The Seven Churches-Laodicea Series

The Seven Churches-Laodicea

Introduction: (Full disclosure, this message is based on a sermon I preached at New Hope Baptist Church near Fulton, MO on November 30, 2025 but is not an exact transcription.)

This last church of the Seven Churches is both a reminder and a warning to all people. The images which the Lord uses to remind them of their condition were things they already knew. There’s also a verbal image of Jesus, standing and knocking at the door.

In terms of geography, Laodicea was close to Colossae and Hierapolis, all cities in modern day western Turkey (see https://biblehub.com/atlas/full/laodicea.htm). Paul mentioned these believers in Colossians 2 but no one is certain he was personally ever there. Someone had started the church there, and it was still going on even in Paul’s day. Something, though, had happened and now the church just wasn’t where or what it should be. May we as believers today never sink so low as these Laodiceans had done.

1 The Picture of Jesus

Text: Revelation 3:14, KJV: 14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

The Lord gives three different but complementary pictures of Himself in this verse. First, He says He is “the Amen”. Amen is originally a Hebrew word, carried over into the Greek (and in English, even today!) and it means “so be it” along with a few other definitions. Take a look online at https://biblehub.com/greek/281.htm to get more info plus a list of places where the word is used in the New Testament. Not only is our Lord Jesus the Alpha and Omega (the A to Z in Greek), He is the Amen or God’s “so be it” to believers.

He, Jesus, is also “the faithful and true witness”. Faithful means just that: after all, the Lord was always faithful to the Father’s Will. Paul had explained to Timothy that Jesus remains faithful even if we don’t because He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13). True also means exactly that, as well: Jesus had said “I am the Truth” in John 14:6 and He is just as faithful and true now as He ever was or ever will be.

And He closes the verse by saying, “I am the beginning of the creation of God.” As translated in the King James Version, the wording seems a bit ambiguous to me, but commentators like Dr. Ellicott note that the word “beginning” should be translated “the origination (see the online notes at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/ellicott/revelation/3.htm)”. Paul had said much the same thing in Colossians 1:16 that Jesus created all things in heaven and earth, and John had written in John 1:3 that “all things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” To me this means Jesus was the One Who did the actual work of creation, and not that He had ever been created.

2 The Description of the Problem

Text, Revelation 3:15-17, KJV: 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

It’s almost heartbreaking that the Lord says only “I know thy works” yet does not mention what those works had done, if anything. Laodicea wasn’t too far from Sardis, where the Lord had sent them a message, “You have a name that you’re living, but you’re dead.” I’ve seen a few dead church buildings, one a former chapel near a now-closed military base, where lumber, maybe 2 by 4 inch studs were nailed in an “X” pattern over the entryway. No, Laodicea wasn’t dead, not yet, but their condition was almost as bad in the Lord’s eyes.

The problem was that the church in Laodicea wasn’t hot; yet they weren’t cold either. The Lord says their condition was “lukewarm”, best described as a tepid, room temperature kind of beverage. I’ve encountered this a time or two, leaving a glass of water (cold, when I got it from the tap) but after a while, you guessed it, it was that uncold/unhot blah-tasting water. Maybe I could have dropped in an ice cube, but not that day. I poured it out! Disgusting!

There’s another way to consider “lukewarm”. Maybe you’ve heard or read about a little girl who was heading to a friend’s birthday party. Her mother said, “Now, honey, make sure you behave and be good at the party!” before the girl left.