Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012

I decided after looking at things to kind of change up our sequence here. We were going to go on a different sequence of topics, but I decided, especially in view of Stan's questions, we're going to talk about the Crusades here. And so you've got sort of a special printout based on that. Before we do that, There's a question that was asked also about one of the slides that we had there.

The term Aryans is an interesting one. The Aryans is a term out of Hinduism and Buddhism, and the reason is this. The term has multiple meanings which easily become confused. It's a term for those of the East, Asia, especially India, based on a Sanskrit, that's a language out of India, term that means honorable, respectable, or noble. So that's where the Asian term comes.

But oddly enough, it was also adopted as an ethnic term for those who are of Northern European background. You might think, what? And it's also from Sanskrit. So oddly enough, and it was the basis for Hitler's ethnic superiority, supposedly, of the Northern Europeans. And they're both from the same origin, oddly enough, both out of Sanskrit, but it got applied to two different sets of people. It's bizarre. But anyway, that's just the development of language. So, it's the same term, same root, different meaning. Different meaning altogether. So anyway, hopefully that clears up what might have been confusing.

Now, we get to the Crusades here. The Crusades in church history, generally thought of from 1096 That's like the year after, as we'll soon see, the appeal was made to the various military and religious groups in Europe. And then going to 1289, you'll sometimes see some later dates, and it's just a matter of the withdrawal from the Crusades didn't happen instantaneously. So you'll see dates as late as 1291. But the bottom line is it initiated at one point and then finished at another time. So that's why you'll see a little bit different dates depending on who you see.

In general, a military action motivated by the Roman Catholic Church to take Jerusalem and its surrounding land. It was initiated by the Roman Catholic Church at the invitation of the Orthodox churches that were more geographically battling Islam. However, it ended up with the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches becoming more antagonistic to one another because of the way it was handled, and we'll talk about that in a bit.

The word crusade means for the cross, which by the way they didn't understand. They didn't understand what the cross was for. Most Christians today will readily understand that the cross is because Christ died for my sins. There are about five other things that the cross accomplished, but even that Christ died for my sins was not understood in general.

Okay, six doctrinal errors. You see this is a primary thing on the front page there. Six doctrinal errors that motivated the Crusades. One, The Pope can speak as God's representative with ongoing revelations. That was one doctrinal error, it's not the only one, that helped to initiate the Crusades. The Pope can speak for God.

That's one of the things that happened. Yeah, Stan? So they're saying he's a prophet? Yeah, essentially he's one who's able to speak for God as the Old Testament prophets did, as Christ did, as the Apostles did, and that's an issue we're going to get to here in the next service. But the Pope can speak for God.

That was one of the problems. That is contrary to Jude 3, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly." That's a Greek word, epiagonizomai. I could translate it that you put forth an Olympic level of effort.

You contend earnestly for the faith, and that's a definite article in the Greek and the English, the faith, singular, that was once for all, that's hapax in the Greek, means once given perpetually valid, once for all handed down to the saints. You've got the faith, here it is. You don't need a bunch of continuing revelations for decades and centuries to come. The faith, once for all delivered to the saints.

1 Peter 5, 1-4, not lording it over others and Christ is the chief shepherd, not some man. No matter what title you give him. No matter what hierarchy you give him. Oh, absolutely. In many ways. But not lording it over people. Real important. Next one.

The Church consists of an ongoing earthly organizational structure aligned with earthly, political, and military forces. One of the things that had happened is that the Church had taken a diminished role with its alignment with military and political forces. And with the beginning of the Crusades, and as we'll see Pope Urban II, there was a swing back to the Pope having more influence and control over politics and the military. And that is what initiated the Crusades.

Ephesians 4.11-16 describes the leaders of the church as equipers and the church is primarily a spiritual organism rather than a human organization and rather than having any primary function as being aligned with politics and military function.

Philippians 3.20 says that the believer's citizenship is in heaven.

That's reinforced by Philippians 1.27. It says in a lot of our translations, conduct yourselves, but it's palate uomai, that is, it's a citizenship conduct.

And 4.3 is the Book of Life. The Book of Life is the list of heavenly citizens. So our citizenship is where? Where are we blessed? In heaven. and not earthly.

Next error, the Church replaces Israel. Therefore, since the Church replaces Israel, going and grabbing the land back for the Church makes some sense. So that teaching, the Church replaces Israel, also fed into the Crusades. New Testament addresses the Church from Acts 2 to the Rapture and mentions Israel over 70 times, but never as replaced by the Church or presents Israel as rejected. Romans chapter 11. Has God rejected his people Israel? No. He has not. Explicit statement. He has not rejected his people Israel. So, this is the problem. The rejection of Israel was based on not understanding the gospel.

Instead of seeing Christ as giving himself voluntarily, John 3.16, God loved and He gave.

Galatians 2.20, God loved and He gave.

Ephesians 5.2, Ephesians 5.25, Christ loved and He gave, He loved and He gave. He voluntarily gave Himself, but the doctrine that was taught was Christ used to be Israel's king, but they rejected Him, and now God hates Israel, and if you're a good Christian, you will too. and the church replaces Israel because they didn't understand that Christ gave himself voluntarily for our sins.

The lack of understanding of the gospel fed the church replaces Israel, and it fed the teaching that is very popular now, and that's that the church is the kingdom. That's correct. There's a great deal of misunderstanding, and you're right, that feeds into the whole understanding that You know, you're replacing Israel, that this is the kingdom, that Christ is the church's king.

All that teaching is all based on not understanding what the Bible says. Romans 11, 1 and 2, God has not rejected his people Israel. Explicit statement. Book of Revelation continues in describing future events to see Israel as having an ongoing and separate identity.

How do these churches who teach the church replaces Israel in some degree, how do they look at those passages in Revelation? Yeah, they see the church is still stuck on earth, already happened, and they see Israel allegorically rather than literally. Next one, the land of Israel belongs to the church. That goes along with the church replaces Israel.

So the land of Israel belongs to the church was the teaching. The land is promised to Israel first through Abraham in Genesis 12, 1 through 7, starting in the first three verses there. Subsequent chapters then in Deuteronomy through Moses. The church's blessings are heavenly. That's clear from the New Testament teaching.

The next one, taking the land back for the church is worth whatever price it costs on the part of the church and or the current inhabitants of the land, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, we've got to go take it back. Of course the position and possessions of the church are to be found heavenly in Christ. Where are you blessed? You are blessed heavenly in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Two six, you're seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

Philippians 3.20, you have a heavenly citizenship. So not understanding these truths allowed this teaching.

The rightful liberation of Jerusalem and Israel will take place when Jesus comes again. When Jesus comes again, Israel will be liberated and he personally will do it by the word of his mouth. And it could be as close as seven years from today. But He personally will do it, we won't send in armies to do it. Oh, we'll be there, and we will appear as an army, but everything that takes place will come by the word of His mouth. Zechariah 13 and 14 describes that. It's sometimes been called the Little Apocalypse. You can start in chapter 12 if you like.

But it describes that, where the Messiah comes. He even says His feet will land on the Mount of Olives. Remember when the disciples left the Mount, when they were on the Mount of Olives and Jesus ascended, what did the angels tell the disciples? He'll come back in the same way that he left. And that's what Zechariah 13 and 14 describe. He will come back, his feet touching the Mount of Olives.

And he'll carry out judgment by the word of his mouth. By the way, that passage says it's God who will come. Next one, the church can grant complete forgiveness of past sins for participation in the crusades. If you go and fight in the crusades, that will pay for all of your sins. They'll all be taken care of.

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that idea? Many things. You're right. When Jesus was on the cross, what did He say as some of His last words? It's finished. It's all paid. You don't have to do it. Ephesians 4.32, forgive one another as God in Christ, past tense, has forgiven you. It's already done. It's already done.

Ephesians 1.7, Colossians 1.14. We have the forgiveness of sins. We've got it. We don't need to buy it. We don't need to go fight for it.

But that's what they were taught. And actually that started with Pope Leo IV a few centuries before the Crusades. He was the one that initiated the idea that you could fight militarily for the church and then as a consequence of that have your sins forgiven. And this was also in a battle against the Muslims. So that was already in place.

Salvation, however, in Scripture is by faith alone and nothing we can do as individuals or the church will impact the forgiveness of past sins since they're completely forgiven already. It is God's accomplishment through Christ. So those doctrinal errors fed into the Crusades. You can imagine if people understood and knew the Word of God in great part, not even everybody, but just in great part, the Crusades would never have taken place. It was a multiple set of doctrinal errors that allowed the Crusades to take place. and consequently huge atrocities were carried out. Yes. But that's the same thing you've been teaching all through this class. Yeah. All the wars and all the killings and all the revolutions and everything else. If they would have understood, it would not have happened. That's right. That's right.

Centuries of atrocities, centuries of horrible things would not have taken place. So simple a thing is understanding the gospel. Christ died for my sins, was buried and rose again. That truth, that it didn't take me 15 seconds to say, would have changed history.

Yes? I was reading this morning, if you go all the way back to Genesis, where Abraham sacrificed the ram for Isaac, that's the doctrine of substitution way back in the book of Genesis, correct? That's probably the first place that it happened. But I mean that's the beginning of everything, of all Genesis. And it's right there. Isn't that amazing?

Okay, let's go back in history. 284, and this is not in your handout, but 284 AD was an administrative division in Rome. This was before Christianity was even the legal religion, much less allowed. It was an administrative thing. Imagine, without modern technology, having an empire that goes all the way from Israel and Egypt on the one hand, up to southern British Isles on the other hand. That's just huge, and how do you administer this? Well, they divided the empire in half, and that ended up having impacts for centuries, even today. Impacts from that division.

Now, by 526, and Muhammad had not yet been born, by 526 there were separate kingdoms and peoples, ethnic groups, in what was the Roman Empire. the division of the Roman Empire was still having an impact. And so we have this, and this is on page two of your handout there. This is under Islam in 750 AD. Muhammad had been dead for over a century. Islam had not totally, but in great part been pressed out of much of Europe. It was still in existence largely in the Iberian Peninsula and Spain and what's now Portugal. There you had the Moors. As a matter of fact, it even impacts the Spanish language to this day. And then into North Africa and then extending on into the Middle East. And you have that on the bottom of page two of your handout there.

Then, in 1071, the invading Seljuk Turkish armies denied Christian pilgrims access to the Holy Land. It was reported back to Rome and elsewhere in Europe. Here are these people, they are wanting to go to the Holy Land for a pilgrimage, a visit, and the Muslims are saying, nope, we won't let you.

And so that was one of the things that initiated a reaction among the powers that be in Europe. Continuing military pressures on the Eastern Church, an empire from the Muslim Seljuq Empire, caused the Eastern powers to appeal to Pope Urban II for help. So here are the Orthodox churches who, in decades before, had some conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church. Now they're appealing to the Roman Catholic Church for help. So there was a combination of turning the pilgrims back and this appeal for help from the Orthodox churches in the East.

The combination of those two caused Pope Urban to step up and say, hey, we need to do something. So, on November 27th, so we're almost coming up to the anniversary there, 1095, Pope Urban II made a public appeal at Clermont, France, there's the cathedral there, for support for a crusade to liberate Jerusalem and all Israel.

The people shouted, and they shouted repeatedly, I just didn't have room for it, God wills it, God wills it, God wills it. Big chant, yes. Wasn't there another shout they said, the voice of the people, the voice of God? Yes, there were various other things that they declared as well, so I'm giving the simplified brief version. But it was basically a loud public cry repeatedly in support of the appeal that Pope Urban II had given.

So here's a broad generalization. Once the Crusades began, there was a rather continuous flow of warriors, supplies, and funds until the end of the Crusades. I put it as 1289. Sometimes you'll see 1291. It's a matter of do you count the beginning of the withdrawal or the end. There are generally recognized to be at least seven waves of military exploit above the fairly constant flow of resources to the battle zone.

And there's one strange exception to that we'll talk about. Plus the Children's Crusade, which added nothing at all to the battle. Yeah, that was crazy. Some would say that there was also an 8th Crusade, but it had little effect. Because it had little effect, there are those who would debate whether there was an 8th.

And we'll go over those item by item. You have on page 4 this full page chart and I think it's real helpful to get an overall picture of the Crusades. In some cases you'll see some slightly different dates than what you'll find in the rest of what we're looking at here. I don't have a big problem with that because some of those are what you date it by. Do you date it by the start of something or the end of something if it was a transitional thing?

One of the things we pointed out is one, here are the popes we've identified them beginning with Urban II. So we've got five different popes that are identified in that chart and those are the ones that are popes and so I've added that to your handout.

The other thing is the first two crusades were against the Seljuq. Islamic forces. What the Seljuq forces had in the way of military power, they lacked in the way of the ability to sustain governance, and that's why they were replaced by another group called the Saracens, both of them being Muslim, both of them opposing the Crusades.

So anyway, that chart is something we'll kind of step our way through. This also includes the little note I have for the eighth crusade, which I say is debated, but at least you'll have that note there. On page three, you have a map of the first four crusades. And one of the things I should note is this map is simplified. The reality is, for example, we'll show one line that characterizes the first crusade. That's this purple dotted line.

The reality is you had forces coming from all over Europe, right? And so they would meet at different places and you'd have sometimes alternate paths. So this is a simplified map of what they actually carried out. but it at least gets the general point across. So just keep that in mind. You will find other maps that show more detail of each individual one, and that's fine. This is just so you can see all four general movements in one map. So, anyway, that is the first one here.

And notice Regensburg, this is in Germany. Regensburg, and by the way the name of that has changed over time, but anyway, if you go there, it was involved. Constantinople, now Istanbul, was also along the path and they went on their first journey to Jerusalem.

The first crusade went to Jerusalem itself. So that first crusade, this was the one initiated by Pope Urban II, and followed upon by a monk priest called Peter the Hermit, which is kind of a strange one. But that one actually did result in them taking Jerusalem away from the Seljuq military forces, the Turkish military forces. So they did end up with taking Jerusalem. That's shown on the slide on page five in your handout there. Militarily, this one was the most successful of all the Crusades. It was unsuccessful in a whole bunch of other things, but it was successful in terms of taking Jerusalem, because that was the goal. The second Crusade, the last one against the Seljuq military forces of Islam, This second crusade is the one shown.

This is a solid purple line, again starting at Regensburg as a collecting point. And again a reminder that this is the simplified version because the reality is forces came from all over Europe and so you'd have a whole bunch of lines drawing them together there. And then moving down through Constantinople, now Istanbul, and not getting to Jerusalem. The Acre, or as it had been called anciently, Akko, was as far as they got.

Now, here at this point is where you see the dividing line after the Second Crusade. The Seljuk Empire was no longer involved. Like I say, what they had in the way of military power, they lacked in the way of governance. They just couldn't keep it together in terms of governance. So they were superseded by the Saracens, another Islamic group. The Saracens were able not only to succeed militarily, but also in terms of civil governance of the people in the Middle East.

Here is a modern reenactment of Saladin. He was the military leader that took back Jerusalem. his siege of Jerusalem from the movie The Kingdom of Heaven. Saladin won. I do not recommend the movie. Repeat, I do not recommend the movie. Nonetheless, it is an interesting and fairly well done enactment. Now, so the Third Crusade, they're under Saladin. You have that one. The idea was to retake Jerusalem from Saladin and the Saracens. Miserable failure. It didn't happen.

It did, however, have several European political military dignitaries involved. One of them was Frederick Barbarossa. He drowned trying to cross a river at a place where he shouldn't have. Instead of going to the crossing, he went to a place trying to be bold and brave where he shouldn't have crossed and he drowned. So that was the end of him.

You have at the end of it, Richard I, Richard the Lionheart, ever heard that term? Richard the Lionheart also fought in the Crusades, went on many exploits, ended up dying a bolt, which is an arrow shot by a machine, went through his shoulder and he died from gangrene from that injury.

Saladin, let me go back. Saladin was a particular military leader. The Saracens was a military and governmental Islamic group. So Saladin was a person that led the military retaking of Jerusalem by the Saracens. And that retaking stuck. The Crusaders never got Jerusalem back, which was the goal.

During this entire time, is this when the knights were in existence? Yes. The whole thing, yeah, this is when you have foot soldiers, of course, and you have knights, and you also have various kinds of military equipment. They'd have towers that they would push up against the wall so you could get people inside the towers, climb up and get onto the wall. So there was that. They had crank devices for shooting large arrows and harpoons. up against military forces, they'd have catapults, things of that sort. But yes, the knights and the squires and all that developed during this time.

And those came from England, right? Some of them came from England, and we'll talk about that. That was with Richard I. In other words, previously England wasn't substantially involved, but with Richard here in the Third Crusade, then England became significantly involved. So anyway, here's a modern actor's reenactment of Richard I. Yes? The overall scene and background reminds me more of a comic episode in Blackadder. Oh, yeah.

Really, you look at it, the First Crusade militarily accomplished what they set out to do. All the rest of them fell short. Because they not only failed to take Jerusalem, but they failed to keep it. As soon as Saladin came on the picture, they lost Jerusalem and never did retake it.

Okay, here is looking at this crusade, of course you've got Regensburg to Acre, and you also have the French port of Merseilles, because now you have Richard I coming from London, And by the way, there's a certain amount of mythology that goes along with this. Some said he had as many as a hundred thousand soldiers that he brought. Others say no, more like 15,000. So a little bit of difference there in the accounts. But here, they didn't get to Jerusalem, they did get to Acre. Ancient Acre was the name. Here is an aerial picture of ancient Acre.

And looking at this portion right here and looking kind of from the other direction, here's some of that seawall construction that they put in place. And that's one other thing, the Crusades were not just about military action, it was also about construction. Construction of military, you know, fortresses and castles and things of that sort. And this is an instance of it at Akko where the Crusades resulted in some construction in order to have a place from which to launch and carry out various military actions.

Here is Joppa, modern Jaffa in the foreground, mentioned all the way back into Joshua and then into the Book of Acts. By the way, where did Jonah take off into the sea? It's right here, Joppa, this is the place. And in the background is Tel Aviv. So anyway, that is also one of the places that was impacted by the Crusades.

So looking there, there's again another shot from the ground of that area. Here is a 12th century Crusader's castle. And again, it's a part of the military construction that took place as a part of the Crusade. So it wasn't just military action, but it was also a certain amount of construction at various places in Israel and the vicinity that's still evident. Now, here, now you begin getting to the Fourth Crusade.

It's the last one that's on your map there. This one here, real interesting. This one was a banker's deal. Some people went to the city of Venice, which was a banking headquarters. They went to the city of Venice and got funding for the next crusade. The only thing is they must have scared those crusaders to death because the crusaders, instead of attacking any Muslims, attacked an eastern Christian city of Zara in order to get the things that they need to pay back the bankers in Venice. That's as far as it went. The Muslims were never hurt by this, but the Christians were, and it caused alienation between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches.

Now, here is a crusade poem And this gives you an idea of the kinds of motivations. I don't have a copy of it in your handout, but it goes like this. Abbott Martin of this Cistercian Abbey of Paris, in Alsace, not only preached the Fourth Crusade at the behest of the Pope, that is the Pope was encouraging it, this is a Pope innocent, Boy, that's a misnomer. Anyway, but joined it as well. One of the fellow monks, Gunther, heard Martin's sermon and later wrote it down. So this is how it reads. Today Christ addresses you in his word through my mouth. I'm speaking for Christ. That's the presentation. It is he who grieves before you over his wounds.

Christ has been expelled from his holy place, his seat of power. he has been exiled from that city which he consecrated to himself with his own blood." Did his own blood do that? No. It wasn't, yeah, that wasn't what the Bible says God accomplished, but this again reveals the lack of understanding of the gospel. Okay. Oh the pain The holy land which Christ impressed with his footprints, in which he cured the lame, caused the blind to see, cleansed lepers, raised the dead, that land, I say, has been given over into the hands of the impious.

The churches have been destroyed, its shrine polluted, its royal throne and dignity transferred to the Gentiles. By the way, this guy who's saying this is a Gentile. Okay, anyway, that most sacred and venerable cross of wood which was drenched with the blood of Christ is locked and hidden away by persons to whom the word of the cross is foolishness so that no Christian might know what was done with it or where to look for it. Virtually all of our people who used to inhabit that frontier have been eliminated either by the enemy's sword or by an already prolonged captivity. And so now, true warriors, hasten to help Christ. Enlist in his Christian army. Rush to join the happy ranks. Oh boy, are they happy. Today I commit to you the cause of Christ. I give him into your hands, so to speak, so that you might labor to restore him to his patrimony from which he has been so unmercifully expelled."

One of the things that took place, you've probably heard that the Muslims are taught that if they die in fighting for Allah, that they get automatic, immediate delivery into this heavenly place where they get 70 some odd virgins. And not Virginians, but virgins.

So anyway, so that's what the Muslims are taught. Well, what happened is that the church began to adopt that and they would communicate that to the guys who fought in the Crusades. If you die fighting in the Crusades, you will automatically get immediately, you know, sent to heaven and you'll bypass purgatory and everything. So they took the Muslim teaching and adapted it and adopted it for Christianity. And essentially had both sides fighting with the idea that, boy, if I die fighting, I'm going to get immediately transferred to heaven.

The truth is, couldn't be farther from the truth. Neither side was fighting with the truth behind them. Then, now we have, here's the map of the Fourth Crusade, and you see that taking place here. So here's Venice going on here. And basically they never got to the Holy Land. They never got there. Because they got so desperate to get these guys in Venice, the bankers in Venice paid back, that they ended up falling far short of Israel.

OK, now the next crusade, the Children's Crusade. This was sheer lunacy. Because can you imagine being a parent and thinking it's somehow responsible to go and send your child off to some crusade? No weapons. You know, I mean, we're talking little kids. Send them off on some crusade.

But that's what happened here with the Children's Crusade. And by the way, that's not counted among the seven. So that's between the fourth and the fifth. So that's an additional crusade item not counted among, when I say seven crusades and perhaps eight, this is in addition to that. Supernatural conquest of the Holy Land by the pure in heart. These children.

So how did that turn out? Well, not so good. What we see there, most of the children were drowned at sea, sold into slavery, or slaughtered. Didn't work out so good at all. Oddly enough, it touched many people's hearts to have these children marching off to this crusade. As a parent, I just couldn't fathom it. Why is this a good idea? But nonetheless, that's what took place.

The Fifth Crusade The idea was, let's invade Egypt because that's a stronghold of the Saracen power. Instead of going directly for Jerusalem, let's invade Egypt and try to undermine the Saracen power by doing that. Egypt is, after all, a biblical land. The Bible describes it.

So, the Sixth Crusade, the idea was to regain Jerusalem. They ended up making a treaty with the Sultan, but the church didn't like it. They excommunicated the guy that made the treaty. And then finally, the Seventh Crusade. Crusaders defeated in Egypt again. So, they lost it.

That was 1248 when that effort was made. Essentially, the Crusaders stayed where they were still entrenched for a few more decades. They didn't take on any major exploits after this. There are some historians that add an eighth crusade, 1270-1272, but it was unsuccessful and basically accomplished almost nothing, so many historians simply discount it. Okay, they sent some people there, but didn't do anything. Crusader forces were withdrawn beginning in 1289, ending in about 1291. So you'll see variations of dates there, and that's the reason why. When's the start of our withdrawal, and where's the end of it? Here's a Crusader sea castle in Lebanon. Again, you see more of the construction aspect.

Why would they build sea castles like this? What would be the value of having these rock piers go out into the water? As you're bringing supplies in by ship out of Southern Europe, out of England, You'd have a place to bring the ships in and to take whatever, both soldiers, horses, armaments, food, supplies of any kind, take those then on to the land. So yeah, so you'd have that.

So several different places you'd see harbor kind of construction as a part of the Crusaders' work. Here in Jordan, so this is the east of the Jordan River. in what is now Jordan. Here's a Crusader's castle, obviously kind of crumbling at the top. But that was one of the items that they constructed there. And again, it's fairly substantial. It's sort of on a hill, hilltop. And obviously, it wants a much better shape. So why did the Crusades end? Let's talk about that. Waves of the Black Plague epidemic struck Europe. And we hear about the Black Plague. And what was the problem with the Black Plague? Yeah, yeah, huge, huge die off.

So you didn't have a lot of extra people to send to the Crusades. And you also didn't have people with a lot of extra resources to send supplies into the Crusades. So, you know, lack of lack of people, lack of resources that choked it off is not the total answer for why it ended, but a big part of it. They had no idea what to do, and the bottom line was an infection that involved rats and insects and things of that sort.

So there was that. Taking the Holy Land initially was a different matter than retaining control of it over years of time. And that's one thing that we found in some of our recent Middle East battles. Boy, go in and drive the forces out, piece of cake. Stay in control of it, that's a different matter altogether. And that's one of the things that can happen militarily. How do I make the transition from military assault and takeover to retaining control? Different thing altogether. You'll find frequently over history that that transition from initial takeover to maintaining control is a big issue and not one that's guaranteed at all.

Paulicians back in Europe and other groups required, according to the church, military action. So you needed the military there. Paulicians, Bogomils, later Albigensians, all these different groups that were not Catholic were just looked upon as heretics and some of them we would even agree with in some part. But the Roman Catholic Church looked upon them as this is a heresy that must be destroyed. And of course that took military action. They'd go in there and slaughter.

The usual approach, the usual instruction that the soldiers were given was kill them all. God will know his own. So if you have a city, for example, that has a significant number of this particular heresy The instruction was don't go and try to figure out who's who, just kill everybody. Just kill everyone. And so to do that thoroughly required a bunch of knights and soldiers to go in and carry it out. And so there's resources and military assets.

So those are some of the reasons why the Crusades ended. The other is the first Crusade took Jerusalem, none of the rest of them accomplished much. It's like, we'll try this, we'll try that, you know, didn't work. Keeping control was a big issue, not just taking over.

So you might ask this one question, were there any benefits to the Crusades? And of course you might shake your head and say, well, of course not. Well, in fact, there were some. There resulted in a generally better understanding of other cultures and a much broader perspective of the world.

See, one of the problems with the initial Crusades is you go into the Holy Land, and do you know the difference between a Muslim and a Jew? They didn't. And so they'd slaughter them all. The first Crusade resulted in something like 50,000 Jews being slaughtered. Yeah? As they made their migration through the different countries of Europe, Asia Minor, didn't they also slaughter a lot of Jews? Yes. It was just like, of course we're going to do this. These are the Christ killers, of course you're going to get rid of them.

There was an inability to distinguish between Jews and Muslims, as well as a disdain for the Jews to begin with. And also during the Black Plague, it didn't affect the Jewish population so much because they had There were rumors that the Jews were responsible for the plague and therefore ought to pay for their responsibility for the plague. And it's obvious they're responsible for the plague because they're not being impacted like the rest of us. The Jews had various rules of diet and health practice based on the Mosaic Law that made them less subject to the Black Plague than the general population.

And of course that made them suspect. How come we're dying and they aren't, or at least not as much? Christian aspect of that in the forefront, or all during this course of time, they focused on that epicenter of the world, God's epicenter of the world, right? Yeah.

It did have people focusing on Israel, even if the motivation and how it was carried out was not correct. Another one, better maps were made as a result of travel and for the sake of strategy. In other words, if you don't have your maps right, you're not going to have your strategy right. So let's get this map correct so that we can carry out the right strategy.

So there's a lot more attention paid to what does this actually look like. So there was that. In addition, trade was established in areas not otherwise included in Europe's trade domain. Not otherwise included in Europe's trade domain. So there was some benefit to the Crusades. It's not to justify the atrocities and evils, but yes.

Were there just two basic religions in Christianity and Muslims? Well, let's see. Here's the interesting thing. The primary divisions between Christians was one, you had Roman Catholicism, which had all sorts of little splinters in it, but Roman Catholicism, and then you had the various Christian Orthodox groups, which primarily at this time, a lot of it was Greek Orthodox. But you had various Orthodox groups, and so Christianity had those two main divisions.

Now in Islam, the groups that you have now were also present, and that's Sunni and Shiite. And there are other smaller and splinter groups for Islam as well. So an interesting thing, you had two major divisions among those who called themselves Christians and two major divisions among those who called themselves Muslim. It was largely the Sunni Muslims who were the ones battling during the Crusades in great part.

Now, after the Crusades, what became established was the Muslim Empire known as the Ottoman Empire. The only thing we got left over was some piece of furniture. But anyway, so here's the Ottoman Empire, which had various domains and extents over those centuries. But 1350, in other words, a few decades after the end of the Crusades, on into a little bit less than the last century. 1918, that was the end of this fairly long-standing Middle Eastern, for the most part, empire called the Ottoman Empire. That was a kind of an outcome of the Crusades as the Muslims went and grabbed back a bunch of territory when the Christians, Christians in quotes, withdrew And then the Muslims went and established themselves as the ruling power.

There are various resources. I mean, if you ever want to study this some more, there are various resources available, different books. I recommend a lot of these picture books because there are a lot of things worth photographing and it makes it more memorable. But anyway, if you ever want to take a look at that, those kinds of things are available.

One of the points that we would emphasize, and it just makes a huge difference, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians focus upon the heavenly character of our citizenship and our blessings and where we ought to set our mind. Philippians 3, 20 and 21, For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself.

There will be a time when he has subjected all things to himself. He'll pull it off. We don't have to do it. And we won't lift a finger. And we will be with him. This will already have taken place. We'll be with him. No swords, no AK-47s or M-16s, none of that. But we'll be with him. And then he will take power his way, by his power, at the right time. Yeah?

This may not be a good question, but does this whole period of time where the doctrine of substitution is not understood, so did salvation to these people come through like Romans 2 with conscience instead of I think there's a couple things to make note of. At least two. One is, while we have a thousand years from the end of the book of Revelation, close to the year 180, up until the time when Anselm wrote about the idea that Christ died for our sins, We don't have written record outside the Bible, but we do have one, the Bible. So it's possible that people read it, understood it, talked about it, but didn't write about it. That's part one. The other thing is, I can understand clearly from Scripture this is the Gospel. So I know clearly from Scripture what to present.

But I'm not the one who decides who gets saved. And ultimately it's the Lord who makes that decision, not me. So between those two things, I know clearly what to present to people as the gospel. Christ died for my sins, was buried, and rose again. There's the gospel in brief. And so I know clearly what to present. I know clearly what I ought to present for people to believe. What happens in people's hearts before the Lord is not mine to judge. As a matter of fact, I don't even know it.

Could a person Knowing the gospel, but having rejected it, could a person be saved in the last minute of their life? They could, couldn't they? It's possible. And the rest of us might not even know it. And these could have been the same people that Jesus preached to after he died in whatever all those passages read, you know, where he went. and preach to the saints.

You're talking about a passage that Peter wrote about. It's a little more complex, but I think the thing is, when we look at it, there are just some things we don't know. If something isn't in writing from an earlier era, we don't have record of it, it doesn't mean it didn't exist. Certainly if we have no written record, it's probably not prevalent. But it doesn't mean it didn't exist. And so there's that.

I know in my own, from my dad's mom, my grandmother on my dad's side, she lived to about age 87, and she became a believer about three weeks before she died. Can someone become a believer in the day before they die? Ten minutes before they die? They could, couldn't they?

In this case, we knew that she was saved. And I could tell by looking at her face. In this case, we knew that she was saved. Sometimes it's possible someone is saved and we don't know it. But God does. And they do. And there will come a day when we'll find out. So, anyway, there's a realm in which we don't know. And there's also a realm in which we're not the one to make the final decision. I'm glad I don't get to decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Not my job.

But I do know what's the gospel that I ought to present to people. That's clear. That much is quite clear. Okay, we need to pray. Lord, we thank you for this time. We thank you that even though we look at this time of horrible atrocities and things of that sort, that you will, in the end, be the victor. You will, in fact, take back the Holy Land. And it will be inhabited by people who love you and care for you and even extended beyond what's currently recognized as Israel. We're thankful that we can look forward to that time where we come back with you at that time where you take back the land. And Lord, we just thank you for your sovereignty and your love and care for us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.