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Love Series # 5

Love of God (c)

Fred Coulter - March 11, 1995

Have you ever wondered if there’s any connection between all of the weather problems and upset things, political problems we have in the United States today, and the condition of the churches of God? There very well may be a connection. And that connection may very well tie right in… Let’s go to Matthew 24:12. Here’s what happens. We’ll back up just one verse here, verse 11. “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.” Now what happens when deception comes in? “And because iniquity shall abound [iniquity grows, sin increases], the love of many [grow] shall wax cold.” (Matt. 24:11-12). And I would have to say that the majority of us may have come from circumstances where we never really have understood love, even in the sense of family love, personal love, friendship love, in the way that we ought to know and experience as human beings.

And everywhere you look on television today it is iniquity, upon iniquity, upon iniquity, and deception, upon deception, upon deception on an ongoing basis. Our minds are literally flooded with it, and filled with it almost beyond our ability to comprehend how bad it is. I heard a teenage girl expressing her delight in this movie, and how funny it really was, and it was really a very bad movie because it was killing, and murder, and mayhem, and all of the perverse things, and you’re seeing today. And especially with cartoons for children they’re being fed demonic perverse things of the worst sort. And so we’re dealing with the situation here: how can we understand the love of God? How can we understand how to love each other? And I think that is the greatest sin that is in the churches of God today. They don’t know, they don’t understand, they don’t comprehend, nor do they preach, nor do they study about the love of God.

So when you have all these things crashing in on you… Let’s go to 2 Peter 3:3, where we find, the way that the society is, it is difficult. You can’t trust anyone, you can’t help anyone, because someone is out there trying to take advantage of you. Someone is out there trying to rip you off. Someone is out there trying to do you in. How many here have ever experienced the betrayal by a friend? I mean a real betrayal. Devastating isn’t it? How many have experienced that within the Church? Yes, I raised my hand with that one too. Isn’t that more devastating? Someone that you trusted. Someone that you confided in. Someone you thought would stand with you through thick and thin, right? Didn’t do it, did they? No. That’s why God inspired that one of the apostles that was called was Judas. So that we would understand that the love of God can only come when we truly love God in spite of everything that goes around us. In the hymnal there’s a song from the Psalm which goes, “Twas not a foe…”, I’ll just sort of paraphrased it, “…that did me in. It was my friend, a guide. And we sat down and had meals together, talked together. But his words were smoother than butter and in his heart was deceit” (Psa. 55:12-13, 21, paraphrased). And we find much the same thing right here that we have in the world today and the way that religion is.

Let’s come here to 2 Peter 3:3. “Knowing this first [primarily], that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,…” Now these are not only just atheist, these are religious scoffers. Have you been hearing that lately? “God didn’t mean what He said. God’s word is not what He wrote.” Scoffing at it. “…And saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:…” (2 Pet. 3:3-6). Didn’t learn a single thing did they? No, the flood didn’t teach them a lesson, one.

And then we find here in 2 Timothy 3:1, what that leads to, in relationship to people who claim they know God, who claim to be religious, who claim to understand God’s way. 2 Timothy 3, it talks about the perilous times. “…Men shall be lovers of their own selves,…” And never have we had a time when that…because all the children learn now in school is self-esteem. And that just builds vanity, and ego. Because unless people know that love comes from God, they can’t have it, any self-esteem, unless they know that God Himself created everyone in His image, they can’t have any self-esteem or self worth. So they love themselves. Look what we have. Then it list all the things again, “…covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; [and] having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (2 Tim 3:1-5). I think I just described some of experiences within the Church of God, did I not? Yes. Why? Because they don’t know the love of God. They don’t have a clue.

Let’s go to Luke 11:42. And I think that when we come understand how great the love of God is, and how so important it is for us in our lives; and how that is the greatest, and most fulfilling thing we can do as human beings, is to understand the love of God and love each other in the way God wants us to, that we have not really been preaching the gospel. We’ve been preaching about Christ. We have not been preaching Christ. We’ve been preaching about law, but we have not been preaching about love. We’ve been preaching doom and gloom, and to repent in fear from the doom and gloom, rather than repent because God loves you. All backwards. It was the same thing in Christ’s day.

Verse 42. Again this sounds just like the church experience we have been in, ok. “But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God:...” Just pass over, just completely leave it behind. How many sermons have you heard, in your past church experience of the love of God? Probably very few. I know one time someone came up to me and they said, “You know this church organization does not have very much love.” He says, “Now there’s more here in this congregation but,” he says, “truly there is no love.” And I said, “Ah no, you can’t be right.” So I gave a sermon on love. I didn’t have a clue brethren, I did not have a clue. You don’t solve the problem by preaching a sermon. Because I have learned that God wants you to experience His love, God wants you to feel His love, God wants you to express His love. Have you ever felt loved by God? Down to very depths of your soul, and sometimes you can’t know that’s there, unless you experience some difficulties along the way. So yes, they pass over the love of God, because if you pass over the love of God, then you don’t have to get down to the realities of life. You don’t have to examine your own heart, and mind, and soul.

Now I’m going to read out of the study translation of 1 John. Let’s go to 1 John 4:8, please. You can follow along if you have a King James. But what we are going to talk about is the greatest thing, the greatest character attribute, the most fulfilling aspect of your Christian life, and the very reason and purpose why you were called. This then strips away all playing of religion and gets us where we need to be. Let’s pick it up here in verse 8. Now when we go through the series I’m going to go back and go through it and cover every place in the epistles of John where he talks about the love of God, and behold there are 46. Is the love of God important? Yes indeed.

1 John 4:8, “The one who is not loving, does not know God, because GOD IS LOVE!” So how could you ever really know the true truth, the whole truth about God, unless you know the love of God, were taught the love of God? “In this way, the love of God was manifested [to] in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:8-9, AT). And if you remember the verse in John 3:16 it says, “For God so loved the world,…” Now I’m going to have a couple of sermons starting there when I talk about the love of Christ and what He did to be the Passover sacrifice for us. “…[that] God so loved the world, that He [sent] gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever…”, meaning anyone, any person. This is not restricted. God wants that relationship with each one. God, as we will see, has perfect love and can perfectly love everyone in the world. That’s something. God is not going around looking for people to correct, looking for people to put down, looking for people to put them in fear. God is looking for those who really desire a relationship with Him, with His love. That’s what God wants. That’s why He sent Christ.

“The one who is not loving, does not know God, because GOD IS LOVE!” Ok, we covered that verse 8, verse 9. Now let’s come to verse 10. “In this act, is THE LOVE!” And that’s the way it is in the Greek, is THE LOVE. “Not that we have loved God,…” See, because we don’t learn the love of God until He first loves us. “…Rather, that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our own sins. Beloved, if God so loved us in this manner, we also are duty-bound to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; If we should be loving one another, God is dwelling in us and His own love is perfected in us” (vs. 10-12). How’s a person going to know that God loves them? Well when they come to Sabbath services, because you see, Sabbath is to be a day that we fulfill. Do you understand the difference between just keeping and fulfilling? The difference is this, if you keep, you go by the letter of the law. If you fulfill, you gather the full spiritual meaning out of the whole day. So the Sabbath should be a day to fulfill. And that begins with what? Fellowshipping with God the Father and Jesus Christ as we learned in the first chapter. “…And truly our fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3, paraphrased). And when we fulfill the Sabbath, rather than just observed the Sabbath, then we get the benefit out of it and God’s Spirit that He wants us to have.

You see, God is looking for those people that want to fellowship with Him. Now when we have God’s Spirit in us and we fellowship with each other, that is Christ in us, the Father in us, showing and expressing love to those that He has called. So you see that puts everything in an entirely different basis. Doesn’t it? Why should you come to church and be fearful? Why should you, when the minister picks up the phone and…, you know, ok? You see. You cannot ever have the love of God with a spy system. You cannot ever have the love of God with a fear system. You cannot ever have the love of God with command and control. It just won’t work. But we’re duty-bound to love one another you see, and God dwelling in us, that’s how it is perfected.

The love of God is the perfect love of God, and our whole lifetime goal is to let that love be perfected in us. That may require suffering, that may require trials, that may require things that there are times you’re going to say, “God what on earth are you doing?” Because God works things out far differently than we think they should be because He wants that love perfected in us.

“…In this way [or, by this means], we are knowing that we are dwelling in Him,…” So when I’m reading this in the present tense and so forth, let’s understand past tense was yesterday, future tense is tomorrow. We don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow, and we know that what we did yesterday, we can’t do any thing about. So that’s why this is in the present tense, “loving”, because that’s what God is interested in, what you are doing, not what you plan to do, not what you have done, but you are doing. And that’s why it’s written this way. It’s magnificent the way it’s written here. “…In this way, we are knowing that we are dwelling in Him, and He is dwelling in us, because of His own Spirit which He has given to us. And we have seen for ourselves and are bearing witness that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever may confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God is dwelling in him and he in God.” (1 John 4:13-15, AT). Now that confessing is very profound. You cannot confess that He is, and do like the Catholics and remove the second Commandment, and have idols, and have statues, and have saints, and all of this sort of thing. You are not confessing Christ truly. You are using His name. So this means the true confession.

Now verse 16, “…we have known and have believed the love which God has towards us. GOD IS LOVE, and the one who is dwelling in love, is dwelling in God and God in him.” And brethren, that is the highest form of Christianity that God wants us to have. This is what we need to be perfecting. This is what we need to be working toward, you see. “And we have known and have believed the love which God has towards us. GOD IS LOVE,…” That’s describing His highest characteristic. “…And the one who is dwelling in love, is dwelling in God and God in him. By this spiritual indwelling [and I added that “spiritual indwelling” because it’s referring back to it] the love has been perfected with us,…” And it is the love, because it is the love which comes from the God, ok. So, “…the love has been perfected…”, which means it’s an ongoing perfecting, as we are walking, as we are growing, as we are praying, as we are studying, as we live our lives and understand the love that God has for us and how we can love each other. And I would just have to say, brethren, that years ago we didn’t have a clue as to what that really was, what it really is, ok. So it’s to be “…perfected [in] with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment,…” (vs. 16-17, AT). Not fear. Confidence. One of the worst things in the world that has been done in the name of Christ, is to constantly every week put the brethren in fear that they’re going to lose their salvation. God didn’t call you to lose salvation. God didn’t call you to give His Spirit to take it away. He did not. He gave His Spirit that it may be perfected. He gave His Spirit because He loves you. Just the opposite. And that’s a tremendous thing. We need to really have confidence in the day of judgment so when the day of judgment comes, what is God the Father going to see? Christ standing there in our stead, right? Yes. And this is the great and this is the tremendous thing that God does. And this is a clue for overcoming, as we will see.

When you’re loving God, you’re overcoming. You are overcoming. Now when you’re focusing on that you don’t have to beat sin to death. You try it, you’ll see. If you’ve never experienced the love of God, I’ll tell you what to do. You’re praying, you ask God to help you understand the love of God. He will. He’ll answer that prayer. Continue praying that. And the day will come when you will be praying, and you will feel that love of God, and you will know that love of God, and you will know that it is true, because it comes from God the Father directly to you. You will have confidence. No fear. No torment.

Let’s go on and read here, you see. “…Because even as He is, so also are we in this world.” Now think about that, ok, think about that. That is a tremendous promise. When you’re loving God that way, God imputes His righteousness to you, the very righteousness of Christ. To inspire us to do good, to inspire us to love God, to inspire us to overcome. And if and when you sin, which you will, Christ is there cleansing us from every unrighteousness, every sin. Why? Because He wants you in the kingdom of God, that’s why.

Verse 18, “There is no fear in the love.” And I’m beginning to understand that, therefore you cannot run a church of God on fear. Because the greatest thing of the gospel is the love of God, is it not? Correct. And if you’re going to preach the gospel and you’re going to serve the people of God, how can you do with fear? “…There is no fear in the love. But perfect love is casting out…” It is a process. As God is perfecting that love in you and you are striving with God’s Spirit to grow in that love, which is the greatest fulfillment of your whole life. I want you to understand that. This is a long term, lifelong goal. And this is something that we need to grow in every day, it’s not just something that comes all at once. You will have experiences when that happens. But it’s a continuous thing, you see, “…casting out fear,…” Now what does that do for keeping your job and Sabbath? God will take care of it. He’ll take care of it. You don’t have to worry. You may have to suffer a little bit, but you don’t have to worry. Now that may sound contradictory, but you don’t have to worry. God will take care of it, “…because fear has torment,…” and when you have torment and you have fear, verse 18, “…and the one who is fearing has not been made perfect in the love.” (vs. 17-18, AT). And that brethren, is the biggest sin of the churches of God today. It can be corrected, God wants it changed, but we have to be willing. We have to go to God and say, “God I don’t have a clue. Please help me to understand. Please guide and lead me with Your Spirit.”

Verse 19, “We are loving Him, because He loved us first.” And never forget that, you see. He first loved us. And that all ties in with the Passover. “If anyone should say, I am loving God, and should be hating his brother, he is a liar.” And I’ll tell you, the politics and stuff that have gone on in the churches of God, and the hatred, and the vehemence, and the back-stabbing, there was not the love of God. Were there liars? Yes, absolutely. You can apply this to any church, ok. You can go to the Seventh Day Adventist, Church of God Seventh Day, go to Sunday keeping churches. You get on these boards and the politics that are there. I talked to a man who used to be a Baptist and he was on all of these boards and everything like that. And it just gets so carnal. Who’s going to be promoted, who’s going to be ordained, who’s going to be Sunday school teacher, and superintendent? Backbiting and all that nonsense, ok. “Because, if he is not loving his brother whom he had seen, how is he able to love God Whom he has not seen?” (vs. 19-20, AT). And you can put any name there, any name there. And if you have family troubles put the name of the one you’re having family troubles with. Do you a great deal of good. Did me a great deal of good, ok.

Sometimes you have children that behavior is such that you almost literally hate them. And God says if you hate them, you’re not loving God. Well, how do you solve the problem then? Well you can’t solve it by yelling and screaming, because that won’t do it. You can’t solve it by discipline, because it’s way beyond that if it’s deteriorated. So I’ve found a way to solve those things. Put it in God’s hands, and say, “God you alone can solve this. Help me to do my part, but please put in the mind of this person what You want.” God can change a mind, can He not? Did not God call you, did He not change your mind. Do you not have enough faith that God can change that person’s mind? Just put it in God’s hand and let Him do it? Yes. That solves a whole lot of problems, ok. Then you may have the experience of the prodigal son coming home. That’s a tremendous experience, believe me. Believe me. Love works, and God will make sure that it works if we’re crying out to Him so that it does work, because it’s the greatest thing there is. “And this is the commandment we have from Him, that one who is loving God, also should be loving his brother” (vs. 21, AT).

Now let’s come to 1 Corinthians 13. And in this I’m going to read out of the Interlinear. One time a person asked me, “What translation of the Bible do you use?” And it never dawned on me, that when I read the King James, I read what it should read because I’ve studied the Greek behind it. And so, much of my teaching and preaching I use the Interlinear, because I have the English and the Greek. Now unfortunately in the old King James in 1 Corinthians 13 it translates the Greek word for love, agapee, as charity. And that is really a very unfortunate translation. Now as you know there are three words for love in the Greek, eros, which is not in the New Testament, which is sexual desire and love, which can be perverted into erotica. And that’s what most of the world knows today, nothing but erotica.

Then the world may understand some of this, the next love defined in the Greek is phileoo, from which we get the word Philadelphia, the lover of the brethren. And that is just human affection, and human love toward human beings and between human beings. And there is precious little of that, but there is some of it still in the world, but precious little. The highest form of love is agapee love, which is godly divine love, which only God can give as a gift. This godly divine love then also is, because of the sacrifice of Christ, can be referred to as sacrificial love, because you will do in love for the other person without seeking anything in return. Also, agapee love is the highest and the greatest love we can attain because it comes from God and is one of His greatest characteristics.

Now let’s come to verse 8. I want to cover two verses here and then a couple of other things and then we will come back to 1 Corinthians 13. Verse 8, “Love never fails;…” (George Ricker Berry, The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament). Now think on that. Have you ever wanted a sure thing in your life? We’d all like to have a sure thing on making money, and that’s how a lot of people get taken down the garden path, right? “This is a sure thing put your money in it.” Gone. A lot of these people who invested their retirement funds into these, what do they call them, into derivatives, gone. How many are in derivatives in the Mexican market today? Gone, fails. Health fails, friends fail, you fail, the whole society is going to fail, but there is one thing that never fails, that is the love of God. “Love never fails;…” And in the Greek it is, “the love”, with a definite article, “…never fails…” (1 Cor. 13:8, Berry’s, Interlinear)     

Now let’s come to verse 13. “And now abides faith, hope, [and] love; these three things; but the greater of these is love…” (Berry’s, Interlinear). And I think the King James has the “greatest”, ok. How great is love? How important is love? It is the greatest and it never fails and there is nothing else in this world that you can compare to that. Is that not correct? Yes.

Now let’s come here to chapter 12 and the very last verse, verse 31, and let’s begin to understand how the apostle Paul really brings home the point. Now I want you to understand this in relationship to the whole backdrop of all the problems in the churches at Corinth. I remember one time a person asked me, he says, “What church era do you think we’re in?” And I said, “Well if you could express any church era we’re in, I would say 1 Corinthians.” Because every problem that’s in 1 Corinthians you see. Follow this man, follow that man, divisions, heresies, everything like that. Weird, odd doctrines and everything. Adultery, fornication, corruption, taking people to court, wanting to have Pentecostal experiences, speaking in tongues, and who’s the greatest and all of this sort of thing. Who has the Spirit of God? What organization is it in? It’s not in any organization, it’s in you. And they got so bad that they were saying in 1 Corinthians 15, that the Resurrection didn’t occur, there’s no Resurrection. I mean within the church of God, so think of that, with the backdrop of all of this. You got your Christ party, your Peter party, your Apollos party, you know. So he says, “Now Brethren, I want to show you a better way.” (1 Cor. 12:31, paraphrased). So he says the last verse here, “Be [zealous or be desirous or] emulous of the better gifts, and yet I shew to you a more surpassing [or, a more excellent] way.” (Berry’s Interlinear). Now let’s understand as I’ve mentioned before, Paul is talking about himself. So this is a twofold application. And you could also have a threefold application, to Christ, to you, and to the ministers. Notice what he says.

1 Corinthians 13:1, “If with the tongues of men I speak and of [tongues] angels, but have not love, I’m become as a sounding brass or a clanging symbol…” So much just un-orchestrated noise. The best expression I can think of that is if you would take a sharp instrument and run it backwards on a blackboard - it just grates right down to the nerves, ok. So love is more important than communicating. Even if you could talk all languages of the world, boy you’d be thought of a great person, right. And even if you could bring in something new, and whatever the language of the angels would be, you could speak that and have not the love of God, nothing. “…If I have prophecy,…” And that’s what everyone wants. Boy, people want prophecy. Are not churches built on prophecy? There’s even one magazine that comes out, “Prophecy Flash”. Boy, you can get a following. If you want a following, if you want lots of people, you tell them prophecy. Yes. That’s why they sell so many of these weird tabloids at the checkout stand. That’s why so many people come into churches, they want to know, they want to know, they want to know. Listen if you understood every prophecy, but didn’t know Christ. Let’s read, “… if I have prophecy, and know all [the] mysteries…” (The, in the Greek). “…And all [the] knowledge…” You had the greatest brain in the world, you understood every philosophy, you understood everything that there was concerning human experience. “…And if I have all faith so as to remove mountains…” (1 Cor. 13:2, Berry’s Interlinear). Now faith is important, isn’t it? Without faith it’s impossible to please God, correct? But if you had faith to where you could move mountains - earth moving faith.

Now I’ll tell you if anyone wanted to build a church, get earth moving faith and get yourself the media. And have them come out there and put this on television - immediately you would have millions of followers, right? You would have them coming to you by the trainload, by the planeload, by the carload, by the busload and just saying, “Heal me, change this, change that, change everything,” ok. So if you had all of these things and even earth moving faith, “…but you have not love, what you amount to…” (vs. 2, paraphrased). Now Paul’s talking of himself. Every minister ought to read that and say that of himself. Every person needs to understand that in relationship to the love of God. You can have all these things, but if you don’t have love… And you see the truth is the other way around; you will never have any of these things unless you have love. Do you think God is going to give earth moving faith to someone who doesn’t love Him? Do you think God is going to give knowledge to someone that doesn’t love Him? No. Now then, what if you’re a philanthropic person and you give things? Now there are a lot of people who give things away and have big charity things, don’t they? They like to get their name in the paper. That’s how you get well healed in the establishment, see. They have all of theirs, don’t they?  

Ok, “…if I give away all my goods in food [to feed the poor], and if I deliver up my body that it may be burned,…” Now that’s quite a sacrifice isn’t it? Never will forget on the news one time during the Viet Nam war, they showed this Buddhist priest, and he got down in his, what is that the lotus position whatever it is, poured himself with gasoline, crossed his arms, struck the match and burned himself to a crisp to protest the war. If you don’t have the love of God, it didn’t do anything. You can even do that, the greatest self sacrificing outgoing thing you could do, if you don’t have the love of God, nothing, it’s nothing. “…I’ve profited nothing…” (1 Cor. 13:1-3, Berry’s Interlinear). So this gives us a comparison as to how important love is. Love never fails and love is the greatest.

Now in preaching the gospel, what do you think should be the main focus of what we should preach? Now granted love takes a little longer, because love is a process, love is an experience, love is something you live and go through. And here’s what it does, here’s what love does for you. Let’s continue on. This allows you to have these qualities.

Before we go there let’s go to Galatians 5 for just a minute, and we’ll come back to 1 Corinthians 13. Galatians 5 so that we can understand several very, very important things here that we need to realize in relationship to love. Now you can’t work this kind of love up. You can’t just get a feeling in your heart or whatever it may be, and work this up. Galatians 5:22, “…the fruit of the Spirit…” comes from the Holy Spirit of God. “…The fruit of the Spirit is love,…” When you truly have love, then love enables you to have joy. And I know sometimes I would read that and think of my experience in the church and say, “I’m miserable.” No joy. Hold your place here, will be back.

Let’s go to Revelation 3 for just a minute, and I would like to read and describe to you Christ’s view of the church. Now people like to beat up on the Laodiceans, don’t they? Yes. Let me ask you a question. What if Laodiceanism is an age? And what if we’ve all been Laodiceans all along? And what if what we are experiencing is that we are repenting Laodiceans, ok? Yes. The Laodiceans have been labeled as the worst and the nastiest thing in the world. They’re not. Christ says, “I love you”, does He not?

Let’s read it, Revelation 3:14, “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;...” Let me just mention something right here, this the active tense, “the beginning”, the subject, in the nominative case, meaning “the cause”, not in the accusative case, “having received” as the first beginning of the creation of God, the first creature that way. So I’ll just mention that. This the beginning cause. “…I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot:…” As I’m reading this I want you to understand think about your church experience. “…I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot [‘I’m about’, as it reads in the Greek], I will spue thee out of My mouth” (Rev. 3:14-16). So here these are in the body of Christ already. You can’t be vomited up unless you’re in the body.

Now one minister said with all the troubles going on, he said, “Well I just try and stay right in the middle.” And I said, “What does that describe? A perfect Laodicean - neither hot nor cold but right in the middle.” “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods,…” And as I mentioned before, I don’t know of any church in the history of the Church of God, that had sent to it over four billion dollars. Four billion with a B, ok? That’s a lot of money, and didn’t even preach the love of God. You know why it’s going down? That’s why. “…Increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched,…” Now this has described our church experience, right? Isn’t that true? “…[And] wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:…” You ever tried to talk to someone who doesn’t want to open their eyes? “Don’t bother me with the facts. Don’t confuse me with the truth. (Laughter) What ever they say, I will do.” Setting yourself up for a deception. “…I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire,…” So when we repent God wants us to go for the gold, which is His love. That’s what so important. That’s what He wants us to get - His love. “…Tried in the fire,…” So you’re going to have some difficulties in it. It does not come easy. “…That thou mayest be rich;…” And if you’re rich in Christ, who cares about anything else, right? “…And white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear;…” (vs. 17-18). Which means God is going to expose it all.

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