"The Future History of the Church, Part 1"
A typological and midrashic examination of what will happen in the future of the church by seeing how the past history of the church is recapitulated eschatologically; how past events happen again in the Last Days. What to expect, and what to prepare for.
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A baby is the ultimate emblem of God's love; even unsaved people can see that. If a couple has their firstborn, and – God forbid – that baby is in bad health, facing death, the baby's parents would willingly give their own lives if it meant that baby could live. God created that kind of love in order to teach how much He loves us. Jesus gave His life so that we could live. The baby might drive his parents nuts – may be colicky and all the rest of it – but still the parents would say, “This is my baby and I would die for him”. God creates that love to teach us how He loves us.
The point at which Israel went too far was when they sacrificed their babies to demons, to Moloch and other gods. In modern society, if you were to take all of the clinical reasons for abortion and put them together – such as ectopic pregnancy, vaginal cancer, radio-induced mutinogenesis of the fetus – they would account for a miniscule percentage of the abortions performed in any Western country. Most abortions are performed for non-therapeutic reasons; in other words, for social and economic considerations. Jesus called this “Mammon-worship”. Make no mistake about it: non-therapeutic abortion is theologically and spiritually related to demon-worship. God judged Israel for it and God is going to judge the United States and Great Britain for it. When someone takes these ultimate emblems of God's love and sacrifices them to demons, that's where God draws the line. We'll return to this in a moment.
The sins of Sodom are similar. You must understand the theology of human sexuality: the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, Scripture says. (Eph. 5:23) Sex in a Christian marriage is a reflection of Jesus going inside of His bride and causing her to be fruitful. This does not mean that sexual love in marriage is not erotic or pleasurable – what it does mean is that it is holy. God comes together in an act of creative love in Genesis and brings forth the Creation. The plural God comes together – the Hebrew word is “echad” – “oneness”, and makes the creation. He created us in His likeness; so when male and female procreate in His love, we replay the Creation. He is creative, so He makes us pro-creative since we're made in His image. Human sex as God intended it has a deep spiritual significance going back to the relationship between the Godhead as well as Christ's relationship with His church. A clear mark of Satan's is that he will always try to be the opposite of God. In God's design for sexual relations, it is giving and receiving pleasure and it is heterosexual. The two biggest forms of sexual perversion in the world today are undoubtedly homosexuality and sadomasochism. Both of those things bear the clear signature of Satan because of the principle of opposites. Instead of being heterosexual, sex is twisted to become homosexual. Instead of being the giving and receiving of pleasure, sex becomes the giving and receiving of pain. I am not saying it's wrong for married couples to enjoy aggressive sex; I am speaking of perversions.
The pop singer Madonna was interviewed once in Time or Newsweek Magazine; I read it. She put out a video about sex, and much of it was sadomasochistic. They asked her about this, why she found it sexually appealing, and her response was that she likes being humiliated and punished by a strict male authority figure because of her Roman Catholic upbringing. She has a point, in a way, if you know Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism puts guilt on people through its denial of the Cross. The Cross is what takes away our guilt, so because of their removal of the Cross with their doctrine of the Mass, Roman Catholics have a deep guilt problem. Oftentimes after a Roman Catholic gets saved, you'll see that it takes them a long while to grow out of this guilt complex.
There is in our society a blossoming of both homosexuality and sadomasochism. Recently in London, a lesbian headmistress in a school refused to let the children go on a class trip to see Romeo and Juliet because it was “blatantly heterosexual”. This describes the last days of Sodom; it also describes the last days of England and America. Judgment begins in the house of God and that includes “Christian” countries. Take, for example, what is happening in Hollywood/ Malibu, with the rise in earthquakes, forest fires, and landslides. God judged Israel for these things and He is also going to judge the Western nations for them also. We have much more than Israel did and are therefore even more guilty than they were.
This is Page 6 of 16 of PART 3
Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.