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Introduction:

Mother's advice and the chocolate covered cherries. I didn't listen. She just let me learn the hard way.

Church members who don't listen: some on fire, others just plain cold; some neither. They neither help or hurt; a blessing or troubling; produce or increase, but they do devour.

They neither drive the car, nor pay on the expense--they are just passengers (albeit, good at giving directions).

Hot beverage/cold beverage retards bacterial growth; lukewarm a perfect environment, and makes God sick at His stomach.

We must be on fire for God. How?

I.       By Fulfilling the Desire of God (15)
Either get cold and rebel so God can judge, or, repent and get on fire, so God can bless.

Either: Pull the wagon, or stand in the way, but don't just weight it down.

Stand with us, or, Stand against us, but don't just sit there.

Either, Get under the spout, or go to the woodshed.

Church: Either get on fire for God, or Grow cold so God can chastise. Don't make God sick as a care-not, do-nothing family.

A lot of the problem is America's easy life.

II.      By Heeding the Counsel of God (17,18)
Concerning:

A. Their Sorry Condition (17), Claiming to be:

1. Rich, while Wretched

2. Prince, while a Pauper

B. God's Sovereign Counsel (18), Procure:

1. Proven Gold
(James 5:1-7): "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.  Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.  Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.  Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.  Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.  Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord...."

(I Timothy 6:17-19): "Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”

For the Christian, the source of goals and objectives in financial planning is the Bible.  In his tape series Mastery of Materialism, John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, said that "sixteen out of thirty-eight of Christ's parables deal with money; more is said in the New Testament about money than Heaven and hell combined; five times more is said about money than prayer; and where there are five hundred-plus verses on both prayer and faith, there are over two thousand verses dealing with money and possessions."  Obviously, the Bible has much to say about money management.

2. Proper Clothing
White raiment of righteousness is more important than earthly clothing.

3. Perfect Eyesight
"...for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27).

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal"
(II Corinthians 4:18).

III.     By Fearing the Warning of God (16)
God will not allow one (viz. a church or a child) to stay in a Lukewarm condition.

IV.     By Responding to the Invitation of God (20)
Dwight L. Moody, by his own admission, made a mistake on the eighth of October 1871 -- a mistake he determined never to repeat.

He had been preaching in the city of Chicago.  That particular night drew his largest audience yet.  His message was "What will you do then with Jesus who is called the Christ?"

By the end of the service, he was tired.  He concluded his message with a presentation of the gospel and a concluding statement:  "Now I give you a week to think that over.  And when we come together again, you will have opportunity to respond."

A soloist began to sing.  But before the final note, the music was drowned out by clanging bells and wailing sirens screaming through the streets.  The great Chicago Fire was blazing.  In the ashen aftermath, hundreds were dead and over a hundred thousand were homeless.

Without a doubt, some who heard Moody's message had died in the fire.  He reflected remorsefully that he would have given his right arm before he would ever give an audience another week to think over the message of the gospel.

CONCLUSION:

A hospital visitor saw a nurse tending to the sores of a leprosy patient, and said, "I'd never do that for a million dollars!"  The nurse answered, "Neither would I.  But I do it for Jesus for nothing."