Bible Conference ‘06: Dr. Bob – “Guess Who’s not showing up for church?”
This is the first of what I hope will be a summary of all the Bible Conference messages here at BJU. For those who don’t already know, Bible conference is special time of the semester that the school sets aside for spiritual refreshment. They bring in excellent preachers to give us, the students, and visiting graduates the opportunity to hear and learn from these men of God. A recording of each of these messages (mp3, audio CD, tape cassette) is available from the BJU campus store.
The first message Sunday morning was by Dr. Bob, chancellor of the university. His topic was lukewarmness, using the illustration of the Laodicean church (Rev. 3:13-20). As he was reading this passage, the thought struck him that later became the title for his message – Jesus wouldn’t have attended the Laodicean church!
The letter to the Laodicean church was addressed to the messenger (trans. “angel” in the KJV) or pastor of the church. The letter came from One who refers to Himself as the Amen, the Faithful One, the True One, and the source of all things. And His certain, faithful,and true judgment had revealed the Laodicean church to be lukewarm, neither cold and hard to spiritual things or hot and on fire spiritually. How do we know when we are lukewarm, what are the warning signs? It can be hard to know when we are lukewarm, because part of being lukewarm is not being aware that there has been a change in our spirituality.
- We boast in ourselves, not Christ. (v. 17) We says things like, “We have a great church / school / etc,” instead of, “We have a great God and Savior!” The only thing/one worth boasting in or about is Jesus Christ.
- We have an absence of a sense of need for cleansing (v. 18)
He gave this quote:
To our grandfathers, Christianity was an experience; to our fathers, a heritage; to us, a convenience; and to our children, a nuisance.
But despite our lukewarmness, Jesus is still compassionate to us, and wants us to open to His knocking (v. 20).
Disclaimer: This is my unofficial summary of the message; it may or may not be entirely accurate as to what the speaker actually said. Any errors are almost certainly the fault of my summary, not what the speaker said.
