 Okay, good morning everyone Let's just do a quick review and We will continue with what we from what we where we started the yesterday We looked at the early church, right? I will go to the first century church We looked at the happenings of the second century church And we saw a certain Important events that happened in both the first and the second century church. So just a quick review Uh in the first century church, we saw the council of jam Nia, which was where they acknowledged the old testament um as a Hebrew scriptures the canonical scriptures Uh, then the book of revelations was written in the first century and we also saw that Christianity began to spread in different parts of The world like Sri Lanka, Algeria, Manaco and all these different places the second century we saw heresies entering the church we looked at Gnosticism Martianism and Montanism And then we looked at also some wonderful things that happened where You know, there were apologists that were rising up To defend all that was happening within the church, right? And and we saw that Clement of Alexandria again a great theologian was able to do a lot of work Especially in Egypt and different parts of the world. So We looked at all these aspects within the first century and the second century church Now before we go into the second century Sorry, the third and the fourth century church. Let's just say a quick word of prayer and we'll begin So, uh, can any one of us just lead us in prayer? Please Go ahead. Any one of us? Yes, go ahead We thank you father god almighty for this beautiful morning We thank you for your amazing grace amazing presence amidst us father as we are learning father And whatever we are learning father open our hearts open our minds to receive it in its fullness father We guide it by your truth father And everything that we learn be blessed father bless our teachers knowing the heads father And give us that wisdom to understand things father in the right perspective Lead each of us in your parts of righteousness father continue to be with us throughout the day father And in everything what we learn father may we be guided by your holy spirit We give you all control and we thank you for this time in the matchless name of jesus we pray and ask amen Amen. Amen. Thank you Avni Okay So let's pick up from the third century church. So we're going to look at uh your 200 80 200 to 80 300 right, uh, like we uh mentioned over uh the previous weeks There's going to be a lot of dates a lot of people involved Uh, but what we want to catch and remember our certain important events That happen now, you know, some of some of us we think okay. Why do I need to learn all this? You know, if I know the old testament or the new testament, that's uh more than enough. Yes, that's true but When we study christian history, uh, it gives us a better foundation to understand the difficulties the challenges that people faced and how You know you and I are just so privileged to just take a bible open it up begin to read it But it was not so You know in the early church. So studying this will help us Put things into context even you know, we one of the things that has really helped me It is it helps me to value the things that You know, we have you know, even the fact that We have different versions of one bible is so amazing and And the opportunities that we have online. So all these things Uh, you know, if we look at it, we begin to value it even more as we study this. So don't Why as I said, don't worry about the dates. How am I going to remember all of this? But What you can do is probably make certain points of uh, you know important events that happen So that way you can remember it as well. Okay, let's look at Uh, the third century church, right? We did start a little bit of it yesterday, but let's uh, Pick up from here. Now a new emperor emperor Severus forbids conversion To christianity, right? But even though there's this new emperor who says that christianity is spreading And two great christian Apologists or we'll say christian Lawyers they will and you will hear of them You know, if anyone studying church history will know them their names are tertulian and origin they were very very impactful in the books that they wrote tertulian was a christian lawyer who wrote many articles Mostly to the christians and the people in north africa And he wrote books. He wrote tracks and in his writings. He basically focused on the trinity Saying that okay This is what the trinity is and he's the first one To use the term trinity. So the word trinity came about almost, you know 200 odd years after the birth After the death of jesus christ after the panic cost as well. So Uh, then there's origin who was another christian apologist and he began to give You know, uh, remember we spoke about in the second century church Nostism and all these heresies that came into the church so Origin took took took up upon himself to write Articles defending those uh, or writing against them. Okay. These are heresies These are things that are against the church. So we need to stay away from it. So Both tertulian and origin's writing was vastly used Among the churches all across the world. So they really became famous Again, they they were also captured later on and they were also put to death but Now when we look at it, we may wonder why is it that they're, you know, they're in different parts of the countries Why is it that they're getting captured and you know, uh, being sent to rome and being killed is because Remember that roman was this rome was a central power right during that time and so Uh, no and they wanted prominence world prominence. We would say so What they would do is if even if there's somebody in africa and ministry or some leaders growing there Uh, you know, they would try to do you know, play some false allegations Bring them to rome and finally, you know Uh, get them, uh killed and so it was like a practice that they followed So it was it was not something which they struggled to do But what the romans could not do was stop Uh, the spread of christianity all they were doing was they would you know martyr all these great leaders great Apologies writers, but the work of the ministry was continuing. They could not stop it So after that an emperor named deisius comes now He made life difficult for the christians. He said, okay Everyone must offer pagan sacrifice meaning you have to uh worship the idols of rome And then you have to show a certificate of proof that you know, I okay, I worship this god An idol and and the church Went through a really difficult time Through emperor deisius They went through persecution The church was attacked from every side Yet The ministry did not stop right there was a 8300 a great man named anthony the great Uh, now here comes in a new kind of You know leading where the holy spirit leads christians into a different kind of a leading where anthony the great You know, he he goes into You know the deserts and he he sits by himself. He basically he goes into this whole thing of You know secluding himself from the You know from people and spending time on the scriptures and all of it. So He started something like, uh, you know the monasticism This is a right monastic kind of a Learning in christianity now he he was considered as the founder of that. So he felt that okay Uh monastic study is very important where they go away from the city go into secluded places pray Read the word seek the lord And you know really build on yourself. So he anthony the great was the one who founded it and after him There were many who followed it many took up this You know monastic kind of life now You know, some of us may think okay this You know monastic kind of life is only for buddhism for jainism and uh all these other religions No, it was actually started off here It started off through this and uh, and we see that because of this move Uh, the fear of the lord became even more people were deeply rooted in god's word People were deeply rooted in you know, uh prayer and we could see the spiritual life of Believers increasing so many people took up monastic. They would go Uh spend time maybe a couple of months years spend time Reading the word praying and then they would come back and minister in power. So Because of this monastic life 8300 north africa becomes the center of uh christianity So by the end of this third century, uh, they had about a million christians Uh in you know all of uh in the whole of north africa and We see that the church began to grow imagine a million christians right Oh, and I would say it was because of this monastic Uh, you know Work that was started by anthony the great and so it's actually his name is anthony, but they This added the great because uh, because what he did really impacted the christian community Right. So north africa becomes the key Center for christianity. Now. What do the romans do? They can't go to africa and try to you know kill all the people or try to wipe out christianity It's not going to happen. All they can do is maybe catch some of the leaders or by this time There were bishops and deacons try to catch them and uh, you know, uh, put them to task That's all they could do because it was out of their reach No more is You know christianity a small religion. It is just spreading like fire the more the persecution The more the church is growing. So we enter the fourth century church now If we have maybe studied church history before or You know looked at documentaries. We all know that the fourth century church was one of the most difficulty years For christian history for the church community. There was an emperor named emperor diocletian now He went full throttle persecuting the church, right? His main aim Was to wipe out christianity right, uh, so he's uh Here, you know, uh, so there's emperor nero who brought persecution in the first century He was almost in line with nero emperor diocletian so he Did all he could to wipe out christianity So during this time, uh, a new group called the, uh, Donatis came out now. Who are they? They are believers, right now when emperor diocletian came there was persecution So what happened was some of them denied the faith They said, okay, we don't want to be martyred. We don't want to be killed Um, we don't want to go through all of this persecution. Okay. We deny this. We will do what you ask us to do right, uh And they went away from uh, you know christianity and all of that But after some time they came back after the persecution ended They came back to christianity Now after coming back to christianity what happened is this, uh, person named bishop, uh, donatis He said you people have, you know, rejected the faith And now, uh, during persecution and when times are fine, you'll have come back and trying to be leaders, uh In the church and that's not right So Bishop donate, uh, donatis he Went away from the church Because of all this, you know, uh, he felt that they were, uh, you know, they were being, uh, They were not being true to the gospel. They were when persecution came. They just Ran away. Uh, but now when things are right, they're coming. So what happened was This whole church now this happened again, uh in north africa, right end of The third century there are about a million people in christians in the church Beginning of the fourth century, there's a division in the church Right, what happens the strongest center of christianity is disrupted Right now many of them lose interest in christianity. Many of them turn away from christianity. Many of them, uh, you know Now there's a division. There's the donatis and then there are people who are in the church right, uh So what happens here the whole strength of the church is weakened Right, they were a strong community by the end of the second third century fourth century in the beginning There was a problem this division and there's weakness in the church Now What is one important lesson that you and I can learn through this? right, uh See these people were filled and empowered by the holy spirit the move of god is working There's a revival. There's an outpouring Thousands of people are accepting the lord Um persecution is still there, but they are strong. They are courageous But what is it that you and I can learn? you know as I was you know studying these things and uh, you know doing research on Donatis and all these other wonderful ministries that were happening during that time one thing that was highlighted was There was lack of forgiveness There was lack of humility during that time I'm not saying all of them right, uh But just picture this uh, so even I was studying this I was just thinking okay, what if This bishop donatis said okay, we forgive you. Let's continue Uh and work together to build the church everything would have been fine I believe that the church would have just enlarged and expanded and Greater things would have happened, but Probably now it was one million. Maybe it would have gone on to two million people three million the church would have just expanded but because of this There was division So an important thing to remember in the midst of an outpouring in the midst of a revival Right where god is moving It is important to have a personal check on ourselves Right because sometimes we may be so focused on ministry So focused on the things to do. Okay. I need to do this. I need to do that and um Especially those who are leading in the church or maybe pastors or In some kind of leadership role in the church. We may get so focused right Okay, I want to do this. I want to do this in the church. These are the you know the to-do list And so what happens is we forget to keep a check on ourselves That's very important very important lesson to learn in uh from from the uh church history is As you're doing as we're doing the work of the lord as god is pouring out his spirit and we're doing the ministry Remember to keep a check on ourselves Right, whether we are doing things right whether we are in line with the word of god That's an important thing that we have to always see because uh, you know, sometimes we may uh We may look at ministry as a task Because there are a lot of things that we have to do But if we do it out of selfishness and out of Unforgiveness out of jealousy out of pride It is not going to be a fruitful ministry All right, so it's very important. Uh, you know, some of us may be busy all throughout the week in ministry Or or in anything that we're doing always remember to go back spend your personal time Reading the word of god spend personal time in prayer Right, that is what Uh will help us to keep a check on ourselves Right as we continue with ministry Okay, so 80 312 Now some of us may have heard of this emperor Constantine the great now this man Uh, you know, he was uh Uh on his way to a fight and then during that just before that he had a vision of a cross And in that vision that on the cross it was this uh was Was the writing in this sign You conquer right written under it. So he went for the war and emperor Constantine won the battle now after winning the battle He said it is because of the god of the christians that I won this battle So he did a wonderful thing emperor Constantine said We will make christianity We will support christianity. We will Try and legalize it in our In the nation and in the different nation. So, uh, he went on to legalize christianity in rome So it was legal Right, he gave them so much of freedom that christians could You know, it was legal to become a christian and uh, you know, constantly and also helped Rebuild the temple Of jerusalem that was destroyed uh during the second century and so millions of people millions of people Were added into the church. There was no risk. There was no persecution Uh, the you know people got many opportunities But Because there was no persecution Because there was no, uh, you know, uh, you know getting becoming a christian was just so easy Uh Laxity began to you know creep into the church right, which means Their belief system their character their behaviors began to come down But the church got big lands emperor Constantine, uh, you know, if we look at church history It says that he donated huge pieces of land to christians Where they could sit and pray and There are also reports that you know, he he paid people to write scriptures and to teach the scriptures in different places. So The church was getting good buildings good structures good, uh Opportunities political opportunities social opportunities But with all of this Came laxity The the the the The want of one, you know, the desire to know more of god just went down Uh, and you know when we read about this we most of them say it's because of the luxuries of Rome And it's because of you know, there was no persecution life was all right. Everything was fine uh people forgot uh about you know, the challenges of being a christian and uh, what happened during this time The word teaching of the word the working of the holy spirit You know ministry of the word healings miracles the church as a whole became completely dampened I it became a form of religion Before it was like uh, we're being persecuted but still the work has to go on So there was this urgency. There was this need to spread the gospel The outpouring was fresh But now what's happened is it's it's all become, you know, okay, we get up Let's go to church if you want to go go If you don't want to go don't go You know that kind of an attitude And uh pagan styles of worship, uh, you know, uh, it is said that Constantine being a roman He there's no account of him accepting jesus But what he did was he tried to bring in Aspects of the roman uh worship into christianity and pagan styles of worship Began to enter the church And it it was all uh, very, you know, it was very Slowly entering the church causing a big big big damage to the church So now what happens the lord raises up a few leaders Bishop you see this was uh, uh, a bishop in cesarean now what he does is He begins to write He says okay He writes many many many books and articles to the church saying this is not what we are We are a church that is empowered to touch lives to minister to people And uh, this is what the early church went through. So he many of his writings He wrote about the early church saying these are the challenges and These are the people who gave their lives for the gospel and now we are not taking it forward We need to do something about it. Uh, so many articles were written about it And later on there is an important thing that happened 83 25 the council of nicaea Here in the council of nicaea basically I think some of us may have heard of the nicene creed uh, and in this council what happens is You know Constantine himself sat as a Moderator and he said okay the christians have to Recite this nice nicene creed Uh, and the nicene creed was based on uh christian rule Christian faith and all of that. So uh, so what's happening? There's some kind of hierarchy But after the council of nicaea, we see that You know, it was more of A form of religion Right, and this was the time when roman catholic Uh system came into place The romans were Okay with christians being around But the roman Culture the roman You know pagan styles of worship Entered the church And then it all became, you know, creeds reciting stuff reciting few verses or reciting And and it all became a form of religion We see here during this period It was a complete drop The outpouring of the holy spirit was dampened now whose work was that Was it god who stopped it Or was it the people that caused it? It was it was the people Yes It was the people because If if not for this if if even though, uh, you know constantine said, okay, you know christians You can go ahead and you know, we'll build their buildings and uh, there's no persecution What we should have done Was focused on maybe raised up teams to focus on ministry of the word and that's what they did in the early church Focus raised up teams focus on sharing the word worship Teaching preaching of the word ministry of the word and all of it And then you would have another team looking after the social political and all these other aspects church buildings and all of it But what happened was the entire attention went into all of this Oh, no persecution. Let's build churches. Let's come up with new things in the church and And constantine was like, okay, you do what you want to do. No problem You want to add anything in you want to remove something you can remove you want to add something to the church. You can do what you want There was lack of wisdom during that time lack of good leaders Very important lesson to learn from church history right that You know this council of nicaea it not only caused a lot of problem later on it It was a step into roman catholicism Uh, and and there were bishops In rome and anti-york in different places. They were given authority over large provinces So what uh in the council of nicaea what constantine said is okay, let's raise up leaders bishops and uh, You know some kind of leaders roman leaders also Right, so the bishops and a roman leader would you know work together in this particular province So you have alexandria rome anti-york And they would lead the church now picture this You have a roman Who is not a believer? Right and you have a bishop Who's a believer? But he's more interested in social and political and all these other aspects. How do I make more money those kind of attitudes? So these two have formed a team and they've been given large provinces Right and what happens the roman influence Comes into the Church the bishops are so easily. Hey, why don't we you know, let's do this. Let's put a Um, you know a little idol and say if you pray to this, you know, we can get some offerings So now the bishop is not strong in the word. What's happening? You say, okay, let's do it Let's put a small idol nothing wrong with it. We'll make an idol of jesus and put it there and we'll say, okay those who want to Put offerings put it there. And so what happens it's an entry into idol worship So what happened during this time is the roman catholic church began to rise Roman governance with Christian believers together forming the roman catholic church and since the roman catholic church started Several others have been added and then the church In 83 30 the church moves its center from Rome to Constantinople and we see that uh, you know Roman Catholicism begins to take power Yet not all is Ended right things get There are people the lord raises up people right a name a man named Jerome I think some of us may have heard him. He he was commissioned by god to You know Translate the bible. So he what he did is he translate the bible into latin And what he also did was he wrote against what is happening in the church, right? He wrote that, you know, what we are doing in the church is wrong We need to know how to you know, we need to look at the old Early church and take examples from them. But by then The you know the whole church the whole structure of the church has Got roman influence, right? and then The old testament scriptures many people god raised up many people to Translate scriptures to translate the old testament the new testament And so what Jerome did is he translated the bible into latin And that version is called the valgate version where he translated the entire bible later on into Latin so So we see here You know, there was a rise and fall in christianity And it's sad to see that You know The leaders did not take responsibility of the outpouring That was going on right the outpouring was still there Right if we see the air, you know in the end of the second missionary, sorry second Century, sorry the third century church. We see that a million people Came into the church in africa Right, so that means what the outpouring was still there But there was no one to Channelize that outpouring there was no one to You know make sure that this outpouring of the holy spirit Is You know manifested in the right way or is taken care of in the right way It was like basically saying okay outpouring holy spirit. You just stay out of this for some time Let's just get our lands get the church done. Let make some big buildings And holy spirit you stay out of it for a while It was almost like saying that So then after this whole thing comes what we call as the dark ages of the church The dark ages is simply the time when the church went through its most miserable time There was no outpouring. There was no word. There was no teaching. There was no working of miracles Nothing was happening During the dark ages. It is a very sad time, but let's look into it The new testament Was translated into many many Languages right by now almost 20 to 22 different languages the bible has been Not the bible only the new testament has been translated And and so what is the dark age the church Became Institutionalized all this while It was just okay. It was just a Small group of people and then that began to grow and grow and grow different places and all of it But now it became an institution what happened Popes were put in place And they exercised spiritual power over people Right now not only did they not pray for people and Look at the development of the church and and You know the spiritual welfare of the believers But what they did is they collected taxes from the Christians. They raised armies. They subjugated kings. They were a dominant force Throughout the entire western world Now the morality and the spiritual condition of the church was almost nothing Right liturgies forms rituals replaced scriptures and the teaching of the scriptures right now The laity people who became believers did not have access to the scriptures and we know that what happened in the early church the roman You know the pope said we'll have one bible that will be kept in the Church you have anything you come you ask the pope the pope will tell you what to do what the pope says is the law And nothing more nothing less You got to believe what he says if he says Jesus did not die on the cross you got to believe it and so The church went in through some of the most horrendous teachings later on wrong practices such as prayers to saints Which happens now belief in purgatory purgatory is basically a place where You know they believe that it is a roman belief system. It just came into the church as well purgatory is a place where you know you After you die the souls Will be you know resting there a place to rest and then after they rest there The prayers of the people of their own family will decide whether they go to heaven or hell and There's no such place as purgatory The bible says that paul writes and he says to be absent in the body Is to be present with the lord So you see these kind of teachings right purgatory trans substitution trans substitution is like basically You know Jesus did not die. It was somebody else who came and took his place right And then there was indulgence There was relic worship. The church was considered an infallible On institutions supreme powers recited on the pope monastic monasticism Slowly declined. So there were no people who were going studying the word and Teaching the word all of that was declined All the focus was in a church that was institutionalized Right, uh, and it was a sad story Imagine you become a believer during that time Before that those scriptures were available, but now With the institutionalized church There was no bible They could not go into the scriptures. They were not allowed to Uh, and this was such a wrong thing to do because it was just hindering the work of the holy spirit Right now, we know that the scriptures were powerful The scriptures are still powerful right the scriptures the word of god is is able to touch people's lives And we see in church history The early church and over the centuries that it was the word Teaching of the word that touched many lives Um, you know asia in asia minor in europe in africa Uh, it was a word of god that impacted lives And now they've taken up that whole thing of saying that okay, whatever the pope says is right and uh It was and it was completely a dark time for christianity, but uh, the lord still In and during this time raised up leaders who would stand against this Whole, you know institutionalized church So there's this great person named augustin who sends missionaries to england to reintroduce the gospel so augustin was If we study about augustin. He was a powerful Preacher and so he goes to england. He re institutionalized the gospel. Okay So by now we should understand that this institutionalized church Has formed everywhere From rome it's gone all across so now every place maybe africa and and uh, england and uh, the west and uh, egypt All these different countries they would have you know bought Places of land they would have built high structured churches All of that would have happened so augustin goes he goes to england He begins to preach the gospel. He says okay It's not about the pope. It's not about what he's saying. It's about the gospel. This is what jesus did This is what jesus has been doing. This is what it is and he began to preach the gospel many lives were touched 10 000 people Believe in that message And they were baptized So that was a kind of a you know a light in the darkness again God raises up another person named peter waldo and what he he was a wealthy merchant In southern france now he decided To leave all his comforts and he began to go and preach against the institutionalized church. He says uh, you know You people have uh, you know some of the things he spoke about he he said Let us return to proper and pure teaching of the scriptures He rejected the idea of purgatory and the infallibility of the church He said christian lay people should be able to read the word and also preach the gospel Uh, and so since he began to do this That church the institutional child institutionalized church began to Persecute him and eventually he was captured and he was martyred uh, and so There were people that god raised up and uh, and during this time it was It was during this time that god raised up reformers Right, and we will what we will do is i don't want to start with reformers Because it's a whole new section. So we can start from next week But we see that the dark ages had caused the damage to the church In the midst of it God raises up leaders now If we read the old testament You know it And we read church history, especially the second third and the fourth century church We see a resemblance And the old testament they were You know against god they sinned against god Right There was there was you know, uh always something that you know god had to send prophets To remind them of their calling remind them of what Uh, what their plans and purpose about god if you read the book of jeremiah It's so powerful because he he writes that he says Listen, you all are in captivity and it's been almost 40 years now But i still have plans for you plans to prosper you to give you a good hope a good future Right, but you need to turn away from these idols. You need to turn away from sin And remember that i was the one who brought you out of egypt and The promised land ahead of you all these things. So we see that even during those dark times God raises up leaders Uh even during the babelonian captivity God raised up isaia You know and isaia writes he says do darkness covers the earth take darkness covers the skies Darkness covers the people but the lord will arise upon you So we see even in those dark periods god does not abandon his people He sends people In the darkness he sends he raises up people he raises up leaders To bring forth the truth Many many empires Emperor nero emperor diocletian they tried their best to wipe out christianity Even now around the world we see that many of them are trying to wipe out christianity It's never going to happen We can never wipe out christianity. Why because it is the work of the holy spirit. It's never going to happen Never will there come a time when there is the the scriptures won't be there Or there will not be preaching if we if we look at the old if we look at revelations You know If we do a study on the revelations the end times You know, we only look at the other side. Oh, there are sicknesses. There's wars. There's earthquakes famines and all of it But if you look at the other side of the story There's there's huge massive Revival that's happening Millions of people accept the gospel right So so we need to look at both sides of the coin Right and and so there's never going to be a time when christianity will be wiped out. It's never going to happen Right. Uh, and so we can be assured of that right? Uh, stay to the word Look at the word learn from the word build ourselves up Persecutions will come challenges will come Uh, I know samus says heaven and earth may fail But his word will remain Right, so we take courage in all of this. Uh, we got about five minutes left anybody would like to share your thoughts any questions that you have um I know Pastor paul wonderful. Yes lecture really it's eye opening kiss When you mentioned that there were so many christians in north africa. I was just like wow Does that mean that um Due to the dark age We've lost many of them and then we have islam You know Overshadowing most of all the northern countries, you know It just goes to explain that um when we Well, we slack as christians we give room for the enemy to To destroy the works of the church, you know the works of the holy spirit So that's actually eye opening and I pray that the reverse can happen that one day not not africa, you know Would be there'll be a huge revival and there'll be many people who will come back to jesus I hope it can happen, but that that was eye opening. I never knew that actually until He said so thank you Thank you. Say yes, praise god Yes, this is what our prayer should be Like what say you mentioned it was the slackness And I believe that if if not for that institutionalized church don't africa could have just you know Been the center of christianity It was the center of christianity at that time. It could have just exploded again as say mentioned Islam came into being and then other thoughts and ideas came into being and you know I believe that if if the church was not If the leaders had taken up the right decision saying that okay all they had to do was you know We can't go back and undo it, but something that we can learn is You know, all they had to do is just raise up leaders you teach the word preach the word You focus on that we will focus on the church building and all of this But they did not do that and so the entire focus of ministry went into buildings Into money and into taxes and all these other things. So yes, so Right any other thoughts any other questions that you may have I know it's So from next week what we will do is we'll get into Studying the lives of Yes, anybody. Yes, Kennedy you would like to share something Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your teaching Thank you for your teaching and now more enlightening about the history of the church But what I wanted to inquire when was the great Sikhism from the history of the church Okay, the great Sikhism was Uh, I'm not sure exactly of the year, but what happened was uh, Sikhism is basically an out out Is a path from Hinduism. So So it all came out from there. So Jainism Buddhism They were all From the core of Hinduism. So Sikhism probably we will you will learn that in world religions as well, but it probably came out If I'm not wrong Somewhere around the 10th century If I'm not wrong Yes, but you could double check that. I'm not really sure of the dates Somewhere because I know that 7th 8th century was when Islam you know came into being and 9th century it was more of an established Islam was established Uh, somewhere probably about a year or so after that was when uh, you know, uh, they're all contemporaries. So Maybe about 10 or 11 But you can double check that Okay, uh, any other thoughts any other questions, uh, if not we can close Any any thoughts any questions? Okay All right. So from next week what we will do is We will look at the lives of leaders now. It's going to be interesting. We we are done with You know more of okay, what happened in the church, but we look at lives. So We are in this dark ages God raises up people. So we look at lives of reformers, right? Those who try to reform The church and what are the things that they went through the challenges the persecutions and also Many people who lost their lives for the sake of the gospel. So So we can go ahead and next week we will start with that Studying the lives of reformers Right. All right. Shall we close in prayer? Just want to request any one of us to please lead us in prayer anyone of us Close in prayer Our father in heaven, we bless you. We worship you and adore you Thank you for this time we have spent Lord learning about the history of the church We thank you Lord for our instructor who you've given the To be able to deplete all of this and explain to us We're pretty old Lord that as students Lord as we're learning all these things Lord that You prepare us Lord to Focus on what matters about the church about the people About the word spreading about The things that matter Lord to you to see that the church grows And that Lord we will not misplace our priorities when it comes to the building of the church The people for Lord will be focused on what matters to you and what you desire Father, we pray that Lord your revival will continue and that the fire that was lost Lord In places where Christianity was known to be We pray Lord that the fire return back and many hearts will be returned back to you We bless you father. We pray as we continue Lord in this journey Lord, we pray you expand our minds and Lord you would continue to equip us For the walk ahead in the name of Jesus Christ. We have prayed Amen. Amen Thank you say Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful week ahead. God bless you all. We'll see you next week