Are We in Laodecia?

Some may not agree that the seven churches of Revelation are church ages and that is fine, since the Bible does not directly say that. But they are actual churches and church types and last church type is Laodecia - the lukewarm church. However, the word Laodecia means "my rights come first." If that doesn't describe the day in which we here in America, I don't know what does? Here are just a couple of examples for the past few weeks:

1. Two teen girls (15&16) were arrested because they beat a 62 year old man who asked them to not sit on his lawn. Theses two videoed and the man was clearly not being mean or angry in his request, which is inconsequential as it was his yard!

2. A male high school student beat his principal at school for asking him to turn his earbuds down because it was so loud everyone around him was being distracted. The teen's excuse was that his mother had just died and he had a right to do whatever he wanted because of that.

3. Two separate pictures are floating around the internet that have been posted by police to show the effects of heroin. Both pictures are of parents sitting passed out from heroin usage in their vehicle along the side of the road with young children in the back seat. One of the parents said, "Well at least I pulled over. That should count for something."

4. A man in Indiana killed his live in girlfriend when she refused to marry him. The neighbor said it best when she said, "I guess he couldn't take rejection?"
5. Here are six reasons given in a recent article to teens why they and adults should go ahead and do whatever they want: you only live once, you'll make new friends, its's your party so invite who you want, no one cares as much as you think, you are the boss of you, and (worst of all in my opinion, they said) you'll be a better person for having done what you want.

6. Finally, a Christian "world" example - Christians leave their church when something doesn't go their way. They mainly leave not because of bad doctrine or true matters of conviction, such as worldly music or dress, but, because the preacher said something that offended them or because another church member was treated differently than they were. In short, they leave because they did not get their way. I have been in ministry now over 28 years and in that time only one family came to me and said they were leaving over doctrine - they believed in double inspiration and I refused to teach that. We had a person leave our church some months back and just recently they wrote back to tell me over 20 things that were "wrong" with our church, including celebrating the holiday of Christmas and being tax exempt. They stated several times that our doctrine was overall fine, just our practices they felt were ungodly, though they could not provide one verse to show the early churches path on the things they mentioned. We did not do what they wanted and away they went....Laodecian - "my rights come first."

Are we in the Laodecian age? I don't know, but it sure seems as if we are often making Laodecian decisions!

An Attempt at a Biblical View of Depression

Recently a precious member of our church and I had a written discussion (texts and emails) about the issue of depression.  After reading several websites and praying about this issue, I decided to share the heart of our discussion about the subject in the hopes of helping others.  I say this because depression is often a difficult subject for Christians to discuss as many leaders are not sure how to approach the subject without demeaning the character of God or taking away a Christian’s responsibility. 

Here is the heart of our last exchange:

There are many examples of Bible characters who struggled with a depression that was real, so to say that depression is not real or that it is always sin is not true.  Depression IS real but also CAN be a sin when we allow it to control those parts of our lives where God said, in His Word, that He should be in absolute control.   In other words, depression is sin only when we do not allow God to control our lives in the way He says we can allow His control over.  (By the way, there are areas which we can have no control over, such as other’s actions, but we can surrender our reactions to these kind of situations.)

Depression is real and there are many Bible characters who struggled with various types of depression: 

David - Psalm 38:4; 42:11

Elijah - 1 Kings 19:4

Jonah - Jonah 4:3

Job - Job 3:11, 26

Moses - Exodus 32:32

Jeremiah - Jeremiah 20:14, 18

I hope you believe, as I do, that God has given wonderful promises about helping us in all the types of depression and we should be convinced that God does not want any Christian living perpetually in a defeated state.  We are going to always struggle with our emotions and depression can be one of the hardest emotions we face in our lifetime.  But we can know that God wants to help us defeat permanently some sources of depression and then have the strength to “bear up” under all the other kinds of depression.  Here are some of those promises:

Psalm 34:18

2 Corinthians 4:8-9, 16-18

Galatians 2:20

Isaiah 40:31

I believe, that the key to those Bible truths helping us with those moments of “deep” depression is to determine first what is causing the depression and then find the Bible truths that help us know a course of care for that source of depression.  Some of the causes in the Bible for depression can include:

Physical imbalances - Matthew 26:41 (Getting help medically when needed)

Guilty conscience - 1 John 1:9 (Getting our own hearts right with God)

Stress - Matthew 11:28-30 (Learning to rely on God instead of mankind)

Abuse - Philippians 3 (Going forward instead of living solely in the past hurts)

Unthankful heart - Colossians 3:15 (Giving thanks even in hard times)

These are just a few of the examples the Bible gives of what can cause depression and they may or may not work together in a single life.  Some people may have one source problem and some may have more than one.  But depression is a real issue and God wants to help us.