What Happened To The Good Old Days

What Happened to the Good Old Days??????

Acts 2:37-47 & 2nd Timothy 3:1-7

In Acts the 2nd chapter we understand that this is the beginning of the church. For we know that the church began on the Day of Pentecost. Understand that at this time, the beginning of church that the church folk had nothing that they fashioned the church after as far as saying things like well that’s the way mom and dad use to do it, there was no traditionalism, they were genuine and original in their worship and praise of God. There was no competition as to our church is the largest, we have the best choir, that church has testimony service and this church doesn’t, this church has praise dancers and that church doesn’t, this church has Sunday night service and that church doesn’t, that church has Friday night service and this church doesn’t. None of that stuff was in the church of Acts. By the time we get to 2nd Timothy the 3rd chapter, the church had been around for approximately 35 years, and some things were beginning to happen in the different churches that were being established in the different areas, things were beginning to develop in different churches, attitudes and opinions began to develop, church folk were beginning to come into play. Church folk are these, they come to church on Sunday late, they never show up for Bible class or Sunday school, they never make prayer meeting, they never get into service, they always have an attitude and find fault with every other member in the church, but it’s never their fault. They give preach-a-monies and test-a-lies that seem like they could melt the walls of the church, but yet can’t live right. They do this, if the preacher is up more than 15 minutes they say to him, preach you really did a good job and as soon as his back is turned they say boy I thought he was never going to sit down. I’m talking about Church folk. Church folk because they don’t ever make it to prayer meetings don’t know how to pray for themselves and when its 3:00 in the morning and the thunderstorm woke them up they call the pastor who is sound asleep and say pastor pray for me cause I’m scared. Church folk if a sinner or stranger would ask them what time Sunday school was they would say I don’t go to Sunday school, well when is Bible class night they would say I don’t go to bible class, but let something go wrong, let someone slip, and they are the first ones to go and tell everybody’s business all over town. These are Church folk. Church folk are different from Kingdom folk. Kingdom folk are at church every time there is church. Kingdom folk no how to pray. Kingdom folk are dedicated, sincere, you don’t have to try to pump them up to get into service. Kingdom folk don’t gossip about other Kingdom folk. (Somebody say thank God for the Kingdom folk). Paul was writing to Timothy, who was a young minister that had come up under Paul, he was literally Paul’s spiritual son and he was giving Timothy a prophetic word and letting Timothy know don’t think it strange that in the church there are good and bad people, in others words there was righteous and unrighteous people there are church folk and kingdom folk in the church. He was saying to Timothy that the Gospel is a net that when cast catches all kinds of fish, so be not afraid of the so-called evil forces that our outside of the church. For in the last days there is going to be those in the church that will cause the church to go through perilous times, not so much from persecution of outside forces, but from people within the church body.

The word perilous: comes from the Greek word (Chalepos), strongly implies the immediacy of danger, it represents times that are unstable, unsteady, unhealthy, unsound, hard, furious, grievous, treacherous, dangerous and to say the least wicked.

We find that we are now living in perilous times. There are wars and rumors of wars flooding the news media. Mother’s are against daughters and fathers are against sons, wrong is being called right and right is being called wrong. Homosexuality is being embraced and referred to as a normal way of life. We recently had a 12 and 14-year-old brothers on trial for killing their father, because they said they made up their mind that they were gay and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with this 40-year-old pervert. We have 10 and 12 year old little girls dying on the abortion doctors table, because their young and immature bodies have suddenly experienced a level of shock that arrested their innocence, their purity, and their childhood and forced them to live far beyond their years, which ended up resulting in their untimely death. We have snipers killing people just as random act of violence regardless of race, gender, or age causing it to be unsafe to even leave your home anymore. We have children being taken out of their beds, beaten, raped, and murdered all while their parents are sleeping in the room down the hall. We have terrorist attacking America. Anthrax scares, and pipe bombs plaguing us everyday. We have young people disrespecting older people, children calling adults by their first names. We have every diabolical and corruptible piece of filth imaginable coming across our televisions, cartoons aren’t even clean anymore. Marriages are not lasting 6 months. Husbands are killing wives, wives are killing husbands. The world is truly living in perilous times.