W. Robert Godfrey

Yeah, it's showing the spiritual decline of Israel.

Because for most of the book, the Judges are better than the people.

And God established the office of judge to save the people, deliver the people.

But by the time we get to Samson, his life is spiritually indistinguishable from the life of the people.

He is Israel.

He's not really the savior of Israel.

He is Israel, revealing in his life, in his weakness, in his failure, all of the weaknesses and growing spiritual failures of Israel.

Now, you may be thoroughly depressed.

Do we really need a mirror like that?

And I'm gonna try to argue as we go along, yeah, we do need a mirror like that because we need to see ourselves as we really are to seek the Lord's blessing, the Lord's strength, the Lord's deliverance.

So the threat of Islam to the West was a serious and ongoing one through the Middle Ages.

And that's why in the 16th century for the Reformers, it was often difficult to be sure who the Antichrist really was.

Was it the Pope or was it Muhammad?

It was a close call for a number of the Reformers.

We were looking at the end of the last lecture at Pope Gregory, Gregory the Great, right around the year 600, who began to lay the foundations of an increasingly independent papacy in the West as a key force in the society of the West.

and we talked about various elements of Gregory's theology.

I want to read what one historical theologian said of Gregory.

"'Almost everything in Gregory has its roots in the teaching of Augustine, and yet scarcely anything is really Augustinian.

The fundamental spirit of Augustine has vanished, and superstition gains supremacy.'

Everything is coarser, more fixed and ordinary.