JRNT 509 04/27/2025 The Lukewarm Church Revelation 3:14-22 Jesse Randolph Well, tonight we are back in our series in Revelation. And we are going to be finishing, with the Lord’s help, Revelation chapter 3 tonight as we get through letter number 7 of the seven letters that Christ wrote the ancient churches in Asia Minor. Laodicea is church number 7 and as we’re about to see this is the church that Christ had severe words of condemnation for. The church at Laodicea was a lost church. A deceived church. An unsaved church. An unregenerate church. And the church that we’re about to see absolutely sickened the Lord. This was a church that was witnessing in its environs prosperity all around it. And yet this letter is the darkest and heaviest landing letter of any of the seven letters. Turn with me in your Bibles if you would to Revelation chapter 3 and we’ll be in verses 14-22 tonight as we encounter letter number 7, the letter to the Laodiceans. Revelation 3:14. “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write. This is what the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says: ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be manifested; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” As we saw a few weeks ago, the church at Sardis was a dead church. The church at Sardis was like the ghost ship, the one whose oars were being turned by spiritually dead men and yet, the church in that city, we’re told, there were still some believers within its walls. Revelation 3:4, speaking of Sardis says, “but you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments.” That wasn’t the case in Laodicea. The church at Laodicea was not only lifeless, it was lost. This was the unsaved church. The unconverted church. The unredeemed church. The false church. Whereas Christ had nothing good to say about the dead, lifeless church at Sardis, He actually does have something to say about the lost and false church at Laodicea. He calls on them, as we are about to see, to repent. He calls on them to repent of their proud self-sufficiency, to repent of their deceived, sinful ways, to repent of their double-minded faithlessness, and to turn to Christ, truly, as Lord, so that they could be forgiven of their sin, so that their souls could actually be saved, so that they could secure the hope of eternal life. See, the Lord called on the church at Laodicea not just to clean up its act as He does with the other six churches. Instead, He calls on this church that we’ll be looking at tonight and studying tonight, to stop playing church. To stop faking it and to actually come to Him in saving faith. Now before we get to our text, again it’s always good to go through some of the background of these letters to see what was happening in this city around the church that we’re studying. In terms of geography, Laodicea was quite a ways inland from the coastal cities of Ephesus and Smyrna. It sat about 40 miles to the south of Philadelphia, the letter we looked at last time. This city was founded by a man named Antiochus II. He founded the city sometime in the third century B.C. He named it for his wife, Laodice, right before he divorced her. But anyway she got the name of the city. In terms of its commerce, this was a rich city. This was a well-to-do city. There was a lot of money floating around Laodicea and for a few reasons. For starters, Laodicea was a notable banking center, and banking centers, whether it be LA or San Fransico or Hong Kong or Laodicea, are economically prosperous. Not only that, this city was active in the medical and pharmaceutical industries. They had a highly respected medical school, they had highly esteemed medical teachers in this city and the city was known (and this will be relevant later) for producing a powder which was used to produce an eye salve that healed and soothed painful eye afflictions. And then sales from this eye salve, this ointment, brought even more money into the city. Not only that the city was wealthy from its production and its exporting of clothing. It was known for producing fine black wool in this area, and that was another major stream of revenue for this city of Laodicea. So it was a banking center, it was a pharmaceutical center, it was a clothing production center. You add all those up, it was a very, very wealthy city. In fact, so great was the wealth of this city that it was destroyed by a powerful earthquake a few years before this letter was written. And unlike other cities that were destroyed by earthquakes and other natural disasters, Laodicea didn’t need the help of Rome to rebuild. They had enough income in their own coffers, to rebuild with their own resources. They were rich. They were wealthy. They were a self-sufficient city. Now in terms of the natural terrain around Laodicea, the city sat between two other major cities of the day. Hieropolis is one of them and the other is Colossae. And those three cities made up this tri-city area. And a notable fact about these three cities, Laodicea and Hieropolis and Colossae, and specifically Colossae and Hieropolis, is that Laodicea didn’t have a natural water source in its own city limits, whereas Colossae had cold springs and Hieropolis had hot springs. Cold springs in Colossae would bring great refreshment to visitors on hot days. The hot springs in Hieropolis would provide relief for those who were aching and sore as hot springs tend to do even today. But Laodicea didn’t have a water source, like those other 2 cities. They had to have their water piped in. And Laodicea’s water actually came from the hot springs of Hieropolis. And the water traveled six miles down these connected stone underground aqueducts. And when the water left Hieropolis, this has all been documented, the water was somewhere around 95 degrees, the hot spring water from Hieropolis. But by the time it got to Laodicea, the water was now tepid. The water was now lukewarm. Now not only was the water lukewarm by the time it got to Laodicea, but as it made its way through those stone aqueducts from Hieropolis to Laodicea, the water cooled down, but also picked up all these calcium deposits that were in the stone pipes, the stone aqueducts, which made the flavor of the water awful. The stone aqueducts actually polluted and tainted the water before it got to Laodicea. And the result was that when you drank that water in Laodicea, it was known for being really, really bad. Like vomit-it-out-of-your-mouth bad. Spit-it-out-of-your-mouth bad. Not even the city’s wealth could fix that problem. Now at the time Christ wrote this letter, there obviously was a church in Laodicea. That’s why the Lord is writing this letter to begin with. He’s writing to this group of purported believers. We know the church would have been founded, as were some of the other churches that we’ve mentioned most recently, around the time that Paul brought the gospel to Asia Minor, which is mentioned in Acts 19. And what would have happened is that those who were originally converted through Paul’s ministry in Ephesus while he was on his third missionary journey, those folks as they heard the gospel would have taken it eastward and then reached the city of Laodicea with the gospel. In fact, we see Laodicea actually documented in various other places in the New Testament. Several decades prior for instance, in Paul’s letter to the neighboring church at Colossae, Paul in Colossians 4:16 says, “and when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans.” And we know that the Laodicean church, many decades before, had been a great source of concern to Paul. Even though Paul had never met these folks in person, Paul says this in Colossians 2:1, “For I want you to [know] how great a struggle I have on your behalf,” he’s speaking to the Colossians, of course, “and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not seen my face in the flesh.” We know that this church not only concerned Paul, but it concerned Epaphras, Paul’s associate. Colossians 4:13, Paul here says, “he,” meaning Epaphras,” has a deep concern for you,” meaning the Colossians,” and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis.” Now we can also reasonably surmise, and this will be relevant later, that the Laodicean church given its relational and geographic proximity to Colossae, had been infiltrated by this same heretical teachings about the deity and the nature and the person of Christ, that had caused so many issues in the Colossian church. You might remember some of those that we went through in our study of Colossians a year or so ago. Colossians 1 and 2 lay out all these different and deficient views on Christ that that church was embracing. Or on the verge of embracing. And those naturally would have leaked over to Laodicea. Well, this Laodicean church at one point did have life. During the days of its founding as the gospel initially went from Paul to the believers at Ephesus, and then later as it fanned out inward into Colossae and Laodicea and Hieropolis, it had life. But then you fast forward a few decades to the mid-90s A.D, around the time that this letter is written by Christ to this church. And as Jesus is addressing this church through the last-living Apostle John, that first generation of Laodicean Christians had largely died off. And now a new wave of Laodicean church-goers had taken their place. And now you have this Christological heresy infiltrating this church some many decades after Paul first reached them, and now this is no longer a church. It’s an unconverted group of people who assembled, who called themselves a church, but they weren’t a church. So that’s all the background. With that we’ll dive back into the text. Starting in verse 14 where it says, “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write.” As He does in each of the seven letters, Christ begins by introducing Himself to the “angel,” the earthly messenger, the pastor of this church. And as would have been the case in each of the previous six letters, and six cities and six churches, this pastor would have been an embodiment of the people he was shepherding in his local context. He would have been a representative of those he was pastoring. And like the members of this particular church, he may have been, it’s not at all unreasonable to surmise that he may have been wealthy, and well taken care of, and beaming with pride about his many earthly accomplishments. When in reality, like his congregation, verse 17, he was “wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.” His business card may have said, “servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, pastor of the church of Jesus Christ,” but in reality his heart was far from the One he claimed to represent. He was truly oblivious to his true nature and his actual spiritual condition. And there’s lessons to be learned from that statement. Because sadly there have been many in pastoral ministry and church leadership throughout the centuries who have been under that same delusion. They wear the mantle of “minister” or they wear the title of pastor or shepherd or overseer or elder or you name the title. They have a pulpit, they have influence, they claim to be teaching and preaching the word of God, they have a following, they call themselves masters of divinity, they call themselves doctors of theology, they call themselves shepherds who have been called to shepherd Christ’s sheep, when in fact, they are wolves. And in fact, they’re tares among the wheat. In fact, they’ve never been regenerated. In fact, they’re lost. In fact, they’re unconverted. Richard Baxter wrote a pretty famous book back in the early 1600s called “The Reformed Pastor.” And in this book he writes of the tragedy of unsaved pastors in his day, hundreds of years ago. And He writes this, “God never saved any man because he was a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher, but because he was a justified, sanctified man and consequently faithful in his Master’s work. Therefore, first take heed unto yourselves so that you will be that which you persuade your hearers to be, believe that which you persuade them daily to believe, and have heartily accepted that Christ and Spirit whom you offer to others.” He then says, “Many a preacher is now in hell that has a hundred times called on his hearers to use the utmost care and diligence to escape it.” What a terrifying, and tragic warning for anyone who thinks they are something in the church of Jesus Christ. Even somebody who has a title in the church of Jesus Christ and yet remains condemned. Facing judgment from the Lord of the church because they never truly trusted in Him. They never actually believed in Him. They never gave their life to Him. That’s what we see happening here in the church at Laodicea. The angel, the pastor, was as spiritually dead as the rest of them. After addressing this angel, pastor, messenger, Jesus next, as He does in the other letters, He introduces Himself. And He does so by bringing in both divine titles and divine descriptions of Himself. This is something He’s done in all seven letters now. Recall, to Ephesus He identifies Himself as the One who holds the seven stars as He walks among the lampstands. To Smyrna He identifies Himself as the first and last, the One who was dead but became alive. To Pergamum He identifies Himself as the One who has the sharp two-edged sword. To Thyatira He’s called Himself the Son of God with His eyes like a flame of fire and His feet like bronze. To Sardis He says He holds the seven spirits and the seven stars. To Philadelphia He refers to Himself as holy and true, as having the key of David, and being a doorkeeper. And now to Laodicea, He says that He is, verse 14, “The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God.” Let’s start with the first of those descriptors. Christ says He is “the Amen.” That’s an Old Testament word, a Hebrew word that describes that which is fixed, that which is true, that which is unchangeable and it carries over to the New Testament and has a very similar meaning. That word “amen” is often used in Scripture to affirm the truthfulness of a statement. It’s an affirmation. It’s sort of a verbal guarantee that what has been said is true. The New Testament writers like Paul used that word to punctuate a sentence or a statement. And obviously it’s a word we use at the end of our prayers and oftentimes if we’re being honest, we’re not even sure why we’re saying it or using it. It becomes ritual and routine. Now as it relates to the Lord Jesus Christ, that term “Amen” means something specific. It means not only that he is the Second Person of the Trinity, not only that He is God incarnate, not only that He is the way, and the truth, and the life, but He is the One who makes good on every promise that He makes. 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes. Therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” So Christ, the Son of God is the affirmation, that’s what that passage is saying, the affirmation of each of God the Father’s promises. He is the guaranty, the surety, the assurance of God’s promises, “the Amen.” Next, we see Christ refer to Himself as “the faithful and true Witness.” So not only does He secure and affirm what God has said and what God has promised, whatever Christ says is true, whatever He affirms is true, because He is true. He is the truth, John 14:6. Whatever He says, He says with perfect trustworthiness. He says it with perfect accuracy. If He bears witness to something, then it is absolutely and indisputably true. John 3:33 teaches that he “who has received His witness,” Christ’s witness, “has set seal his to this, that God is true.” See, once Christ has testified to something, no more witnesses need to be called. Once He’s testified to something, no clever cross-examiner is going to unravel or poke holes in that testimony. He is a perfectly trustworthy and faithful witness. And because He is faithful and because He is true in His character, He is faithful and He is true in His assessment of each of these seven churches. And of course, in His assessment of our church today. He’s described as walking in the midst of these seven churches, meaning nothing that He identifies about these churches comes secondhand to Him. He’s there tangibly seeing what’s happening. Whatever happens in these churches He sees it. He witnesses it. He testifies to it. And what He’s about to share about what He sees in the Laodicean church is a faithful word, a true word. He is “the faithful and true witness.” Next, we see Him described as “the Beginning of the creation of God,” still in verse 14. Now for centuries, of course, false teachers of various stripes have taken that language to suggest that Christ is a created being. According to this view which found its way into the teachings of early heretics like Arius and then influenced later heretics like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, to say that Jesus is the “Beginning of the creation of God,” is to say that He is God’s first created being. That’s what the heretics will say. But that’s not at all what is being said here in verse 14. Rather, to say that He is the “Beginning of the creation of God” is to say that He is the originator of all creation. He is the chief of all creation. He is the author of all creation. He is the preeminent One over all of creation. In fact, we have time and this should be worth it to go back to Colossians. Go with me over to Colossians 1 where we’re going to see and be reminded of the preeminence of Christ in all things. And specifically in creation. Look at Colossians 1:15. We’ll start in 15. Colossians 1:15 says, mid-sentence here, “Who is,” that’s referring to “the Son of His love” back in verse 13, “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross -- through Him -- whether things on earth or things in heaven.” Or if you look down the page at Colossians 2:9, we’re reminded in Colossians 2:9 “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily.” Or if we were to go to John 1:3, we’re told “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” He is the Creator. That’s the import to that language here in verse 14 of Revelation 3, “the Beginning of the creation of God.” Not the first created One, but the beginning of all creation. The One who created all things. Now, why was it important for this church at Laodicea some four decades now after its founding, to be reminded of these truths about the deity and the preeminence of Christ? Again, we have to keep in mind the proximity of this city Laodicea to Colossae. These cities were only about 10 miles apart from each other. And whatever Christological problems had surfaced at the church at Colossae, they had necessarily and naturally migrated over to and plagued, not only plagued, but killed, the church at Laodicea. The Laodicean church apparently had adopted some of these heretical views of Christ that were there at Colossae. And they were affirming that Christ is not fully God, and Christ is not the Creator, and Christ is not the preeminent One. Like their neighbors in Colossae, they had reduced Christ to some sort of created being or some sort of angelic being. That’s why Paul would tell the Colossian church, remember, in the letter to the Colossians, that this letter had to be read at Laodicea, as well. Colossians 4:16 again. He says, “And when this letter is read among you, have it read also in the church of the Laodicea.” He wanted his Colossian letter to be read to the church at Laodicea so that they too would ‘get it.’ So that they would ‘snap out’ of their Christological drift. So they would see and worship the Lord Jesus for who He truly is. Well, apparently they didn’t snap out of it. They had clung, the Laodiceans, to their wrong beliefs about Christ, and that fact alone rendered this church not just a dead church, like Sardis, but a fake church and no church at all. It's a good reminder as we consider churches today and problems in churches today. And the ultimate problems that plague churches today. There are all kinds of pragmatic considerations we could work through but let’s just shoot is straight and say it simply. A church that gets Christ wrong is not a church. Period. That church might have a building, it could have a sanctuary, it could have an auditorium, it could have an orchestra, it could have a pulpit, it could have a steeple, it could have a cross, it could have a pastor, a pulpit, pews, it could have all those things. It could even have the name of Jesus Christ on it. It could call itself Christian. It could call itself a church. But if it gets Christ wrong it’s not a church. The Mormon Church is not a church. The Jehovah’s Witnesses group, not a church. Any church or group that waffles on the deity of Christ is not a church. Any church that gets the humanity of Christ wrong is not a church. Any church that denies the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is not a church. Any church that denies the exclusivity of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a church. This is the position that this church, Laodicea, found itself in. They were being swayed by all these Christological heresies which first crept their way into their neighbor’s church at Colossae. But now they had swallowed those same heresies and problematic ways of thinking, hook, line, and sinker. And the result now is that this church at Laodicea was not a true church. It was a collection of unsaved people who called themselves a church, but it was a false church. It was not a church at all. Now after introducing Himself by these three titles in verse 14, “the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God,” the Lord moves on to describe what He knows about this church in verses 15 and 16. He says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” Now note how Jesus does not in any sense start tenderly or sweetly with this church. He doesn’t just sort of ease His way into His assessment of this church. He launches right into His critique. See, this church knew better. I think that’s why there’s this harsh intro by the Lord. This church knew better. Several decades earlier, as I’ve already mentioned, they would have been an indirect recipient of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, which was read to them and exposed any concerns that Paul had at that point decades prior about any Christological drift in this church. So this church 40 years later now, they certainly knew what was right and was wrong in terms of the doctrine of Christ. They knew their right hand from their left in terms of the doctrine of Christ. This was not an ignorant church. This was not an untaught church. This was not a first-time offender. So the level of rebuke they receive from Jesus here is intensified. And notice what He does, what the Lord does. He brings in this imagery which the people in this city would have been very familiar with in describing their deeds, where He says, “I know your deeds.” He says, “you are neither cold nor hot.” Jesus here is saying what is true of you physically is true of you spiritually. Like the water that is physically piped into your city which is neither cold nor hot, so are you spiritually. He’s saying, “I wish that you were cold or hot.” Those are His words. “I wish that you were cold or hot. At least if you were cold, you’d bring some sort of refreshment to those who are weary and worn.” Just like the cool waters of Colossae would have refreshed people who swam in them or drank them. “And at least if you were hot, you’d bring some form of healing, some sort of remedy, some sort of cure, to those who are sick,” the way the hot springs of Hieropolis brought healing and relief to those who visited that town. That’s why I think Christ here says, “I wish that you were cold or hot.” If you were cold or if you were hot, you’d at least serve some useful purpose. But here at Laodicea, this church was not serving any useful purpose. He’s calling them useless. This is that part of the letter now where we would expect, having gone through the other letters at least, that this is where Jesus would say something encouraging to this church. This is where he would affirm them. He’d say something good here. Something noteworthy about them, something that was uplifting like: “Keep your head up, church! I’m sure you’ll get it next time. You’ll get things figured out.” But that’s not what we see. No. For this lost Laodicean church, the Lord has nothing but contempt for them. And His contempt keeps pouring out in verse 16. He says, “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” So we can’t think of those terms, cold and lukewarm and hot, as though they’re on some sort of sliding scale of spirituality, that the Lord is otherwise neutral about. No. In His judgment and His economy, hot and cold are both good. It’s lukewarm that’s bad. Hot and cold can both be useful in their own different ways. But lukewarmness is uselessness. That’s what He’s saying. That this Laodicean church, this lost church, was useless. They didn’t refresh anyone the way that the cold springs of Colossae would refresh people. The way a splash of cold water on your skin after you’ve been running a marathon would feel good on your face. The Laodicean church didn’t help anyone the way that the hot springs of Hieropolis did, the way that hot water in your washing machine takes out stains and actually does something. Rather, this lukewarm Laodicean church is being condemned by Christ here because they were so tepidly, so lukewarm, so nothing, so useless. And then look at the result of their lukewarmness there in verse 16. He says, “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.” So this church was to the Lord’s mouth what their water piped in was to theirs. It was lukewarm. It was useless. It was nauseating. The Lord is saying to this church, “Your fake veneer of faith doesn’t fool Me. There is no fear of God before your eyes. You’re not really of Me. You’re not really with Me. You nauseate Me. You make Me sick,” is what He’s saying to this church, “and I’m going to spit you,” -- He says, “vomit you,” literally -- “spit you out of My mouth.” Now what the Lord is saying to this church, to Laodicea, is of no small consequence. He was utterly and completely rejecting this church. They thought they were in the family of God. They thought their salvation was secure. But they end up being like, at this stage of His assessment of them, what Jesus said, famously in Matthew 7:22-23 where He says, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did we not prophesy, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; “depart from Me, you [workers of] lawlessness.”’” This is scary, scary stuff. But the Lord’s not done. As we move into verse 17, the Lord continues to heap on these words of accusation and judgment against this church. Look what comes next. “Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.’” Now “because,” that word “because” -- so the reason they’re facing this impending judgment, the reason they’re about to be spit out, vomited out from the Lord’s mouth, was because of their lukewarmness. Because of their nauseating uselessness -- which we see here stemmed from the fact that they were secure, they were self-sufficient, they were smug. And they were smug specifically about their financial position. Look what it says. They were rich. Because you say, “I am rich.” They had “become wealthy.” And they, therefore, believed they had no need of anything. They were, in their own eyes, rich and well-established and prosperous. And from their vantage point, they weren’t in need of anything. They had no use of anything or anyone outside of themselves. These people making up this so-called church no doubt had been affected by the material prosperity of the city in which they lived. They had a lot of things. The city in which they lived and the way in which they lived affected the way that this church thought and the way this church operated. They had no external pressures on them. They had no persecution. They had no internal opponents, like we saw in the synagogue of Satan in Smyrna. They had, you could say, succumbed to their own affluent lifestyle. And they didn’t even know it. They were lounging around in their decadent ease, but they were in denial of their true condition. They were more concerned with how things appeared on the outside and how they looked on the outside, and not concerned with who they were in reality. And look at the assessment the Lord gives them. They can’t see what’s on the inside but He can. Verse 17, “And you do not know,” this is the second part of verse 17, “that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.” Let’s take those quickly one by one. First, He calls them “wretched.” That word means completely hopeless. It’s only used one other time in the New Testament in Romans 7:24, where Paul says, “Wretched man that I am!” Paul at least knew that he was wretched. The church at Laodicea couldn’t see their own wretchedness. They were wretched. They were “pitiable” is the next one. That means to be miserable, miserly, the object of extreme pity. Christ here is saying to this church, though they are rich on the outside, you’re as pitiful as it gets. “Poor,” that word refers to extreme poverty. Being totally destitute. Again, a really interesting description of a city which was full of rich people. People who were involved in the banking industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the clothing industry, the garment industry. They had become very wealthy, and Christ here is saying they’re poor. They are the opposite of the church at Smyrna. You might remember that church was poor and then Christ says, “But yet you are rich.” The church at Laodicea is the opposite. They were rich, the world would have envied them, but they were spiritually poor. Next He says they are “blind.” And again, that stands out because one of the things that put the city Laodicea on the map was that eye salve that they produced, that helped people who apply it to their eyes to get clearer vision. And last He calls them “naked.” And that term stands out because this city was again known for producing wool. That was one of the sources of their wealth, wool production. So they’re creating clothing which covers people’s nakedness, but Christ here is saying, “You yourselves are naked.” Solomon once said, in Proverbs 30:8-9: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, lest I be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’” That’s what was happening in Laodicea. On account of their wealth, this collection of people that called themselves a church, had forgotten God. Their Christological errors that they had adopted from the city of Colossae, were only compounded by how comfortable they were on account of their wealth. There’s an interesting phrase the Lord uses here in verse 17 to describe the condition of the Laodicean church. We’ve seen that they were wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked. But look what comes before that. He says, “You do not know that you are all those things. I had to bring this to your attention, Laodicea. You are self-deceived. Until I brought this to your attention, you weren’t even aware of what terrible shape you’re in. Until I wrote you, Laodicea, you thought that you were thriving, and prosperous, and wealthy, and visionary, and fashionable, and all the rest. But as he does with all unbelievers, the god of this age, Satan,” who we studied this morning, “has blinded you. He’s blinded you to your spiritual state, your spiritual condition. He’s pulled the wool over your eyes so that you fail to see that you are not only lukewarm, but lost.” That’s what’s undergirding that language, “you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.” This church thought it was redeemed, but it was, in fact, wretched. This church thought that it had it made, but it was actually pitiable. This church thought it was rich, but in fact it was poor. This church thought it was spiritually insightful, but it was blind. This church thought it was clothed, namely in the righteousness of God, but it was naked. This church was full of ignorant, unregenerate people, who had never experienced true salvation. They were spiritually blind, and they were spiritually naked and exposed before the holy God of heaven and earth. So this church was not only made of lukewarm hypocrites who made the Lord sick, it was full of deceived individuals who had no salvation, no heaven, and no hope. So how was this church at Laodicea going to get itself out of this situation? Well, the Lord tells him in verse 18. He says, “I advise you.” Now it’s notable here He doesn’t say, “I order you, I command you.” It’s, “I advise you.” You could translate it, “I counsel you.” It’s softer than the direct command. “I advise you.” I think what’s happening here is the Lord is showing this lost church grace. Though He’s free to destroy these sinners in this church as an outworking of His perfect justice in the world, the instinct of the Lord here is to show them mercy. To show them grace. To show them forgiveness. And we know, do we not, going all the way back to Exodus 34, that that is very much in the nature and character of God who is “compassionate and gracious, and slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; and keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.” And what does that God advise them to do here? Look at verse 18 as we read on. He says, “I advise you,” and then He says, “to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be manifested; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.” All of those items -- gold, garments, and eye salve -- those are things that the people in this church clearly thought that they had or could get because those resources were easily found in their hometown of Laodicea. And this city was so otherwise prosperous that money was no object to purchase these, every one of these. Gold, garments and eye salve. But that’s not Jesus is saying here. He’s not saying you need to order these things on Amazon and put them in your shopping cart and buy them physically. He’s saying, “You need these spiritually. You need gold refined by fire. You need garments. You need eye salve. But not in the way you think. But in a whole different manner.” Let’s go through those one by one. The gold refined by fire first. That would be the purest form of gold. Here it represents faith. This church’s lukewarm uselessness, its tepid faithlessness, needed to be replaced with a pure faith. The kind of faith that’s actually able to withstand fiery trials as we see in 1 Peter 1:7. That that kind of faith “be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” They needed that kind of faith, strong faith, pure faith, true faith. Next He says, “You need white garments.” The white garments are pure garments. They represent the inherent righteousness of Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son of God. That would stand in contrast to the precious black wool that the people of this city were so proud of. The church here needed to buy these white garments which would hide their nakedness so that they wouldn’t be exposed on account of their sin to the wrath of a holy and righteous God. Next He says, Jesus says, “You need eye salve to anoint your eyes.” Now in the case of physical afflictions, the eye salve of Laodicea was physically applied to those who had the condition of myopia. If they were nearsighted, they could see what was close in front of them but they couldn’t see what’s far away. And if there was anybody who was suffering from spiritual myopia, it was the people at Laodicea. So, Jesus here is saying, “Come and buy this spiritual salve from Me, so that you can regain some sense of spiritual sight.” So to summarize the Lord’s counsel, verse 18, to this lukewarm, useless church at Laodicea. This comfortable church, this smug church who didn’t think they needed anything because they had all the resources in the world, He’s saying to them, “Buy from me gold so you might become rich. Buy from me white garments so you might clothe yourself, and the shame of your nakedness might not be revealed. Buy from me eye salve to anoint your eyes so you might see.” And of course, (this always happens in churches) is this group of prosperous churchgoers, smug, self-sufficient churchgoers, thought, “Cool, I can buy my way out of this. That’s what Jesus is telling me, right? I just need to write a check and all will be well. I need to buy gold, I need to buy garments, I need to buy eye salve. How much? Where do I make the check out to? What’s the Venmo account? Show me the QR code.” Right? But is that what the Lord is saying here? That they can buy the things they need to fix spiritually? That they can remedy the Lord’s negative assessment of them by just throwing money at the problem? No. That’s never been the solution. Was never the solution in ancient Asia Minor. It’s not the solution today. That’s not what Jesus is saying here at all. Consider these words from Isaiah 55:1. It says, “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The Lord here now is giving a similar encouragement to the church at Laodicea. He’s telling this church in this town, “Come and buy. Not with your money though, not with your material wealth. This isn’t about your bank account. Rather, you simply have to come to Me in faith.” You need to be prepared to have the Lord give it to you, and give it to you without cost. And that’s a word of both warning and encouragement to all of us here this evening. That none of us has anything that we own, or could own, that could possibly inch us any closer to the Lord. None of us has anything that we own or could own, no bank account, or trust fund or you name the thing, that could get us any more favor with the Lord. All of us, at some point, have to throw ourselves on the mercy of God. All of us at some point have to ask for His grace and we have to declare that what we don’t have, and understand that what we don’t have, that which we cannot buy, is the very thing that we need from Him as a free gift. Anyone who comes to God on those terms, recognizing it’s not about what we do, what we put into the pot, how much we give. Anybody who comes to God on those terms, will be granted eternal life, if they put their faith exclusively in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and that He rose three days later to secure payment for forgiveness of sin. They’ll be saved from their sins and will receive rich eternal blessings in glory. So it was with this unconverted church in Laodicea they are now being graciously being beckoned to repent and believe in Jesus. To stop messing around. To stop playing church. To receive salvation in its fullness, to be given spiritual sight and at no charge. And now we come to verse 19. The Lord continues. He says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent.” Now note the logic here. He says, “I’ve just reproved you. I’ve just disciplined you.” And that means what? “I love you.” Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines. Now, interestingly, the word that He uses for love there is not agape love. That self-sacrificing sort of love which we often see referred to with God specifically in sending His Son into the world, that form of love that Christ Himself demonstrated in offering Himself up as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. Rather, the word here is “phileo,” a love of friendship, a love of affection. And we do know that God does in a sense has a love for believers, for His children we know, and He has a different form of love for the world. And we see that brought out in this verse. Though this church was lost, though this church was full of unregenerate people, there was still a sense in which He loved them. And He reproved them because of His love for them. He rebuked them because of His love for them. This is the kind of rebuke that God brings to unbelievers in different ways. We see like in John 16:8, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” In 2 Timothy 2:25 Paul says that the under-shepherds of the church, will correct those who are in opposition, which is a reference to unbelievers. They’re receiving a rebuke, a correction, and ultimately it’s out of love. Now God hates sinners. Let that be said clearly. Psalm 5:5, that God “hate[s] all workers of iniquity.” But God also loves sinners. 2 Peter 3:9, God does not wish that any would perish, but that all would reach repentance. But to hold those truths in balance. Speaking of repentance, look at the next part of verse 19 where our Lord says, “Therefore be zealous and repent.” That’s a call to salvation. This is calling for immediate action in Laodicea. A turning from sin in Laodicea. To turn to Christ with all of their heart and trust fully in His finished work on the cross. The message for this church at Laodicea is, “Repent now. With haste. Without delay.” He’s telling them, “Don’t wait until your bank account is where you want it to be or your van is full with as many kids as you want to have or you have the house on the hill that you wanted or whatever. Just repent. And out of that will come this godly zeal, this burning passion and pursuit of God, which comes from a true heart of redeemed faith.” Moving on to verse 20. He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” Of course, this is one of the most abused verses in all of the Bible. This is the origin of the “Jesus is standing at the door of your heart and knocking” books and bookmarks and T-shirts and movies. We’ve all heard the silly saying, that “the door only has a handle on the inside.” and “only you can open the door and Jesus is out there on the porch. He’s in the rain waiting to come in. Waiting for you to open the door. Just unlatch the door, let Him in.” It all comes from Revelation 3:20. But that’s actually has nothing to do with context. Rather, in context, how Jesus is being presented here is directly in contrast to what was happening in the households at Laodicea at this time. See, Laodicea was sort of this far-out inland outpost in the Roman Empire and Roman soldiers were regularly stationed there as they were in other towns within the empire. And by way of imperial edict, the people of Laodicea were required to bring in Roman soldiers who were posted there. And they were required to feed those Roman soldiers and their guests and clothe them. But Roman soldiers weren’t exactly known for being polite. So they wouldn’t knock and ask for permission to come in. They would force their way in. Jesus here though is portrayed as knocking. What a picture that is of the Lord Jesus with the title deed to the universe, with all rights to bring imminent judgment on this church if did not repent, and He’s knocking on the door. He could have kicked in the door. He could have rammed the door. But He’s knocking on the door. He’s giving them another chance. If they don’t, they will face His judgment and His wrath, but if they do, as it says here, they will dine with Him. They will dine with Him now in the sense of enjoying fellowship and communion with Him. The intimacy that He experiences with followers of Christ, members of His family. But there is also a day coming where they will dine with Him, and that event in Revelation 19, known as the marriage supper of the Lamb. So Jesus here in verse 20 is speaking to this lost, unregenerate group of people who were calling themselves a church. This is a church that Christ is not in, but He wants back in the church. That’s why He’s knocking. This is not Christ knocking on the door of any unbeliever’s heart. This is Jesus saying, if there’s anyone in Laodicea, or for that matter today, in any dead, lifeless, unsaved church of our era, He will come and He will open the door. He’ll come in and He’ll re-enter that church if they repent and believe. That church can again be called a church of Jesus Christ. They can have fellowship yet again if they put their faith in Him. This is in other words, a final attempt, a final warning to this lukewarm church, this lost church to let the Lord back in. Not into their hearts, but into their church. Now, does that mean, because I’ve blown up the notion of Jesus knocking on the door of our hearts, does that mean that the Lord isn’t interested in hearts turning to Him? No, that doesn’t mean that. Look at verse 21. It says, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” So as we’ve established throughout this series, the one who overcomes is a follower of Jesus Christ. 1 John 5:5, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” That’s the one who overcomes, the believer in Jesus Christ, the Christian. To the overcomer, verse 21, He says, “I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.” So those who are overcomers, in other words, are not only immediately co-heirs with Christ. We will one day be co-rulers with Christ. As Christ also overcame when He died on the cross for sin and rose three days later. When you trust in Jesus Christ as Savior, when you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you die to sin, you’re made alive to righteousness. One day you will rise, the Lord having paved the way for you through His own resurrection. And one day you will reign with Him during His coming thousand-year reign here on earth and the eternal state to follow. 2 Timothy 2:12 says, “If we endure, we will also reign with Him.” That’s the promise to the overcomer. What a message to the church there at Laodicea, that had its notions of having everything figured out. What a message for a church that seemed to have alot going on for it on the outside. They thought they were sitting on top, they thought they were best in show, they thought they were the cream of the crop, they had all their financial concerns taken care of. They thought they actually had overcome based on their various worldly achievements, but they weren’t overcomers. They were fake. They still could become overcomers though if they put their faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the main idea. Last is verse 22. We’ve seen this in the other letters, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, as He does with every other jot and tittle of Scripture, has given us this letter to the Laodiceans, really to lay on top of life in the body here at Indian Hills. And the question that we have to leave with this evening is are we listening to what the Lord is saying? Are we heeding what the Lord is saying? Are we hearing what the Lord is saying? Is it clicking? Do we get it? Not just with what’s said in this letter but in the other six letters. That’s going to be a wrap on the first three chapters, our study of the first three chapters of Revelation. As we looked at these seven letters to these seven churches, we’ve seen all these different words of commendation that Christ gives these ancient churches. We’ve seen these words of challenge He gives them. And we have seen like this evening, these words of condemnation. And again our task is to engage in some prayerful self-assessment. Where are we weak? Where are we strong? Where can we get better? Where can we grow? That’s going to be my prayer for many months. I pray you’ll be praying that as well. And I say many months because we won’t be back in the book of Revelation until September 14th. Why? Well, in the month of May, I’m happy to say we’re going to have some of our younger pastors get here and share the pulpit in the evenings. Excited to have Pastor Mike and Andrew and Austin and Aaron. Each will take a shift sometime in May. And then in evenings starting June 1, we’ll start “Summer in the Systematics” as we take 10 weeks to study “Pneumatology, the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” And then we’ll have “Fall Kick-Off” and then we’ll get to Revelation 4 and the throne in heaven. How glorious will that be? Unless He takes us there first. Amen. Let’s pray. Father, thank You so much for this evening. Thanks for the chance to open Your Word and be encouraged and challenged by what our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ had to say, not only to the ancient church of Laodicea, but to all churches of all time. God, I do pray that we would be reflective on all that we’ve learned in these last 7 weeks studying these 7 letters. God, I pray that we would take to heart what the Lord was saying as He evaluated these ancient churches but also recognize that the principles He lays out are timeless. And what we want to do sincerely and in earnestness, is to honor Jesus Christ in this church. Our desire is to be a pure church. A holy church. A godly church. A church that reveres your Word. A church that holds to the Word. A church that trumpets the name of Jesus Christ and shares the hope that we have within us with all that we come into contact with. Help us to mind and heed the warnings that we’ve seen in these letters. Some of those warnings come with age and familiarity and routine and just being used to doing things the way that we have always done them. And some of those warnings are directed to hearts. Hearts that are drifting or hearts that have already drifted or hearts that are dead. God, help us to do some real heart searching over the next many months, as we reflect on what we’ve learned. And help us to be a church not only today but for many, many decades, unless You come for us sooner, that brings great praise and honor and glory to the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. It’s in His name we pray. Amen.