#7 TEPID Waiting
By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com
This is a 7 part series.
1. Waiting and Patience the dirty words? ; 2. Habakkuk’s Waiting Room; 3. Danger of waiting and spiritual rust;
4. The five levels of waiting; 5. Waiting with Joy and gladness 6. Long waits and sudden answers;
7. TEPID WAITING
TEXT:
Revelation 2:4 Nevertheless I HAVE SOMEWHAT AGAINST THEE, BECAUSE THOU HAST LEFT THY FIRST LOVE.
Hebrews 10:36 For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
DEFINE:
FIRE IN THE BELLY --- FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES...
Zeal: eagerness, ardent interest in the pursuit of something, ambition, initiative, drive.
Enthusiasm: a belief that this is a special revelation of the Holy Spirit (this is from the dictionary).
a strong excitement of feeling, something of inspiring fervor, pleasure in doing something.
Excite: to call to activity, to rouse emotional response, energize, electrify,
COMPASSION FATIGUE:
Complacency, sluggishness, sap, apathy, indifference, uncaring, heartlessness,
HOW WOULD YOU ANSWER THIS QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU HAVE NEED OF?
If we went around doing a survey of people, we would find a varied opinion on what we need.
Some would say we need more EDUCATION? I would agree. Others would say, we need more money?
Others would say in times like these we need great peace.
THE BIBLE CLEARLY ADDRESSES AN AREA OF NEED:
Hebrews 10:36 For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
God’s promises are T&P, tried and proven! But God’s promises are not automatic pie from the sky.
Awake, awake O, my soul. Place great effort and energy into this race. Stretch every fiber and every nerve to its limit.
Move in vigor, this race to heaven demands great zeal.
HOW SAD ARE THE WORDS: YOU LEFT YOUR FIRST LOVE?
Revelation 2:4 Nevertheless I HAVE SOMEWHAT AGAINST THEE, BECAUSE THOU HAST LEFT THY FIRST LOVE.
There is a powerful message we need to proclaim, the message is we need to apply our efforts to significant change,
we must accept the call of Jesus to be challenged to be OVERCOMERS! Jesus calls each believer to a commitment of fire,
to challenge us to be obedient to God’s call and purpose for our daily walk.
It is easy to develop a distorted self image, and then grow a distorted image of others. This distortion of loosing our first
love, can be changed by submitting to accountability and evaluation. Today we so preach love and mercy, that we have a
distortion that accountability and evaluation are not needed.
ARE WE MISSING SOMETHING?
We sing: "ME AND JESUS, HAVE OUR OWN THING GOING, ME AND JESUS HAVE IT ALL WORKED OUT!"
We want to be exempt from trials and testings. We need clean ears and pure hearts to hear God.
Anyone can wait! As a matter of fact, everyone is going to learn to WAIT! No matter how bad the preachers make
PATIENCE to sound, you are going to learn to WAIT. Rich people, poor people, smart people, dumb people will
have to learn to WAIT! The issue is not WAITING --- THE ISSUE IS LEARNING TO TRUST GOD AND LEAN
ON HIS UNDERSTANDING while you wait!
WHY DOES GOD WANT US TO PRAY?
Ponder this question why does God want me to pray? To fast? To tarry on Him?
Is prayer to change God? Is prayer to get God to change? NEVER! NEVER!
Good prayer, while I am waiting on God, moves me! Good prayer, while I am waiting, CHANGES ME!
PRAYER IS THREE FOLD:
1.WHILE WE WAIT OUR HEARTS HARDEN! GOD WANTS PRAYER TO SOFTEN YOUR HEART!
What makes hard hearts? What causes the first love to grow cold?
Have you ever felt like the earth was iron and the heavens were brass? If you haven’t --- you just haven’t waited
very long.
In a good faithful prayer closet, in much prayer --- GOD SOFTENS THE INDIVIDUAL!
Time has a way of hardening every Christian worker’s heart! Is your heart hard as stone?
We have worked and not seen our dream, and we have allowed bitterness to take hidden roots in our
closets. Bitterness and hardness will keep me from prayer, prayer will keep me from bitterness.
We can preach and teach love all we want, but do we really practice love to those that despitefully use us?
Matthew 5:44? Did you read it?
Is your heart harder today than it used to be? Maybe you need a faith lift while you are waiting.
One minister told me, "I WOULD LOVE MINISTRY IF IT WEREN’T FOR PEOPLE!"
Gossip can be very grievous and hard to bear.
It is easier to curse those gone, than to bless those that are with you.
Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept aggravation in silence.
My heart breaks today as many in the camp of the church have carried such loads that their hearts have turned
so hard! Seems we can’t see this. It is easier to give birth than it is to raise from the dead?
Yet, waiting in prayer is the only answer to hardness. Are you motivated by fear, dread, and punishment?
Love can be the only motivator. Love continues in the prayer closet!
While waiting, have your dreams dashed? Have you been misunderstood? Where are the trophies?
The same heat that softens butter, will harden eggs?
The Holy Spirit is very limited if your LOVE, while you waited, has bred anger and pain?
Do your words release more grief and anger? Is pain and bitterness hidden in your prayer closet?
Do you have the "rock of offense" in your hand? Be very careful, don’t throw it, it will boomerang and hit you,
your pain will enlarge.
This trial does not have to kill you. There is JOY ahead.
No successful ministry thrives without hard work and a deep prayer closet. While we wait, we must pray.
Staying soft will guard your first love. Is your home soft or hard?
WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE ABOUT PRAYER, OFTEN MORE IS SAID THAN DONE?
2. WHILE WE WAIT, EAR WAX GROWS. LISTEN! GOD CAN CLEAN THE EAR WAX OUT OF OUR EARS!
WAITING WITH DIRTY EARS WILL LIMIT US!
If we make a commitment to a daily prayer battle --- PRAYER CLEANS OUR EARS TO HEAR.
We have come to think, prayer is me talking, the more I talk the better the prayer?
Good prayers learn to listen.
Can you hear the Divine Heartbeat? Are you broken for what God is broken for?
Ear wax in the pulpit? Ear wax in the pew? Ear wax build up at home? Bitter families can’t hear?
You might be very surprised, you can learn more in 10 minutes of listening, than in 60 minutes of talking?
Listening involves more than words? Can you hear the pain?
The wife does the talking and little listening? She ponders why doesn’t he say something?
The husband hears nothing, the TV is loud? We are doomed?
Do you hear the preacher?
While waiting to hear from God, some of you, have heard the critics. You have heard the death gargle of
those that are so negative, you have not heard from your love, you have heard the message of the 10 spies.
Christian workers focus on one negative report and become so bitter, they work to tell the other one off?
I am going to offend some, but listen to me:
WE NEED TO WASH OUR EARS OUT FROM WHAT SOME OF THE TV PREACHERS ARE SAYING!
We hear from Parsley, Copeland, Jakes, Roberts, Bakker, Roberson, Crouch.
There may not be nothing wrong with what some are saying, but the personal touch with the word is gone?
We are growing churches that have little miniature TV Preachers rehashing what they have heard the
TV Great speak. Many pulpits quote media ministries more than the Bible. This is dangerous!
WE NEED PERSONAL REVELATIONS, PERSONAL COMMITMENTS, WE NEED TO HEAR FROM GOD
FOR OURSELVES!
As we have waited for the Lord, we have compared the success of a few preachers, and we preach their
message. Can you not see the danger in this?
We buy another book. We buy another tape series. We get another sermon off Sermon Central,
and we don’t listen to the Bible and what God is personally saying to us.
Give me some more Gerber Baby Food? More warm formula?
God never meant for his great teachers to substitute for His Holy Spirit teaching the individual!
IT IS NOT BY BOOKS, IT IS NOT BY TAPES, IT IS BY GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT!
We are depending on the voice of man, it can tickle our ears. Listen to the man of God that plows
deep! Listening to man is OK, but replacing man’s voice for the voice of God will bring death!
3. DIRTY EYE GLASSES? CAN YOU SEE? WHAT CAN YOU SEE? TEPID VISION?
GOOD PRAYER GROWS A CLEAR VISION.
Let a blonde lead the blonde and they will both fall in the ditch?
It is easy to develop blindness while waiting? Just wink a little? Just turn your head?
Blind leaders, refusing to see, leading the blind, refusing vision, are all headed toward the ditch.
Matthew 15:14
Blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Matthew 23:24
WHAT IS A BLIND PERSON?
BLIND --- sightless, unwilling or unable to discern, lacking direction, to withhold light
Legally blind is having less than 1/10 of your vision?
There are none so blind as he with his eyes closed?
TO THE LAODICEAN CHURCH:
Revelation 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Just because it appears to the eye --- all is well --- does not mean all is well.
The Laodicean church was a lukewarm, self-pleasing, self-satisfying church. This Laodicean church was
prospering. Seems today we measure a successful church by prosperity, not God.
THE CHURCH WAS TEPID... THE CHURCH WAS HYPOCRITICAL.
TEPID --- moderately warm, or moderately cold, --- lacking in passion, force, and zest.
The Laodicean church had little to no conviction, IT HAD A FALSE APPEARANCE.
To the physical eye the church had attained favor and eminence, but the spiritual vision of the church was
much different. Prosperity alone is not a good measuring tool of God’s success.
.
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is NO VISION, the people perish ---
Jonah was waiting and heading the other direction, he was blind before he was in the fish’s belly!
It may have been dark in that fish’s belly, but Jonah could see clearer in the dark than on the boat!
Jonah saw God’s vision in the fish’s belly.
Joseph was waiting for God and his dream, but I promise Joseph was blind in the well.
What can you see in a dark well? A vision --- God’s plan.
Does laziness create what we want? We must want beyond laziness.
Have we focused on people? Have we focused on the church? Or are we focusing on the cross?
It is easier to swim fast, if you know there is a shark in the water behind you?
The moon is many times smaller than the sun, but the moon can temporarily hide the light of the big sun.
When the eclipse occurs, the little moon comes between the big sun and the earth. The earth grows dark.
But don’t forget, when time goes by, the moon will have to yield to the sun!
As you wait: How do we see Jesus?
We cannot focus on the storms of life? If you focus on storms you might not worship God.
The focus around the Throne of God is WORSHIP! Our focus must be worship.
No matter how bad the storm --- this storm shall pass!
There is a remedy for wrong visions.
Rev. 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment,
that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes
with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and
repent.
GOD RESTORE YOUR VISION IN OUR HEARTS! God keep our visions clear and before us.
While you are waiting don’t allow your personal vision to become blurred.
Stay in daily Bible reading and daily prayer. Faithfulness to prayer will grow a healthy, Godly vision.
Wait and pray!
His servant, Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com
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