ROOM TEMPERATURE CHRISTIANS - REV. 3:14-21
This morning we come to the 7th and final church to which John wrote. We have only looked at 5 in preparation for our upcoming revival because Smyrna & Philadelphia were churches to which no criticism was directed.
Philadelphia(brotherly love) preceeds Laodicia. Prophetically it represents that great time in Church history where missions was such a strong passion in the heart of the body of Christ. All denominations were striving to win souls to the uttermost parts of the earth. Laodicia represents the church of the last days. THE APOSTATE CHURCH. The church that has fallen away from the Lord.
1) Age in which the majority of the people connected with Christianity hold beliefs such as the Bible is full of errors, there are no absolute values, all good people will go to heaven, there is no hell or devil, Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin and the resurrection and the rapture are just nice storys and nothing else.
REDBOOK SURVEY of American Church leaders: 59% reject the Virgin Birth; 71% don’t believe in life after death, 54% don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus; and 98% deny the personal return of the Lord. HOW DOES THAT MAKE GOD FEEL?
MINISTER VISITED a lady in a retirement home. As she lay in her hospital style bed he spoke with her. Beside her bed was a dish full of peanuts. He ate one and then another and before he knew it he looked down and the dish was empty. ’I am so sorry he confessed, I ate all the peanuts you had beside your bed’. ’Peanuts, I can’t eat peanuts anymore, I just suck the chocolate off of them’. THE CHURCH OF THE LAST DAY MAKES JESUS SICK. It should make us sick to see the spiritual deteriation that has occurred in churches and in the lives of professing Christians.
Look at with same outline we have used with all the churches we have studied.
THE PATIENT (14) And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
1. Laodicea was located 75 miles directly east of Ephesus in a tri-city area which included both Colossae and Hierapolis. It was located where three Roman roads intersected. It was a very wealthy city(ruins of beautiful homes still to today). The wealthiest of the 7 cities. It was the banking center of Asia as well as a vigorous trade area. It was known for two special things:
a. Manufacturing a special black glossy cloth: Laodocians liked the color black and were universally known for wearing that color. They raised a breed of black sheep in the area that provided the wool.
a. Medical school that made a special salve for the eyes: It was developed from mud from a volcanic mountain side and was shipped all over the Roman Empire. Thousands came to that area to the many health resorts because of hot mineral springs.
The CHEMICAL ANALYSIS done since has revealed that there was nothing special about that clay at all but somebody made a living saying there was: THIGH CREAM
1. Large Jewish population: know this because they would send a large temple tax back to Jerusalem each year. Laodocian Jews always paid with gold and it caused the gold supply to begin to run out in the city. They were ordered to pay with other currency but continued anyway and the tax was confiscated. Records show it weighed 20 lbs(each 1/2 shekel for every male over 21 representing over 7500 men)
a. A Temple to Zeus/Jupiter was in the city
a. Ruins of three different churches found there: Beginning of church splits.
1. LAODOCEA means Laos ’people’ and dicea ’opinion/custom’. ’The opinion or custom of the people’. What characterizes the apostate church in the last days? Saying in Laodicea ’the voice of the people is as the voice of God’. What is right or wrong? Let’s take a poll.
JUDGES 21:25 In those days there was no king; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
MARKED 20th CENTURY: Movement of our society from a Republic to a Democracy: Difference is that one says there are absolute standards of right and wrong while other responds to simple majority opinion. Pure democracy states that a person has a right to make their own choices, do what they think is right and no one has the right to tell them there is anything wrong with their choice. Church has fallen into the same trap.
THREE BRANCHES in our government: Legislative - Judicial - Executive
1. Makes the laws 2. Evaluates the law 3. Executes the law
We are part of the Executive branch of the kingdom of God. Not our job to make new laws or to question the laws already made. We are to take them and apply them to our lives.
MISSIONARY began witnessing to a hindu man who was high in the caste system: Man began to show an interest in the Christian faith. He continued to ask questions of the missionary. Finally the hindu outright rejected the Christian faith. The missionary was amazed because he had seen such an interest by the hindu man. ’I’ll tell you why…do you really believe that Jesus is the only way to God…Do you really believe that unless a man receives forgiveness through Jesus as his Savior that he will spend and eternity separated from God?….Do you really believe that a man will have an abundant life if he believes in your God?…..SIR, IF I BELIEVED THAT WITH ALL MY HEART YOU WOULD FIND ME CRAWLING FROM VILLIAGE TO VILLAGE TELLING PEOPLE HOW THEY CAN RECEIVE CHRIST….but I know Christians…you are not the first to come here….seems to me that there is a difference in what you believe and what you do…that is why I see no need to become a Christian.
1. I think you can find out very quickly who the Lord of your life is by what you do. That is why we find in each of these letter the same type of statement, ’I KNOW YOUR DEEDS’(not feelings, no creed) Your works. I know what you do and what you do is the real revelation of who you are!
a. America has more churches per capita than any other country. Our currency reads, ’In God we trust’ and yet there is very little difference between the lifestyles of Christians and non-Christians
1) Both seek happiness in our things and security in our wealth
THE PHYSICIAN The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this,
(Jesus presents Himself in three ways)
1. THE AMEN - The Hebrew word for truth that demonstrates the finality of what is being said. Jesus represent the final authority in the matter.
a. Be careful when you say Amen to something, it is like saying, ’that is truth, that ends all discussion’.
a. Jesus is God’s final Word: (Heb 1:1-2) In the past God spoke through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son’. He is the final Word to man. Anyone who goes beyond the words of Jesus is giving us new truth and departing from the final word’
a. Jesus tells this apostate church that has embraced new ideas and watered down the Scripture that His Word was never to be departed from. EVER HAVE A PARENT SAY "THAT IS FINAL"!
1. FAITHFUL AND TRUE WITNESS: What Jesus says is not embellished or overdramatized but is an accurate indication of their spiritual condition. This church actually believed about itself the opposite of what Jesus revealed to be their condition.
a. Maybe you think you are doing pretty well spiritually. Could be better, could try harder, could give more, serve more,
a. DO YOU PROMISE TO TELL THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH SO HELP YOU GOD?
a. Children are often very truthful:
A young pastor once asked, ’Why is it that new Christians create problems in the church?’ ’THEY DON’T CREATE PROBLEMS, THEY REVEAL THEM. THE PROBLEMS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE BUT WE’VE GOTTEN USED TO THEM. NEW CHRISTIANS, LIKE CHILDREN, TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT HOW THEY SEE THINGS
(Jesus has the authority to say what He says, He is committed to the truth in what He says, AND He knows what He is talking about)
1. BEGINNING OF THE CREATION OF GOD: He is not the beginning in a cultic sense of being the first thing God created but the word carries the idea of, ’the source, the overseer, origin’.
JN 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. Eph 2:10 We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. Col 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth…all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.(17) Ps 139:13-14 For you formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
a. He can judge us because He is the designer who knows how our lives were meant to be lived out.
THE POSITIVE
1. Might hear crickets chirping or a pin drop here. TOTAL SILENCE. This is the only church with NOTHING positive to encourage them with.
1. The Church of the last days will have moved so far away from the heart and purposes of God that nothing good can be said.
THE PROBLEM (15) I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. (16) So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. (17) 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.
1. THEY HAD SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEIR COMMITMENT: you are neither hot nor cold….you are lukewarm.
a. Interesting sidelight to understanding what a statement like this might have meant to a person from Laodicea.
SOUTH OF LAODICEA lay the Phrygian mountains on which snow will still be in the summer. Laodicea had no local water supply but archeologist have discovered that they used aquaducts from both the cold water of Colossae and the hot water from Hierapolis(6 miles away). By the time the water reached Laodicea from with direction if had become lukewarm. ROOM TEMPERATURE - ADAPTED TO THE SURROUNDINGS.
a. COLD: cold to the point of freezing
1) When I think of cold I remember the hollow faces of many I saw each month at the rescue mission. I think of a lost world which pays no mind to God, hears no sermons, attends no church, lost in the darkness of a decaying society.
HOT: boiling, fervent ZESTOS Rom 12:11 fervant in spirit(as opposed to being lagging behind in diligence)
1) SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: a closed system eventually moderates so that no more energy is being produced. Unless something is added from the outside, the system decays and dies. Apart from Me you can do nothing(JN 15:5)
1) In a closed system what boils and what is frozen both become the same temperature as their surroundings. LUKEWARM
DAD ran a sporting goods store for some years and kept a supply of pop that had a slim styrophome band around it to help keep it cool but you couldn’t tell by touching if it was cool or not. Came in one morning and opened a pop and began doing various things. He was adding receipts near the cash register and reached out and took a drink of his pop. HE YELLED OUT, YUCK. He had not grabbed the one he had just opened but one from the day before, maybe the week before. We call it hot pop but actually it is just ROOM TEMPERATURE. It has drifted to the temperature of what surrounds it.
HEB 2:1 For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.(become lukewarm)
LUKEWARM: Room temperature Christianity. Adapted to the
World and the culture. To it’s opinions, it’s ways, it’s ideas. There
Is no desire to stand out for Christ but the presence of indifference,
Apathy, self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction.
a. Jesus looks at that and says, ’IT MAKES ME SICK’ because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.(Other words for spit in NT but this is word for ’VOMIT’)
TONIGHT:
1. Look at what makes Jesus sick: An opinion we have about ourselves that couldn’t be more wrong.
1. What Jesus says we should do to really become spiritually rich people.
1. His promise to us if we will allow Him His rightful place in our lives.
SCALE placed here with two extremes: one end cold and the other hot.
COLD: Lost person living life in world’s stream, not in church, no thought of God, Jesus’ name is simply another curse word.
HOT: Boiling for Jesus, willing to crawl to tell others, He is your last thought at night and your first in the morning, every day to renew your offer to Him to use your life whatever He might ask.
WHICH END? OR somewhere in the middle, not cold, not hot, LUKEWARM
MICHAEL CARD tells the story of a man named Joseph who came to Christ out of a muslim background. One day walking a hot dirty African road met someone who shared Christ with him. Then and there he accepted Jesus as his Savior and the power of the Holy Spirit overwhelmed him with such joy that the first thing he wanted to do was go back and tell his own villiage. He went from door to door telling of the cross and the forgiveness for sin. He expected their faces to light up as his had when they discovered this wonderful truth. To his amazement they became violent: the men seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire. Dragged and left to die alone in the bush. He revived and made it to a water hole where he spent days recovering. He was confused and finally decided that he must have left something out or not told the story correctly. After rehearsing the message he returned. Stood in the circle of huts and began to proclaim Jesus. Again grabbed by men and beaten by women, reopening the wounds that had just begun to heal. Dragged unconscious again and left to die. TO have survived the first time was remarkable but to survive this beating was a miracle. Days later he awoke and determined to go back. This time he was attacked before he even opened his mouth. Before he passed out the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him had begun to weep. This time he awoke in his own bed, the ones who had beaten him were now trying to save his life. The entire village came to know Jesus Christ..
