If you haven’t recently read about “endtime” prophecy in the Bible, it’s high time and beyond to do so.

Why? Because the culturally and morally destructive end of this age of human history is set to soon receive its most powerful, proverbial bombing run!

Those prophetic “bombs” have already shattered and weakened the morale – and worse yet – the spiritual and moral fiber of mankind for nearly all 6,000 years of human history.

When Adam and Eve began to heed the slithering lies of Satan the Devil masquerading as a talking serpent in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis chapter 3), they cut the dye for carnal (physically oriented but not God-oriented) human nature ever since. 

God specifically defines human nature through the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:7 – “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” This is the physically oriented, carnal human nature we seek to overcome!

Seven historical eras of God’s Church

The final book in the Bible is Revelation. It’s about, then future, prophecies of the endtime and beyond. We are – today – actually living in the endtime just prior to the prophesied second coming of Jesus Christ!

Between 90 to 100 AD, Jesus Christ inspired the apostle John to name in Revelation, the mostly future, historical eras of His true Church, known as the Church of God – after seven cities in northwestern Asia Minor. Those cities, now in modern day Turkey, were then part of the Roman Empire.

In Revelation chapters two and three Christ inspired John to prophesy about each of these congregations, assessing their spiritual strengths and weaknesses. They were Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Linked together on a Roman mail route, the apostle John was, most likely, their overseeing pastor.

Jesus then prophetically addresses the future eras of God’s true Church – admonishing them to overcome their faults and remain actively faithful to His truth and to doing His work in their respective historical times.

The Ephesian era of the early apostles lasted until the death of the apostle John (the last of the original twelve). Each successive “church” of the seven then progresses down through the roughly 2,000 years of history since the time of Christ—right down to today!

Church eras six and seven

In our own historic memory, we have lived during the sixth era named after the 1^st century city of Philadelphia, thus, the Philadelphian era. The church in ancient Philadelphia was one of the most productive when it came to preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God to that part of the world as a witness in that day.

And, so too, the Church of God in the twentieth century, starting in the early 1930’s, rapidly grew in size, but it’s reach in proclaiming the true gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God was even greater, through God’s blessing and the advent of the new technologies of radio and television.

Yet there is a seventh era when God’s work is concluded prior to Jesus’ second coming. Based on historical markers, we are living now in that ominous seventh historical era. The name of the city and the era is Laodicea!

Christ labelled this final era the “lukewarm church”…

“And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked…” (Revelation 3:14-17).

Laodicea was prophesied to be (as a congregation—and an era) self-satisfied, self-righteous, proud, wealthy, and arrogant. If you watch world trends and attitudes, you will see and hear that self-centered reasoning echoing through modern secular society. Not surprisingly, and sadly, it also echoes through much of the organized elements of the true Church of God.

Beware! A culture – especially an arrogant culture tends to rub off on young and old, male and female. It’s very tempting to give in to things that are “woke” or currently approved by the society we live in, but God determines what is acceptable, not us or the world around us.

There is only one true antidote to self-righteous, Laodicean arrogance and that is submissive humility before God. “Remember your Creator…” Ecclesiastes 12:6. We aren’t self-sufficient, our lives continue, day by day, through God’s mercy.

The seven congregations listed in Revelation 2 and 3 were prophetic of God’s true Church during each respective era. And each era would have some spiritual strengths to build on… and each would have spiritual weaknesses to overcome.

The last – Laodicea can be spiritually deadly. But remember, you don’t have to be Laodicean!