Page 19 - What Shall I Do - eBook

majority are lukewarm, and He wants them to understand their true condition.
The following diagram illustrates the three kinds of people mentioned in the
message to Laodicea.

The hot have experienced the new birth and know the necessity of daily allowing
the Holy Spirit to control their spirit. If they fail, they do not excuse their sins, but
quickly ask forgiveness and cleansing. The cold know they are not in a saving
relationship with God. But the lukewarm think they are right with God, not
knowing that they are in a lost condition.
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of

nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked.” Rev. 3:17
“How plainly is pictured the position of those who think they have all the truth,
who take pride in their knowledge of the word of God, while its sanctifying power
has not been felt in their lives.” 1SM 357

“If the inner life of many who profess the truth were presented before them,
they would not claim to be Christians.” 5T 161
“They may be crying, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we,’
while . . . the courts of the soul temple may be the haunt of envy, pride, passion,
evil surmising, bitterness, and hollow formalism. Christ looks mournfully upon
His professed people who feel rich and increased in the knowledge of the truth,
and who are yet destitute of the truth in life and character.” OHC 349

“The internal work of grace is wanting in their hearts.” 4T 88
“What greater deception can come upon human minds than a confidence that
they are right when they are all wrong! The message of the True Witness finds the
people of God in a sad deception, yet honest in that deception.” 3T 252, 253
I was honest in my deception also. I thought lukewarmness meant we were not

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