If you forget the Lord your God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. (Deuteronomy 8:19)
Even the migratory birds are punctual to their seasons. Yes, the stork excelling in the great height of her flight in the heavens knows her appointed times of migration, and the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their return. But My people do not know the law of the Lord which the lower animals instinctively recognize in so far as it applies to them. (Jeremiah 8:7 AMP)
When a People lose their history, they lose a part of who they are. America and England reclaim your Christian Heritage —Unknown
If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.-Daniel Webster
History keeps repeating itself, but few heed its warnings. Western Civilization no longer upholds the values it proclaims, so what is the basis for its claim to virtue? Asks one writer. The Western world today has rejected God and embraced scientific knowledge, technology, and new age philosophies.
They have rejected their Christian heritage, which is the stabilizing force in the world. Man has elevated himself to the position of a god, thinking in his little mind that he can better run this world and the forces of nature than the God who created and established it. In one of his major works, Ethics Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
What the West is doing is to refuse to accept its historical inheritance for what it is. The West is becoming hostile towards Christ. This is the peculiar situation of our time, and it is genuine decay. It is only in the Christian west that it is possible to speak of a historical heritage. The historical Jesus Christ is the continuity of our history.
The amazing story historians and researchers have tried to verify is why Jesus fixed the number of the apostles to twelve, and that of the disciples to seventy. The Bible reveals that to spread the Gospel, Jesus called and trained twelve disciples:
Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles: Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called the Zealot; Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot who also became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16)
After Jesus had suffered, died, and on the third day rose from the dead. Luke records that He told them that:
And that repentance with a view to and as the condition of forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I will send forth upon you what My Father has promised; but remain in the city Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high. (Luke 24:47-49 AMP)
The book of Acts provides the basic history of the spread of Christianity during the three decades immediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Gospels tell us the life of our Savior Jesus Christ, covering His life, death and resurrection, but there is only one book in the New Testament that traces the expansion of the early church. Luke informs us in his first book about the life, teachings, and work of Christ.
He then made a continuous report dealing with the Acts of the Apostles. The purpose of Luke was to offer a coordinated account of Christian origins indicating how God revealed Himself in the work and person of Jesus Christ and through the church. Luke reflects a keen consciousness of the Roman Empire into which early Christianity spread. How do we know that Luke was accurate in his scholarship? To answer this question, let’s look at one of the Scriptures in Acts where Luke uses the word “we”
Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us. Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. (Acts 16:11-17 NKJV)
Furthermore, Luke uses accurate historical proper names for all the various Roman officials and this has been recognized by researchers as a mark of firsthand knowledge. Therefore Luke conforms exactly to the truth of Scripture.
A great part of the world had subject to the Roman Empire, when Jesus Christ came to the earth. The Romans lost every shadow of liberty and were reduced to state of submission to Augustus Caesar. So the disciples themselves must have wanted Israel to be freed from the tyranny of Rome. So during the forty days after His crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles by a series of many convincing demonstrations that He was actually alive and He talked about the things of the Kingdom of God.
And while being in their company and eating with them, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised, of which [He said] you have heard Me speak. (John 14:16, 26; 15:26) For John baptized with water, but not many days from now you shall be baptized with (placed in, introduced into) the Holy Spirit.
So when they were assembled, they asked Him, Lord, is this the time when You will reestablish the kingdom and restore it to Israel? (Acts 1:3-6) But like all other people, the apostles had got fed up of the Roman rulers. They wanted Jesus to free them Israel from Roman power and probably become their King. Jesus replied them that:
And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:7-8 NKJV)
The spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome through the Apostle Paul happened because God wanted the gospel to be brought into Europe first. After nineteen centuries of church history, we realize the big part played by the church in Europe.
First they preserved the truth of the gospel and then they actively spread the gospel throughout the whole world. It was the plan and purpose of God that the gospel should be preached in Europe first through the supernatural revelation and direction of the Holy Spirit. But today the West is becoming hostile to Christ, especially in Europe.
