Sid:My guest Robert Heidler, Senior Pastor of Glory of Zion Outreach Center in Denton, Texas. On yesterday’s broadcast Robert you shared how one of the members your church that many of us are familiar with his name is Chuck Pierce, who’s a recognized prophet, gave you aword about celebration the festivals. You had graduated theology school, you have a PhD you didn’t know diddly about then but the Holy Spirit from that prophetic word led you step by step and you put it together so wonderfully in your new book, the Messianic Church Arising. Step by step of what the first church was like and what was stolen from us; can you give me your understanding as to what we had, when we lost it and why we lost it.
Robert:Well Sid I think there’s so much we could say about the early church but I think the key is this, it was in reality the tabernacle where the glory of God dwelt on the earth. As the church would come together they would come in joy, they would come in freedom; they usually met in homes it was a very joyful celebration.The presence of God came down and met with them, there were signs, there were wonders there were miracles. Most of the evangelism in the early church took place through miracles of healing. The pagans might persecute the Christians but the pagans new when someone in their family was sick there was power in the church for healing.
Sid:Now you know what I find interesting in the Talmud it says if you are sick don’t go to a Christian because you’re liable to be healed and then become a Christian.Even the Talmud recognized that there were miracles in the name of Jesus.
Robert:Exactly, and the church knew how to relate to the presence of God because God had showed the Jews through Old Testament history what it took to have the shekinah glory dwell in their presence. And so the church followed those instructions and they knew the power and the presence of God.
Sid:Let me quote a little from your book right here.
Robert:Okay.
Sid:In the decline and fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon. Gibbon described the life of the early church this way, “The primate Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, the felt that on every side they were incessantly assaulted by demons comforted by visions, instructed by prophecy; and surprisingly delivered from dangers, sickness and from death itself by the supplications of the church.” That was normal!
Robert:That was normal Christianity Sid.You know some people think miracles ended when the apostles died with it at the end of the first century. But Irenaeuswriting at 195, a 100 yearslater, said “That in his day prophetic words, tongues and miracles of healing were common in the church.” And he actually added that the church frequently saw people raised from the dead through the prayers of the saints. That was just church life…
Sid:How would you like that in your church for a membership drive, “I just raised a couple of people from the dead and spread the word.”
Robert:Come and see the dead raised today.
Sid:Okay, so listen it was vibrant, it spread throughout the world, the norm was the supernatural, the abnormal was just religion. How did it change?
Robert:Well, it changed primarily through the influence of one man I believe and that was the Roman Emperor Constantine. And in the book I tell many more details, but in AD 325 he called a counsel of all of the church and aid, “We’re going to make some changes.” And one of the primary concerns of Constantine was he saw that the church was very similar to Judaism; he saw many Jewish influences in the church and as a Roman he hated the Jews. And so one of his primary goals was to remove anything Jewish from the church, and one of the particular things was Passover. And since this is Passover week it bothered him that Christians celebrated the death and the resurrection of Jesus in the context of Passover.So at that the counsel of Nicaea he said, “Let ushave nothing in common with the Jews and the irregularity of celebrating Passover must be corrected so that we will no more have anything in common with the Jews.” So he came in and said anything Jewish at the celebration of Shabbat was outlawed to celebration of the feasts were outlawed and he completely removed the church from the Biblical foundation.
Sid:But if you remove the culture of the church the Biblical culture, I might add of the church, everyone needs culture what filled that void?
Robert:Well, Constantine filled that void for us because he, I like to put it this way “Constantine divorced the church from Judaism and he married the church to paganism and so in place of biblical holidays he brought in pagan holidays. For example he moved the date for the celebration of the resurrection from Passover to the celebration of the Greek Romans spring fertility festival which was basically a pagan feasts for their sex goddess.
Sid:Listen the influence of Constantine was so strong that the translators of the King James
Bible looked at the Greek word that meant Passover in the New Testament and they purposely translated the word that meant Passover to Easter.
Robert:And you know what the word Easter means?
Sid:What?
Robert:Well, if you look in any English dictionary the word Easter is the name of the pagan fertility goddess. We did not even change the name of the festival and Christians all over the world in the English speaking world will say, we are going to get together and celebrate Easter.They’re using the name of a pagan fertility goddess to describe the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.
Sid:And by the way, I think it’s wonderful to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus but call it Resurrection Day don’t call it Easter, does that make sense to you Robert?
Robert:We can celebrate the resurrection all through the year and when the rest of the church is having Easter Sunday we have Resurrection Sunday because it’s wonderful to celebrate the resurrection.
Sid:But when the roots were stolen, and literally they were I mean it was masterful.You pull the roots of the church out, you substitute paganism for the roots of the church and what happened with that vibrant power of the first church we read about in the book of Acts?
Robert:Well, if you took a beautiful living tree and cut it off from its root and grafted it into a dead root what would happen is the tree would die. And that is what happened with the church the life of the church left, the Spirit of the glory of God left the temple when paganism came in and the result is you had a thousand years of dark ages where the church became a political power but it lost the supernatural power of God.
Sid:I notice a trend going on right now and I’m wondering what you feel is the reason for the trend.The trend is Christians all over the world are suddenly rediscovering their biblical Jewish roots and incorporating them into the service. Some of them are messing up a lot by making it a legalistic thing rather than a spirit thing, but it seems to be going on all over the world right now.
My question for you is why?
Robert: Well, I believe we live in a day of restoration Sid, I believe God is restoring to the church the things that we’ve lost and part of that means the bringing together the one new man. It’s interesting in Ephesians 2 where he talks about the one new man; Paul says that “The Jew and the Gentile come together as one new man, their fitted together in a holy temple becoming a dwelling place of God. So when the one new man is formed the glory of God the power of God is able to inhabit His church in a way that He never could if it’s just the Jews or the Gentiles. But it was God’s purpose to bring the two together as one new man and then for His glory to come down in the midst of that. And I believe Sid that we’re living in the day when that is one of the highest purposes of God in the earth and I believe that we are moving into some of the most exciting times in all of history.
Sid:Well, it’s so fascinating understanding what you reveal literally reveal in your book “The Messianic Church Arising.” And then seeing how God is doing this all over the world, we have, I’ve lost track the number of congregations that have started in Africa, where they have no Jewish people at all and they started writing me and going to our web site and starting what they’re calling “One New Man Congregations.” And guess what the bless…even thought they don’t have Jewish people in their congregation because their heart is turned towards Israel God is blessing these congregations. It’s like they tap into that anointing whether they’re a Jew and Gentile in the congregation or not.
Robert: Exactly, you know they’re translating “Messianic Church Arising” into Korean, we don’t think of Korea as a very Jewish nation but the church there sees that they need to be connected to the life giving roots.
Sid:I think it has to do with the fact that we are as the Orthodox Rabbis’ say in the footsteps of Messiah. We say, in the footsteps of the return of the Messiah that’s why all this is going on.
Robert: Well, you know it’s interesting in Acts Peter talks about that there will be a time of the restoration of all things and I believe that’s the time we’re entering into God is restoring Jews to their Messiah, He’s restoring the Church to its roots. We’re in a time of great restoration.
Sid:Well listen your book will be a foundational book for every Christian in the world. It’s called “The Messianic Church Arising.”
