 Thank you. Good morning and welcome each one of you all to BC201 Christian History and Missions. Well, even before we could start with our today's class, we can start with the word of prayer. Can I request one of you all to please start the class with the word of prayer. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you Lord. We praise you, but thank you for this beautiful day. Thank you Lord for your mouth is a new every day. Lord, we thank you for your faithful Lord. Thank you for this privilege for that you have given us to study your word. Lord, we ask your presence, Holy Spirit of God, we ask your presence. We ask to enlighten our understanding as the word will be delivered. Let us grasp, let us soak the word Lord and let us God understand the word. Father God, Lord, give us the spirit of wisdom and knowledge. Father God, we want to serve you. We want to live for your glory and help us to do it Lord. God, we thank you and we bless you. Also, we pray for our dear pastor Father God anoint her in a fresh way this morning Lord as she will teach the word. Father God, we pray, we give every student the teacher into your mighty hands. Lord, we thank you and bless you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you Rosalind. Thank you, so I'll go ahead and present the presentation that we have for today. So today we're going to study on Saint Augustine. Okay, last class we studied Augustine of Hippo. So this class we're going to cover, we are on page 39, we're going to cover on the Middle Dark Ages and the Early Reformers. Okay, so in this we're going to see how 8500 to 8500, how the institutionalized church became fully developed and we see that the Pope exercised civil as well as a spiritual power. So what happened during the season, they started to collect taxes, they raised armies and subjugated the kings and rulers and thus the church became the dominant force in society which was spreading their influence throughout the western world. So this led within the church that there was a steep decline of its moral and spiritual condition. So what happened? There was a form of liturgy and the rituals replaced the scripture and the life and the work of the spirit. And the lady that is the layman did not have the access to the scriptures and also we see during the season there were wrong practices such as like prayers to the saints or belief in the purgatory, relics, relics worship, or the way other indulgence or trans substitutions were introduced into the church. And the church was considered infallible with all these supreme power residing with the people. And we also see monasticism began to decline, losing much of its spiritual focus power and vitality because they were focusing on the other things. The church was more focusing and also growing in the political power than in spiritual. So this led into the dark ages where the church was quiet and you see things like the wrong practices were increasing or coming to a rise. And the spiritual power, the work of the spirit was declining slowly. But in midst of all this, we're going to see how the spirit of the Lord worked, kept moving and raising leaders time and again and awakening people to his word. So we're going to see on AD 596, Montgomery the Great sends a monk called Augustine. Now he is not the same Augustine whom we studied on the last class that Augustine was Augustine of Hippo. Now this Augustine is also known as Augustine of Canterbury where he was sent by Montgomery to England. We're going to study about this Augustine. So let me see if I'm presenting the right picture. Here we see Augustine with the middle person. Give me a minute please. So we see in early 6th century probably 26th of May 604 there was a monk who became the first archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered to be the apostle to the English and the founder of the English church. So what happened? Augustine was the prayer of a monastery in Rome and Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 AD to lead a mission group of people and to go to England to minister to the people, the Anglo-Saxon people because they were practicing paganism. And Bishop Gregory wanted to take Christianity to England so he sends Augustine with 40 other monks to England. And this is also known as Gregorian mission. So what happened? There they have in England there's a king called King Ethelbert and his kingdom of Kent. So Kent was probably chosen because King Ethelbert had married a Christian princess called Queen Bertha. The daughter of Jerry Berth one the king of Paris was expected to exert some influence over her husband. So before reaching Kent these missionaries had considered of turning back because of the news about the king was not in favor of Christianism. So Augustine and the steamets were very scared to go so they reverted to Bishop Gregory saying that they would like to return back. But then Bishop Gregory urged them on and he told them please go ahead allow the Lord to work in and through them. Just give me a minute please. Thank you. So what happened here? So Augustine landed on this Isle of Thanet and proceeded to Ethelbert's main town of Grandbury. Let me move on to the map that I've put here. Give me a minute while I show the map. Okay. So he landed on the shore of Kent and then he moved to other places. Okay. So King Ethelbert converted to eventually this king was converted to Christianity and he allowed the missionaries to preach freely. So here in this picture we see how Augustine along with these other monks carrying a silver cross. The silver cross is not clearly senior but it is seen in the other picture. There is a banner that they carry and also a poster of Jesus Christ they carry. This is how the silver crosses if you can see in this image and he is sharing the gospel to this King Ethelbert. Now when King heard that Augustine and there are other 40 monks who have come to share on Christianity, King was very apprehensive to receive them inside the kingdom. So what he does, he agrees to meet Augustine and his monks at the outside of the city. So they arranged for this meeting. This meeting is outside of the city where the king and queen are sitting. Now King agreed for this because of his wife was from a Christian background. He never stopped her from practicing a religion because she was Christian even before she could get married to the king. And here you see King and the queen both come to listen to the words of Augustine and Augustine freely goes and shares the good news shares the gospel of Jesus Christ to the king. And here King at the very first point is not keen on accepting the good news but then he does not stop Augustine and his monks from sharing the gospel to others. So from this first visit King sees the nature, the good nature of Augustine and the gospel message that they shared very clearly said that they will not force our religion on anyone. And then we we allow people to accept on the free will Jesus as the northern savior. So this was very comfortable for King and then he makes a place for them for Augustine and his other fathers to stay other monks to stay in a place he's very open to it. So eventually King gets converted to Christianity and he allowed the missionaries to preach freely and he gives them the land where they found the monastery outside the city wall. We also see Augustine was consecrated later as a bishop and he converted many of the king's subjects. So including on one of the Christmas you could baptize more than 1000 people on one single day. Some of the articles say that they baptize 10,000 people. So exactly we don't know the exact number but then what it says there was a mass baptism that took place on Christmas day in 597 AD. So Pope Gregory hearing on all these good things in 601 East End Samo missionaries because the Christianity was spreading in England because the king himself accepted this religion. So this major major impact over the land. So along with the encouraging letters and gifts that Augustine received from Gregory, he also received Samo missionaries was sent in 601. And although there were many attempts by the native British bishops to submit to Augustine's authority, it failed. But then eventually the Roman bishops established in London and slowly we see through this ministry under the leadership of Augustine. They established schools, schools were found to train the Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries to Christianity. And we also see Augustine also arranged a successor after him. I think now he is in his old age and he chose Lawrence of Canterbury to become the archbishop after him. And eventually Augustine died in 604 and he was revered as a saint of Canterbury. So we see the legacy that Augustine left. He died on May 26th and those scholars still argue over the years about the period that he died in 604 or in 609. So again, as we always say that the dates are approximate. We're not too sure about the dates, but then they all lived in this period of time. So Christianity continued to spread throughout other English kingdoms in the year and it followed Saint Augustine's first mission. We also see how successful it was to convert the Anglo-Saxon pagan practicing people into Christians through the message of Saint Augustine, where he could share the gospel, the truth of the gospel made the king set free and through the king it influenced all the other people. And we see the ministry grew in this area. So with that we will move on to the next person, John Wycliffe. So as we share it's not that it was very easy for Augustine to share the gospel even he has had his own set of hardship to endure. So when we read about him in detail, we'll see we can read about the hardship that he went through some of the challenges that he faced among his own people. But then what made him to endure is the gospel he never gave up. He had this attitude of not giving up, enduring things for Christ and eventually we see that he endured the fruit of his labor in his ministry. Okay, with that we will move on to John Wycliffe. Yeah, so John Wycliffe is also known as the Morning Star of the Reformation. He was a leading philosopher of the 14th century and an English priest. So there were many reformers throughout the history. We see that in the Christian church and all of the great ones that we look in several issues came from the Roman Catholic heritage. So they did not set out or form new denomination nor did they seek to break the church but they stayed in the church but they fought for their rights. Again, each one claimed on the scripture saying, I'm going to share the truth and the truth will set them free. But what did they do? Instead of starting a new denomination or breaking the church but they passionately desired that the church will reform from within. The church will crack the abuses that are scrapped in over many generations. So what happened? We see in 16th century there was a need for drastic reforms and correction of these religious abuses that has been burst in the church. So what happened? We see later we will study how Martin Luther or Calvin and Swingley, how they took up these issues. But right now it all started with John Wycliffe. That is exactly 100 years from now for Luther to be born. But we see John Wycliffe lays the groundwork. He lays the groundwork, the work, the vision and the sacrifice of the other leaders before them who had translated the gospel into different language with the main intention of the word reaching the people. But then this dark age is what is happening. The scripture is not reaching the lady, is not reaching the layman. But then there are other practices has been creeped into the church and they have taken up the prominence and the word has not been available for the lay people at this time. So we see that if we would have lived during John Wycliffe's time, we would have found many of the same uncertainties or the pressures that are common even in our time. So we see there is a black plague swept across England, Europe and in some other places which was widely spread among the population which was known as 100 years war. So between English France and sapped energy and resources, we see that the wage controls locked the poor into the marginal existence and which led to a violent of peasants that revolved in England which took place in 1381 AD. So during this time, we see Wycliffe cared deeply for the poor and the common people who reeled against the abuse of the church. So what happened here? We see the church owned over one third of the land in England. Then clergy were often illiterate and immoral and the people who were in the high offices in the church were bought or given out as a political plumb. But the problem went even deeper. So we see Wycliffe, a devoted student of the Bible, saw that some of these doctrines of the church had departed from biblical moreings. So he based a study on the scripture and we see that he writes and preach against such teaching about what? He thought the people, the lay people, the things like purgatory or the sale of these indulgence, the doctrines of transmutation, all these are against the word. But this was too much. Even John's highly placed political friends deserted him for his teaching. The church authorities were against him and eventually they banished him from his university. He was teaching at the Oxford University, so they banished him from the university. And his exile turned into a kind of liberation for him. So some of his students who accepted John Wycliffe's teaching, they came along with them or they joined him at the parish in Lutawat. So there they undertook the monumental task of translating all the scriptures into English, working from a handwriting Latin translation. So they had the Latin Bible, which was not commonly available for the people. So what happened? John Wycliffe and the students, they joined together and they started to translate Latin into English and they continued. So we see John Wycliffe's practice of training poor preachers and eventually they were called as or known as low lads who took the word out to the common people across the land. Now we need to think for a moment what would mean to us if we could not own a Bible and if the Bible is not available in our own language or whatever we are taught that the Bible was the only meant or only meant for the church officials and not for us. And the church officials or the church leaders or the group of these fathers, we used to teach on only certain things that was in favor for them. They never meant the word to be available for the common people. So that was exactly the case why John Wycliffe and students were working on of translating the Latin Bible into English and making it available for the common people so that the common people can understand and come out of these wrong practices that were creeping into the church. Some of the quotes that we see that John Wycliffe used like this, the God's word will give my new life more than the other words that are for pleasure. So he writes like this, oh marvelous power of the divine seed, which overpowers strong men in arms, soft and hard hearts and renews and changes into divine men. And those men who had been brutalized by sin and departed infinitely far from God. Obviously, such miraculous power could never be worked by the work of a priest. The spirit of life and the eternal word did not, above all things else, work with it. We also see John Wycliffe condemned by the church and he died of a stroke on the New Year Eve in 1384. And his memory and influence continued so strong that he was formally condemned against 30 years later the Council of Constance. Now orders were given for his writings to be completely destroyed. They also went ahead because now the church had this political power. So what they did is they went ahead, they took his bones exhumed and burned and the ashes to be thrown into the nearby river. So somehow the church authorities thought that by burning his remains they might erase his memory. But even such bizarre or extreme action could not stop the hunger for God's word and the truth that Wycliffe had uncompromisingly advocated. So we see that the word went ahead. Nothing could stop the work with John Wycliffe had started. Even after his death, the work continued. The word of God spread over the common people. They all could read in their common language. So what we see here is the Bible that we have in our hand and many people had paid a price for it. So we should not take it lightly. You see John Wycliffe underwent so many persecutions. What we have shared in the class is very little. But actually when we read, you would understand the persecution that he endured to get the word, the scripture into the layman hand. It was not very easy, but his hard work is what is being even today. Each of us have a Bible in our hand. But then there was a price that was paid many years back. With that we will move on to John Huss. So we see John Huss is another father. Just give me a minute. So we see there's a saying on John Huss. They says, we'll cook his goose. Believe it or not, this particular phrase was originated as a reference to a man whose last name means goose in his native language, Zech. So John Huss, he was literally cooked or burned at the stake. But in being cooked, he lit a fire of both nationalism and the church reform. John is also known as Jan in Zechelovia language. He was born in 1372 in a humble or a meager family. He was ordained as a priest in 1401 and spent much of his career in teaching at the Charles University in Parag, Bohemia. So he was also the preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel in Parag. So they were about, when he shared the word at this chapel, they were about 3,000 people were packed in the chapel to hear his sermon. He ministered to people. His sermons were very influential to the people. So the reform centered writing of John Wickliffe found their way into Bohemia. So starting in the days before the printing press could come, Huss painstakingly copied Wickliffe books by his own hand like Wickliffe. Huss emphasized personal pity and purity of life. And he stressed the role of the Bible as authority in the church. And consequently he lifted biblical preaching to an important status in the church service. You know, in this period of time, there were no sermons were taught or preached. It was a mass where the sermons were very short in between. The sermons could be just a life story. But then you see the teaching of John Wickliffe and John Huss were not a mass stories that were related to encourage people, but then they put the gospel message. They gave the emphasis of the word during that sermon time. So what we see here, the Bethlehem chapel itself was a tangible illustration of Huss teaching. So on it walls were painting, contrasting the behavior of the popes and Christ. Popes had become a political ruler in the season by now. And they were relating how Christ in the church and how popes are in the church. For example, the Pope rode a horse while Christ walked barefoot. Jesus washed the disciples feet while the Pope had his feet kissed. Many of the clergy felt rightly that their lifestyle was being questioned. But Huss was popular with the masses and with some of the other like aristocracy, including the Queen. We also see later the archbishop of Parag told Huss to stop preaching and ask the university to burn Wickliffe's writing. So John Huss refused to comply and the archbishop condemned him. Meanwhile we see Huss preached against the sale of these indulgence which were being used to finance the Pope expedition against the king of Naples. So the Pope excommunicated John Huss and placed Parag under an interdict, roughly meaning that the entire city was excommunicated and could not receive the sacraments. To relieve this situation, Huss left Parag but he continued to preach in various churches and in the open air. Because not in all the churches they had accepted him. So like Jesus the common people heard the teaching of John Huss gladly and they received it. So why was the hierarchy so opposed to Huss? Not only did he denounce the often immoral and extravagant lifestyle of the clergy or the Pope those days but he also made a bold claim that Christ alone is the head of the church. So in his book on the church he defended the authority of the clergy or the Pope but he claimed that God alone can forgive sins and man or Pope or bishop did not have that authority on forgiving the sins. So he also claimed that no Pope or bishop could establish the doctrine that is contrary to the Bible nor could not any true Christian obey a clergy's order. It was plainly wrong. So Huss could not meet this trouble for such teaching. So in 1415 AD he was summoned to the Council of Constance to defend the teaching. In being conducted there he was a victim of one of the tricks that these leaders played against him. So he was promised safe conduct by the emperor and then he had an assurance given by the Pope that even if he had killed my own brother he must be safe while he is at Constance. But yes, but yet Jonas was arrested soon after he arrived and he was confined in a cell under a Dominican convent. His cell was right next to a sewer system. In effect the council had already made up their mind about his rebellion attitude. So the council condemned the teaching of John Wycliffe and Jonas and was condemned for supporting those teachings. Especially under fire was Jonas' statement that when a Pope or bishop is immoral sin he has ceased to be a Pope or a bishop. So this offended the Pope and the other leaders in those days. So what happened? Huss was sick and physically wasted long time in the prison and he had illness due to lack of sleep or protested. And then he refused to renounce any of his claims that he made during his time. So the council decided that he would not for a chapel. The council decided that because he didn't renounce they told him either you renounce or you will die. So we see that Jonas say that I would not for a chapel full of gold recede from the truth. But I will gladly die formally. He was condemned and he was handed over to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake on July 6th, 1415. So on the way to the place of execution he passed a church yard and saw a bonfire of his books. He laughed and told the bystanders not to believe the lies that circulated about him. So when he arrived at the place of execution he was asked by the empire marshal if he would finally retract his views. But Jonas replied God is my witness that the evidence against me is false. I have never thought or preached except with the one intention of winning men if possible from their sin. And today I will gladly die. The fire was lit. Let me put up that poster to you. This is a poster taken from the Jonas movie. There's a movie also I would recommend y'all to watch the movie so that we can get to know more on him. So what happened? The fire was lit and as the flames engulfed him, Jonas began to sing in Latin a Christian song. What was that song? Very famous it is. I'll just put up on the chat for us. I'll put it here so that everyone can see. Give me a minute. This is the famous song that he sang. Christ, thou son of the living God, have mercy on me. He continuously said that Christ, the son of the living God, have mercy on me. Christ, the son of the living God, have mercy on me. Just imagine somebody being burnt on the stock. Now why did they burn Jonas on the stock in the center of a marketplace for people to know? If anyone following the teaching of Jonas or John Wickley's teaching, this will be the result for that person. So the political parties, those days where they pope or these emperors thought they will bring an end to the spreading of the gospel which was translated in English. The scripture that was translated in English by John Wickley, which was preached by Jonas, will be stopped. They thought if we bring an end to this person and if we burn the books that they have translated and written, it will come to an end. So Hus had been popular with the lay people by now and his heretic death didn't stop the work of Christ but it only increased it. His followers came out in open rebellion both against the Catholic Church and against the German dominated empire with which they wanted no part. Despite repeated efforts of popes and the rulers in those days, it survived an independent church and this church was known as unity of the brethren. This church was known as unity of the brethren which came out of John Hus followers. And they formed this group where they could freely preach the gospel and carry it to the lay people. And this is a very famous quote of Jonas that says, therefore faithful Christians, seek the truth. Listen to the truth. Learn the truth. Love the truth. Tell the truth. Learn the truth. Defend the truth even to death. By Jonas saying this, actually he also showed it as an action in his life. He gave his life to the Word to be spread and he was bold enough even in his death. We see he just imitated Paul and Silas that has how even when they were put in prison, they just sang song. The same way, nothing could stop the disciples or nothing could stop John Hus from sharing the Word. This very attitude of him, it only increased the gospel to the lay people. Due to time we are stopping with that. And from I would recommend you to read on another person, Grigolamo Savonarola, very important person, very important father from the Dominic. And I would request you all to please take time to read about this person. And yeah, John Wycliffe, Jonas we covered. I would request you all to read even on Joanne of Arc where she saw many visions and how she handled a ministry. I would request you all to please read up on her. Then the next person will be Savonarola. And the next will be Gutenberg's Latin Bible Way. Jonas Gutenberg invented the printing press and was the first person in the history to print books that was a movable type. So Gutenberg Bible was published in 1455 and he printed stock of Bibles in Latin, the language of the church. But that we would be ending this session. I would request you all to please read up on these people in detail like Joanne of Arc or Savonarola where his preaching got him burned. We have to see how he was not compromising his word. And whenever he shared the word in sermons, people were filled with tears. You know, it says tears came to the listener's eyes as they heard the standard assurance on God's mercy. So I would request you all to please read on his life, on the life story and how he carried this passion to share the word to the lay people. Now you're onwards you'll see because the church those days became more on the political influence. They stopped from sharing the scripture to the lay people because they wanted, they were practicing on certain things which were not biblical. Now if they keep the scriptures available to the lay people, now the lay people will question them. So they stopped from the lay people having the scripture. So that's why we see John Wickliffe writing and translating the Latin scripture into English. And we see John has shared the word to all the lay people and bring them to the knowledge of God's grace and God's love. And they don't have to be indulged into all these wrong ritual other practices that we're creeping into the church. Yeah, with that we end the session. If there's anyone would like to share anything please feel free to unmute and add. Okay, with that we can end the session with a word of prayer. Dear God, we thank you. We love you. We honor you. We thank you for the life Lord of the leaders who gave themselves who paid a price for the word to be available to us Lord. Father we pray that the same passion that they carried the zeal, the zealousness which they had Lord. We pray that you will give us the same passion and the zeal to carry the word to the ends of the earth of Father. Just like what happened in the book of Acts, Lord Acts chapter 1 verse 8 which says when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with the power which will enable us to be a witness in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth of Father. Lord I pray that the spirit of the Lord even in this dark season, even in this dark age of Father, we see the Lord move among the lay people. We see how the Lord raised people with great passion, great zeal where they were bold and courageous even to their death of Father. Lord we pray that even in our season of Father, despite the area that we are in, Lord we carry the word and that zeal and that passion and that fervent of Father. Lord I pray for courage, the boldness that is needed for each of us Lord where we can carry the word and truth and spirit that could impact people and change their lives of Father. Lord we want to see people transform their life Lord, transform their life and seek you of Father. Lord we pray for the Holy Spirit to move in and through us Lord, we want that passion, we want that zeal of Father. The zeal that was there in each of your disciples, Lord, we ask for more of your spirit Lord which will enable us to do great and mighty things for you, Father. In our time, in our season Lord, thank you Father, thank you Lord as each of us surrender ourselves Lord. I pray that Lord you will equip us, you will make us a greater instrument in your hand Lord where we will be the vessel of honour Lord for the Master's use of Father. Thank you Lord Jesus for enabling us, for giving us a heart to do what pleases you, to do your will of Father. Thank you Lord Jesus Lord even as our students said their time aside to study on each of these reformers of Father. I pray that each of their life story will transform our mind and heart to do great things for you of Father. Thank you Lord Jesus for doing it, so thank you Holy Spirit of God that you are ministering to us at the place where we are Lord. Let this class transform us, let this class change us, let this class set us on fire the places where we are Lord. Set us on fire into the world of Father that we will impact the world for you or Lord. That should be our motto, that should be the vision Lord, that is our vision of Father to set fire for the world, set fire Lord where we can share your word Lord, share your word, transform lives of Father. Thank you Lord for doing it, so in Jesus' name we pray, Amen, Amen, Amen. Amen, Amen thanks. Amen, Amen. Thank you God bless, see you all in the next class. Continue to read more on these reformers which will be a blessing and change our life. Thank you, God bless.