 Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our session on BC201. I hope all of you are doing well. Yes, it's so nice to see all of you are logged in on time. It's nice to be back to our class. Well, today we're going to study all the third chapter. It's more to do on the timeline of information, revivals, restoration and patients. So even before we could begin with that class, can I request one of you all to start the class with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this beautiful day. Thank you, Lord, for this time, this session. Father God, that you have given us. Thank you, Lord, for gathering us together. Lord, to sit at your feet and study and meditate your word. Father God, even as we journey through the book of Acts and study about the revival and about the visitation of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Father God, we thank you, Father God, and that you have chosen us, oh Lord. We are privileged, Father God, to study your word in depth. Lord, we thank you for this grace. Thank you for this privilege. I pray, Lord, open the eyes of our understanding, Father God. Let every eye of understanding be open in the name of Jesus. Lord, we thank you and we bless you, Lord. Lord, even as we study, we pray, Father God, to bless. We ask you to bless our dear pastor. Lord, we thank you for bringing her back, Lord, healthy. Father, we thank you, Lord. We pray that, Lord, let your spirit anoint her, Father God, and let whatever she teaches, Father God, may it be your words, Father God. Lord, we thank you and we bless you, Father God. Lord, you are the prayer answering God. Thank you for answering our prayers. And together, Father God, we say this prayer in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Rosalind. Thank you. So today we're going to cover the timeline from this chapter on Reformation, where we get to travel through about 2,000 years of the church history in a chronological way that's been listed in the key events of the lives of people who have impacted the church, especially the early church fathers, the reformers, the revivalists, and the missionaries. We see the purpose into looking into this, looking into the history of the churches for us to learn from the past, to gain an insight and how God's been dealing with this people. And we see how the more of God works from time to time. And also for us to recognize God's pattern of working with the church. So it is for us to understand this. It is important for us to look into this complete picture and recognize how the connection between the Reformation and the Revival and how the restoration of the church was there. And we also see on different missions and the church code. So we must know the history correctly for us to understand and interpret the present. And also it will help us to make the decision for the future. So here we see time and again in the Old Testament how the Father have told us how the things were repeated and where recorded. So God instructed Moses, God instructed Moses to write down everything that was happening between them, how God was moving among the people. So everything was recorded. We see in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 9 it says Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself blessed. You forget the things your eyes and see. And lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life and teach them to your children and your grandchildren. So it is very important for us to keep the events recorded. Why? Because it's been instructed by God so that when we record we can teach that to our children and to our generation that is coming. So God's work will be known. So he didn't want us to forget things but then God wants our children and the great-grandchildren to know. So the only way for us to keep them updated is to record the events that are happening. Even we see in the book of Joshua chapter 4 verse 1 to 7 it says and it came to pass that all the people had completely crossed over the Jordan. The Lord spoke to Joshua saying take for yourself twelve men from the people one man from every tribe and he commanded them saying take for yourself twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan from the place where the priests were stood for so you shall carry them over with you and lead them in the lodging place where you lodged tonight. Then Joshua called twelve men. He instructed the children of his tribe to do so. Why did God instruct this to Joshua? What right do you think? So the significant event that took place when Joshua and the twelve tribe of people carried the ark of the covenant when the priest stepped into the river Jordan how the water parted this even to be remembered and this needs to be recorded and be told to the generation who are coming. So God instructed Joshua to pile up that stone a stone of pillar there so that the stone he can be remembered and told to the generation to come how God worked miracles among them. So after crossing Jordan this is what happened God instructs his people to set up a memorandum something that will help succeeding the generation to remember what the Lord has done time and again among them. We also see in the book of Psalms chapter 44 verse 1 to 4. Psalms chapter 44 verses 1 to 4. We have heard with our ears Oh God our fathers have told us the deeds you did in their days in days of old you drove out the nations with your hand but them you planted you afflicted the peoples and cast them out for they did not know of the land by their own sword nor did their own arms save them but it was your right hand your arm and the light of your countenance because you favored them you are my king oh God command with trees over Jacob for Jacob. Thank you. So your time is over in a minute. Thank you Rosalind. So your time and again we see it is so important for us to remember how God works through our father work through the people of Israel so that the God would do those miracles the God who lived among them is the same God who is living among us the same God can perform a greater miracle with us. So what happens when we read through those stories through those scripture passages the faith has been created in us as a gent there is a faith that is generated with us so that we can apply it to our day to our situation to our circumstance that we are going through our time so these stories will only encourage us and help us to trust in God more and to expect God to move in a similar way or much greater way in our life so with that we will move on to the first century what happened from AD 1 to AD 100 100 so what happened AD is an abbreviation for anodontic which is a Latin meaning in the year of a lord it was referring to the year of Christ birth the early days must be considered as approximate so whatever date, timeline we are going through right now it should be approximately considered because there is no fixed date that we can we can put a point to it and say this is what happened it is also date okay so somewhere between 10 BC and 3 BC we see that Jesus was born back in heaven so in AD 30 or in AD 33 we see Jesus was crucified and he was rose from death and we see that in AD 30 as a reference point to start from death so in AD 30 we see the day of Pentecost that's where in Acts chapter 1 we see the outpouring of the spirit of the 120 disciples and apostles who upper room and how the spirit of the Lord descended on each one in the form of the tongues of fire and how Peter ministered to people filled with boldness and courage and the church was birthed we see the book of Acts covers approximately 40 years from the birth of the New Testament church that is from the day of Pentecost onwards we see 40 years it covers and in AD 44 we see Herod and Grimlock dies in Acts 12 and there is a certain historical date and we later see partners and Paul begins their missionary journey the first missionary journey in Acts 13 and in AD 52 sorry AD 52 Apostle Thomas one of the disciple of Jesus he arrives in India at a place called Malabar and in the Coromandel coast of India and he finds the church there now when Apostle Thomas came to India it was not a very easy time because India is a place where different faith was practiced but when the history says when Thomas came to India the very first time he reached the southern part of India towards the Kerala he did signs and wonders God moved through Apostle Thomas through signs and wonders which made the people of India to believe it and this changed their heart and their mind and they believed in this new God Jesus through the signs and wonders he was able to share the gospel with the people in India and slowly he moved towards Chennai, Tamil Nadu and from there again he started to share the word and later we see the history that he was martyred in the same place in Tamil Nadu and in 8064 we see Nero launches persecution the fire of Rome what happened it was all a setup this fire was not intended to happen as an accident but then it was well planned by the Nero group so in 2066 2068 we see Paul and Peter were put to death by Nero to keep persecution of this fire of Rome they were eventually blamed the Christians were eventually blamed for this fire which was a very devastating fire that destroyed the home so Nero persecuted he put both of them Paul and Peter to death because of this and he used Christians as the human he was the father of persecution you can say during his time he persecuted Christians by allowing them in the Colosse he fed the wild animals with the Christians and then he burned them on the cross put up as a a human torch in his garden and in 8070 we see the Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman general and the future emperor so we see that Titus, a Jewish revolt against Roman authority and Christians do not take part in this revolt and they relocated to Pella in Jordan and later in 8090 we see the council of Germania which took place according to the Jewish historians Josephus well we also see the Hebrew Old Testament was complete and no more canonical writings were composed after the reign of Lazarus so the Jews in the council of Germania made a firm acknowledgement of the Hebrew Old Testament book as a holy scripture and they confirmed the canon of the Hebrew scriptures okay later we see the book of Revelation was written in 95 and in 8096 to 150 we see the growing and collection into the groups of the New Testament books and during this period all the Gospels and all the Paul's epistles were known and recognized in the church and we see the within maybe 98 Apostle John dies at about 100 years of age again all these are approximate and in 9980 we see the New Testament writings are completed and in the first Christians were reported in Monaco Alicaria and Sri Lanka that means what we see by the first century the Christians have leached out of Jerusalem Christians were known as a religion in other parts of the country now we move on to the second century on page 34 it is very briefly mentioned here I would request each of y'all to please go through it in the notes and understand the process so what happened in the second century we see the persecution has been continued what was happening in the early church is still been continued as a persecution and also in the second century is where we see the disease and which was a major danger within the church so the church need to address these heresies so what are those heresies similar to the new age which we also see now those days they have Gnosticism we see Gnosticism what is Gnosticism anyone in the class yes please I think this is brought about by Greek thinking you see in the world there were two types of thinking then there was the Hebrew thinking and the Hebrews took like took time to be linear but the Greeks the Greek thought of life to be two dimension they took and to be completely separate from good so they thought that they were thinking that Jesus Christ could not have been both man and God so they were thinking that God is all good he cannot mix with evil and they thought that man is all evil he cannot be good that is the brief thing I can say Pastor thank you yes so Gnosticism consider the principal element of salvation so they have this direct knowledge of the superiority which is in form of mystical or erosical inside so many Gnostic texts tell not in the concept of sin and repentance but with illusions and enlightenment so they had their own teaching and this teaching was trying to spread and flourish among the Christian groups in the Mediterranean world and this was happening this was birth in the second century and we see the early church fathers had to stand against such erosies or teachings that was spread by these people and they had to re-instruct the gospel they didn't go about preaching against Gnosticism but they went on went on teaching the word teaching the right gospel to people so that the people can understand the right from next we see Marconism Marconism was an attempt to reduce the scriptures both the Hebrew and the Christian scriptures to a few select books and we also see Pontanism Pontanism was kind of again a charismatic moment that went astray with new revelation and prophecies and judgments on the other hand which they came up with so it was an institutionalized religion which was practiced by certain group or certain member who lived by a rule that requires and works beyond those of the early ladies so what happened they went on spreading this they first applied to a certain Christian group and then it started they started using Gnosticism among those set of groups though it is not this is in the religion such as the other religion that was present those days like Buddhism or Hinduism or chainism but then they started to introduce this monasticism and practice among the Green Monachos so this aspect of monasticism does not extend beyond the culture or the language or that or the religious terminology of so called Abrahamic but then they did try to implement among the group later we see in 807 Polycarp appointed Bishop of Smyrna was a disciple of Apostle John and appointed Bishop of Smyrna so he was one of the leader who fought against all these heresies that was coming up we can study in detail about Polycarp in the next class and in 808 Ignatius of Antioch the early church father first give me a minute so the Ignatius of Antioch what happened he was a student again Apostle John the Apostle lived long so this provided an insight teaching to the early church where he also wrote the seven letters to the churches which has been preserved covering several matters including the heresies and the deity of Christ and the Lord stable the structure of the local church with the other bishops and the deacons where formed at those days and we see in 8125 he talks about the heresies the early church apologetics why was it needed yes to defend the gospel against the heresies that was arising so heresies wrote the book of apologetics and he defended the faith and he presented to the emperor of Hadrian just give me a minute please thank you so much sorry about it yeah some video setting okay cool is there any comments okay so in 8150 to 8190 we see the compiling of the canon where the books of the New Testament were selected and compiled together and later we see in what is going through the numbers from this book the timeline we are on page 35 you can go through it on your own in AD 150 we see the old Latin version of the Bible was made available based on the translation on the Greek Septuagint and in 155 we see just in Martha writes his first apology and then in 55 we see Bishop Paulic up martyr at the age 84 so this martyrdom is around 155 so we need to see I would request y'all to take and read a detailed version read about Paulic up and the nature of Antioch is very important these two people I want y'all to please have your personal research done and study on these two fathers so what happened was the story of the martyrdom is preserved by the Eusebias in the early church the history of the early church through AD 323 and later we see about Irenaeus the father of Lugton yeah so Irenaeus was born in 120 to 140 in Asia Minor and he died in 200 or 280 and that birth date is known Irenaeus was born of three parents in Asia Minor so his own works established a few biographical points such as that he as a child heard and saw Podicar the last known living connection with the apostle John so before that age Christians were martyred in 155 AD so we see Eusebias of Caesar also notes that after the persecution Irenaeus succeeded the martyr of Popinius as the bishop of Lugtonan according to Eusebias who wrote a history of the church in 4th century we see that Irenaeus prior to becoming bishop had served as a missionary to southern and as a peacemaker among the churches of Asia Minor had been disrupted by an heresy so they were so the yeah so in this era we see that Irenaeus lived and was time of expansion and inner tensions in the church so in many cases we see that Irenaeus acted as a mediator between various containing factions the church of Asia Minor continued to celebrate Easter on the same day and you know like the Passover according to the Jews when they had celebrated and there were many other dates they had to commemorate according to that so Irenaeus adopted a totally negative and unresponsive attitude towards Marion who was another leader in Rome towards Gnosticism he wants to come against this type of heresy so there were a lot of ups and downs in the church so they had to correct it and stand against those heresies so we see Irenaeus asserted in a very positive manner later validating the Hebrew Bible that is the Old Testament which Gnostic denied claiming that it is upheld the law of the Creator God of God though Irenaeus did not actually refer to two testaments one old and one new he prepared a way for this terminology he asserted and evaluated the two testaments as a time when concerned for the unity and difference between the two parts of the Bible that was developing so we see the works that he claimed to come against the heresies was he was reiterating the possible the teaching of the apostles which he received directly from the apostles of John with that we will move on to Clement of Alexandria so Clement of Alexandria was a Latin given to Titus Flogius Clement he was born in 150 AD or because these dates are not to accurate as we know so it says 190 to 280 and yeah so he was a Christian theologian teaches new Christian in Alexandria so he wrote three books to expound his teaching on the Christian faith so we see that during his time the 4th century bishop he was the 4th century bishop and the parents of Clement's were Athenian pagans so there is little significant information about his early life so as a student Clement traveled to various centers of learning in Italy and in the eastern Mediterranean area and he converted to Christian by his last teacher who reputedly a former static philosopher and the first recorded president of the Christian Catholicist school of Alexandria at Alexandria so Clement succeeded his mentor and he headed the school in one okay I don't want to give you the dates because the dates were no way matching so during the next two decades Clement was an intellectually leader of the Alexandria and Christian community so he wrote several ethical and theological works and biblical commentaries to come against the Gnostic heresies in those periods in politics with the Christian who raised the speeches of an intellectualized Christianity and he educated people who later became a theological and the ecclesiastical leaders like Alexander the great or the bishop of Jerusalem so he educated and raised many leaders who can come against such these in future yeah just give me a minute sorry and with that we have done almost with the 2nd century we will move on to the 3rd century maybe 200 or 1 to maybe 300 here we see many leaders who were raised in the first Christian state of Turkey who find about the Turkey leader like Edison and then we see in 220 Turkey in just give me a minute okay Turkey and we see Oregon in AB 245 and then AB 248 we see 1000th anniversary of Rome yet all is not very joyous there still there is a threat increasing and in 250 we see Emperor Daesh is there and then in maybe 300 we see about a man called Anthony the great Anthony the great or Anthony of Egypt we need to learn more about it yeah because this is the period where we see they called the monk the monastery was birthed and the box the box where started we see Anthony the great in AD 251 to 356 Anthony the great or Anthony of Egypt goes into a desert as a hermit and yeah we so it is a religious hermit and one of the earliest desert fathers they were known as desert fathers and they considered the founder and father of organized Christian monasticism so this is a rule one of the first attempts to codify the guidelines for monastic living so this monastic living adds certain rules and regulations that they have to follow so the disciples of Saint Paul of Thebes or Anthony began to ascetic life that is a life of sacrifice at the age of 20 at a very early age in his life he started and about 15 years he withdrew himself to solitude to a mountain by night called his firm where he lived about 286 to 305 about yes we see about 20 years during the course of this time he began a generally combat against the devil withstanding several temptation that was coming against and against the Christian theology so about in 305 he emerged from this retreat to instruct and organize a monastic life of the hermits and we see there were many people who had known about and joined this group lived a similar kind of lifestyle so he moved to a mountain in the eastern desert between the Nile and the Red Sea where sorry sorry thank you so between the Nile and the Red Sea so what we see here is he remained there and people he started being recognized and noticed by in that area in that area people started to visit this monastic which was outskirts of this place in Egypt so people started coming there with different requests they started to come there for telemerance for healing or just to hear the word and they started ministering to people from this place so the early monks who followed Anthony into the desert considered themselves as a vanguard of God so they were they were disciplining themselves through fasting and Lord and you see slowly they started ministering to people in the spiritual gifts so they were ministering to people in healing and there were a lot of deliverance that was happening Anthony of Egypt was known for his deliverance ministry because he personally encountered a lot of temptation by the enemy and he overcame all that by the word of God so when you read about I would encourage you to read about them because in one class we cannot cover most of the things so the question is about these desert fathers and how the ministry was birthed and how many monks were added to this group and all the monks despite the time and season you see they all flow in the same kind of spiritual gifts they all carry the same gifts of the spirit in them and they all lived a very very simple life they were known to live a very simple dependable on God kind of life so they did go into the city was only to get arms the dressing sense also was very simple they got into a kind of you know a black dress long kind of black dress with a hood and with a bell in their hand so we used to bring the bell to just to let the people know that they are coming to clean the arms so that they can clean the arms go back to their monastery and live a very simple and a peaceful life so most of the time they spent in praying they spent in praying spent time and fasting because what they received also was very less okay spent a lot of time and fasting and prayer and the ministry to people there and also we should understand they lived in the land of Egypt where the land was in the demonic powers so they had to depend on God depend on the gifts of the spirit to exercise exorcism okay they were gifted with that and they saw many people coming to them with related to deliverance yeah with that we will move on with the four century fathers we have very less time but because it has got to do with more of history I would request you all to please study on certain certain people God moved among them very powerfully so in 4th century we see the emperor about Ayurvedic chain and yeah we can move to concept in the great where the Christianity became the common religion the birth the spread of Christianity became much in this under the leadership of concept just give me a minute yeah let's look into Diocletian as well fine okay sorry in AD 303 Emperor Diocletian persecuted church intending to wipe out the Christian wipe out the church and you know what happened that golden phase so Diocletian is a later name was pious or alias Pellemius Diocletian he was a Roman emperor he was serving under the Roman emperor Cartonisian so when the co-emperor Cartonisian's brother was killed Diocletian's army declared him to be the emperor so what happened but this domain was restricted to Asia Minor and possibly Syria so Cartonisian attacked Diocletian in 285 AD but was assassinated before achieving victory so it allowed to become the soon emperor here he sought to remove the military from the politics and he established and he was he was the spread of the influence of the compact religion throughout the empire proclaiming himself and the school rulers as gods so he added the traffic of the bureaucracy to the reign and we see he seemed to be a very good ruler he was not compassionate about his people so he should for he was decreeing the last great persecution of Christians and he wanted to eradicate the Christianity from the face of the earth and what happened he failed to do it so with that we will move on to Constantine the great so Constantine was born on February 27 into 1880 and we see he was the first Roman emperor to profess Christianity he not only initiated the evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian culture that prepared the way for the growth of the western medieval culture so Constantine was probably in the later 280s a typical product of the military governing class of the later 3rd century he was a son of Fabius Galerius Constanus and an army officer and his wife Helena so in 293 AD his father was raised to the rank of Caesar already the beauty emperor and was sent to serve under Augustus Maxime in the west so in 289 Constanus had separated from Helena in order to marry the step-daughter of Maxime so we see Constantine was brought up in the eastern empire of the court of senior emperor Diocletian so what happened Constantine experienced a member of that and the rest of his history so what happens is in one of the emperors Constantine receives a vision of a cross and he was headed for a battle so on his way to fight with go emperor Maxime and he comes up with this vision of a cross and he asks everyone to take up a cross to the city and they won the battle after that the minute he won the battle he attributed this victory to the Christian god so becoming so what he did he made he became a supporter to the early church he made Christianity as a legalized religion in the Roman empire so Constantine and Licinius then rebuilt the destroyed churches the buildings and the early church this is how the politics entered the church so they became one decision making and restored all the position that was confiscated from the church during the persecution time yes there's a positiveness and there's also the negative side of it both and we also see Constantine made because he wanted to make Christian so he baptized everyone where the sprinkling baptism was birthed and many other system was birthed in the Christian and the church took the authority to make any big decisions in the place where the politics entered the church we see Christianity being very different from now on not like before with that we will stop for now and we will study in detail about each and every very important I choose selective fathers or the selective leaders and we can discuss on them in detail in the further class other than that if there's anything that you would like to add on please feel free we will stop here for the first time but then I would request the class to study on Polycar and Ignatius of Antioch, these are the two people I would request the class to research and study on okay so that when we do our homework our learning will be much more than what we get from the class because there are so many leaders and all these leaders are very important we cannot cover them in an there's anyone who would like to add to today's class you can or we can end this class with a word of correct as I really don't see any hands raised we end the session with a word of correct Dear God we thank you for how the Lord gave time and again we thank you Lord that you took a stand when there were heresies were there or father that your word was established your word has crossed a different season different season of preformation we see time and again you raised the leaders Lord who can defend the gospel who can defend the faith of father Lord we pray that even as we study we pray that you will impart your wisdom to each of us our father that we may have the same passion Lord to know your word to study your word and to impact the people impact the world for your father Lord we pray that Lord you will increase the zeal for your word in each of us our father thank you Lord Jesus Holy Spirit of God I pray that you move in and through us Lord Jesus that our heart may be connected with you connected with your word of father may your name be glorified in every act of us Lord thank you Lord Jesus in Jesus name we pray amen amen amen thank you thank you I would request each one to please go through our notes read in detail about these church and the visit fathers more so that we know how the Lord raised leaders and how used them to impact the world thank you so much and God bless see you all in the next class thank you