To Laodicea

"To Laodicea" – Revelation 3:14-22 We must know the times. We are only passing through this earth, and the church of Christ is not made up of narrators or commentators, but of men and women who bend the back and do the will of God. Of the seven churches the Lord visits in Revelation, Laodicea is the one that was neither cold nor hot; and the one who speaks to her is not John but Jesus Himself, the Amen, the faithful and true witness. Laodicea presents a vivid picture of what we live today: a comfortable life on every side. The trouble with being lukewarm is that it settles nothing in the history of a life.

I. These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God (Revelation 3:14).

A. The one who speaks to Laodicea is Jesus.

1. Laodicea means the rule of the people, or the judgment on the part of the people; that was the sense of that church.

2. Let us take care: this portion of Revelation was not written by John on his own. Where it stands in red letters, it is marked plainly that those words were spoken by Jesus, who kept pace with every one of those churches.

3. He is the Amen, the true one, the certain one: the one who did not look at what we are, but simply said, I am going to give my life for them.

4. It is the incarnation: the promise of the Son of God personified and made material. God promised it to Israel in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament speaks of our Lord Jesus; afterward it was shared out to the Gentiles.

5. He is the beginning, and He began all creation. Theology arose to argue, to dispute, and to claim knowledge; to love the Scriptures is to accept them just as they are.

B. Every prayer is made in His name.

1. If you do not say in the name of Jesus, you are asking in your own name, and in your own name nothing will be given to you. It is doctrinal.

2. For then God no longer sees you as a person, but sees Jesus; and everything Jesus asks of the Father is answered.

3. If you pray in the name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is at once set into action; for the one who does everything is the Holy Spirit, through the death and the blood of Christ.

4. Let us not meddle with any other church nor look into its affairs, for one comes to the point of judging, measuring, suggesting, and commenting, and those are already deep waters.

II. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot (Revelation 3:15-16).

A. For being neither cold nor hot, it is abominably detestable.

1. The trouble with being lukewarm is that we will settle nothing in the history of a life. A lukewarm person struggles wholly for himself: he comes to the services, the songs are lovely, he sat down to listen and could not take it to heart.

2. So there are actions he ought to have taken and has not taken, and roads he ought to be walking and has not walked. It is easy to become lukewarm; it is not complicated.

3. God will give a flame of fire, and the church needs fire. If there is fire it is because there is oil, and if there is oil it is because the Holy Spirit is there; and the fire must not go out.

4. So easily is a bargain struck with the world that the fire is put out as though it were nothing.

5. Cold coffee is set down, because what is hot preserves what is genuine; and lukewarm food does not taste the same either. Everything lukewarm will always bring about a change in the genuine flavor.

6. The Lord would have preferred them to be at an extreme: in their indifference or in their zeal. If there is anything we ought to be in the Lord, it is extremely passionate, in a love, in a fire.

B. A lukewarmness that deceived.

1. Laodicea was lukewarm enough to deceive people into thinking she was a church of God; and she was so repugnantly lukewarm in divine things that she was loathsome to the Most High.

2. Today one sees movements where aberrations are accepted, and even with all that is published and all the testimonies people have given, the crowds go on gathering there.

3. And why is the human being held captive? Because there are no preachers who rise up and say: no, not that.

4. This church was further marked by pride, ignorance, self-sufficiency, and complacency. That is how one falls.

5. When a man and a woman are spiritual beings, no one moves them; and if there is confusion, the Holy Spirit within opens their eyes.

III. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, white raiment, and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve (Revelation 3:18).

A. Gold tried in the fire: faith put to the test.

1. We ought not to be dodging the trials: let us face the trial, for it makes you a warrior and because you are passing through fire.

2. Do not flee the fire. I cannot bear this; it is too much; I am depressed; all I want is to sleep and not wake up. No: your faith is being examined.

3. In the trials you will show the reality that is in your life. If you submit, you will see that when you pass that trial it results in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

4. We can walk moved by faith, and faith is the evidence of things not seen.

B. White raiment: practical righteousness.

1. When you are converted you are a person of righteousness, and that righteousness has to be practical.

2. What is a no is a no, and what is a yes is a yes; what must be fought for must be fought for; what must be lived must be lived, in daily life.

C. Eyesalve: a true spiritual sight.

1. Eyesalve is a drop for when the eyes are ailing. To anoint the eyes is to obtain true spiritual sight through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit.

2. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, your life will be a success: it is to be filled from head to foot so as to be a companion in war, without fear and without dread, to teach and so that others may learn.

3. When one is fully prepared with the Holy Spirit, the pores run over and the life runs over.

4. This counsel was especially fitting since Laodicea was known as a banking center, for its textile industry, and for its medicinal products, the eyesalve above all.

D. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten (Revelation 3:19).

1. A father who does not discipline or rebuke is a father letting his child go to waste. He who loves, rebukes.

2. If God had not cared for Laodicea, He would have left her so; but He was rebuking her. If she did not concern Him, He would not act this way.

3. With patient tenderness He calls this nominal church to be zealous and to repent. God wants us zealous for what is His, and not defiled by anyone.

4. And He wants us able to repent every day, for to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

IV. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock (Revelation 3:20-22).

A. He knocks with courtesy, to have communion.

1. Do you know how many times the Lord has called you with courtesy and invited you? Have you answered Him? The day is going to grow worse; it is around the corner, and it comes with chains.

2. Remember that while they were binding Samson he was strong and prevailed; and a moment came when he could no longer break free.

3. What God wants is that you have communion with Him. It is not to be twenty-four hours on your knees: it is that in everything you do, you know He is present, because He lives.

4. Jesus never shows favoritism. When we reach heaven it will be given according to what you have done, not by preference: it is rewarded, because God always pays what one does.

B. Each one is master in the house of his own heart.

1. He must open his doors. He has the solemn prerogative, that privilege, to choose or to refuse to open.

2. But if he refuses, he is blindly fighting against his own happiness, and in the end he becomes a wretched man.

3. He promises the overcomer that he will share the glory of the throne of Christ and reign with Him. But remember that you will have to follow Him in humility, in being rejected, and in much suffering.

4. Those who follow Him in humility, rejection, and suffering will follow Him also in glory. And one last time the hearer is counseled to give heed to the voice of the Spirit: we must learn to listen.

C. The picture of our own days.

1. Laodicea presents a vivid picture of what we live: a comfortable life on every side. What is found is that the brother seeks one thing only, his own good, and not Christ crucified.

2. The body of Christ is not the seeking of one's own: it is the seeking of Christ crucified, for the crucified one rose on the third day. And for the Holy Spirit to descend, Jesus had to be crucified.

3. God stirs, and the human being can feel it, but he is not willing to have a meek heart, because he wants always to be saying what he thinks and what he suggests; and the one with a meek spirit is silent and bends.

4. The wounds of Christ are not wanted; a crown is wanted more than crosses. We criticize everyone and throw ourselves into the fight for no one, and we are stirred more by what is empty than by Christ.

5. There is little sense of spiritual need and little longing for a true revival. Revival is when lives change, when the thoughts become holy, when compassion attends us, and when we

are desperate for another.

6. We accumulate instead of forsaking, and we heap up treasure on the earth. A house does not satisfy and the eyes are not satisfied; but doing good and raising children to be meek, that does. This is our condition on the eve of the return of Christ. Amen.