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Show CHURCH HAS PART li HISTORY'S FIELD Tr. Louis S. Bowermtn of the Imman-uel Imman-uel Baptist j hut't-h gave laSt evening the second of his Eeric-s of Ecrmons on "The Revelation," the subject for the evening being "The Church in the Field of History." His-tory." In part, Dr. Bo overman sard; The second and third chapters of the Revelation need to be compared with the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, Mat-thew, where is to be found "the seven sev-en parables of t he kingdom." The seven churches of Asia, Ephe-sus. Ephe-sus. Smyrna. Pergamum, Thyatira, Sard is, Philadelphia and Laodlcea, are not merely seven local churches of Saint John's time, but reprtasenta-tives reprtasenta-tives of the seven great epochs in the -. churches' hiatory, from the time of the visions .on the isle of Ph. linos until the second advent of Jesus. In this comes the very interesting parallelism between the seven parables para-bles and the seven "epistles or letters." let-ters." Shown In them is the prophecy proph-ecy of an era or epoch of great seed-souing seed-souing and faithfulness, as seen In the early or apustolh- church. This is followed by a period when error begins to come in. or when the "enemy "en-emy Is sowing tares," followed by an epoch of reaching after world-power, world-power, or "birds of air nesting in the mustard tree branches." the growth of union between church and state. Then came the era of growing errors, until the teachings and life of the early church were largely forgotten, the leaven of conception in doctrines had leavened the whole lump. The era of Sardfs was an epot-h of formalism, a name "to live and yet being dead." it was a time of spiritual spir-itual stagnation. This was followed by an "open door," a return to faith and life. Much can be said of the Philadel-phian Philadel-phian era. The closing Is the era of lukewarmness. the hot and the cold mingled together. Many believe we have entered upon the last era; ot tiers that we have not yet passed out of the Philadclphian epoch. Study history as you read the tnee-EHtre of Revelation. You must be an open-minded student to catch the message and see the finger of God. aa Be writes. |