Jan. 21, 2025

Constantinople, Greek Fire, and Clandestine Christian Slaves - (Enmity with the Seed – Part 3 - From Islam to Azusa) – Episode 30

Send us a text What happens when empires collide, faiths clash, and history pivots on a single city? Journey with us through the sands of time as we unravel the tapestry of religious and political power that shaped ancient civilizations. From the persecution of early Christians under Roman rule to Constantine's groundbreaking shift of the Roman Empire's seat to Constantinople, we explore how these monumental events led to the birth of the Eastern Orthodox Church and set the stage for the rise...

Send us a text

What happens when empires collide, faiths clash, and history pivots on a single city? Journey with us through the sands of time as we unravel the tapestry of religious and political power that shaped ancient civilizations. From the persecution of early Christians under Roman rule to Constantine's groundbreaking shift of the Roman Empire's seat to Constantinople, we explore how these monumental events led to the birth of the Eastern Orthodox Church and set the stage for the rise of Islam under Muhammad. Witness the rapid expansion of Islamic forces, their strategic conquests, and how these narratives continue echoing through the corridors of history.

The rise and fall of Constantinople serve as a focal point in our exploration, highlighting the clash between burgeoning Islam and resilient Christianity. The swift territorial gains of the Islamic empire, reaching from the Arabian Peninsula to the heart of Europe, posed formidable challenges to the Byzantine stronghold. However, the tales of ingenuity and faith, such as the miraculous defense of Constantinople using Greek fire and intelligent strategies, reveal a compelling narrative of resilience against the odds. As Christianity spread through Europe and early communities like the Coptic Church emerged, we uncover the profound impact of missionaries like Paul the Apostle, whose journeys left an indelible mark on Western civilization.

Each chapter of our discussion paints a vivid picture of divine intervention and human determination interwoven through history. From the conversion stories that shaped Christianity's growth to the spiritual legacies of figures like Paul, we emphasize the enduring influence of these early events on contemporary faith landscapes. As we reflect on the miraculous defenses and strategic triumphs, we invite you to ponder the divine threads that weave through the fabric of history, guiding and preparing for God's work across generations. Join us for this compelling journey through time, where faith, strategy, and divine purpose converge in extraordinary ways.

00:00 - History of Christianity, Islam, and Rome

05:49 - Rise and Fall of Constantinople

24:50 - Christianity's Triumph Against Muslim Sieges

36:56 - Battle of Constantinople

56:07 - Divine Intervention in Christian History

01:08:24 - Power and Preparation for God's Work

WEBVTT

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Well, praise God, hallelujah.

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Can you see that Some of this stuff is not going to be very clear, but it doesn't matter, because we're just going to look.

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We're really just looking at the colors.

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Hallelujah, what's that look like?

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Turn this down a little bit, the better.

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If you can't read the words, that's, that's really OK.

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We're just into the colors.

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Hallelujah, praise God, thank you Jesus, thank you Lord.

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The last time we were together we talked about how the Antichrist was trying to exterminate the seed in the person of Jesus at his crucifixion, his resurrection, and also following in trying to persecute and kill the seed Peter trying to behead Peter tried to beheaded James Paul's chasing the church into Damascus, and all of those things were happening to the early church and if you know your history, a little bit of the church history, you'll remember that this happened throughout the Roman period.

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The church was persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, crucified.

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All the disciples suffered tremendous persecution and terrible deaths.

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This continued on until the church basically became accepted in about 300, 350 AD and the church and the empire in Rome moved its seat.

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They moved the seat of the Roman empire from Rome to a place called Constantinople, which was a city that sits right on.

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There's a connection of waterway that flows from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea.

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It's called the Bosporus and it flows right past this little point, that just out, and that's where Constantinople is.

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It's always been a very, very important strategic place, but Constantine decided he was going to put his empire there at that point.

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Amen, and he did.

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He moved it.

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What that effectively did was it left the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, in charge of the church in that part of the world.

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Constantine moved the empire to Constantinople and then that became the seat of what is now called the Eastern Orthodox Church.

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Okay, you know, they wear the long black robes and that sort of thing.

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You're familiar with them.

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So the church became kind of split in half.

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There was this Eastern church that was centered in Constantinople and the Western church, which was centered in in Rome.

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All right, so in six around, in the early six hundreds, a couple hundred years after they moved the Roman empire to Constantinople, moved the Roman Empire to Constantinople, a man by the name of Muhammad began a religious thing in the northern part of Saudi Arabia and became what we know today as Islam.

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He was the founder of it, he was a warrior, he was a ruler, he conquered Mecca and the northwest part of the Arabian Peninsula from his home in Medina, and after his death, he died in 632 AD.

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Islam was then spread by Muslim adherents and by the Arabs that were under their rule.

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There are Muslims who are not Arabs, but the first phase of Islam and the exportation of Islam into other regions was done by Arab expansionism.

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The man who succeeded Muhammad and ones who would follow after him you're going to hear this word throughout, and you still hear it today the rulers who came after Muhammad are called caliphs, and the area in which they rule is called a caliphate.

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When ISIS was in its heyday a few years ago, they spoke of the caliphate of ISIS, so this is not a new term.

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The caliph was both the religious leader and the political leader, not so much like we do it, but it was.

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That's how.

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That's how it was in their part of the world.

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Now I want you to notice something here, why we're using these maps right here.

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No, he was an Arab, and so this is Saudi Arabia here, and this part right here in the northwest part is where Islam started, and so, at about 632 AD or a little bit afterwards, this is the realm of what Islam contained.

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All of Saudi Arabia in that part.

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This pink part was the Persian empire, arabia in that part.

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This pink part was the Persian Empire and this red part was what was called the Byzantine Empire or the Roman Empire.

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Okay, with the seat or the capital of the Roman Empire right here in Constantinople.

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Now you can see why Constantine would move his capital from here in Rome to here in Constantinople because here in Rome, look, he's almost at the very edge of the empire and he's got all of this stuff that belongs to him.

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So he moved it here to Constantinople.

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Then what happens?

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He's right in the middle of it.

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He's right in the middle of it.

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He's right in the middle of it, and the weather's better.

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Anyway, you can see why they did that.

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At the time when Islam started, it started here in the desert of Arabia.

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To the north and to the east was the Persian Empire.

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It was not Muslim, it was a different kind of religion altogether.

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And this, the new Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire it's also called, was now becoming a Christian empire.

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Okay, so that's where we are when Muhammad dies in 632.

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Hallelujah.

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Within a hundred years, this map would entirely change.

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I'm going to show you that in just a minute.

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But within a hundred years, this local religious thing that's called Islam, that nobody knew about in 632, except a few people here in Saudi Arabia, would engulf.

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This, would cut this in half and extend all the way over to Spain within 100 years.

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And this is moving at the speed of horse.

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Nothing's moving any faster than that News messages.

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Anything else is not moving any faster than a boat can go or a horse can travel.

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And yet they'd conquered all of that area.

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In 636, they moved up into this area, into this area right here of Syria, and they took over Syriaria, which was a christian country at that time.

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Okay, between 636 and 642 they took over persia and conquered it.

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In 642 they moved to the west and they conquered egypt.

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Let me see, I think I've got that.

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Yeah, this is what it looks like in 642.

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They've conquered Egypt.

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They have all this under their control.

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They've conquered Syria.

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They've taken back and look how much.

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If you look at this, look at what's red in this screen and look at what's red in this, in this screen, and look at what's red now, that's how much the roman empire has shrunk in just about 50 years.

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That's a.

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That's because the, the, the, the tribes from the north are coming in and taking over rome.

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It's also because Islam is coming from the east and taking over.

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So they've cut over.

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Syria is now taken, israel's now taken, palestine's now taken, they've come into part of Turkey, they've taken what used to be Antioch, they've taken Cairo and what's used to be the Egyptian kingdom, the Persian kingdom.

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This is all prophetic as to what Daniel saw in the dream of the man with the gold head, the bronze chest, the silver chest, the bronze feet.

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You know that.

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Prophecy the iron feet, anyway, praise God.

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Prophecy the iron feet, anyway, praise God.

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So this is all happening by 642.

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By 711, the Muslim reach looks like this it's gone from Spain all the way into past Iraq, into what's now Afghanistan and into some of the southern parts of Russia.

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That was all done in less than 100 years, from 632 to 711.

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80 years, that was an extent.

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And they were not a force to be trifled with.

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They were a serious, serious military force and they conquered all of North Africa.

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They went from North Africa into Spain.

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That's this whole thing about Spain we're going to talk about earlier, but you can see the military logic of what they're doing.

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They're trying to get into Europe and they're trying to come into Europe this way.

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See this bridge right here, right where Constantinople is.

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There's a gap of water there and that gap of water separates Europe from Asia.

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Okay, this is Asia over here, this is Europe over here.

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They're trying to get into Europe this way and this way, and so they're doing what's called in military terms a pincer maneuver.

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They're coming from two sides like two prongs of a pair of pinchers and they're going to pinch Europe like that.

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That was their primary military tactic for centuries and they came into Spain, pushed up into that, and now they're trying to come in through Constantinople, because Constantinople is still their primary enemy.

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The Roman Empire is still their primary enemy, still has the major military force, still controls the Mediterranean, amen.

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So they're trying to cut it off and open a door cut in the destiny of Western Europe.

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Western civilization as we know it would not exist if these four battles go a different way.

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We've been talking for months and weeks now about decisive places in time where the Antichrist raised up its head and tried to cut off the seed.

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We're talking, this series of messages is going to be under the title Pursuing Seed.

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The seed went into Europe.

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Look at what Paul did.

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Paul went first to Turkey.

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He went first to Turkey, then he went to Greece, then he went to Italy and he had plans to go to Spain.

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Didn't get there, but he had plans to do that.

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So look what Paul did.

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He went over like this and then from there the gospel went north like this, by 300 and something AD.

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It was already in Britain.

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It had a foothold in France.

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In Britain it had taken.

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You had a foothold in France, in Germany, in Spain.

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It had taken over Europe.

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So when Islam came to power, they wanted to move up here into where the Christians had already established a foothold.

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All right, this is not, I'm not making this up, this is what they said out of their own mouths.

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I've got quotes Amen, hallelujah.

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So in 674, the Muslim military forces that are organized here in this area set sail across the Mediterranean and they are going to attack Constantinople both from the sea and from the land, coming across Turkey, and they are going to mount the first of many, many sieges of Constantinople.

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This is essentially from 674 to 1453, almost 800 years it took them to penetrate and finally defeat Constantinople.

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That's why its name now is not Constantinople.

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Its name is Istanbul.

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It's the second largest city in Europe.

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We're not talking about a little country village here.

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We're talking about one of the most strategically placed cities in the world and we're talking about the persistence of the enemy.

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It took 800 years for them to defeat that city.

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Let's look at what they were after for just a moment, and then I'm going to get to some more interesting things and get off of these maps.

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This is an artist's rendition of the Hagia Sophia, or the Wisdom of Sophia.

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This is a Christian church built in Constantinople in 537 AD.

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From the time that it was built for another thousand years, it was the largest church building on the planet.

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It still stands.

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It has been a.

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It has.

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It's not.

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It's not a Christian church anymore.

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Now it's a mosque, but it has been a functional building for 1500 years.

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In the United States we had to torn it down, rebuild it.

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Torn it down, rebuild it.

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It would be a parking lot.

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Today we have no concept for that kind of stuff, of how things can last that long, but it is.

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That's how old this building is.

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It is one of the architectural marvels of the world and it is, you know, for it to be still be standing where there are earthquakes all the time, and for that complexity of a building talks about how much they knew about architecture without the use of power equipment.

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Let me go to another slide of how it looks today.

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Whoops, skipped one.

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This is how it looks today.

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You can see that there's been a little bit of additions made to it to make it look more like a mosque the turrets and the towers and everything but it's still there.

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This picture was taken, I think, in 2021.

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And it's still one of the largest churches in the world.

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No, constantinople was protected by a wall system and this is a part of that wall.

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I think that is still standing, or it's a replica of it, but anyway, this gives you an idea of the immensity of it.

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And not only was it a single wall, but it was a double wall system.

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In fact, the wall system itself had multiple walls at that location and then a few kilometers out from it, there was another wall system.

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So it was like, okay, if you get through this wall, you still got to get to another wall, and I'll show you that in just a minute how that worked.

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But this is what made Constantinople so impregnable Nobody could deal with these walls.

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They didn't have the system like they did in Babylon, where they could drain the river and come underneath.

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You know, like we heard about before, there was no way in this.

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They even had the city walled up on the walls that face the sea.

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The city goes right up to the edge of the sea.

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They built a wall right at the sea wall.

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There was no way you were going to get in, because you could sail up and climb up.

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There wasn't any way they stayed safe.

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They stayed safe for one time, for 100 years.

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They bombarded these walls and almost reduced them to rubble, but they still couldn't get in.

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Now we're going to settle on this.

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This is an aerial photo of what Constantinople looked like in that day.

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You can see, here is the outer wall.

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Right here, that black line goes all the way across from one body of water to another and then all the way down the coastline.

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It protects the city all the way around.

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So the city is protected 360 by this wall system.

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Another thing we're going to hear about is right over here.

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You can barely see it, but there's a faint line right there.

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You see that that's a heavy chain that they put across the entry to the harbor there would be these huge windlasses on either side of the chain and they could draw that chain or lower it.

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If they lowered it, ships could get through.

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If they drew it up there, the ships would hit that chain.

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They wouldn't be able to go past.

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And I'm talking links that are huge and the metal is that thick, huge, and the metal is that thick.

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In Panama, at the entrance to the port in Panama from the Gulf of Mexico, 500 years ago, back in the 1500s, with the Spanish, they had the same thing.

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They put a chain across the harbor because that's where they loaded and offloaded the gold and they didn't want anybody coming in there and attacking them while they were doing it.

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So they put this chain up and the footers for that chain are still there.

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You can go up and see them.

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There are these huge stone things and they anchored the chain on one end and over across on the other side of the bay there would be another one and they could lower it and they could raise it up, raise it up, lower it.

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Same principle here and this is an important thing in the second siege of Constantinople, praise God.

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So the first siege starts in 674 AD and lasts for four years, and it was part of the Muslim strategy to expand their influence into the new Roman Empire seated in Constantinople.

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Some of these walls that we looked at were over 15 feet thick.

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It's as thick as this room.

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It had 96 watchtowers along the wall and they had a double wall system that made the city seem almost impregnable.

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So what the Muslims did was that, along the coast of the Mediterranean, from their neck of the woods going up toward Constantinople, they began to do this raiding system, raiding approach and they would raid the villages and they raid the cities that were along that line, and started setting up their own fortifications in a chain along the Mediterranean.

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So they had supply routes to go as their navy went further up and further up.

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So what they intended to do was build a string of forts from their base of operations in Saudi Arabia all the way up through Turkey and into Constantinople.

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You follow what I'm saying.

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Let me pull another map up here.

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They're down here.

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Oops, they are down here.

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And so what they did was they built cities and forts and everything all along this loop of the Mediterranean to support their effort, and so they didn't have to guard their rear flank.

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They could proceed ahead.

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They knew that their people were behind them, their supplies were behind them, their supplies were behind them, so they could move toward Constantinople, but not just go up there and knock on the door and say we're coming.

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But they left a trail of supplies, manpower, reserves and all sorts of things all along this coastline.

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Very strategic, very purposeful kind of approach.

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When they had that all set up, then they put their navy in a blockade formation so that nothing could get in and nothing could get out by sea.

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And so, instead of invading and trying to tear down Constantinople by force against those walls that are impregnable, they just said, okay, we'll starve them out.

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And so they laid siege.

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Sounds like a good idea, right?

00:23:40.180 --> 00:23:47.105
I mean, that's probably what you would do if you were thinking about it and you had the manpower to do it.

00:23:47.105 --> 00:23:55.344
However, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God raises up a standard.

00:23:55.344 --> 00:23:59.011
Oh, I forgot to do something, I'm sorry.

00:23:59.011 --> 00:24:09.388
I'm just going to tell you a couple of stories that are important, but I might not get around to explaining why they're important until later, but I should have done this at the beginning.

00:24:10.171 --> 00:24:22.503
In Acts the 7th or Acts the 8th chapter we encounter a guy by the name of Philip and God tells Philip to go down into the desert area.

00:24:22.503 --> 00:24:31.085
When he gets down into the desert he sees a man riding in a chariot and God says go up to the man in the chariot.

00:24:31.085 --> 00:24:47.295
And so Philip runs alongside the chariot and he sees that the man is reading from a scroll and Philip realizes he's reading from the Old Testament.

00:24:47.295 --> 00:24:49.622
He says what are you reading?

00:24:49.622 --> 00:24:51.707
Do you understand what you're reading?

00:24:51.707 --> 00:24:58.007
He said well, is the man, is he talking about himself or is he talking about somebody else?

00:24:58.007 --> 00:25:06.330
Philip gets up in the chariot and begins to teach the man the gospel of Jesus.

00:25:06.330 --> 00:25:11.807
From that point in the scripture, finally, the man says here's some water.

00:25:11.807 --> 00:25:13.772
What's going to keep me from being baptized?

00:25:13.772 --> 00:25:15.501
Philip says nothing.

00:25:15.501 --> 00:25:17.426
If you believe with all your heart.

00:25:17.426 --> 00:25:19.030
He says I believe.

00:25:19.030 --> 00:25:20.201
They got out of the chariot.

00:25:20.201 --> 00:25:21.967
Now where do you find a pool of water?

00:25:21.967 --> 00:25:22.930
In the middle of a desert?

00:25:22.930 --> 00:25:23.881
That's what I want to know.

00:25:23.881 --> 00:25:27.210
But they got out of the chariot, went down into the water.

00:25:27.210 --> 00:25:28.653
The man was baptized.

00:25:28.653 --> 00:25:36.407
Philip was taken up in the spirit and found in a place called Azotos, which was many, many miles away.

00:25:36.407 --> 00:25:44.933
And the man in the chariot went on his way, rejoicing Hallelujah, praise God.

00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:59.002
Then, in the next chapter, in the ninth chapter of the book of Acts, we find a man named Saul who is charged to go and take prisoners in a place called Damascus, amen.

00:25:59.002 --> 00:26:00.905
And on the you know the story.

00:26:00.905 --> 00:26:08.863
On the road to Damascus, he has an encounter with the Lord and changes Saul's trajectory in life.

00:26:08.863 --> 00:26:11.468
Just remember, I told you these stories.

00:26:11.468 --> 00:26:16.881
So the siege starts, but there's a problem.

00:26:16.881 --> 00:26:39.401
Problem is that when the Muslims invaded Syria and took it in whatever year that was 636, you know not everybody was going to be in agreement with having a new boss Because, remember, syria at that point was a Christian country.

00:26:39.401 --> 00:26:54.295
And so the Christians in Syria, when the Muslims came in, took over and decided that, you know, you were either going to obey and convert or you'd be killed, amen.

00:26:54.295 --> 00:26:58.782
Well, instead of making that decision, a lot of people fled.

00:26:58.782 --> 00:27:20.740
There was one man whose name, if you can imagine this, one man, whose name, if you can imagine this we still know about this, 1,500 years later that this man was from a place called in Syria, called Heliopolis, amen.

00:27:20.760 --> 00:27:21.541
And this man was quite inventive.

00:27:21.541 --> 00:27:22.442
Do you know what he invented?

00:27:22.442 --> 00:27:26.285
He invented the 7th century version of napalm.

00:27:26.285 --> 00:27:28.066
Do you know what napalm is?

00:27:28.066 --> 00:27:32.048
Napalm is like liquid fire.

00:27:32.048 --> 00:27:45.698
It's a gelatin substance that contains gasoline and when it explodes in a bomb it spreads like jello would spread, only it's on fire.

00:27:45.698 --> 00:27:48.327
It's almost impossible to put out.

00:27:48.327 --> 00:28:00.372
And that's how the Allies bombed Europe into submission and bombed Japan into submission and how we tried to bomb Vietnam into submission.

00:28:00.372 --> 00:28:08.314
This has been a major piece of the armament of you know for the past 80 years.

00:28:08.314 --> 00:28:09.240
Amen.

00:28:09.500 --> 00:28:10.502
But this is what it was.

00:28:10.502 --> 00:28:15.051
It was this guy invented it and they called it Greek fire.

00:28:15.051 --> 00:28:17.842
Now it was spread by two different ways.

00:28:17.842 --> 00:28:33.369
They had a way that it could be propelled out of like a cannon and they would literally just shoot this wall of fire toward a ship and it would land on the ship and just spread like this.

00:28:33.369 --> 00:28:35.561
No one, anything could do about it.

00:28:35.561 --> 00:28:39.634
In a matter of minutes the ship was totally aflame and totally gone.

00:28:39.634 --> 00:29:02.086
The other way they would do it was they would have essentially kamikaze kind of ships and they would set them on fire and set them toward a group of the enemy ships and it would go over there, hit one, hit another, and the fire that would erupt from that would just spread out and one ship could cause many.

00:29:02.086 --> 00:29:15.265
What would you think if, all of a sudden, you looked out and here comes, you know 20 or 30 ships on fire going right at you and you don't have the means to put it out?

00:29:15.265 --> 00:29:29.621
Well, that was what Greek fire was like, and this Christian refugee from Syria was the man that invented it for the emperor of Constantinople.

00:29:29.621 --> 00:29:32.134
Are you hearing what I'm talking about?

00:29:32.134 --> 00:29:53.306
I'm talking about a Christian man invented this stuff called Greek fire, and what they did was, when the Navy came to form the blockade, they just sent out the countermeasures, which was this Greek fire and practically destroyed the whole Navy.

00:29:54.166 --> 00:30:06.361
It was so bad that the siege had to be lifted and the Muslims beat it into a hasty retreat.

00:30:06.361 --> 00:30:08.446
With what part of the navy they had left?

00:30:08.446 --> 00:30:12.134
And their army was also in retreat.

00:30:12.134 --> 00:30:20.410
Do you remember now this is going to happen a couple times do you remember what happened in Joshua, when they were fighting the Amorites?

00:30:20.410 --> 00:30:44.136
And there was a great slaughter, and the men of Israel had slaughtered many of the Amorites, but the Bible said that the ones that didn't get slaughtered God killed with hailstones, so that the slaughter of the Amorites by hailstones was greater than the slaughter of what the children of Israel were able to accomplish.

00:30:44.136 --> 00:30:47.625
Remember that when we studied that portion of scripture, amen.

00:30:47.625 --> 00:30:49.527
Same thing happened here.

00:30:50.669 --> 00:30:53.632
The ones that got away, listen to this.

00:30:53.632 --> 00:31:08.630
The returning Muslim fleet suffered further losses to severe storms and the army lost many men to non-Muslim armies who attacked them on their way back.

00:31:08.630 --> 00:31:15.310
So all of these forts that they had trusted in and everything, well, these people weren't sleeping, amen.

00:31:15.310 --> 00:31:22.295
They didn't like the fact that they'd come in and did all this stuff and took over their lands and set up forts.

00:31:22.295 --> 00:31:27.237
So they had countermeasures brewing just waiting for the right moment, amen.

00:31:27.237 --> 00:31:28.647
And these were all.

00:31:28.647 --> 00:31:39.317
Listen to me, these were all in Christian nations where the Muslims had been coming and set up forts and taking over things.

00:31:39.317 --> 00:31:41.348
These people weren't sleeping.

00:31:41.348 --> 00:31:56.068
They set up countermeasures, secrety black ops, if you will so that when they retreated back to the safety of their forts, they were attacked again.

00:31:56.068 --> 00:32:38.730
So by the time this happened listen to me very carefully by the time the dust had settled on all this, the Muslims had taken such a beating in their navy and such a beating in their army they couldn't attack Constantinople for another 50 years, all because one Christian refugee got out of Syria and went to Constantinople and invented napalm, 1,400 years before scientists on our side of the planet would come up with the formula Somebody help us, lord, hallelujah, are we getting this?

00:32:38.730 --> 00:32:42.955
So Constantinople was safe for 50 years.

00:32:43.265 --> 00:32:47.673
The Muslims were persistent, though, and there's a second siege.

00:32:47.673 --> 00:32:59.349
This one happened in 717 and was a two-year siege, started in August or July of 717.

00:32:59.349 --> 00:33:01.913
Started in August or July of 1717.

00:33:01.913 --> 00:33:15.849
At the same time that this is going on, another branch of the Muslim army has already entered into Spain.

00:33:15.849 --> 00:33:17.053
So they've already started this two-sided thing.

00:33:17.053 --> 00:33:21.045
They're going to come in from the West in Spain, they're going to come in from the East in Constantinople.

00:33:21.045 --> 00:33:26.496
They've still got their eyes on driving the Christians out of Europe.

00:33:26.496 --> 00:33:27.919
They want Europe.

00:33:27.919 --> 00:33:29.988
Everybody say they want Europe.

00:33:29.988 --> 00:33:32.432
They want Europe.

00:33:32.432 --> 00:33:34.377
Hallelujah, praise God.

00:33:34.377 --> 00:33:37.454
So this thing starts in 717.

00:33:38.165 --> 00:34:02.076
They massed an 80,000-man army, not only an 80,000-man army, but they amassed a fleet of 1,800 war galleys, and it was supported by over a thousand support vessels, and they sailed right into this sea, right here, and they were going to do the same thing again.

00:34:02.076 --> 00:34:06.556
For 20 years they had done the same thing.

00:34:06.556 --> 00:34:20.014
They had rebuilt the forts, they had gone in and taken captives, taken prisoners, taken properties, taken lands, rebuilt the fort, rebuilt the rear guard.

00:34:20.014 --> 00:34:27.934
They devastated every Christian village on the way up, putting people to both sword and fire.

00:34:27.934 --> 00:34:29.976
They were ruthless.

00:34:29.976 --> 00:34:35.710
They killed women, they killed babies, they killed children.

00:34:35.710 --> 00:34:42.721
The atrocities are too numerous and too barbaric to repeat.

00:34:43.505 --> 00:35:09.719
They made them pay for the defeat that happened 50 years ago and they went back up and rebuilt those things, reconquered those places and the Caliph's brother, who was leading the force, vowed that he would enter the city of Constantinople, knowing that it is the capital of Christianity and its glory, and my only purpose in entering it is to uphold Islam and humiliate unbelief.

00:35:09.719 --> 00:35:20.876
So here's the army or here's the Navy, out here, and again they've set up a blockade all around the coastline.

00:35:20.876 --> 00:35:24.554
Nothing's getting in, nothing's getting out.

00:35:24.554 --> 00:35:38.858
But apparently they didn't get the memo because the whole blockade thing failed again when the Byzantine Navy once again brought out their Greek fire and decimated the Navy.

00:35:38.858 --> 00:35:41.427
Glory to God.

00:35:41.427 --> 00:35:59.894
So what happened was that they kept the navy at bay because of the Greek fire, which meant that there was enough of a passageway through that ships could run the blockade and Constantinople was getting supplies and food.

00:35:59.894 --> 00:36:03.059
So the siege was not working.

00:36:03.059 --> 00:36:15.552
Consequently, they were forced to extend the siege into the winter, which caused them to have horrendous casualties from the cold and the lack of provisions.

00:36:16.735 --> 00:36:20.039
So they start come spring.

00:36:20.039 --> 00:36:22.293
Remember we started in July.

00:36:22.293 --> 00:36:24.052
So now we went through the winter.

00:36:24.052 --> 00:36:28.652
Now in the spring, somebody says let's do it again.

00:36:28.652 --> 00:36:40.184
And so new reinforcements were sent by the new caliph from Africa and Egypt and overland through Asia Minor.

00:36:40.184 --> 00:36:41.809
So let's go back to our map.

00:36:41.809 --> 00:36:44.195
Amen, what does it say?

00:36:44.195 --> 00:36:55.797
From Africa, from Egypt and up through Asia Minor, like this, or they were doing like this and coming over here and then coming like this.

00:36:55.797 --> 00:37:06.186
One way or the other they were building land bridges between here and here, and the navy was shuttling back and forth.

00:37:06.909 --> 00:37:14.347
The determined muslims would not give up and they bombarded constantinople's walls day and night.

00:37:14.347 --> 00:37:30.242
Now they didn't have gunpowder yet, but they would just, you know, heave rocks at them, and its walls were getting to be much crumbled and its vast fleets had almost completely blockaded the city.

00:37:30.242 --> 00:37:46.681
The Muslims were beginning to make preparations for an all-out assault, but when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of God raises up a standard.

00:37:46.681 --> 00:37:55.778
Now you'll notice that in Old Testament times it was God that did these things.

00:37:55.778 --> 00:37:58.429
Right, are you hearing me?

00:37:58.429 --> 00:38:08.817
It was God that did these things in the New Testament, it's believers that are doing these things because the game has changed.

00:38:08.817 --> 00:38:17.369
He, he, the enemy, understands that he cannot exterminate the seed, but he's going to pursue the offspring.

00:38:17.369 --> 00:38:23.929
But it's going to be God who uses the offspring to raise up the standard.

00:38:23.929 --> 00:38:26.253
Is anybody paying attention?

00:38:26.253 --> 00:38:32.230
God wasn't the one who dropped napalm on these ships.

00:38:32.230 --> 00:38:37.606
It was Christian sailors using an invention that was made by a Christian scientist.

00:38:37.606 --> 00:38:43.969
Not a Christian scientist like we know, but a Christian who was a scientist and an inventor.

00:38:43.969 --> 00:38:45.873
Oh, glory to God.

00:38:45.873 --> 00:38:47.436
I hope he got royalties for it.

00:38:48.157 --> 00:39:08.925
The problem was that, because so many people had died and gotten sick the previous winter and in previous campaigns that this new caliph had to enslave Egyptian Christians to become galley slaves and sailors on his vessels.

00:39:08.925 --> 00:39:15.393
So now he wasn't sailing vessels with Muslims, he was sailing vessels with Christian slaves.

00:39:15.393 --> 00:39:17.117
Think of Ben-Hur.

00:39:17.117 --> 00:39:20.394
Everybody, remember Ben-Hur in the galley, remember that.

00:39:20.394 --> 00:39:23.173
Well, that's what these brothers were doing.

00:39:23.173 --> 00:39:43.471
His resources had spread thin, many had died in the last siege and he had no choice but to enslave these infidels and put them to work on the galley, on the warships, but, but, but God.

00:39:44.554 --> 00:39:51.275
These Egyptian Christians began to take counsel among themselves, which is a nice way of saying.

00:39:51.275 --> 00:39:59.476
They began to plot, they began to scheme, they began to listen to the Lord and do what he was telling them to do.

00:39:59.476 --> 00:40:00.958
And this is what they did.

00:40:00.958 --> 00:40:08.119
One night, they all worked together and they all you know what a skiff is, don't you?

00:40:08.119 --> 00:40:11.795
A skiff is like a small boat with a sail on it.

00:40:11.795 --> 00:40:19.978
Each of these big galleys would have essentially what would be life rafts, but they're little boats.

00:40:19.978 --> 00:40:25.538
They seized those boats and they got in those boats and they hightailed it for Constantinople.

00:40:25.538 --> 00:40:28.289
Well, these big warships couldn't.

00:40:28.289 --> 00:40:33.625
They were no match for these little skiffs shooting along the water.

00:40:33.625 --> 00:40:41.637
And they got a whole bunch of these Christian slaves off of the ships, which left them poorly manned.

00:40:41.637 --> 00:40:49.898
And they got to the emperor and they went in and they pledged their allegiance and their faithfulness to him.

00:40:49.898 --> 00:41:04.512
So the Muslims lost a bunch of manpower, but the Christians supplied valuable intelligence to the emperor, amen, concerning plans and formations.

00:41:06.409 --> 00:41:12.951
And so remember this If I'd known I was going to do this, I would have organized these slides a little better.

00:41:12.951 --> 00:41:17.288
Remember this the chain, the emperor.

00:41:17.288 --> 00:41:22.713
With this new intelligence, the emperor ordered the chain lowered.

00:41:22.713 --> 00:41:37.655
He set in a trap, he lowered the chain and before long the enemy saw that it was down and decided aha, this is our chance, we can get through that, this, this place, right here.

00:41:37.655 --> 00:41:39.927
We can come into this part of the harbor.

00:41:39.927 --> 00:41:40.755
We can come into this part of the harbor.

00:41:40.755 --> 00:41:43.833
We can come into this part of the harbor, we can attack all along this front.

00:41:43.833 --> 00:41:45.710
They think we're coming this way.

00:41:45.710 --> 00:41:48.931
We're going to come this way because they've left the back door open.

00:41:48.931 --> 00:41:51.172
The enemy came in.

00:41:51.172 --> 00:41:55.050
The ministers of destruction a quote from that time.

00:41:55.050 --> 00:41:57.333
The ministers of destruction were at hand.

00:41:57.333 --> 00:41:59.893
And once again, here it comes.

00:42:00.186 --> 00:42:10.574
The emperor sent out his fire-bearing ships against the Islamic fleet, which quickly set them on fire.

00:42:10.574 --> 00:42:28.110
Some of them were cast up burning against the seawall, others sank to the bottom with their crews and others were swept down in flames Before long.

00:42:28.110 --> 00:42:44.188
They had no option but to lift the siege and go into retreat, just like the previous siege, and the leader of the navy had to abandon his ship and get on one of the ships that was not on fire.

00:42:44.188 --> 00:42:48.635
But now it's god's turn.

00:42:48.635 --> 00:42:53.063
I said, now it's god's turn, the muslims.

00:42:53.063 --> 00:42:57.793
Troubles weren't over, because the same thing happened again, only worse.

00:42:57.793 --> 00:43:10.038
A terrible storm came and swallowed up almost all of the remaining ships in the Sea of Mamar, which is this sea over here as they're getting out.

00:43:10.038 --> 00:43:23.306
And not only that, but in close vicinity, a volcano was going off and the hot red ash from the volcano descended down on the ships and caught them on fire.

00:43:23.306 --> 00:43:26.112
This is not a good.

00:43:26.112 --> 00:43:29.119
It is not a good thing to do Now.

00:43:29.221 --> 00:43:36.373
Listen, listen to these statistics, and these statistics are are things that that men wrote about at the time.

00:43:36.373 --> 00:43:45.188
Of the 2,500 or more ships that were involved in this thing, only 10 survived.

00:43:45.188 --> 00:43:54.713
Five of those were taken captive by the Christians and five were let go to go home and tell the Caliph what had happened.

00:43:54.713 --> 00:43:59.065
A cliff, you know you remember.

00:43:59.065 --> 00:43:59.708
You sent off.

00:43:59.708 --> 00:44:01.032
You know about 2,500 ships there.

00:44:01.032 --> 00:44:01.753
You know you remember, you sent off.

00:44:01.753 --> 00:44:03.298
You know about 2,500 ships there.

00:44:03.298 --> 00:44:04.322
You know, a few months ago.

00:44:04.322 --> 00:44:06.731
This is what's left of your Navy.

00:44:06.731 --> 00:44:09.309
Glory to God.

00:44:09.309 --> 00:44:11.130
Are we hearing any of this?

00:44:11.130 --> 00:44:18.677
I'm leaving out a whole bunch of details because I just want you to see what God does.

00:44:18.677 --> 00:44:35.791
Not only what he does, but what he enables his people to do is part of the standard that he's raising up now that the seed has been dispersed among many.

00:44:35.791 --> 00:44:38.173
Hallelujah, don't bring it.

00:44:38.173 --> 00:44:38.835
Hallelujah.

00:44:39.534 --> 00:44:57.492
Constantinople was able to do something in this battle, in these two battles that no one else had been able to do so far, and that is to stop Islam in their intent of what they wanted to do.

00:44:57.492 --> 00:45:15.112
For 80 years they had marched through Persia, they had marched through the Middle East, they had marched through North Africa, they had marched through Spain and now they were trying to march through the Byzantine Empire and right into Constantinople.

00:45:15.112 --> 00:45:16.994
But they, but they got stopped.

00:45:16.994 --> 00:45:17.835
Why?

00:45:17.835 --> 00:45:19.996
Because of Christians.

00:45:19.996 --> 00:45:29.373
One Christian man invented napalm and Christian slaves decided to take matters in their own hands.

00:45:30.054 --> 00:45:41.139
This is without a doubt one of history's most decisive moments, and especially the history of Western civilization.

00:45:41.139 --> 00:45:45.731
Western civilization was still just getting started.

00:45:45.731 --> 00:46:02.416
Western civilization was nothing more really than Greek and Roman civilization on the shores of the Mediterranean, and you can see by one of the more recent maps, it was getting snuffed out.

00:46:02.416 --> 00:46:09.429
The barbarian hordes had come in from Gaul and from Germany and from other places and taken over Italy.

00:46:09.429 --> 00:46:15.099
They were taking over parts of the Roman Empire around Constantinople.

00:46:15.099 --> 00:46:24.059
There was no prospect for Western civilization as we know it to move up into Europe.

00:46:24.059 --> 00:46:30.137
But if this battle for Constantinople had gone differently, there would have been no hope.

00:46:30.985 --> 00:46:45.501
One historian wrote, had the Muslims captured Constantinople in the 7th century rather than the 15th, all Europe and America might be Muslim today.

00:46:45.501 --> 00:46:52.554
If that's true and that happened, you would not be here.

00:46:52.554 --> 00:46:54.918
It's really that simple.

00:46:54.918 --> 00:46:57.347
It is that decisive.

00:46:57.347 --> 00:47:06.054
If they come in the back door and they're over here in Spain and they're trying to get in that way, we're going to talk about that one the next time we're together.

00:47:06.054 --> 00:47:09.186