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SATAN'S MILLENNIUM Secular writers, and oftentimes even Christian writers, have little spiritual discernment and cannot view history with any level of Bible-believing wisdom. This becomes rather frustrating when one is studying history and keeps running into the term "the church," which almost always means the ROMAN CATHOLIC church, not the true church of Jesus Christ that was being persecuted by Rome throughout church history, especially during the DARK AGES. The DARK AGES are called that for a reason, though many pro-Catholic historians prefer the gentler term "Middle Ages." It was about a one thousand-year period right in the middle of the church age when Rome pretty much ruled everything and plunged Europe into a millennium of spiritual darkness. So, when people say things like "No one taught dispensations before John Darby," that's very misleading, because most of church history has been darkened by Roman rule when believers were too busy trying to stay alive to have any opportunity to learn and write anything. Some of the early "church fathers" did teach dispensations, but most of the lights soon went out as Satan's dark millennium began. That's why one doesn't read much about dispensational truth before the 1800's and early 1900's with men like Darby, Larkin, Chafer, Scofield and others. The protestant reformers did leave dark Rome for the most part, but WITH WHAT? Certainly not with dispensational understanding. God gave us our Final Authority in 1611, and then over the next three centuries, the further men got from dark Rome, the brighter the scriptures would shine. So, it's only logical that sound dispensational teaching would not rise and spread until late in the Philadelphia church period (1850-1920), which all falls under the heading of Philadelphia KEEPING GOD'S WORD (Rev. 3:8). Before then, the world at large was either enduring Satan's dark millennium or trying to escape it, neither of which times would have provided suitable conditions for serious dispensational study and writing. Good things take time, and in due time, once far removed from dark Rome, God gave us good teachers. We'd do well to acknowledge and appreciate them.