Yeah. StSq2 2.60 So, The Colosseum is a magnificent sight to behold, even though it does not have the luster it once had, though the marble columns have been stripped and a great fire destroyed portions of it, and though we no longer hear the screams of 80,000 fans. And though the Pope and others have gutted it and build their own monuments, it is truly a sight to behold. It stands today, though a shell of its former self, as a constant reminder of an empire that ruled the world and one that was brought down for its sins. The sins committed in this amphitheater were enough to anger the God of heaven, enough to destroy it from off the face of the earth. but God Almighty chose to allow it to stand as a reminder. This Colosseum tells a story, a story of a fallen empire, of the high price of a people given over to entertainment, a people that were hypnotized by bread and circuses and distracted from reality by the roaring of fans and the fierce animals that were put to death before their very eyes. The Colosseum tells the story of hundreds of thousands of animals that were slaughtered for the lust of entertainment, not for food or for clothing, but for entertainment. It tells the story of gladiators, the world-renowned athletes whom the world calls their heroes, men who were worshipped and adored by screaming fans, for how good they were at killing another man, how good they were at executing men and putting them to death before the very eyes of 80,000 people that screamed for their destruction. But the more important story it tells is of the martyrs of Jesus Christ, those who lost their lives, those that were fed to animals, mercilessly fed to animals or slain by gladiators without a fight. If these stones could cry out, they would tell the story of Christians who died as enemies of the state for merely preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and denying that the emperor was God in the flesh. They would not bow the knee to any false gods or false deities or worship in any of the temples of the empire. In order for this history not to repeat itself, We must know history and learn from the past so we don't repeat the same sins and errors of the past. How close are we to repeating the same things that happened in the Colosseum? How close is America today to that very Roman Empire that ruled the world? Who are we in the story of the Colosseum? Would you be the screaming fans in the Colosseum that would scream for the death of innocent life? Or would we be one of the gladiators who were driven to put to death another because we were great athletes and were able to do it? Would we be the emperor, the senator, or the dignitary that would vote for the death of these people? Would we be working in the hypogeum to raise the animals up to their slaughter? Or would we be the Christian martyr that would die in the Colosseum for the faith once delivered unto the saints? In order to understand the story of the Colosseum, we have to go back before it was built. We have to go back to the fall of Jerusalem, to the sacred scriptures, the word of God, the King James Bible, our only rule of faith in practice, The Bible says in Matthew chapter 24, and Jesus went out and departed from the temple. And his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, see ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. Jesus foretold of the destruction of the temple. which would thrust the Jews from Jerusalem in 70 AD. In John chapter 19, verse number 14. And it was the preparation of the Passover at about the sixth hour. And he saith unto the Jews, behold your king. But they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar. and no truer words would be spoken by them. They sealed the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of their own people. The siege of Jerusalem was in 70 AD. It was a decisive event of the first Jewish-Roman war from 66 to 73 AD, in which the Roman army led by future Emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem. the center of Jewish rebellion and resistance in the Roman province of Judea. Following a five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city and the second Jewish temple. In April 70 AD, these days before the Passover, the Roman army started to besiege and surround Jerusalem. The city had been taken over by several rebel factions. Following a period of massive unrest, and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government. Within three weeks, the Roman Empire, their army broke the first two walls of the city. But a stubborn rebel standoff prevented them from penetrating the thickest and third wall. Prophecy would be fulfilled. Jesus said that temple would be brought down. According to Josephus, a contemporary historian, The main source for the war, the city was ravaged by murder, famine, and even cannibalism. Overlooking the temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire, and a Roman soldier threw a burning stick into one of the temple walls. It is debated among historians that destroying the temple was not among Titus' goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansion done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. That magnificent temple, Jesus said, would be brought down. Didn't matter what Titus thought he was gonna do. God Almighty said that temple was gonna be destroyed. Titus had wanted to seize it and to transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman emperor. See, he wanted to put the emperor in that temple. The Bible talks about that a ruler will come and sit in the temple of God, saying he is God. But it was not time for that yet. So God would allow that temple to be destroyed. Battery rams would ram the temple walls. It is debated among historians that destroying the temple, could it happen so soon? Could it happen so vividly? Could it happen so quickly? Sometime in August, 70 AD, the flames spread into the residential sections of the city. Josephus described the scene. He said, as the legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuousness. Passion alone was in command. Crowded together around the entrances, many were trampled by their friends. Many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins of the colonnades and died as miserably as the defeated. As they neared the sanctuary, They pretended not even to hear Caesar's commands and urged the men in front to throw in more firebrands. The partisans were no longer in a position to help. Everywhere was a slaughter and a flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the altar, the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed. at the top slithered to the bottom. And truly the very view itself was a melancholy thing. For those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens would now become desolate country everywhere. And its trees were all cut down, nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert. All they could do is lament and mourn, sadly, at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty to waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, and had come on a sudden to it now, would have known it again. It was not even recognizable. The temple, the destruction, the city of Jerusalem was not even recognizable to man. If you had been there before, you would look around and you would ask the question, where is the city? Where is the temple? Matthew 23, 33, Jesus warned, you serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barakai, who Yim slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, this is God in the flesh lamenting what was coming to Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple. He said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate, For I say unto you, you shall not see me henceforth till you shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. We also find in Luke 23, 28, but Jesus turning unto them said, daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me. They are watching Jesus to the crucifixion, being sent to the crucifixion. And he says to them, weep not for me, but weep for your own selves. Weep for yourselves and for your children, for behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bear, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. Why did they say that? Jesus foretold of this, that they would cry that out, and the reason they would cry that out is because the city would be in utter destruction, Josephus wrote that 1.1 million people, the majority of them Jewish, were killed during the siege, a death toll he attributes to the celebration of the Passover. Josephus goes on to report that after the Romans killed the army and the elderly people, that 97,000 were enslaved. He records that many were sold into slavery. He says this, The plow has passed over the city and Temple of Jerusalem. Its proud people have been humbled to the dust and scattered to the four winds of heaven. 70,000 of this conquered race were brought to Rome by Titus. Having adorned his triumph, they were divided into three classes, the women and children. Up to 16 years of age were sold as slaves for the most miserable prices. Our blessed Lord was sold for 30 pieces of silver, said one. After the triumph of Titus, you could get 30 Jews for one piece of silver. Titus and his soldiers would then come to Rome. This signifies the building of this Colosseum. Because when they came to Rome celebrating their victory, They paraded the cherished and blessed menorah and the shubarit through the streets. Up until this parading, these items had only ever been seen by the high priest of the temple. The event was memorialized in the Arch of Titus. It was their victory to take the menorah from the inner sanctuary of the temple and to take the shubarit that only the priests would eat, that only the priests would partake of. and they paraded it through the streets of Rome as victory. Some 700 Judean prisoners were paraded through the streets of Rome at that time in chains. During the triumph among them, Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala. They were executed by being thrown to their death by the Tarpian rock at the Temple of Jupiter after being judged a rebel and a traitor to the Roman Empire. One was sentenced to life imprisonment. This was all done in front of the eyes of the people of Jerusalem. Think about this, 70,000 of them displaced. Some brought to Rome, some taken to Egypt and sold back into slavery into Egypt. As a solemn warning, that they rejected their Messiah. They rejected the Son of God. They said we would have no king but Caesar. We will not have this man to rule over us. Good question to ask you in your life. Will you have this man, Jesus, rule over you? Think about that. Some of the men were sent to Egypt to work in the marble quarries, but by far the largest number of these slaves were retained for the works of the Colosseum. The number is estimated to be 30,000 to 50,000 men. The walls of the mighty emblem of everything gloomy and horrible were cemented with the tears of a fallen people, the Hebrew Jewish people. The construction of the Colosseum was literally, we go from the ashes of the temple in Jerusalem to the construction of that mighty Colosseum. The Colosseum, otherwise known as the Flavian Amphitheater, built in Rome between 70 and 82 AD is believed to have been partially financed by the spoils of the Roman victory over the Jews. Literally, they raped, robbed, and pillaged Jerusalem to pay for the Colosseum. Archaeological discoveries have found a block of travertine that bears dowel holes that show the Jewish wars financed the building of this amphitheater. Judea coinage, captacoins, were a series of commemorative coins originally issued by Vespasian, the emperor, to celebrate the capture of Judea and the destruction of the temple by his son Titus. The coins of Vespasian and Titus commemorate the conquest of Judah. The Colosseum appears on a sestarius of Vespasian. So as the menorah and the shoebread from the temple were paraded down the streets, so were 70,000 of these conquered race were brought to Rome by Titus. Having adorned his triumph, they were divided into three classes of people, mostly slaves. The spoils from Jerusalem would fund the Colosseum. The upper structures of the Colosseum were raised by materials taken from the fallen house of Caesars. on the Palatine. When Vespasian and Titus gave orders for the destruction of the greater part of the house of Nero, they performed an act most pleasing to the Roman people. They gave orders to destroy Nero's home, Nero's properties, and to build the Colosseum with it. It was a monument of hateful splendor that rose on the ruins of their burned city. Its riches and its grandeur could but remind them of the tyranny and oppression of the past. No sooner was the order given than the populace joined the work of devastation, immense boulders of gilded, travertine columns and capitals, and marble cornices of the most elaborate carving, bonds of iron and of gold. and imperishable masses of brickwork were rudely and indiscriminately hurried away to the ornament to fill up the great work of the Colosseum. The mighty amphitheater itself became a ruin and after the lapse of centuries will be stricken by the hand of time and will in its own turn lend the material of its fallen arches to build the medieval and modern palaces of the eternal city. So literally, Jerusalem is raped and robbed and pillaged. The temple is destroyed. All of its riches in gold and silver and any riches that were in it are taken to build the Colosseum along with its people, 70,000 of those men. But get this, one day the Colosseum would be raided to build St. Peter's Basilica. So what would come to pass that Jesus prophesied about? And when the Jews said they had no king but Caesar, how rightly they spoke. because Caesar's empire, Pontifex Maximus' empire, will be built upon the ruins of the Temple of Jerusalem. Thus it is in history of man the greatest monuments of modern splendor have risen, said one, phoenix-like, from the ruins of the mighty structures that our ancestors vainly imagined imperishable. No one thought when Jesus told them, destroy this temple and I'll raise it up in three days, He was speaking of himself, and they thought he meant the temple. And they said, 40 in six years have we built this temple, right? 40 in six years have we built this temple. And they thought that Jesus was speaking of that temple, but he was speaking of the temple of his own body. But they thought that temple imperishable, right? But it wasn't. We must now take a view of the amphitheater, says one in a perfect state. Scattered fragments of description have been collected from ancient historians and the picture is neatly complete. Fancy can fill up many details from the ruins as they now stand. It was a beautiful elliptic figure, 564 feet in length, 467 in breadth, and it was raised on 80 immense arches and rose in four successive orders. of architecture to the height of 140 feet. The whole building covered a space equal to six English acres. Imagine that, six acres of Coliseum. The outside was encrusted with marble and decorated with statues. The slopes of the vast concave which formed the inside were filled and surrounded with 60 or 80 rows of seats of marble, covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease 100,000 spectators. 64. Vomitories, for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished, poured forth. This place even had public bathrooms. Immense multitudes, entrances, passages, and staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill that each person, whether a senator, an equestrian, or the lowly plebeian, arrived at his destined place without trouble or confusion, the lowest row of seats next to the arena, now completely covered by earth and debris, assigned to the senators and foreign ambassadors. It was called the podium. There also on an elevated platform was the Emperor's throne, lifted high above in a godlike fashion, shaded by a canopy like a pavilion, the place for the manager or the editor of the games, as he was called. Or maybe you would call him the ringmaster today of a circus. He was in charge of the games. Then you would have the Vestal Virgins. or beside the emperor's seat, much like the ring girls that you see in the UFC. The podium was secured with a breastwork of parapet of gold or gilt bronze. Against the eruption of the wild beast as a further defense, the arena was surrounded by an iron railing and a canal. The equites, or second order of nobles, sat in 14 rows behind the senators. The rest of the people sat behind on seats called papyri, rising tier above tier to a gallery with a colonnade in front, running all around the amphitheater immediately under the awning and generally occupied by women, soldiers, and attendants. Imagine this, you're in this humongous coliseum. Imagine on a hot, sunny day, or a cold day, or rain comes over the amphitheater, but the thirst of blood couldn't stop the games, the desire to watch men brutally murder each other, the desire to see animals slaughtered, these shows, the zoo, The show must go on. So what did they do? They had a massive canopy that would cover the entire top of the Coliseum to keep the rain and the weather and the sun out. Nothing could stop the games. The show must go on. Nothing was omitted, said one that could in any way be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectator. The immense canopy, that awning, Nothing was omitted that could in any way be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators. Pleasure seekers. The immense canopy, or that awning, which at times was stretched over the entire expanse from the outer wall as a protection from that sun or rain, was one of the wonders of the Colosseum. The Colosseum is one of the wonders of the known world at the time, and still is today, even though it's a skeleton of itself. It's still a wonder to behold when you walk inside of it and see it for what it really is, and think about it, imagine what it once was. in a time that would bring 100,000 people together to watch the show. This massive canopy required a stretch of imagination to believe. You and I have a hard time believing that those primitive people could put a canopy above that. When we stand even now in the midst of the ruins and we see the vast expanse of the heavens, above us. The mind is lost in doubt and conjecture about the possibility," said one, of such a marvelous fact. But you can see it, you can see it and imagine it in your own eyes view of what that would look like, your own mind's view of what that would look like, that canopy, to cover that. When you go to the Viking Stadium or you go to the the U.S. Bank Stadium or you go to these other places and you see a man named Lampritius mentions that the men who would have worked this awning were dressed as sailors. They even had their uniforms. You go to the coliseums of today, what do they have on? The workers have their own uniforms on, right? They're fitted and dressed for their job. They numbered several hundred men would run that canopy, that humongous canopy that would go over. At a signal given when there was fear of rain and the sun was too hot, there would be a simultaneous movement amongst the attendants. The cords would creak and the mighty sails would roll gradually to the center, each sail meeting in perfect harmony and forming together an immense sheet that completely covered the interior. Stranger still the fact that this awning in the time of Titus was purple silk fringed with gold. The air was continually refreshed by the playing fountains, and an infinity of small tubes dispersed a shower of the most delicious perfumes, which descended on the spectators like aromatic dews. Now, the next question you might ask is, what exactly were the Coliseums used for? What was this mighty amphitheater used for? In a few words, games, games, and more games. entertainment. The Colosseum was literally the center of entertainment in Rome. It was made for the bread and circuses in Rome. The theory that no people would rise up against the tyrannical government if they were given bread and circuses. If they were made happy, if they were just given their moderate welfare, enough food, enough drinks, enough entertainment, Who would rise up against their betrayers, their captors? As they're being lulled to sleep by entertainment, the Bible warns us, be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Sober people are not taken over. Silly women laden with sins and silly people that are distracted are taken over. Their country is stolen from them. It is turned from a country to an empire. This is a society that was driven by entertainment. Do not we see the same today? If you feed people enough food and entertainment, they will totally neglect how their government is ran. They will be distracted by entertainment that they do not notice that their liberties are slowly being taken away from them. The Bible warns us over and over and over again of the dangers of a lack of sobriety, the high cost, the very high cost of distraction. So then in the Roman Empire, as well as in modern day America, wars and taxes and atrocities by the federal government take place every day, but we are distracted by bread and circuses. Give us our WWE, give us our UFC, give us our NFL, give us our gladiators, give us our modern day gladiators. Give us those men that will entertain us by their destruction, by their own bodies being destroyed. What was the Coliseum used for? We'll start with the lighter and go to the darker. Plays, concerts, even zoos were popular. Much like today when you go to the U.S. Bank Stadium, you can have a football game or Taylor Swift in concert that will draw 70,000 fans, screaming fans. The great games, which often lasted for entire weeks, were a strange mixture of the comic and the tragic. The jovial, says one, and the horrible. A favorite amusement was to witness the acting of trained animals in the circus. The writers of those days tell us of an elephant that was a rope walker, of a bear which sat in a chair dressed as a matron, which was carried around the arena by attendants. Then we have an account of a king, of the king of the forest, with gilt claws, and mane be spangled with gold and precious stones, which as a strange contrast to successive scenes, was made to represent the virtue of clemency, being trained to play with a hare. They taught lions and tigers to play with rabbits, to hold them in their mouth to play with them. And all the 70,000 or 100,000 fans from each level, all walks of life would sit and be entertained and watch that, distracted from the day, distracted from the terrors of the kingdom, distracted from the terrors of the empire. He would take the frightened little animal and put it in his mouth, put it on his back, and lavish on it a thousand caresses. Then we read of 12 tame elephants, six male and six female dressed in togas of men and women. They dress their animals like humans who would sit at a table and eat delicate foods and drink wine from golden cups and would use the greatest delicacy and care that extraordinary trunk that they could lift a pin from the ground or tear the forest oak from its roots. Others were trained to the pirate dance and would spread flowers on the arena. They had a peculiar strong drink to which the elephants were partial. They literally got their elephants drunk and caused them to go through antics and maneuvers that produced roars of laughter from the spectators. You might wonder, how in the world do people have time to watch elephants get drunk? Bread and circuses, distractions from reality. How many people today waste copious amounts of time on video games, movies, sports, following their favorite teams, entertainment. Constantly, their lives are consumed with it. This is the Coliseum. Ships with armed men were floated. They literally flooded the Coliseum with water. The bottom level, the Hypogeum with water, flooded it with water. built warships and had them fight with each other to the death. Ships with armed men said one were floated and fought desperately with each other as if an empire depended on the issue of the battle. On one occasion, a large ship was introduced to this artificial lake full of men and animals. And at any given signal, it opened its sides and fell to pieces, casting its living freight into the waters. Then came all the horrors of a shipwreck. They literally mimicked a shipwreck. The screams from animals and the piteous cries of drowning slaves sounded like music to the Roman ear. It was not fake, it was real. It was staged, but it was real in front of them. They watched people drown, brought to their death, animals drown, simply for entertainment. The arena in the center of which stood the statue of Jupiter formed a stage and derived its name from being usually strewn with the finest white sand. Underneath it, they had a mechanism of the most extraordinary and great and complicated character, so that the arena could during the games assume different forms in quick successions. At one time, it would seem to rise up out of the earth like the Garden of Eden. It could just rise up, the floor could, and be an entire garden paradise before their eyes. It was afterward broken. Subterranean pipes conveyed in an exhaustible supply of water. They had literally built a plumbing system underneath the Colosseum, that would deliver water into there and flood the entire bottom of that stadium. Then they could open the hatch and they could let all the water drain out. Archaeologists have used that area down there to dig and to find different things. For instance, they found out what those people ate. at the Colosseum, what their food was, what their drink was, what they did, the different things that they've found there. How did they do that? By digging through the dirt and finding the remains through that water supply and where that water would go out, finding the remains of what was there underneath that Colosseum. By a combination of mechanical skill The fable of Orpheus was almost realized. The soil of the arena was made to open suddenly in a hundred pieces, in a hundred places, and trees would spring up clothed in the deepest green foliage and bearing the golden apples and imitation of the fabulous trees of the garden. Wild animals were let loose into the enchanting forest. The trees would move to the sound of a flute. Think about that. They bring these animals into this garden. They have a literal garden. Where are the people of Rome going to ever see a zoo like that or a garden like that? They're going to see it at the Colosseum. It kept them from spreading out and going to different areas and looking at those things. How is it today with people? AI and generated things cause them to look at things simply through a screen but never to experience life, never to go to those places. Why? Because they're distracted. What is AI and VR gonna do and virtual reality and all of these things that are coming? Immersive technology, what is it doing? It's designing you to see those things and be pacified by those things in your own mind instead of going out and looking at those things and living life in the world today. Not much has changed. The technology has gotten better. But it's still the same thing. But lighthearted entertainment was not enough. The human mind grows darker and darker with idleness. See, they crave the spectacular. They are thrill seekers. They are pleasure seekers. There is never enough for people. Once you are driven by entertainment and not by real purpose and truth by God Almighty, You'll be given over to that entertainment and it will never be good enough. It will never be scary enough. You will never live on the edge enough. How many people have died on filming YouTube videos, fallen off the Grand Canyon, fallen down out of things like that, why? Because they're thrill seekers, they're pleasure seekers, it's never enough. They grow upon it, they build upon it, they have to walk on the edge of things and they have to fall off of those things and people crash and die, why? Because they're pleasure seeking. Disaster on this scary stretch of road popular with tourists, known as one of the most dangerous in America. Now it has claimed new victims, two nurses and their tour guide driver, killed after their Jeep plunged over a cliff along Camp Bird Road in the Colorado Mountain. Two daredevils were killed over the weekend attempting a stunt while base jumping, which is skydiving off a fixed object. This time it was a cliff in Yosemite National Park, but they collided with a rocky outcrop on the way down. Ben Tracy tells us one of the men was a legend among thrill seekers. Three, two, one, zero. This is Dean Potter base jumping in a wingsuit last year, his dog Whisper strapped on his back. We're learning a social media stunt gone wrong led to the death of a teenager at the 6th Street Bridge. They're pleasure seekers. They're not God seekers. They don't seek the Lord. They don't seek the truth of God's word, but they are given over to entertainment. Idle people who are not building anything productive will only be satisfied with violence. See, that was the next step. It wasn't enough to entertain them with animals, with zoos, with seemingly harmless things. No, no, no, they craved more. And the emperors would do anything they could to put on the greatest show in all the earth. They had to. I think because the more popular they were, the more people would be behind them and back them, and the more they would not uprise. The people that are pacified will not rise up against their captors. Nothing might be wanting to the reality of the representation. The unfortunate slave who had the honor of representing Orpheus in that garden, in that structure, was torn to pieces by a bear. Real, not actors. The show must go on and it must be spectacular or it is a slight to the Pontifex Maximus. It is a slight to the Caesar. If things didn't go right, somebody died. If the show was not pleasing to the people, someone died. They killed him for it. A failure in any of these mechanisms, says one, of these shows was considered a slight to the emperor, and the director was punished with public death. They killed him in front of everybody. Were it not for the inhumane and barbarous custom, which cramped with fear, the greatest genius of the empire, the Coliseum would have witnessed many great triumphs of mechanical art. That's a quote from someone, and the reason they said that is because When you look at the Coliseum, how spectacular it was back then and the things that were recorded by that, recorded of that, what you find out is many talented men were put to death because they had one bad show. So their creativity, the spectacular performances that were able to put on, the mechanics that they were able to put into it. They destroyed and killed their own ingenuity. Reminds you of the communist government of China, how they murder their own people, their own citizens if they don't do what they want. They put them to death. They're most talented people if they don't follow the king, if they don't worship the king, if they don't worship the leader. Same thing happened there. If they are slighted, the leader is slighted. We underestimate the power of entertainment. Think about how many WWE wrestlers, NFL players, UFC players, UFC fighters die at a young age, football players that mangle their own bodies, and UFC athletes that destroy their bodies so the show goes on and the fans are pleased. As we head into the big game weekend, many of us are obviously thinking about football and with the intensity of play in the NFL. Quick action by on field medical staff can save lives. Demar Hamlin is just one example of that, and it's what she's got. Heidler tells us the fast work by Melbourne high school teams trainer probably saved a player's life. He spoke with them both today. Being a receiver on the Melbourne High School football team meant everything to 18-year-old Ryan Cabrera, but an injury put his life in jeopardy. How bad is football for the brain? A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at the brains of more than 200 diseased former football players, including more than 100 who played in the NFL. Mark Martin has this story. Heart hitting numbers today in a new study about football and head trauma. 99% of the brains of former NFL players studied were damaged. Out of 111 brains examined, all but one had CTE, the disease caused by repeated blows to the head. Symptoms include emotional instability, depression, and memory loss. Doctors now say the brain damage is more common than previously thought, and more work should be done to detect, and treat it in its earliest stages. The NFL says it's pledged $200 million for research in the prevention and treatment. There are new concerns about football injuries after another tough hit in the NFL overnight. There you see Brandon Williams from the Colts. Helmet on helmet hit. He was taken off the field with a concussion. And now, former NFL star Larry Johnson speaking out in an ABC News exclusive. Johnson's 38 convinced he's living with CTE as he battles memory loss, anxiety, and suicidal impulses. All right, some unfortunate news tonight from the Indiana Pacers. The team announced today that guard Benedict Matherin will miss the rest of his season. Matherin has been diagnosed with a torn labrum in his right shoulder and will have to have surgery for it. Our sports team is going to have much more on that developing story coming up later in sports. you amongst the spectacular founded on pagan mythology. These spectacles were founded upon paganism, heathenism. This isn't Christian. The poet Marshall makes mention in his epigrams of a parent who was crucified in the Colosseum, right before everybody. also of a horrible scene of Daedalus raised in the air with false wings and then permitted to fall in the arena where he was devoured by wild animals. On another occasion, a slave was brought to represent Muteus Scavello and to put his hand into a fire until it completely burned. The wretch who had to suffer this awful cruelty had another alternative, for his garments were covered with pitch and tar. And if he wavered or flinched for a moment, he was burned alive. So either he stuck his hand in there and had his hand burnt and melted off, or they already had his body covered in pitch. They would light him on fire and destroy him and burn him alive in front of everybody. It was an insatiable thirst for violence that could not be quenched. So it was in the Roman Colosseum. It is seen the modern day equivalent of the WWE or the UFC or the NFL. Gladiators lined up to battle each other to the death or to be maimed or paralyzed for millions of dollars in order to be the world champion gladiator. Now, during the greater celebrations, there was scarcely a day passed in which some hundreds of mangled carcasses of men and beasts were not dragged from the arena to what they called the spolarium, or the dead house. The games commenced about 10 in the morning and often lasted till dark. During all these hours, victim was felling upon victim. The spectators more and more intoxicated with each new drought of blood, drunk in by their glistening eyes, yelled for fresh victims and more blood. Imagine 80,000 people screaming in delight as men are falling in front of them to their death. This is not a war. This is not a battle of nations. It's their own people or slaves that they brought in that they treated like animals and destroyed them. The spectators more and more intoxicated with blood. Nothing was good enough. Nothing was enough. It had to be more and more and more. On more than one occasion, it happened. that every animal in the Bavarian was slain in one day. Imagine grabbing these tigers and these lions from Africa and these other places. They had to import them from all over the world. So imagine them importing and bringing those animals from all over the world just to bring them in to the Colosseum to slaughter them before men's eyes. But animal blood wasn't enough. It was bloodlust and violence that drove their carnal natures. They had no pity when they entered the arena. They had no compassion. We're reminded of Genesis 6, verse 11. The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. Violence. Eutropius, speaking of Titus, says this. And when he had built the amphitheater of Rome, he inaugurated the games and caused 5,000 beasts to be slain. We can't even fathom seeing 5,000 beasts. But they brought 5,000 beasts to the Colosseum and destroyed them before men's eyes to inaugurate their games. Gladiators, slaves, and Christians were the principal victims of the games. Scores of fans screamed for their teams today, just like they did in the Coliseum, as men battled each other to the death or to the knockout. No entertainment was popular, said one, unless accompanied by bloodshed and loss of life. No mock tragedies would be cheered in this temple of furies. The amusements of the Colosseum formed the darkest page in the records of the past. But by far the most common amusement of the Colosseum, the one that is known for, that everyone talks about, movies were made about, great productions and grand reproductions had been done, were the combats with the beasts and the gladiators. The wild animals were made to fight with each other, then with men. And lastly, man with his fellow man. When wild animals were put into the arena to fight with each other, everything that could rouse or excite them was studied with the most cruel skill. They studied what would anger those beasts so they could be as angry as the beast could possibly be for performance. They literally provoked those animals. Imagine provoking a lion. We talk about poking a bear, right? Don't poke the bear. They poked the bear. That's what they did. The colors they hated were scattered in profusion around them. They were beaten with whips, and their sides were torn with iron hooks. Hot plates of iron were fastened to those animals, and even balls of fire were placed on their backs. Thus the enraged animals would run round the arena, the earth would tremble under the thunder of their agonizing roars, and the inflated chests would seem to burst under the fire of passion that drove them to madness. If, as sometimes happened, an infuriating lioness or tigress should kill the men and animals presented to her, Frantic shouts of applause rose from every side of the amphitheater. And whilst mistress of the battlefield, she walked over the bodies of her victims, the people cried aloud for her liberty, to have her sent back again to her native deserts. Don't kill the lion. They were more willing to spare the lion or the animal or the tiger. than they were for men or women or even children. They cared more for the life of that lion than they did for them. Life was so devalued by them in the Coliseum. They cared nothing for it. Good question to ask yourself is how far are we away from this today? Arenas full of fans screaming as men beat each other to a pulp in the UFC. Knockouts in boxing. Loud crowds in the dopamine rush. The combats between men and beasts were still more popular. The emperors themselves used to take part in them. And even women had the hardyhood to enter the arenas at one and combat the most ferocious animals. So imagine a woman dressed like an Amazonian running into the amphitheater, running down into there and fighting animals. Even their women did leave the natural use. Even their women did leave the gentle nature in which they had. There was something hypnotizing about the Coliseum. As soon as they entered in and they heard the roar of the fans, and they heard the screaming and the roar of lions, they wanted to be heroes. They all wanted to be heroes. So even their women would run into the arena and fight with a ferocious animal. They would send their sons and daughters to their death. There were two classes of people destined for this species of sport. One was armed. They carried weapons according to their choice. They were trained killers, trained in weaponry. They had a school of gladiators connected to the Coliseum. that they would take the tunnels into the Coliseum. There was a school of gladiators that were there that would train up gladiators to fight. Just like the UFC has schools of fighting and training facilities for their fighters, same thing, no different. One class carried weapons according to their choice. The others were poor slaves, captives, criminals, aka Christians. Many of them were Christians who were exposed to defenseless, defenseless, they were exposed to beast in a most defenseless manner. They had no way to defend themselves. To this class, the Christians belonged. They were distinguished from the gladiators by the appropriate, appropriate title of bestiaries. They were going to be the food for the beasts, literally. We count the Roman Empire, that beastly kingdom, right? We see a resurgence of the Roman Empire, the revived Roman Empire, under Pontifus Maximus, the Caesars today, who murdered and killed Christians all through the centuries. And in there, they were just food for the beasts. The pagan beliefs of Rome led to more bloodshed in that self-proclaimed eternal city. The combat of gladiators is supposed to have been Etruscan in origin. It formed part of the funeral rites of great men, according to the pagan beliefs that the shades of manes of the dead were appeased by the shedding of blood. This strange funeral rite was introduced into Rome by Junius Brutus in the year 490 of the city, and about 260 years before the Christian era, it is called. It seems to have been so pleasing to the cruel taste of the Roman people as to have soon become a common pastime, the gladiatorial fight. They were strictly speaking the games of the Colosseum. And to these, it owes its existence. So intense was the excitement of the people during these fights. that they seem to lose all self-control from morning until evening, careless of cold or heat. We've watched it, haven't we? Look outside of the U.S. Bank Stadium. Look outside of the stadiums of the world. How many people will stand outside there in the cold, in the rain, in the freezing? We go out and preach outside of these events, outside of the US Bank Stadium. We are covered with layer upon layer of clothes. These people are standing outside there with nearly nothing on, willing to cheer on their favorite team, dressed in all the garb of a fanatic, dressed in whatever their team colors are. Dressed to represent their favorite gladiators. Willing to suffer whatever it takes to get the tickets they want. To stand in line as long as they need to. Fans traded in their seven-layer dip for seven layers of warmth to attend the Chiefs-Dolphins playoff game. It's so cold. Unbelievably cold. I couldn't tell you how cold it is. Layer? How many layers do you have on? I have five layers on. I got about six on the top. three or four on the bottom and about three pairs of socks. Fans of both teams slowly fill the parking lots, fired up to be there. No, not cold at all. We're here. We're having fun at the tailgate. Chiefs fans are teams fought to continue in the postseason. The fans fought to stay warm. It was a critical wild card win for the Kansas City Chiefs, but for some fans in the stands, the January 13th game was a life and body altering event. A local medical center reporting some patients who braved the frigid temperatures to watch the Chiefs defeat the Miami Dolphins needed amputations due to frostbite. Careless of colder heat, they were. They gazed with mad excitement on the arena. and their minds were agitated with the fluctuating passions of hope and fear. Like the ocean tossed by contrary winds, nor was the demon of discord idle while the flurries flapped their funeral wings over the bloody scenes of the Colosseum. The spectators were divided in several parties, sharp and bitter discussions concerning the rival merits of the combatants formed. said one in an exhaustible source of broils and disputes. So the fans begin to fight each other, much like now. Haven't we not seen whole cities burned, cars destroyed, vandalism all over the city when their favorite team wins or loses? Fights that break out, fans that get into fights with each other because one is a green team and one is a blue team. They get angry with each other. They're willing to go to fists. They're willing to fight. They're willing to hurt each other. They're willing to harm each other over their team winning or not winning or somebody saying something against their team. Sharp and bitter discussions would take place. Rival merits of the combatants. formed an inexhaustible source of fights and disputes. And sometimes they became so excited as to pass from criticism and argument to blows and even to deadly weapons. Until the breaches of the amphitheater from end to end became the scene of tumult and massacre. They fought to the death. The fans sometimes fought to the death. The fans sometimes destroyed each other and killed each other over the fury of the Coliseum, the hypnotizing of the Coliseum, that strange demon of entertainment, that detainment of the mind that takes place when the mind is completely detained and taken over to be entertained. Such was the rage of the people of these sites. that is believed that 100,000 gladiators fell within its walls. During 12 days, Trajan made as many as 10,000 gladiators fight successfully, successively. Almost all the succeeding emperors followed his example. One emperor built upon another emperor upon another emperor and had to outdo that emperor to make a name for himself. The men who fought as gladiators were generally captives taken in their war of slaves. At a later period, it became a kind of profession. So it grew. At first, they were just slaves that were forced in the Coliseum. Then it grew into a job. Then it grew into a career of fame and fortune. At a later period, they became professional gladiators, maddened by enthusiasm. They are said to have entered the list to fight in deadly combat with the poor captives from Thrace and Gaul. Even women appeared in the arena as Amazons and fought frantically and bravely amid the unceasing acclamations of the people. So, the women fighters. Now what do you have in UFC? You have transgender fighters, you have women fighters, you have women fighting men. You have them combating men. You have scenes in the WWE, which I watched when I was a child. It was called the WWF. And I watched it, and women would come and fight men, and full-grown men would stage beating the women up, and the women would stage fighting with the men, dressed in hardly nothing, to attract the most men they could. Not much different. They mimic the Coliseum. Think about ladies running out like madmen into the Coliseum to entertain the masses, to hear the roaring of the crowds. How is it that this fair sex of ours, the women, someone's little girl, ended up volunteering themselves to fight like a wild Amazonian woman in the Coliseum, to face down lions and tigers and full-grown men to destroy them? Even an emperor entered in to the arena in a rigged or staged event. Historians tell us, Herodian and Lampridius, that the emperor Commodus, not content with witnessing the fights of the gladiators, entered the arena himself, almost naked and armed with a short sword, and he would challenge them to combat. Those who contended with him were enjoined. They were warned, do not inflict any wound upon Caesar. But the moment they received a slight wound, they fell on their knees before Caesar. And declaring themselves defeated, they sued and begged for mercy. Having thus defeated a thousand gladiators by a staged event, the Emperor Commodus, he ordered the head to be taken from the colossal statue of the sun and his own image placed in its stead on the base of the monument. He put his inscription, Mele Gladiatorium Victor, the conqueror of a thousand gladiators. to prove the heathen origins of such debauched entertainment. We are told that after the procession of the gods, with which the games of the amphitheater as well as those of the circus were commenced." Think about this for a second. What did they do? They had a commencement and a procession to the gods before the event. They hit the music. They bowed to the images like is talked about by Nebuchadnezzar when he set up his golden image. Or how about now? They'll play things like the national anthem before these games. They'll play things, they'll have a procession. In the Olympics, they have rituals to false gods in the Olympics that begin their games, that inaugurate their games. No different. They did the same thing at the Coliseum. The gladiators who were doomed to fight were also led around the arena in procession. So they would lead them around, kind of like the entrance music. when they're entering the Coliseum, when they're entering the battle in the WWF, they have entered into the music. They have them entered in with music into the Coliseum, into the arenas all over the world. Madison Square Gardens. I remember when I was a kid, men like Hulk Hogan and other people like that would come into entrance music and they would, all these thousands of fans would be watching everywhere while their music was hitting, the fans would scream and go wild. Same thing in the Coliseum. As a prelude to the battle, and to create the proper pitch of excitement, they fought first with wooden swords. They built them up fighting with wooden swords. Then upon a signal, being given the sound of a trumpet, these were laid aside and deadly weapons were substituted. They gave them their weapons of death. The interest of the assembled thousands was soon carried to the highest pitch of excitement. From time to time they burst into deafening shouts of applause, or a dread silence reigned throughout the vast amphitheater, a suspense which only ended in the death of one of the combatants. All 80,000 would silence themselves as they would choose up or down. for the gladiator to be killed or to be spared, for the animal to be killed or to be spared, for the woman to be killed or to be spared. Proverbs 21, 1821. Proverbs 1821 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Death. Death was on their hearts. Destruction was on their hearts. men and women of corrupt minds, desensitized to the plight of their fellow man. The Bible tells us that the love of many shall wax cold in these end times. And cold were these entertainment-driven, devil-possessed people. So much so it is said by one that sometimes the wounded wretch would endeavor to conceal his wound, or pretend that it was no account, and perhaps would fall to the ground to making his last and desperate rush on his adversary. but his fate depended on the pleasure of the people. If they wished him to be saved, they pressed down their thumbs. And if to be slain, they turned them up. The latter was more generally the awful verdict of the unfeeling mob. The cry of Recipe Ferrum would fall with the terrible vehemence on the dying man's ears. This simply meant that he was to submit to his fate bravely and with dignity. and that he should show no disgraceful writhings or contortions of pain, and that he should have even an art in the awful agonies of death. So in other words, these people, 70,000, 80,000 fans in the arena, are voting for this man to be slaughtered, and they want not to see him do anything that would make him look like a coward, but that he's to take his death with a smile on his face and die, and act as if it bothered him not. Death was the verdict for most. The people, says Seneca, thought themselves insulted when he would not die willingly. And by look, by gesture, and by vehemence of manner, called for his immediate execution. So, if the man would not die willingly, they would force By vehemence of manner, they would force and call an executioner to put him to death in front of them. See, the pagans had turned the shedding of human blood into a pastime. These heathens. So totally has humanity receded from men's breasts, said one, that they make their amusement consist in abetting murder and sacrificing human life. How many times in our own modern-day coliseums of the WWE, UFC, NFL do we find fans cheering when a man is knocked unconscious or taken off the field in a stretcher? Now I ask, said one, can those be called just and pious, who not only permit the slaughter of one who lies prostrate under the drawn sword, supplicating for life, but who demand that he be murdered, who give their cruel and inhumane suffrages for death, not satiated with the wounds and gore of their hapless victim? Good question. Nay, when stretched dead before them on the sand, they command the lifeless and bleeding body to be stabbed over and over again and cut and mangled lest they be deluded by a sham homicide. They wanted to make sure he was dead. So slaughter him in front of us. Give him many blows to make sure there's nothing left of his body, that it's nothing but a limping corpse with no life in it. They wanted to see all the blood shed. They get furious with the combatants who did not quickly dispatch each other. And as if they thirsted for human blood, are impatient of delay. Each company of newcomers, as it pours into the circles, vociferates for fresh victims. They may satiate their eyes. Thus duels and combats by groups, and malaise of the most terrible slaughter, passed like whirlwinds under the frenzied gaze of the people. For hours and even days, the arena of the Colosseum was reeking with the blood of its victims. Its sickening vapors would ascend to the pure air of heaven, as from an immense cauldron of cruelty and pleasure, the smell of blood reeked out of the Colosseum for days. Imagine being there and the smell of blood filling your nostrils. You say, how could they? How could they be so cruel? A society without natural affection is capable of anything, even their women. Bloodlust, entertainment, and the sight of slaughter can dement a mind so badly to leave it never the same again. Even religious people are not immune to such evil. The Bible warns us, mine eye affecteth my heart. God warns us to keep our heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. We are to guard our eyes and our hearts and our minds from evil. We are not to behold evil and look upon violence and entertain ourselves on violence. The scriptures exhort us and command us to set no unclean thing before our eyes. Now a gripping story by Augustine, a story of a man who looked on evil and was seduced by it. You say, how could a man do this? Most men should be completely, that should abhor them. They should hate those things. Augustine gives us in the sixth book of his Confessions, a singularly vivid description of the excitement that prevailed among the spectators during these sanguinary struggles. It happens, he says, while his friend, Allopius, was studying the law at Rome, that he was met one day by some of his friends, and they were walking after dinner, and they insisted on taking him to the Colosseum, for it was one of the dismal holidays when Rome took its pleasure in these spectacles of human slaughter, as Alpius, had an extreme horror of this kind of cruelty. Naturally, at first resisted with all of his might, but resorting to that sort of violence, which is sometimes permitted among friends, they jested him, they poked him, they prodded him, they dragged him along. While he repeated, you may drag my body along with you and place me amongst you in the amphitheater, but you cannot dispose of my mind. nor of my eyes, which shall not, most assuredly, take any part in this spectacle. I shall be absent, therefore, although present in body, and thus I shall render myself superior to the violence you practice on me and to the passion by which you are possessed. But he might as well have been silent. They drew him along. having a mind, perhaps, to see if he could be as good as his word. They wanted to see, can he really resist the Coliseum? Can he resist the entertainment of the Coliseum? At length, they arrived, and they placed themselves as best they could. And while all the amphitheater was in transports with these barbarous pleasures, Alapaios guarded his heart from taking any part in them, keeping his eyes shut. He literally closed his eyes and covered them so he would not see what was going on in the amphitheater. And would to God continues Augustine, he had also stopped his ears. Because it's not only the eyes that are affected, it's the ears that are affected by what we hear. for having been struck by a great and universal shout, which was caused among the people by something extraordinary that had occurred. In the combat, he was seized with curiosity and merely wishing to ascertain what it could be, persuaded that no matter what it was, he would hate it and despise it and would not look at it. He opened his eyes though, and in so doing inflicted on his own soul a wound more fatal than that which one of the gladiators had just received in his body. It was this occasion, and that occasion of a fall, far more dangerous than that of the unfortunate gladiator that was put to his death, because that is what overthrew his own conscience and his mind. The inhumane shout, which had tempted him to open his eyes, cruelty entered into his heart. The blood, which at the same moment was pouring on the arena, met his eyes. And very far from turning them away, he kept them riveted to the spot, drinking in long droughts. of fury without perceiving it, and allowing himself to be intoxicated with the criminal pleasure. He was no longer the same Alapaios. He had been dragged there by force. He was a man of the same stamp as those who made up the crowd of the amphitheater, and a fit companion for those who brought him there. He looked on, he shouted, mingling his cries with theirs, feverish with excitement. and like them, totally absorbed in the vicissitudes of the combat. In fine, he departed from the amphitheater with such a passion for these sights that he could think of nothing else. Not only was he ready to return with those who had been obliged to use force with him in the first instance to bring him to the Colosseum, but he was more infuriated about the gladiators than they. drawing others with them and ever ready to lead the way to the amphitheater. So the intense excitement, so the intense was the excitement of the people during these fights. It's what drew them in. Allopius never thought that he would look at that. He never thought that he would ever go there. He got there. He never thought that he would look at it, but he heard it before he saw it. Once his eyes were affected, his eyes were affected. And he never lost the thirst and the drive and the hunger for the violence that was before him. So intense was the excitement of these people during these fights that they seem to lose all self-control from morning till evening, careless or cold. They would look and they would gaze upon it. They would not walk away from it until the games were over. You know, the Bible says evil communication corrupts good manners. He had some good manners and he was corrupted by them, by the evil communication. All of these fans would camp out with excitement. to the pitch of rage. You know, remains of food had been found in the Coliseum. Where the drains were plugged, they found out. They ate chicken legs, pork, olives, nuts, and melons. They played dice. They rolled dice. They gambled. knuckle bones, and clay counters. Their clay counters were the same thing that you would have in sports cards. When people trade baseball cards, or they trade football cards, or they traded all those things, that's the same thing. They had their own. They had their own clay counters. Fighting at the football games. We've seen that, haven't we? Fighting at games and riots. Benches cleared. Coliseum was no different. One said it this way, nor was the demon of discord idle whilst the Furies flapped their funeral wings over these bloody scenes. They saw them. They were enraged by them. We have an account of these fans that went crazy. One of these terrible scenes was at the Circus Maximus, not too far away from the Coliseum, in which upwards of 30,000 persons were killed or wounded. Something similar happened in the Colosseum on the occasion of a scene of horrible cruelty. The people who reveled in the scenes of bloodshed were men as we are. You wonder, what type of men could do this? Men like us. Men that you go to work with. Women that you see. Mothers holding a baby. Grandmothers. You often think about that. Who could do such things? Right? But when I stood outside of a church a year ago, I watched an old grandmother bragging about two of her sons that were homosexuals, and then bragging about going into a drag queen story time celebration and dance in a church with children. These are people that you go to church with. These are people that you work with. These are people that you see at the store. These are the same people that would enter the Coliseum and totally lose all sense of humanity and decency and normalcy. When they entered the Coliseum, all decency was swallowed up by the loud applause, the roaring lions, and the frenzy of bloodshed. All of men's nobler traits were surrendered to the Coliseum's entertainment. The people who reveled in these scenes of bloodshed were men like you. Then, as they are now, the heart was capable of noble feelings. They were in the Coliseum witnessing its cruel games. Senators who could sit with honor in the British Parliament. Poets who would return to their homes immediately after the games and write on scented tablets thrilling accounts of those exciting scenes. With the same hand that had applauded, an assassination. There were fathers of families who would cry out vociferously, like the wounded gladiator should be struck again. That the wounded gladiator should be struck! They would cry out, fathers! And he's dying framed, hacked, and cut to pieces by his triumphant opponent. And in an afternoon, you'd find women who could nurse their children the tenderness of paternal and maternal love. Then there was the tender, loving, sympathizing nature of women. Womanhood. Think about it. Blasted by the sight and thirst of blood. The noble lady and the vestal virgin, clothed in white and crowned with flowers. became furies in the theater, and turned down the jeweled thumb for the murder of some fallen victim. Yet one felt all the ennobling ties of a wife, a mother, and a friend. And the other pretended to cultivate the Christian virtue of chastity. The Vestal Virgins are there to give their virginity to their gods, to keep themselves pure while they are voting and screaming and hollering for the murder. of men, women, and children in the Colosseum. Yet one felt all the ennobling ties of a wife and a mother and a friend. This is the human nature without Christianity. This is the fallen nature of man, capable of anything without being saved by the grace of Almighty God, without being forgiven of your sins, without repentance toward God in faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, without the Bible being the sole authority, the final authority, the King James Bible, the final authority of faith and practice, without that being your rule of life, the way that you live, then society and entertainment takes over, and it becomes a rule of life, and it is what you follow. These women were blasted by that. Alas, in this we see the human nature. Think of these refined women, some business and others dressed in skirts or dresses or wedding dresses, or these women that you would work around or caring for a child. They were the victims of this heathenism, this terrible slavery in which the nations of the earth were held captive. We can pass an imagination from the carnage and the bloodshed of the Colosseum, the merciless massacre of women and children who expose their infants on the banks of mountain torrents. You think about that. There are people that gave their babies to the gods to be murdered and to be destroyed. And then we have women that stand outside of abortion clinics. 4,000 babies a day are murdered. How could they do it? How could they watch your dog and murder their baby? You know you have that, right? I have women on the streets, and when I talk to them, They watch animals. They pet sit. And they admit to aborting their own children. Killing their own sons and daughters. This is the life that they live. This is what heathenism does. This is what happens when you do not like to retain God in your knowledge. Now we're going to focus on the martyrs of the Colosseum, better known as the bestiaries. These were those that had no weapons to defend themselves in the Colosseum. They were put to lions and they were put to death. And they were put to the massacre of the gladiators. They didn't fight. They didn't war. They simply died for their faith in the Colosseum. But in order for you to understand that, you have to understand the times in which led up to the Colosseum and that bloody amphitheater of destruction. You've got to understand the mindset against Christians in that age. And then ask yourself, how far are we from the same mindset today? How far are we from Christians being killed? You know, we're just a breath away from that, in my opinion, I believe. But let's go back. And some quotes from this book on the Colosseum and also others from history that would give us a good understanding of what took place and what happened. The ruins of the burnt city were still smoking on the Palatine and Esquiline hills when Nero conceived the idea of satiating the rage of the people by the blood of the Christians. That monster, whose name is associated with everything cruel and impious, was the first Roman emperor to decree a persecution against the unoffending servants of God. The edicts were issued. The cry on every side was the extermination of Christianity. Root it out and exterminate it, destroy it, is what their goal was. The whole pagan world rose in arms against Christianity. No sooner were the terrible decrees promulgated throughout the empire than the people seemed possessed with devils, for they rushed with inhumane fury against the innocent and defenseless followers of the crucified. The frenzied resolve to root out and exterminate the Christians began with Rome, and it diffused itself through every province and the cities of the empire. All over the Roman Empire, Christians were rooted out and destroyed and killed. Members of the same community and even the same family. The scriptures warned us that father would turn against son, son against father, mother against daughter-in-law, that all these things would happen. and those that did it would think that they do with God's service. In these pages are recorded two or three instances where fathers have tried in vain by every species of torture and punishment to shake the constancy of their tender and innocent children. They tried to talk them out of their faith. In every town and village unrestricted license was given to the magistrates to plunder, to imprison, to torture, to destroy the Christians. And these petty officers, in their turn, delegated their powers to the most menial and cruel wretches in their pay. Whatever they had to do, whatever they could do, they'd pay mercenaries to kill them, to root those Christians out and to kill them. It was moreover proclaimed, said a martyr, quoted by Eusebius, that no one should have any care or pity for us, but that all persons should think of and behave themselves towards us as if we were no longer men. They treated them like they were worse than animals, the Christians. They treated them like they were food for the lions, no better than hardened criminals, no better than murderers. They were willing to kill them and root them out and destroy them wherever they found them. These horrors did not cease with the tyrants who commenced them. For 300 years, the powers of hell continued this war against the Lord's people with more or less fury, rising and falling like the swells of the ocean, at one time pouring down with all thunder and foam of the billows in the storm. Then it would be calm and tranquil as a lake. Basil even wrote of these times. He said the houses of the Christians were wrecked and laid in ruins. Their goods became the prey of rapine. Their bodies of the ferocious lictors who tore them like wild beasts, dragging their women by the hair along the streets, callous alike to the claims of pity for the old or of those still in tender years. They would take babies and murder them, They would take women and murder and rape them. The innocent were submitted to torments usually reserved only for the vilest of criminals. The dungeons were filled with the inmates of the Christian homes, which now lay desolate. And the trackless deserts and the forest caves were crowned with fugitives, whose only crime was the worship of the Son of God. In these dark times, the son betrayed his father. The father impeached his own offspring. The servant sought his master's property by denouncing him. The brother sought the brother's blood. For none of the claims of ties of humanity seemed any longer to be recognized. So completely had all been blinded as if a demonical possession had taken place. Literally, I want you to think about this. They dehumanized the Christians. They made them look like they weren't even human beings so they could destroy them. They made life meaningless and worthless. Now, let me ask you a question. What do you think exposing people to violence does to their minds? What have you exposed people over a long period of time to wars, to murder, to UFC, to beating them to a bloody pulp, to boxing, to fighting, to warring, to WWE, even if it's mock, even if they're hitting them head with a chair and they're doing all those things, what do you think that does to the mindset of somebody? It exposes them to extreme violence and it turns their minds sour. It desensitizes them. Just like sexual deviancy to young people, as you raise them up and you have them watch movies and have you watch violence on movies and they watch death and murder on video games, bloodiness and murder and rage, right? Simulated in their mindset, going over and over again in their minds. What effect will that have on them? How far are we away as a society from allowing these same things to take place? How far are we away? We already murder our own sons and daughters to the tune of 4 million a year in America. 4,000 a day stand in line to have their babies aborted, to murder their own sons and daughters, their own offspring. But yet, you show people a picture of the murdered baby, of the aborted baby. and they get angry and rage against it. Why? Because they want their real sins to be hidden. But how soon before they broadcast those same things, that violence, right in front of the common people? How many videos have we seen of people that instead of helping people on a train that are being robbed or a woman that's being defiled, or a woman that's being raped or taken advantage of, or men that are walking by old people and punching them in the face and dropping them down and kicking them until they're dead. Instead of helping them and interceding for those people, they're recording it and posting it on YouTube for views. How long are we away from where we have full-scale violence like the Colosseum? So the rage had to be built up, right? The violence had to be built up, and soon the bloodlust got so strong that what did they have to do? In comes the Colosseum, the center and source of entertainment for the Roman Empire, for the city of Rome, the city that never slept, right? The Eternal City, they called it. The Colosseum is another witness of the triumphs of the past. It sprung up amidst the horrors of persecution, and it became the battlefield where innocence and weakness fought with tyranny and guilt. How long before you dehumanize people before it's okay to kill them? What are we doing now? Euthanasia. What are we doing now? We're talking about putting old people to death right now. We're talking about giving people pills to kill themselves. We're talking about doctor-assisted suicide. How long are we before we broadcast that live? How long before we show these things like the Colosseum was? A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. How long have we been conditioned for those same things? So, the Colosseum was no different. There was blood. There were miracles that took place, victories of the early church. Have Casa Hallowed reminisce and send one around the Venerable Ruin. That makes us approach with a spacious, and an awe struck religious love for it. Thousands of martyrs are supposed to have shed their blood in its arena, although certain records of it have all been destroyed. They've erased as much as they could of the persecution of Christians. They tried to erase it out of the existence of the Colosseum. They tried to erase it out of the records. But still we have the records. And deep down below the Colosseum, and deep down below in the catacombs of Rome, we find inscriptions. We find... the dedications to the martyrs. We find the little fishes, we find the crosses, we find the skeletons of those that died, right? We find them buried deep beneath those places in the catacombs and other places. The witnesses, where men tried to hide the records, the catacombs hide the tombs of those men that suffered. Ah, you can't hide everything, and you can't certainly hide it from God. They tried to cover up their tracks, so they tried to erase the history of the martyrs of the Colosseum, the true heroes of the Colosseum. So you see movies like Gladiator that come out, and you see movies that glorify, you see movies like Spartacus that glorify the Gladiator and glorify everything else. What do they not talk enough about? What do they try to overlook? They try to overlook the real heroes of the Colosseum, the martyrs. that gave their life for the name of Jesus Christ, that died in that old bloody theater before all to see. They had no friends of the world. The world is not a friend of God to help me on to God. The world is not my friend. And the world wasn't their friend. And the Roman emperor wasn't their friend. The Roman citizen wasn't their friend. Even their servants that worked for them and the people they employed were not their friends. Their own brothers would turn against them in the bloody Colosseum. Remember the screams of the Colosseum? They echo of the same screams that we find in the New Testament, when they hollered out, crucify him, crucify him. The same thing they said about those Christians in the Colosseum, for them to die, let them die. They screamed and they howled and they cheered for the death of the martyrs. Meanwhile, the still small voice of the martyrs could be seen in the Colosseum. That voice of them praising the name of Jesus as they were dying, as they were being fed to lions, as they were being killed by gladiators, as their lives were being ended. Women would cry out, and they would cry out the name of Jesus Christ. And they would cry out the same things as, Father, please lay it not to their charge. These were the real heroes of the Colosseum. The still small voices that would come out through the chants and the cheers of the crowd would be those that died and shed their blood for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Their blood would be there all over the Colosseum. Thousands of martyrs are supposed to have shed their blood in its arena. Amongst these martyrs, there were persons of every sex and position of life. None were spared. There were princes of royal blood. There were bishops. There were matrons, people advanced in age, maidens in the blush of youth. They would strip them down naked and shame them before all in that coliseum. They would defile them. They would torture them. These are the times before the Roman Catholic Inquisition when they would do the very same things. Their courage, their meekness, their triumph, says one, over pain and death, was the eloquence that planted the cross that now casts its shadow across the world. Eusebius, who was eyewitness to some of those terrible scenes, described with eloquence and feeling how the furious wild beasts were unable to harm the Christians at times and would turn on the pagans. There were times that the lions would turn on their handlers and they would eat them instead of the Christians. We don't know how to explain that except that God intervened and showed that as an example. They rushed, sometimes he says they rushed on the naked and defenseless champions of Christ, but checked as if by some divine power, they would return to their dens. The lions wouldn't even want to slay them. We see that in the scriptures, don't we? Daniel slept all night in the lion's den and not one of them touched him. At their demand, the first wild beast having been abashed, a second and third were sent against the same martyr. Sometimes to no effect. Sometimes gladiators and men would have to go out and destroy them and kill them. Because animals wouldn't. Then we come to one in particular that is written about. Before we get to the main martyr that has been talked about, one that is connected to Bible times especially, to the New Testament. But the first one is a man named Gaudentinius. Gaudentinius, a Roman legend, says that he was the architect who planned the Colosseum. He was a Roman nobleman who then became a Christian martyr when he was killed in the arena that he himself had designed at some time near the end of Domitian's reign, in 889 to 896, when Christians were supposedly being persecuted at the time. The historians will say supposedly. Why? Because they can't admit their own destruction of the Christians, their own attempt to destroy Christianity. They never could destroy it, though, because as one martyr said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Every time they killed one, God raised up more. All over the world it's happened, whether it was the Vaudois, the Waldenses in the valleys of Piedmont, whether it was the Albigenses, whether it was the Donatist, whether it was the Novatianist, whether it was the Arnoldist, Arnold of Vratia, no matter where it was and when it was, if they killed a martyr, if they killed one, if they brought him, then God would raise up many more. That blood would go down in the earth and it would seemingly spring up into more life and the churches would grow. You will never destroy God's church. He said the gates of hell would not prevail against it. It's his church and you wouldn't destroy it. You would never be able to end it. And that's what happened to them when they tried. Every time they were frustrated, emperors would persecute Christians and they could not figure out why those Christians would not recant what they believed. Why they would not, they had an insane rage against these Christians. And those Christians would sit there and look at them and name the name of Jesus. And they would testify to the fact of how good Jesus was to them and how could they turn their back on Jesus Christ who had been so good to them and save their soul and forgive their sins. and they would die the death of a martyr. They would die a hero's death. During some excavations that were made, though, in the catacombs of St. Agnes, or the Nomentian Way, a rude tomb was uncovered. It was enclosed by a marble slab, bearing the crown and palm, and near it was the phial of blood, the unmistakable testimony of Barteram. A rough inscription declared, the praises of Gaudentenius. the architect of the Colosseum. And whether this is true or not, we can't prove. But it is interesting, the explanation that is given. Here is the explanation of the strange silence of Marshall and his contemporary pagan historians. Gaudentius was a Christian and a martyr. He belonged to that sect that was hated and persecuted by all the power of the empire. Probably he was one of the first victims whose blood was shed in the arena of the amphitheater. The Roman emperor sought not only to annihilate Christianity, but to obliterate it from the memory of man. No public act was permitted in favor of the Christians. It was treason to harbor them, to extol them, or to imagine they were capable of anything great or noble. The sycophant poet who brought about the similes of Caesar knew the theme that would please. He would not risk his life expressing sympathy with the persecuted followers of the cross. Thus, God Antennius passed away without a monument. The timid friends who gathered together his sacred remains laid them in a martyr's tomb in the gloomy crypts of the catacombs, and in the faint hope that posterity would one day recognize his genius and his talent, they rudely scratched on the marble slab that covered him the verses which declared him to be the architect of the Colosseum. So, in other words, God Antennius would have built the Colosseum, been converted to Christianity, and been killed in the same Colosseum that he built. Wouldn't that be ironic? The remains of him, as well as the remains of hundreds of other noble martyrs, were laid silently and apparently without honor in the dark recesses of the catacombs. At a time when all was terror and confusion, when the trembling survivors could only gather the remains of their martyred friends by stealth in the darkness of the night, there was no opportunity of recording the praises of their triumph in study, nor is it surprising that the remains of Godantinius, as well as the remains of hundreds of other noble martyrs, were laid silently and apparently without honor in the dark recesses of the catacombs. You want to find the Baptists? You want to find the martyred Baptists from all through the centuries? Look in the ground. That's where you'll find them. You won't find them on monuments scattered throughout the world unless somebody found their remains and put a monument up towards them so you could remind them of the martyrs of Jesus Christ. No, you'll find them. You'll dig them up and you'll find them in tombs. You'll find them in the most terrible places, in the dark recesses of the catacombs. That's where you find them. Why? Because no earthly honor is given to those men. No earthly honor is given to the men that died for Christ's sake. No, we must bury them. We must erase their existence. We must erase the records that talk about them and speak of them. And the only time that you will find these martyrs of the faith is when one foolish and zealous Roman or one foolish and zealous government agent recorded their tyranny against them to brag about it. That's when you find these martyrs. You find them nowhere else, for the most part. Unless you find them in a great book called Martyrs' Mirrors or Others That Recorded, the martyrs in the bloody theater of those that died for the faith, those that died for believers' baptism, those that died for the Lord's Church. Those records had to be gathered. Men like J.T. Christian would gather the history of those men all over the world to find the history of these men that stood opposed to Rome, that were reformers before it was cool. that are the real and original reformers. That's the promise of the Lord to his church. Now, if there's a promise there, if there was a promise given that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church, then there must need to have been a church all through time. There never could have been a time since Christ died and rose again from the dead that there was not a church. Long before your Protestants were known of, those horrible Anabaptists, as they were unjustly called, were protesting for the one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. What is it, I ask you? What is the one Lord, one faith, one baptism? You think about it. What is it? It's not infant baptism. That would separate from churches like Rome. Back when you talk of men like the Donatist, that Augustine would persecute. Men like that. Because he wanted control over them. No one likes their story. But if you look for it, sometimes you have to dig for their stories, literally, into the ground. It has been said that the lives of early Christians consisted of persecution above ground and prayer below ground. They would pray in those catacombs. They would die in those catacombs. They would pray and ask God to deliver them or ask God to save sinners. They would gather their strength in the prayers. God would use them so they would continue to be faithful. Their lives are expressed by the Colosseum and the catacombs. Beneath Rome are the excavations, which we call the catacombs, which were at once temples and tombs. The early churches might well be called the Church of the Catacombs. There are some 60 catacombs near Rome, in which some 600 miles of galleries have been traced. These are not all. These galleries are about eight feet high and from three to five feet wide, containing on either side several rows of long, low horizon horizontal recesses and above another like birds in a ship in these the dead bodies were placed and the front closed either by a single marble slab or several great tiles laid in mortar one of these slabs are titles and epithets or symbols are graved or painted. Both pagans and Christians bury their dead in these catacombs. While the Christian graves have been opened, the skeletons tell their own terrible tale. Listen. Heads are found, severed from the body. Ribs and shoulder blades are broken. Bones are often calcined from fire. But despite the awful story of persecution that we may read, The inscriptions breathe forth peace and joy and triumph. Listen. Here lies Marcia, put to rest in a dream of peace. Lawrence, to his sweetest son, born a way of angels, victorious in peace and in Christ. Being called away, he went in peace. Remember when reading these inscriptions, the story of the skeletons tell a persecution of torture and of fire. But the full force of these epitaphs is seen when we contrast them with the pagan epitaphs. What are on the pagan's tombs? Here's what they say. Live for the present hour since we are sure of nothing else. I lift my hands against the gods who took me away at the age of twenty, though I had done no harm. Another pagan's tomb said, Once I was not, now am I not. I know nothing about it, and it is no concern of mine. Traveler, curse me not as you pass, for I am in darkness and cannot answer. Those martyrs died in peace. You say, but it looked like utter turmoil. It was peace. Though in the world you have tribulation, Jesus said, but in me you have peace. Take good courage, for I have overcome the world. Jesus overcome the world, right? So he said in the world you're gonna have tribulation. But they were not in turmoil. The world was in turmoil around them. The most frequent Christian symbols on the catacombs are the good shepherd with the lamb on his shoulder, a ship under full sail, harps, anchors, crowns, vines. All those different symbols that speak of Jesus Christ, that spoke of Jesus Christ to them, that spoke of them entering into eternal glory with Christ Jesus their Lord. They weren't like the pagans. They didn't say, I'm in darkness. Curse me. Curse me not when you walk by me. I'm in darkness. Reminds you of the pagans and the heathens that die, and they say things like, I am perplexed. Right? Now we come to one of the most famous martyrs, Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John. We take our account from Martyrs' Mirrors. Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John, devoured by wild beast in a circus at Rome for the testimony of the Son of God in AD 111. Ignatius, a disciple of the Apostle John and successor of Peter and Euvotius, was in the service of the Church of Christ at Antioch in Syria. He was a very God-fearing man and faithful and diligent in his ministrations. He was surnamed Theophorus, that is, the bearer of God. Apparently, because he often bore the name of God and his Savior in his mouth and led a godly life. He was wont to say frequently, the life of a man is continual death unless it be that of Christ living in us. Likewise, the crucified Christ is my only and entire love. And he that allows himself to be called after any other than Christ is not God. And again, as the world hates the Christian, so God loves them. See, he understands about the world hating Christ. He understands that Jesus said, Marvel not, the world hated me before it hated you. Marvel not that the world hates you. See, that's what people don't, in today's day and age, they don't want a Christianity that the world hates. They want a Christianity that the world loves. One preacher said it this way, you know what the problem is? Today in most churches, in America today, and in most churches today, you know what the problem is? Nobody wants to kill the preacher. They don't even have a message that wants people to kill him. Right? If you preach this message of Christ and him crucified, Jesus Christ, Lord of all, guess what? People are going to want to kill you. They're going to hate it. They're going to hate the message. The world hasn't embraced Christ. It is embracing antichrist. These martyrs embraced Christ, and that's why the world hated them. Having learned that Emperor Trajan, after the victories from which he had achieved against the Dacians, Armenians, and Assyrians, and other Eastern nations, gave thanks at Antioch unto the gods and offered great sacrifices unto them, as though these victories had proceeded from them. Ignatius, as we are informed by Nicephorus, reproved the emperor for it, and this openly in the temple. You mean he dared go to the ruler and rebuke him for his ridiculous idolatry? He didn't bow down at the altar of the politician? He actually preached against the emperor and his false gods? The Emperor, exceedingly enraged in this account, You mean the visage of his countenance was marred? You mean he actually got angry with them like Nebuchadnezzar did with Daniel and like others did with the saints and the prophets and the preachers when they preached against? And you could hear the echoes from the scriptures, we would obey God rather than man? Not a Christianity that is kowtowed down to the age that has given over to it, that has accepted it, but one that was willing to lift up Jesus Christ and him crucified at any cost? Yes, that Ignatius. The one that learned from the Apostle John. The one that understood what it meant to sacrifice for Jesus Christ. What it meant to put Christ above all. The emperor exceedingly enraged on this account caused Ignatius to be apprehended. Yet for fear of an uproar. Because Ignatius was held in great respect in Aeneon. He did not have him punished there. but committed him into the hands of ten soldiers, and sent him bound to Rome there to have him punished. In the meantime, his sentence of death was made known to him in what manner and where he was to die, namely that he should be torn to pieces by wild beasts at Rome. On his way thither, he wrote several consolatory epistles to his friends, the faithful in Christ Jesus, and also to different churches as to those of Smyrna, Ephesus, Philadelphia, Tralus, Magnesia, Tarsus, and Philippi, and especially to the Church of Christ at Rome, which letter he sent before his arrival there. It appears that the thought of being torn to pieces by the teeth of wild beasts was constantly on his mind during the journey, yet not as a matter of dread, but of earnest desire. as he mentions in his letter to the Church of Rome. Wait, you mean he actually had a desire to die for Christ's sake? See, God gives men dying grace. He gave him dying grace. God showed him, you're going to die there. And God gave him dying grace. And because it was the will of God for him to die, he took great joy in this. Right? Jesus said that Your joy no man taketh from you. There's a joy that the Lord Jesus Christ touches you with that no man can take from you, no matter what they do to you. No matter what circumstances of life happen to you, it won't remove from you, it won't leave you. Because it's wrought by the Holy Spirit of God. So he wrote these notes to his friends in his letter to the church at Rome, writing thus, he said, journeying from Syria to Rome, by water and by land, by day and by night, I fight with wild beasts bound between 10 leopards, who the more I stroke and show myself friendly to them, the more cruel and malignant they become. He's talking about the 10 soldiers that were with him. how cruel they were to him and how unkind they were to him. No matter how kind he spoke to them, no matter how kind. See, you think that if you're nice to people, which you should be kind, that they're automatically going to be kind to you concerning your Christianity. They're not. They're going to hate your guts. They're going to hate biblical Christianity unless God touches their heart. Away with this notion of a Christianity that is appeasing to the world, that is accepted by the world. The world hates Christ. And it could do no other, unless born-again people, they get changed by the Spirit of God and they love Jesus, and they turn away from the world. This world is antichrist. You will never win the world, you will win individuals out of the world. Amen. Bound between 10 leopards, who the more I stoke and show myself friendly to them, the more cruel and malignant they become. However, through the cruelties and torments which they daily inflict upon me, so they were torturing him all the way to Rome. It's not enough they're gonna kill him. They're torturing and abusing him all the way to Rome. You think about that. He said, I am more and more exercised and instructed nevertheless. I am not justified thereby. Oh, that I were already with the beast, which are ready to devour me. I hope that ere long I shall find them such as I wish them to be, that is cruel enough to destroy me speedily. But if they will not fall upon me and tear me, I shall kindly allure them so that they will not spare me, as they have already spared several Christians. So he's writing and he's saying some of these lions have spared Christians. I don't want them to spare me. Let them kill me. Let me go. He said, as they have already spared several Christians, but will quickly tear me in pieces and devour me. Forgive me for thus speaking. I know what I need. Now only I begin to be a disciple of Christ. I regard neither things visible nor invisible, at which the world is amazed. It is sufficient for me if I but become a partaker of Christ. Let the devil and evil men afflict me with all manner of pain and torment, with fire, with cross, with fighting against wild beast, with scattering of the members and bones of my body. All this I esteem very little. If I but enjoy Christ, only pray for me that inward and outward strength be given me, not only to speak or write this, but also to perform and endure it, so that I may not only be called a Christian, but also be found one in the truth. Having arrived at Rome, he was delivered by the soldiers to the governor. Together with the letters of the emperor, which contained his sentence of death, he was kept in prison several days until a certain feast day of the Romans, when the governor, according to the order of the emperor, had him brought forth into the amphitheater. First of all, they sought by many torments to induce him to blaspheme the name of Christ and to offer sacrifice to the gods. Think about it. Ignatius, a pastor, well-loved among Christians, well-loved in Antioch, well-loved by the Roman Christians that were there, well-loved all over that area, all over Asia, Asia Minor and all over the place, well-loved, if they could get him to recant. in front of everybody, how many saints would that discourage? How many people would give up the faith or how many people would become discouraged by that and stop fighting the good fight of faith and laying hold on eternal life? It reminds us of the words of the apostle Paul. He said at the end of his life, he was getting ready to, Paul was getting ready to lose his head. And he said, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. It was his dying manifesto. And this is the same with Ignatius. His dying manifesto is this, to die in that amphitheater for the name of Jesus Christ and never to recant what he believed. If they could weaken his faith, but when Ignatius did not weaken his faith, but was only the longer, the more strengthened in refusing to offer heathen sacrifices, he was forthwith condemned by the Roman Senate. mock trial, just like his Lord and Savior, right? Jesus' trial was a mock trial, right? No two witnesses could agree on what he had done. But the Roman Senate decreed immediately that he is to be cast before the lions. As Ignatius was led away from the presence of the Senate to the innermost enclosure or pit of the lions, he frequently repeated the name of Jesus in conversation. which he, while on the way, carried on with believers as well as in his secret prayer to God. Being asked why he did so, he replied thus, my dear Jesus, my savior, is so deeply written in my heart that I feel confident that if my heart were to be cut open and chopped to pieces, the name of Jesus would be found written on every place. With this, the pious man indicated that not only his mouth, but the innermost part of his heart, was filled with the love of Jesus Christ, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Thus also Paul, being filled with the love of Jesus Christ, has used in his letters as much as 200 times as has been counted the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, the name Jesus he employs as much as 500 times. When the whole multitude of the people were assembled to witness the death of Ignatius, for the report had spread throughout the whole city. that a bishop had been brought from Syria, who, according to the sentence of the emperor, was defied against the wild beast. Ignatius was brought forth and placed in the middle of the amphitheater. Thereupon Ignatius, with a bold heart, thus addressed the people which stood around. He said, O ye Romans, all you who have come to witness with your own eyes this combat, know ye that this punishment has not been laid upon me on the account of any misdeed or crime. For such I have in no wise committed, but that I may come to God, for whom I long, and whom to enjoy is my insatiable desire, for I am the grain of God. I am ground by the teeth of the beast, that I may be found a pure bread of Christ, who is to me the bread of life. These words spake Ignatius when he stood in the middle of the amphitheater, and when he heard the lions roar, which the brethren of the church, who also stood among the people, heard and testified to. As soon as he had spoken these words, two dreadful hungry lions were led out to him from their pits, who instantly tore and devoured him, leaving almost nothing, or at least very little, even of his bones. Thus fell asleep, happy in the Lord, this faithful martyr of Jesus Christ. A.D. 111 in the 12th year of the Emperor Trajan. At a time when all was terror and confusion, when the trembling survivors could only gather the remains of their martyred friends by stealth, and in the darkness of the night, there was no opportunity of recording their praises and their triumph in study epithets, or imperishable monuments. No monument was made to Ignatius, no ability to give him a good Christian burial in the sense and honor them. They had to steal away in the middle of the night, gather whatever was left of his bones, which wasn't much, and place him in a tomb somewhere and bury their beloved friend, their pastor, the one that loved them, one that cared for them. These are the martyrs of the, these are some of the martyrs in the Colosseum. These are the pictures of a vast multitudes of people that actually were slain there. We only have a record of a few of them because Rome did well to hide it. Six consecutive games. Opposite way, little floater. That's going to be a tough play. That's going to drop in. A base hit. Baum is on his way to third. Here's another opportunity. Hyman to Adam Henrique as he wires one home. Just like that, the Oilers are in the game. A deep shot. Robinson Pace is in front of that bench. Williams going to fire a step back three, and he sticks it. Hudson! Hudson! Hudson! Hudson! Now we come to the modern-day Coliseum, the modern-day amphitheaters all over the world. It is stated that the construction of such an edifice today of the Coliseum would be $2.2 billion. Well, we see that at the U.S. Bank Stadium. We see that at different stadiums, the XL Energy Center, and different places like that all over the country. What's going on in our coliseums? What's going on? Well, there's nobody being murdered yet. Nobody's lives are being ended yet. But what direction are we headed? Think about this. What direction are we headed in this country? Where are we going with this? Romans chapter 13 verse 11 through 13 says, that now it is high time to wake out of sleep. For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. You know, Juvenile from ancient Rome, he said, Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the people have abdicated our duties. For the people who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions, everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things, bread and circuses. That's where we are. Most people are consumed, they're hypnotized with the sports entertainment of the day. This year, 50.4 million Americans bet on the Super Bowl. Overall, they wagered $16 billion compared to $7.6 billion last year. And that's just on one event. In the first 10 months of last year, $73 billion was legally wagered on sports. a 70% increase year over year. It's led to $5.7 billion in revenue for casinos, $1.3 billion in tax money for the federal government and a whole lot of issues for those who partake. They know more about their favorite teams than they do, than they're able to memorize simple scripture. They can memorize the stats of their favorite linebacker, football player, baseball player, than they can scripture. Simple scripture. What is on the mind in the conversation of people in average churches today? I had a man tell me one time, a young man, when I first started the ministry, he said, Well, you better get to know about sports because how else are you going to be able to relate to your men in your church? Well, I would hope that I would be able to relate to the men of my church through the gospel of Jesus Christ and through them having a desire to go out and preach the gospel to lost sinners and war a good warfare and raise their children for the Lord. What is the conversation? No, we'll just call it when it lands. Call it in the air. Yeah, let's just go with tails. The message uses football with some inspiration. That's kind of the theme that we heard from the churches pastors here today. I sitting through the service. I did hear some jokes about the Bengals season, making it into the whole production, and it's just a really easy invitation for people. We've heard so many stories that this was a person's first experience in church in years. and then they kept coming back and those lives are changed and people are having impact. So yeah, it's a great invitation. So it's a lot of fun. In recording this, we're a few weeks, or excuse me, a few days away from the Super Bowl and churches will literally alter their Sunday activities, their evening services. to facilitate men to watch the Super Bowl. They'll have Super Bowl-themed services all over the country. They will promote the amphitheater. They will promote football. What's on the mind of most people today? Talking more about football players and the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift and her foolish romance with some football player. That's on the minds of more people today in churches than biblical Christianity. You might ask the question, who's playing in the Super Bowl? My answer would be, who cares? Why does it matter? Do you think it mattered to the martyrs in the Colosseum what gladiator was showing up to the Colosseum? What animals were going to be slaughtered? What the circus was like in the Colosseum? Probably not. Because they became the entertainment of the Coliseum. How far are we away from that very thing happening? And how distracted and consumed are Christians? We have a nation that is hypnotized by sports. We've preached outside of Fans that were going to Metallica concert, 70,000 people lined up. Taylor Swift concert last summer, 70,000 fans lined up out there. And what are we doing? We're preaching outside of there, the gospel of Jesus Christ. What are others doing? Professing Christians, walking into those concerts. I'm not saying you're evil if you throw a football around. What I'm saying is, is where is your focus at? Is it really on the gladiators of the day? Is it really on the modern sports movement? Is it really on, by the way, where they have UFCs and other places who's fighting for championships as they beat each other's brains out? Average football players don't even live out a normal life. They deal with concussions and everything else. Is that really what God's people should be entertaining themselves on? Is that what they should be consumed with? Is that really what the conversation of the Christian is to be? Think about that. Where's your passion at? If I showed a video of you at a football game or at a UFC, and then I showed a video of you at church, which gets you more excited? The gospel of Jesus Christ? The preaching of God's word? Or does the football or the touchdown or the home run Or anything else or maybe it's the ladies that are dressed half-naked at the Coliseum right at the UFC Men with no clothes on running up there in in in in shorts fighting and people watching it and being consumed with it. Christians, this is for the Christians I'm talking to. I understand what the lost do. I'm concerned with what Christians do. As a pastor, as a preacher, as an evangelist, as somebody that goes out and preaches the word of God, that does the work of an evangelist and makes full proof of their ministry. All right, it's Pastor Cooley with OPBC Online, a ministry of Old Pastor Baptist Church, and we're out here in front of Minneapolis's version of the Coliseum. And not much is different when you consider the Roman Coliseum and you consider What the modern day Coliseums are like are the U.S. Bank Stadium that holds 70,000 people. So some of the same things that go on, that went on in the Coliseum, go on right here. They have tickets that are sold on the outside. They had beer. They had their favorite teams. They had trading cards. They had memorabilia. They had souvenirs. They had all of those things that were out there in front of the Coliseum. You see these on the side here. I believe this is the same spot where they would turn this in to different things that they would do here in the Coliseum, which I could show you better and talk about better when we get inside, but I hope I brought that book with me, but if not, I'll use it later anyway, but the Coliseum. No, this is a different book. Yeah, the Coliseum, you see those races? It's like horse races, right? And different types of activities. So in this massive structure, you can turn around too and show this, in this massive structure, you had multiple things that were going on. This was the source of entertainment for all of Rome. So when you wanted an entertainment, you came to the Colosseum. That's where you came, right? So that's what they did. And the Colosseum would have, it would have sporting events. It would have fight to the death events, gladiator events. It would have plays. music, plays, theater, live murdering and killing of people and slaves and servants, and of course, the Christians that were martyred in Rome. They would all be there. They would all be inside that coliseum, wild animals. Wild animals that would come and devour people live right there. That's exactly what went on here. So we can go into more specifics when we get inside, but if we get inside, when we, but this, this is the, this is the place right here. This is where it all went down. This is where Christians were brought to the lions and they were martyred for the faith. in front of the Coliseum, and they have the same thing right here. The idolatry, the, you know, out in front of the other Coliseum, you had Constantine's, you had his gate, you had the other gate that was there too as well, outside of the Coliseum that signified the victories, right, that took place. So right here, you have the same example here of this is the Viking Stadium, right? So the U.S. Stadium, what you have here is this Viking ship, which is significant, which is the same thing that it shows the same exact ideas that they had back then. So this is literally this same thing is modeled after that. And all stadiums pretty much around the country and around the world are modeled after that same thing. And the fans, the people, the excitement, the screaming, the cheers, all those things that go on inside of here went on at the Coliseum. It's the same exact thing. The willingness to stand in line, the willingness to stand outside, the willingness to stand all day, you know, to get good seats or to get inside there or do whatever they had to do to get in there or to, you know, support their favorite team. So, not much different really than back then. Same idolatry, the same worship, the same distractions. Some of the people in there will drink themselves to death. The same, same thing. So, you know, when you think about that, when you think about Rome, you think about the Colosseum was the center of, it was the center of Roman entertainment. These stadiums are the center of entertainment. That's why you have traffic that has to be directed. You have police that are out here. You have all these other, Venues that are going on right around you all that is is what happened during the Coliseum time and it's happening now The only difference is right now. What we have is gospel preachers that are outside here preaching the gospel tracting and warning people At the Coliseum the Christians were Forced to be part of the entertainment as they fed them to lions and as gladiators would kill them as Animals would would would kill them as they would be martyred in the Colosseum right And a lot of these games and a lot of these other things they'll have like the National Anthem Right? So they'll tie in nationality, they'll tie in all that. Well, the Caesar would show up to the Colosseum, right? And he would be the mainstay at the Colosseum and he would stand there and dictate whether they would die or whether they would live. Those gladiators are those people. Same design. You know, the only difference is nobody's being purposely put to death today. The only reason that's not happening today, the only reason that's not happening openly in that way, is because of the... because of what happened in America with the Bill of Rights and men like John Leland and other Baptists that fought for religious liberty and other things to make sure that people weren't put to death for things. As easy, put to death for what they believed or persecuted for what they believed. But you know something, here's another thing, as you look at this downtown area and there's some seedy parts of this downtown area, that same thing was going on in the Coliseum. Outside of the Colosseum there were literally small, a seedy section of town that was set up with harlots and whores that the gladiators would sleep with, that they would fornicate with. Same thing goes on, you know what, one of the number one trafficking times in America is outside large games and World Serieses and football games and Super Bowls and all those other things. All of those things, right, that went on then, or go on now, went on back then too as well. So nothing has changed. Same sin, same thing, okay? Same sin, same thing. It's something to think about, the fact of how people will freeze. We're cold, we got all this gear on and we're standing outside here and it's freezing. These people are wearing almost nothing and they're willing to stand in line to get inside of this, to see a bunch of men throw around a pigskin and tights. It drives them. They vicariously live through these people. But the question I have to ask you is choose you this day whom you will serve. If the Lord be God, then follow him. Do you want the sum of your life or your entertainment or everything else to be driven and so driven by this type of mentality that this is what you're gonna be doing? Instead of standing outside as Christians preaching outside of these events, people are entertaining themselves with the same things, literally the same spirit of the Colosseum. You think about that. Think about it. How is your passion for the gospel? How much time comparatively do you spend in your Bible versus how much you spend on sports entertainment? You know, I always talk about this when I'm outside of these sporting events. They look at us when we have our gospel signs. They look at us when we have our scripture signs. They look at us when we have our Bibles and we're preaching. And they say, you look like a bunch of fanatics. And I reply to them, because I am. I'm a fanatic of Christ. And you're a fanatic of the Minnesota Vikings or whatever your favorite team is. Because you wear their clothes. You have their memorabilia. You chant their names. You scream in their coliseums. You're wholly given over to what you believe, and so am I by the grace of God. Would to God that we would be more given over to it, that we would stand firm in the faith more, that more men would be standing outside of those coliseums preaching the gospel and calling men to repentance instead of being a part of what they're doing. Bread and circuses, that's what fills the day of entertainment, amusement. These stadiums are completely full. What are they full of? People. Christians. You know how many professing Christians have gotten upset with me outside of those stadiums? Outside of those events? They've gotten upset with our preachers for preaching the gospel to them? And asking them to be sober-minded? The Bible tells you over and over again, at least eight times, be sober. It talks about the sobriety of the Christian in the end times. How distracted Christians have become from what their focus is supposed to be. Look at the idolatry of the day. Try to talk to average Americans today in most churches about things of the Bible. They don't want to hear it. You know, there have been surveys that are done that seven out of every ten Americans watch, reads, or talks about sports every day. This study was the most comprehensive one ever taken on American attachment to sports. It found that almost 35 million people at the time were ardent sports fans who watched sports events on television at least once a week, and in some cases every day. Oh, it'd be much higher. That was a test that was done back in 1983. How much more so today? We train our children up in them from a young age. We train them up in schools, in public education. They're trained to put the onus on sports instead of their own educations. It's an epidemic, right? It's consuming. So then, it's not only men, but women also. They train their daughters to get into sports. Please tell me how sports are gonna train my daughter to be a godly wife or mother. How are they going to train her to prepare for that? How do sports train, besides some good teamwork principles and other things, but how do sports really train young men how to be men in the world? Doesn't it teach them to continue on and to play games until they're older? Paul spoke of that when he was a child, he spake as a child, he acted as a child. But when he became a man, he put away childish things. When will the men of America, when will God-fearing Christians put away childish things to where their focus is not on sports? I scroll through Facebook. I scroll through their NIC on Sunday. I see them talking about the latest football game, that this is what, I don't see them lifting up the name of Jesus. I don't see them pushing sermons and pushing Bible verses and pushing, what do I see them pushing? Sports, sports entertainment. football, baseball, basketball, UFC, WWE. It's become their Super Bowl ads, right? The Super Bowl, which is the most filthy contest. What do you see on the Super Bowl ads? Filth. Sexual impurity. Programming people. programming them and teaching them about evil and wickedness, promoting all manner of LGBTQ and everything else, right? Dumbing them down, dumping things into their mind, where their mind, after you watch television for a short amount of time, what happens? You shut off the critical thinking and everything just dumps into your mind. We have a nation today that is consumed with entertainment. Hollywood, Disney, sports, absolutely consumed with distracting you from reality, from the importance. And I'm not even speaking about lost people, I'm speaking about saved people. This is a call to the saved. This is a call of repentance to the saved, to be sober-minded and to think about it. And ask yourself this question, is there anything about sports that I would not be willing to give up if Jesus showed me that it was wrong? If the scriptures showed me that I was wrong, is there something about it that I wouldn't give up? People bragging about having season passes to tickets all day long, really wasting your money, squandering your money on season tickets to football players and basketball players, everything else. It makes you wonder how much is being given to the Lord and His ministry and His work? How much is it being given to the churches to see them built up and to see other churches planted? How much money is given? for sports memorabilia, sports entertainment, and everything else, for cable television, for all of those things, versus how much is given to the Lord and the ministry. How much time has been wasted on things that profit nothing? Think about that. Is your free time completely consumed by things that profit nothing? God's not against us having leisure time, but when your leisure time becomes more than your work, your work time for the Lord, when you're consumed with your flesh and the enjoyment of the flesh, that's a problem, friend. And today, The churches are no different than the world. They fill their churches and their Christian schools with sporting events, with everything else. Why? To distract them. You don't want to know one of the number one budget things that Christian schools have a problem with, that they're not willing to give up? Sports budget. Oh, we can cut quarters everywhere else. but we can't cut corners in our budget on our children's sporting events. Parents today consumed, giving all of their time traveling around with every different sport, hockey, football, everything else. Not to mention the filth, if you think about the filth that is broadcasted through all of these. Are these men, these gladiators, the men that you should look up to? Do you want your children looking up to these sports stars? Do you want them looking up to these football players that the only reason why they're in front of anybody is because of their physical abilities? It has nothing to do with anything else. It is complete vanity, vanity, all is vanity, sayeth the preacher, all is vexation of spirit. It is complete talent is all that it is and physical abilities. It has nothing to do with character. It has nothing to do with building them. They are the worst examples. They run pedophilia rings in these sporting events. The Super Bowl is one of the number one human trafficking events of the year. And all of those events are. Events the like. So should we be lifting these events up? Should God's people be distracted by these things? Does it make you more manly? Do you believe, Christian man, that it makes you more manly and a tough guy because you do that? You know what shows your real Christian character? If you'd be willing to stand outside of those events and preach the gospel to people when they hate your guts and hate your gospel. Do you think Ignatius and the martyrs that died in the Colosseum and the other martyrs of the faith that we have seen for thousands of years, do you think those men would be wasting their time, filling their minds and hearts with such things that would consume them? You can't get men together for a men's prayer breakfast in average churches, but you can get them together to go play sports like five-year-olds? Is that too blunt for you? Because that's what it is. And how about pastors? I've seen pastors consumed with these same sporting events, consumed with these same teams, and it's like that's how they believe that they have to relate to them. What about gathering men together to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ outside of these events? Why would you spend the precious time and the limited time that you have with your people and your young people to be consumed with these events? to be consumed with the profanity, to be consumed with the commercials that literally sell fornication. They literally sell sex drugs and rock and roll. They're gladiators that are in the UFC. They're gladiators. One of the top gladiators of the UFC, you know, in trouble for beating, and in trouble for fighting, and in trouble for abusing. And half these people are abusers of women, and alcohol, and drugs, and fornication. It's all right there. And these men are lifted up in your eyes, and you teach your children to follow vain men, to gather vain men unto themselves, How about the actual games that show cheerleaders on the sidelines and UFC women that are in spandex and that are in their bras and in their undergarments, and they're walking around like that. Is that really what you want to teach your children, that that's appropriate? Mine eye affecteth mine heart, the Bible says. I will set no unclean thing before mine eyes. How much unclean things are you setting before your eyes? You go to things like the WWE, and you see that there are men that they're pushing transgenderism. The former head of the WWE, Vince McMahon, the founder of the WWE, is on charges right now, or being investigated for human trafficking, for fornication, paying off women. just like President Donald Trump. And who do you find? Who do you find at the UFC event? President Donald Trump coming out there and given this grand entrance. What is that? Caesar going to the Coliseum? Your politicians are involved with it? The same mindset. It's the spirit of Antichrist. We see these things, right? All these things. Would you find that behavior? How about the actual games and the cheerleaders? Would you find that watching half-naked girls thrown around in the air or cheering or anything like that, that's biblical? Would you want that? Would you find that behavior acceptable for your own daughter? Would you want men seeing your daughter like that? How are we raising our daughters if they would see us support and condone such things? You that are watching these sporting events, UFC, WWE, all these other events where women are being beaten by men, transgenders being involved, pushing the world's ideologies. Worldliness is not a particular event. Worldliness is a mindset, right? We are told that in Romans chapter 12. That we're not to allow the world to control us, right? We're not to allow the world to teach us, but we are to be transformed, right? By the renewing of our mind, that we may prove what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. We're not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed. What's happening to people today? Christians, they're being conformed by the world. The church is no different than the world. It's the exact same thing. You can't even tell the difference. Ask yourself this question. Is it right for us to revel in people bashing each other's brains out for the violence that takes place? Do you think it's violent for a man to box another man and to beat him down until he's knocked out? Do you think that's edifying for the saints of God? Do you believe that's something that God's people ought to be a part of? Think about that. Or how about football players and others that are abused and beaten and their bodies and broken and battered, all for what? All for the excitement of the Coliseum. Right? Do you think the apostles would condone Christians doing such things? How about us reveling in men that are physical specimens, most of them on steroids and most of them that are artificial? Or how about the women that are made in a plastic lab somewhere like a Barbie doll? Is that reality that you sell to your daughter? Is that the reality that you give? And how about the death of these people that end up dying? You think about them. They don't live out their days, most of these gladiators, most of these sports figures, football players. They don't live that long. The fame and the fortune takes them. So should God's people be a part of bread and circuses? Should we live our lives completely distracted? How about the riots that go on? At sporting events, when a team wins or loses, the riots in Canada that took place, the riots all over America, when the Chicago Bulls won six different championships, they were turning cars over and burning the city. Is that what God's people should be a part of? Should we be consumed with such things? The 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup was a public disturbance. They burnt things down. 140 people were reported as injured during the incident. One critically, at least four people were stabbed, nine police officers were injured, and 101 people were arrested that night. As of July 2013, people have recommended 1,204 criminals charges against 352 suspected rioters. They rioted in the streets. You think that's something that God's people should support? Where is our mindset? Where is our understanding? Are we distracted? Are you distracted by bread and circuses? How much of your day is entertainment the focus of? Whether it's video games, movies, sporting events? How much of it is focused on Christ as a Christian? How much of it is focused on following the Lord and being obedient to him? evangelizing, reaching the lost. You know, instead of going to one of those sporting events, maybe you're not a preacher. But if you're a man, why couldn't you stand outside of those sporting events and hand out thousands of tracks to 70,000 people? We have literally handed out 2,000 or 3,000 tracks at events like this. Why wouldn't you be a part of that? Why wouldn't you be out there? Brethren, time is short. Jesus is coming again. This world is going to be judged. The lost are dying and going to hell. People are slipping off into hell while people are playing games, while God's people are playing games. People are dying and going to hell while Christians are being distracted by entertainment and amusements, while they're being distracted by football and the WWE and the UFC and every form of entertainment that's designed to keep them from sobriety. Meanwhile, Think about the amount of people that are pouring out of those arenas that have no gospel witness. You know something? At times, like I said, there are 70 to 75,000 fans. Did you know that in the Twin Cities alone, most of the time, there's only one church there? And one other evangelist out there, by himself, holding a sign, trying to warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come. How many of you Christians are in that coliseum? How many of you are in that stadium while we're outside of it trying to preach? I'm not saying you're inherently evil from a game. Men are inherently evil and depraved by nature until they get saved by the grace of God and they're changed and given a new nature. What I'm saying is, is your time best spent inside of that stadium or outside of it preaching? I fully agree that there's a time to get away, and a time to relax, and a time to do things. But how long before these coliseums have Christians actually inside of them? How long before the hunger games become true? When you start going down the mindset of violence, how far will it go? We're already murdering our own sons and daughters through human abortion. We've already dehumanized children. We're already dehumanizing the old and the elderly. How long before Christians are actually put to death in these arenas? So the question I have for you is, where do you stand? Are you distracted by bread and circuses? Is your talk filled with sports? Is your conversation, your mode of life, is it filled with sports, or have you grown up? The Bible says, no man that woreth entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen to be a soldier. Are you a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? You have to ask yourself that question. You know, the Bible says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me. Maybe you've been consumed by this. Hopefully this documentary on the Colosseum will give you an understanding of the past, so you can better march towards the future and live in the present. And just think. Think about whether You want to be inside that coliseum or outside of it? Would you rather be outside preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and warning sinners to flee from the wrath to come? Or would you rather be inside and be consumed with sports? Do you know a lack of sobriety dulls us? It dulls our walk with God. It dulls our mind. It brings us to a place where we can't be serious about anything. I can't tell you how many people that we talk to outside of these events and they literally cannot have a serious conversation about their own soul. Last week we were at a parade and we had signs of a healthy baby and an aborted baby. And those old men got so angry, they grabbed our amp, they ripped it and they broke it, and they physically started an altercation with us. And the reason for doing so was that we ruined their fun. They cared more about watching 13-year-old girls in tight spandex being thrown up in the air, dressed what the Bible would call naked, or lack of clothing. They cared more about that, of seeing that, than they did that babies are murdered in that very city. See, they didn't want to uncover. They didn't want the truth to be uncovered. They don't want to face the murder of infants. They don't want to face the violence. The Bible says that God hates the hands that shed innocent blood. He hates them. Proverbs chapter 6, 16. These six things that the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him. Those things are an abomination. A proud look. Hands that shed innocent blood. Talks about feet. To be swift to running to mischief. Right? Wicked imaginations. People that sow discord among the brethren. All those things that God hates. But you know what? He hates the hands that shed innocent blood. He that speaketh lies. He that is a false witness. The Bible speaks about all of those things. But you know those hands that shed innocent blood, they didn't want to be revealed. And you know what? You might not like this documentary. It might upset your apple cart. You know why? Because it's revealing something that's there. It's revealing the fact that most of God's people in America today have a lack of sobriety. They're not focused on preaching the gospel and seeing sinners saved. They're consumed with bread and circuses. And by the way, that's exactly where Satan wants them to be. That's exactly where this government wants them to be. So they can be focused on things that don't matter while everything around them is being destroyed. That's why this is an important conversation. That's why you should think about it. Probably about 12 years ago, I preached this message, Bread and Circuses, the history of sports idolatry. And I always said one day that we would do something more with it. I didn't know what it was. I always thought about doing more with it. And then God gave me the opportunity to go to Rome and to Europe. And my heart was gripped when I went to the Colosseum and I saw where God's people were destroyed inside the very amphitheaters that are replicated around the entire world today. Where God's people are completely distracted. The whole city, state, nation is consumed. But the question I have for you is what will you be consumed with? Christ and him crucified? Will you sober up and realize that it's a time for repentance? It's a time to think about your life because it's but a vapor that appears for a short time then vanishes away. Life is short. Do you really have time to waste it and squander it? Or will you be like Jesus? When his mother asked him where he was, he said, wish you not that I must be about my father's business. How many of God's people are about his business today? How much more could be done in local New Testament churches today if God's people were sober-minded? If they weren't entertained and lulled to sleep, it is high time to awake out of sleep. I pray, my prayer is that God will use this to speak to your heart. that you will awaken out of your sleep and realize it's time to repent, it's time to get serious about the Lord, it's time to get serious about seeing sinners saved. The only way you're gonna change a nation is through the gospel. You're gonna reach individuals for Christ. They get saved, they get baptized, they join churches, God calls men to preach, God sends them out, and we start more churches. You're not gonna do it through anything else. You're not gonna do it by being like the world, turning the church into the world and turning it into a sporting event and making everybody happy and everybody wearing jerseys and having Super Bowl Sunday and all these, you're never gonna reach them like that. You will reach them the biblical way. Paul said, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. It is the gospel that saves men. It is the gospel that changes men. And the Bible says that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. I expect children to play games. But 1 Corinthians 13 11 says, when I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. In a world of games and music, of empty-minded fun, we forget of those who died, and battles fought and won. Of history's golden hours, of past blood-filled shame, and Christians' sacrificial flowers, and emperors' haughty fame. Come with me to a place so dismal, a place of murder and brutality, where Christians won their victories final, where blood flowed fast and free. The great and ancient Colosseum, built by Jews far from home, to Christians a bloody mausoleum, journey to first century Rome. If we look inside our Bibles, we can see what Christ said. Jerusalem's temple would crumble and martyr's blood be shed. And so it was in the first century. Martyr's blood was shed. Gladiators strike their blows, until one meets their end. And people, amused by such bloodshed, O horrific the very thought! Useless death to lions fed, and beast and humans fought. Why this waste of innocent life? Why such bloody gore? To amuse the Emperor's wives? Is this what deaths were for? Come to the 21st century with me. The football stadiums are full. Go to them and quickly tell why it seems familiar to me. As battles fight between two teams, a roar in loudly screams. To many a man's mausoleum, this is the modern Coliseum. Tell me why the WWE seems too familiar to me. Why a person's heart rejoices and yell in screaming voices? At the hurting of another? Aren't you supposed to love each other? But gladiators strike their blows till each other's blood swiftly flows. Why do Christians not feel guilty as they attend these coliseums? Can they judge those ancient emperors who revel in these mausoleums? No, they can't. They do the same as the emperors watching the games, as one man goes to fame and the other into shame. So come out of this idolatry. Come out of her, my people. Join God's hosts in victory over the modern Coliseum. Your Baptist forefathers lost their lives inside the old Coliseum, so you should fight for what's right, for those who died for freedom. you Oh.