Godsloveandlaw's Blog

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 knoweth not 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 sup with that person, and they with me.

²¹ To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Now, let’s  be totally honest here. When we read those words, we most likely will say, “I’m not the one deceived, it’s the other guy.” But let’s look deeper and find out just who is this “Knoweth not” guy or gal?

Let’s very carefully go over these words of our King, and do an analyzation of them. Before we do we should also remember that the Word of the Lord in Chapter 3 is specific  and means something very very  important.

All Adventists know that the Lord is making this message to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Laodicea is our name. The message explains what the name means

“Being compounded of the Greek words “lao” and “deci,” the one meaning “people,” also “speak,” the other meaning “judgment,” the two together meaning people proclaiming judgment, the name Laodicea, therefore, identifies a church proclaiming the judgment hour (Dan. 7:9, 10; Rev. 14:6, 7). 

  As the S.D.A. church is the only one to proclaim judgment, and as each of the seven messages is addressed to the angel of the respective churches, the message to Laodicea is accordingly–ADDRESSED TO THE S.D.A. ANGEL.” (SC, vol. 7, n0.7-12, p.3) 

The Lord is not happy with us as a people, we are not on fire for the Lord. We go through the motions. We can be cool or lukewarm. We are not active in declaring the things of the Lord. We have not kept abreast of His word as the scroll unrolls (present truth). For the few who do know that His promised last prophet to our church (Mal 4:5) has important instructive eternal words for us.

Verse 17 shows us why we are not on fire. We think we know it all and do not need more Truth! When a message comes to us by a messenger claiming that it is from the Lord, we often will judge or ignore that message due to either it has been “studied and rejected” by our leaders (lean on flesh), or we just don’t “feel” it’s a message we need. Both cases we deny a serious study of further light. The message says more about this–

“Dear Brethren in Laodicea, do you know that prophecy positively declares that the people of God in the Laodicean church are in a critically dangerous condition and know it not? Well, Brethren, whether or not you realize it, whether or not you believe it, that precisely is the case. And if you hope to enter into eternal life, you must believe it, and that without delay. Whatever else you may believe or disbelieve, this one thing you must believe, “for it is the True Witness who speaks, and his testimony must be correct.” –Testimonies, Vol. 3, p. 253. (Answerer, vol. 1, p.5)

“No one but a hopeless Laodicean, one who forever holds to his day-dreaming that he has need of nothing more, — no more Truth or prophets, — can fail to see that the prophecies pertaining to the day of God are only dark sentences to him, that he is in need of everything instead of nothing, and that the work of the promised Elijah is not the work which the Laodiceans are doing.  The Laodicean message (the Judgment for the Dead) is definitely not Elijah’s message, although many may think it is.  That many are blind to this, the Lord points out: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked.”

   Moreover, we all know that the work of typical Elijah was to do away with the prophets and priests who served Baal instead of God, those who led ancient Israel into the greatest fallacy and folly of the day.  Accordingly, the antitypical Elijah’s work, being in the spirit and power of typical Elijah, must therefore be similar to typical Elijah’s work-restoring Truth and righteousness, and bringing judgment upon the false prophets and teachers in the antitypical day which in itself is the separating of the chaff from the wheat — the work of the Judgment for the Living.” (General Conference Special  p.30-31)

“..God’s people who, today, are as “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” of spiritual discernment, as were the Jews at Christ’s first advent; and perhaps even more so, and as His people now, like the Jews then, do not admit their ignorance, they fulfill to the letter the prophetic utterance, ”Thou…knowest not.” (Rev. 3:17.)

   Hence. “what greater deception can come upon human minds than a confidence that they are right, when they are all wrong!” Consequently, this kind of Christians are the most difficult to handle and most hopeless to convince. But if they would hear the voice of the True Witness: “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint shine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see” (Rev. 3:18), become as babes, and be taught as such, then a great flood of light from the Word of God, as has never been beheld, will enshrine them.

This experience will awaken them as if startled out of their dreams, and will enable them to receive the power of the Spirit, and to put on the “beautiful garments” of Christ’s righteousness, which gift, by the prophet’s pleading, He is urging us to receive (Isa. 52:1). However, no one with prejudice and self-confidence can ever come to the knowledge of the truth.” ( Vol. 2 Symbolic Code No. 11  pg. 7-8)

So we can see that it is the last message, the final “oil” that we must have, the “eyesalve” that awakens us. Yet as mentioned nearly all of us say it’s the other guy who this “knoweth not” applies too. There is only one way, we see, that you will KNOW that you have been “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” That is when you learn what you’ve been missing–the present truth of the hour! THEN, you will recognize all that the Lord said of you–was true. You did indeed, “Knoweth not.”