Praise God for his goodness! Today we come to the seventh of the seven Churches of Asia study. It is a Church that a lot of “Church” people have heard about. Laodicea is the lowest of the low. They make Corinth look like a bunch of Apostle Pauls. This is the saddest portion of scripture in these two chapters. Again I want to reiterate that we are not living in a Church age called the Laodicea age, but instead we live in a time that many people resemble the characteristics of Laodicea. We have to keep in mind that there are God’s people all over the world who are doing his work and making a difference. Elijah thought he was the only one left and God reminded him that there were 7000 fired up men of God who had not bowed to Baal the pagan god. Now let’s look at the scripture and see what God’s word says.
1. The Church at Laodicea
Revelation 3:15-16 says, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth."
When you study the Bible you have to do so in context in order to understand the scripture. I want to point out two words in the first sentence that describe the seriousness of the condition. “Cold” and “Hot”. If you have read through the earlier posts then you may recall the Church at Sardis. They were according to the scripture “dead”. In this verse the “cold” is the “dead”. In my last post I covered Philadelphia. They were the Church who were sold out to Christ or in other words they are the “hot”. However with Laodicea we have a “lukewarm” bunch. You know when I think of lukewarm I always think of coffee that has just been setting for a long time. Isn’t coffee wonderful? Seriously, its awesome, but when it gets lukewarm it is terrible. However I like iced coffee drinks.
Well apparently lukewarm Church members make God sick, but here lies the real problem and that is they are lost and have never been saved. Many believe and teach that this is an apostate Church and like I said in my earlier posts I to have learned over time that I was just wrong about some of things I have taught in regards to this subject myself. I will cover apostates in the upcoming post(s) when I summarize this series and we look at the movement of the Church. For now we are going to look at this in the context.
Laodicea says “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing”. Wow! Do you see America? Isn’t funny how people are always saying and singing God Bless America? What else can God do for America? What about the Church? I will bet you money that at the next Church meeting you are in 85% of the prayer request will be for the sick. Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong with praying and ministering to the sick, but how many times do you see it in the early Church history recorded in the Bible? My point is this, we are so far removed from real worship that the only thing we need God to do in the Church in America is heal our neighbor or a loved one. I mean this in no disrespect, but if somebody tells you tomorrow that I am facing death don’t be surprised because 100% of the people I know are as well. So what should we be praying about? Jesus said in verse 17 “ and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” What is he saying? Christ is telling the Church of Laodicea that they need to get it in gear and realize they are trapped in a sinful disgusting lifestyle that is separated them from God.
In verse 18 he says, “I counsel you to buy from me”. I love this! Seriously, I love this! What are you buying? No, not from Wal-Mart, what are you buying from this world? Some people buy into the talk shows and the political correctness nonsense. Some people buy into politics as if “we got all of the people from this side our country would be fixed”. Some people are buying into fashion thinking, “if I only had this then I would be happy”. I see young girls buying into the idea I need to look like this supermodel in order to have value. I see adults sinking into depression because they are filling their life with material things to replace the void of the Holy Spirit. You know I could go on all day with this, but what matters is what are you buying? Jesus in this verse mentions gold, white garments, and eye salve. These are major industrial products that were common to these people. You see Christ is offering them the spiritual by using material products in a matter they can relate to.
I said this was the saddest for a reason. It is my opinion that those who are in this category will have a very slim chance of getting out of their lost state. However it is possible or Christ would not have offered them repentance in verse 19. You know what kind of Church member is the Laodicean? They are the ones who don’t know that they are not hot or cold. Because they are warm enough to know they are not cold and cool enough to know they are not hot. This means they are lost and have no clue. When the invitation is given they don’t even consider their own sole needs to get right. They have no discernment and no conviction of the Holy Spirit. This means the only way they can be saved is by a overwhelming moving of the Spirit. What if the next time there were prayer request you said, “I want us to pray for the lost Church members”? Well you may stir up a mess, but you would get an Amen from me!
Now we have came to the end of the seven Churches and it is time for us to look at the movement of the Church that I spoke of in the very beginning of this study. In the next posts I will begin where we began. Judges 21:25 “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Everything in this world is moving towards the end. The world is changing and so is the Church. What is happening? What do you need to do to prepare?
Jesus Saves,
RR
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