SPECIAL MESSAGE TO WGM TEAM PARTNERS:
February 19, 2024
Straight Testimony to the Laodiceans – Part 16
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE
LAODICEAN MESSAGE THRU
THE YEARS (Sixth Part)
1903 - “To the church of the PRESENT DAY this message is sent. I call upon our church members to READ THE WHOLE of the third chapter of Revelation, and make an APPLICATION of it. The message to the church of the Laodiceans APPLIES SPECIALLY to the people of God today [note the year given]. It is a message to PROFESSING Christians who have become SO MUCH LIKE THE WORLD THAT NO DIFFERENCE CAN BE SEEN. [verses 14-18 quoted].” Ibid, RH Nov. 20, 1903/ 7 BC 959. Note: This is but one of the dozens of incisive, “two-edged sword,” straight-talk, plain-truth Testimonies of the Spirit of Prophecy that “pierced even to the dividing asunder of my soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow” (cf Heb. 4: 12, 13, KJV) when I first read it way back in 1994 or late 1993. It still does, by the power of the Holy Spirit working on the conscience of my mind.
Such messages remind me to be constantly vigilant lest my faith in Jesus, love for God and His law, and relationship with the Holy Spirit (all Three Persons of the Godhead being invisible to the physical, naked eye)—be merely a profession, performative, transactional, situational and conditional subject to compromise, depending on convenience, not conviction.
True indeed that “Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks upon the heart.” And yet it is also true that our lives “may be the only book that our neighbor may ever read.” It is called “the word of our testimony.” And what kind of “spectacle” are we to the gaze “of the world, men, and angels (both good and evil)?”
And thus, a truly convicted and genuinely converted and “born again” Christian, especially the professed member of the “remnant church” of prophecy, particularly during these silent closing hours of probation, will also be clearly distinguishable from the vast majority of the Christian mainstream, let alone the world itself. The apostle echoes and repeats what Moses declared centuries earlier:
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness [of sin, ignorance, worldliness] unto His marvelous light [of truth, righteousness, holiness, godliness].” 1 Pet. 2:9, KJV. cf. Deut. 14:2. So ask yourselves this question. Are we also “so much like the world” that “no difference can be seen” in what we think, talk about, do with our time and talents, etc. (except for physically going to church on the seventh day and performing Sabbath duties and functions? The Jewish nation excelled in these in the time of Christ.
The real difference can only happen when “the carnal mind” of the “old man” is “transformed by the spiritual “renewal of the mind” into the “new man” or “new creature in Christ Jesus.”
If this radical change inside-out is not effected thru the work of sanctification by the daily fiery baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is the thorough work of character-preparation for eternity requires, then the professed believer becomes fearfully content in self-deception as to his true spiritual condition, brought on by the soul-destroying Laodicean disease.
Remember this: God loves the sinner with perfect love and hates sin with perfect hatred. And He remains “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Bless all, NMF.