Laodicea: The Conceited Church
Finally, Christ condemns the church in
Laodicea for its
ineffective witness and deplorable spiritual condition and exhorts its members
to persevere by becoming faithful witnesses and renewing their fellowship with
him so as to reign with him in Revelation 3:14–22.
The message to this church, as is was for the rest
of the churches was crafted specifically for them. The following information
was noted by my sources. It was also alluded to in many of my
sources.
Laodicea was located near Hieropolis,
where there were famous
hot springs, and
Colossae, known for its
pure, cold water.
Hot springs
were therapeutic and beneficial for health. The cool or cold water was
refreshing. The problem is that when it was piped from either location to
Laodicea, the hot had
become lukewarm and the cool had become lukewarm (Gurtner et al 362,
Wiersbe). It seemed that whatever ended up in
Laodicea ended up “middle
of the road” whether it be water or spirituality. The allusions to Laodicea
being, “…lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth”
is clearly a statement about their spiritual condition as were all the other
analogies made and symbols used with the other churches. The will be neither
useful in helping the needs of the church to keep it healthy nor will they be
revitalizing or refreshing like a tall drink of cool water. They will be like
drinking lukewarm bath water…neither therapeutic nor invigorating. Even though
He will do something drastic like spit them out of His mouth, the passage clear
says they “will not release” and/or would not believe His assessment. They will
be blind to their own spiritual malady and pay Him no heed.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is admit we are
wrong. That we have swung wide of the mark and sinned. In our attempts to do
the right thing and adhere to truth we end up getting a twisted version of
truth and then try to adhere to that. Adhering to anything less than what is
outlined in the Bible is no different than obeying a lie. We think we are being
faithful but we are just “going through the motion” showing up at church
apathetically. We solely go to “pay our dues” rather than pay reverence to a
holy and righteous God. The Lord showed this to the Laodiceans in
the letter written to them. They had lost their energy and had become lukewarm.
This type of Christian is complacent and does not even realize they are in
danger or have gone astray. They take the “once saved always saved” as an
excuse to do nothing and become ambivalent. The church at Laodicean wasn’t
“hot” enough spiritually to “zing” or burn the lips of the believer. Neither was
it biting cool and refreshing with vigor and zest. It was like a warm flat soda
that has sat in the sun too long. Fresh ice tea on a hot day requires someone
continue to add ice cubes to it. A warm cup of chocolate in a cold day requires
someone continue to add coals to a fire to keep a flame stoked under the
kettle. Otherwise the fire goes out. If you remove the coal from the other
coals in a fire, it cools quickly and is extinguished (Wiersbe).
They had also lost their values. Just the opposite
of
Smyrna, the
Laodiceans boasted that they were rich, when in fact they were spiritually
destitute. In their pride and the fact that they felt they needed nothing they
were even beginning to hedge out God. Like many churches today they probably
gauged themselves by the “numbers” or by the fact they were growing in “leaps
and bounds”. I got news for you, the way God gauges us and the way we gauge
ourselves are always by different measure if our focus is not on God. Many
churches today including ones I’ve been in, end up doing a David style “census” by
the numbers to gain their strength only to find they have none because they
have a lot of members but most are either alienated or lukewarm to the faith.
That’s not a big important church…that’s
Laodicea!
From what I can see in this passage, Jesus wasn’t exactly singing their
praises. They are not really good company to keep. Christ’s answer here appears
to be that they should be subject to some form of persecution…just as their
spiritual antithesis in
Smyrna.
They needed to buy from Him "gold tried in the fire." They no longer
saw their reality properly and had lost spiritual vision. Because they could no
longer see, they were told to put eye salve in their eyes (
Laodicea was known for their eye salve).
The irony of
Laodicea
is they receive no commendation from the Lord. Unfortunately, they were too
busy commending themselves. We see this today in many churches and
denominations. Instead of putting the focus on the Gospel and the Lord,
churches turn the focus on themselves or worse one person in particular. Some
churches are literally led by “cults of personality”. These are the type of
churches that will probably “belly up” if they lose their primary lead pastor.
It is because they have built the church around a person or personality instead
of around the Lord and the Gospel. Business models that use the amount of money
they make and the amount of people that attend as the measure of their success
are not a Biblical model for a church. God’s math is different than ours. Big
churches are not necessarily good churches. Just like God does not judge man
from the outside, he judges them from the inside. The same goes for the
institutions man creates. Our churches are not even supposed to be created by
men, that is the work of the Holy Spirit. So if churches are dead and are still
growing, what is really building them? Are we building religious businesses or
are we building churches? The truth is, nowadays mega-churches or 1000+
attendance at a congregation has become a bane to the faith. They are
immediately looked at as pariahs and ridiculed not only by some in the faith
but by people outside of the faith. The eventual disingenuous nature
(non-faith) that comes from business or money oriented churches is even clear
to the non-believer! Even the non-believers understand and can see the
incongruity! Big Church immediately gets a jaundiced eye and raised eyebrow
from everyone. They not only bring mockery and scorn upon themselves, they
bring it upon the rest of the Faith. Behavior that does this to the Church
universal is unbiblical. We are to be a light on a hill not a three-alarm fire
in the neighborhood! It disgraces us all when people dressed like
Hollywood movie stars show up at an arena sized church in
Lexus’ and high-end cars. Christian’s that expect to be treated like kings when
the King Himself had no place to rest His head during His ministry on Earth. It
is absurd and shameful like nakedness! Like the Laodiceans we are called to
repent if this is how we are behaving. Many business oriented models with a
modicum of success continue to rely on the same man-made formulas that will
eventually damn them or cause them to fail spiritually. Many have success and
feel they need little from anyone...and this will be their downfall. They may
appear temporarily successful and independent…but they were not abiding in
Christ just as the Laodiceans. A person or church that does not abide in the
vine dies or produces bitter fruit. What do we see in the
Laodicean-like churches? We see things like arrogance, materialism, etc. These
type of fruits are rotten at their core and nourish no one. More often than not
dried, lifeless bitter fruit like this ends up gagging the person that tries to
take it in. We are not saved of our own works, it is
His work that we cling to.
There is not room for haughty arrogance and stand-offish independence in the
church. We are called to serve and be humble. To be able to serve and be humble
it requires us to interact with our Lord and with other people. Otherwise we
could hardly call ourselves Christian. The minute a church believers it has
“arrived” or “made it”, that is its death knell.
To Wrap It Up: Repentance and Perseverance
The main reason I chose to dwell primarily on the
warnings and negative aspects of the letters to the seven churches is because
the fix to overcoming the negatives like apostasy or apathy mentioned find
their source in the same place. In the end if we view the churches of
Asia Minor in Revelations properly we should see things
that convict/condemn us in our sins but also comfort and lift us in our trials.
The churches today that are apostatizing or are not quite what they could be
are called to repent and turn back to a faithful relationship with Jesus Christ
just as those of John’s time. All of this is to lead believers in progressive
improvements and trends towards righteousness and progressive sanctification.
It is in Revelation’s calls to repent that we hear and see echoes of the Old
Testament prophets speaking to the Israelites and the likes of John the Baptist
and Jesus during Jesus’ time on earth. We see God working through time and
place to bring His sovereign plans to fulfillment and to usher all believers
into the
Kingdom
of God and His glorious
reign. The churches that have remained faithful to the Lord need to “stay the
course” even under persecution and not swerve into ungodly behaviors like
others that have or they risk discipline or judgment.
We see throughout all the churches a call to
persevere and remain faithful. We could learn much from these ancient churches
in Asia Minor both from the things they did well which they were commended for
and also in the things they were doing wrong which they were condemned for.
Some of the negative similarities in today’s churches that find parallel in the
seven churches from John’s time should humble us and drive us also to
repentance. It is our duty as obedient Christians to assure that churches today
see these parallels and make the renegade ones understand they are wrong, just
as those like
Ephesus,
Pergamos/Pergamum, etc. Perhaps if we can show people when they have gone
errant of Scripture and diverged to the “right or to the left” they will be
convicted to return to Christ though the work of the Holy Spirit. We’ve had two
millennia to get this right yet we still make the same mistakes and commit the
same sins as the churches of long ago. The heresies, idolatries and immorality
may have different names but it is still the same sin we battle with. It just
goes to show us that we are the same wretched fallen humans that the early
Christians and also the Israelites were. We all need to repent and seek
forgiveness. We are all sinful humanity with a proclivity to fall away from God
(Romans 1-3). If all this time has not allowed us to straighten things out, it
then becomes obvious that we are incapable of doing so. This concurs with what
the Bible has taught us through its inspired words (ad nauseum). We are indeed
no different in terms of sin than our spiritual predecessors the Israelites of
the Old Testament. Like us they were only redeemable through the work of Christ
on the Cross…hence the need to repent and return to God. If we have not fallen
away or apostatized we are well advised to remain faithful, keep His word and
never deny His name. If we manage to “walk the line” in faith, eventually all
faithful believers will be victorious in Christ. In the end there will either
be commendation, comfort or condemnation. “He who has an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit says to the churches”
הַלְלוּיָהּ !!!
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