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The Story of Redemption
for My name’s sake.”
Luke 21:16, 17
. Persecution opened upon the
faithful with greater fury than ever before, and the world became a
vast battlefield. For hundreds of years the church of Christ found
refuge in seclusion and obscurity. Thus says the prophet: “The
woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of
God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and
threescore days.”
Revelation 12:6
.
The Dark Ages
The accession of the Roman Church to power marked the be-
ginning of the Dark Ages. As her power increased, the darkness
deepened. Faith was transferred from Christ, the true foundation, to
the pope of Rome. Instead of trusting in the Son of God for forgive-
ness of sins and for eternal salvation, the people looked to the pope
and to the priests and prelates to whom he delegated authority. They
were taught that the pope was their mediator, and that none could
approach God except through him, and, further, that he stood in the
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place of God to them, and was therefore to be implicitly obeyed. A
deviation from his requirements was sufficient cause for the severest
punishment to be visited upon the bodies and souls of the offenders.
Thus the minds of the people were turned away from God to
fallible, erring, and cruel men—nay, more, to the prince of darkness
himself, who exercised his power through them. Sin was disguised
in a garb of sanctity. When the Scriptures are suppressed, and man
comes to regard himself as supreme, we need look only for fraud,
deception, and debasing iniquity. With the elevation of human laws
and traditions was manifest the corruption that ever results from
setting aside the law of God.
Days of Peril
Those were days of peril for the church of Christ. The faithful
standard-bearers were few indeed. Though the truth was not left
without witnesses, yet at times it seemed that error and superstition
would wholly prevail, and true religion would be banished from the
earth. The gospel was lost sight of, but the forms of religion were
multiplied, and the people were burdened with rigorous exactions.