Truth Matters 92

Hello, I'm Dr. Cheryl Davis, and I want to thank you for listening to Truth Matters. Over the last couple weeks, we have covered the Book of Revelation, and particularly in our last session, we covered the Church of Laodicea, the last church in the series of the seven churches of Asia Minor. I have to admit, we have taken a deep dive into each church. We have examined the forest by looking at each tree.

Today, I want to take a broad look at the forest. I'd like to get into church history and try to synthesize the first three churches of Revelation as a whole. What I call this session is the interlude, the history of the church age, a summary of Revelations chapters one through three.

I'd like to talk about another aspect of looking at this. If you look at seven stages, each stage has its own letter. But really, in looking at the seven ages, you can divide these seven ages into two groups.

In chapters four through 19, we will encounter seven seals, seven vials and seven bowls. In each group of seven, they were divided into subgroups. And in group one, there are four churches or four stages and group two, there are three.

Let's get at group one. So group one, I'm describing as a successive period. The first four periods of church history followed one another, meaning as the first period rise and falls, then the second period starts, rises and falls, the third period rises and falls and the fourth period rises and falls.

They come in succession one on the end of the other. Ephesus, which is the post apostolic was followed by Smyrna, which was the period of persecution, which was followed by Pergamos, which is the time of Rome, which was followed by Thyatira, which is the time of the Dark Ages. But I'd like to really spend more time on group two, as I believe these churches exist contemporaneously, meaning that they exist around the same time. It's just the height of these churches may differ in their timeframes. What I mean is that currently in modern day, I believe there are elements of Sardis, there are elements of Philadelphia, there are elements of Laodicea. Laodicea is the most prominent church at this time, but I believe they all coexist together. As you remember, Sardis was the church that was dead but had a name.

Philadelphia was alive with an open door and Laodicea is sickly. What I mean by contemporaneous is that when the door to ministry was opened in the Philadelphia period, the previous Sardis period, the dead church did not end. We still have the Roman church today and churches bogged down in deadness and apathy. When the expansion of the church began, the Reformation period did not end. It continues today. The effects of the previous periods are still around, but the Laodicean characteristics are dominant. I believe we had three forms of church on the scene today.

The Sardis form, the Philadelphia form, and the Laodicean form. Our challenge is to recognize that the Lord could come today. So what is keeping us from laying our sins down?

We are on the threshold of the end of the age. Luke 18 8 says, Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, will he find faith on the earth? And according to the three contemporaneous forms of churches that are on the scene today, as we said before when we studied the church of Philadelphia, Philadelphia is the remnant in which the Lord is coming back for in the rapture. The letters to the seven churches are God's x-rays given to us so that we might examine our own lives and our own ministries. Knowing that your church, or even your Christian life, could fall into these three categories – dead, name only, alive and thriving or sickly, sinner, righteous or ungodly – which one do you fall into? Have you even taken the time to survey your own life and even your own church? Speaking to pastors, what is the spiritual condition of your church? Is it more like Philadelphia, or is it more like Laodicea or Sardis? I pray that you are real. Thank you for listening to Truth Matters. I'm Dr. Cheryl Davis.