A TIMELINE OF CHURCH HISTORY:

1. Jesus Christ:
• Jesus selected disciples. He equipped them and taught them kingdom principles.
• He sent them out to bring the gospel of the kingdom into Israel.
• He gave them power to proclaim the gospel and authority over sickness and demons.
• After His resurrection and before He went back to the Father, He commissioned the disciples to go into all the world with the gospel of the Kingdom. He told them that they were to make disciples baptizing them and teaching them what He had taught them while He was with them—kingdom principles.
• But He told them to wait for the promise of the Father, the power of the Holy Spirit.
2. The Holy Spirit:
• The disciples remained in prayer and in one accord waiting in the upper room.
• On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon them with tongues of fire.
• They were filled with the Holy Spirit and with power.
• They were baptized into the body of Christ and THE CHURCH WAS BIRTHED.
3. The New Testament Church:
• The disciples began to preach Christ in Jerusalem and many were added to them.
• Persecution caused many to get out of Jerusalem and they went to Judea, Samaria, and other places and, as they went, they shared the gospel.
• Paul was also converted and he took the gospel of the kingdom into many parts of the Roman Empire while planting many churches— He did it in God’s order and pattern!
4. The End of the First Century:
• Great persecution came against the church and all the disciples plus Paul were martyred, except John.
• The leadership of the church in the major cities of the empire regrouped, and in order to survive, many changes were made to the order and pattern the Almighty God had given to the church.
• Great persecution came against the church and the disciples from the Roman Empire, which lasted for more than two hundred years.
5. Changes made by Emperor Constantine:
• He declared the empire was going to be Christian because he believed that he was helped by God to become the emperor of the Roman Empire.
• He stopped the persecution of the Christians
• The Christian church received help and many favors from the emperor.
6. The Birth of the Institution of the Church:
• Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea and most of the bishops of the empire came.
• Constantine became a prominent figure in the council and took the leadership of the church—the bishops accepted it.
• Constantine changed the way Christianity had been developing up to that time and made major changes—All out of the order and pattern the Almighty God had given!
• House churches were no longer going to be needed, as he started a great building project to build monumental cathedrals throughout the major cities of the empire.
• Constantine fashioned the church buildings, the leadership of the church, and the organization of the church to follow the order of other institutions of the empire.
• Therefore, the church became another institution of the Roman Empire—out of the order and pattern of the Almighty God!
7. The Imperial Church –a thousand year reign:
• The Roman church became very powerful during the Middle Ages.
• The Roman church came to control all aspects of life especially in the area of Europe.
• The Roman church had at its disposal a very large army provided by the kings who were under its control.
• All signs of rebellion against the church were stopped by the church’s powerful army and any person who dared to dissent was quickly burnt at the stake for heresy.
8. Martin Luther and the Reformation:
• Martin Luther and the list of complaints that he nailed to the door of his church came to be the catalyst that opened the floodgates of resentment against the Roman church in Europe.
• Europe plunged into a hundred years of chaos, wars, death, and destruction, as countries separated and became independent from the control of the Roman church.
• Much fighting between catholics and protestants brought death and blood, as the two groups battled each other for the control of nations.
9. Five hundred years after the Reformation, what is happening to Christianity?
• The two feuding groups of catholics and protestants were able to remain at peace with each other and two trends in Christianity developed: Catholics and Protestants.
• After the Council of Trend, the Catholic Church made some major changes as to the way the church was going to be organized and to operate. Nevertheless in their doctrinal stand, they are still out of the order and pattern the Almighty God gave the church.
• The Protestant Church made changes in the organization, leadership, and doctrinal beliefs the Roman church had followed up to the time of the Reformation.
• Nevertheless, not all catholic beliefs and rituals were completely taken away since both Luther and Calvin opposed the return to the New Testament Church and the order and pattern the Almighty had given to the church at the beginning.
10. A Major Division in the Present State of Christianity: The Body of Christ & the Apostasy:
• In His letters to the 7 churches in Revelation, Jesus declared the division even at that time.
• He identified the overcomers and those who wanted to follow sinful doctrines in the church.
• The enemy has tried in many different ways to stop the assignment given to the Body of Christ to bring the gospel of the Kingdom into the world.
• But through all the attacks, the Lord Jesus has kept a remnant, the overcomers, who have throughout the ages continued the assignment given by the Lord.
• Now at the end of the ages, the division between the overcomers in the Body of Christ and those who are following the apostasy is becoming clearer than ever.
• The Lord Jesus is returning to rapture those in the Body who have remained faithful to Him and to the commission He gave the church. Those who follow the apostasy and the enemy will be destroyed at His return.