GOD’S TIMELINE CHURCH AGES
From APO-18 – Catholic Origins
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GOD’S TIMELINE CHURCH AGES – Christ has one message to this church:
Repent of being wed to the world, stop worldliness… with unbelievers.
The majority of those who call themselves Christians in our world today follow a way of worship that would have offended the apostles and early saints.
What do I mean?
1. The statues of Christ and saints with candles and incense burning before them are idolatrous.
2. The incense, the orders of priests and monks (would be contradictory to Christlike humility), the calendar of observances, the titles of the pontiff, vicar, most excellent, holy water, purgatory, and so much more. All that came directly from the pagans. The early saints tried to convert! How did this happen? Remember the progression?
GOD’S TIMELINE CHURCH AGES
There was the Ephesian period–30-60 AD a period of warmth and love and labor for Christ, dating directly from the apostles, in which defection began by the gradual cooling of the love of some, the false professions of others and the incoming of undue exaltations of the clergy and church offices.
Then came the Smyrna period–60 -300 AD the era of martyrdom, and of the sweet savor unto God of faithfulness unto death, but marked with further developments of defection in the establishment of castes and orders, the license of Judaizing propensities, and consequent departures from the true simplicities of the Gospel.
Then followed the Pergamite period, 300-500 AD in which true faith more and more disappeared from view, and clericalism gradually formed itself into the system, and the church united with the world, and Babylon began to rear itself aloft.
So this period is the historic portrait of the era when the true Holy Catholic Church united with Roman paganism.
It is the timeless portrait of any so-called Christian who loves and joins in with unbelievers and in the world system.
It warns of the deadly sin of being in love and communion with that which God has condemned and will destroy…..G has told us there is only one action to take when confronted with worldliness and apostasy: SEPARATE FROM IT!
2 Corinthians 6:14-17 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” 17 Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.”
James 4:4-8 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? 7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (Remember how the Apostle John dealt with the infidel apostate Celsius? He ran out of the bathhouse when he was told Celsius was in there!)
Revelation 18:1-4 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
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