Wednesday Bible Study: The Seven Churches Part Seven

 

Rev 3:14  "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. 

Rev 3:15  "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 

Rev 3:16  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 

Rev 3:17  For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 

Rev 3:18  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 

Rev 3:19  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 

Rev 3:20  Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 

Rev 3:21  The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 

Rev 3:22  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'" 

Commentator Matthew Henry calls Laodicea "the last and worst of the Churches".  I can't say I agree it's worse, for two reasons:  Sardis was called dead, and can you be worse as a Church than dead? And, they have more reward at the end than the stripped down reward Sardis had to look forward to (Stripped down in the sense that it was the least you could expect from Heaven!).  But it was bad.  And there were two levels to its bad-ness.  First of all, there was something in the contrast between what it was and where it should be that literally made Jesus sick.  Second, they were under the illusion that they had everything, when they spiritually had nothing.

For that first, I ask the question- with the exceptions of Philadelphia and Smyrna, they ALL had some level of hypocrisy- why did that of Laodicea make Jesus sick?  You may or may not know, the 'lukewarm' waters of this city were truly lukewarm- they received water from hot springs upstream, or pumped in from outside- no cold refreshing water here!  Their lukewarm water was an institution that they considered a necessity- rather than just move the city to a more advantageous place.

Spiritually, they were the same- bringing in 'bad water' from outside instead of seeking the good.  And I have an example that should clarify this ripped right from this past week's headlines.  The United Methodist Church, long in a civil war over inclusion of the LGBTQ lifestyle, voted a few days ago to write inclusion right into their charter- WITHOUT DEBATE.  This is absolutely against the word of God, and I want you to think on this.  Loving/caring for a member of your family who has fallen to this lie of Satan is one thing.  We are to love those who sin, and this is no worse than any other sin.  We love them, show them Christ-In-Us, and pray that the Spirit will one day make a change in them.   (Of course, they will demand you 'accept' their sin, because this is pride, evil pride, thus the name they claim for their 'movement', but that's for another day.)  However, what the UMC has done is INSTITUTIONALIZE it as part of the fabric of their denomination- and that Jesus will not accept.  He will spew them out, and they won't even understand why.

For the other: What was up with Laodicea's self-image? They were a rich city- rich from their trade in a special type of wool from (ironically enough) black sheep.  In 60 AD, the city was leveled by one of their many earthquakes.  Emperor Nero offered Roman funds to rebuild- and they turned him down, saying they were rich enough to handle it!  To understand how this affected the faith of Laodicea, I point you to three little words in the letter, from v 18:  "I counsel you..."

Counsel them?  When He demanded of the other Churches, why would Christ "counsel" these guys?

Because, He wasn't their God.  He was "their adviser".  They took His Word as advice, keeping what they found beneficial to their self image, ignoring the rest.  Just like the UMC and any other Church that abandons the clear edicts of the Bible in the name of "being inclusive".  You can include sinners and bring them to Christ without approving their lifestyle.  

Does this make a church like the UMC dead?  No.  25 percent- over 7,500 congregations- have chosen to keep the Word of God over the votes of men.  Sardis, if you remember, had "yet a few names", individuals who'd kept the faith, where Laodicea apparently had whole groups that rejected the mainstream take and stayed loyal.  One thing I happened to hit in the commentaries hits home here:

So one oldest manuscript, B, and Vulgate read. But two oldest manuscripts, Syriac, and Coptic transpose thus, “hot nor cold.” It is remarkable that the Greek adjectives are in the masculine, agreeing with the angel, not feminine, agreeing with the Church.  (JFB Commentary)

What does this mean? The ones that were 'not hot or cold' were the LEADERSHIP, and NOT the body!  Just like in the UMC, the problem came from leadership that did not follow Christ, not the people who did!  Thus, this is the church of worldly leadership, that think that by embracing the world they can gain all.  They can't and neither can we.

I plan, Lord willing, to do a summing up post next time, and delve perhaps more into Revelation after.