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White Horse Media

Steve Wohlberg

New Light for Laodiceans

Dear Father in Heaven, Father we pray for your Holy Spirit.

Bless us now we ask in the name of Jesus our Savior.

My title is called new light for Laodiceans.

And I'd like to read a little bit from the Spirit of Prophecy, volume 1, page 186.

It says, I was shown that the testimony to the Laodiceans applies to God's people at the present time.

And the reason it has not accomplished a greater work is because of the hardness of their hearts.

But God has given the message time to do its work.

The heart must be purified from sins which have so long shut out Jesus.

So there's power in the Laodicean message.

When it was first presented, it led to close examination of heart.

Sins were confessed and the people of God were stirred everywhere.

Nearly all believed that this message would end in the loud cry of the third angel.

But as they failed to see the powerful work accomplished in a short time, many lost the effect of the message.

I saw that this message would not accomplish its work in a few short months.

It is designed to arouse the people of God, to discover to them their backslidings, and to lead to zealous repentance that they may be favored with the presence of Jesus and be fitted for the loud cry of the third angel.

And then she says, as this message affected the heart, it led to deep humility before God." So this tells us that the Laodicean message is very powerful, that it leads to humility, and that its ultimate goal is to bring to us the presence of Jesus into our hearts and then to fit us to give the loud cry of the third angel.

And let me just also share with you another couple of sentences from Volume 5 about light.

Now we know there's a lot of counsel that we need to be careful of when people say, I have new light, right?

But we have other counsel that says, wow, this is a volume 5 of the testimonies, page 706.

Whenever the people of God are growing in grace, they will be constantly obtaining a clearer understanding of his word.

They will discern new light and beauty in its sacred truths.

This has been true in the history of the church in all ages and thus it will continue to the end.

So that tells us that God has a lot of new light for us and that new light comes from the Word.

It's an ever-increasing understanding of the scriptures.

And let's take a look at the Laodicean message, because there is light in this message that we need, we desperately need.

Verse 14, Jesus said, to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, write, these things says the Amen, the faithful and the true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Now this tells us when Jesus introduces himself in this message he says that he is true.

So what we're reading here is the truth And Ellen White talks about the testimony of the true witness to the Laodiceans, and that's what we're reading.

Verse 15 I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot.

So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will, the new King James says, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Which means that he is not able to speak our name in the heavenly courts.

He's not able to represent us before God because of our spiritual condition.

Verse 17 zeroes in on what I see as the heart of the problem.

I am rich, I have become wealthy, And I have need of how much?

So, Laodicean's big problem is a need problem.

It doesn't sense a need for more of God, for more of Jesus, for more of His light, for more of His presence.

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

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

Let me ask you, how many of you have read this before?

Now, It seems to me that a lot of times when we read this text, it seems to us that the Lord is just telling us how bad we are.

And we look at these words with with disdain You know wretched miserable poor blind and Naked and we just think you know that's That's rather disgusting and the tendency is to think that that's not me.

You know, we tend to think this isn't me.

But Jesus is saying that he's the true witness, he tells the truth and he's telling us that this is who we are.

We are wretched, we are miserable, we are poor, we are blind, We are naked.

A number of years ago, and I shared this with you the last time I was here at Eden Valley, when I was at Andrews University studying at the seminary in 1984 and 85, I went through a terrible struggle.

And underneath my struggle, which I didn't really understand at the time, was my own self-sufficiency.

It was my own basic human bent to say, I'm rich and I'm increased with goods and I have need of nothing, which really is the spirit of the devil.

Because if you go back to Lucifer, Lucifer's initial sin was pride, right?

He essentially said, I'm rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing.

And that's really what Babylon says as well.

When Babylon says, I sit as a queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow.

And it's what Israel said when it boasted.

It's what the Pharisees said when he said, Lord, thank you that I'm not like other men, that I do this and this and this and I don't do this and this and this and I'm not like that poor publican over there, you know, that poor, wretched, miserable, blind, lost man.

And so if you study the thread throughout scripture, the basic problem of human nature, including my nature and your nature, is self-sufficiency, self-exaltation, and pride.

So when Jesus puts his finger on that and addresses this as a Laodicean problem, he is really addressing the core problem of sin, of humanity.

That we just, you know, we think we're so good that we don't realize our need for Jesus like we should.

Now when I went through the struggle at Andrews and I'm gonna I know the board members have to leave in a few minutes, so I'm going to get to my point quickly.

When I was at Andrews, and it's a long story, I can't tell you all the details, but in the midst of my darkness and in the midst of my struggle, my mind was directed to the Laodicean message.

And there were things that I learned about the Laodicean message and from the Laodicean message that, and I think this was probably the only thing that kept me through my struggles and eventually brought me out.

And it was it was the realization that words like wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked were actually weapons from the Word of God, from Jesus Christ himself to help me to get through my struggle.

The Bible says that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.

And at some point in my struggle I began to take a close look at these words and I realized something.

That the words wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

These words, these very words, apply to the people that Jesus encountered in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

In fact, the greatest sermon, or well, I don't know if you can really pit sermons what's better or not, but I was going to say the greatest sermon Jesus ever preached was the Sermon on the Mount.

At least it's 1 of the greatest sermons ever preached.

And Jesus starts out in the Sermon on the Mount, the first thing he says is, blessed are who?

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New Light for Laodiceans

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