Jewish revolts, many who called themselves Christians sought to stop looking like Jews, so they gave up keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath and all the other practices. Their teachers began teaching that most of the Bible was simply an allegory, and following the Gnostic teaching of the day, they adopted the doctrines of the immortal soul and of the Trinity. With Christianity then seeming much more acceptable, by 313 AD, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Toleration. Within a few years, it became the official state religion, but there was a high price. Now that the Emperor tolerated it, it made it an official religion, he was calling the shots. When he convened the Council of Nicaea, he presided over it.

He would have the final say on the decision of which day was the day for worship, Sunday or Saturday, and of course, abandoning the keeping of the Passover on the 14th and instead adopting Easter. This was not the church that was established by Jesus Christ. Those that were part of that church had earlier fled Jerusalem. By this time, hundreds of years later, they could only be found at the marginal edges of the Roman Empire. Particularly, they were in the areas that we now know as Armenia and the Balkans. The Balkans is that mountainous area sort of north of Greece that's always splitting into all these small countries, looking at a good place to hide if you don't want people to know what you're doing. And from then on, for hundreds of years, the true church, the one that was started by Jesus Christ, was small. It was scattered, loosely organized. And only every now and again, every so many generations or hundreds of years, there would be a resurgence. And I should let you know, much of this history I derived from Duggar and Dodd's true history of the true church. And I've read other ones, and I didn't cite this, so just in case you're wondering, that's where most of it came from when I brought things in from different sources.

There's one example. Around 654, 300 years after the, or more than 300 years after the Council of Nicaea, a man by the name of Constantine of Manannali, not the Emperor Constantine, but this Constantine of Manannali became active, preaching in that Armenian area, and raised up more churches. God started adding to the church. He traveled. He preached and revitalized.

It seemed like the church was now growing. But it only lasted a generation, and then it became small and scattered again. We could cite several others. I discussed the work of Peter Waldo, partly because it rang such a bell to me, and I hope for most of you, you thought, wow, that sounds so familiar. Along with the Waldensian, the true church has over the years been called Albigensian, been called Bogomils, Paulicians, Lollards, and several other names. Of course, as we know, and well, I shouldn't say as we know, but we should know, and the historical references, they're almost always given names by those who are opposed to them. They're not called what they called themselves, which of course was usually the Church of God at, the Church of God at in whatever city they lived in, or whatever region they might be. There are records even showing as we move forward in time. In London, England, there was a Milliard Church of God. It consisted of Seventh-day Sabbath keepers founded probably around 1550 A.D. Around 1618, a man named John Trask published a book in London that taught the keeping of the Seventh-day Sabbath, but he was arrested, was in jail, and later recanted, gave up those beliefs. The reason I wanted to tell you this, I thought, found it interesting in my studies, it said his wife refused to give up the truth. He recanted and was released, but she remained in jail another 15 years until her death. There have always been some people that would not give up the truth no matter what. In 1665, a Sabbath keeper by the name of Stephen Mumford came to America with his wife. They settled in Newport, Rhode Island, and they helped establish a small church of Sabbath keepers, consisting mostly of converts from the Baptist faith. Over time, a number of such churches sprang up and existed across New England and in Pennsylvania, from the mid-1600s into the early 1700s. But records show that for most of them, they would be vibrant for a while as a congregation, but then a generation or two or three later, believers, children of the original believers, started taking the truth for granted and not really devoting their lives to God. And so congregations would become subverted by false doctrines.

Several became what are now called Seventh-day Baptist, retaining only the Sabbath among their teachings from the true church. When a general conference of Seventh-day Baptist churches was organized in 1802, I think 1802, if I remember correctly, now, Thomas Jefferson was president, but that conference officially adopted the teaching of the Trinity and of the immortal soul. Interesting. It takes me back to what happened many times before, the Gospel of Nicaea, the Edicts of Laodicea, what happened to the Waldensians. But it's worth noting there are records and indications that some ministers and their followers refused to join in that conference and its decision. For decades in the United States, there were a number of different, independent congregations, sometimes associations of congregations, and many of them had at least some understanding of the truth of the Bible. In 1843, many of them were attracted to what becomes known in history as the Millerite movement. Now, it wasn't only Seventh-day Sabbath keepers. A lot of what we call traditional Christianity got caught up in this Millerite movement. William Miller was a minister who did teach the Seventh-day Sabbath, and he also studied intently the prophecies of Jesus Christ's literal return to earth. After a very intense study of these prophecies, William Miller concluded that Jesus Christ would return on October 22nd of 1843. Many people in the country were convinced. They started preparing, selling, or giving away their possessions. And I'm sure a lot of fasting and prayer leading up to that date. On the morning of 22nd, many of them donned white robes and went up on hilltops ready to meet the returning Messiah.

Of course, Jesus Christ didn't show up. Miller went back and did some recalculation, and he determined that the expected advent would be on October 22nd of 1844. While some similar things happened, when Jesus still did not appear, the whole episode became known in American history as the Great Disappointment. Many of the people who had been involved in the Disappointment just gave up religion altogether. Just went back and said, I'm tired of that.

I don't want to be involved in any organized church now. A significant number of them, though, did continue in their belief both of the Seventh-day Sabbath and of the literal return or, as the word means, advent of Christ. Among those was an elder by the name of James White. He rose to prominence, and his wife Ellen claimed to be having visions and revelations from God. So in 1860, a conference representing those scattered congregations officially adopted the name Seventh-day Adventist. And the majority, and because there was a vote, they adopted that name. They specifically rejected a proposal by a few who said, no, we should call ourselves simply Church of God. The majority, of course, went and followed what the majority believed — Seventh-day Adventist as the name. And many of them, as I said, followed Mr. White's leadership, and especially they believed in the so-called revelations of his wife Ellen G. White. But some wouldn't buy into that. As I said, they separated, and they called themselves simply the Church of God. And we have record or some belief that it was representatives from some of those congregations who, during the Civil War, actually went and met with President Lincoln to try to establish the conscientious objector status. So for those who believed it would violate their religious beliefs to fight in the war, while, of course, many members of the Seventh-day Adventist did join the army in fight.

In 1863, some were in this movement who called themselves the Church of God, and Michigan began printing a small newspaper. They titled it The Hope of Israel. Now, this small newspaper would have a tumultuous history, and I'm not going to go through all of it, partly because I don't know all of it, but I've got notes on some of it. Later that year, it relocated to Marion, Iowa. And then in 1888, they moved their headquarters again to Stanbury, Missouri.

And of course, it changed its name as well as locations a number of times, but by 1900, it adopted the name The Bible Advocate. A man by the name of Jacob Brinkerhoff edited the Bible Advocate for most of the years between 1871 and 1914, but he would be joined later on for many of those years in the writing by a man named Alexander Duggar. The Bible Advocate carried articles that discussed Bible prophecy. They had articles about the proper observance of the Sabbath, what the real meaning of born-again was, and about what were clean and unclean needs. So it was in 1900 that the Church of God's Seventh Day formally incorporated in Missouri. It printed and distributed the Bible Advocate and sent it out to a readership of just under 1,000 readers. They were doing the work they could, but I wonder, 1,000? How would we feel if that's how many subscriptions we had to the Good News magazine? I know times have changed, but it's interesting. It was a small and a scattered group of believers, but even as small as it was, that church would go through a split. In 1905, its business manager, William Long, was fired. There were allegations that he was mismanaging funds. Only a half of church members remained. Although records show over the next 10 years, several of them came back. Now, what's interesting, and I didn't find very much of this in Duggar and Dodd's history, but around 1902, a minister from the Seventh Day Adventist Church by the name of G.G. Rupert separated from them because he began to understand that Christians should keep and observe the Holy Days that are listed in the Old Testament in Leviticus 23. And, of course, the Seventh Day Adventist didn't want to adopt that. He traveled and raised up several congregations in South America, and many of them adopted his teachings of the Holy Days. So Mr. Rupert didn't establish communications with the Church of God Seventh Day, but he had some disagreements with Alexander Duggar over the church government. So Mr. Rupert and his work remained independent. He printed a magazine until 1922 when he died that he titled The Remnant of Israel. I wish I had a source on this. My father-in-law has come across writings about this Mr. Rupert, and he said he's got a record during the 1910s of him holding a church conference in Pasadena, California.

Which it's just a coincidence, perhaps, but it just sounded really interesting that a conference of Sabbath keepers there in Pasadena long before anyone would think of building an auditorium and filming computer commercials there. I was wondering if anybody saw that.

It makes me want to buy one. Not really, but it makes me like the commercial.

Anyways, looking ahead to what we call the modern or more modern work. Most of us are familiar with the story of how an advertising professional by the name of Herbert W. Armstrong began associating with members of the Church of God Seventh Day in 1927. He was living in Oregon. He was challenged by his wife to prove which day really was the Sabbath. And then other family members challenged him to prove the existence of God and the validity of the Bible. So, of course, he dived in and did an intense study, remarkably similar to that of Peter Waldo. As a result of his study, Mr. Armstrong began writing articles to explain his beliefs and sent them in to the Bible Advocate. And, of course, many of them would be printed. In 1931, he was ordained to the ministry by the Oregon Conference of the Church of God Seventh Day. I think it's important. He always stressed that he was ordained by the Oregon Conference, not by the organization headquartered in Stanbury. As we've seen, those living by biblical truths in America had been scattered and divided all the way back to the 1600s. And the 1930s and 40s would be no exception. In 1933, the Church of God Seventh Day held a conference that led to another split. One side believed the Passover should be kept on the 14th of Abib, and that pork was not fit for human food, that tobacco was harmful and shouldn't be used. Another faction wanted to keep the Passover on the 15th of Abib, and they wanted to enjoy their pork and tobacco. So this led to one group being headquartered in Stanbury, Missouri, another in Salem, West Virginia. This wasn't in my notes because I actually did this research earlier, but I found it very interesting.

The very latest church, the latest kingdom of God seminars that we held in Prestonburg, Kentucky, which is not far from the West Virginia border, we had a couple attend who were from Salem, West Virginia, and they came and they said, oh, we attend a church that's independent and we believe all the same things as you. And our church has been there since the 1950s.

I said, wow! And they'd heard of Mr. Armstrong but said they'd never been a part of his church.

It just makes you wonder how many are out there like that. At that very same conference or seminar, another couple also attended who said they attended an independent congregation.

And they actually came for the first part of the seminar and then they left in the middle, and I didn't get a chance to talk to them, but they told one of the members there, said, oh yeah, we were just coming to check. We believe all the same things, but we already attend a group that teaches this. But they showed up again a few weeks later and even showed up and attended with us on atonement. I didn't see them when I was down there last Sabbath, but there are people out there. Meanwhile, of course, we know Mr. Armstrong accepted an opportunity in 1934 to begin doing a weekly radio program, which he then called the Radio Church of God. Soon after that, he began publishing what we would call now a mimeograph.

It's funny, he explained it as being like a mimeograph. Nowadays, does anybody know what a mimeograph is? I tell people it's sort of like a Xerox machine, but it was hand-cranked.

And I see young people saying, what's a Xerox machine? Anyways, something you had to hand-crank to make extra copies. You know, it was called the Plain Truth. Eight years later, the name of the radio program was changed to the World Tomorrow program. But before that happened, before those developments in growth, in 1937, there was a conference of the Church of God's seventh day with which Mr. Armstrong was still associating. They held a formal consideration of Mr. Armstrong's teaching that Christians should keep the seven annual Holy Days that are listed in Leviticus 23, along with the weekly Sabbath. The conference ruled against the teaching. They ordered Mr. Armstrong to stop teaching this. When he refused, they revoked his credentials. Well, that's when he said, well, I wasn't ordained by you. I was ordained by the Oregon conference, and I have to follow what I read in this book.

So he continued doing the work that he thought God had called him to do. He believed that he had a mission to preach the truth of the Bible, that he was a lead ally to Jesus Christ or serving Jesus Christ. By the spring of 1939, his radio program was reaching an estimated 100,000 listeners. And that fall—and I love this since we just had the Feast of Tabernacles—in the fall of 1939, the Feast of Tabernacles for the first time was kept for all eight days. Of course, I should say the Feast of Tabernacles was kept for all seven days, and they also kept the eighth day. And it was kept by 42 people. I remember my first feast walking into the Tabernacle Building in the Lake of the Ozarks with—I'm not sure if it was 12 or 14,000 people. Back then, they were thrilled—42 people. And in 1950, it jumped to 50. I'm sorry, 1939, they were at 42. It was up to 50 by 1946. In 1944, the Plain Truth magazine reached a circulation of 35,000. And in 1947, Ambassador College opened with four students and eight instructors. Which is interesting, because I remember when the Ambassador Bible Center opened in Cincinnati, and I've got to confess, I said, I don't think that's going to work. I was wrong. And a lot of the instructors at Ambassador College in 1947 were wrong. In 1949, two Ambassador College students conducted the first nationwide baptismal tour, traveling around the country, visiting people who had been listening on the radio and wanted to be baptized. And talk about growth. Remember, we talked about 42 people keeping the feast in 1939. By 1949, festival attendance had jumped to 150. In 1951, it jumped to 450. In 1953, the World Tomorrow Program began broadcasting daily on the ABC radio network. As I said, this story sounds to me very similar to Peter Waldo, only he didn't have radio and he didn't have a mimeograph machine, but he traveled, and the work was growing, expanding. He got stronger and stronger, and I'm sure around 1200 AD, everybody thought this was going to keep happening. More people will be called. God is going to keep increasing the church until we have a large work, and eventually Jesus Christ will return. Well, the work that Mr. Armstrong started continued to grow throughout his long life, even though it experienced a lot of ups and downs. I could gloss over, and a lot of us remember things that happened in the early 70s. I was going to say 1972 or 1973.

I don't remember that, but I remember 1978 pretty well. But over the long trend, from this distance, we see a work that kept growing and growing. It would be easy to think that Mr. Armstrong accomplished a powerful work, that the impact was largely because of his advertising skills and his organizational ability. But he never said that. He always said God built the work, that he was just a tool in his hands. For a relatively brief time, though, the church and its work did grow phenomenally. What a tremendous impact we had. We should notice, though, how different that time was from the state of the church through most of its 2000-year history. And that's what spurred me to do this study, because as I said, when a church breaks apart and crises happen, leaders are dismissed, you start saying, oh, what's going on? Is this really God's church? I looked back through history and I said, wait a minute, this is the way it's almost always been. It was really unusual that it wasn't that way when I came into it. And of course, even not going 2000 years, look through the history of the church through American history. And I wanted to focus on that a little more, because it's easy to get blurry and not see it all clearly.

But through most of that history, it was a scattering of different congregations. And I'm not saying that's ideal or the way we want it. We love it when the church is big.

Let's remind ourselves of the level that it reached before coming back to what probably is really normal. By the end of Mr. Armstrong's life in 1986, the worldwide Church of God had 725 congregations in 57 different countries. Weekly attendance averaged at 120,000. And if you remember, back then we kept thinking, is it going to bump up to 144 or not? We had 1200 ministers on the payroll. I think that's different. The World Tomorrow Program aired on 382 TV stations. Of course, it morphed from being a daily radio program to a weekly TV program. It was also, though, on 36 radio stations. At that time, it was the most common or I'm not sure if popular is the word, but the most widespread religious program on the air. The second biggest one was on 197 stations. We were first with 382. Number 2, and I'm trying to remember if that was Jerry Falwell, but they were just under 200. The Plain Truth magazine, published in seven languages, went around worldwide to almost 8.5 million subscribers.

Peter Eddington wouldn't know what to do with that. Actually, I should say, he would know what to do with that. He'd be thrilled with that. The second biggest, well, I'm not sure if it was second biggest, but when we were going to 8.5 million, Time Magazine was going to just under 6 million. So, the Plain Truth was bigger than Time Magazine. Of course, Time Magazine wasn't given away free. During the course of Mr. Armstrong's ministry, the church gave away more than 40 million books and booklets. That's a lot of books and booklets.

There were a lot of people learning about the truth, or at least having that witness in their hands. But what happened next, what happened next from that peak, was a repeat of what's happened in God's church repeatedly throughout the ages, all the way from the first century down to now. It's very also similar to what happened in the time of Peter Waldo. Those who succeeded Mr. Armstrong in authority within the worldwide church of God began teaching compromises with false doctrines. Eventually, that organization adopted beliefs that were the exact opposite of the truth. Major groups of people and ministers started separating from the church. Some determined that they would continue living by the biblical doctrines they'd known earlier, but others left because they figured, I might as well go to the church down the street if I'm going to believe what they believe. A good many people, as in 1844, gave up religion altogether. They said, ah, you can't trust it, what's it matter? That's what happened after the great disappointment. That's what happened after the persecution of those who followed Peter Waldo. That's what happened after the church was scattered after the original apostles, after that first century church was infiltrated and hijacked by false teachers. Those who left the worldwide church of God and wanted to continue living by the truth adopted a variety of names. I jotted down just the ones that popped into my head. We've got Global Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, United Church of God, Remnant Church of God, Church of the Great God, Living Church of God, Church of God, and Insert City Name. I'm leaving off dozens and dozens, but like I said, I didn't do any research. I just thought, I've heard of all these. I wonder if that was the case in the 300s when true Christians couldn't remain in what was then called the Universal Church of God, or Universal, or by its other name, Catholic Church of God.

Perhaps many of these new associations of small congregations of small congregations and individual members formed back then, and they might not have known who the others were because they didn't have an internet to check up on their updates, or send emails, or start smear campaigns. But through most of European history, God's Church was comprised of scattered congregations, not always even aware of the others. I wonder how many people went their whole lives as part of a church that met on Saturdays, that didn't eat pork, and kept some weird holidays and thought, we're the only ones on the planet. But it's in the Bible.

God's Spirit is working in us. Even if no one else is doing it, we still have to do it. So here we are now, about a quarter of a century past the end of Mr. Armstrong's ministry, attending one of several church organizations that claimed to be carrying on the mission that Jesus Christ gave His church. And when I say that, I'm not at all implying that the United Church of God shouldn't exist. I believe we exist for a very good reason and that we should. We have a mission and a work to do. We have an identity, and there's no reason we shouldn't be doing what we're doing. The only reason I sort of cast it where we're in with a group of many is to show that that's the way it's been through a lot of history. And we shouldn't let that get to us. And given the situation, what should we do? What should we do? Well, I'll say one thing we should not do, and that's be discouraged.

Don't be discouraged. We might feel like the disciples in the 300s AD who knew that the church had formerly been growing quickly and doing a powerful work, but had become a scattering of small groups overshadowed by a large powerful church that was called Christian, but taught falsehood. We might feel like Christians living in the mountains of southeastern France in the 1300s or in southern Germany, looking back and remembering the powerful work and the growing dynamic church that had been led by Peter Waldel, but now consisted of a small number of congregations that were weak, abandoned continually by members who chose to compromise with the Catholics or the Lutherans. And there have been many other periods in the history of God's true church, when a great high point would be followed by a period of division and conflict. It's happened over and over again. But after each of those times, the church did continue, and new high points were ahead. Just think of those people, say, in the 1400s who said, yeah, I've heard of Peter Waldel, and think what the church used to be like. Now, woe is us. God's abandoned us. If they could have imagined the World Tomorrow Program being beamed around the world and thousands of people keeping the Feast of Tabernacles together, they might not have been so discouraged. And how is it for us? Always, the end goal for true Christians that hold the truth should be the same. They wanted to be in God's kingdom.

They looked forward to Christ's return. Well, Paul wrote in Hebrews 11, verse 36, and I want to go there. Hebrews 11, starting in verse 36. What he wrote there was true for them in all those periods throughout history, just as much as it was true of the heroes of the Old Testament of whom he directly wrote and described. Hebrews 11, and we'll begin in verse 36. And as I said, he's writing of the Old Testament, but imagine those in the years after the first century church was scattered. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, didn't receive the promise. They didn't get what they were looking forward to because God had provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us. So what should we do then? We should do the same thing that Paul carries on to say in the next verse or the next chapter, carrying on in Hebrews 12, Therefore, we also, we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. And that includes the Old Testament patriarchs.

It includes the apostles. But I would say it includes the members of God's true church through the last two thousand years. Those who stuck with the truth, even when the Catholic church was persecuting them, and Peter Waldo was long gone. Those who might have remembered Constantine of Man and Ali, but he wasn't there anymore, but they stayed with it. I lost my place where I was here in verse one. Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let's lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. Lay that aside and run with endurance the race that's set before us. And we don't always get to choose which race we'll have. We don't get to choose whether it has a lot of hills or whether it's rainy on that day. So I'm thinking of my marathon experience. But, you know, you run the race that's set before us and you don't get to choose the course. Looking unto 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. As I said, think of what happened and don't be discouraged. I said, you've not resisted the bloodshed striving against sin. And I thought of that, as I said. I wrote this and actually a couple other sermons where I was starting to get kind of discouraged looking at what was happening. And I said, well, wait a minute. We're not resisting the bloodshed. We're still comfortable and happy. And, you know, I miss the days when, you know, as I said, we had organized sports that was like being on a traveling team and I could go to the feast and I could never meet every—well, actually I don't miss the large feast sites as much. I like them the way they are now.

But I miss having all those people. But we need to look to Jesus because He is the head of the church. Not the Apostle Peter or Paul. Not Peter Waldo. Not Andrew Duggar. Not Herbert Armstrong. Not Dennis Luecker, Rod Meredith, Gerald Flurry, David Hume, or any of the number of other people we can name. Not even Melvin Rhodes, of course. Jesus Christ was the head of the church when 3,000 were baptized in one day and He was also the head of the church when Christians were tortured and executed. When Nero put them on stakes and set them on fire. Jesus Christ was still the head of the church.

Christ was the head of the church when Peter Waldo traveled around Europe preaching the gospel, raising up churches, when he had to found a school to train ministers to take care of all those congregations. But Jesus Christ was also the head of the church when later members of those congregations began attending Catholic Mass, allowed their children to be sprinkled by Catholic priests. Jesus Christ was the head of the church when the World Tomorrow program aired every night all around the world, when the Plain Truth magazine went to millions of homes each month.

And He is still the head of the church today when it seems like we're struggling to keep a program on the air. On our mailing list is a fraction of what it was before. Although, I should say, and I did some research later looking into the satellite program, our channels we're on now, and the internet access we have, even with a smaller number, we have the gospel available to more people in the world than Mr. Armstrong ever did reach. Now, we have to trust the Father to draw people to it.

But our work is not as small and insignificant as it might seem. But since Jesus Christ was the head of the church, no matter what era of history we're in, we should do what He told us to do, what He told the church to do. And that's summarized in Mark 16, verse 15. Mark 16, many of you know this by heart, Jesus wanted the last instruction He gave to His apostles.

He said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's what we're supposed to do. The account in Matthew is slightly different, and it's worth reading. Matthew 28, if you don't have the one from Mark memorized, you probably do this one. Matthew 28, verse 19. Go therefore, make disciples in all the nations, and of course that's make disciples of those that the Father will draw. But make disciples in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you.

I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. So go do this job, I'm with you. It doesn't matter how many people are out there, how many people show up at services each week, because this is our goal and our mission. These two scriptures together demonstrate the two aspects of the one work, really, and we reflect that in the UCG motto, preaching the gospel and preparing a people.

And I think about when Christ spoke these words, He may have been speaking to only 11 men. Now some people say it might have been as many as 120. They speculate that many might have been at that first Pentecost, but boy, that's a small number to tell, go preach the gospel to all the world. But the church and its work has usually been small and weak. That's not the exception. What we're experiencing now is normal, whether it's pleasant or not. But because of that, it sometimes seems to be large and powerful.

But I thought of that. I thought, boy, we were so big and powerful in the 60s and 70s, but compare what we were doing then to the size of the Catholic Church, or even smaller churches like the Methodist Baptist, even the Seventh-day Adventist or Jehovah's Witnesses were much larger, had a lot of greater resources. At its largest and most powerful, the true church has still always been tiny.

But of course, that doesn't mean we don't do a large work, and we've been able to do a powerful work. And now, as I said, our work is available around the world. We are still preaching the gospel. But Jesus Christ, when He gave that command, go preach the gospel. Make disciples. He didn't say anything about counting heads. He didn't say anything about trying to be larger or louder than other organizations. He said, preach the gospel and make disciples. This is what the Church of God has done all through the ages.

Sometimes it's been well organized and effective, but many times not. Still, Jesus didn't give an expiration date. He didn't say, do it until your numbers get too small or until you get discouraged. He didn't give an expiration date, but He did tell His disciples something worth us looking at. Matthew 24.

Matthew 24 and verse 46. I just want to read this one scripture, realizing I'm taking it slightly out of context, but I think it fits in this context well also. Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Blessed is that servant when his master finds him so doing. There's not a lot more to say than that. I've only touched on a few brief periods of Church history. I think when I was studying history in college, a lot of people thought, oh, you're going to study Church history. I never have, so I'm not as well versed in it as some. Looking, just given in a brief study, it reveals this to us that God chooses to leave His Church small. We can see that conditions have changed, the size and power of the Church has varied, and the state of the Church today seems quite different than the way it was when many of us came into it. But that state is what it's been for most of the last 2,000 years. But there is something that's different that we should note. Conditions in the world around us do seem different. They seem to fit closer than ever, more closely than ever, the description of what Christ said it would be like at the end of the age. And that's something that wasn't true in Peter Waldo's time, or Constantine of Man and Ali, or even Duggar and Dodd. Now, I'm not saying that Jesus Christ will return in our lifetimes, but we would be foolish not to be prepared. That's probably something that is the same for them all those years. We should live as though it will. Only one generation of true Christians in all this history will get to live through Christ's time. We could be that generation. But even if we're not, if we're not, just imagine, say the church goes on to 500 years from now. If there is a young minister getting up and speaking to a small scattered congregation talking about church history, I hope that when he would reach the point where he described Mr. Armstrong's work and then the disintegration that came afterward, he'd say, yeah, but there was a group of people that hung on to that truth. It was a small fraction, but they would not let go, and they kept doing that work. I know if the history were told right now, that'd be true, because we're those people. We want it to be said that we taught our children the truth, that we preached the gospel, and we made disciples, and that we were ready when Christ returned to be found so doing.