the 1,955 year of the church age is over. God talks about it in the scriptures, He says judgment starts in the house of God. When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place those in Judea flee to the mountains. Also he anticipates the defective church in revelation the 7 churches. The bible also explains the elect who he plans to save are the churches the temple God is building.
The Beginning of the Church Age:
A few days after Christ’s ascension into heaven, the great divine organization that was to represent the kingdom of God for the next 1,955 years had its beginning.
On Pentecost day in A.D. 33, about 3,000 people were saved (Acts 2). Those who were saved that day came from many different nations. This grand event marked the beginning of the church age. It was during this part of the beginning of the church age that much detail is given concerning missionaries being sent into countries that we now know as Turkey, Greece, and Italy. The church age was set forth by God as a divine plan by which God would send the Gospel into the entire world. Never again would the Jewish synagogues, the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Israel, or the temple in Jerusalem externally represent the kingdom of God. The local congregations that would be formed throughout the world would externally represent the kingdom of God. Therefore, spiritually, the Bible very frequently calls the local congregations “Jerusalem,” “the temple,” “Zion,” “Israel,” “Judah,” “Judea,” etc.
This divine organization, which eventually consisted of churches located all over the world, was carefully designed by God. And God placed strict rules in His law book, the Bible, that governed the selection of elders and deacons (I Timothy 3). Women were not to teach or have authority in the congregations. The Old Testament ceremonial laws, which were to be observed by the nation of Israel, were no longer to be observed. Instead, two new ceremonial laws were introduced to assist in teaching the nature of the Gospel. These were water baptism and the Lord’s Supper. A law concerning excommunication from church membership was set forth (I Corinthians 5). Sunday was appointed by God as the Sunday Sabbath day, which was to be used for all kinds of spiritual activity. Each local congregation that would be established throughout the world was to be governed by the laws set forth in the Bible.
The great task given to these God-ordained congregations was to send the Gospel throughout the whole world. So, already, as we have noted, before the Bible was even finished, missionaries were being sent forth into neighboring nations (Acts 13).
About A.D. 95, God completed the writing of the Bible, and no further information has come from God describing the actual progress of the church in the world as an historical account. However, long before the church age began, God prophesied how the church age would spiritually develop.
One would expect that with the auspicious beginning of the church age on Pentecost in A.D. 33, when about 3,000 were saved in one day (Acts 2), that the development of the church age would be a notable success story. However, the Bible prophesied that this was not God’s plan. We sadly learn from the Bible that even before God finished writing the Bible (about A.D. 95), already there was mounting evidence that the church age was not going to be a huge success story.
The Bible Anticipates a Defective Church:
In Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, God tells us about the spiritual condition of seven typical churches. These conditions existed about 30 years after these churches had been formed. For example, the church at Ephesus had lost its first love (Revelation 2:4-5). Remember, to love God is to obey His commandments (John 14:21-23). Therefore, God threatened to remove their candlestick, which represents the light of the Gospel, because they were no longer obedient to God’s laws. This church would no longer be used by God to send the Gospel into the world.
In Galatians 1:2-9, the Bible reports that already, before the Bible was completed, the churches of Galatia had begun to follow a gospel that was not the Gospel of the Bible. In Revelation 2:13, the Bible reports that the church at Pergamos was already a church in which, to some extent, Satan was ruling. This verse makes reference to Satan’s “seat.” In the Bible, the word “seat,” in this kind of context, refers to ruling or reigning. And in Revelation 3:1-4, the Bible reports that the church at Sardis was already a dead church, even though it had a few true believers left within it.
In Matthew 13:24-30, the Bible records the parable of the wheat and the tares. The wheat represented true believers in the churches. The tares represented unbelievers who gave every evidence of being true believers, so much so that only at the end of the church age would God provide the means by which the wheat could be separated from the tares. This meant that all through the church age, there would be tares, those who were still slaves of Satan, who would be very active in the churches. Thus, through them, Satan could rule in the churches even though officially, Christ was the ruler of the churches.
Already in Isaiah 9:1-4, God prophesied that the church age would not be a great success story. There we read:
Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
In these verses, God speaks of the light shining on the land beyond Jordan as “Galilee of the nations” (see also Matthew 4:15-16). That is, all the nations of the world were to be under the light of the Gospel. That light, of course, is the Lord Jesus, who is the light of the world (John 1:7-10).
Because the light of the Gospel was to shine throughout the world, a great change in God’s Gospel program would occur in that the spiritual darkness of the world would be penetrated by this light (Isaiah 9:2). It would be a light that would bring into existence, throughout the world, a great company of people who would externally appear to have become true believers in Christ, as Isaiah 9:3 declares, “Thou hast multiplied the nation.” In other words, the external size of the kingdom of God that would be developed all over the world would be great. However, in the same verse, God prophesies that He has not increased the joy of harvest. The joy of harvest is the joy that comes when a person has been given eternal life so that he has become a true believer (Luke 15:10). If the joy of harvest is lacking, it can only mean that the harvest of true believers is very small. The fact is, as we are noting, this sad anticipation of the lack of a great harvest of people being saved and coming into the kingdom of God is prophesied in many places in the Bible.
In addition to all the Biblical references we have already noted, we read in Isaiah 5 that God portrays the church age as a vineyard that has been carefully and lovingly planted by God Himself. But this vineyard did not produce good fruit. It produced wild grapes. Spiritually, wild grapes identify with those who have designed their own gospel instead of meticulously following the Gospel of the Bible. Later on in this study, we will see that it was God’s plan that because of this wickedness, God eventually would destroy the vineyard.
It should be noted that in many chapters of the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, etc., God indicates His intense anger against the nations of Israel and Judah because of their continuous wickedness. Indeed, finally, they were destroyed. Israel was destroyed in 709 B.C. by the Assyrians, and Judah in 587 B.C. by the Babylonians.
God used Israel and Judah, which in their day externally represented the kingdom of God, as examples of all the local churches that have externally represented the kingdom of God throughout the time of the church age. As we study these Old Testament books of the Bible, we are actually reading what God has anticipated for the church age, and more particularly, for the end of the church age.
Thus, God is teaching that churches were to be established all over the world throughout the church age, giving the appearance that the church age was enormously successful. But in reality, only a remnant, a small part of the whole in the churches, would actually become saved, that is, actually become true believers.
This same thought is set forth in Romans 9:27, where God quotes from Isaiah 10:22-23.
Romans 9:27: Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
Isaiah 10:22-23: For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of all the land.
The Problem of Satan within the Churches:
One very big reason for the lack of spiritual success in the church age was the problem of Satan. At the time of the cross, Satan was given a death blow. He was banished from heaven (Revelation 12:7-11), and he was bound so that he could not deceive the nations during the complete period of the church age, which was symbolically described as a period of 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-3). The 1,000 years must be un