The Final Call

Justin Torossian

Waitara Seventh-day Adventist Church

3- Wretched, Miserable, Victorious

So tonight's message, wretched, miserable, victorious.

God has created a diverse world, hasn't he?

I had never seen a kangaroo, except on TV, until today.

We went up to Sunnyside and James and Daniel and Teresa and Junior and I got to see Sunnyside to get a tour, an incredible tour.

We got to go to Avondale and I got to see the college that the Lord revealed to Ellen White that that was the land that needed to be purchased.

And you know, it's called Sunnyside because her life was so happy while she was there.

Maybe not at first when she was going through some real health challenges, but as time went on, she really came to love Australia, and I can see why.

But yesterday, we were in the Blue Mountains, and you're just incredibly blessed with a beautiful country, and these are just small glimpses of heaven, our homeland, amen?

I don't know about you but I cannot wait until we can enjoy the glories of eternity with Jesus, our Lord and soon-coming King.

Before we get our message tonight, I'd like to invite you to bow your heads with me.

♫ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♫ Praise Him all creatures here below.

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.

Father in heaven, we praise you for your goodness to us.

We thank you Lord that you are a God of love, you are a God of selflessness, to the point that you gave your life for us, you were willing to surrender eternity and to come and be born a man and to live life on this earth.

Not only that, but to live and die in our place.

And tonight, as we continue our study into the Laodicean message, and as we Continue to hear your final call to us, Lord, we pray, that you would open the ears and the eyes of our heart.

Help us to hear your voice, and may we see what you want us to see in your holy word.

Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.

There was a little boy who, well, not so little.

There was a young man who drove up to his school 1 day, back in the 1950s, and he proudly drove up a truck that was making all kinds of funny clinks and clanks and noises and he opened the door and walked into his school and the little schoolhouse there.

He had a big smile on his face, his first day driving this truck to school, and his teacher said, hey, Tom, what kind of truck is that out there?

And he proudly said, oh, that's an RFD truck.

And the teacher said, I haven't heard of that model.

Well, friends, we as Christians are RFD people.

Not only are we rescued from the dump of sin and of selfishness, but we're rescued from death.

Not only are we rescued from death, but God wants us to be ready for deliverance when he comes.

We indeed are RFD people, and friends, Jesus is coming very soon.

He's making his appeal, he's making the final call to all humanity.

He's coming soon and he wants us to be ready for deliverance.

We've been examining Jesus' message to us in the book of Revelation.

Jesus' message in the book of Revelation.

And we have been discovering that Jesus, in the beginning of the book of Revelation, instructed John to write 7 letters to the 7 churches in Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey.

Here's a map of eastern Turkey so you can see.

Jesus specifically told John the words to write because Christ had a message for those 7 local literal churches in Asia Minor in the first century.

We know, once again, that these 7 local literal churches are symbolic of prophetic time periods that God's church would go through, down through time, all the way until Jesus' second coming in the clouds of glory.

Therefore, the last church on the list, which is Laodicea, is representative of God's last day people as we are living on planet Earth.

It actually means judgment of the people or a people judged.

And we, as students of Bible prophecy, know that we have been living since 1844 in the investigative judgment, the time of God's judgment, according to Revelation 14, verses 6 through 12.

Those living in the last moments of time, there is a special message for us from Christ.

Friends, the Laodicean message is for us and Jesus is making his final call to the planet.

A final call for us to make a full surrender of our lives to him.

We saw that Jesus calls the Laodicean church lukewarm.

They're not entirely committed to God, nor are they willing to go out into the world.

And sometimes, friends, we think that a message like this doesn't apply to us, but the very fact, if you don't think this message applies to you, it applies to you.

If you don't think this message applies to you, it applies to you.

If you don't think this message applies to you, it applies to you, and it goes for me as well.

The reason is because the message is for those who don't think it applies to them.

Therefore, if you don't think it applies to you, it does.

And friends, we're gonna see tomorrow night how the great leaders of this Second Advent movement, when they fully understood the Laodicean message, their hearts were broken on the rock of Christ.

They said, man, we thought that we were okay, but we are not.

We need to make things right with our brethren.

We need to make a full surrender in every area of our lives.

And it's a message of love, because Jesus wants us to be ready when he comes in the clouds of glory to take us home.

Jesus says that his people are neither cold nor hot, not able to make up their minds, fence riding and not even realizing it.

Once again, Jesus doesn't give this message because he's angry or because he's vindictive.

No, he says, as many as I, what, love, I rebuke and chasten, or as the ESV puts it, I correct and discipline.

Praise the Lord that when Jesus points out the problem, our Savior also supplies the solution, amen?

Last night we found in Revelation chapter 3, verse 18, that Jesus supplies a solution.

The solution, he says, is to buy from him gold refined in the fire that we may be rich.

And he says, and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness might not be revealed.

And anoint your eyes with eyesalve that you may see.

Friends, the gold represents, we remember, faith that works by love, that's motivated, that's actuated by genuine love.

We see that the eye salve represents wisdom and grace that the Holy Spirit brings us to understand God's word and to escape and stay away from the temptations of the devil because he enables us to recognize them.

That's the spiritual eyesight the Holy Spirit brings us.

We remember from last night that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

Friends, a robe in the Bible represents character.

And this is the Bible's way of saying, Jesus is saying, your character, without me and my righteousness, your self-justification, it won't get you anywhere.

But friends, Jesus grants us the pure, clean, white robes of His righteousness.

And not only, He doesn't just cover us with these robes and ignore our sins, no.

He cleanses us of our sins, and then He transforms our characters to be 1 with his character.

To the point that our very thoughts will be similar, they will be the same as his thoughts.

This is only possible by the Holy Spirit living in our hearts moment by moment.

It's a promise from a God, who the Bible says in Titus 1 verse 2, cannot lie, amen?

And if a God who cannot lie has made a promise, that means it is possible.

So praise the Lord that the promise of the Holy Spirit is 1 that is absolutely sure.

We discovered last night that this spiritual robe that Jesus wants to clothe us with, so to speak, is simply a inward representation, a spiritual representation of what used to be a physical reality with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Well friends, now it's working in reverse.

As God is redeeming us, he gives us the spiritual robe of Jesus' righteousness now.

And as he does, when he comes again in the clouds of glory, He's going to give us those clean, bright, white, physical robes, an outward representation of the inward reality that we are righteous by the blood of Christ, amen?

2- The Savior’s Solution

He was nearing the end of His life and ministry on the earth.

He was going to continue on with the plan of salvation.

And Jesus said these words, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?

Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour.

Therefore the people who, excuse me, then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.

Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered.

Others said an angel had spoken to him." Friends, what happened on that day?

Were there 2 separate events that took place at the same time?

Did it thunder or did God speak from heaven through an angel?

What's very interesting is that there were people in 1 crowd, but they heard 2 different things.

The question is what made the difference and why?

Why did some people hear 1 thing and other people hear another.

The answer is that spiritual things are spiritually discerned.

Friends tonight you're either going to hear 1 of 2 things.

You're either going to hear the voice of a man booming through a microphone and just making noise, or you're going to hear the voice of God to your soul.

How many of you want to hear the voice of Jesus tonight?

Let us ask him for just that, Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, Lord, we are sojourning in this earth.

We are but strangers here and heaven is our home.

And the children of Israel, when they left the bondage of slavery in Egypt and they were wandering in the desert.

Lord, when you rained down manna from heaven, they went out to collect their food and they said, manna, what is it?

And Lord, we come tonight opening your word, the bread of life, and we ask, what is it?

What is it that you would have for us to hear?

We pray that the message that we would hear would not be from a man, but that it would be from the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

May He speak loud and clear and we pray that it would resonate and that we would respond.

Send your Holy Spirit to help us discern the spiritual item of your Holy Word, we pray in Jesus precious name and everyone said, amen.

Just to quickly review, we're going to examine the message, a message from Jesus this evening.

You're going to find that it's a simple message.

It has just 3 parts, but the Lord has a special message for us tonight.

Tonight we are examining Jesus' solution to the problem of Laodicea.

We're going to examine the 3 solutions that he gives in Revelation chapter 3 verse 18.

As we see this together, and you're welcome to turn there in your Bibles with me, we're going to have the verses on the screen, a majority of the verses on the screen for the sake of time, but I encourage you to follow along in your Bibles.

How many of you brought your swords this evening?

Now just to review, to catch us up to where we are now, so far we have talked about, so far we have talked about, we have discovered together that Jesus in the beginning of the book of Revelation had a message for John to relate to the 7 churches in Asia Minor, 7 of the many Christian churches.

And these messages did not only apply for the Christians then in the first century, but they actually applied prophetically to God's church down through time.

Each church representing a time period that God's church would go through all the way until the end of time.

So we see that it makes sense that the last church on the list would represent God's last day people, amen?

And the last church on the list is none other than the Laodicean church.

Now, this is the church that represents us as God's last day remnant people.

We're gonna talk about our understanding of this and how it grew as a people on Friday night and you're not gonna want to miss that.

Now we saw together on Sunday night that Jesus describes the church of Laodicea as saying, I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.

But he says, you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

We learned that Jesus drew a stark contrast to the physical reality of their riches because Laodicea was a wealthy city, the Wall Street of the Middle East at the time, but he was saying, in spite of your physical riches, you're spiritually poor.

Interestingly enough, Laodicea had a medical school and a world-renowned ophthalmologist, an eye doctor.

Not only that, they manufactured eye medication for the world.

Yet, Jesus said in spite of this, you're spiritually blind.

And it was not by coincidence, but Jesus gave them a striking explanation of their spiritual status because they actually manufactured black wool garments and supplied them to the Middle East.

So Jesus was directing them to their problem, but praise God that when Jesus points out the problem, he doesn't leave us there, amen?

And tonight we're going to discover just what that solution is.

I'm excited about this evening's message.

Now remember, Laodicea's greatest problem is not that they're wretched, it's not that they're miserable, it's not that they're poor or blind or naked, but the dilemma that the Laodicean church is in is that they don't even realize it.

And friends, we have the tendency to think that a strong message doesn't apply to us.

We tend to think that it applies to someone else And it's all too easy to think that we're okay when we're actually not.

And this is the message that Christ wants to get through to us.

We think that it may apply to those around us.

I'll never forget, I was about 11 years old, and my parents and I were driving from Fairfield, California, back home to Angwin, California, and it was about an hour's drive.

We were in the city of Fairfield, and it was my mom in the front passenger seat, and my dad driving, and my best friend Scotty and I in the back and we pulled out onto the road and it was in the middle of the city and it was slow, praise the Lord it was slow, but we said, hey look at that guy going the wrong way.

And then a few seconds later we said, hey, there's another 1.

0, wait a minute, we're going the wrong way.

The Bible says in Proverbs 14, verse 12, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the way of death." And praise the Lord that that wasn't literally fulfilled on that day, amen?

But it's all too easy spiritually to think that we're alright, to think that we're going in the right direction when we're actually going in the opposite direction of where we should be going.

It's all too possible for us to think we're okay when we're dangerously driving in the wrong direction, so to speak.

You may be wondering, can I ever really know if I'm going in the right direction?

That I'm in a saving relationship with Jesus?

Is there such thing as true assurance of eternal life?

And that is such an important question that we're taking 1 whole sermon to address it and we're preaching it twice on Sabbath.

And don't miss that this Sabbath, safe and secure or not so sure.

The Lord would not have his people wondering if they're saved.

He wants us to have the blessed assurance that we are safe in Christ, amen?

Jesus tells us plainly that we are spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

The Savior doesn't just point out the problem and praise God that he supplies the solution.

Now, I just want to invite you to look at Revelation 3 verse 17 with us.

Revelation 3 verse 17, if you're there in your Bibles, Go ahead and turn there, it's up on the screen as well for the sake of time once again.

But there the Bible gives descriptions and Jesus actually gives some adjectives about the church of Laodicea.

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

All right, now we're going to go to verse 18 and count how many solutions Jesus gives us.

1- The Laodicean Dilemma

My name is Justin Tarosian, as you've heard.

I grew up in a small town in Northern California on the top of a mountain, although we call it a hill.

It's where Pacific Union College is, and It is a piece of land that God actually revealed to Ellen White and Vision that we should purchase as a church.

And anyhow, I lived there the first 22 years of my life.

I was blessed to go to college there and then moved to Central California where I worked for 4 years as a pastor, and a year before that as a Bible worker, but 4 years as a pastor in a 1, 100 member church, was a large church there in Fresno, and you may have heard of a man named Pastor Stephen Boar.

All right, He is my good friend, mentor, and my senior pastor for those years, and I enjoyed my time there.

For the last 3 months, I've been at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, and it is incredibly cold, especially compared to here right now.

We're in our fall, and I am excited to be here in the summer.

We had a beautiful day, and the weather was incredible.

People, you know, the weather may be cold outside, but people's hearts tend to be warm.

Anyhow, I'm there studying, getting my master's degree, and will be back in the workforce in California in about 2 years.

So that's what's going on with me right now, and I am more than happy to give up my, it's not really giving up my Thanksgiving break to come here, but it gives me more of a reason to be grateful and to be thankful to be here in Australia with my new church family.

So I'm happy and blessed to be here with you tonight and excited about what the Lord wants to share with each 1 of us this coming week.

Justin, thank you so much, and we look forward to tonight.

I didn't know if you wanted me to mention my lineage.

I am the, or My great, great, great grandparents on 1 side of my family are James and Ellen White.

And they're 2 people who God used in incredible ways.

And my life has been transformed by reading the materials that God has written through both of them, especially Ellen White, of course.

And we are so blessed to be a part of a church that is built on the backs of, or built on the foundation of the work of our pioneers, amen?

Not just James and Ellen, but the many pioneers that sacrificed in order for us to have a worldwide movement that's still thriving and growing today.

So I'm blessed to be a part of this movement and I'm glad that you're here tonight as well to hear about how God has led in our past and is wanting to lead us today as well.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Bible starts its book of Revelation, the book of Revelation starts with these words.

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the 7 spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness.

Friends, when someone takes a witness stand in an earthly courtroom, What is 1 of the first things that you want to know about this individual?

That they are telling the truth, isn't that right?

Now the Bible tells us that Jesus is a witness, and what kind of witness does it tell us that he is?

Later in Revelation chapter 3, we are told that he is a faithful and true witness, the faithful and true witness.

Now, with Jesus as a witness, we can be assured that we are going to hear the truth and nothing but the truth, amen?

And you know, praise God that he has a message for us tonight.

Now I wanna say, Christ is called the faithful and the true witness.

And like it's often said, sometimes the truth hurts.

And in this message, Jesus does not hold back.

But the good news is that Jesus never shares the plain facts when they're painful in order to hurt us, but to help us.

Christ always works, never to harm, but always to heal.

You still wanna hear the voice of Jesus tonight?

Why don't we bow our heads and ask for his presence in a special way.

I'd like to invite you to pray along with me.

♪ Into my heart ♪ ♪ Into my heart ♪ ♪ Come into my heart ♪ ♪ Lord Jesus ♪ Into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

♪ Come in today ♪ Come in to stay ♪ Come into my heart ♪ Lord Jesus Father in heaven, you have heard the prayer of our hearts.

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1- The Laodicean Dilemma

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