The Last Letter

"The Last Letter: Reading Between the Lines"
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• Laodicea
  • Oswald Chambers: "We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves—it is the last conceit to go. The only One who understands us is God. The greatest curse in spiritual life is ." (My Utmost for His Highest 12)
  • Ellen White: "God does not regard all sins as of equal magnitude. . . . The is despised and is told that his sin will exclude him from heaven; while pride, selfishness, and covetousness too often go unrebuked. But these are sins that are  offensive to God; for they are contrary to the benevolence of His character, to that unselfish love which is the very atmosphere of the unfallen universe. He who falls into some of the grosser sins may feel a sense of his shame and poverty and his need of the grace of Christ; but  feels no need, and so it closes the heart against Christ and the infinite blessings He came to give." (Steps to Christ 30)
  • Sigve Tonstad: "The Laodicean community revels in a sense of wholeness, ensconced within an all-around edifice of accomplishment. The community has no sense of need. We should assume that the community is too sophisticated to say openly the things attributed to it, but it is capable of behaving in ways that convey the attitude described. The message to the community is the keenest statement of how difficult it is to see the discrepancy between self-representation and ."
  • Isaiah 55:1—"'Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no , come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without  and without cost.'"
• Jesus and Laodicea
  • Three priceless gifts:
    • Gift #1—"I counsel you to buy from Me ."
      • 1 Peter 1:7—". . . that the genuineness of your , being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
      • Hebrews 2:13—"I will put my  in Him."
      • Revelation 14:12—"Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of ."
    • Gift #2—"I counsel you to buy from Me ."
      • Isaiah 61:10—"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a  of righteousness."
      • Isaiah 64:6—"All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags."
      • Desire of Ages: "Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. ‘With His stripes we are healed.'" (25)
    • Gift #3—"I counsel you to buy from Me .
      • Ephesians 1:18—"I pray that the eyes of your  may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you."
      • 2 Corinthians 4:6—"The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers. . . . [But] God made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of ."
  • One persistent truth:
    • Jesus became all we Laodiceans are, so He could give us all we Laodiceans need.
    • And what do we need most of all?

We need Jesus