Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

Revelation 3:14-22 – ¹⁴ “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. ¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷ You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor,
blind and naked. ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

¹⁹ Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. ²⁰ Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

²¹ To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

There are always a couple of things that I always get out of reading the passages regarding the Laodicea Church.

One, Jesus wants you to be hot for Him, if you’re going to be His.  Luke warm means you know about Him
and you refuse to further your love and relationship with Him.  Those who are cold, He expects to be cold,
but His church?

I don’t know about you, but when the Lord uses the words spit you out of My mouth, that doesn’t sound good at all.  That’s a God that’s pretty disgusted with part of His church.

Two, people who have acquired wealth don’t seem to need to depend on the Lord.  They lean on themselves.  Also they have appeared to have fooled themselves.  They think they are something totally different then how they are viewed by God and Jesus.

The Lord advises them to buy gold from Him.  Do we do that with worldly wealth that we chase after?  No.

When we die to our “me” nature and put Him and others in His name first, we’re beginning to buy gold from the Lord.  Store up treasures in heaven He tells us in Matthew.

Matthew 6:19-21 – ¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Third, the Lord disciplines those He loves.  He wants to get our attention so we don’t blow it.  He doesn’t want to spit people out of His mouth.  People choose that by being on the wrong side of God.  What’s the wrong side?  Giving the Lord no love and living completely contrary to His Word.

He says to those who overcome He’ll give the right to sit with Him on the throne.  So what about those who don’t overcome these things?

Today’s church in America has a lot of Laodicea roaming around in it and Jesus wanted to warn those who are willing to listen.

We need to allow Him to put the salve on our eyes and buy the refined gold from our Lord.

Romans 6:16 – ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

You’re a slave to someone or something.

People who are unsaved are slaves to sin.  There are a lot of people who seek God that are still choosing to be a slave to sin.  We choose.  It can be very hard to the point of addiction, but we still choose.  The reason we choose is because Christ has given us victory so we can say no.

Romans 6:17 – ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.  

A slave of righteousness!  Now that’s a good title.  We need to work as hard as we can for our Lord and righteousness.  Taking a stand against what we know is wrong, because we love our Lord.

No, those are not my words to you.  I only tell my wife and kids that.  🙂

These words come from Jesus.

John 14:23-24 –²³ Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. ²⁴ He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

I could go on and on about this and it would be six pages long.  However, short and sweet still reminds us of the point.

Luke 6:46 – ⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

The sinful side of us says “OUCH!” 

However, it makes all the sense in the universe.

John 18:11 – ¹¹ Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

Jesus became a man to die for the sins of the world.  It’s why He was snuck in as a baby that we just celebrated.

Peter’s actions to protect Jesus were humanly natural and brave.  However, where he failed is because he wasn’t looking towards the Lord on what was supposed to be.

We are created to worship and serve our God and Lord, not to run off and do what appears best humanly possible.

The destiny of our Lord was to come and die for those who would accept Him and crush the curse and the enemy.  He is going to be King of this earth for one thousand years and rule the universe for eternity.

We have a destiny that awaits us and because of free will it is ours to choose.  However, right and wrong is not determined by what we choose.  We just choose rather we will do one or the other.  The right or wrong choices in the end determines our future.

As simple as that sounds I believe in America today we’ve been brainwashed that we can call the all shots and make our own destiny.   Yet we have no final control on rather we even live through the end of the day.

Make your destiny serving the Lord.  It’s the one He wants for each and every one of us.

Titus 2:1-8- ¹ You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. ² Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.

 ³ Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. ⁴ Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

 ⁶ Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. ⁷ In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness ⁸ and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

Life isn’t about running off and doing your own thing.  It’s about obedience to God, self control, doing what’s right.

Satan wants you out of control and to do whatever you want.  Because if you’re doing that, you’re not obeying God.

In a movie do you look up the guy who sacrifices his life to save others, or do you admire the one who murders everyone for their own gain?

It’s not just a movie script, this describes the difference between Christ and Satan.

By living for God and Christ instead of yourself, your actions speak louder than words.  Choose to be self controlled examples.

Romans 2:5-11- ⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” ⁷ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

Why these verses?

God is constantly trying to warn us to turn away from our sin.  As believers we have to keep praying for one another.

What is an unrepentant heart?  A heart that doesn’t turn away from evil.

I grew up believing in Jesus but never read the Bible.  What warnings was I getting?  Well at least they were better than today, but still since I wasn’t in the Word and I could just turn off a few people.

Today the church is full of not offending.  Don’t preach against sin, it’s unpopular and they might not come back.  Just believe and it doesn’t matter what you do or have you live.  (I must say my pastor is not like that and it is one of many reasons why we attend.)

Yet you read and study the Bible and that’s not what it says at all.  It constantly tells us to repent.  We’re inherently evil and fallen, making bad decisions.

Lip service is a problem.

You can tell someone you’re a great bowler.  However when they watch you, you throw a few in the gutter and your score is 103 game after game, people soon discover you’re not a great bowler.

It works like that in life.  If you have no love for others, it shows.  When you’re foul mouthed, drinking like a
sieve, and beating the family, it shows.  When you’re not following the Word of God it shows.

I have learned not to judge.  What is judging?  Judging is stating that someone is going to hell.

Judging is not pointing out a problem to someone who is a believer in love because you care.  Nor is it judging if all you’re letting someone know is if the Word of God speaks against it.  People getting defensive and saying don’t judge me is a defense mechanism used by Satan so others feel guilty and don’t say anything.  However, if we are living in sin and need a Word, does God want silence?  No, He wants us to lovingly, caringly, pray and try to help His wondering child and our brothers and sisters.

Grace is not a get out of jail free card.  Sinning against God knowingly is not a game.

If as a friend you slap me in the face and I say, please don’t do it again and you do anyway, over and over and over again, what are you indicating?

That’s what we do to God especially when we know it’s wrong.  Show Him you care and die to yourself and habitual sin.  Those habitual (almost every day) one’s are hard.  You will only succeed when you decide He’s more important than you are.