6.1 THE PARABLE
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found covered up, then in his joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field”
Mt. 13:44

6.2  THE TREASURE

Treasure in the Bible is used in many different senses.  There are good treasures and bad treasures.  In Matthew 12:35 Jesus says: “The good man out of his good treasure brings forth food and the evil man out of his evil treasures brings forth evil.”  See also Luke 6:45.  Prophet Micah speaks about treasures of wickedness.  Evidently in our case it brought joy and therefore must have been a good treasure.
The Bible speaks of treasures in our earthly vessel, hid within his church on earth in the hearts of  his elect which shows, “that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.”  (2 Cor. 4:7)  The treasure mentioned here is the power of God - the Holy Spirit - which cannot be defeated by man and his elaborate endeavors.

The treasure is again identified in the Old Testament Proverbs 2:4 and 8:21 as “the fear of the Lord” or the “Knowledge of God.”  “If you seek it like silver and search for it as for a hidden treasure, then you will understand the FEAR OF THE LORD, and find the KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.  For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.” (Pro. 2:4-6)  In the New Testament terms it is the knowledge of God’s mystery - i.e. Christ and the Word of God.  “To have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, of Christ in whom are hid all treasures and wisdom and knowledge. “  (Col. 2:3)

Thus the hidden treasure is nothing but the knowledge of the mystery of God in Christ.  This treasure was hidden by earth - covered by base things of this world.  But it was also hidden in the hearts of men that the world might know that the transcendent power belongs to God.

In this story the man first hid it for fear  that it will be taken away from him.  But in his joy he went and sold everything he had and bought it.  We shall see how this has come about in this period in history.

6.3  GOD SHOWS HIS TRANSCENDENCE

We have seen how during the period of the State Church, the clergy became more and more powerful until the Church became the State under Papal Empire of Rome.  Though it was more prominent in Rome, the same type of growth took place in other parts of world to a lesser extent.  The legalism and rituals and external coverings hid the true Gospel.  In the accelerated development of the priestcraft, the word of God was finally taken away from the people.  God now stepped in.  He brought out by the might of his spirit people who had access to the written word of God - some of the clergy, professors in clerical seminaries and the monks - to open up their eyes and see the hidden treasure.  They were able to see the real Gospel of Salvation through Christ by Grace.  The interesting thing is that this discovery was not confined to one place.  It cropped up in all parts of the world almost simultaneously.

In England John Wycliff having been saved through the word, began to prepare a group of teachers for ministering the word to the common people.  He was protected by his friends by hiding him when the official church tries to kill him.  His followers made hundred of copies of the bible by copying them by hand and distributed them all throughout the country.  Even though the priests tried to destroy them, people guarded them even with their lives.

In Bohemia, John Hus (1373-1415) began to teach the bible to the common man.  This angered the Pope who invited him to discuss the matter over.  He was promised good conduct and immunity while in Rome, if he appeared before Pope.  However when he did, he was arrested and burned on a stake.  The church, they said, does not have to honor the promises made to heretics.  But this did not stop the growth of  the church in Bohemia, and in the neighboring Moravia.  There followed 200 years of  persecution for Hussites until a rich Lord named Ninderdorf joined them.  He gathered the scattered churches into a fellowship on New Testament lines called “Philadelphia” in 1722.

The there was Martin Luther (1517), a monk teaching in a German Seminary who discovered the treasures of “justification by faith alone” and “salvation by grace, free by the sovereign mercy of God.”  At first he did not wanted to be separated from the church.  According to the normal practice of the time, he laid open his 95 theses on the door of the Cathedral.  But the general mass and the German Princes (who were not happy with the Papal ruling anyway) soon took up the issue.  He translated the bible into German and wrote many hymns.

John The Swiss Cantons were already on the side of reformation under Huldrich Zwingli (1484-1531).  Calvin of Geneva (born in France in 1509) gave Protestantism its precise form  and clear definition.  The Swiss Cantons were already on the side of reformation under Huldrich Zwingli..  Swig quarreled with Luther on several points where he compromised with the Roomanism.  In Geneva Calvin became the head of the State and set up a theocracy.  While the Lutherans maintained the Episcopal system, the Calvinists preferred the elder system.

There were others like Gabriel Zwilling (1487-1558) a fiery monk who denounced idol worship, sacrificial mass and clerical vows  vehemently.  Gulaumme Farel (1489 - 1565) the pioneer of Protestantism in Switzerland; John Knox of Scotland; Casper Schwenkfled (1490-1561) a revolutionary mystic Anabaptist; William Tyndale (1492 -1536); Menno Simons (1496 - 1561)  who originated the Mennonite Movement and many others.

It is important to note that these revivals were always associated with the publication of the Bible in the language of the people.  It is the word of God,  Jesus who creates and recreates.  Not by might, nor by power, says the Lord but by my word.  Revival recreation and rebirth follows wherever the word of God is preached.

Romanism dazed by the enthusiastic reception of the biblical truths lashed out in vengeance by mid 16th century  in an inquisition on the model of 1480 Spanish Inquisition.  It published an index  of books forbidden to the Roman Catholics which included the Bible.  A council was finally called in Trent which lasted from 1545 to 1563 and Roman Catholic Bishops reiterated the supremacy of the priestcraft.  Under this new bondage, the faithful who refused to leave the Roman Church returned to mysticism as a refuge.

Church of  England was a compromised between Romanism and Protestantism.  Puritans insisted on a more radical elimination of all symbols of Romaine origin.  In Europe the Anabaptists even opposed the ownership of private property.  They were fiercely persecuted  and were scattered all over Europe.  From this was born the Baptist Church.  The Quakers and Methodists began as a small house groups.  Methodism grew up into a large international church under John Wesley (1703 - 1791) and his brother Charles Wesley (1707 - 1788 the author of over 5000 hymns) and under the great orator George Whitefield (1714 -1770)

6.4  THE ESCAPING CHURCH

The church now freed from the domination of Romanism was a joyful church.  But the sheer force of being wrenched out of the institutional church led it to become a personal religion.  The church as a whole maintained the structure of priesthood and administration of Romanism, but faith became a personal affair.  Secularism of faith was its first implication.  The state and the church were defined as active in two separate spheres of human existence - one in physical realm and the other in spiritual realm.  There arose a complete seclusion of political, economic and social life from the faith of the person.  In this failure to express faith in socio-political realms, developed an inward looking pietism.

On the other hand, the failure of the Church in expressing its holiness through society and state, brought forth the real weapons for Satan.  From this evolved the concept of Super Man God of this age.  “God is dead. We killed him”, declared Nietzche the son of a German Lutheran Pastor (1844 -1900).  “God is dead.  He spoke to us and now he is silent.  It is time to transvalue all values of life and Philosophy.”

In the fields of science, philosophy and thought, new and revolutionary steps were made.  It will be difficult to make even a passing reference to all mean and ideas in all these fields here to indicate their influence on the liberated church.  The pendulum was moving in the opposite side to higher levels.

In the fields of science a mechanistic model of the universe evolved.  Even man was reduced to a machine leading eventually to naive materialism.  These came about through the emphasis and growth of mechanics of rigid bodies and Astronomy under Galilee and Newton (1642 - 1727) .  To many materialists of that time Newton’s laws of gravity replaced God.  Newtonians presented mankind with a universe of mathematically perfect machine.  In Helvetius (1715 - 1771) it culminated in a man, who is purely a physical being in all actions by the principles of  pain and pleasure which Henry L’Holberch (1723 - 89) was interpreted to mean “greatest happiness to greatest number” as the root of all ethics.  This period is generally known as the Age of   Reason.

Then came Darwin’s Theory of Evolution which questioned the truthfulness of the Biblical Creation story.  Vast amount of evidences collected together apparently indicated an order of evolution - obviously with lot a gaps - though scientists and sociologist differed about the laws that governed such evolutionary process.  The principle of evolution - though clearly opposed the second law of thermodynamics - was soon applied to the creation of the universe and to the development of human society.  If man could evolve out of chaos  by mere chance of one in a million trillion or more, won’t he now evolve into a superman?  Won’t he be able to produce a super-society?  Karl Marx was the son of Jewish Christian with shattered dreams of eschatological realization.  He produce the concept of Heaven on Earth by the natural and deterministic evolution of society which paralleled the Christian eschatology.  His messiah was historical evolution and his apostles, the  class struggle.  Marxism was the greatest Christian heresy of the period.

The final vicious attack came from within the church scholarship.  The Higher criticism threw serious doubts about the word of God itself.  The scientific tendencies of the period began to scorn the ideas of Satan, heaven and Hell.  Miracles were explained off on natural terms.  There was this serious search for “Jesus of History” as they began to dismember and throw out  parts of the Gospel.

In the face of such formidable attacks an ill prepared church withdrew into its shells.  Everything that was considered sacred by the Christians were now questioned.  In it the only substance that was left behind was a few precepts.  “You shall love  your neighbor as thyself:.  From it arose the social message of salvation to the utter denial of the existence of soul of man, the reality of the spirits or even beings that are non-material.  Christ simply became a social revolutionary and nothing more.  He lost his battle on the cross leaving an example for others to follow.  He started a fight which must be carried on for the sake of man’s existence.  Blood, the center of Christian message became the result of poor planning and intolerant public relation of an illiterate- but good and sincere- carpenter’s son

All the time Satan was laughing his head off.

6.5  JESUS WRITES TO THE CHURCH IN SARDIS
Sardis means escaping.  The story of the City of Sardis in Asia Minor is the story of repeated defeats of a very strongly fortified city on a mountain top by  its sheer unpreparedness.  You can read more about this in my article on the Seven Churches in Asia Minor
 Revelation 3:1  "To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
2  Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.
3  Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.
4  Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
5  He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.
6  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

 

 

John Wycliffe (A.D. 1328-1384)

John Huss (A.D. 1369-1415)

Thomas A Kempis (A. D. 1380-1471)

Girolamo Savonarola (A.D. 1452-1498)

Desiderius Erasmus (A.D. 1466-1536)

William Tyndale (A.D. 1494-1536)

Martin Luther (A.D. 1483-1546)

Philip Melanchthon (A.D. 1497-1560)

John Calvin (A.D. 1509-1564)

Ulrich Zwingli (A.D. 1484-1531)

John Knox (A.D. 1513-1572)

Conrad Grebel (A.D. 1498-1526)

Menno Simons (A.D. 1496-1561)

Thomas Cranmer (A.D. 1489-1556)

Hugh Latimer (A.D. 1485-1555)

Miles Coverdale (A.D. 1488-1568)

Jacobus Arminius (A.D. 1560-1609)

Thomas Cartwright (A.D. 1535-1603)

Robert Browne (A.D. 1550-1633)

Oliver Cromwell (A.D. 1599-1658)

John Owen (A.D. 1616-1683)

John Bunyan (A. D. 1628-1688)

Ignatius Loyola (A.D. 1491-1556)

Jean Daille (A.D. 1594-1670)

Francis Xavier (A.D. 1506-1552)

Jon Amos Comenius (A.D. 1592-1670)

Johann Arndt (A.D. 1555-1621)

Madame Guyon (A.D. 1648-1717)

Philip Jacob Spener (A.D. 1635-1703)

August Hermann Francke (A.D. 1663-1727)

Johannes Albrecht Bengel (A.D. 1687-1752)

Count von Zinzendorf (A.D. 1700-1760)

William Law (A.D. 1686-1761)

John Wesley (A. D. 1703-1791)

George Whitefield (A. D. 1714-1770)

George Fox (A.D. 1642-1691)

Roger Williams (A.D. 1603-1683)

Jonathan Edwards (A.D. 1703-1758)

Francis Asbury (A.D. 1745-1816)

David Brainerd (A.D. 1718-1747)

John Nelson Darby (A.D. 1800-1882)

George Muller (A.D. 1805-1898)

Andrew Murray (A.D. 1828-1917)

Charles Finney (A.D. 1792-1875)

Charles Spurgeon (A.D. 1834-1892)

Dwight L. Moody (A.D. 1837-1899)

John Henry Newman (A.D. 1801-1890)

William Carey (A.D. 1761-1834)

David Livingstone (A.D. 1813-1873)

Hudson Taylor (A.D. 1832-1905)

Karl Barth (A.D. 1886-1968)

Watchman Nee (A.D. 1903-1972)

Billy Graham (A.D. 1918 - )