Temple Baptist Church - 5-3-2020
Revelation 3:14-22
Introduction:
A. Tonight, we begin with the last age of the church, The Laodicean Church Age. Lukewarm, despicable, relatively worthless and without cure.
B. In two thousand years, we came from the Apostolic Church that “turned the world upside down” to this?
1. How did we get here? The Bible Belt is unbuckled, most churches are modernistic and liberal, and fundamental Bible believing churches are like “hen’s teeth,” hard to find.
2. How did we get here? One inch at a time, the church has gotten used to the dark and found out that it liked the dark!
C. Laodicea: “The Rights of the People”
1. The Lukewarm Church
2. The Materialistic Church
3. The Despicable Church
4. The Drag Net Church
5. The Last Church
D. The History Timeline of the Laodicean Church Age:
1. Pre-Laodicea - Three things drove America spiritually to its knees in prayer prior to 1945.
a. World War I, 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918, The Great War. The first global conflict.
b. The Great Depression - August 1929 to June 1938
c. World War II, 1 September 1939 to 2 September 1945, The Second World War.
2. On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb from a B-29 bomber plane called the Enola Gay on Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, August 9, 1945, a second was dropped on Nagasaki—bringing Japan to a place of surrender on August 14, 1945, bringing an end to World War II.
3. The biblical structure of the home changed during World War II as the men went to war and the women left the home and went to work in the war effort. When the men came home from the war, they were tired of fighting, the women were making the decisions and the home has never been the same.
4. War has always been good for the economy because it increases its output and number of workers to support it. At the end of the war, materialism was in full swing.
a. Americans could now afford the luxuries of life that they had only dreamed of in the past.
b. New homes, new cars, modern appliances and conveniences became the norm in most American homes, and this took MONEY!
c. Since the women, for the most part, now worked outside the home, the two income home was the answer to the materialistic desires of America.
5. Over the past 75 years, great change has come to America and the world. These changes have not all been good ones.
a. The first official television broadcast began on January 3, 1954 and Hollywood has done much to shape the thinking of America ever since.
b. The “Baby Boomers” came into this world to families with working moms and dads. Many became dysfunctional because of this change in family structure where mom was not always at home.
c. Grandparents, babysitters, Daycare Centers and Kindergarten took over the raising of the children because mom and dad now had to work to pay bill for the newly acquired assets.
d. Breakdown of authority. The Old School of authority became just that, “Old School.” Children were not corrected in the home; children could not be in the schools; this bled over into every aspect of life.
e. The rise of the hippy (flower children) movement; burn the bra movement; women’s lib movement; NOW – National Organization of Women, etc.
f. The “Godlessness” of the public-school system.
1. The “Godlessness” of Evolution. Science falsely so-called has permeated schools.
2. The “Godlessness” of Humanism. Where there is not God, man becomes “god.”
3. The “Godlessness” of Globalism. “We are world and we are one.” Montessori method of teaching. The first Montessori School was established in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1913.
4. The “Godlessness” of Socialism. The Socialist Movement in America is deeply rooted in public education as colleges are turning out liberal left socialists.
g. The evolution of the “religion.” Not salvation as it never changes. As each generation became more unchurched, causing the churches to change their biblical structure in lieu of a more worldly approach to draw the worldly.
h. In the early 1950’s, more “new bibles” came into existence and the King James Bible was being taught as archaic and, therefore, not as relevant as the modern versions. Mostly liberal churches changed to the new versions through ignorance BUT many so-called fundamental churches and universities push them today.
1. The Westcott-Hort Text, i.e. the Critical Text or the Minority Text began to be translated around 1853. New Testament finished in 1881 and RV completed in 1885.
2. The Revised Version was rejected by the majority and the King James continued to be the Bible of choice until the early 1950’s.
1952 – Revised Standard Version
1965 – Amplified Bible
1966 – Jerusalem Bible
1970 – New American Bible
1971 – New American Standard Bible
1971 – The Living Bible
1976 – The Good News Bible
1978 – The New International Version
1982 – New King James Version
1989 – New Revised Standard Version
2001 – English Standard Version
2004 – Holman Standard Christian Version
2004 – New Living Translation Updated
2008 – ESV Study Bible Published
i. Demographics have changed:
1. The Old School Americans (pre-WWII), for the most part, have passed away; Baby Boomers (post-WWII), also called Generation X, are now the senior citizens and are passing off the scene; Millennials (As of July 1, 2016 (the latest date for which population estimates are available), also called Generation Y, are parents; and Generation Z (America’s youth) are coming up.
2. With each change, there has been a forsaking of some degree the values of the preceding generation and America is rushing toward the self-destruction of socialism as the “blind” are now leading the “blind.”
3. All these changes are evidenced in the modern day COVID-19 “crisis,” as not only the world is caught up in it, churches are also.
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