When Jesus left the earth, the Holy Spirit came down in full power and the Devil was stunned. For three and a half years he had battled the Son of God until the Jewish leadership under his direction forced the Romans to crucify Jesus. Lucifer thought that he had won the conflict.

The day of Pentecost proved otherwise! The Holy Spirit transformed the men and women in the upper room into little Jesuses in the morning. By the end of the day, 3,000 more added to the fledgling church.

It was impossible for the Devil to compete with that kind of success. As a result, he returned to the tried-and-true method of killing the opposition to silence the believers in Christ. However, the more Christians he killed, the more they multiplied.

Satan realized that the written word was the driving factor for promoting the Holy Spirit. It took 300 years, but he was able to convince a majority of bishops to join Emperor Constantine and form a state church. From that point, it was not difficult to convince the leadership of Romanism that Bibles should not be read by the members of the church.

The Christian was already fractured between those who accepted the state church and the dissenters who wanted nothing to do with the changes beings carried out. The split of the Roman Empire into West and East further complicated matters. The church had spread east as a result of the apostles. Peter is recorded in the Bible as being in Babylon and Thomas reportedly traveled to India.

The churches departed from the traditional Gospel preaching and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and focused instead on elaborate church services. Liturgy rose in prominence and priests in fancy robes replaced pastors. Burning incense from swinging containers was a poor replacement for the Holy Spirit.

Some 1,400 years after the day of Pentecost, church members were no longer taught about the new birth, water baptism, or the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of Satan had effectively neutered the church, which had become an auxiliary of Satan’s kingdom.

When the Holy Spirit got a hold of John Wycliffe and John Hus, Lucifer responded by using Roman Catholicism stop them. Hus was burned at the stake as a heretic and Wycliffe’s bones were exhumed and burnt for heresy as well. Nevertheless, this was the beginning of the Reformation and God’s restoration of the Holy Spirit to the true churches.

Print out the sermon outline and let's examine the Scriptures together Sunday morning at 9:00 AM PST.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor John S. Torell