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Sunday
Revelation 3 v 14 – 22
I would like to close today by ending where we began – we spoke of taking our
own spiritual temperatures. The Bible has for that a Biblical analogy. In our
reading today Godspeaks of three possible spiritual temperatures. He speaks of
those who are hot, and quite obviously these are the ones whose passionand zeal
forGod is noticeable and whose love for Him knows no bounds. He speaks of those
who are cold, these are those who are distant from God and are no longer walking
closely with Him. And then there are those who find themselves in between, these
are those who the passage refers to as lukewarm. It would appear from the
passage that God loves the hot, understands the cold, but despises the lukewarm.
A great picture of lukewarmness can be found in the Old Testament as pictured in
the children of Israel after they left Egypt. Upon miraculously crossing the Red Sea
the people were hot; they’d experienced the wonder of God’s goodness and been
witness to the evidence of His incredible power. They’d worshipped like they’d
never worshipped before, but how sad to find that after four days in the
wilderness their passion for God had already dwindled to that of being lukewarm.
Over the course of the next forty years most of the people fluctuated between
being lukewarm and cold, despite the fact that God continually demonstrated His
Grace and His Power, they remained, in the main, unchanged.
We at Norwegian Settlers Church are so desirous of being a church that God
would be proud of and, in order for this to be a reality, we will need to take
seriously the words spoken to the church of Laodicea and, with repentance on our
lips, acknowledge our lukewarmness before God. I know that God, because He is
gracious and kind, would be delighted to restore our spiritual flame and His Holy
Spirit within us will rekindle the fire that for many has grown cold. My prayer for
our church is that this will not just be our personal experience, but will be our
corporate one as well. Can you imagine the impact that a church which falls