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Ithaca SDA Church

Taylor Hinkle

God’s Perspectives on Your Condition

Father in heaven, we are so desperately in need of your spirit this morning.

Lord, if I attempt to speak your words without your spirit, I know I'll mess it up.

And so, Lord, I pray that you would just intervene, not for my sake, but for the sakes of each 1 of us, Lord, we wanna hear your voice speaking to our hearts.

We wanna know clearly what you have for us.

And Lord, we believe that we're living in the times close to your second coming.

And Father, help us to experience your grace and your power this morning.

So early in the morning on December 7, 1941, 2 servicemen reported for duty at a mobile radar unit off of the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

That morning, these 2 men were looking at their radar screens when they saw what looked like 50 planes or so headed their way.

They were quite alarmed, and so they ran over to their supervisors and explained the situation and showed them the radar, and the supervisors just calmed their nerves and said, hey, it's nothing to worry about.

Probably a flock of birds or something that's just messing with the radar there.

In less than an hour, bombs were falling on Pearl Harbor.

If they would have acted 51 minutes sooner, what would have been different?

I wonder sometimes if we're like the servicemen and the supervisors, who when the Lord sends us warnings, instead of heeding them and acting according to His will and experiencing the time of grace and pardon, that sometimes we allow the time to come where danger is upon us.

The book of Revelation, as many of you know, is a book that is full of warnings.

Warnings of great deception and danger and all of the different things.

And anyone who just opens the book of Revelation might quickly want to close it as it seems a little bit terrifying.

And as you look at Revelation 13, you hear warnings about the Antichrist, and you hear warnings about the mark of the beast, and you look at Revelation 12, and you hear warnings that the devil has come down with great wrath because he knows that his time is short.

And in Revelation 17, you hear more warnings about a false system of worship that will be sweeping the world, and you wonder if there's any hope in the midst of all of this chaos.

But what if I told you that the greatest danger that the book of Revelation talks about is not the Antichrist, is not the mark of the beast, is not the false system of worship in Babylon, but what if the largest danger was actually found in the message to the church of the Laodiceans?

What if the message to us was very similar to the message of those servicemen, that there was danger approaching, and we have a choice to make.

Either 1, to be self-deceived and thinking we're ok and no danger is approaching, or 2, to act upon the warnings of God.

This morning we're going to be looking at Revelation 3, beginning in verse 14, to see what message is it that the Lord is warning us from.

And by God's grace, I'm grateful that He never gives us a warning without giving us the solution.

The Lord is not a God who just tries to make us fearful and fretful about things that are coming upon us, but the Lord is the 1 who maybe exposes the issue so that He can also solve our problems.

So this morning we're looking at Revelation chapter 3 in that light.

Now, Revelation chapter 2 and 3 have 7 messages to churches that are from Asia Minor when John was writing to them.

And commentators generally agree that these messages were also applied throughout the time period of Christian history.

And the message of the Church of the Laodiceans is the message that applies to the time period that most people agree would run from the late 1800s to the time of when Jesus comes, which is the time period where we find ourselves today.

In other words, if God was writing a message to you and to me today, what would it look like?

I believe it would look like the message that the Lord has written to the church of the Laodiceans as it speaks to the need of each 1 of us individually.

Revelation 3.14 tells us, and The angel of the church of the Laodiceans writes, these things sayeth the Amen, the faithful and the true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot, and I wish that you were cold or hot.

So then, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth." And you say, what are the characteristics of that?

Because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.

And yet, you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

When the Lord looks at the church of the last days, this is the description that He gives.

When God looks at each 1 of our hearts, when He looks at my heart, and when he looks at your heart.

This is the condition that God sees in his people.

Now, oftentimes I've read the message to the church of the Laodiceans and I've gotten through that part and I've read what we just read and I start to think, well, that's a bad condition.

You know, I really don't want that, whatever it is, you know, it makes God sick enough to vomit me out of His mouth, I don't want to be that, and so Lord, I know I have a bad condition, please change me from it, but I don't ever stop to investigate what is it really that the Lord is exposing about the condition of His people, because when we understand the condition, we can understand the solution.

I've never been a doctor but I would hope that doctors before they treat would understand the condition before they go to the solution, right?

I remember walking into a doctor once and not too long ago and I have this thing that I caught in Africa.

It's kind of persistent and it's really challenging and if there's a doctor that would like to give help, let me know.

But it's this reoccurring sickness and I remember walking into a doctor and it usually wipes me out for 2 to 3 days every 4 months or so.

And I go to the doctor, he's an internal medicine specialist, he walks through all of it and without giving me much time, he says, I think what your problem is is that you have acid reflux and you just need to take Tums.

Now I said, you know, my father had acid reflux and I think I've experienced it when I've had pizza late at night or something.

But I can guarantee that vomiting and other things do not come from acid reflex.

But the reason was, is he was attempting to give the solution without understanding the problem, right?

I think many of us Christians, as we look at the message to the Laodiceans, we want to find the solution to the problem without allowing the Lord to speak to our hearts enough to reveal the condition.

But this morning, I believe that the Lord loves us enough and I believe that we know that, that we're willing to allow Him to say something to our lives that might even be hard for us to bear.

I mean, if this is the true and faithful witness, it tells us that He's the 1 who was there from the beginning of the creation of God.

This is the same Jesus who stooped on His hands and His knees to form the first man.

It's the same Jesus who spoke the Word into existence.

It's the same Jesus who died for our sins.

I believe this Jesus loves me enough for me to take counsel from Him.

He tells us the condition and it's two-fold.

The first condition is what we think we have.

And the second condition is what He knows we have.

Now the first condition that he tells us that we think we have is that we're what?

We're rich, we're increased with goods, and we have need of how much?

Now that sounds like a pretty good condition.

If I could write my own prescription for any illness I've ever had, I'd want it to be that, right?

I'm rich, I'm increased with goods, and I have need of nothing, and I can walk home and be happy the rest of the day.

But When God looks at His people, what is the condition that He sees?

He sees that we're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

Now I don't know if you catch the dissonance between those 2 descriptions, but they're totally polar opposite.

We think that we're rich and God tells us that we're poor.

We think that we have need of nothing and God tells us that we're wretched, miserable, that we're naked, that we're blind.

We think that we're perfect in the way that we are and God says that there's nothing about you that's okay.

What's the challenge that's going on here?

This morning I'd like to just walk through what is it that the Lord is really telling us in each 1 of these characteristics.

And I believe the Lord will speak to our hearts as He's spoken to mine as well.

The first thing that we say is that we say that we're rich, right?

We think that we're rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.

Now is this our description of our financial status?

Is that what you think the Bible is talking about?

Is the Bible saying that, oh, you know, God's people in the last days will be so wealthy that they don't have any need of any more money?

Well, I don't know, because if that's the case, please let me know where you found that.

But notice with me what Hosea chapter 12 tells us.

Now Hosea comes right after the book of Daniel.

Hosea chapter 12, notice the description of what it gives about people who say that they are rich.

Hosea chapter 12, And we're going to begin in verse 1.

Now in Hosea 12, we find a description just like the description in Revelation 3.

It first starts off with what they think about themselves.

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God’s Perspectives on Your Condition

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