Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: TREND (12/07/23)
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TITLE: What's Happening? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Doug Laird
12/11/23 -
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Some, who no longer attend, still provide financial support in order to avail themselves of the religious services (weddings, water baptisms, funerals, etc.) that they have to offer, but their heart is not in it, any more than many of those in attendance (1).
Many of the local assemblies have compromised accurate doctrine, and have prioritized social, entertainment, environmental, political, and humanitarian programs to attract and retain attendance and support.
Meanwhile, the primary work (2) that our Lord gave His Church to do is being placed on the back burner.
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth (Revelation 3:15-16 NASB2020).”
Rev. 3: 15-16 is the contents of John’s letters that was sent to the 1st Century local assemblies in Laodicea. It also describes, in part, the environment in many of the local assemblies, and the Christian Community at large, in the “later times (1Tim. 4: 1 NASB2020),” just before the Rapture (3) takes place.
issues taking place in other 1st Century local assemblies in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, and Philadelphia were addressed in John’s other letters, and will also be prevalent during the later times.
Culpability exists in many pulpits, as well as in the pews.
Apostate Church goers “…will not tolerate (hold to) sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers and leaders in accordance with their OWN desires (2Timothy 4: 3 NASB2020 parenthesis mine).”
Outside of the houses/places of worship, many end time “Christians” are rejecting the necessity of marriage (4).
Many who do marry are rejecting the New Testament (Church Age), Biblical principles on which Christian marriage and family (5) are to function.
How goes the family, so goes the nation!
Many end time Church goers, are using human viewpoint, to “call evil good, and good evil…(Isa. 5: 20NASB2020),” embracing all kinds of immorality.
Overtly, there is becoming little difference in the thinking, speech, behavior, and priorities of apostate “Christians,” and their unbelieving counterparts.
End time apostasy and immorality within the “Christian Community” are greatly diminishing the impact of what should be the unspoken testimony of their daily lives, and the spoken testimony of those who participate in the Great Commission (6).
The Churches and religious institutions that Man has built have a long history of repeating an alternating cycle of faithfulness and unfaithfulness to God and His Word.
Sometimes individual and regional revivals take place after experiencing some type of life threatening scenario, or a degree of divine discipline (7).
Other times, revivals are triggered by a life-saving event or great blessing.
As individuals, we can come into this world, being born at a time when our nation or society is either in moral incline or decline, receiving the blessings of morality, or the discipline of immorality.
If the negative end-time trends had not been prophesied, many of the faithful would have cause to wonder what is going on within the Christian Community at large.
During times of moral decline, accurate and all-inclusive doctrinal Bible teaching becomes a hard find (8).
But advancing disciples needn’t worry. God would not command His followers to grow in His knowledge (9),and then not provide the means (10) and opportunity to do so.
But we have to truly have a desire for it (11).
The Church here on Earth that God designed, as opposed to the Churches that Man has built, has the divine assurance of endurance until its mission is completed, at which time it will be Raptured away (12).
The final generation(s) of the Church Age will not experience physical death. Instead, they will be raptured away. The possibility of the Rapture taking place in one’s lifetime has been the hope of all Church Age believers, but no more so, than those living here in the devil’s world, in these End Times.
Trends will come and go.
But as in the days of Noah (14), there is a coming time, when God will no longer strive with fallen Man, and in His timing, every end time and future prophecy WILL be fulfilled (15).
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(1) Matt. 15: 8, 9 (2) Matt. 19, 20 (3) 2Thess. 4: 16, 17) (4) Heb. 13: 4 (5) Eph. 5: 22, 25, 33/Eph. 6: 1 (6) Matt. 28: 19, 20/Math. 24: 24 (7) Heb. 12: 6/Lev. 26: 14-39 (8) Amos 8: 11 (9) 2Pet. 3:18 (10) Phil. 4: 19 (11) Jer. 29: 13 (12) Matt. 16: 18/Matt. 24: 14/1Thess. 4: 16, 17 (13) 2Cor. 5: 1 (14) Gen. 6: 3 (15) Matt. 5: 18.
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"compromised accurate doctrine" needed some examples. For example, it may step on some toes, but I would include mentioning such churches using new translations even though the translation leaves out about the blood of Christ. Without examples it is mostly overused assumed-to-be-true facts.
Keep writing.