Richard Hollerman

This morning I was thinking and thinking more…. Then writing. One of matters that I was reading was Archbishop Gibbons, who was surely a false teacher and heretic of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Here was a Catholic prelate, ordained by the Roman Catholic “Pope” and surely he also was a false teacher. There must be thousands of others from the Roman Catholic Church, from perhaps 300 A.D. to the modern times.

Then we must think of others since the time of Jesus, some 2,000 years ago. But as I thought of this and think of it now, I realize that there have been many from this and other nations who have followed the way that is not good. Think of the French priests and missionaries, for they were active during the Middle Ages (sometimes known as the Dark Ages) until the modern era.  They were willing to come to the “New World” (of America), and reach into the wilderness, snow, cold, but this was all in vain, for they were promulgating a false religion.

We could say the same for the priests and missionaries from Spain. Yes, they were guilt of atrocities and killed many people, under the banner of Spain, they this was in vain. The “missions” in the western United States and elsewhere were the result of their diligent labors, but again this surely was in vain.

Then we may think of the British Anglicans, another false cult that today numbers into the tens of millions, especially in Africa and elsewhere. But this was and is in vain, we are sure. These infant-baptizers, promoting a false gospel, and establishing a false church, was and is in vain. The same (unfortunately) would be true of the Methodists (who came from the Wesley revival among the Anglicans) and the Episcopalians, of the most liberal churches in America. Then we must think of the Lutherans (of Germany and the Scandinavian countries, and Northern America). How can it be that for these hundreds of years so much falseness and untruth was encouraged?

Even in our own day, we find millions of Mormons (begun in the early 1800s in New York State), the Witnesses (begun in the latter 1800s in Pennsylvania), the Adventists (also begun in the 1800s by Ellen G. White), and others. Then there are the Oneness groups or cult (also known as “Jesus Only”), spread throughout America, Africa, and elsewhere.

In our study, we also take note of those Protestants from Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, North and South and Central America. How can it be that this many millions (actually tens of millions) of people, all believing and practicing falsehood, are wrong and gone astray? Some 1.3 billion Catholics, 300 million Orthodox, hundreds of millions of others, and others also claim to follow Jesus but believe, teach, and practice falsehood. Why? And how?

We are writing about not millions or even billions here but many people scattered across the face of the earth. Today, with the nearly two billion Muslims, the one billion Hindus, the hundreds of millions of Buddhists’, and Shintoists, the Taoists, the Confucianists, and others, we wonder what can be done?

In the beginning, about AD 30 and after, it was not like this. The early church of the first few decades had their own problems and false teachings in many ways. There were the Gnostics, Donatists, Novationists, Encrinites, Sabellians, Patrapassionists, Montanism, and many others. There were Councils and Dioceses, Metropolitans and Patriarchs, Bishops and Ecumenical Councils, other non-Biblical offices, priests, infant baptism, liturgy, holidays, and extra-congregational relations. At the very beginning, we had a division between the elder, the bishop, and the deacons. There was no allowance for a “second repentance,” one could pray for past sins.

Today, about 2,000 years later, we wonder about salvation and how salvation fits into all of this. We wonder: Why can’t we return to the way things were in the book of Acts? Why don’t people return to the way things were centuries ago—before the Catholic and Orthodox churches arose, before Protestantism arose, before the apostasy that happened after the first century, before the apostasy of the following years up until the present time?

We are now living in a period of time that has come after the time of Jesus and we find that massive apostasy has occurred. We are referring to the cultic explosion of the last couple of centuries, the denominational explosion of the last five centuries, the apostasy of the past couple of millennium, and more than this. Why?

Why isn’t it possible to discover what the early believers believed and how they lived? Why isn’t it possible to discover the message and the truth that the early believers had? If we could find out how they believed and how they lived and what they taught for a couple hundred years, why could we not duplicate this, with power and authority? And with a “Thus says the Lord” for all we do and say? Why? We know that this has been the desire of many people who wanted to begin again and find a more intense way, a more Biblical way, and a more non-denominational way. But sadly these movements all failed. But the nine billion people continue to exist and heaven and hell are still being populated. What can we do? That is the question for all of us to answer!