July 30, 2010

“. . . I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and, “What you see, write in a book and send it to the Seven Churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea” (Revelation 1:11).

The History of God’s One and Only True Church

By

Alton (Don) B. Billingsley

Continued from 4-13-2010, 4-23-2010; 4-30-2010; 5-7-2010; 5-17-2010; 5-21-2010; 5-28-2010; 6-11-2010; 6-18-2010- 6-25-2010; 7-2-2010; 7-16-2010; 7-23-2010

Regarding the establishment of His Church, Jesus Christ said to the apostle Peter and the rest of His disciples:

“. . . On this ROCK (Greek: Masculine, Petros, Feminine, Petra, meaning Jesus Christ Himself, Deuteronomy 32:3-4; I Corinthians 10:4) I will BUILD My Church, and the gates of Hades (graves, I Corinthians 15:54-55) shall NOT prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18).

The Church in Sardis - The Dead Church approximately 15-85 A. D. to 1600 A.D. to the present time—

And to the angel of the Church in Sardis write, "These things says He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars:

‘I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found your works perfect before God.

Remember therefore how you have received and heard: hold fast, and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.

You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their names; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.” ’ Revelation 3:1-6

The baton is now passed from the Thyatira Era to the Sardis Church Era.

Through many trials and much persecution the Church that Jesus Christ founded in 31 A. D. has continued through the centuries from one era to another never to fully die even though Satan through his human instruments tried very hard, but Jesus Christ never permitted him to do it.

Preface and Overview

The Loss of Love for God’s Truth—

The problem of the Ephesian Church Era was the loss of their First Love that developed in the latter stages of the Ephesian Church Era; this loss filtered on down through each Church Era while progressively getting worse in each era until we find the Church near its death because of that almost total loss in the latter stages of the Sardis Church Era (Revelation 2:4; II Thessalonians 2:10-12).

It came to be understood by its few teachings and its fruits the Sardis Church Era is in reality the 7^th Day Church of God. This will be made clear in the writings of the Philadelphia Church Era.

This Present Historical Writing—

To begin this historical writing of the Sardis Church Era, I have taken from the internet the research done by the late apostle of the 7^th Day Church of God, Mr. Andrew Dugger. He was accompanied in his research by Mr. Clarence Dodd.

Since this chapter is very lengthy it will be found in the next three writings in the Pastor’s Comments.

(Comment: During the early 1950s I had the opportunity to hear a sermon from Mr. Dugger while he was holding an evangelistic campaign near Pasadena, California.)

A History of the True Church

Traced From 33 A.D. to Date

 By

Andrew N. Dugger and Clarence O. Dodd

1936. Second Ed., Tebet (January) 1968. Third Ed., Jerusalem, Israel, Sivan (June) 1972

Chapter 20

SIXTEEN HUNDRED TO SEVENTEEN HUNDRED A.D.

 Darkness Before Dawn

The seventeenth century marks the crisis of persecution against the true people of God. In the ancient nations of Europe the saints of God were scattered, preserving the true faith, keeping the commandments of God, and living exemplary lives in the valleys and hills of the continent. The time came, however, when the land became more thickly settled, and the enemies of the truth were pressed against the settlements of the true children of God, and persecutions became more intense. The result was that these saints were driven from nation to nation, but finding no lasting asylum as the hordes of Rome followed them. The following extracts will serve to manifest the spirit of persecution and the state of despair confronting the saints in this century.

In a letter from Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England, 1665, to the Lords of the of the United Provinces, in defense of the Waldenses then persecuted in the provinces of the duke of Savoy, we note the following: "But if, on the other hand, he shall continue firmly resolved utterly to destroy and to drive to a state of distraction those men, among whom our religion was either planted by the first preachers of the gospel, and so maintained in its purity from age to age, or else reformed and restored to its primitive purity more early than among many other nations, we hereby declare ourselves ready to advise, in common with you, and the rest of our brethren and allies of the reformed religion, by what means we may most conveniently provide for the preservation and comfort of these distressed people." -- Jones' Church History, p. 380, ed. 1837.-- Again to the Evangelical Cantons of Switzerland, Cromwell says, "Next to the help of God, it seems to devolve on you, to provide that the most ancient stock of pure religion may not be destroyed in this remnant of its ancient professors. . . ." -- Idem, p. 390.

Some refugees from Tyrol valley gave this account of themselves to citizens of Coire in Switzerland in 1685:

They were "a remnant of the old Waldenses. They worshiped neither images nor saints, and they believed the sacrament (of the Lord's Supper) was only a commemoration of the death of Christ; and in many other points they had their opinions different from those of the church of Rome. They knew nothing of either Lutherans or Calvinists; and the Grisons, though their neighbors, had never heard of this nearness of theirs to the Protestant religion." -- Idem, p. 413.-- In 1603 an explanatory declaration was made by the Waldenses in refutation of the false accusation of the Romanists against them. "It begins by stating, that, from time immemorial, and from generation to generation, the same doctrines and religious profession had been maintained by their predecessors in the Marquisate of Saluces . . . ." -- Idem, p. 364.

The Waldenses made petition to the duke of Savoy for protection from their enemies, asking permission to follow their faith learned from their ancestors. "This petition was seconded by the duchess of Savoy, who was a merciful princess, and had great power over the affections of the duke, it being ever her judgment that this people were not to be so severely used, who had not changed their religion a few days ago, but had been in possession of it from their ancestors so many ages." -- Idem, p. 356.

During all these persecutions, however, God was very near His true children, and His intervening hand was readily apparent in their distresses, as they called upon Him. The following gleaning will show examples of God's care over His own.

 The Need Supplied

"How often, in times of distress, has God shown His watchful care by impressing some unknown agent to act as His messenger to a child of His in need! Andrew Duncan, of Scotland, had been regent of St. Leonard's College. He was at one time banished to France for his religious convictions, and now, in the days of 1621, as a minister at Crail, he was banished from the Scottish kingdom for nonconformity. He went, with his family, over the English border to Berwick.

"They were reduced to great hardship. One night in particular, the children asking for bread, and there being none to give them, they cried very sorely: the mother was likewise very much depressed in spirit.

"The minister himself had recourse sometimes to prayer, and in the intervals endeavored to cherish his wife's hope, and please the children, and at last got them to bed; but she continued to mourn heavily.

"He exhorted her to wait patiently upon God, who was now trying them, but would undoubtedly provide for them; and added, that if the Lord should rain down bread from heaven they should not want.

"This confidence was the more remarkable, because they had neither friend nor acquaintance in that place to whom they could make their case known.'

"And yet before morning a man brought them a sackful of provision, and went off without telling them from whence it came, though entreated to do so. When the father opened the sack, he found in it a bag (purse) with twenty pounds Scots, two loaves of bread, a bag of flour, another of barley, and such like provisions; and having brought the whole to his wife he said: See what a good Master I serve.'" -- Scots Worthies, p. 279.

"Again, when Mrs. Duncan was sick and sore in need, and they knew not where to turn, a lady came, -- a gentlewoman,' the old record says, -- evidently of means, bringing needed supplies and comforts with her, and herself rendering the help so sorely needed in the hour that brought another little one into the family. The messenger of mercy left them, leaving no hint of her identity, or of the means by which she had been led to come to their aid. Andrew Duncan could only leave on the record his testimony to God's care for His children in distress.

"The old writer Wodrow, historian of the Covenanter times, tells of James Hamilton, minister at Edinburgh, who was ousted, and reduced to `very great straits' at Mortounhall.

"One night his wife and family and he had no more meal than they got their supper of, and yet he still kept up his confidence in God. That night Sir James Stewart, of Gutters, who lived not far from him, but knew nothing particular of his present straits, told his lady, when in her bed, that he was troubled in his mind about Mr. Hamilton; and again and again it was borne upon him that he was in straits; and caused his lady to rise out of her bed and give orders to the servants early next morning to carry a load of meal to Mortounhall, which was accordingly done, and it came most seasonably." -- Analecta, Vol. 1, p. 91.

"Such were the men thy hills who trod, Strong in the love and fear of God, Defying, through a long dark hour, Alike the craft and rage of power." -- Struthers.

"Who can follow the story of these men and women who witnessed amid trial, in those sad times of mistaken and cruel zeal for state-enforced religion, and not recognize again the hand of watchful Providence, stretched forth in hours of human extremity and need? Even so in gentler times may the same dear hand lead us on.

"O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone." -- The Intervening Hand.

The "New World" had been opened up to emigrants from Europe for colonization, and the persecuted saints known by various names in history, fled to America for a haven of safety. The Pilgrims, the Puritans, the Quakers, had scattered among them the true Church of God, and carried with them to the shores of the New World the faith once delivered unto the saints, and preserved by their foreparents by the price of blood in the wildernesses of Europe.

The churches in the nations of Europe were literally destroyed in this century, and the history of them as churches can truly be said to have ceased, with a few notable exceptions, which we shall consider under the title of the Church of God in the British Isles.

Jones says of the extermination of the churches of the Waldenses in the Piedmont valleys:

"I professed to give the history of the churches of Piedmont and other places commonly designated as Waldenses and Albigenses, not of individuals; and as I considered these churches to have been utterly dispersed and scattered by a series of persecutions which terminated in the year 1686, I consider myself to have brought the subject to its legitimate close." -- Jones' Church Hist., Preface, page IX, ed. 1837.

The reader will note with interest the closing remarks of the historian regarding these people. How, because of the bitter persecutions in Europe, the church was utterly scattered and dispersed until he considered his subject to its legitimate close. This persecution was following the year 1600, and it was during this very same period that the Pilgrims were coming to America to escape persecution, and when according to the Revelation of Jesus, chapter 12:16, that "The earth helped the woman," the church. It was to America, the land of religious freedom, that the people known to the world as Waldenses, Puritans, Anabaptists, Lollards, etc., were fleeing from persecution, and who were in general known by the scriptural name, "The Church of God."

 How the Lord Fed and Protected His Church

We will now relate a few of the wonderful manifestations of God's intervening power in behalf of His true commandment keeping people, in times of distress and danger.

These nonconformists were spoken of as such because they would not conform to the Episcopal church, which at that time had been recognized as the state church of England. These nonconformist people stood for the Word of God in its purity, with the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus as their creed. Numerous testimonies elsewhere tell of their loyalty to the name and true faith of the Church of God.

 How Matthew Warren Escaped

Matthew Warren was a scholar of Oxford, England. Being one of the non-conforming ministers, he was often sought by the authorities, and when silenced as a minister, devoted himself to educating youth for the ministry. Calamy reports:

"At one time he was very remarkably and providentially preserved. His wife had a strange impression upon her mind that if he did not remove till such a time from the house to which he had retired (he being away from home), he would certainly be taken prisoner. Accordingly she sent a messenger with a letter, earnestly begging him to be at home by such a time, or else he might never see her more.

"He, imagining it was her indisposition, and not the fear of his danger, that was the cause of her urgency, immediately took leave of his friends, and went homeward. But he was not far from the house before, looking back from an ascent, he saw it surrounded by persons that were sent to search there for him." -- Nonconformists' Memorial, Vol. II, p. 350.

John Nofworthy's Experience

John Nofworthy was also an Oxford man, who lived in Devenshire. Driven out for nonconforming, he was hunted from prison to prison by persecuting officials. Calamy says: "He was several times reduced to great straits; but he `encouraged himself in the Lord his God,' and exhorted his wife to do the same. Once when he and his family had breakfasted, and had nothing left for another meal, his wife lamented her condition, and said, `What shall I do with my poor children?'

"He persuaded her to take a walk abroad with him; and seeing a little bird, he said: `Take notice how that little bird sits and chirps, though we cannot tell whether it has been at breakfast; and if it has, it knows not whether to go for dinner. Therefore be of good cheer, and do not distrust the providence of God; for are we not "better than many sparrows"?"' -- Idem, Vol. I, p. 381. "Before the time came for dinner, true to the preacher's faith, sufficient provisions for the daily need had been sent in to them from an unknown source."

 Hanserd Knollys in London

"Be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. " -- Hebrews 13:5.

This promise was food and deliverance to Hanserd Knollys, one of the most eminent of the early English dissenters, at a time when he and his family were in distress. The incident here related occurred in London, after his return from America, whence he had fled for a time to escape imprisonment. He was still under the ban of the authorities, and ministry of the word was attended with peril. Of the deliverance that came in the crisis of his family's need, as he pleaded the promise of God, Knollys says:

"I was still poor and sojourned in a lodging till I had but sixpence left, and knew not how to provide for my wife and child. Having prayed to God and encouraged my wife to trust in Him, and to remember former experiences, and especially that word of promise, `I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,' I paid for my lodging and went out, not knowing whither God's good hand would lead me to receive something toward my present subsistence.

"About seven or eight doors from my lodgings a woman met me in the street, and told me she came to seek me, and her husband had sent her to tell me that there was a lodging provided and prepared at his house by some Christian friends for me and my wife. I told her of my present condition, and went along with her to the house. There she gave me twenty shillings which Dr. Bostock, a late sufferer, had given her for me, and some linen for my wife, which I received, and told her husband I would fetch my wife and child and lodge there.

"I returned with great joy. and my wife was greatly affected with this seasonable and suitable supply. After we had returned praises to God, we went to our new lodgings, where we found all things necessary provided for us, and all charges paid for fifteen weeks." -- Divine Government, by Higgens.

 A Child the Agent of Deliverance

"In the times when ministers in England were being ejected from the state churches for nonconformity, in 1662, a Mr. Rogers was expelled from his church. He lived near a persecuting magistrate, Sir Richard Craddock. Being very bitter against dissenters, the magistrate set spies to watch Mr. Rogers, and was glad when he could summon him for preaching at a place near by. The preacher, and several of his friends who attended the service, were condemned to prison. The magistrate was in another room making out the papers.

"Sir Richard had a little granddaughter, who had met Mr. Rogers and had been petted by him. She was a willful child, so hysterically impatient of restraint that she had once injured herself with a knife when contradicted. On this account, through fear that she would do something desperate, Sir Richard had given orders that she should be given her own way in everything. She came in and learned that her friend was to be sent to prison." The account, as given in Calamy's Nonconformists' Memorial, continues:

"She ran immediately to the chamber where her grandfather was and knocked with her head and heels till she got in, and said, `What are you going to do with my good old gentleman here in the hall?'

"`That is nothing to you,' said her grandfather: `get you about your business.'

"`But I will not,' she said; `he tells me you are going to send him and his friends to jail; and if you send him, I will drown myself in the pond as soon as they are gone; I will indeed.'

"When he saw the child was peremptory, it overcame him. He stepped into the hall, with mittimus in his hand, and said,

"`I had here made out your mittimus to send you all to jail, but at my grandchild's request, I set you all at liberty.'

"They all bowed and thanked him. Mr. Rogers stepped up to the child and laid his hand upon her head, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, said: `God bless you, my dear child: May the blessing of that God whose cause you now plead, though as yet you know Him not, be upon you in life, at death, and throughout eternity.'

"Many years after that, when Mr. Rogers had died, his son, Timothy Rogers, known as an author of a book on religious melancholy, was visiting the home of a Mrs. Tooley, of London, a lady famous in that day for her hospitality to religious workers. Here he told the story of his father's deliverance. Mrs. Tooley listened with great interest, and said, `And are you that Mr. Rogers' son?' "`Yes, madam,' he answered.

"`Well,' she said, `as long as I have been acquainted with you, I never knew that before. And now I will tell you something you never knew before: I am the very girl your dear father blessed. It made an impression upon me I could never forget.'

"Then she told her story. She had inherited her grandfather's estate, and as a young girl had followed all the fashionable gayeties of the world. But there was no satisfaction in it. At the ancient Roman town of Bath, in the west of England, where she was visiting the springs for pleasure and health, an old doctor got her to promise to read the New Testament for her health. It made her only the more uneasy. Back to London she went.

"One night she had a dream about being in a place of worship, and she was so impressed that she told her lady companion that she was going to search for the church she saw in her dream. Sunday morning they started out and passed a number of churches. They came at last to the narrow lane called the Old Jewry, off Cheapside, and saw a throng of people going as if to church. The account continues:

"She mixed herself among them, and they carried her to the meetinghouse, in the Old Jewry. So soon as she had entered the door and looked about, she turned to her companion and said, This is the very place I saw in my dream.' She had not long stood, till Mr. Shower, minister of the place, went up into the pulpit; as soon as she looked on him, she said, `This is the very man I saw in my dream; and if every part of it hold true, he will take for his text, "Return unto thy rest, O my soul." When he arose to pray, she was all attention, and every sentence went to her heart. Then he took for his text that very passage; and there God met her in a saving manner; and she at last gained what she had long sought in vain elsewhere -- rest in Christ to her troubled soul." -- Vol. 1, pp. 381-385, Nonconformists' Memorial.

This Chapter will be continued in the next Pastor’s Comments

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