14 Write to the angel of the church in Laodicea:
"The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Originator of God's creation says: 15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish taht you were cold or hot. 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, 'I'm rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,' and you don't know that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, 18 I advise you to buy form Me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be committed nad repent. 20 Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me. 21 The victor: I will give him the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also won the victory and sat down with My Father on His throne.
22 Anyone who has an ear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches."
Revelation 3:14-22
As one might be able to tell, when pastors think of models for their churches, thee Church of Laodicea often does not make the top million. Jesus calls them "lukewarm" and "wretched and pitiful." Now, not every church is a church of Laodicea, but every text in the Bible is available to us so that we may be strengthened by it and not fall into the pits that the Laodiceas in. Here, we have a perfect example of a stagnant body of Christ, one that has become ineffective.
Jesus gives us both characteristics and remedies for a lukewarm church.
The first characteristic is that they are poor. One thing you might want to first know is what Laodicea itself as known for. It was known for its wealth, its clothing, and its eye ointment (basically, ancient eye drops), but in this text, God says that though they possess those things, though they have physical remedies for poverty, nudity, and blindness, spiritually, you have done nothing. You're stagnant. You are poor in spirit, so what does God tell them to do?
He tells them to buy from Him gold. Now, if you're a practical person, you would think, "how does one buy gold if one is poor?" How do you obtain that which is valuable when you yourself have nothing of value to trade it with? As Americans, we are creatures of commerce. Everything is tradable because everything has value. I pay $10 for a steak and barbacoa bowl, chips, and a drink at Chipotle because both the producer (Chipotle) and the consumer (I) will concede to agree that the value of these items rounds out to about that much. Thus, the trade is made, but the value does not change if I don't have the money. The producer still values that combo at $10. I, though hungry for some Tex Mex, still value it at $10 and have even gone so far as to prove beforehand that I value it that much, but poverty on my mind does not decrease value on their end.
Neither is it with God, yet he does not desire gold. He is giving gold to be purchased with what? Look at Isaiah 55:1:
"Come everyone who is thirsty,
Come to the waters,
And you without money,
Come, buy, and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost!"
Jesus calls the Church of Laodicea to buy gold the same way he is calling Israel in Isaiah to buy wine and milk: without money and without cost. Cost here means a monetary price. The actual price goes much deeper as stated in Matthew 16:24-25:
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.
You see, that which is perishable and finite (money) cannot purchase that which is eternal and infinite (paradise). That which can be destroyed cannot purchase that which cannot be hindered. That which man values cannot purchase that which God values. He longs for the church itself to seek Him, to buy from Him the wealth of a deep relationship with Him, but they cannot see that they are poor, which brings us to the second characteristic:
They are blind. They can't see that they are poor, naked, wretched, and pitiful! They can't see beyond their eye sockets. Remember the three things Laodicea is known for? Its wealth (we already tackled that with how poor they are spiritually), its clothes, and its eye ointment. Now, the only way to cure blindness is through a miracle. We know this, buy Laodicea has eye ointment (or salve) that basically served as ancient eye drops. Because only God could heal the blind, this was God stepping down to the low level at which man can comprehend and saying, "look! Your eyes are bad, so you need ointment." In the same way as God longs for the church to buy from Him gold, he longs for them to buy from Him the spiritual ointment, but moving from blindness to seeing is so miraculous a feat that sometimes it requires doing the impossible. Check out John 9:6-7:
6 After He said these things He spit on the ground, made some mud from teh saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. 7 "Go," He told him, "wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means "Sent"). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.
Jesus rubs mud on this man's eyes, but he isn't healed yet. Jesus first tells him to go. Did you catch that? Jesus tells a man BLIND FROM BIRTH to go while he is still blind to a pool and wash himself. He tells him to make a journey. He tells him to believe that, by going to the pool of Siloam (which fittingly means "Sent") and washing off what Jesus had put on his eyes, that he will come back seeing. Not only does Jesus tell him to do that, the blind man does it, and comes back seeing. He doesn't g off and relish in the miracle for himself. He returns to where the miracle started: Jesus.
Sometimes, circumstances will arise, and you will be blind to God's will, to which God will say, "Go and see," and you, as a blind man, will have to make such a journey. Only after blindly stumbling through the journey will you be able to see. It is then not only appropriate but mandatory to return to where the journey began: Jesus.
Not only is the Church poor and blind, but their third characteristic is that they are naked. They're exposed! They are laid bare, and everyone can see the shallowness of their faith. Keep in mind what Laodicea is known for: wealth, clothing, and eye ointment. Here, God is saying you are naked, so you need clothes (duh), but it crossed your mind: God created man naked. Go back to Genesis. After Adam and Eve sinned, they made loinclothes out of fig leaves. I don't know if you've ever seen a fig leaf, but it's rather ineffective when it comes to clothing thyself. After God delivers His punishment to man, what does He do? Genesis 3:21 says:
The LORD God made clothing out of skins for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
He replaces the clothes that THEY made with the clothes that HE provided. God says, "if you're going to hide how you are created, do so with that which I provide for you." In Revelation, he is telling Laodicea, "if you are going to be ashamed of Me, clothe yourself with Me, clothe yourself with the sacrifice that I have provided for you, so that you may not be ashamed of me." Clothing oneself with Christ is the only way to cure your shame of Christ.
Moving forward in the text to Revelation 3:19, we see Christ telling Laodicea, "as many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be committed and repent." Their fourth characteristic is that they are wretched and pitiful. Now, this is not saying that strife is God's way of saying you are wretched and pitiful. No. This whole letter is God's rebuke and discipline of a church which He still loves. Check out Proverbs 3:11-12:
11 Do not despise the LORD's instruction, my son,
and do not loathe His discipline,
12 for the LORD disciplines the one He loves,
just as a father, the son he delights in.
We should rejoice in the discipline and the rebuke that God gives us because, first and foremost, that means He loves us. It means He cares to see us grow in Him. It means He wants to use us, but how does discipline come? It comes in many forms. It comes through trials, most notably. We can either, again, complain about being blind until we see, or we can return to where the miracle began. However, it can also come by way of 1 Corinthians 11:31-32:
31 If we were properly evaluating ourselves, we would not be judged, 32 but when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned with the world.
No one escapes God's jurisdiction. Therefore, God is perfectly within His right to use a nonbeliever to convict you of your actions, so that, later down the line, you may lead someone to the cross. We are to be in a constant state of the renewing of our minds because our thoughts become our actions with an untrained mind.
We have the characteristics of the lukewarm church and their corresponding remedies:
Poor --> Gold
Blind --> Ointment
Naked --> Clothes
Wretched and Pitiful --> Rebuke and Discipline
The good news is how God responds to the faithful. Moving from a church that which God would vomit to a church that which God would dine with is what Christ is trying to get Laodicea to accomplish with this letter. Read Revelation 3:20-21:
20 Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me. 21 The victor: I will give him the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also won the victory and sat down with My Father on His throne.
Often we use verse 20 as a verse to bring people to salvation, but that's not necessarily what it's talking about. It's a verse about repentance, and, so firstly, we see in these two verses that God dines with the faithful. With those that have faith, with those that believe in God, with those that trust in the saving, redeeming, and unstoppable power of God, He dines. A perfect example of this is given in Luke 5:27-32:
27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, "Follow Me!" 28 So, leaving everything behind, he got up and began to follow him. 29 Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for Him at his house. Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were guests with them. 30 But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to His disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" 31 Jesus replied to them, "The healthy don't need a doctor, but the sick do. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Faithful does not mean those that never sinned. It means those that believe. Matthew, unashamed of the guest to come into his house, invites all of his friends to meet the King of Glory. He holds a feast, and he dines with God, and God dines with him.
Secondly, we see that God makes heirs of the faithful. The kingdom that we have inherited through the faith in which we inherited makes us co-heirs with Christ. Galatians 4:7 says:
So you are no longer a slave (to sin) but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Your identity in Christ is that the wages which you deserve from sin (death) are replaced by the inheritance you gain through Christ. You are an heir of the kingdom of God through the blood of Jesus.
God dines and makes heirs of the faithful, but here's the thing: there's no such thing as a lukewarm Christian, as Francis Chan says. Go back to Revelation 3:15-16:
15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth.
We often view the "hot" portion as being on fire for God and the "cold" portion as being hardened to being on fire for God, but if you look deep within the text, you'll see that this is not so. Laodicea didn't have water, so it ran an aqueduct from two separate places: Heirapolis and Colosse. Hierapolis was known for its hot springs used for medicinal purposes, and Colosse was known for its cold, refreshing streams. You see, looking at it under the light of what is around Laodicea, being cold is good. So what does this mean?
It means faith heals. Jesus speaking to His disciples in John 3:5:
Jesus answered, "I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Unless someone has experienced the healing power of the Holy Spirit, much like that of the hot springs in Hierapolis, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He cannot be called an heir through God. He cannot dine with God. In Psalm 51:7, David cries out to God for healing of his soul:
Purify me with hyssop,
and I will be clean;
Wash me, and I will be
whiter than snow.
PURIFY me. WASH me. CLEAN me. HEAL me. Return my sickened, poor faith to a health faith that will walk to the pool of Siloam and come back seeing.
Faith doesn't just heal, but faith also quenches. Every human being is thirsty for something. Every soul has a longing for something more than themselves. One could argue that every person ever born, because of the sin inherited through Adam, immediately longed for a damned eternity until they were overcome by God with the desire for a blessed eternity. Regardless, we all long for. We all crave. We all thirst. David gives us a vivid picture of this in Psalm 42:1:
As a deer longs for streams of water,
So I long for You, God.
As a deer who runs daily longs to be quenched by the water from the Earth, so I long for you, God. I like what Matt Chandler calls David: "the schizophrenic king." In verse 1 he's describing his longing for God, but if you skip down 7 or 8 verses later, he's beating his chest, saying, "why so downcast, my soul!?" My soul, where is the faith, where is the longing, where is the thirst that you had 6 lines ago? Why do you desire the things of a perishable world over the things of an eternal world?
Yet sometimes we get like that. One minute, we can't get enough of God's overflowing water for our cup. The next minute, we want something else to drink. We're tired of the most precious thing ever given. Give me some trash instead.
Faith heals. Faith quenches. This church had neither. It had neither a faith the heals nor a faith that quenches. It was lukewarm. "But Evan, I thought you said that there was no such thing as a lukewarm Christian?" I did. This passage is talking about the church as a whole. A believer cannot lose his or her salvation, but a church can lose its impact. That's the whole point of Revelation 3:14-22. This church was stagnant. Their faith was shallow, so they were poor, blind, naked, wretched, and miserable. They needed gold, clothes, and ointment from God, so God rebuked and disciplined them, so that they may answer His call to dine with them.
A believer cannot lose his or her salvation, but a church can lose its impact. Not every church is Laodicea, but every church is in danger of being Laodicea. Let us never fall into being Laodicea.
