Forward to Zion: Ohio Hometown Camp Meeting 2011

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Forward to Zion

Alden Ho

Knock, Knock. Who’s There?

Our Father in Heaven, as we come to you this evening, we ask that the Holy Spirit will be with us, and especially that you will speak through my mouth, Lord, that your people will not hear me, that they may hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit upon their heart.

Lord, may the disturbances, distractions around us just disappear and fade away so that we might hear more readily your voice speaking to our heart.

Because that is the issue that we have tonight, is that in the world in which we live, Satan is vying very hard for a position to be able to get access to our heart.

But Lord, you stand there and you're knocking.

And we ask that you will come in this evening.

I would like to ask you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 3.

In Revelation chapter 3 we find the messages are given here to the 7 churches.

Just had a friend of mine actually talk to me this week, and he said he would like me, actually, that the sermon that you're going to hear tomorrow morning is titled LNG Why.

I wish I could say that I came up with that title.

And he called me and said, I got this great title for this book.

And he told me, he says, but you can't use it.

I said, OK, but when are you going to publish the book?

He says, I should have it out by the end of the year.

I said, I'll give you till the end of the year.

If you don't come out with a book, I'm taking the title.

Obviously, you can tell there was no book that came out, and I got the title from him.

But he called me up, and he says, hey, I want to go next year, and I want you to come with me.

I want to go visit the 7 churches in Turkey, and I want you to be there because I need you to document this for me, to photograph it and videotape this whole thing.

So this would be very exciting to be able to go see the 7 churches that are going around.

But in this church, the last church is what we're gonna be focusing on right now.

It's the last church that we find in Revelation, the lukewarm church, the Laodicean church, or as they would say in Greek, the Laodicea church.

And it says here in verse 14, And to the angel of the church of Laodicea write, These things says the Amen, the faithful, the true witness, the beginning of creation of God.

Well, we find that our works are pretty useless.

If you look at what Paul wrote, keep your finger there, and if you run over to 2 Timothy 4 verse 3, we find that the works are going to be evident through here when Paul writes, and he says the following words, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, and they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables." Now, I don't think I need to go any further than this for you people here, because you are in Ohio Conference, and you're very aware of all the things that are happening in this conference.

This is exactly what John is writing about.

I wish you were cold or hot, so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold or hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

The reason being, God does not like a half-baked Christian.

You have to choose a side, and that's what Joshua said in his closing speech to the children of Israel.

He says, choose you this day whom you will serve.

But see, our problem is, if we look at this perfect line down here in the cement, we want to be in the world, but we don't exactly want to be so noticed of the world.

We wanna enjoy all the things of the world, but yet we wanna be in the church.

But you can't do that, cuz Jesus said in Matthew 6, verse 24, you can't serve 2 masters.

Amos 3, 3, can 2 walk together unless they agree?

And so you're going to be either on fire or you're not on fire.

I like the way a friend of mine, Jeffrey Rosario, says it.

He says, you're either pregnant or you're not pregnant.

Now brother, have you ever been pregnant?

You see, pregnancy is either You are or you aren't.

Either you are on fire for Christ or you're not on fire for Christ.

But the problem is many of us like to regulate that temperature.

Either we are or sometimes depending on who we're with we don't want to look as hot.

But you see, this is the problem that we have.

So, God says, look, if you can't decide, then out you come.

Verse 17 basically outlines the problems that we find of our church today.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church today, this is the dilemma we face.

Because you say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked.

I remember a number of years ago I was preaching in Cambodia and the people came in, they took their shoes off over there and they came and they sat down on the concrete floor right here.

About a hundred of them and I had my translator and we were talking about this issue.

And I said, somehow the topic of a refrigerator came up.

And I said, how many of you have refrigerators?

And out of 100 people, 1 person raised their hand.

I looked at my translator, I said, maybe you didn't translate that correctly.

Then he says, in real good American English, he says, yeah, I know what a refrigerator is.

He says, it's a box, you plug it in, keeps food cold.

I said, yes, but you didn't translate that, because only 1 person raised their hand.

He said, look, brother, these guys don't have a front door.

And the inherent problem is we have become so rich to the point that we don't realize our need for Jesus Christ.

Because when we are hungry, we just go to the fridge, open the door, see what's there, grab it, and eat it.

It's in the pantry or it's somewhere in the basement that we can open up a can somewhere and get it.

But I'll tell you, I've been to some places where they don't have those things.

I was helping out in Japan right after the tsunami.

I was there in Haiti helping out over there in Haiti.

I mean, they didn't have anything after the earthquake.

They didn't have it before the earthquake either.

But we are at the point that we have become so rich, so miserable.

Back to Menu

Knock, Knock. Who’s There?

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine