INTRO: Our subject is the modern church dilemma. I have recommended that the seven churches of Asia give us a picture of the Church age in 7 stages, and that we are in the last one, the church of Laodicea. In the previous message, we looked at the church that precedes the Laodicean church, which is the church of Philadelphia. Nothing bad was said about that church, and nothing good is said about the Laodicean church. It was hard to get this message on the history, which gives us the prophecy of the Laodicean church, into one message. I do cover it in greater detail in the messages on the seven churches of Asia, available on sermonaudio.com/mecl. So, in this message we will look at the historical message to Laodicea, which I believe becomes prophetic of our age, as found in Revelation 3:14-22. The view that the seven churches of Asia give a prophetic view of church history was first suggested in the early 1600s. That is after the Reformation, but it began to take shape in the later 17th century. John Nelson Darby, who was born in 1800, was instrumental in the modern age of the study of prophecy. C. I. Scofield was born in 1843 and lived in the early years of the First Great Awakening, and he set rough dates for the seven periods of Church history from Revelation 2-3. He set the dates as I have given them, except I see the Reformation of the 1500s as the beginning of the age of Philadelphia. We are now looking at the church of Laodicea, which begins somewhere around 1900. We are going to look first at the historical message to Laodicea before we look at the prophecy. I will use these points: the counselee; the counsellor; the criticism; the counsel; and the comfort given