Participants: Pr Shawn Boonstra
Series Code: SEM
Program Code: SEM000004S
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00:00 [soft music]
00:04 - [Announcer] The world, 00:06 forever changed. 00:07 [dramatic music] 00:08 His legacy, an empire reaching across centuries. 00:12 His name, 00:12 [dramatic music continues] 00:15 Constantine. 00:19 "Shadow Empire." 00:21 [dramatic music continues] 00:27 [soft music] 00:33 - When you hear the word basilica, 00:35 most people typically think of a church 00:38 and that's because, for the last 1,700 years or so, 00:41 that's the way we've used the word. 00:43 And not just any church is a basilica, 00:46 it's gotta be a church 00:47 that has been granted special ceremonial rights 00:50 or privileges by the Bishop of Rome. 00:54 But a basilica was not originally a Christian building. 00:57 In fact, a basilica wasn't even a religious building. 01:00 It was a public court, like this one, 01:03 used by the pseudo emperor Maxentius 01:06 and then Constantine after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. 01:10 And just up the road behind me is another famous basilica, 01:14 one of the most famous in the world. 01:17 And that basilica represents the merging of two empires, 01:21 the Kingdom of Heaven 01:23 and another shadow empire that ran parallel beside it. 01:27 [soft music] 01:28 [wind whooshes] [fire crackles] 01:34 This is the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, 01:36 one of the most famous churches in the world. 01:39 Structurally, it resembles Ancient Roman basilicas. 01:43 You've got a big open space in the middle called the nave 01:46 and there are aisles running along the outside. 01:49 When you look at the interior of Saint John Lateran, 01:52 or other famous basilicas, 01:55 and you go back and compare it to Roman basilicas, 01:57 it becomes obvious that after Constantine 02:00 the Christian church was no longer a fringe group, 02:03 an outside religion forced to survive 02:05 in spite of the empire. 02:07 Now, it was part of the empire. 02:10 In fact, in Constantine's mind, 02:12 Christianity would be the glue 02:14 that held his new empire together. 02:16 [soft music] 02:20 Now remember, under Diocletian, 02:23 the unity of the empire was all-important 02:26 and Diocletian achieved stability 02:28 by establishing a tetrarchy, 02:30 four emperors who controlled the eastern 02:33 and western halves of the territory. 02:36 But Constantine changed all that. 02:38 Not long after he defeated Maxentius, 02:41 he also conquered the rest of the empire, 02:43 which made him the only ruler. 02:47 Rome was back to just one guy. 02:50 But Constantine knew full-well 02:52 he was going to have find some way to keep it all together, 02:55 some way to achieve harmony, 02:58 and that's where he saw value in the Christian religion. 03:02 To his way of thinking, 03:03 Christians were a perfectly unified people. 03:06 He'd seen the way they stood together 03:08 against Roman persecution 03:10 and it looked like they were so perfectly united, 03:13 so perfectly in agreement 03:15 that nothing would ever make them fall. 03:17 Now, that's what he wanted for his empire. 03:20 He wanted to transplant 03:22 the Christian dedication and unity he saw into his kingdom. 03:26 [soft music continues] 03:33 [water rushing] 03:36 Now, tradition tells us 03:38 that Constantine underwent a radical conversion 03:41 the day before he won the Battle of Milvian Bridge. 03:45 But if that's true, 03:47 if he really became a Christian that day, 03:50 then he was remarkably silent about it. 03:53 If he really did see a cross in the sky, 03:56 if he really did hear a voice telling him, 03:57 "Go conquer in this sign," 04:00 then you'd expect those details 04:01 to show up in the original telling of the story. 04:05 But why didn't Constantine tell that story 04:07 the day he marched into Rome? 04:09 Why doesn't it show up anywhere on his arch? 04:12 Why don't we have any record of it anywhere 04:16 until 10 years later 04:18 when he suddenly tells it to a church historian? 04:22 And if Constantine really did convert to Christian that day, 04:26 I mean, if he really did submit himself 04:28 to the Prince of Peace, 04:30 then why did he go on killing his relatives, 04:32 the ones he considered to be political threats? 04:35 And why did he actually put off his own baptism 04:39 until he was practically on his deathbed? 04:41 [soft music] 04:43 [water rippling] 04:46 [water rushing] 04:50 There are just too many holes in the story. 04:52 Enough to make me personally doubt Constantine's conversion. 04:56 What seems more likely 04:58 is that Constantine embellished the story over time 05:02 and the Chi-Rho symbol he painted on his men's shields 05:05 slowly morphed into the vision story 05:07 over the span of 10 years. 05:10 Here's what probably happened. 05:13 Constantine gave credit to the Christian god for his victory 05:16 and he began to think that the Christian god 05:19 was the best way to hold his kingdom together. 05:22 The tenacity of Christians impressed him 05:25 and he thought people who would die for Jesus 05:27 might also be willing to die for him. 05:30 He thought Christians would be loyal to Rome 05:33 if he could merge the empire and the church. 05:37 So one of the first things Constantine did 05:39 was give this palace, the Lateran Palace, 05:42 to a guy by the name of Miltiades. 05:45 He was the Bishop of Rome 05:47 and he was really needed a place to live. 05:49 Because up to this point 05:51 the Bishop of Rome basically lived in a shack 05:53 over on the other side of the Tiber River. 05:56 What was left of the original Lateran 05:58 was ripped down in the late 1500s 06:00 and this one was built in its place. 06:04 Today, it's home to the Vicar General of Rome, 06:07 a representative of the pope, 06:08 who handles all his business inside the city. 06:12 But the reason this is a Christian building at all 06:15 is because Constantine gave it to the church. 06:19 It was a clear signal, 06:21 Constantine had refused to thank Jupiter for his victory 06:25 and now he'd given the Christian bishop 06:27 one of the most prestigious pieces of real estate 06:29 in the entire city. 06:31 And to top it off, he built a massive basilica, 06:35 the original Saint Peter's, over on Vatican mountain. 06:38 Christianity had now come to Rome for good. 06:43 But then something else amazing happened. 06:46 In the year 313, 06:47 Constantine unwittingly fulfilled a prophecy 06:50 from the Book of Revelation. 06:52 He traveled up the city of Milan for a wedding 06:55 and while he was there he did something 06:58 that completely reversed Diocletian's policy 07:01 of persecuting Christians. 07:02 Constantine felt like the Persecution 07:04 was destabilizing the empire. 07:07 It was making people distrust the Roman government. 07:10 So he convinced other dignitaries 07:12 that they should stop killing Christians. 07:16 This all resulted in the Edict of Milan, 07:19 a document which suddenly put an end to persecution 07:22 and elevated the Christian faith 07:25 to a position of prominence. 07:27 [soft music continues] 07:31 Constantine returned the property 07:33 that had been confiscated 07:34 during the 10-year reign of terror. 07:36 And if you found yourself in the unfortunate position 07:39 of owning confiscated Christian property, 07:42 you could actually ask Constantine's government 07:44 for compensation. 07:46 The church was no longer a fringe group. 07:49 It was considered a legitimate corporation, 07:51 a legitimate part of the Roman empire. 07:54 And most importantly, 07:56 Constantine introduced the concept 07:58 of full religious liberty. 08:00 In the words of the Milan Edict, 08:02 Constantine said, "We should give Christians 08:04 and everyone else freedom 08:06 to follow the religion each may want 08:08 so that whatever divinity may exist in the heavens 08:11 will be willing to show benevolence to us 08:14 and all those who live under our authority." 08:17 [soft music] 08:19 So how does that fulfill Bible prophecy? 08:23 Well, if you remember from a previous episode, 08:26 when John wrote seven letters 08:28 to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor 08:30 in the Book of Revelation, 08:32 there was a direct reference to severe persecution 08:34 in his letter to Smyrna. 08:37 Now, Smyrna was the crushed or persecuted church. 08:41 For centuries, sincere Bible students have recognized 08:44 that those seven letters predicted 08:46 the entire span of Christian history 08:49 and the letter to Smyrna 08:50 fits persecuted Christianity exactly. 08:54 In Bible prophecy, a day is generally used 08:57 to represent a year, 08:58 so 10 days of persecution would actually be 10 years. 09:05 The prophecy fits what Diocletian did to the Christians. 09:07 It says in Revelation 2:10, 09:10 "Do not fear any of those things 09:12 which you are about to suffer. 09:14 Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, 09:17 that you may be tested, 09:19 and you will have tribulation 10 days. 09:23 Be faithful until death, 09:25 and I will give you the crown of life." 09:28 The Diocletian Persecution began with the Edict of 303 09:32 and it came to an abrupt end exactly 10 years later 09:36 when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan. 09:39 [soft music] 09:44 Now, that should be the end of the story, 09:46 and from this point on 09:47 the church should have lived happily ever after 09:50 because they were now the emperor's favorite. 09:53 Nobody could touch them. 09:56 Now, the Edict of Milan didn't establish Christianity 09:58 as the official religion of the empire 10:01 but it did establish Christians 10:02 as a real reason for religious liberty 10:05 and there was no question that Christians 10:08 had suddenly moved from underdog to a position of privilege, 10:12 a position they would hold for many centuries to come. 10:16 But there was a big problem. 10:18 It turns out that Christianity was nowhere near as unified 10:21 as Constantine hoped. 10:23 Within months of his victory, 10:25 he made an unsettling discovery 10:27 and unfortunately it's a discovery 10:29 a lot of people still make 10:31 when they get to know the Christian community. 10:34 Christians can be anything but united. 10:37 I mean, sure on the big stuff they all get along, 10:40 but on the day-to-day things, 10:42 well, Christians are still human beings, 10:44 imperfect sinners in need of a perfect God. 10:48 And Christians know how to argue just like everybody else. 10:52 [soft music] 10:55 Within months of Constantine's victory, 10:57 a controversy erupted on the other of the Mediterranean, 11:00 over in Egypt. 11:02 You see, during the Diocletian Persecution, 11:05 a lot of Christian leaders had caved in under pressure 11:08 when the Romans came to confiscate their Christian books. 11:11 They turned in their Bibles. They caved. 11:14 They left the Christian church. 11:17 And then when the Persecution ended, 11:19 they suddenly wanted back in 11:20 because now it was easy to be a Christian. 11:24 But as you can imagine, those who stayed the course, 11:27 those who were in the church during all those dark years, 11:30 were completely unimpressed. 11:32 They called the people 11:34 who had abandoned the church traditores, 11:36 it's where we get the word traitor, 11:38 and they didn't think those people 11:40 should be allowed back in, 11:42 and if they did come back in 11:44 they certainly couldn't hold church office. 11:47 And if you'd been baptized by a traditore, 11:50 someone who left during the Persecution, 11:52 well, they considered your whole baptism completely invalid. 11:56 [soft music continues] 11:59 The people who wanted to keep the traitors out of the church 12:02 had a leader by the name of Donatus Magnus, 12:05 and they were called Donatists. 12:07 They wanted Donatus 12:09 to become the Bishop of Carthage in North Africa. 12:11 But there was a problem. 12:13 There was already a Bishop of Carthage, 12:15 a guy by the name of Caecilian, 12:17 and he was in favor 12:19 of bringing the traitors back into the church. 12:21 So there was this really heated controversy 12:24 right in the beginning of Constantine's reign, 12:27 and when Christians couldn't settle the matter themselves, 12:31 they made a direct appeal to the emperor. 12:34 They wanted the state's help to resolve a dispute. 12:38 [waves crashing] 12:41 That represented a radical change 12:44 in the way that Christians handled their internal disputes. 12:47 Centuries earlier, 12:49 the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, 12:51 telling them not to drag their disagreements 12:54 into public court. 12:55 [soft music] 12:56 According to Paul, Christians served a king whose kingdom 12:58 was not of this world and because of that, 13:02 worldly courts had no place in the church. 13:05 Now, you'll notice the Bible still anticipates 13:07 that Christians would have disputes 13:09 because they are, after all, human beings. 13:12 But the place for arbitration is the church, 13:16 not the courthouse. 13:17 [soft music continues] 13:20 But under Constantine, that all changed. 13:23 The Donatists, no longer fearing any kind of persecution, 13:26 thought it would be a good idea 13:28 to let the state decide their case. 13:31 So Constantine asked the Bishop of Rome 13:33 to preside over a panel 13:35 that would make a decision one way or another. 13:38 Should traditores be readmitted to the church? 13:41 Should they be allowed to hold office 13:43 and perform the rites and rituals of Christianity? 13:46 Well, that panel decided against the Donatists 13:50 and the Donatists were furious, 13:51 so they appealed the case, 13:53 saying their side had not been given a full hearing. 13:56 They said the Bishop of Rome 13:58 had stacked the meeting against them. 14:00 So Constantine ordered another meeting 14:03 in another city in 314 AD. 14:06 This time, he called bishops from all over the empire 14:09 to come and decide the matter, 14:11 and once again they ruled against the Donatists. 14:14 And, once again, the Donatists were not happy. 14:19 [tense music] 14:23 [tense string music] 14:25 It was becoming obvious to Constantine 14:27 that the glue for his new empire, the Christian church, 14:30 might not be as strong as he thought. 14:33 At one point, he got really irritated 14:35 and he wrote this letter. 14:37 [air whooshes] 14:38 "So great a madness persists," 14:40 and he's speaking to the Donatists, 14:42 "that with incredible arrogance 14:43 they repudiate the equitable judgment that has been given, 14:46 so that, by the will of heaven, 14:48 I have learnt that they demand my own judgment. 14:51 They demand my judgment 14:53 when I myself await the judgment of Christ." 14:56 [air whooshes] 14:57 Constantine believed 14:58 that if he could not bring unity to the Christian church, 15:01 God would stop favoring him 15:03 and he would never be able to unite the whole empire. 15:06 So he got angry. 15:08 He told the African church 15:09 if they didn't get their act together 15:11 he was coming down in person 15:13 to show them how to run a church. 15:15 And if anybody didn't like that, well, to quote Constantine, 15:18 [air whooshes] 15:20 "These without doubt I shall cause to suffer 15:22 the due penalties of their madness 15:24 and their reckless obstinacy." 15:27 Basically, what happened is that Constantine resorted 15:29 to the one thing he knew as a Roman soldier, 15:32 he resorted to force. 15:34 [air whooshes] 15:35 He began mixing church and state 15:37 in a way that had never happened 15:39 in the first 300 years of Christianity. 15:41 He blended the interests of the empire 15:44 with the life of the church 15:45 and he even threatened the death penalty 15:48 for people who didn't tow the line. 15:50 Some historical records even indicate that Caecilian, 15:53 the bishop who won the Donatists' dispute, 15:55 actually rounded up his opponents, 15:57 with the help of the Roman authorities, 15:59 and had them put to death. 16:01 The Roman emperor had now become the de facto head 16:05 of the Christian church. 16:06 [tense music] 16:13 That became even more obvious 16:14 in the next dispute that erupted 16:16 in the brave new world of state-sponsored Christianity. 16:20 A priest by the name of Aerius, 16:22 also from North Africa, 16:24 began to question the divinity of Christ 16:26 and that created a massive uproar. 16:29 This wasn't a matter of church politics, 16:31 like the Donatist controversy. 16:34 This was doctrinal. 16:36 It touched on a key teaching of the Christian faith: 16:39 Jesus, the god-man, the second person of the godhead, 16:42 God in human flesh. 16:45 Now, without getting into the technical details, 16:47 the heretic priest Aerius was teaching 16:49 that Jesus was not equal to the Father, 16:53 that he held a lesser position. 16:55 Aerius was teaching that Jesus proceeded from the Father 16:59 at some point way back in ancient history. 17:02 Now, to solve the dispute, 17:04 Constantine called a meeting in the ancient city of Antioch, 17:07 which was one of the key centers of Christianity. 17:09 And the reason Constantine called that meeting 17:12 was because he now considered himself 17:14 the head of the church. 17:16 [gentle music] 17:26 [gentle music continues] 17:31 The meeting in Antioch was a bust, 17:34 so Constantine called another one, 17:36 one of the most famous church councils in Christian history, 17:39 and he called it in what today is the city of 0znik 17:42 but back then was known as Nicaea. 17:45 Delegates from all over the empire went to Nicaea 17:47 and history tells us that every single one of them 17:50 actually had scars from the 10-year Persecution. 17:54 Some were blind, some were missing their limbs, 17:56 some had burns all over their bodies. 17:59 Every one of them 18:01 had survived Diocletian's 10 years of terror. 18:04 At the Council of Nicaea, 18:05 the delegates confirmed what Christians had always believed, 18:09 Jesus was fully god, co-eternal with the Father. 18:13 Some people you'll hear say, 18:14 "Constantine invented the divinity of Christ 18:17 and he used the Council of Nicaea to do it." 18:20 It's a popular theory with lots of modern skeptics. 18:23 [gentle music continues] 18:25 But honestly, how do I put this? 18:28 Well, it's nonsense, historically speaking. 18:30 That is not what happened here in the city of Nicaea. 18:33 Go back through the writings of the Roman pagans 18:35 in the first years of the Christian church 18:37 and one of the key objections 18:39 the pagan philosophers had to the Christian faith 18:42 was the fact that they were actually worshiping Jesus. 18:46 So it wasn't the Christians 18:48 who questioned the divinity of Christ, it was the Romans, 18:52 and while the Council of Nicaea 18:53 absolutely did affirm Jesus' divinity, 18:56 it didn't invent it, 18:58 and neither did Constantine. 19:00 [soft music] 19:06 [air whooshes] 19:07 [soft music continues] 19:17 The other thing that some people say happened here in Nicaea 19:21 is that the council essentially invented our New Testament. 19:24 Now, I've heard that a lot in recent years. 19:26 You'll have people arguing that before 325 AD 19:30 there may be hundreds of books 19:32 that Christians were considering sacred 19:34 and maybe dozens and dozens of gospels. 19:37 But here in Nicaea, they say, 19:38 Constantine only allowed the books 19:40 and the gospels into the New Testament 19:42 that agreed with his ideas 19:44 and he rejected the books 19:46 that didn't teach the divinity of Christ. 19:49 Now, again, it's more historical nonsense. 19:52 The early church fathers made clear reference 19:55 to the books of the New Testament 19:56 already back in the second century, 19:58 100 years before the council met here in Nicaea. 20:02 In the year 180, for example, 20:04 an early church father 20:06 by the name of Irenaeus referred to four gospels 20:09 and he argued four is the perfect number 20:11 for how many gospels there would be. 20:13 You'd expect God to choose that many. 20:15 Now, if Constantine picked our four gospels 20:18 and put them in the New Testament, 20:20 how in the world did Irenaeus know 150 years before that 20:24 how many there would be? 20:30 [gentle music] 20:31 The truth is that the New Testament 20:33 was already very well established 20:35 by the time we had the Council of Nicaea 20:38 and Christ's divinity was well understood 20:40 the very day the Christian church started. 20:43 That was something Jesus taught to his Disciples. 20:46 As much as the critics want the Christian church 20:48 to be an invention of Constantine, it's just not true. 20:52 The church was established long before he was even born. 20:57 But of course that doesn't mean 20:58 that Constantine didn't change something. 21:00 At the Council of Nicaea, 21:02 he underscored the emperor's new role 21:04 as the head of the church. 21:06 He actually came in person 21:08 and presided over a lot of the discussions. 21:11 And it's at this point in history 21:12 that the state takes charge of determining 21:15 what is orthodox belief. 21:17 It started deciding cases for the church. 21:21 Now, fortunately, 21:22 the state mostly came to the right decision 21:24 on that occasion, 21:25 regarding the teachings, 21:27 but they had the wrong person presiding. 21:29 It should not have been a Roman emperor. 21:32 In the New Testament, 21:34 Paul writes that the scriptures are the standard of truth, 21:36 not the emperor or his state-appointed councils. 21:40 [gentle music continues] 21:49 The Christians had everything they needed to run the church 21:52 and make decisions about what they would 21:54 and would not believe because they had the Bible. 21:58 They didn't need the empire to run the church. 22:00 Jesus was clear, "My kingdom is not of this world." 22:04 But starting in the fourth century, 22:05 when the favor of the emperor suddenly fell on the church, 22:08 our Christian ancestors 22:10 launched something of a shadow empire. 22:12 It looked like Christianity, it sounded like Christianity, 22:16 but it had some problems. 22:17 The life of the church was now about the Roman empire 22:20 and not really about the gospel commission. 22:23 Over the years, 22:25 it became more about Rome's European successors 22:27 than the coming kingdom of Christ. 22:29 We stopped preaching the words of Jesus, 22:32 you know, "Render onto Caesar the things that are Caesar's 22:35 and onto God the things that are God's." 22:37 Instead, what we did 22:39 is we started blending the things of God 22:40 with the things of Caesar 22:42 and history has proven that was not a healthy development. 22:47 The state tragically started using force to run the church, 22:50 to the point where Constantine even passed 22:53 one of the very first blue laws, 22:55 a law forbidding work on Sunday in the city of Rome. 22:58 What was really strange about that 23:00 is that most Christians weren't even observing Sunday 23:02 in the early fourth century, 23:03 but the first day of the week was sacred to the Romans 23:06 and it was a key part of Roman life, 23:08 so it became part of the church not through the Bible, 23:12 but through the emperor. 23:14 [soft music] 23:16 Constantine gave us the marriage of church and state, 23:20 a marriage that continued 23:21 well into the history of medieval Europe. 23:23 He created an environment where eventually 23:26 it was not just the state running the church, 23:29 it was also the church running the state. 23:32 It was a shadow empire. 23:34 Not the kingdom that Jesus intended, 23:37 but a shadowy substitute. 23:39 And it was not good for Christianity. 23:41 I mean, sure, in the very early years under Constantine, 23:45 just getting rid of Persecution brought a lot of relief 23:48 and freedom was a breath of fresh air. 23:51 But honestly, we really lost something 23:54 when our faith became easy. 23:57 Once we blurred the line between Caesar and Christ, 24:00 between church and state, 24:03 Christians became a tool of the state 24:05 and the state became a tool of the church. 24:08 The Roman basilica became a Christian basilica 24:12 and eventually, when the Roman emperors all moved east 24:15 to Constantinople, 24:16 the church actually became the de facto Caesar in the west. 24:22 Suddenly, it wasn't Diocletian persecuting Christians 24:25 for their beliefs, 24:26 Christians actually started persecuting each other. 24:30 We started running the church 24:32 like the Romans ran their empire. 24:34 If someone didn't tow the line, 24:36 we brought them to a torture chamber 24:38 or maybe even tied them to a stake and burned them. 24:42 Now, let me ask you, 24:44 where did we get those kinds of ideas? 24:48 You can search a Bible from cover to cover 24:50 and you will not find Jesus telling anybody 24:53 to burn the heretics. 24:54 That was a tactic we learned from the Romans. 24:58 And today, the world looks on Christians 25:00 with a great deal of skepticism, 25:02 and, to be honest, we've kind of earned it. 25:05 For hundreds of years, 25:06 we lived in the shadow empire of Constantine 25:10 instead of the biblical kingdom of Christ. 25:13 We started to build a so-called Kingdom of God on Earth 25:16 using human government, 25:18 but the Bible teaches that human governments 25:21 are standing in the way of God's will on Earth. 25:24 [soft music] 25:30 Ancient biblical prophets, like Daniel, 25:32 actually predicted the development of human kingdoms 25:35 hundreds of years in advance. 25:38 He managed to predict the empires of Babylon, 25:40 Persia, Greece, and Rome. 25:42 He even named names long before any of it existed. 25:46 But Daniel's point was essentially this, 25:49 all those kingdoms would pass away the day Messiah came back 25:52 and set up his own everlasting empire. 25:56 Now, today you and I are lucky enough 25:58 to live in the freest society 25:59 in the history of the whole world. 26:02 We have what the early Christians really never had. 26:06 In the words of Thomas Jefferson, 26:08 we have a wall of separation between church and state 26:12 and that wall gives us the freedom to worship as we please, 26:17 to live freely as the followers of Christ. 26:20 But in the 1980s, 26:22 in the face of rapid moral decay in North America, 26:25 we started to question that all-important wall. 26:28 We started to say that maybe some atheists, 26:31 maybe even the Soviet Union, 26:33 came up with the idea of separation of church and state 26:35 to undermine the Christian faith. 26:38 We started to think 26:39 that maybe the best way to secure our future 26:42 was to win with Christianity at the ballot box, 26:44 to just take over the reins of government 26:46 and make Christianity the official state religion. 26:51 At this juncture in history, 26:52 it's very important that we realize what happens 26:55 when Christians build a shadow empire. 26:58 When we recreate Christianity in the image of Rome, 27:02 we end up with something 27:03 that kind of looks like Christianity, 27:05 it has all the same trappings, all the same language, 27:09 but it has a completely different objective. 27:12 It no longer represents the humble teachings 27:15 of the carpenter from Nazareth. 27:16 [gentle music] 27:24 [soft music] 27:27 And that means 27:29 that you and I have a decision we have to make. 27:32 Will it be Caesar or Jesus? 27:35 By all means, live in this world, 27:38 be an active part of the community, 27:40 obey the powers that be, be a good citizen. 27:43 All of that is your God given biblical duty. 27:46 But at the same time, you have to know who the real king is 27:50 and never lose sight of the real kingdom. 27:53 And when there is a discrepancy between Caesar 27:57 and the King of Kings, 27:58 there is no choice for the Christian 28:01 but to cast his lot with Jesus. 28:04 [soft music continues] 28:11 - [Announcer] This has been a broadcast 28:13 of the Voice of Prophecy. 28:15 To learn more about how you can get a DVD copy 28:18 of "Shadow Empire" for yourself, 28:20 please visit ShadowEmpireDVD.com 28:24 or call toll-free, 844-822-2943. 28:29 [soft music continues] |
Revised 2023-08-24