Warnings, Exaltations, & Instructions – The Church at Laodicea
Revelation 3:14-21
How many of you are familiar with the PC movement? PC is short for Political Correctness, and you can sum up this movement with one statement – you don’t do or say anything that might be considered offensive to anyone else. I used to think that this was a great idea. After all, most of the time, we want to be sensitive to the feelings of those around us, but sometimes I think we take it too far.
One example I can think of is the fact that kids aren’t allowed to play Cowboys and Indians anymore on the playgrounds. After all, those who we use to call Indians are now to be referred to as Native Americans so as not to offend. My great grandmother was Cherokee. Although I never met her, I don’t believe that she had any problem with telling you that she was Cherokee, and she most likely would have no problem with being classified as an Indian. After all, that’s what she was. Now, we can’t use the word, and even sports teams are being forced to change their logos, mascots, and names if they refer to anything Native American. If you don’t believe me, you only have to look at IUP who are no longer allowed to be called the Indians.
Now, this was one instance that is on the fringe of the debate. I have no problem calling these people Native Americans if that is what they would like to be known as. I don’t want to purposely offend them at all. However, this was just a starting point. Did you know our church is not politically correct? After all, we still call our secretary a secretary instead of an administrative assistant. We should all apologize to Ember for this egregious offense. Even the Pope has been criticized for his un-PC remarks at a recent speech. This movement has also given birth to phrases such as vertically challenged instead of short, mail carrier instead of mail man, and hearing impaired instead of deaf.
This movement has even made its way into the churches. After all, if you say that Jesus is the only way to heaven, people will say that you are insensitive and narrow minded. And, don’t get me started with what we can and can’t say about homosexuality. My Bible still says it is a sin, but heaven forbid a Christian ever say that in public. Now, some churches are standing strong in the truth, and some are giving in to the PC movement as evidenced by a recent press clipping I found. Let me read it to you.
The Laodicean Church announces publication of “Church Songs”, whose title, according to the editor, was chosen because, “We didn’t want to turn anybody off with threatening words that no one understands anymore like ‘worship’ or ‘hymn’. People in today’s society get kind of uncomfortable with too much talk about things like commitment and dedication. They’d much rather have a religion that they can turn on or off at will. Our book seeks to meet that need.”
Here is a sample from the Table Of Contents:
• A Comfy Mattress Is Our God sung to the tune of A Mighty Fortress is Our God.
• Above Average is Thy Faithfulness sung to the tune of Great is Thy Faithfulness
• Blest Be the Tie That Doesn’t Cramp My Style sung to the tune of Blest Be the Tie that Binds
• I Surrender Some sung to the tune of I Surrender All
• Joyful, Joyful, We Kinda Like Thee sung to the tune of Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee
• Pillow of Ages, Fluffed for Me sung to the tune of Rock of Ages
• And finally, Take My Life and Let Me Be sung to the tune of Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated Lord to Thee
Now, obviously, this is a fictitious list, but I don’t think that it is far from the truth when we look at God’s Words to the Church at Laodicea. They may have been the first PC church. Let’s take a look at God’s Word to the in Revelation 3:14-21.
“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.”
These are some tough words. They are not PC but they are the truth. Let’s take a closer look at this church and this warning from the Lord. Before we begin though, let’s pray.
Understanding Laodicea:
Laodicea was about forty-five miles southeast of Philadelphia and about one hundred miles due east of Ephesus. It was in a fertile valley along with Colosse and Hierapolis, and the great Roman road stretching to the inland of Asia from the coast at Ephesus ran straight through its center. This made Laodicea an important center of trade and communication. Laodicea was actually known for 3 things.
1) It was known firstly for its wealth. It was the financial and banking center of the whole region and had money to burn. So wealthy was Laodicea that after the great earthquake of A.D. 17, which destroyed it, the people refused imperial help in rebuilding the city, choosing rather to do it entirely by themselves. It would be like New Orleans refusing government aid after Katrina and replacing all the buildings and infrastructure itself. It was rich and had no need of any help. This led to a beautiful church building with finances to spare.
2) Much of its wealth came from the production of a fine quality of famous glossy black wool which would be exported throughout the known world. Clothing, much like today, was very important. Although they did not have brand names like we do today, they had specific materials that showed how rich you were. Wearing black wool from Ephesus was the equivalent of wearing an Armani suit or a designer dress right off the runway in Paris.
3) Laodicea was also famous for its school of medicine and particularly for a special ointment known as "Phrygian powder." This was famous for its ability to cure eye defects. It was made into a salve that could be rubbed around the eye area and cure all types of eye ailments. Because of its effectiveness, this salve was in great demand in the area and in all parts of the world. No one else in the world had a product such as this one.
But for all its fame, Laodicea was also known for something else. It had a horrible water supply. Despite its wealth, it did not have a local water supply sufficient to provide for its population. This is important because they had plenty of good water around. They had a great mountain spring just outside the city that had very cold water that was great for drinking. They also had famous hot springs that contained the hottest water around. They never could figure out a way to get the water into town effectively apart from bringing it down in buckets.
This was quite a place to live, and you would think that people with this much money, brains, and resources would have it all figured out. However, this was not the case. This is the only church mentioned in the Bible that receives no exaltations. In fact, they receive only a stern warning and a couple of instructions. Let’s first take a look at this warning.
A Stern Warning – Be Hot or Cold
I am sure all of you have read and heard numerous sermons on this passage of Scripture. Most of them have a common message that states God wants us to either be hot or cold. By hot, we are usually referring to a Christian who is on fire for God, and by cold, we are referring to people who are sinners and lost. God does not want you to be in between because it makes him sick. This makes sense because hot and cold are the two people that God can use. He can use those who are hot to do his work on earth, and he can bring the cold to himself using the words and actions of the hot. Then, you have the lukewarm. These are the ones that make God sick, and God cannot use them. They say they are Christians. They go to church regularly. They put on a good show so that others think they are good people. However, God can’t work in their lives because they have convinced themselves that they are already Christians yet they refuse to do any work thinking that they have already arrived. This is where the people of the Laodicean church stood, and God did not like this at all.
This is a great explanation of this passage, but I believe we have to take this a step farther. I told you two things earlier that come into play now about this community. First of all, they had a famous salve that could cure eye diseases. This salve could only be made if you had all the ingredients along with water that was hot and water that was cold. This is a problem because I told you that they had a lack of water in the city. The production of this salve was held back because they could only bring in so much hot and cold water everyday by bucket. So, like any good businessmen do, they searched for a better way to do this. Confident of their brains, they built a much bigger factory in the city in which they built an elaborate pipe system which would transport the water into the plant. They had one pipeline for the cold water and another pipe for the hot water. This was great, but there was one problem. By the time all the water came down the pipelines, the temperature had changed. The cold water had become warm and the hot water had become warm, and warm water could not be used to make salve. Basically, they had wasted time, money and resources, because they needed both the cold and hot water.
Now that we know this, let’s look at Christ’s warning again. He tells them either to be hot or cold and never luke-warm. They knew exactly what God meant by this. Luke-warmness meant uselessness. It meant a loss of something that was important to them – time and money. Luke-warmness was something that they despised, and now God was telling them the same thing. He couldn’t use them if they were luke-warm, and they were a waste of His time and resources. I’m sure God’s words must have hit home with the Christians in Laodicea. I hope they hit home with our church today as well. We should never look for a shortcut. We should always remain useful. We should always look to make ourselves into something that God can use to make salve to open people’s eyes.
God’s Instructions – A Four Point Plan
I’m so glad that God does not leave this church hanging – He offers them a plan to get back on track. He offers them a way to become hot again.
1. Buy into my gold. God starts off by pointing to something they know all about. They knew all about gold and money. After all, they were a very wealthy society, and they were proud to be. This is evidenced by the fact that they rebuilt their entire city by themselves with their own money. And, with this wealth, there comes a sense of security. After all, they could handle anything that came their way. Their whole city had been destroyed and their money got them out of that situation, so they were confident they could handle just about anything.
God goes straight to the heart here. He tells these people who have everything under the sun that they are wretched, pitiful, and poor. Talk about being un-PC! They, he goes on to say that in order to become rich, they needed to buy gold refined in the fire from God. This is a picture of what happens to our soul once God saves us. He takes something that is valuable, melts it down, and forms it into something even more valuable. You see, even though they were in the midst of plenty, their souls were starving. And, since they were not living the Christian life, they were actually in debt to God. Can you imagine how they must have reacted to this statement? These people, who had more than you can even imagine, were being told they were in fact poor and even owed money to another. They had a debt they could only pay by giving their life over to God so that he could remake them into who he wanted them to be. I think we need to do the same sometimes.
2. Clothe yourself in white. Another important thing to these people was their black wool. They wore it proudly like a badge around town. This clothing was a sign of how much they had and that they had things all together. God, however, makes another alarming statement to them.
First of all, he tells them they are naked. This was something that was unthinkable. Only the poorest of the poor went around showing their nakedness. Not only were they clothed, but they were clothed in the finest the world had to offer. And then he tells them they need to get rid of this black clothing and replace it with garments of white. This was a metaphor for telling them that they need to put on righteousness and live pure and holy lives. Even though they wore the finest clothes for the world to see, God saw them as naked because their souls were not properly covered by the grace of God that leads to living a pure and holy life.
3. Put salve on your own eyes. Finally, God’s last un-PC statement takes a shot at their most famous invention. He tells them they are blind, and this should be very ironic to them. After all, they make salve that allows other people to see, and yet, they cannot see themselves. In fact, they need to place salve on their own eyes to see God’s ways and God’s desire’s for their lives.
In 2 Kings 6:15-17, we can see the kind of blindness God is talking about. An officer of Elisha was very worried because their camp had been surrounded by the army of the King of Aram. This is his response. “When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. ‘Oh, my lord, what shall we do?’ the servant asked him. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ the prophet answered. ‘Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, ‘O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened his eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” You see, there are two sets of eyes that we all have. We have our physical eyes that we see what is around us, and our spiritual eyes which show us the world as the Lord sees it. This is what God was trying to get them to realize.
4. Repent. In the Greek, this word has a great meeting. So often, we think of repenting as asking the Lord for forgiveness when we do something wrong. This is part of forgiveness. In the Greek, this word meant to turn completely around – to do a 180. So, repentance involves asking for forgiveness and then turning away from what we were doing and going in a completely opposite direction. We must go from traveling our own way and travel in the direction that God wants us to go. I don’t think there is enough true repentance among Christians today.
Church, are you stale this morning? Are you satisfied with going through the motions? Is being a Christian something you wear as a badge or is it a lifestyle you try and live out. We have all been guilty of being luke-warm in our faith from time to time, but I pray that we never get comfortable there. God wants us to remain useful. God wants us to make a difference in this world. God wants us to be hot for Him. However, we must make sure that we look to buy his gold. We must be sure to clothe ourselves in his righteousness. We must put His salve on our eyes so we can see as He sees. And, above all, we must repent when we have gone our own way. If you need to do that this morning, the altars will be open as we pray and sing.
