Fresh Manna 2021

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Strong Tower Radio

Fresh Manna by Sean Reed

Sean Reed

The Diagnosis

At the Door

Fear is Bad and Good

More Treasured Than

Freedom

When the Sun Sets too Soon

Wholly Holy

In a Little While

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

What is Love?

The Walk

When Jesus RSVPs

A Miracle Just Won’t Do

Faithful and True

Rest for the Weary

Fresh manna fell to the ground as a gift from God while the Israelites were in the wilderness.

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the master baker himself.

How the Israelites must have anticipated the taste and smell of each morning's delivery.

Just like the Israelites, you too can experience the taste and smell of fresh manna.

Today you'll be listening to Sean Reid, pastor of the Holland Seventh-day Adventist Church.

You know, I think sometimes, oftentimes, as I prepare to open the Bible, what an incredible blessing it is that God has given us something like the Bible.

Just imagine if you were reliant on someone else to tell you what God thought and God taught.

And that to discover what God had to communicate to you, you had to go to someone else, or maybe even go on a far journey to find a prophet or a seer or someone who had a direct link to God and was receiving messages from heaven.

And then of course you'd have the challenge of trying to figure out whether or not that person really was communicating God's message or simply their own.

Some years ago when I was a kid, we were members of a church out in California, and there was an elderly gentleman who was a member of that church who had been a very well-known Adventist theologian.

He had retired, and now he was attending church there.

And I remember 1 Sabbath he was having the opening prayer, or he wasn't preaching, but he was doing something that Sabbath morning, and he asked everybody if they had their Bibles, and he wanted to see them.

And he said, I always bring my Bible to church.

He says, that way if the sermon is rubbish, I can read the Bible and still be blessed.

And I felt for the pastor that day, having to get up and preach after that.

We have the Bible, and we can read and study God's Word.

We're an incredible blessing that God speaks to us directly through His Word.

Last Sabbath, we began looking in Revelation chapter 3.

Revelation chapter 3, where we find messages to God's people 2, 000 years ago.

Revelation chapters 2 and 3 contain 7 messages, and each message is addressed to a real congregation.

In John the Revelator's day, 7 different congregations scattered throughout Asia Minor, and these messages are directed specifically to them, addressing immediate local needs and concerns.

And just imagine when those letters came and they were read on Sabbath morning, the congregation listening and nodding their heads, yes, that's exactly what we need to hear.

We also know that the scriptures are timeless.

They speak to the people who first heard the words of the Bible, but they speak down through the centuries with relevance and meaning and continue to address us today with significance in our lives.

And we know at last Sabbath that these 7 messages follow a pattern that we see throughout Revelation, where the prophecy speaks to the immediate need and the immediate situation of the day, but then it looks ahead down through the centuries and carries us through time to the culmination of time when Jesus returns.

In fact, every major section of Revelation concludes with the second coming of Jesus.

And it's the same with Revelation chapters 2 and 3.

Here we have these messages addressed to real congregations thousands of years ago, and yet they also offer a broad sweep of Christian history, addressing the grand periods of the Christian Church right to our day today.

And this final message, this message of the Church of Laodicea, is 1 that speaks to us with a special relevance today.

And we noted that last Sabbath this message comes from a specific figure, and who is that?

Revelation chapter 3 verse 14, it comes from the Amen, the faithful and true witness to the beginning of the creation of God.

The Amen is simply a way of affirming truth.

We sometimes say Amen today at the conclusion of a prayer, and it's our way of saying, yes, I agree, so be it.

In Scripture, the word Amen is actually a Hebrew word, and it means truth, trustworthiness.

He, when he speaks, he's sharing with us something reliable, something we can have certainty in.

We live in a world today when there are a plurality of sources of news and information, and sometimes we wonder, what can we trust?

We can rely and depend and trust what Jesus says.

He's also described as the faithful and true witness.

He bears witness not only to us of who God is, but he is a witness to our lives.

And in the message of the Church of Laodicea, we're going to look a little more closely this morning at what it is Jesus is witnessing happening in the Church.

He's also noted as the beginning of the creation of God.

He's the beginning of the creation of God because He is the source of life.

He's also the beginning of the creation of God because He is the first fruits.

He is the 1 who died for us and was resurrected and ascended to heaven, the forerunner for you and me.

He's the 1 who will give us a new beginning, a recreation as we look to him and as we follow him in our lives.

This faithful and true witness observes the church of Laodicea.

2000 years ago, if somebody said, you're a Laodicean, that would have been a compliment.

Laodicea had a church that was prominent in early Christian times.

And yet, down through the centuries, Laodicea has come to mean something negative.

If I were to tell you, you know what, you're so Laodicean with a smile on my face, you would not take it as a compliment.

Because Laodicea has come to symbolize spiritual apathy.

It has come to symbolize a church that is filled with pride but nothing else, certainly not the love of God.

It is a church that seems disconnected from Christ.

What is it that was endemic in the early Christian Church of Laodicea that Jesus wanted to address, and what is it that's endemic in the last-day Christian Church, just before the return of Christ, that Jesus wants to correct as well for us today?

Notice with me verses 15, 16, 17, and 18.

Well, we'll just go all the way to the end.

I know your deeds, this is Jesus speaking, that you are neither cold nor hot.

So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

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

And you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

I advise you to buy from me gold, refined in the fire, so that you may become rich, and white garments, so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed, and I salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, therefore be zealous and repent.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with Him and He with me.

He who overcomes, I will grant Him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne.

He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Jesus bears witness of the spiritual condition of the church of Laodicea.

Jesus bears witness to our spiritual condition today, and he bears a faithful and true witness.

Jesus cares too much about us to simply share with us a message that makes us feel good.

He wants to share a message with us that actually makes us good, that transforms us.

There are times when a straight testimony has to be shared, when a difficult message has to be conveyed.

Most people don't like sharing a confrontation or difficult message.

I was talking to somebody in between Sabbath school and church who said, Pastor, we just learned in Sabbath school today that you need to preach messages that really convict us and really...I forgot the exact words that this individual used that didn't say step on our toes, but kind of step on our toes that really strike to the core of who we are, that inspire us to make a change and tell us the poor condition that we're in.

And the message to the Church of Laodicea is 1 of those messages.

Let's see if we can understand what it is that's wrong with the church 2, 000 years ago and be open to accepting that maybe some of those same spiritual diagnoses apply to us today.

Notice in verse 15, Jesus says, I know your deeds.

Series

Fresh Manna by Sean Reed

The Diagnosis

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Fresh Manna by Sean Reed

Faithful and True

42m

The Final Call

1- The Laodicean Dilemma

1h

From Laodicea to the 144,000

45m

Fresh Manna By Jacob Gibbs

The Power of a Question

41m

Called in Darkness, Raised in Light

55m

The Gospel Will Prevail

49m

Probation and the Second Coming

36m

The Blind Angel

27m

Fresh Manna By Jacob Gibbs

When God Becomes an Idol

41m

Fresh Manna By Garhett Morgan

Stones Wood and Some Bread

36m

What Jesus Said

14. The Rapture of the Saints

1h

Fresh Manna by Farai Nhiwatiwa

What is a Church

32m

Sound Doctrine