The Modern Church Dilemma

INTRO: Where are we today, in the modern church? Does the Bible have anything to say about where we are? I want to show us from Bible prophecy what I see as to where we are. I propose that God has set out for us in the last book in the Bible how to tell where we are. Before we do that, I want to point out a particular kind of prophecy. Prophecy is what would be called a genre of writing style. I was taught that to interpret prophecy, one needs to understand the writing style. Let me give the illustration I was given. You may be fixing some electrical appliance, but to open it up to work on it, you have to have a screwdriver with a special end on it. Without that tool, you can't get into the appliance to fix it. That is how various types of prophecy work, and to understand them, one needs to use a special tool. There is a type of prophecy I call historical prophecy. That is when a historical event pictures something future. For example, the book of Jonah. It is found among the minor prophets. Using the same method of interpretation one uses on most Scriptures does not reveal the prophecy of Jonah. Understanding that a historic account may be prophetic helps one understand the prophecy.