The Dark Ages: The History of the Scriptures

The "Dark Ages" was 1000 years of widespread spiritual darkness that resulted from the suppression of the Scriptures by the Roman Catholic Church, which restricted ordinary people from reading the Bible and enforced its authority through brutal persecution. This message traces how groups such as the Albigensians and Waldensians, along with reformers like John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, and Martin Luther, and many others challenged church authority by teaching that the Bible—not church leaders—was the final authority. These faithful men and their followers were persecuted or killed, mostly by being burned at the stake, yet their efforts to translate and spread the Scriptures in the English language eventually helped spark the Protestant Reformation, aided by the printing press of Johannes Gutenberg. Bible-believers who know the truth of history are overwhelmed with gratitude and thankfulness for the sacrifices made by earlier generations who suffered and died so that later Christians could freely possess and read the Word of God.