Willie Robertson

In any world, this should have been stamped out, but the gates of hell cannot prevail against the coming of the kingdom.

And in the face of even such persecution, one of the earliest persecutors was Saul.

Now that guy, we're appealing to that guy to tell us what's true about the Christian faith.

This is wild.

This is just wild what the kingdom has done and the advancements that we've seen

in the name of Christ.

And it's so encouraging that we belong to an ancient Christian faith.

Yeah, he was – he met with a guy on the beach and –

and was convinced that from that, that Christ was the only answer to the things that he was seeking.

Yeah, I think he would have been more just a general pagan until he wasn't, right?

And he got to witness firsthand the persecution of the church.

What's interesting is how the story unfolds in this lecture and throughout history is that the persecution,

was fueled at least in a large degree by the fear that somehow the national identity would erode through their non-participation in the idolatry, which would limit their prosperity or even diminish their prosperity.

What's interesting, though, of what actually happened in history is that through the might and the power of the Roman Empire, after Marcus Aurelius died,

I think it was in what?

Let me pull it up here.

In 180, there was a ton of upheaval that happened over the next... 100 years.

100 years.

It's so funny because it looks a lot like... I think one of the reasons why people talk about the fall of the Roman Empire so much is because they wonder...

Are we in decline?