Pentecost 2014

INTRO: You will not remember this, but in past messages on Pentecost I have been working through the doctrine of the Church. We looked at what the Church is. It is not a building. It is not the replacement of Israel, and nor is it a political entity. The Church is made up of all truly born again believers, from the time of Pentecost in Acts 2 until the rapture of the Church.

Then we looked at the history of the Church and I showed how it was spoken of at least to some degree in the Gospel of Matthew. In Acts we saw the birth and early growth of the Church as it began to spread from Jerusalem to Judea and then on to the uttermost parts of the earth. We looked at the Church in the Epistles and finally in the book of Revelation. In the book of Revelation we saw the disappearance of the Church in chapter 4, and then its reappearance in chapter 19.

We then took a very brief look at the history of the Church from the time of the writing of the NT until today. The accuracy of the Bible, though it should not surprise me, does so yet from time to time. Recently I thought through Jesus' teaching that few would be saved. On the one hand, it is very surprising that the Church is still in existence. When one looks at church history, it is truly amazing. Nikita Cruschev of Russia thought he would destroy Christianity in Russia. But He could not do it. The Romans had tried to do that and many others as well. Yet no one has succeeded. Today, Islam looks like it will overcome Christianity, at least in some parts of the world. But Islam will fail. They all will fail.