Revelation is the scariest book in the Bible, yet it’s also one of the most comforting, reassuring, and exciting books in the Bible.
The beloved disciple John is almost certainly the author of the book, but unlike other New Testament letters, the first few chapters of this book seem to be like a dictation straight from Jesus. In fact Jesus is quoted several times throughout the entire book.
Obviously the book of Revelation is highly symbolic, but that doesn’t mean many of these symbols can’t be interpreted. Many of them are also found in some of the Old Testament prophet’s writings, as well as earlier books in the New Testament.
This book like much of Scripture, is very much on two levels. On one level it’s written to the people of John’s time and the seven churches specific to the first century, but it’s also a book that was written to the everlasting church of Christ before he comes back to claim His bride. Through all ages of church history, this book can be understood. This is one of the reasons so much symbolism is used, because these symbols are unspecific and can be used throughout time with similar meaning.
The difficulty of course is agreeing upon the meaning of all the symbols as there are at least four basic interpretive schools of thought.
So that’s a general background, and many interpretive issues will come up throughout the book, but for now let’s start by looking at the first three chapters where Jesus writes to the seven churches in Asia or modern day Turkey.
In the first three chapters of Revelation Jesus himself is making comments about the churches. All but two get commendations, and only two escape any rebuke or judgment. I’m not going to spend much time on each church as I believe it is the last church, Laodicea, that represents our church era.
Why are only seven churches mentioned? There were many more throughout this region. For one, the number seven is a number of completeness and it’s pretty much accepted that these churches represent the seven different ages, or eras of the Christian church. Therefore it is a complete prophetic history of Christ’s church both present in John’s time, and future up to and beyond today. We can learn from all these churches, but it’s generally accepted that we are now in the final church era, represented by the Laodicean church.
We are in the final stage of church history, the church that will see the end times. Laodicea was known as the rich/poor church, high on reputation, low on substance. Most importantly they didn’t recognize their own state in God’s eyes.
The city of Laodicea today is nothing but rubble and half buried tombs that have long ago had their contents rifled through. Like every other man-made empire, whether it be the Romans, the Mayans, the great communist block, the twin towers in New York or any other, they all have their day and are no more.
The only empire that has lasted for the last two millenia is the church. Yes many individual churches have died, but Christ’s church is still very much alive and always will be. Are we living as if we are Christ’s church? Because if we take ownership and try to make it our own little empire, we know the ultimate destiny of it.
I want to set the stage for the rest of Revelation by showing how the last church mentioned by Christ includes us, and how the rest of the book of Revelation is written pretty much directly to us in the final era of church history.
So how do we look like this 1st century church? Four similarities are striking, starting with:
I. We are Lukewarm (vv 15-16)
These are chilling words, especially the opening line – “I know your deeds. You are neither cold or hot”. You know the first thing that comes to mind with this statement - milk. I love a nice cold glass of milk, and I like hot chocolate, but a room temperature glass of milk is gross. Lukewarm food, lukewarm pop, lukewarm anything that is supposed to be either hot or cold is usually disgusting, and if God tastes his church and it’s lukewarm, he will spit it out.
The Lord said of the religious but misguided Pharisees, “The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” While of the non-religious multitudes he only said, as he looked on them with compassion, “They are as sheep having no shepherd.”
Elijah said to his people, “If Baal be God, serve him;” “better be hearty in his service
than serving neither God nor Baal, as you now are.”
The Laodiceans knew what Jesus meant because their city was fed by a wonderful hot spring via aquaduct from the north. But by the time it got to the city, it was lukewarm, not cold enough to be refreshing to drink, and not hot enough to sooth as a bath or make tea with. The word that the Lord uses for spit really means vomit, so He’s saying that the lukewarm faith of the Laodiceans made him nauseous.
We have to wonder how they got this way, and the answer has to be compromise and complacency. How do you get lukewarm water out of a tap? You have to turn on a little bit of hot, and a little bit of cold. Most humans don’t like extreme temperatures do we? We want comfort, and compromise is the easiest way to get as much comfort as possible.
We’re baptising people today, and I think baptism in our day reflects this compromise. Baptism in the Bible is the first step of obedience and public profession of rebirth in Christ. Today we tend to be blahzey about it. “I don’t need to be baptized to be saved, I’m not ready, I’m uncomfortable getting up in front of people”.
In the New Testament, people couldn’t wait to get into the water after they believed. Today it’s usually, “I’ll get around to it when I feel ready”. Did you ever consider that the fact that you don’t feel ready may mean that you don’t yet fully believe what you are professing? Am I saying you have to be baptized to be saved? No, but I am suggesting that if you truly believe, you would probably have a strong desire to be baptized. Stronger than the fear and excuses we make not to.
This Laodicean church was full of seemingly content, comfortable, well to do people who wanted to attend a church where nobody takes doctrinal issues too seriously, where there’s little discussion of controversial issues, and nobody would confront them about their lifestyle. They got just enough teaching to keep them happy with enough restraint to keep the truth from affecting their will and launching them into true service for Jesus.
It was probably a very comfortable church in a nice building with lots of people giving money, but their giving was to justify not having to be inconvenienced by really living a Christian life. That kind of church makes Jesus sick, and it’s the most common kind of church today. A spiritually alive financially poor church is better than a rich spiritually dead one.
The real tragedy for them, and for us today as we shall see, is that we don’t even recognize our true state, or we don’t care.
An underlying attitude that leads to this is that “The church belongs to the people”. That it’s owned by those who attend and it exists for their benefit. This is what turns churches into what many call religious country clubs. If the church isn’t meeting our selfish desires for comfort, and to give us what we want, we leave the church to find a better one, or if that’s too inconvenient we stir up dissension so we can get some fresh blood in the leadership to hopefully change the church to our liking.
J.B Marsden summarizes it well I think. He says, “Another symptom of lukewarmness in religion may be discovered in the influence which the opinions and the example of the world exert upon us. Why not preserve just so much of religion as will satisfy the meagre
demands of a sleepy conscience, and yet enjoy the pleasures, and pursue with breathless haste the riches, of the world? The attempt is vain!”
We have to admit that this provides a pretty accurate description of most churches today, we are apathetic, lacking passion, we don’t want to leave our comfort zones, and our ministries are not reaching many people outside the church. Love for the world dampens spiritual zeal.
I read that three major signs of lukewarmness are: 1) growing inattention to the private duties or disciplines of Christianity, 2) carelessness in attending public worship, and 3) an indifference to the benevolent duties of the church, and scant giving to the church.
Not only were the Laodiceans comfortable and lukewarm, they, like us were:
II. Very Prosperous (v. 17a)
Laodicea was the most prosperous city of the seven mentioned here. There were many big houses that archaeologists have uncovered, they had a very special clothing industry, a famous medical school, and this city has been called by one commentator as a first century Bank of America, Macy’s, and Mayo Clinic rolled into one. They were famous for a special breed of black sheep that produced a high priced wool, and they had an expensive eye salve that people would come from all over to get.
Our culture has never been more prosperous, yes we are in major debt, but people have more stuff than they have ever had. Human achievement in the areas of technology and medicine are going forward at a staggering pace. You can buy just about anything even if you’re not what we would consider rich.
None of this is wrong, but there is nothing that will dampen spiritual enthusiasm more than prosperity and comfort, especially when we think it is self-created.
We are very well off, and the truth is for the most part:
III. We Don’t See Our True State (vv 17b-18)
The Laodiceans didn’t realize they were as Jesus put it, wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. He goes on to say that they need to buy from Jesus gold refined by fire, so they can be truly rich. In other words, easy money doesn’t make anyone spiritually rich, only the real thing, Jesus, and a Christian life that has been refined by trials does.
Remember they were famous for black wool? Well, Jesus says buy some white garments from me so that the shame of your nakedness is not seen. The nakedness is their lack of righteousness. The white garment is real salvation, the righteousness of Christ, the fancy clothes they had left them naked spiritually and morally. They were not “clothed in salvation”.
They were also blind to their own spiritual condition, so Jesus says get your eye salve from me so you can really see the truth. That stuff you make won’t help you at all in the end. The characteristics of this church remind me of the Titanic, everyone lulled into complacency thinking it was so good it could never sink.
See how he attacked everything they were proud of, letting them know how useless it was in the eternal scheme of things. Are we not at least somewhat like that today? Aren’t we for the most part covetous and idolatrous of the stuff this wonderfully advanced world can provide? Do we really rely on Christ to provide for our real needs?
Since the Garden of Eden God wanted to provide everything we needed. He wanted to make our lives easy, all he wanted was fellowship with us. Now it seems that we provide everything we need and want out of our own self-sufficiency, and the only thing we need from Him is salvation, or his intervention when problems come, and most people don’t even see the need for that.
People these days say that God is obsolete. I guess to some degree that’s true because we have made him obsolete, trying to get Him out of the picture by our own efforts to provide what we need. I really believe that God wants us to be poor in the sense that we are not so self-sufficient. Unless it was possible to have everything and still have a desperate zeal for and dependence on God.
That is why the Gospel is booming in underdeveloped countries, because they need God to provide the basics. In many ways in western culture man has replaced God with their own achievements, this has been true since the tower of Babel, and it allows us to put God in the background of our lives, calling on Him only when desperate.
The Laodicean church was smug. “Look what we have achieved, we don’t need anything”. But Jesus says, “Oh yeah, you say you are rich, but I tell you, you are poor”. Translated into our day, this church had plenty of money, padded mahogany pews, a giant pipe organ, professional music, a dynamic preacher who sold lots of books, the most important people of the community attending, and all the other churches compared themselves to it.
But the Lord, who really owns the church had horrible things to say about it. He is basically saying the church is not a country club operated for the benefit of its members. It’s not a performing arts centre where one is entertained by charismatic speeches and wonderful music, and it is not a political action group. It is supposed to be salt and light to a dying world, with nobody inside dying.
Ray Stedman says the Laodicean church period is characterized by people dictating what is to be taught that will tickle their ears, rather than submitting to the authority of the Word of God. Isn’t it interesting that the name Laodicea means “people’s rights”.
There was a time when the church taught that not only are our rights as Christians not important, but that the old self was to be crucified, denied, and kept under strict control. Again this death to self and resurrection in Christ is symbolized in the Baptisms we will witness today. But today the church is increasingly compromising on the Word of God and putting self at centre stage, rather than Christ and what he demands from His church.
How can the Church of Christ condone abortion, or the marrying and ordaining of homosexuals? Yet it’s happening at an alarming rate in many churches under the vale of love, inclusiveness, and tolerance. The church was never commanded to be tolerant of things that go against the revealed will of God.
But, in spite of all this:
IV. We Still Have Hope (vv 19-21)
Jesus doesn’t leave us here. There are still faithful churches and faithful people in the church, and Jesus gives us the solution to becoming a good taste in His mouth once again. He is basically saying turn again to me for the things you really need, the spiritual things like the cloak of salvation, the robe of righteousness, spiritual eyes that see the truth, and a faith that is tested and refined like gold.
Notice though, he’s saying here, “buy from me these things”, not just ask for them, not here are some gifts, but that there is a cost. And what would the cost be for a lukewarm Christian? Comfort, security, wealth, selfishness of time and decision making? Jesus never mislead us, he always said there was a cost to follow Him.
Then he encourages us with what’s in store. He’s rebuking us and disciplining us because he loves us. And he says if you are earnest and repent of how you have been doing church, living out your Christian life, he is there standing at the door knocking. He’s not going to break the door down yet because he’s a gentleman and he will not come in without an invite.
We are the ones who have put Him outside the door, he hasn’t abandoned us, and if we hear him and open the door, he will come in and eat with us. In other words have close fellowship with us. I have to wonder sometimes if we really want Christ leading the church. That might get uncomfortable, might stir us from our apathy. We see later that one day he will break down the door and it will be less pleasant than if we opened it for him.
Don’t you sense that? Don’t you feel like he is right there ready to do something, just waiting for us to invite him to? One day we are going to dwell with him as true believers, that is what the rest of Revelation is getting at, but he wants to be with us now, acting through us as His church, his body here on earth to usher in the Kingdom here, today. Are we going to open the door? Or do we value our comfort too much?
I’ve planned the whole year in terms of teaching and I’m calling it VIM – vision, intention, and means. We are starting at the end in Revelation to see what’s in store, the vision of the future. After Christmas we’ll look at whether or not we have the intention to be the people that will experience this good end. Then through the rest of the Winter and Spring we will study what Jesus says will get us to this end, the means.
I expect God to do amazing things throughout this year. At the end of it all I hope to have a big celebration where everyone can share their journey through this year of renewal. I don’t think we need revival, I think we need renewal, we need to get off the mountain. We are alive, if just barely, but we need to renew our first love, our commitment and zeal that’s been there in the past, but may lie dormant today.
We are going to baptize three people in a few minutes, and as we get ready for that, I encourage you to search yourselves, repent of your apathy as a saved Christian, and if you haven’t been baptized, truly put yourself to death and given your life totally to Christ, perhaps you will consider making that commitment soon.
I have no problem leaving this thing up for another week, or if you have really made that decision today, I am willing to hear your testimony and baptize you on the spot today. The water’s lukewarm, but you don’t have to be.
