The Church at the End of the Age... And What To Do About It

The church of Jesus Christ is described by at least seven symbols, or figures, in the New Testament:

1. Jesus is the Great Shepherd and we Christians are the sheep (Jn 10:1-18).
2. He is the True Vine and we are the branches (Jn 15:1).
3. We are "living stones" building built into a house which is a habitation for God---Christ Jesus is the cornerstone (1 Peter 2:4-7, Ephesians 2:19-22).
4. The Lord is described as a merchant who finds and buys a single pearl of great price (Mt. 13:45).
5. He is Great High Priest over the household of faith, and we are his servant-priests (Heb. 4:14-16).
6. The church is the Body of Christ, every one a member of every other, and all under the direction of Christ the Head of the Body (1 Cor. 12:12-14, Ephesians 2:11-18, 4:4-16).
7. Finally the church is the Bride of Christ and Jesus the waiting Bridegroom (2 Cor. 11:2, Eph. 5:26, 27; Rev. 21:9).

Jesus announced the calling out of a new believing community, the church, on the occasion of Peter's testimony of faith in the Lord Jesus at Caesarea Philippi, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18) Incidentally, Jesus was here speaking of the church prevailing in an offensive, not a defensive posture. The very gates of hell itself, he said, would not be able to resist or withstand the assaults of his church. The church was intended to be a formidable powerful opponent which would overcome all evil, "Who is this who looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?" (Song of Solomon 6:10). Paul closes his letter to the Romans with the admonition, "...I would have you wise as to what is good and guileless as to what is evil; then the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." (Rom. 16:19-20)

The amazing fact which the Scripture clearly declares, but which thousands of Christians have failed to see, is that God has designed that his church should be a kind of government on earth undergirding visible governments. This would make possible a climate of benevolent law and order, the rule of justice and peace, and would hold in restraint the wild forces of tyranny, anarchy and murder. (See Matt. 5:13, 14; Phil. 2:14, 15; 1 Tim. 2:1, 2.) Whenever the church has approached the biblical pattern, righteous conditions have begun to prevail. And when it has turned from this divine pattern to rely on secondary forces it has become proud, rich and tyrannical, or worldly, weak and despised by all. (Ray C. Stedman, Body Life, 1972, 1995).

The calling out of Gentiles and their grafting into believing Israel as a whole new class of believers under a New Covenant with God was not revealed in the Old Testament. It is a "mystery" which in the Bible means something previously hidden but now made known by the Spirit in the New Testament:

"When you read this you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace...to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Ephesians 3)

Jude, the brother of our Lord, began his short epistle urging his readers with all diligence and earnestness "to contend [epagonizomai, from epi, upon or about, (intensive) plus agon, a contest], for the faith which was once for all time [hapax] delivered [paradidomi, or delivered over, handed over] to the saints." Jude is talking about the faith, the total content of the Christian faith, not just simple faith or trust in God. This faith was handed as a package from the Lord Jesus to the Apostles and was then transmitted from one generation into the next, person to person. Finally, we, too, in our own time were reached with this glorious good news, transmitted to us by faithful witnesses. We are now responsible for the whole package and its communication to the next generation, undiluted and unpolluted. The package includes all that the Old and New Testament have to teach us accompanied by a sound heritage of interpretation and wisdom from God imparted to his people. That way the church maintains its central integrity and orthodoxy.

Though Christians may differ in certain peripheral matters, we all need to seek and hold on to a core of sound understanding and to establish a Biblical world-view for ourselves. We are all strangers and pilgrims in an evil world, en route to the heavenly Jerusalem---traveling companions with those saints who have gone on ahead of us.

An urgent, diligent concern for balance, wholeness and the content of the faith is reflected in Paul's last words to the elders at Ephesus where he had labored long and arduously:

"And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. And when they came to him, he said to them: 'You yourselves know how I lived among you all the time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which befell me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance to God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ...I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears...'" (Acts 20:17-31)

There is little doubt that today many churches in America promulgate a contentless Christianity, and false teachers certainly abound on every side. Not only does Paul warns of these "fierce wolves" who will draw away many by subtle enticements of slightly off-centered teaching, he also indicated that men will become less responsive to truth as the age draws to its end,

"Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons." (1 Tim. 4:1):

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears [knetho, itching, is a metaphor meaning eager to hear (anything that suits them at the moment)] they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry." (2 Tim. 4:1-5)

In their concern for doctrinal corrections and theological orthodoxy in teaching, the Apostles wanted all believers to be acquainted with the "whole counsel of God." How can we do the will of God if we remain unacquainted with his ways and his character and his plans for mankind?

Yet orthodoxy in doctrine and full Biblical knowledge is not sufficient---as the Lord himself warned the church at Ephesus (they excelled in doctrinal excellence), "I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first." In the faith, (which was once for all time transmitted to the saints), lifestyle, conduct, self-giving love and godliness are vitally important. Truth not acted upon is lost and hypocrisy is something God deeply hates. Mere profession of faith not backed up by a changed life is worthless. In his great chapter on love (1 Cor. 13) the Apostle warns that "If I have no love it profits me nothing," and Peter says, "love covers a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8) God seeks for wholeness in his children, which requires doctrinal integrity plus a responsive daily walk with God---in order that our lifestyles come around to match our beliefs. Indeed we are to pursue holiness, "without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).

The church at Pergamum was warned against the doctrine of the Nicolatians. Many Bible scholars hold that this departure from the truth concerns clericalism: the establishment of a division between a paid-professional clergy and a more or less passive laity. Elders are to encourage the flock as shepherds, and not run or manage the affairs of the church as if it were a business, professional, organization. The New Testament calls all believers into the ministry. All receive enabling spiritual gifts, all are priests under one Great High Priest, Jesus. Infiltration of the world's values into churches has certainly brought serious problems today, for instance the introduction of top-down management rather than servant-authority into church government. Jesus said clearly in this regard,

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:25-27)

Jesus said, "When the son of man returns will he find (the) faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8) These words cause us to question the final state of the church around the world at the time of Second Advent. The Old Testament is a dismal record of Israel's continued and repeated failure---despite the patient long-suffering love and mercy of God. Why then should we expect the church to succeed where other sinful sons of Adam have failed? True the promises of God and provisions made by the New Covenant are stronger and more powerful than those given to Israel under the Old Covenant, but it is biblical to say that the predicted end of the church in the New Testament is failure. Only a "remnant" will be saved out of professing Christendom---as was the case with Israel. The majority of professing nominal Christian church-goers will, sadly, go into the false, or harlot church of the tribulation period.

The idea that the Gospel would gradually subdue the people of the world and eventually bring them to the feet of Christ is contradicted alike both by the Scriptures and by history, and the result has been the rapid decline in the twentieth century of optimism in relation to the triumph of the church in the present age...A survey of Scriptural prophecy as it relates to the spiritual trends of the present age should have made clear to any inquirer that the present age will end in apostasy and divine judgment rather than victory for the cause of Christ through the triumph of the church. Major passages of Scripture deal with this subject and the expositor is embarrassed by the wealth of material which plainly teaches that the end of the age will be characterized by apostasy (Matthew 24:4-26; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 1 Timothy 4: 1-3; 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 4:3, 4; 2 Peter 2:1-3:18; Jude 3-19; Revelation 3:14-16; 6:1-19:21).

An examination of these major passages on apostasy in the New Testament will reveal that the development of apostasy will be in three stages: (1) the doctrinal and moral departure in the church prior to the rapture, i.e., during the last days of the true church on earth; (2) the apostasy in the professing church after the true church is raptured, i.e., in the period immediately following the rapture: (3) the final apostasy in which the professing church as such will be destroyed and the worship of the beast, the world ruler, as the human representative of Satan will be inaugurated (Matthew 24: 15; 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12; Revelation 13:4-8; 17:16-18). Of major importance is the fulfillment of the prophecy relating to apostasy in the church being fulfilled in the contemporary situation, a subject to which the Scriptures give considerable space. (John F. Walvoord, The Nations, Israel and the Church in Prophecy, Zondervan, 1967)

In seven parables of the kingdom of heaven recorded in Matthew 13, two apply directly to the weakened decadent, corrupt state of Christendom at the end of the age of the church:

"Another parable he put before them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.'"

Ray C. Stedman comments on this parable as follows:

Mustard seeds are small seeds and ordinarily grow into reasonable shrubs. Mustard is a spice, an irritant, used in earlier times to make burning mustard plaster, which when placed on the chest was thought to cure all manner of ills. Here Jesus describes the state of the kingdom of God (at the end of the age) as an outlandish, overgrown, useless tree in which the vultures perch. The final state of the church will be like an inefficient bureaucratic organization infiltrated with evil birds of prey, no longer a company of pilgrims on a journey out of this life-pilgrims who should be salt and light wherever they go.

How visibly this has been demonstrated in our day when from the pulpits and the spokesmen of the church have come up a flood of stupid, crazy, mixed-up ideas---evil concepts which have blasted and blighted and ruined the hearts and minds of people, just as our Lord said. These things have only occurred since the tree has become fully grown and branched out, as we near the end of the age. (Ray C. Stedman, Behind History p76, Word, 1976)

The second parable is equally ominous in its warning about the course of the age:

"Jesus told them another parable. 'The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.'" (Matthew 13:31-33)

Ray C. Stedman comments on this parable as follows:

Leaven in scripture is always a symbol of evil. The measures of flour represent the fellowship God intended for his people to enjoy with him and with one another. The pervasive influence of the leaven of hypocrisy which was the leaven of the Pharisees, the leaven of the Sadduccees which was rationalism, the leaven of materialism, characteristic of the Herodians, the leaven of legalism---all have worked together to ruin the quality of spiritual life God intended for his church.

Our Lord is looking down the centuries to follow and he sees the thing which is most precious to God about the work which he himself has begun among mankind. This is the fellowship of God with his people, the sharing of life with each other and with God, the family of God, the oneness of the body of Christ, with all the members sharing life in openness and honesty together under the love and forgiveness of the Father. And into that wonderful fellowship these false, evil principles are introduced by those who had the right and the authority to preserve this fellowship, i.e., the leaders of the church. It is they who introduce the leaven into it, who permit it to come in and do not exclude it as they should. Those who are charged with the responsibility of developing the fellowship of God's people nevertheless allow hypocrisy, formalism, ritualism, rationalism, materialism, legalism, immorality---all of these things-to come in. And when these things set into a church they destroy the fellowship of God's people.

What an instructive parable this is! As we apply it to ourselves we can see that this is what has been happening. This is why churches are oftentimes charged with being cold and unfriendly-because there's no fellowship. It is too often only on the most superficial basis that people come and sit together in the congregation, not as members together of one great family, but as individuals listening to a service but not relating to the person next to them. But that isn't Christianity as it is intended to be manifested. That is only a form, only a moment in the Christian life. The major part is to be the sharing of each other's concerns, the bearing of one another's burdens, the confessing of our faults one to another and praying for one another that we may be healed, the opening of our lives and the transparency of our actions before others. This is the great fellowship that our Lord is seeking.

As you trace this pattern down through history you can see how leaven has been working. The very ones who were responsible to keep God's house free from it---the leaders, the pastors, the elders, the teachers within the church---are the ones responsible for allowing these conditions to come in and to prevail. And each time they have done so they have destroyed this marvelous fellowship. (Stedman, Behind History, p90)

A great apostasy, or falling away, from true, biblical Christianity is another clear sign of the end of the church age according to Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians:

"Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day [of the Lord] will not come, unless the apostasy comes first...The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. 2)

Each of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation (Chapters 2 and 3) contains a special message to the remnant of true believers in every congregation and in every age. This minority group in every church is described as overcomers. Each of these groups is given a special challenge appropriate to their situation and circumstances.

All Christian churches now in existence can be described as belonging to one of these seven generic groups. In addition, the course of the church age from the First Century till now has enjoyed a season of time in which each of these churches in turn has been the congregation of predominant influence in that age---beginning with Ephesus and closing with Laodicea.

To the church which is doctrinally sound but has lost its love, warm and openness (Ephesus) the remnant is urged to recover that lost love fervent love for the Lord Jesus---and for one another. They are promised: "To him who overcomes I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."

To Christians who are suffering persecution and great hardships, Smyrna-type believers are encouraged to not fear and to endure, if necessary, to the death. "He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death." Pergamum-like churches with their hidden idolatry and permissive attitude towards immorality need urgently to repent and correct these serious problems. Their faithful remnant is promised: "To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it."

In both the church of Pergamum and Thyatira, Jesus was gravely concerned about their continued toleration of sexual immorality and associated idolatry infiltrating in from the pagan world outside. Thyatira's faithful remnant was given the challenge, "He who overcomes and who keeps my works until the end, I will give him power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received power from my Father; and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Sardis' remnant Christians, who have not soiled through garments through defilement by the world are encouraged, "He who overcomes shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

There can be little doubt the church in America today is fully Laodicean. The age of Philadelphian Christianity has quietly slipped away from us in the past half-century. The Philadelphian Christian remnant was told, "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God; never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Since the Laodicean church is representative of the church as a whole at the close of our age we should pay special attention to the Lord's analysis of this church and his words of exhortation to the faithful remnant that remains at the end of the age.

"The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. 'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

Returning to the various symbols of the church mentioned in the first paragraph, the figure of the church is a reminder that Christ is calling a virgin bride out of an idolatrous world:

"...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:26,27)

The church described as the body of Christ, with Christ the head of the Body (Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12-14) is a reminder that the true church is a living organism, not an organization. We need one another and depend on one another as the various organs and systems of the human body are interdependent. Each member of the church reports directly to the Head, there is no hierarchical leadership in the church. All members have spiritual gifts and all are called to the ministry. "If one member suffers, all suffer, if one rejoices all rejoice."

"But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift...And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, in order to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love." (Ephesians 4:7-16)

Ray Stedman describes the fellowship and Body Life of the church and how to recover it in our time:

Now, openness and oneness of the body together is the key to all revival. Every time the Spirit of God has ever moved in history he has always begun here. He has restored to the church the sense of belonging to each other and to God together, the sense of openness and honesty and transparency, of the need to bear each other's burdens and to uphold one another before God, to be concerned and to care for each other, and to demonstrate it by deeds of help and mercy toward each other---all because we share the life of God. We are free to do this because we do not have to be hung up with defensiveness about ourselves. We have received the forgiveness of God, the grace of God, and that frees us to be at one with someone else. This is the most precious thing in the world in God's sight...

That is what is often lacking in the church today. We have taken away the koinonia, the commonness of the body of Christ. We have lost that to a great extent in the church in general. But we have held onto the kerygma, the preaching, the proclamation. We expect to convince everybody by an intellectual presentation of truth. But the reason why the evangelical church of our day is rejected and set aside in so many quarters is that people who come to it are disappointed because they hear great words but they don't see great lives; they don't see warmth, they don't see love and acceptance, they don't see understanding and forgiveness. What they too often run into is strife and bickering and fighting and quarreling and unforgiveness, jealousy and bitterness, grudges and splits and feuds and divisions, hostility and anger, worry and anxiety. They listen to the preaching of these great words that the church has to say and then they look at our lives to see how it works. And what they see convinces them that the words are not true. What they see is exactly what they find in their own lives and homes.

So they say to us, "What are you Christians talking about? What's the difference? What do you Christians have that we don't have---without the inconvenience of having to go through all the rites you go through. What is so great about this message? Why doesn't it do something for you? Why should we believe it and go to all the trouble of becoming a Christian when we can live the same way ourselves? We don't need the church or the Bible to teach us how to fight. We don't need the gospel to help us to be angry and resentful and bitter and divided against each other. We can do all that without it." And so there is an immediate loss of attention to the message that we are proclaiming because there is no evidence of the witness of communion. What is missing is the oneness, the precious fellowship together of the people of God living the life of God. (Stedman, op.cit. p91ff)

What can we as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ at the close of the age of the church? From the messages of Jesus to the seven churches it is clear that Christ offers special words of encouragement to the overcomers in each church. Each of us can make himself or herself unconditionally available to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not necessary for us to get dragged down by those around us if our individual congregation has departed from the truth in teaching or conduct or has lost its first love. We can study to show ourselves approved, (2 Tim. 2:15), we can turn aside from the base things of the world and seek God's best so that we are worthy of the Master's most honorable use (2 Tim. 2:19-21).

Above all, we can pray. And we ought to pray for revival, for those "times of refreshing" God gladly brings to his church when a few of his people turn to him in real repentance and intercession. In response to Solomon's great prayer on the occasion of the dedication of the First temple in Jerusalem, the Lord spoke these words to the King:

"When I (the LORD) shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:12-14)

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