May 7, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
SPIRITUAL PRIDE SAYS: ‘I HAVE NEED OF NOTHING’
As keepers of the commandments of God, we profess to be the people of God at the present time. And that is true. What is equally true is that our spiritual condition of lukewarmness distorts our spiritual vision so that we fail to see the importance, beauty, and power of the grace of true humility. We think we know and have everything.
But the True Witness has a very specific message and warning for us! When He says, “know ye not,” He reveals that this spiritual blindness is directly responsible for denying and depriving ourselves of the fullest blessings and benefits that true humility brings in its train!
Our eyes continue to be partially-blinded with the spiritual virulent “virus” of self-sufficiency in its various forms— the fatal danger of the lukewarm state! It is what leads to lackadaisical complacency and a false sense of security so accurately described in the words: ‘I am rich, I am increased with goods, and I have need of nothing.’ Rev. 3: 17.
It is this simple: the moment we think or feel (which is not “faith”) that we are in need of nothing, spiritually, is the very moment we are in desperate need of everything we think we don’t! When we confidently say, “Now I can see,” we either have seen our true condition by the ‘heavenly eye-salve’ or else we are even more blind, i.e., more self-deceived!
When we do any kind of work for God and begin to entertain the idea or listen to suggestions that it’s success somehow depends on our wisdom, talents, efforts or money—we are precariously teetering in the thin edge of this self-built pinnacle and a fall awaits us!
God’s special message for us is, not others! Note:
“I am commissioned to say to our brethren, Humble yourselves and confess your sins, Else God will humble you. The Laodicean message comes home to those who do not apply it to themselves.” E.G.White, Counsels to Writers & Editors,p.99.
Did you get that? The Laodicean message comes home to those WHO DO NOT APPLY IT TO THEMSELVES! And if they do not do so, they must be applying it to someone else! That’s what God calls blindness, self-deception! Do we desperately need the ‘heavenly eye-salve’!
“The message to the church of the Laodicean is a startling denunciation, and is applicable to the people of God at the present time. The Lord here shows that the message to be borne to the people BY HIS MINISTERS whom He has called to WARN the people is NOT a peace-and-safety message. It is not merely theoretical, but practical in every particular. The people of God are represented in the message to the Laodiceans as in a position of CARNAL SECURITY. They are at ease, believing themselves to be in a exalted condition of spiritual attainments.”
“What greater deception can come upon human minds than a confidence that they are right when they are all wrong! The message of the True Witness finds the people of God in a sad deception. They know not that their condition is deplorable in the sight of God. While those addressed are flattering themselves that they are in an exalted spiritual condition, the message of the True Witness breaks their security by the startling denunciation of their true condition of spiritual blindness, poverty and wretchedness. The testimony, so cutting and severe, cannot be a mistake, for it is the True Witness [Christ in the Holy Spirit] who speaks, and His testimony must be correct.” Ibid, Vol. 3, Testimonies, pp. 252-3.
This “straight Testimony of the True Witness came to me and applied to me before I shared it, not as a peace-and-safety message but as a “startling warning,” “whether they will hear or whether they will forbear!” It is my responsibility and accountability to God and to all of you. 1 John 3:1. NMF