Revelation 3: 14 – 22
The Church That Makes Our Lord Sick
14 “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: 15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. 21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’”
Today we come to the last of the letters to the seven churches, the letter to the church at Laodicea, the church that made the Lord Jesus Christ sick...the lukewarm church. Do you think that there are some churches today that also make our Holy King and Master want to throw up? Sadly, I would say that there are quite a few in existences that fit this mold.
These letters, as you know, are directed at seven churches, actual churches, and historical churches in actual cities in Asia Minor. But they transcend their time and space and they become model letters to various kinds of churches that exist in all eras of church history. They illustrate for us the character of churches in our own day, in fact since Pentecost. And Laodicea, is the last, is the worst. Five churches with serious problems have already been addressed and they are on somewhat of a descending scale. As you move through the seven letters, remember two of them had no condemnation, that's Smyrna and Philadelphia. The other five progressively degenerate.
There was Ephesus, the church still strong doctrinally, but the church that left its first love. There was Pergamos which had not denied the faith but was tolerating sin. There was Thyatira where there was still some good things going on but full-blown compromise with evil had taken place and the majority seemed to have been involved. Then there was Sardis, a church with only a few genuine believers, a church which had a name but was actually dead.
Now at the bottom, if you will, is Laodicea. This is an unsaved church. In fact, if there were any believers in this church they aren't even referred to in the letter at all. It is a church that is characterized by a condition our Lord described as being lukewarm which a metaphor of having all non-saved people becomes. Laodicea has the grim distinction of being among all seven letters the only one in which our Precious Holy Lord Jesus Christ has nothing good to say. It is unmitigated condemnation. There is in this church apparently absolutely no redeeming feature. This is the unsaved, unregenerate false church. Because of the nature of the church this is the most threatening epistle. This is the most blistering rebuke. And it is sent to a proud church.
We have mentioned that in addition to these 7 churches actually existing but that these letters also represent church age history. Here is the breakdown;
Ephesus – 31 to 135 AD
Smyrna – 135 to 300 AD
Pergamos – 300 to 538 AD
Thyatira -538 to 1798 AD
Sardis – 1798 to 1929
Philadelphia – 1929 to 1999
Laodicea – 1999 to Return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Yes, folks we are now living in the last days. How long will it be till our Holy Lord and Savior returns we do not know.
The city of Laodicea was located in the Lycus River Valley, the southwest area of Phrygia. Of the seven cities in the letters, it is the most southeasterly. It is 45 miles southeast of Philadelphia and would be about directly east of Ephesus about 100 miles. Laodicea became a very important city. It had been founded by Antiochus II in the third century B.C. He named it for his wife.
Crucial to this city was its water supply. There were some local streams in the area but as the population grew and developed the local streams and rivers were inadequate. In fact some of them dried up in the winter. And so water had to be brought in. Well the only way they could bring it in there was by an underground aqueduct. And being very enterprising they managed to build an aqueduct and the water flowed down this aqueduct into the city of Laodicea.
In the US we run across cities like this. New York City runs pipes to the Delaware water gap to provide for its citizens. You would think that the Hudson next to the five boroughs would be adequate enough. It is so polluted that this isn’t even considered.
A second key feature that's going to come into play in the letter that dominates the city is the commercial aspect. There are several things you need to know about the commercial aspect of the city. First of all, it was a banking center. It was very wealthy apparently because it was on the crossroads, north, south, east, west, it became a business hub and it became a banking center for people moving in all directions to put their funds. They became so very wealthy that when in 60 A.D. the city was totally flattened by an earthquake, Rome offered to give them some money to rebuild and they refused it saying they had plenty of their own. The people of Laodicea prided themselves in rejecting the offer of financial help from Rome and rebuilt the city far more beautiful than it had ever been and they did it with their own funds.
A second feature in the commercial area had to do with the wool industry. Laodicea became famous for its wool industry and the major product, this is very interesting, was a soft wool that was glossy black in color, shiny black. It was used for clothing and it was used also for weaving into carpets, both locally and after export.
The third key feature about the city in a commercial sense was its medical school. It had about thirteen miles north of the city a very famous medical school. It was basically established in connection with an ancient temple that was associated with the god identified later by the name of Aesculapius, the god of healing who is still around in old medical literature. The medical school had famous teachers, but the thing that was most prominent in the medical school was they developed a certain salve for the eye. And people from all over that part of the world when they had an eye ailment would come to this medical school near Laodicea to get the eye salve that they would then put on their eyes which would bring some measure of comfort and healing.
14 “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God:
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ introduced Himself to the church at Laodicea as “the Amen, The Faithful and True Witness, The Ruler of God’s Creation”. These titles were not taken from the description of Adoni Yeshua in chapter 1. Neither do they have any parallels in the final chapters. However, the ideas in the names are implicit to the book of Revelation as a whole.
First of all, we begin in verse 14, "And to the angel," that is the messenger, the one who was to deliver the letter, the word angel, angelos, being angel or messenger. This was the seventh of the messengers that had received these letters from the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. And as they moved from city to city, each one would arrive at his own church with the letter for that church. We don't know whether each of them had a copy of the whole of the apocalypse, the whole of the revelation. But we do know that each one would have a copy of the letter specifically for their own church.
To the angel of the church in Laodicea write," and here we're introduced to the correspondent. "The Amen’, The Faithful and True Witness, The Beginning of the Creation of God, says this." Now you remember that in each case the letter begins with an identification of the one who writes none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. However, in this case this is a somewhat unique introduction. The Lord identifies Himself here in three titles. He calls Himself; The Amen; The Faithful and True Witness; and The Beginning of the Creation of God.
“The Amen’ is a unique title. The prophet Isaiah listed in his book in chapter 65 verse 16 this, "The God of amen." That's Hebrew for truth, or affirmation, or certainty. God was called the God of truth then, the God of certainty, the God of affirmation. Whatever God says is so, whatever God says is true, and whatever God says is certain therefore He's the God of amen.
Sometimes you see it at the very end of a verse. It is to seal the certainty of what has been said. Amen means firm, fixed, certain, faithful, unchangeable. Those are all words that surround the meaning of amen.
How is our God and Ruler Messiah here the amen? Well we could say that He is ‘The Amen’ in the sense that He is God. If God Is the Old Testament amen, certainly our Lord Jesus Christ being God in human flesh is the New Testament amen. But there's more to it than just the reference to deity. He could have chosen a number of things to refer to Himself as God, but choosing ‘the amen’ takes it a step further. He is ‘the amen’ because He is true, He is the amen because He is certain.
But more than that, more specifically even than that general affirmation, Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:20 a very important truth. It says, "For all the promises of God in Him are amen." What does this mean? It means that all God's promises and all God's covenants are guaranteed and affirmed by the person and work of The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament God said I will forgive your sins. God could never do that if it were not for the person and work of Christ, right? - Because forgiveness was purchased by His atoning death. All of the promises that God made to take men and show them mercy and loving kindness, grace and give them a Kingdom and a hope and an eternal life are bound up in Jesus Christ fulfilling His work. So that everything that God ever planned or purposed for man, everything that God ever promised for man finds it’s amen in Jesus Christ. God's promises are all certain in Him. They all become sure in Him. And so, our Lord Jesus Christ Is God's amen, the One Who confirmed all the promises.
Then He identifies Himself as ‘The Faithful and True Witness’. This further elucidates the same line of thinking as the word amen. As I noted, amen has reference to truth and certainty and He follows that up by saying He is the faithful and true witness. Not only Is our Lord Jesus by His work, the amen, or the one who makes the promises of God certain, but every time He speaks what He says Is also true. What He did puts ‘the amen’ to punctuate the promises of God, what He says is always true. He is the faithful and true witness. He is completely trustworthy. He is perfectly accurate. His testimony never fails to be reliable. In fact, in the Gospel of John 14:6 He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He is, of course, the perfect true witness.
Back in John chapter 3 in verse 31 we read this, "He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all...speaking of Himself...what He has seen and heard of that He bears witness and no man receives His witness. He who has received His witness has set His seal to this, that God is true."
Here is something very important for you to think about. Our Lord Jesus comes; He speaks; yet some men reject Him. But whoever accepts what He says is saying God Is true. He Is the amen of God, He is the faithful, true witness who speaks the very Word of God. He Is then living verification and confirmation of the promises of God in everything He does and He affirms the truth of God in everything He says. He is absolutely true.
And this is a good way to begin the letter because it affirms to the people in Laodicea that He knows what He's talking about. That whatever assessment He gives of the church is absolutely accurate, that whatever promise He offers the church is absolutely affirmed in His perfect work. When He rightly assesses their unredeemed condition, He is a faithful and true witness to that condition. When He offers them the promise of fellowship in verse 20 which is a promise of salvation, He can offer that because He is ‘the amen’ Who seals the covenant of God, the promise of God.
The third thing He says about Himself is He Is ‘the beginning of the creation of God’. When He says He is the beginning of the creation of God, He doesn't mean that the first thing God ever created was Him. He doesn't say He was the first creature God ever created. He says He is the beginning of the creation. What He means by that is He Is the source of it. He Is the power by which creation began.
It should be noted for you that this letter sent to the church at Laodicea has much in common with Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. They were very close together. In fact, you could say that three cities were sister cities...Hierapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae.
Colossae was ten miles away. Those two churches were sister churches. It is very likely that whatever Christological heresy had filtered its way into the Colossian church and attacked the deity of Christ, and reduced Him to a created angelic being had also affected the church in Laodicea. This church had bought in to that erroneous view of Christ and consequently was unsaved and lost. That is a tragic thing. But always you will note the damning error is the error about Christ, is it not? Start naming the cults and what is in common with all of them? They deny what? - The deity of Jesus Christ.
When Paul was closing the letter to the Colossians, verse 16 of chapter 4, the last little part of Colossians, he said, "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans." Why? Well they must have been into the same error. And then he says, "And you for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea." That would have been the epistle that we know as Ephesians...most likely. So whatever was going on in Colossae probably had spilled over, only the church in Colossae was fighting it and the church in Laodicea had bought it.
When our Lord Jesus says here He Is the beginning of the creation of God, He is saying essentially the same thing that Paul said in Colossians chapter 1 verse 15, "He is the image of the invisible God, the Maker of all creation, of all those who have ever lived He is the Supreme One." And of course, in His humanity He did become man. But he says, "By 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 by Him and for Him. He is before all things...that is prior to them...in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body of the church." Here it is, "He is the beginning."
Apparently there was some question about Him because obviously Jesus had become a man, was born. He, of creation, was the supreme person ever born. But though He was born as man He always existed as God and while as man He had a beginning, as God He was the beginning. And so here, I believe, is a very important note. I believe the reason you have an unsaved church in Laodicea is because they had an errant doctrine about Christ. It was their heretical Christology that produced an unregenerate church. And what our Lord is saying to them in this letter is you must understand Who I Am, I Am The One Who has confirmed all the promises and covenants of God, I Am the One Who speaks truth and only truth and I Am the beginning of the creation.
So when He calls Himself the beginning, He is the arche, that is the beginner, the originator, the initiator. It's the same idea as in Revelation 22:13 where He says, "I Am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." He is the first, He is the Alpha, He is the originator, He Is the beginning. John put it this way, "By Him were all things made that were made."
So, the Lord Jesus Christ is preeminent as ‘the amen’, as the faithful and true witness, and as the creator. He Is Sovereign, Saving God, the uncreated source of creation.
15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.
In each of these letters to the churches we've also come to a fourth point, the commendation. However, there is no commendation here so there's nothing to say. Verse 15 He says, "I know your deeds, period, and I've got no comment." There isn't anything to say to commend anything you do.
So that takes us to the condemnation. And the condemnation is very important, verses 15 and 16. "I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." Whoa...strong language. I know your deeds. I know them intimately and I know them infallibly. I know your deeds. Deeds always reveal what a person is...always. "By their fruits you shall know them." Romans 2 verses 6 to 8, Paul makes it as clear as anywhere in the Bible, "God will judge you on the basis of your deeds." "God will render to every man according to His deeds." "To those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, He'll give eternal life. To those who are selfishly ambitious and don't obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, He'll bring wrath and indignation."
So He says I know your deeds and therefore I know your heart. I can see by what you do what you are. That is a very important statement with sweeping implications in the New Testament. A person who is a Christian manifests it. A person who is not manifests it.
Many Bible students misunderstand this idea. It does not mean that the Laodiceans were only semi-spiritual, half and half, and that He would prefer them even to be unspiritual. The idea was rather that because they were like lukewarm water they were useless for anything, and could only make people vomit. Cold water had its uses and so did hot water, but lukewarm water had none. It just made men sick. And so did them.
They were self-satisfied, complacent and unresponsive. They were so self-important that they felt they were doing enough when in reality they were doing nothing of any real importance at all, nothing that counted. They were lacking in every way, but were so proud that they did not realize their own inadequacy. There is no mention of their love for our Holy and Majestic Lord Jesus Christ, or of their faith, or of their endurance, or of their works. They did not get involved.
The Lord Jesus was wishing that they had some value, like cold water for drinking or hot water for bathing. A lukewarm, useless Christian, who can only make people sick, is a contradiction in terms.
We have to take note then the statement, the most relentless, overpowering rebuke yet. And the rebuke says, basically, "I spit you out of My mouth because you're lukewarm." This takes us back to our comments about the water supply. In Hierapolis, six miles to the north, there was some famous springs, hot springs. In fact, they were one of the most well-known and popular places for healing. The water was hot and you went there and sat in that water and it had therapeutic power. It is still used today. Hierapolis had hot water and that hot water was therapeutic.
In Colossae, ten miles south and east, there was a cold stream. We learned that the stream was perennially running and perennially cold like typical water that flows from the high mountains. That water was thirst quenching. That water was famous because of its cool, clear character.
They didn't have the hot therapeutic water of Hierapolis and they didn't have the cold clear refreshing water of Colossae, they had the foul, dirty, tepid water that flowed for miles through an underground aqueduct. It wasn't hot and it wasn't cold. Not hot enough to relax and restore, not cool enough to refresh and quench. Laodicea couldn't provide the refreshment of Colossae, it couldn't provide the healing of Hierapolis. Its lukewarm water was absolutely useless. Any visitor who came there who wasn't used to the stuff would put it in his mouth and immediately spit it out.
And the word "lukewarm," chliaros, is simply a word for tepid water. One historian says, "The water supply of Laodicea was derived from an artificial pipeline, bringing water which was literally lukewarm and so impure as to have a regurgitating effect."
What is the spiritual significance of this? Simply that the Laodicean church made Christ vomit. It was a sickening church. Some churches make the Lord weep. Some churches make the Lord angry. This one made Him sick. Back in chapter 2 and also in chapter 3 we saw His anger toward some churches, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis. But here He's sickened.
Now how are we to interpret these three categories? What does cold mean? Well that's not too tough. Cold means spiritually cold, open outright rejection of Jesus Christ, repudiating the gospel. He says you're not cold, I mean, you're just not openly, outright, rebellious, rejecting Christ and repudiating Christianity.
But on the other hand, what does hot mean? Zealous, spiritually alive and awake and eager and fired up, as it were, for the Lord. He says you're not that either. You're not boiling for...with spiritual zeal for the Lord, nor are you openly outright cold.
There are many in the world that are completely cold to the things of Christ. The gospel leaves them absolutely unmoved. It arouses no spiritual response. They have no interest in Christianity, no interest in the church. They make no pretense. They certainly aren't hypocrites. They don't even go near things that have to do with Christ. They are lost and they could care less. They don't want to hear the Word of God at all.
On the other hand, believers are marked by a response to spiritual truth and they're zealous and they're fervent. And He's saying metaphorically, I can take it if you were like Hierapolis because then you'd be real. I could even take it if you were like the cold water of Colossae. That's better than being the foul water of Laodicea, lukewarm. Who are they? Professing Christians...go to church, claim to know the Lord, but aren't saved. They're content with self-righteous religion. They're hypocrites playing games – playing church. They're the kind of people described in Matthew 7 where our Lord Jesus says, "Many will say unto Me in that day, `Lord, Lord,' and I will say unto them, `Depart from Me, I never knew you. You may have done many works in My name and prophesied and cast out demons, but I don't know you.'"
They're like those in 2 Timothy 3:5 who have a form of godliness but without power. They're like the Jews in Romans 10 who have zeal for God but not according to a true knowledge. They're just hypocrites touched someway by Christianity but not belonging to Christ. And there is something obnoxious about them. They nauseate Christ. They make Him sick.
There's much more hope, frankly, for one who has been untouched by the gospel. There's much more hope for one who has made no pretense of knowing Christ than there is for the one who makes the pretense but his life illustrates that he's not really honored Christ at all. In fact, I would say there's no one farther from the truth in Christ than the one who makes an idle profession without real faith. He is really in Satan's hands. They had bought a satanic lie about Christ. They were in religion up to their neck. They called it Christianity. They said they were a church. Satan was in control.
In the history of the church, no one has been harder to reach for Christ than a false Christian. Satisfied with the measure of his good works, satisfied with his attitude toward God and they sit in churches across the world.
17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
We read here that there was even something worse than being lukewarm and that was their self-deception. Look at verse 17. Here's the second condemnation. "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 miserable and poor and blind and naked." Look at that, first part of the..."Because you say." Do you remember the study we did in Matthew chapter 7 and we talked about the "if we sayers" and the "if we doers"? If we say...if we say...if we say, what our Lord Jesus said doesn't mean anything. What matters is if we do, if we do, if we do. It's not the people who say, it's the people who do the will of My Father.
Laodicea was a very wealthy city. It had material wealth; it gave its people a false security. They were famous for that wealth and apparently the church thought it was wealthy, too.
You say, "Were they talking about money here?" No, no, I don't really think they were talking about money. I think they thought they were rich in spiritual reality. I think they thought they had spiritual riches. Let me go a step further. I think the heresy in Colossae was a form of incipient Gnosticism, a sort of a preview to what later became known as Gnosticism. And Gnosticism comes from the word ‘gnosis’ which means "to know." In other words, there were people who believed that they had attained to the ascended knowledge. Christ was not enough for them. They had gone beyond Christ. Christ was just an emanation from God, an angelic being on a descending ladder of beings that go from good to bad. And He was somewhere up in the good category.
The Gnostics said, "But we have ascended beyond the simplicity of Christ. Christ is only a part, a component. We have reached the ascended knowledge. We have gone beyond that. And that's why Paul in Colossians chapter 2 so explicitly says of Christ, "In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and you are complete in Him and don't you let anybody spoil you through philosophy and empty deceit and think there's something more elevated than Christ." That same heresy had found its way over here, no doubt, and these people are saying, "We are the ascended ones." If this isn't the typical, hypocritical, liberal line directed at believers. - "You mindless fundamentalists”. All of you people who just believe the simplicity of the Bible are not educated. You're not up to speed. You haven't attained to the ascendant knowledge." You are anti-intellectual.
No, they had spiritual pride. They were rich. They had become spiritually wealthy. They had attained the ascended knowledge. They had gone past that simple belief about Christ that these uneducated and non-trained Christians believe. They think they're spiritually rich. So they said I am rich, that's their state, and have become wealthy, that's...that's the process to that state. They did it by themselves. I'm rich and guess who got me there? Me. And I have need of nothing. That's a self-righteous works system, isn't it? I've attained it all. I've reached the elevated level.
This is the hardest person to reach - The intellectual apostate, the intellectual unsaved hypocrite who stays in the church. Liberal churches flood our country. They have an aberrant view of Christ. They see Him not as the creator God. They have an infatuation with their own intellect and assume that they have been elevated beyond the simplicity of fundamental truth. And they have developed a self-righteous work system that makes them think they are the spiritually elite who need absolutely nothing. And when you come with the simple gospel, they laugh.
Here we see it clearly. The lukewarm condition is being lost. It is the sickening condition of thinking you are spiritually rich when you're bankrupt, of thinking you are beautiful when you are wretched, of imagining you are to be envied when you are to be pitied, of believing you see clearly everything when you see nothing. You are stone blind...a feeling you are clothed in spiritual finery and you are stark naked. That's what He's saying. You've got it exactly opposite.
You may have a bank account in the spiritual bank, you may be wearing the shiny black wool, and you may have the eye salve, but you're poor, you are poor and you are blind and you are naked.
This is a person to be pitied. That's what it means, miserable and wretched. You have no riches. You have no clothes. You have no vision, no sight. You are spiritually naked, spiritually blind, and spiritually bankrupt.
Verse 18 gives us the command, this is fascinating. Listen to this command. "I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire that you may become rich and white garments that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and eye salve that you may anoint your eyes that you may see." Whew...now you see how the industry of that city comes into play? I advise you, I'm giving you some counsel. Isn't the Lord gracious? He says you make Me sick but My grace compels Me to give you an invitation.
He could have turned them into cinders by the breath of His mouth. But it's an invitation to a church full of hypocrites. And it reminds me that they still are worthy of an invitation, are they not? - From a gracious God? He says you need to buy from Me.
Well you say, "Now wait a minute, what do you mean buy?" Well it's the same kind of buy as Isaiah 55 verse 1, you remember that wonderful chapter which is an evangelistic appeal. In Isaiah 55:1, let me just read it to you so you'll have it exactly as it was written. The call of God to the unregenerate sounds like this, "Oh everyone who thirsts come to the waters, you who have no money come, buy and eat." Did you get that? You who have no money, come buy and eat. So this is the kind of thing you can buy when you don't have anything. You come and buy it. You say, "Now wait a minute, if I don't have anything, what do I buy it with?" Are you ready for this? The only thing you have is...what?...your own wretched condition. So that's all you can offer.
So you come and you say I'll give You me for You, is that a deal? Our Lord Jesus said that, what will a man give in exchange for his soul? What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, can he give that in exchange for his soul? No. What can you give in exchange for your soul? Only yourself, that's what repentance is. I renounce myself, I yield myself, I give myself to You.
And He says, "I want you to buy three things. You give yourself to Me, that's the price, all that you are for all that I am, and first of all, I'll give you gold refined by fire that you may become rich." Pure gold refined by fire, no impurities. Ah, they thought they were rich in spiritual truth, they thought they were rich in spiritual reality, they thought they were transcendent, you know. They were bankrupt. He says I'll give you spiritual gold, I'll give you the spiritual riches, I'll give you what is pure and what is valuable and what is priceless. I'll endow you with such spiritual riches you never dreamed of. I'll give you a true and tested faith.
Let me give you an awesome verse - First Peter 1:7, "The proof of your faith is more precious than gold." What is the gold He's talking about? I think a real faith, a true faith.
Then He says, "Buy white garments that you may clothe yourself." Get rid of those black ones. Get a white one. Back in Isaiah 61:10 Isaiah said that God wants to clothe us with the robe of His righteousness. We know in chapter 3 of Revelation verse 4 He said that people who walk with the Lord will walk with HIm in white for they are worthy. Over in Revelation 7:9 you see the saved multitude and they are in white robes. And over in chapter 19 verse 8 it says that she is clothed in fine linen, white or bright and clean and this fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. So He says I'll give you a true faith, a pure faith, a saving faith, a confident faith and then I will give you righteousness. I'll give you a righteous nature and I'll give you righteous acts.
And then He says I want you to get some eye salve to anoint your eyes so you can really see. You know what they used to do? There was some kind of a powder that they found; it's called in some history books "Phrygian Powder." And they knew that if they placed it on the eye it had a very soothing effect, a therapeutic effect, actually a medicinal effect. And so what they would do is they would put that powder in some coarse dough and then they would place that coarse dough on the eyes and somehow they would seal it so it remained there for a length of time. It brought healing and restoration to the eyes. And He says to them, in effect, "You think you see but you don't see. But if you come to Me I'll give you eye salve and you'll see."
Salvation is the gold that makes people spiritually rich in faith. Salvation is the white robe that covers our sinful nakedness. Salvation is the eye salve that gives us the knowledge of God and of His truth. What's He offering? An abiding faith, an abiding righteousness, an abiding understanding. You are poor, you are blind, you are naked. Let Me fix that.
All that comes together when the sinner offers the price which is himself and when he repents to follow Jesus Christ.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
The word for love is philo meaning great affection. Our Great Lord Jesus wishes the Laodiceans to know that His heart reaches out to them, that His love is not dependent on their deserts. As God as Redeemer says in Isaiah 43.3 ‘you are precious in my sight and I have loved you’, while in Deuteronomy 7.8 Israel are reminded that they were not loved and chosen because of anything in themselves, but because God had set His love upon them. Indeed He drew them ‘with the cords of a man, with bands of love’ which the prophet Hosea tells us in chapter 11 verse 4.
His reproof and chastening are proof of that love. In the Old Testament God told His people, ‘And you will consider in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you, and you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and fear Him’ (Deuteronomy 8.5-6). Thus when the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews were discouraged at the tribulation they faced, the writer told them ‘For whom the Lord loves, He chastens’ (Hebrews 11.6 quoted from Proverbs 3.11-12), and, ‘If you endure chastening God deals with you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not chasten?’ (Hebrews 12.7). This suggests that Jesus is expecting tribulation for the church at Laodicea and is thus preparing them for the trials that lie ahead, and explaining its purpose so that they may benefit from it. It is because He loves them that they will be chastened.
‘Be zealous therefore and repent’. This ‘change of heart and mind’ is only demanded of four churches, one of them because of the heresy in their midst (Pergamum), one because they have lost their first love (Ephesus), and the other two (Sardis and Laodicea) because of the failure of the whole church as a result of their lax state. Refusal to hear means the lamp stand being removed from it place (Ephesus), an attack with the sword of His mouth against the offenders (Pergamum), and the arrival of Jesus as a thief to catch them unprepared by His coming (Sardis). To the church of Laodicea He gives similar warning of His coming.
20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
In Luke 12.35-38 Jesus tells His disciples that they must ‘let your loins be girded about (the clothes tucked in to the girdle to make movement easier) and your lamps burning, and you yourselves like men looking for their Lord when he returns from the marriage feast, so that when he comes and knocks they may immediately open to him’. Then He will sit them down to supper and come and serve them (Luke 12.37).
3.20 is a clear reference to that parable. The Son of Man, Whom John saw standing among the lamp stands, is pictured as having arrived and as standing and knocking at the door of this church so that He may come in and sup with them. ‘I am here’, He says, ‘knocking’. But the inference is that they are not ready to hear.
So He next makes His plea to individuals in the church. If anyone will hear His voice and open the door He will come in to him and they will eat together. In other words He wishes the church to see Him as on the verge of His coming in glory, and to respond on that basis. At some stage He will come, and no one knows when, so they must be like servants making ready.
But He recognizes that they are so complacent that He is doubtful of their response so He then addresses each individual member. If any individual will therefore recognize Him as the coming Lord and welcome Him, even before His coming, He will sup with them, and they with Him. This does not really represent the heart’s door, but it does refer to an individual’s willingness to receive Him and welcome Him, which is much the same thing.
21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’”
The Laodiceans had much of this world’s goods but they were not royalty. He can offer them so much more than their so-called riches. Here those who overcome are offered not only royalty, but the royalty of the King of Kings, for they can share His throne and reign with Him.
He Himself shares the throne of God, something He alone can do because of Who He is, the true God. They cannot share that. But the one who overcomes will be privileged to share His throne, the throne that was given to Him as the glorified God-man, and they can reign with Him forever, a further guarantee of eternal life, and more!
So our Lord Jesus shares the throne of Godhead, for He is Lord of Lords, and He possesses the throne of glorified Man, for He is King of Kings (Revelation 19.16).
This guarantee to the over comer may reflect Luke 22.29-30. ‘I appoint to you a kingdom, just as my Father appointed to me. That you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. And you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’. And also may reflect Matthew 19.28, ‘in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’. These promises, set in earthly terms, promised the disciples that their faithfulness would result in advancement beyond their wildest dreams. They would share with Him the Messianic Feast, and would be set as judges over the people who have rejected them and their Lord.
Here in Revelation a similar promise is made to over comers, for to share a throne is to participate in the authority of that throne. Thus they too will reign with Him. As we have already seen, the promises to over comers are of sharing in the heavenly; the heavenly Paradise, the heavenly manna, and the heavenly Temple. So this throne and this reigning must also be seen as heavenly and not earthly. Just as when interpreting the Old Testament, we must take the spiritual meaning behind the promises and not press the literal words.
The final words of the chapter underline all that has been said.
It is up to every man how he hears. And we have been warned seven times. How foolish we would be not to hear!
