Good morning and welcome in everybody. Today, we are going to take a look at a passage of scripture, but before we do that I wanted to tell you a little story.
We have burned wood in our home for the past 20 years. We have a nice wood cook stove in the kitchen that has been used to prepare thousands of meals throughout the years. We burn pretty much anything that’s dry, but occasionally when the thermometer dips below zero, we need to dig out the big guns. Our property has thousands of tamarack trees, and when we really need to heat things up, we bring in some dry pieces from outside. In my own opinion, there is nothing that I have ever burned that can even compare to the heat of tamarack. It is a wood that burns with such intensity that it feels like it goes right through your bones, crackling loudly as it burns. Tamarack is so hot, that I had to install two dampers on the stove pipe for redundancy. At night, we bank the stove high with ashes, to make sure it’s absolutely airtight. Not a breath of oxygen can get in there, but even then, the heat permeates the entire house on the coldest, bitterest, sub-zero nights in northern Minnesota.
This reminds me of the Christian Life.
As we walk with God, our hearts must be as hot as a piece of tamarack. We must be on fire with love towards him, producing an eternal flame of obedience, devotion and loyalty towards the one who laid down His life that we might live. Once you feel the heat of a good dry piece of tamarack, everything else is only lukewarm.
Revelation 3:15-16 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
When someone is lukewarm, they make a half-hearted attempt to live the Christian Life. Their heart is not fully engaged in serving the will of God. This results in a halfway conversion, halfway obedience, halfway transformation, halfway convictions, halfway contrition, halfway penitence, halfway confession, and halfway repentance. Halfway means that it was only done part way and never completely finished.
I detest undercooked meat, and occasionally might be served some while eating out at a restaurant. It looks good, it smells good, but when you cut into it with a knife, you realize that it didn’t cook long enough because it’s half raw. All you can do is tell the cook to take it away. This is very similar to a lukewarm Christian. They look like a Christian, they sit in a church pew like a Christian, they dress like a Christian, they even have the jargon of a Christian, but they deny the committed life of a Christian. Our God hates lukewarmness, and one of the reasons why is because it is a misrepresentation of what true Christianity is to the world. It’s possessing a partial form of the faith but denying the rest.
Even a child, when commanded to do something, will obey certain things that are simple and easy for them to do, but are more defiant and resistant when it comes to the things that they don’t want to do. Those who are lukewarm want to claim to be a Christian, but live the way that the world does. They want to claim to be a follower of Jesus, but deny Him by their actions. They want to believe that they will be in heaven, but are completely disinterested in performing the will of God from their hearts. This is the form of false Christianity that is so prevalent in the world today, and it is growing. They deceive both themselves and others by their lackadaisical attitude and disobedience towards the one true faith.
Instead of being focused, and striving to please God in all things, these people reduce the conversion process to putting a cross around their neck, and wearing a t-shirt with scripture. These are only outward displays of religion, rather than an inward life of obedience to God. They lack the enthusiastic zeal to lovingly serve and obey God. They won’t strive after the Christian faith because they are lazy and lukewarm.
For example, have you ever hired someone, but when they showed up to work it was never on time? When you gave them a job to do, they did something else instead? At the end of the day, when you checked to see how many tasks they had completed, all they were doing was talking on the cell phone. People such as these only care about getting their paycheck and doing as little as possible in order to receive it. Doing a good job or pleasing the employer doesn’t really matter to them. Making the burden lighter for their fellow coworkers is not their concern. They could care less about working hard, and going the extra mile. This is because their work ethic is perverted, a prime example of a lukewarm Christian. Employees like this don’t last very long and will be fired from their job. Lukewarm Christians won’t last very long either. Their lazy and disobedient lifestyles only prove that they are unworthy of eternal life, and will be spued out of the mouth of God.
Lukewarm Christians are not all the way in. They are not fully devoted to God’s purpose. They are like a child who is playing out in the snow, and when they come into the house, they stand in the middle of the doorway, leaving the door wide open. Everybody’s yelling at them to shut the door, but they cannot decide if they want to come in, or go back out, so they simply stand there. They want both things.
Did you ever play sports in high school? Have you ever had a teammate who during one of your championship games, wasn’t giving their best. You were playing as hard as you could, trying to win, while on the other hand, they were only making a half-hearted attempt. You knew that they were capable of so much more, but they really didn’t care, they were content just to have made it on the team. How does a person with that attitude make you feel? A lukewarm Christian upsets God immensely, because the faith that they profess lacks heart, spirit and devotion to attain perfection through obedience to God’s will. Their mind is not completely on the game and running the race that is set before us.
Sincere Christians care greatly about their own salvation and doing what is required of them to obtain it. They continue each day in the faith even when they have to endure obstacles. They are fully devoted to the Lord, filled with love, loyalty and enthusiasm for both Him and His Holy Word. They are dedicated and obedient, proving their love to Him by their actions. A sincere Christian shows conscientiousness in their duties towards God, and is eager to please Him. And lastly, they are very serious in their convictions so that they can overcome this world, and become obedient to God’s will.
You have a choice today whether you will serve God passionately, and with the fire of devotion. Lukewarm does not make it for me at night. It’s just not enough. I want to be hot, just as our hearts should be towards God. We need to have our lamps burning brightly. We need our hearts pouring out the heat of devotion. It’s time to throw another log on the fire. Just make sure it’s another piece of…..
…….Dry Tamarack
Let’s think about these things for right now. We can be found on your web browser by Google searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms, such as Amazon, Spotify or Google podcasts. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods. Peace to you, and Lord willing, we will talk with you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody. ❤️
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Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 