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What Does God Really Want? (Part 2)

By John W. Ritenbaugh
April 20, 2000
Tape 443B

We are going to begin this sermon with Psalm 90. I want to start here from the very beginning because it is still central to the message that I am continuing with today. Moses is the author of this.

Psalm 90:10-12 The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away [we die]. Who knows the power of your anger? Even according to your fear, so is your wrath. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

On April 11, about eleven o'clock pm, Evelyn and I were already in bed and we received a phone call from her sister-in-law informing us that Evelyn's one remaining brother was dead. His death was not unexpected. He had cancer of the lungs, and we knew for a little bit less than a year that he was terminal. But his death brought forcibly to mind once again the reasons why I prepared my previous sermon which was also built around this verse in Psalm 90.

The thought behind that sermon sprung from the contention over the calendar. So what is it that God really wants? Well, that sermon only provided an introduction to the series. It laid a foundation, and I told you in that sermon that I was motivated by three sudden deaths of fairly young people I either knew personally, or knew of, and that those deaths brought to mind how rapidly time flies by during a busy life, and none of us knows when the time comes when we will no longer be able to prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of God.

Following that came a re-reading of much of Ecclesiastes to and from South Africa, and its theme of "Why were we born?" But that particular perspective comes from what we would call a "carnal" perspective. Without this knowledge, which is so graciously given by God, life goes nowhere spiritually. The third reason was the seemingly unending drive that is continuing in the church to change the doctrines that we have received. This keeps people stirred up and distracted, wondering, doubting, accusing, and drifting spiritually. The three taken together virtually assures that progress in sanctification stops.

I have just gone through a series of six sermons in which the calendar served as a backdrop for the real themes of those sermons—themes that serve us every day of the year by providing us with a right, solid, and true base to properly respond to God. These themes were messages on God's sovereignty, God's providence, God's faithfulness, and His government. I thought once again of the foolishness of letting ourselves get distracted into concerns about a non-issue—a calendar, because this whole episode is nothing but a smokescreen to distract our attention to something God has already taken care of. He provided us with a calendar.

Those of you who have been in the church for quite a number of years can probably remember Herbert Armstrong saying, "Why do we yet have to keep going back and reproving things that we've already proved before?" Well, I will tell you why. It is because people keep losing their faith. Faith is not a constant. It can dissipate if it is not refreshed correctly. We have got to get over this concept that knowledge of something means that we automatically have faith. That is not necessarily so.

Consider this: The church is probably in its worst spiritual condition in perhaps centuries of time. The issue before us should be repentance from what caused us to be divided and scattered all over the place. The calendar is not the problem. The church did just fine with that calendar over the past sixty years. The Bible tells us Laodiceanism is the major problem at this time. Our problems are moral, ethical, and attitudinal.

You will recall in that last sermon that I used Genesis 17:1, where Abraham was commanded by God to walk before Him and be perfect, or be blameless, or be complete. That word perfect can be translated into any one of those synonyms.

Paul followed the same principle in Hebrews 6:1, saying that we are to "go on to perfection," or maturity. It can even mean usefulness, or completion. So I asked the question: “Complete in what way? What is it that God wants?”

Some of the messages to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 clearly contain evaluations by Christ, showing that they were off track doctrinally. Such is not the case with Laodicea, which we understand is the dominant attitude at the time just prior to Christ's return. If that evaluation of the Laodicean church is meaningful to us, and is not off the track doctrinally, the problems, you see, lie elsewhere.

We are, as a body, a people that God has judged who act, walk, and live our life as though we are already complete. It even says in the letter to Laodicea that "we are rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." If you need nothing, you are a finished product. Stick a fork in it, and he is done! You see, God in His evaluation, His assessment, says that we are blind, that we are naked.

Blindness is an image used in the Bible to indicate helplessness. The blind are helpless before the world that is before them. They need someone to give them direction—a seeing person, a sighted person, or even a dog. But they are helpless. It is also used as a symbol of spiritual ignorance. You put these together, and it means that the Laodicean cannot even see the gravity of his problem. He is blind to it.

Blindness is a symbol of not being able to recognize truth. You can see that in the evaluation. The evaluation of the Laodicean is 180 degrees the opposite of the true evaluation, so they cannot even see the problem!

The plain and simple truth about the calendar is that the calendar issue was settled over fifty years ago when God revealed which calendar He wanted the church to use through the messenger that He sent to raise up and strengthen the end-time church.

Nakedness is an image of not being clothed with the righteousness of God. We need to ask a question. (This is looking at the entire body.) What has happened to our conversion? When I began to understand this verse in the light as I have just described, I began to see why the calendar has been such a problem. But the condition is not irreversible, because God says we can repent, so that gives us hope.

Because the Laodiceans are "churched," they look good on the outside, as though they need nothing, but in fact they have essentially departed from what they were given, even though they would claim they still believe most of what they were given. Now we can get rid of the leaven causing blindness and nakedness and come out of our spiritual funk.

Again it is not in any way hopeless. If it were hopeless, Christ would not have said "Repent." But He does say "Repent." Therefore it is not hopeless, but we have got to get back to the basics.

What do other apostles say? "To earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered." I will just use that one verse in Jude 3 as an example, but that covers in principle what I am talking about here. We have got to get back to the basics, and that means that God truly is our Sovereign, and that we once again trust God's faithfulness in providing our spiritual needs.

I Samuel 12:6 And Samuel said unto the people, It is the LORD that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

Remember, this was when the people came to Samuel and demanded a king. Of course Samuel was upset about that, but he took it to God, and God let Samuel know that they had not rejected him, but that they had rejected God. So God said to Samuel "Go through with this, and we will give them a king."

Now Samuel is protesting to these people some of the conditions under which this is going to be accepted and operated, and so he is reminding them. Why did they need to be reminded? Because they had forgotten. They had forgotten the basics of their relationship with God, and so he reminded them "It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt."

I Samuel 12:7-8 Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD of all the righteous acts of the LORD, which he did to you and to your fathers. When Jacob was come into Egypt, and your fathers cried unto the LORD, then the LORD sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place

We have been called by God's grace. It was entirely something within God that motivated Him to give us this knowledge that we have. We did not impress Him with what we were. Of His own free will He desired to call us and give us this understanding, and so we can put ourselves into this situation and know that just as surely as Samuel was talking to the Israelites then, he is also talking to you and me today.

I Samuel 12:9 And when they forgot the LORD their God, he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them.

Let us update that. When we forgot the Lord, He sold us into the hand of Satan the Devil, and used Satan as an instrument to break up the church through other men, and we became scattered and divided all over the place. We are learning more and more about why we are in the condition we are in, and what is necessary to come out of that condition.

I Samuel 12:10 And they cried unto the LORD, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve you.

Now God hears the cries of those that He has scattered all over the place, and He will accept us and grant us repentance.

I Samuel 12:11, 13-15 And the LORD sent Jerubbaal [Gideon], and Bedan, [The Bible does not have anything to say about him], and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you dwelled safe. . . .Now therefore behold the king whom you have chosen, and whom you have desired! And, behold, the LORD has set a king over you. If you will fear the LORD, and serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall both you and also the king that reigns over you continue following the LORD your God: But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall the hand of the LORD be against you as it was against your fathers.

Let us recapitulate just a bit. It was God who sent Moses and Aaron. It was God who sent Herbert Armstrong. The point that Samuel is making is that God wants His people to obey His voice through the messengers that He sent. What did Moses do? He became the instrument that God used, and through him came the law that we now see in Genesis through Deuteronomy. That is the voice of God that these people had to respond to at that time. That is what they rejected. That is how they forgot God, or showed that they had forgotten God. When they quit obeying what came through Moses, that was tantamount to forgetting God.

If you can begin to make the connection between this instance here and Laodiceanism, you will begin to understand why we are in this scattered condition. We are in this scattered condition because of immorality—breaking the Ten Commandments.

That is the pattern that is shown from the beginning of the Bible to the end. As long as God is obeyed, the system works. It is God who makes it work if we will obey His commandments. It was immorality that drove the church apart. The instrument to drive the church apart was doctrinal change, but at the base of that was immorality. If the immorality had not been there, we would not have been scattered through doctrinal change. I will show that as we go through this.

God also wanted us to understand that a king was not pushed on Him at all. He gave them a king. God is sovereign over His creation, and God does not respond well to people who push Him, because they are showing Him they do not look upon Him as their Sovereign.

Before we move on, I want to reiterate this: as long as they would be obedient to what was given them in the form of commandments through the one that God sent, things would go well for them. And if they did not, their nation [say "church"] would come under attack, and ultimately be scattered and led into captivity.

Let me give you an illustration. This occurred while Evelyn and I were visiting one of the church areas. A couple was there who had driven quite a distance. They heard we were going to be in the area, and they drove this distance to come over and be there while we were there. They wanted to meet us personally, and they did just that.

During a conversation between my wife Evelyn, and this man's wife, Evelyn asked "Where are you going to keep the Feast of Tabernacles?" (This was before the Feast of Tabernacles. I believe that it might even had been in the summer, so there were three or four months before the Feast of Tabernacles. ) The lady responded that they were going to keep the Feast in a certain area, and even before my wife could ask why, the woman supplied as to why they were going there. The reason they were going there is because they knew, or they had heard, that there were going to be a lot of teenagers there for their two daughters to socialize with. Now that is not wisdom.

You see, here was a people, (I am speaking of Laodiceanism here) .who were losing their wisdom. I will get to why in just a minute. Here was a family whose values were upside down. Whether they understood it or not, that family was actually being led by the children. They were more concerned about their children's entertainment than they were about the spirituality of the Feast that they were going to go to.

Now why are we supposed to go to the Feast? Deuteronomy tells us that we are to go there to learn to fear God, to serve Him, and each other. It is the messages and the spiritual fellowship that counts, not the location, not how many teenagers are going to be there, not what entertainment facilities are going to be all around there; not even the kind of restaurants, or how many restaurants. It is the spirituality that counts. This is just one couple, but I know that this could be multiplied many times over. They had no idea what they were reflecting in this one illustration.

Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.

Understanding comes from doing the commandments. If we are doing His commandments, what is going to happen? Whatever you sow you reap, you see. If we are not doing the commandments, we are going to lose understanding. This is how I know that it is sin that is involved in Laodiceanism.

The Laodiceans do not even know, do not even realize, they do not even understand the condition they are in. They are blind to it. They are blind to it because of immorality. It is the breaking of the Ten Commandments that is involved in the blindness, and as we are going to see in a little bit, the nakedness of the Laodicean. And of course that would affect the attitude, because the Laodicean, it seems, is interested in everything but the right thing.

So the Laodiceans are blind. They are ignorant of truth, and they are naked. The issue in Laodiceanism is morality.

Do we need to be reminded that what blew the church apart was when the messenger and his message were rejected? What I am referring to are the doctrines that came through Herbert Armstrong that are central to salvation: the Kingdom of God, the return of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ as God and Savior, grace, justification, sanctification, being born again into the Kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit, baptisms, eternal judgment, keeping the commandments, the Sabbath, the Holy Days, and so forth. The calendar has to be included in this because it is absolutely necessary to the keeping of the Sabbath and the holy days.

I am not talking about the interpretations of prophecy, because whether we understand prophecy or not has no bearing on these other far more important doctrines that have a direct impact on life every day. Exactly who are the 144,000, or where is the place of safety, or whether Herbert Armstrong was the Elijah to come are interesting, but they are not necessary to salvation. It is far more important to recognize Herbert Armstrong as apostle than as Elijah.

But if my email is any guide, all too often it is the peripheral issues that receive the bulk of people's interest. These things may have a bearing on our intellectual enthusiasm, but we can be saved without any knowledge of prophecy save that Christ is going to return, and the Kingdom of God will be set up.

In the midst of all the possibility for confusion that now exists in the world of the greater church of God, what is it then that God really, and I mean really, wants us to pursue? What is it that He wants us to grow into? What is it that is important to Him for us? Will He call us "complete" when we are doctrinally perfect? That might be wonderful, but under the circumstances, God Himself shows that men like David and Abraham were not doctrinally perfect. To be doctrinally perfect is virtually impossible.

Are you aware that doctrinal perfection is never mentioned even one time in relation to any hero of faith? The praise is always given in regard to the way they lived their lives by faith, and their attitudes. It has become my opinion, based on what I have to deal with as a minister, that many church members have become more concerned with "knowing" than with "doing." They are more concerned with the way they feel about something than with duty and responsibility, especially in regard to unity.

Turn to Matthew 6:33 to a very familiar scripture. We go over and over this from time to time, but it is central to what God really wants, and it ties into Psalm 90:10-12. In a way it answers the question at least in a broad generality. What does God really want?

Matthew 6:33 But seek you first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

I do not know how many times I have heard that verse quoted only partially—"Seek you first the kingdom of God." I do not know how many times I have said it that way myself. I am guilty. That is not the way Christ said it. He said, "Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Moses asked God: "Help us to put things in order." (1, 2, 3, 4); "Help us to number our days." "Help us to prioritize." Here we have our Lord and Savior answering back as to what is most important, (broad and general to be sure, but nonetheless)—"Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."

This principle is so important that it is not delivered through any representative, but through the Head of the church, through the Chief, through the Master and Lord—the Boss Himself. "Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness."

Psalm 119:172 My tongue shall speak of your word: for all your commandments are righteousness.

"Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." God's righteousness—the right way of doing things—is expressed in His law, in His commandments. At the base of all of those commandments is "The Big Ten." If you will look back in Exodus 19:4, you will see the original contract, the agreement that was made between God and Israel.

Exodus 19:4-5 You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine.

"OBEY MY VOICE." Many times in this last series of sermons I have gone back to Jeremiah 6 where God says, "In the beginning there, I didn't tell you anything about sacrifices. All I said was 'Obey My voice.'" Now what specifically did He mean—"Obey My voice"? Right in the context of Exodus 19 comes Exodus 20, when He proposes the covenant to them, and it includes the Ten Commandments. "All My commandments are righteousness." It is when the commandments are being persistently broken that

JWR/smp/drm

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