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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jonathan Zirkle

Behold, I Stand At the Door and Knock

Dear Lord, I ask that you'd send your Holy Spirit to be here with us.

Lord, I pray a special blessing upon my lips.

I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 3.

This morning we're gonna talk about the message to the Laodiceans.

Revelation chapter 3 starting with verse 14.

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, these things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

This piece here of the statement to the church is very very important because in it Christ identifies who he is and he identifies it in in ways that are particularly meaningful for the time that we live today.

He says that he's the faithful and true witness.

We live in a day where the Bible is subject to higher criticism and not thought of as faithful and true.

But here he specifically says no, he is the faithful and true witness.

And then he says the beginning of the creation of God.

Do we not live in a time when people question the creation and they say that we've been here millions and billions of years, but that's not true.

And I like this, I kind of skipped over the first thing he said, these things sayeth the Amen.

This is the message to the church in the end.

I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked?

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see.

Laying to see has got a real problem, But as bad as it is, there's hope.

You know, talks about spewing out of the mouth.

What happens to things that are spewed out of the mouth?

We don't want to be that way in Christ's mouth.

This idea of being rich and increased with goods in need of nothing, John has an allusion here to Hosea.

If you go to Hosea chapter 12, I'll point it out to you.

It's an interesting, interesting allusion.

Here Hosea is delivering a message against Ephraim.

And I'm not going to read the whole thing, it takes a long time, you've got to kind of pick it apart.

But let's look at just a couple verses here together.

Ephraim, this is verse 1, Ephraim feedeth on wind and followeth after the east wind.

He daily and he daily increaseth lies and desolations and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians and oil is carried into Egypt.

You see Ephraim is sinning and it's leaving God.

But look at what Ephraim says about himself in verse 8.

And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance, and all my labors they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.

Does this not sound like the church of Laodicea?

I'm rich, increased in goods and in need of nothing.

Look what happens to Ephraim in verse 14.

Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly, therefore shall he leave his blood upon him and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him.

So Ephraim with this attitude has no salvation.

Laodicea, the time that we live in, it's the time of the end.

And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.

They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.

But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

In that day he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in his house, let him not come down to take it away.

And he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

This is what the Church of Laodicea is challenged with.

Sometimes when we think of Sodom, we think about what the sin is there.

This is a prophecy actually against Israel, but talking about Sodom in verse 49.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom.

Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters.

Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

And they were haughty and committed abomination before me.

Therefore I took them away as I saw good.

Pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness, is this not the day that we're living in?

These are perilous times and this is the source of our pride.

Spirit of Prophecy tells us this about pride and self-sufficiency.

The sin that is most nearly hopeless and incurable is pride of opinion, self-conceit.

What is the wretchedness and the nakedness of Laodicea?

At our core we have pride, envy, passion, evil thoughts, bitterness, some of us formalism.

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Behold, I Stand At the Door and Knock

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