As we looked at the start of the Reformation last week, this week we will look back on what led to the Reformation: the loss of the churches power, and purity as the bride of Christ. Which possibly started before the gathering in Mediolanum of the two co-ruling Roman Emporers, but certainly progressed with the Edict of Milan. Emporer Licinius of the Eastern Provinces, along with Emporer Constantine I (they co-ruled the wester Roman Empire together). This gathering built upon an earlier decree by Emporer Galerius a few years before and now made Christianity a legal status and returned church buildings, valuables and land back to Christians that had lost it. What this enabled was a period of affluence and wealth in the Christian church that it had not really experienced before, which brings into focus the words of Christ regarding riches in Matthew 6:19-21 (Something our generation of Christians can soberly take heed to as a lesson). The Edict afforded Christians a relative time of decreased persecution and provided them elevated status alongside the likes of Stoic philosophy and pagan cults.  

  Now to be clear, we cannot sit in some judgement seat and outright say whether someone is worthy of Heaven or Hell, that is for Jesus Christ only, BUT we can look at the fruit that life is producing and can gauge where that person is at. And that is where the Emporer Constantine becomes muddied. While claiming a conversion experience in 312 AD, at best the story of Constantine is exactly why the Holy Spirit led the Apostle Paul to write of potential church leaders in 1 Timothy 3:6. At worst, he is a prime example of the devil coming as an angel of light to lead men astray (read the first 14 verse of 2 Corinthians 11). He may have started out right but history has shown he used his new faith in  Christianity to bludgeon and control the masses of the Empire to maintain peace and order. The Edict of Milan may have been intended as a good will gesture to hurting Christians that had just come through the persecutions of Diocletian in the last few years of the 2nd Century, but it cannot be denied it caused the Christians to put down roots and grow possessions that they had not had before. What could be found now is a pattern often repeated in the history of humanity: when there is not outside pressure, inward problems develop. Because now the focus was shifting from preservation of the Gospel, to preservation of the Christian, we can see where lukewarmness and apostasy started to creep in and replace the faith of the Apostles.  

  Now to be clear, God has preserved down through time His faithful remnant, and I hope to look into some of those soon. What I am referring to is when The church wholesale became complacent and comfortable in accepting a government agreement. Jesus warned of ravening wolves that would come,  and whether by design or careless drift the Edict of Milan led to exactly that. The church was no longer focused on who they were before God but who they were before men, and by the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 AD the Church became a policing arm of the government to weed out anyone who didn't believe the accepted theology of the government. 

    So was Constantine a Christian? God will be the judge, I'd encourage you to read and study on his life. For me personally, I think he started out right, but like Judas, Demas, Hymenaeus and Alexander they were made shipwreck and turned their back on the Lord for this world. However for Constantine history does record he made another profession of faith on his deathbed and was finally baptized on that confession.    

   I have looked at this particular edict and time for one reason and it's this: The church through fatigue or ignorance went along with the idea of a government agreement to let them live in peace. Was it nice? Yes. Was it smart? No probably not. We know as Christians and followers of Jesus Christ we will be ridiculed and reviled by the world (Jesus's words in John 15:19-20).  The truth of Scripture is at complete odds with the god of this world Satan. We know he is a raging lion, ravening wolf, accuser of the brethren, so why would we accept something from a world system that he has been allowed power over (It's implied God has given some limited wandering power in Job, as well as in Luke 4:6, he is not an ultimate power, or Jehovah God's equal in any way!)? The truth of this can be an example to us today. We can respect, pray for, honor the governments that God has instituted but never unwisely walk hand-in-hand down the wide road. What followed the Edict of Milan was 1,200 years of  continuouspy growing darkness on the church and the need for a revival finally found in the form of the Reformation.  While various groups were scattered and keeping the faith, the main church that descended from the commissioning of the Apostles was dead.  Let it not be the testimony of churches today that we gave up the faith for peace and tolerance at the expense of the truth being shared and souls coming to Christ! I will leave you with some lyrics of a familiar hymn:                                        Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but you are mighty;
hold me with your powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me now and evermore,
feed me now and evermore.