Participants:
Series Code: NP
Program Code: NP190209A
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00:10 >> As we begin this morning, I want to invite you to stand with 00:15 me. We're gonna sing some songs of 00:17 praise together. Please stand with me. 00:26 Let's bow our heads. 00:31 Dear Father in heaven, we are here to worship You this Sabbath. 00:36 Thank You so much for that opportunity, for friends and family we can worship with, and 00:42 that You are worthy of our praise. Please come into our hearts this 00:45 morning, fill this place with Your Holy Spirit, and may You be lifted up, and may we be 00:50 encouraged, as well. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. 00:57 [ "Praise Him! Praise Him!" begins ] 01:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 01:20 Let's praise Him. 01:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 01:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 02:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 02:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 02:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 03:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 03:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 03:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 04:05 ♪♪ [ Song ends ] 04:12 Amen. You can be seated. [ Mid-tempo music begins ] 04:22 ♪♪ ♪♪ 04:42 ♪♪ ♪♪ 05:02 ♪♪ ♪♪ 05:22 ♪♪ ♪♪ 05:42 ♪♪ ♪♪ 06:02 ♪♪ ♪♪ 06:22 ♪♪ ♪♪ 06:42 ♪♪ ♪♪ 07:03 ♪♪ ♪♪ 07:23 ♪♪ ♪♪ 07:39 [ Song ends ] You know, we have some good 07:42 friends that are also part of this church family that recently 07:44 lost a loved one, a father, to aggressive cancer. 07:50 And we've been singing these really positive, upbeat praise songs, but it seems almost 07:55 counterintuitive to come to worship with these sorts of things on our hearts and praise 08:00 Him in those times, doesn't it? You know, in the midst of his sickness, this next song that 08:05 we're gonna sing, a modern version of "It Is Well With My Soul," became one of his 08:11 favorite songs. And I imagine it must've been difficult for him to embrace the 08:17 words to this song, but God gave him the strength to do it, to recognize that he could have 08:22 peace through the most difficult of circumstances. So, I don't know what you're 08:26 facing this morning, but as you sing this song with us, know that God can give you peace and 08:31 allow you to praise in the midst of difficult times. 08:37 [ "It Is Well With My Soul" begins ] 08:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 09:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 09:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 09:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 10:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 10:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 10:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 11:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 11:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 11:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 12:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 12:25 ♪♪ ♪♪ 12:45 ♪♪ ♪♪ 13:05 ♪♪ ♪♪ 13:18 [ Song ends ] 13:20 Will you stand with me for our last song? Maybe there's something that is 13:26 on your heart today and it's trying to pull you down. If there's something like that, 13:35 I invite you to come forward as we're singing this song, symbolically bringing it to God, 13:40 and we're gonna pray for it and ask that the Lord work in your life and give you peace amidst 13:44 the storm and bring you out of it. 13:52 ♪♪ ♪♪ 14:12 ♪♪ ♪♪ 14:32 ♪♪ ♪♪ 14:52 ♪♪ ♪♪ 15:12 ♪♪ ♪♪ 15:32 ♪♪ ♪♪ 15:52 ♪♪ ♪♪ 16:12 ♪♪ ♪♪ 16:32 ♪♪ ♪♪ 16:49 [ Song ends ] 16:58 ♪♪ >> ♪ None other Lamb ♪ 17:14 ♪ None other Name ♪ ♪ None other hope ♪ ♪ In heav'n or earth or sea ♪ 17:31 ♪ None other hiding place ♪ ♪ From guilt and shame ♪ 17:50 ♪ None beside Thee ♪ ♪ My faith burns low ♪ ♪ My hope burns low ♪ 18:11 ♪ Only my heart's desire ♪ ♪ Cries out in me ♪ ♪ By the deep thunder ♪ 18:28 ♪ Of its want and woe ♪ ♪ Cries out to Thee ♪ 18:48 ♪♪ ♪ Lord, Thou art life ♪ ♪ Though I be dead ♪ 19:01 ♪ Love's fire Thou art ♪ ♪ However cold I be ♪ 19:25 ♪♪ ♪ Nor heaven have I ♪ ♪ Nor place to lay my head ♪ 19:54 ♪ Nor home ♪ ♪ Nor home ♪ ♪ But Thee ♪ 20:18 ♪♪ [ Song ends ] >> Amen. 20:30 Thank you, Charles Reid, Ken Logan. The compelling text -- I wish 20:38 you had as I had it on the phone, on my knee. Wish you had that text. 20:44 You could've followed the words. You caught them, some of them. I want to read that last line, 20:50 that last stanza. "Lord, Thou art life, though I be dead. 20:56 Love's fire Thou art, however cold I be. Nor heaven have I, nor place to 21:05 lay my head, nor home, but Thee." That's powerful -- 21:11 Christina Rossetti. Music composed by Kenneth Logan, sung by Charles Reid. 21:21 Let's pray that right now. Oh, God, Lord -- as Charles just sang -- "Lord, Thou art life, 21:30 though we are dead. Love's fire Thou art, however cold we be. 21:37 Nor heaven have we, nor place to lay our head, nor home, but Thee." 21:46 Be that home for Laodicea. 21:50 We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Nobody likes to be called a 21:57 name. Aw, I tell you, it sticks with 22:00 you. I remember I was playing 22:01 basketball with a bunch of guys at college. 22:04 One of the guys turned to me in the middle of a play and said, 22:06 "You sissy." [ Chuckles ] Obviously, I've 22:09 never forgotten it. It sticks with you because 22:12 nobody likes to be called names, and I finally figured out why we 22:16 have such a hard time with the last letter, the very last 22:19 letter of the Bible, the last letter of the 22:21 Book of Revelation. It's to a community called 22:24 Laodicea. Seven little churches -- they're 22:26 number seven, the last before the return of Christ. 22:29 I finally figured out this week -- why'd it take me so long? -- why we don't like that 22:33 letter. And that's why we don't read the letter, by the way. 22:36 We don't like it, we don't read it. Because you know what? 22:38 It feels like Jesus is calling us five names, five adjectives, and it makes us mad. 22:44 "I don't have to put up with this stuff. I don't have to read a letter 22:47 like this. You want to call me that? [ Scoffs ] Last time I'll read 22:51 your Word." Nobody likes to be called a name. 22:55 We got to detoxify this thing, or we're gonna have this innate resistance to a letter that's 23:02 critically essential for our survival. We have to demystify it. 23:07 We have to do something with those five names. They are hardly complimentary. 23:13 They feel on the border of derogatory, and when somebody calls you a name that's 23:18 derogatory, you never forget it. Trust me. I'm gonna show you these five 23:26 names and then tell you that, in fact, these five adjectives, these five names were embraced 23:34 by Jesus and became His five adjectives, became His five names on the Cross. 23:41 Watch this. Open your Bible to the last letter, Revelation chapter 3. 23:46 Revelation chapter 3. Drop down to verse 17. Red letters in my Bible because 23:54 Jesus is dictating this letter. 23:57 Revelation 3:17 -- to the endgame church of Christianity. 24:04 Verse 17 -- "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and 24:07 do not need a thing.' But you do not realize --" you 24:10 do not know -- here it comes now, five names He's gonna call 24:14 that church -- "you do not realize that you are wretched, 24:17 pitiful, poor, blind --" and what's that last word? -- 24:22 "naked." Nobody likes to be called naked. 24:26 And yet all five of those were the names Jesus embraced upon the Cross. 24:33 Wretched? [ Chuckles ] Are you kidding? "Desire of Ages" actually uses 24:38 the word "wretch." Some poor wretch came up with a full-frontal spit, clearing his 24:48 throat into the face of Christ. Jesus said, "You can call me wretched. 24:56 Go ahead. Spit on me." Wretched, pitiful. Some of your translations render 25:02 it "miserable." Miserable. By the way, that's the very word 25:09 that the Bible uses in 1 Corinthians 15:19 to describe how miserable we are if the 25:16 story of the Resurrection is not true. We are miserable. 25:19 We are pitiable. Do you know what? Jesus, when he's hanging on the 25:24 Cross for you and me, when he's hanging on that Cross, he believes that he's on a dead-end 25:29 destiny -- dead end, meaning he's ending his life forever and ever in the grave. 25:37 He's pitiful, he's miserable -- wretched, pitiful, pitiful. Poor. 25:45 Poor. [ Chuckles ] The prisoner, because it is a custom of the 25:50 Roman soldiers, who have to waste their time waiting for this victim to die, it is the 25:55 custom that, whatever he has left, they dice for. But the prisoner has nothing, 26:03 nothing but an outer garment, and it's seamless, and so, rather than ripping it into 26:08 pieces, they throw dice. "Who gets it?" That's how poor he was. 26:15 Wretched, miserable, poor, blind. Do you know what? 26:23 That somewhere it reads, "And the Savior could not see through the portals of the tomb." 26:30 He was blind, can't see. You know what? Every time I think about, every 26:39 time I brood over that reality, it just -- it just blows my mind. 26:43 I mean, can you imagine? He was willing to die forever and ever so that I, little old 26:48 me, can live forever and ever. Go figure -- die forever and ever so that you might live 26:53 forever and ever. He's blind. He couldn't see past his nose. 26:58 Wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. Yeah, you got it. 27:06 There isn't an artist alive that has ever painted the actual picture of the Crucifixion. 27:10 You know why? Because it would be rated X. You can't show a man like that. 27:17 So every artists' rendition of the Cross, there's a loincloth, there's something that's hiding 27:25 his masculinity. That was intentional, barbaric, by the Romans. 27:34 "We'll shame you till your last moment and breath." And all of hell stood there with 27:41 their catcalls and wolf-whistles, trying to shame him back down from that Cross 27:48 before he dies a victor. Wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, naked. 27:58 And here we thought He was calling us names, but, in fact, they're the five names that 28:06 became His at Calvary for you and for me -- detoxified the letter. 28:14 The One who writes this letter is in love with you. He's in love with the human 28:18 race, but He's passionately, desperately in love with the last church on Earth. 28:26 Open your Bible with me, please, to Revelation 3. If you didn't open it last time, 28:29 open it now. 28:31 I want to pick up right at the beginning of the letter. 28:33 Title of this teaching -- "Reading in Between the Lines." 28:37 You see it on the screen there? "The Last Letter: Reading in 28:40 Between the Lines." You see a website there -- 28:43 newperceptions.tv. You go there, there's a study 28:45 guide today. You'll have it. 28:47 It'll be ready and waiting for you. 28:48 You just go to that study guide, get that study guide, and 28:51 download it right now, but we're gonna keep going. 28:55 Pick it up, Revelation 3. Now, the top of the letter... 29:13 "So, because you are lukewarm --" half and half, 29:16 neither cold, neither not -- "I am about to vomit you --" 29:19 New King James -- "out of my mouth. 29:21 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need 29:25 a thing.' You do not know --" that word 29:27 there is "know." NIV tries to soften it up -- 29:30 "You do not realize." No, it's, "You do not know that 29:34 you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 29:37 So --" verse 18... 29:50 There's a bit of tomfoolery going on in between the lines of this letter. 29:55 We don't quite catch it, because embedded in the letter is a dialectic. 29:59 It is a contradiction between two realities. Reality number one -- "I know 30:06 who you are. I know what you are." Reality number two about 30:09 Laodicea -- "You do not know who you are. I know." 30:15 Let's put it on the screen -- "I know" versus "you do not know." Now, look, the ancient Greek 30:21 sages used to declare, "Know thyself." That was a fine -- a fine 30:27 invitation, and Socrates comes along a few centuries later, and he waxes eloquent on that little 30:32 line, "Know thyself," with his line -- "The unexamined life is not worth living." 30:36 So, yes, it's good counsel. It's good counsel to know yourself, to know what's going 30:41 on inside of me, but the tragedy of Laodicea is they have no clue what reality is. 30:47 They do not know themselves. And you know why we can't know ourselves? 30:52 I'll tell you why -- because the biggest liar alive is you. You're the biggest the liar 30:56 alive -- and maybe me. [ Laughter ] The biggest deceiver we live 31:06 with is ourselves. We are hoodwinked by our own self-delusion and 31:11 self-deception. We're hoodwinked, and we believe the lie! 31:16 [ Chuckles ] Mercy. A few weeks ago, I came across this line in Oswald Chamber's 31:20 book, "My Utmost for His Highest." I read a page out of that book 31:24 every day of my life. Been at it for decades. 31:28 Oswald Chambers on the screen... 31:37 "The greatest curse in spiritual life --" write it down -- is 31:41 conceit." Come on, that's verse 17. 31:47 Read it again. "You say, 'I am rich; I have 31:49 acquired wealth, and I don't need a thing.' 31:52 But you do not know that are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind 31:55 and naked." 31:56 The greatest curse in spiritual life is conceit. By the way, may I remind you it 32:02 was the Achilles' heel of Lucifer? Turns out it's the Achilles' 32:05 heel of Laodicea -- both of those L's. "Loser!" 32:11 Achilles' heel. 32:14 Here's a stunner [Chuckles] from -- would you believe it? -- 32:19 Ellen White, "Steps to Christ," that little classic. 32:22 On the screen -- "God does not regard all sins as of equal 32:25 magnitude." "Oh, really? 32:27 Well, tell me what are the greatest sins in God's eyes?" 32:30 Well, keep reading. "The drunkard --" we'd say today 32:32 the alcoholic, all right, or the drug addict. 32:35 "The drunkard is despised and is told that his sin will exclude 32:39 him from heaven; while pride, selfishness, and covetousness 32:42 too often go unrebuked. But these are sins --" what are 32:46 sins? Pride, selfishness, and 32:47 covetousness. "These are are sins that are 32:51 especially offensive to God..." Have mercy -- especially 32:57 offensive. "...for they are contrary to the 33:02 benevolence of God's character, to that unselfish love --" that 33:05 Charles just sang about -- "which is the very atmosphere of 33:10 the unfallen universe. She who falls into some of the 33:13 grosser sins may feel a sense of her shame and poverty and her 33:16 need of the grace of Christ; but pride feels no need, and so it 33:21 closes the heart against Christ and the infinite blessings He 33:23 came to give." 33:24 "I have need of nothing," pride boasts. [ Scoffs ] 33:29 [ Chuckles ] We're living with a liar. It's me. 33:36 Sigve Tonstad, our New Testament scholar friend from Loma Linda, in that essay, 33:41 he wrote a blog on the seven churches. Boy, does he nail it for 33:45 Laodicea. 33:47 I'll put Tonstad on the screen for you... 33:58 Italics are his... 34:10 Now, here's where he nails it... 34:23 Write that down. 34:25 The way I see myself and reality -- Whew! "Laodicea -- here's where you 34:31 are, here's what you think you are. I know you. 34:38 But you, Church, I'm telling you what, you do not know you. 34:43 Verse 17 again... 34:55 He's not calling us names. He said, "I became that. Everything that Laodicea is I 35:00 became so that everything I have Laodicea may receive." Mm. 35:08 [ Raps pulpit ] [ Inhales sharply ] Oh, and verse 18 -- "And so I 35:12 counsel you..." Now I got to go on in verse 18. "So I counsel you to buy of me 35:16 gold..." Now, doesn't that just make you want to interrupt Jesus? 35:20 "I mean, look, please. Time-out. Whoa! Whoa, whoa. 35:22 [ Chuckles ] The anachronism of what You just said -- You just had the temerity to call us 35:27 poor, and, by the way, we're taking it rather personally, these five names, these five 35:31 adjectives You've chosen. You've just called us poor, and then You have the temerity to 35:35 turn to us and say, 'And, by the way, you poor folk, I need you to buy from me gold.' 35:39 Go figure. How are we gonna be able to buy when we're poor?" 35:43 Because you and I in the third millennium, we live with buying and selling. 35:48 We do it online. eBay, Amazon, Craigslist -- you name the site, we go there, 35:53 because we do buyin' best. But in the Oriental/Western mind, that's not what they're 35:58 thinking about when they're thinking about shopping. In fact, God Himself -- 36:02 Isaiah 55 on the screen, please. 36:04 God Himself speaking -- "Come, all you who are thirsty, come 36:09 to the waters; and you who have no..." 36:12 what? You got no money. 36:14 I understand that. "...you have no money, come, 36:17 buy --" wait a minute. You just said we have no money. 36:20 He said, "I did. I want you to come and buy." 36:22 Now keep reading. Come, buy wine and milk without 36:25 money and without cost." You know what's going on here? 36:28 It's just God's way of reminding you and me that what He has to 36:31 give us is priceless. It's beyond anything we could 36:34 possibly purchase ourselves. Jot this down. 36:37 "Without money and without cost" means, "You'll never have enough 36:41 money to buy it, so I'll never charge you a penny to have it." 36:46 Because it's priceless, and priceless means it's free -- no 36:51 price, no cost to you. 36:55 And then He says, "Listen, I'm gonna sell you three things right now that are priceless and 37:00 free." And here they come -- boom, boom, boom. 37:03 Gift number one, two, three -- jot them down. Gift number one, here we go. 37:07 Three infinitely priceless gifts for the endgame church. Gift number one -- "I counsel 37:13 you to buy from me gold." Write that word in -- "gold." Because you know what? 37:17 Laodicea knows all about gold. In fact, they have a reputation in the empire for having the 37:21 largest of hoard of gold available. They have this massive banking 37:26 exchange. They are so proud of their wealth. 37:30 Jesus looks down at them, and He says, "Hey, guys, the gold you have -- let me just let you in. 37:34 The gold you have, it's fool's gold. It'll not buy you a thing. 37:38 I have the real deal. Come to me, and, for free, buy my gold." 37:43 What's the gold, what's the gold? 37:45 1 Peter 1:7 on the screen -- jot it down. 37:47 "...that the genuineness of your faith --" write in the word 37:51 "faith" -- "being much more precious than gold that 37:53 perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, 37:57 honor, and glory at the revelation and return of 38:00 Jesus Christ." 38:01 The pure gold of a humble faith in Christ. In fact, it turns out that the 38:10 faith to have is not my faith -- it's His faith. You remember Hebrews 2:13? 38:15 Couple falls ago, you and I spent a whole season just thinking about, "Wow, Jesus' 38:20 seven-word credo." Let's put Hebrews 2:13 on the screen. 38:23 Let's do this out loud together. These are the seven words Jesus lived by... 38:34 That's it. Jesus lived by that -- radical faith. 38:38 "I will put my trust in Him," His own seven-word credo, the gold of His faith in the Father. 38:47 And guess what. If He had faith in the Father that was perfect from stem to 38:52 stern, what the gold is, we got to get His faith. It's not my faith that counts. 38:56 If I can just get His faith, I got it. And that's the point of the 39:00 endgame Laodicean church. Look at them described in Revelation 14:12... 39:10 There's no missing verb there. There's not intended to be a verb there. 39:14 It really reads, "Here are they who keep the commandments of God and --" keep the faith, baby -- 39:19 they "keep the faith of Jesus." Whose faith is it, Church? Whose faith is it? 39:24 Come on, Church, tell me, whose faith is it? >> Jesus. 39:27 >> It's Jesus' faith. It's not my faith. It's not your faith. 39:30 We're not saved by our faith -- we're saved by His faith. 39:34 We got this whole thing wrong. We've made us the center of the 39:38 universe and the sun revolves around us, like Galileo finally 39:41 discovered is wrong. The Earth is in the middle, 39:46 everybody believed back then, and the sun revolves around the 39:48 Earth. Wrong! 39:49 The truth is the sun is in the middle, and the Earth revolves 39:52 around the sun. It's His faith, not mine, that 39:55 saves me. You understand that? 39:58 It's His faith. That's why it's gold. You can't come up with it. 40:02 You got a few pennies, but not enough. Gold -- "I counsel you, buy of 40:07 me gold," faith. Oh, he's got three gifts. Gift number two -- "I counsel 40:15 you to buy of me white robes." Oh, brilliant, Jesus. You really got Laodicea now, 40:20 because you know what the Laodiceans were proud of? They had a textile that they 40:25 didn't have in the rest of the empire. They had sheep that fed on the 40:31 grass around Laodicea, and those sheep had black wool, and when the black wool was woven, it was 40:37 woven into a beautiful -- with a violet sheen on it -- black textile. 40:42 And the Laodiceans, as a sign of their wealth, proudly put on black, and they said, "Black is 40:49 the color of elegance and wealth." And Jesus said, "Hey, hey, hey, 40:55 hey, hey, time-out, time-out. I'm gonna give you white robes. White robes." 41:04 So when He says "white robes," they get it. What are the white robes? 41:10 The Bible's absolutely clear. Jot it down. 41:14 On the screen for you -- Isaiah 61:10... 41:29 Wait a minute, wait a minute. The faith belongs to Jesus, and now I'm finding out the 41:32 righteousness belongs to Jesus. The robe is His. Salvation is His. 41:43 Jesus says, "Hey, Dwight, I'm looking at your messed-up life. I got a deal for you. 41:51 I came down to this planet, and I lived a perfect life, and I did it for you. 41:56 How about we exchange, huh? How about you let me have your filthy rags, and let me give you 42:03 my white robe -- pure, spotless." "God doesn't say anything about 42:08 Dwight's rags looking like that." Are you kidding? 42:11 Isaiah 64:6 -- put it on the screen... 42:22 "Dwight, your messed-up life, I'm willing every day to exchange the previous 24 hours 42:28 with my spotless robe. Is that a deal?" Are you serious? 42:34 "I give you my gold. I give you my robe." Wow. 42:39 Reminds me of this often-quoted, popular line from "Desire of Ages." 42:43 On the screen... 42:55 The robe's not mine -- it's Yours. 43:03 "I'll give you a robe." Wow. Are you serious? Read it again, verse 18... 43:28 Gift number three -- jot that down, please... 43:35 Now, don't forget, if we miss this, we miss the connect that Jesus has. 43:41 The Laodiceans are rather proud that they've come up with an eye cure in their very famous, 43:47 premier medical school known throughout the empire. They've come up with an eye cure 43:52 through the creation of a medicine called "collyrium." It was made from the ancient 43:58 Phrygian stone which was embedded in one of the temples in Laodicea, and so they 44:02 powdered it up and they called it "Phrygian powder," and they put that powder in their eyes, 44:07 and it had the reputation of healing eye disease. Jesus comes along to them and 44:11 says, "Your eye salve is worthless. You're as blind as the three 44:16 blind mice. Buy from me eye salve, and you will begin to see again." 44:24 [ Exhales sharply ] Ranko Stefanovich -- and I believe he's right -- describes 44:29 this as the gift that Laodicea needs the most -- eyes to open, eyes healed to see. 44:38 "What are you talking about, Dwight? Eye salve?" 44:41 Oh, put it on the screen -- Ephesians 1:18. 44:44 "I pray that the eyes of your heart --" fill that in -- "the 44:48 eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you 44:50 may know the hope to which He has called you." 44:52 Come on, put one more up there. 2 Corinthians 4:6. 44:57 Paul writing, "The god of this age has blinded --" Ooh! There's somebody going around 45:02 here putting everybody's eyes out. "Hey, yo, yo, come over here. 45:05 [ Exhales sharply ] Can't see now, can you? Hey, girl, come over here. 45:07 [ Exhales sharply ] Can't see now, can you?" 45:10 "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers... 45:15 but --" keep reading -- "God made His light shine in our 45:18 hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory 45:22 displayed in the face of Christ." 45:25 "Hey, Laodicea, time-out, time-out, time-out. Do you understand? 45:31 You have nothing. I give you my gold. Buy from me. 45:37 I give it to you, the gold of my faith. Come here, come here, come here. 45:43 I take these rags. I take these rags, and I cover you with my spotless robe. 45:49 Buy from me for free. Come here. Hey, look, look, you can't find 45:54 me, can you? Come to where you hear my voice. You can't see, but come right 45:57 here. Let me touch your eyes. You will see again." 46:03 Everything we need is from Him, right? It's all from Him. 46:14 "Buy from me eye salve to heal your blind following after the god of this age and the fallen 46:21 culture of this world. Boy, do you know where that path is headed that you're whistlin' 46:26 down? Do you know where the Pied Piper is taking you, girl, where 46:29 you're just a-skippin' down the trail? He's blinded you. 46:36 Let me open, let me heal your eyes." Can I be honest with you? 46:41 It's right here that I fear for my Church, the Laodicea of today, so deadly has become our 46:50 blindness. Now, I'm gonna talk heart-to-heart here, and it 46:53 might feel a bit -- a bit critical. But I guess that's the whole 47:02 point. Jesus is trying to break [Snaps fingers] our delusion. 47:10 Let me talk to you about the Church. I love this Church. 47:16 But the truth of the matter is third-millennial Adventism is pretty much dead in the water. 47:22 You can tell me otherwise. We have become a movement that is no longer moving -- at least 47:30 here in the West. We have fine -- oh, my -- please don't misunderstand me, by the 47:37 way. We have fine, beautiful church edifices. 47:40 "Whoa! Look at this." [ Exhales sharply ] We have sprawling, well-heeled 47:44 university and hospital campuses. [ Laughing ] Wow! 47:48 We have church headquarters bustling with state-of-the-art -- all the 47:52 state-of-the-art we need, but have you noticed we're missing something? 47:56 And it's becoming more painfully obvious by the day. Thomas Aquinas, the great mind 48:03 of the Middle Ages, was once being given a personal tour by Pope Innocent II through the 48:09 Vatican, and the Pope led him down one corridor, and they noticed a table covered with 48:15 gold bullion -- gold. [ Chuckles ] And the Pope stopped, and he said, "Thomas, 48:21 you must see that the Church can no longer say, 'Silver and gold have we not.'" 48:27 To which that bright mind replied, "Oh, yes, Holy Father, but neither can she say, in the 48:33 name of Jesus of Nazareth, 'Get up and walk.'" Has it happened to us? 48:43 Is church, for contemporary Adventism, a glorious facade? There's nothing behind it -- no 48:50 miracles, no power, no transformation, just a church with a fake front. 49:01 "Silver and gold we have, but we cannot say, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 'Get up and walk.'" 49:13 I love this Church. I've given my life to this Church, a Church now that is 49:22 arguing -- ad nauseam, by the way -- something called "compliance" and who has the 49:29 power to do what with that power and who gets the last word and who takes the last vote and 49:36 which gender is the ruling gender and which race is the ruling race. 49:40 And, by the way, we're very -- we've got this passive-aggressive silence going 49:44 on about race right now in the Adventist Church -- passive-aggressive. 49:51 We're scared to touch it because we're already indicted and we know it. 49:59 What's happened to Adventism in America -- what Jonathan Walton calls in his book, "Twelve Lies 50:06 That Hold America Captive" -- what Jonathan Walton calls "white American folk religion," 50:14 where the white male has ascended to his dominance. Interesting. 50:28 Because the truth is -- come on -- the truth is Adventism was birthed in this nation. 50:35 We cannot help it, but America is in the DNA of Adventism. We can deny it, and we say, "No, 50:42 we're a global Church." [ Chuckles ] We're a global church with 50:46 American DNA, and America is hopelessly embroiled in racial fracture today. 50:58 And the Church cannot break out of the same. Silver and gold we have, but, in 51:08 the name of Jesus of Nazareth, we can't do a bloomin' thing! What's happened to the Church? 51:17 Blinded eyes to the deeper systemic breakdown that being birthed when we were, where we 51:25 were... Blinded eyes that our debates can muffle but our debates 51:34 cannot mask. And so, all the while, while we play our little fiddles and our 51:44 silly games, Rome burns and the world is dying. And we're not through yet, 51:52 because we have one more meeting. We're gonna deal with it. 51:56 How many meetings does it take? The world is dying, do you understand that? 52:05 Oh, Laodicea, Laodicea. [ Clicking tongue ] "How often I would have gathered 52:12 you to me, but you would not." Silver and gold we have plenty, but, in the name of 52:18 Jesus of Nazareth, we say so little. So, what's gonna save Laodicea? 52:28 At the risk of sounding terribly simplistic, there is only one hope for Laodicea -- J-E-S-U-S. 52:41 That's it. Without the gold of His faith, without the robe of His 52:51 righteousness, without the healing of His eye salve, we are toast, we are dead, it is finis. 52:59 That's why this letter is so strong. It's trying to get somebody's 53:04 attention while there's still time left. [ Sighs ] You know what we need? 53:14 Who am I? Just a little guy in a big, big Church, but what we need is a 53:21 moratorium on debate. Just cut it out. Stop. 53:30 We need a season where Jesus becomes the sole focus of our corporate talking and our 53:36 private praying. Let our leaders, let our leaders -- they're my leaders, 53:44 as well. Let our leaders lead us for a season. 53:48 And I'm not talking about a day of prayer. A day is nothing. 53:55 Lead us in a season of days, lead us in a season of months, lead us in a season of weeks. 54:02 Take charge of the conversation, recalibrate the blogs. Reverse the fracture. 54:14 Do something, but point us, please, to Jesus. 54:24 We need a season where our collective worship, our administrative communiqués, and 54:30 our church journals collaborate to focus on the charms of Jesus and His righteousness. 54:37 Make that the talk. Make that the talk and the prayer. 54:42 "Behold, Laodicea, I stand at the door. I'm beginning to pound. 54:48 Do you not hear me in there?! 54:52 Or has your raucous debate drowned my voice, blinding your 54:59 eyes, and killing your Church?" [ Sighs ] 55:11 For a season, in this season of the latter rain, what if we 55:18 pause to ask, for a season, to ask for the downpour of Jesus 55:25 upon God's people? 55:28 We have nothing else, folks. We have nothing else. I don't care where the meetings 55:35 take place. I don't care who the meetings are led by. 55:38 I don't care what the agenda for the meetings is. We have no hope outside of 55:46 Jesus. He's the only solution left. When are we gonna try Him? 55:53 That's the letter to Laodicea. "I'm your friend. Wretched, miserable, poor, 56:03 blind, and naked, that was me. I was that on the Cross for you. All that you are I became so 56:10 that all that I have you might have. Buy it from me for free. 56:16 Come to me. Buy it from me. Let me in. 56:21 Let me in, I beg of you. Let me in." 56:32 [ Sighs ] So that's it. That's my little heart-to-heart with you. 56:38 If we don't do something soon... [ Rapping pulpit ] ...the last one out, turn out 56:47 the lights. No power. No power. 56:56 Just the game of church. 57:06 >> We've been really blessed by the financial support that comes 57:08 from our viewers, and we've made a conscious decision not to 57:11 continually appeal to you for that support. 57:14 The fact is, as everyone in the industry will tell you, we're 57:17 needing to make constant upgrades to our technology. 57:20 So if God has blessed you and you'd like to further the work 57:23 of this ministry, we invite you to partner with us. 57:25 Not a single penny of your donation will go to me. 57:28 Every bit of your gift goes to the mission of blessing your 57:32 community and our world. You can donate on our website, 57:35 newperceptions.tv. Or call the number. 57:38 You know the number -- 877-HIS-WILL. 57:40 Again, that number is 877 -- the two words "HIS-WILL." 57:44 And may the God who has blessed you continue to pour into your 57:47 life the gifts of His joy and His hope. 57:50 Thank you. And I'm looking forward to 57:52 seeing you, right here, again, next time. 57:59 ♪♪ ♪♪ 58:19 ♪♪ |
Revised 2019-02-14