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SOMETHING DULLED THEIR PASSION
Most of us have caught the enthusiasm of the Early Church in Acts and the Epistles.
They were contagiously in love with Jesus, and fearlessly proclaiming His truth. Most of us also have caught that by the time two generations passed, we find that the grandchildren of Pentecost were different.
Note with me the drastic change as we go to the very end of your Bibles.
Revelation 3:15-20 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
The secret to what deadened, dulled, chilled, and dissipated the power of the early church is found in the Doctor’s Report of Revelation 2-3. Jesus the Great Physical came to visit the churches of Asia Minor.
He went to see how the grandchildren of the Apostles and early church were doing and found a very weak pulse. Why? He tells us that they were:
LAODICEANS FOCUSED ON THIS WORLD NOT THE NEXT
They were very active, very busy, very wealthy: but spiritually anemic, sickly, powerless, and distracted. They had lost sight of why they were here.
They had lost their longing for Christ to return.
They began to feel, live, and think like: Heaven Can Wait, we need to live for now.
They lost the pilgrim mentality. They no longer felt like strangers on earth. They were rather at home and comfortable on Earth.
One of the key attitudes we find displayed by the 1st Century editions of God’s saints is that they considered themselves exiles on earth, and citizens of Heaven.
This attitude didn’t produce a detachment from earthly life or other people, rather it led to such a lacking of love for things that these early saints actually had abundant and overflowing time to love and seek and win their neighbors.
THE DANGER OF MISPLACED DESIRES