But They All Died

 

By Emmanuel Tatenda Charuka

  Reading some book, on some of the excruciating pains that early Christians known as the Protestants went through I was impressed with a statement that read, “All this was endured by men and women and even weak girls, that people in future ages might be free…All this was endured that men might be free, and that all future ages might know it to be the inalienable right of every soul to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” But what is it exactly that the quoted statement refers to, what did they really endure for our freedom.

The Bible says, “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

For now we are going to focus on the highlighted texts only, wearing out the saints of the most High and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. For curiosities sake I will tell you the ‘he’ that is being mentioned here is the papal Rome, but will explain about him soon. But for the sake of our study we will first know that the ‘time and times and dividing of times’ refers to 3 and a half years, or 42 months, if we are to consider the text from Daniel 4.23 we would find that Nebuchadnezzar was given 7 times and these referred to 7 years. So a time refers to a year so we are going to use the time equals a year principle, hence time = 1year, times (2) = 2years and dividing of times = ½ a year or six months taking us to 3 and a half years or 42months. This has only started to get interesting now in prophecy a year is not literal. We have to now go to the book of Numbers 14.34 and Ezekiel 4.6 to establish that the principle here applied is that of a day to a year. 42 months = 1260 days therefore the period that the saints were in his hands is equal to 1,260 years.

Historians have seen that in the year A.D 533 an edict was passed by emperor Justinian, which made the bishop of Rome the head of all churches. Btu the edict did not come into effect until A.D 538 for in those 5 years the three nations were still in protest of the papal sovereign rule. These three named the Heruli, the Vandals and the Ostrogoths were in opposition to this rule. In A.D 493 the Heruli were plucked out, the Vandals in 534 and Ostrogoths in 553. But the edict came in effect in 538 when the last of the (Ostrogoths) were driven out of Rome by Belisarius in that same year. The 1,260 years commenced then in A.D 538 up to 1798 when Berthier, with a French army entered Rome declaring a republic and in the process taking the pope a prisoner. Since then the papal Rome has never again the privileges it had in both the religious and political arena. This period is the darkest period that Christianity has ever gone under, a period so dark history has named it the dark ages. Estimates