This article suggests that the two-thousand year interval when God was calling out a church for His name is now ending. If so, we are now experience a new administration from on High. The church is therefore nearly completed. The following articles are important for anyone who follows the actions and plan of God from creation to the Second Advent of Jesus. Ephesians 1 (v3-12) says,
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
Andy Woods presented an excellent view about speaking out boldly against false teaching.
This was in August 2018 before the Covid lock-down in March 2020. Please watch video.
Andy helps us see how to answer false teaching in the church and in the world. The big change since 2018 is the demise of the church as God’s secret government on earth after 2000 years of church history but now a complete change is underway (I believe) in how God runs His universe.
I think the biggest change since 2018 is that we are apparently no longer living in the “dispensation of the church.”
I believe we are now being governed by the “dispensation of the kingdom.”
The church age failed miserably and had to be replaced. As creatures of habit we resist change and long for the good old days of yore.
Contrary to what might think based on the prevailing scientific world view, progress is an illusion.
The local church was intended to be a microcosm of the true church in heaven with all the spiritual gifts operative. There was to be no hierarchy but each local church was to have godly elders watching over the sheep! What is taught in that church was to be sound, scriptural, thorough, expositional, and relevant. The selection of outside speakers was to be carefully scrutinized. Such guest speakers (visiting prophets and church supported missionaries) should address weak spots in staff teaching and correct error. Obviously leaders in local church should be godly, wise, experienced. The true church is an organism, the Body of Christ, not an organization! The Church was called to operate under the New Covenant, not the Old.
The local church was to guard against the values of the world from “sneaking in through the side door.” Jude warned against this, as did Paul in his farewell address to the elders at Ephesus, Acts 20.
Suffice it to say the credibility and the authority of the local church has evaporated in the past two or three decades. True believers are few, a minority, within the local professing church. There is no real accountability now and little loyalty to the local church. The church pastor often now runs everything and is accountable to no one. The content of the teaching these days is minimal.
The church today, therefore, has nothing helpful to say to the pagan cultural around us. And “without a vision the people perish.” Many followers of Jesus won’t darken the door of a local church now. Government listens to Science now, not church leaders. But the authority of science is proving to be a broken reed. Government leaders have lost all fear of God.
If the church is no longer the “secret government of the world,” then I think God had to step in and govern each individual Christian by direct rule. The Lock-down, I believe, eliminated pecking orders in local church cabals, did away with fatally flawed accountability of leaders, and dropped the last traces protecting the flock against wolves.
I believe God is now bringing in the kingdom rule of Jesus on earth whether we like it or not.
Andy is sound in embracing the authority of the Bible. The times we live in not are surely like the days of Elijah and Elisha? We are safe as long as we each obeys Jesus every day at a time. Whenever possible we need to connect with like-minded followers of Jesus regardless of their background or previous church affiliation.
Rebooting the Church: quite a few former pastors are attempting to go back to life as it was before the Covid lock-down. This can’t work very well if God is not in it!
Witnessing the apostasy of the church Chuck Missler said a few years ago the future of the church would be in small groups. By then it was probably too little, too late.
The early church met in the catacombs outside of Rome. For two thousand years Jesus Christ has been building His glorious church!
Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. Although he lived much of his life as a pagan, and later as a catechumen, he began to favor Christianity beginning in 312, finally becoming a Christian and being baptised by either Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop, or Pope Sylvester I, which is maintained by the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church. He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire. He convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus' alleged tomb in Jerusalem and became the holiest place in Christendom. The papal claim to temporal power in the High Middle Ages was based on the fabricated Donation of Constantine. He has historically been referred to as the "First Christian Emperor" and he did favour the Christian Church. While some modern scholars debate his beliefs and even his comprehension of Christianity, he is venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity.
The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople (now Istanbul) after himself (the laudatory epithet of "New Rome" emerged in his time, and was never an official title). It subsequently became the capital of the Empire for more than a thousand years, the later Eastern Roman Empire being referred to as the Byzantine Empire by modern historians. His more immediate political legacy was that he replaced Diocletian's Tetrarchy with the de facto principle of dynastic succession, by leaving the empire to his sons and other members of the Constantinian dynasty. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign. The medieval church held him up as a paragon of virtue, while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign, due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Trends in modern and recent scholarship have attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship.
There is only one true church and that church has been under construction for two millennia by Jesus Christ Himself. Seven representative Churches have been around since Pentecost. All are legitimate. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The Church at Philadelphia is the one assembly not criticized by the Lord of the Churches. It is true that the general state of the church of Jesus Christ at the end of the church age was Laodicean.
The true church Jesus has been building for nearly 2000 years has not been uniform everywhere and has never been defined by buildings or organizations. Small country churches with one pastor is common. Home churches as described by Frank Viola are very common around the world. In countries like China or Iran, or Muslim nations, Christians meet in small groups, more or less underground. Thriving groups of committed Christians are found in many prisons. In Third World Countries, where Bibles and buildings are scarce, groups numbering many thousands meet in tents or in the open air. Not all can afford a sound system. The leader is often a gifted evangelist but there may be little teaching so that the converts remain children spiritually.
 Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles. And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: ‘After this I will return
And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down;
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August 1, 2021