CATHOLICISM

The seven churches described in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 of the Bible are an interesting mixture. They range from the "Church in Philadelphia" that had never denied God's name, to the "Church in Laodicea" whom God was about to spit out of his mouth. Laodicea had a complex series of problems. On the one hand, God considered them a faithful and true witness of his Word and identified them as the ruler of his creation. But God also challenged them for becoming lukewarm, for allowing their physical wealth and possessions to blind them to truth, and for rejecting the cleansing from the indwelling Holy Spirit of God who alone has the power to clothe our spiritual nakedness.

At the time that the Book of Revelation was written sometime during the first century, the Roman Empire was the ruler of God's creation. Historically, that identifies the "Church in Laodicea" as a Roman Catholic church of the first century. The church had a divided spirit that sought to worship God while allowing aspects of humanism to seep into its doctrine. That it ruled God's creation was a source of pride that created a conflict with the concept of Godly submission. The result was that the Church in Laodicea stopped giving the indwelling Holy Spirit to its members, yet were confused as to why they all appeared naked in the realm of the spirit.

Today, the spirit of the Church in Laodicea continues to have a corrupting influence on Roman Catholic doctrine as well as on the doctrine of virtually every Protestant church. At various points in our history, God has sought to point us back to the basics, to the core doctrine of Christianity and of discipleship. He again seeks to focus our vision on the original goal post, and on our only source of power for the times in which we live--the indwelling Holy Spirit of God. Everything that is built on a physical foundation eventually will disintegrate into dust. It is only when we build on the foundation of the unadulterated Word of God that what we build gains the capacity to endure for an eternity.