Word of Salvation – Vol. 44 No.18 – May 1999

 

The Nauseating Church

 

Sermon by Rev P Archbald on Revelation 3:14-22

Scripture Readings:

Isaiah 55:1-7; Revelation 3:14-22

 

Congregation.

Introduction

One of the things I don’t like about holidays is having to find a good church to attend on the Lord’s Day – especially in some small, out-of-the-way country town.  Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience.  You try to pick the one closest in doctrine and practice to the Reformed Churches.  Or the one least likely to be too bizarre.  But you never know what could take place in the services of most churches, these days.  Some of the modern practices can make the hair stand up on the back of your neck!  Some of them, to be blunt, are an insult to the Name of the Lord!

But what does the Lord Himself find insulting?  Not necessarily the things we can’t stand.  What He hates most is not always what we hate most.  What He is willing to tolerate is not always what we are willing to tolerate.  And what He loves most is not always what we love most.

Here in the “Seven Letters” we are being given a sketch of the main things: The chief loves and hates of the Lord, as He looks at the Church on earth.  These were real churches of John’s time.  But they are also representative of the whole church throughout history – hence, there are seven of them, the number of completion.  So when we put the strengths and weaknesses of these seven churches together, we have a composite picture of the church in general, comprising as it does many good points, and many bad points – in all ages of church history.

Of the seven churches in Asia Minor, however, the one that stands out as the worst is probably the Church of Laodicea.  And therefore, of any sin in the church of today – or of any day – the sin of Laodicea is probably the worst.  What is that sin?  And what is its solution?  We will look at that under two headings:

1.  The Poverty of Laodicea
2.  The Richness of Christ

1.  The Poverty of Laodicea

One of the striking things about the first three chapters of Revelation is that the theme of poverty versus wealth keeps coming back again and again.  There must be something very significant in that.  And there is: it is a warning!

in light of that warning, it should not surprise us, then, to learn that Laodicea was, in fact, an extremely wealthy city.  A city of wealthy industries: gold; black wool; and eye ointment, for example.  À city of bankers and millionaires.  One of the more wealthy citizens had died, and left all his property to “the people”, and showered the city with costly gifts.  Laodicea was so wealthy, that when the city was devastated by an earthquake, they actually declined Government aid!  Laodicea’s wealth was legendary.  And they knew it!

Sadly, the church took after the city.  People said, “I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing.”  They didn’t necessarily say it in words.  But it was an attitude.  Probably the church was wealthy in a material sense as well.

But the real problem was not with the material wealth, as such.  It was their spiritual state: spiritual self-sufficiency; lack of awareness of their spiritual need; the insufferable pride and conceit of those who think they have ‘arrived’; people who are conscious of no great sins or lacks in their church, their families, their own personal lives.  In this way, human effort and resources and achievements come to replace the desire and asking and reliance on God’s grace, on His gifts, and on His strength, while there is a failure to see that the things of real spiritual value are missing.

How does Christ evaluate this church, then?  How does He evaluate this kind of sin, wherever it is found in the church?  Keep in mind that with all seven churches, the Lord Jesus’ evaluation is given so the church can learn to evaluate itself against Him and His Word.  What is the assessment in this case?  Well, with Laodicea, the Lord does not see any wealth.  He sees instead only poverty – spiritual poverty.  He sees them as wretched and miserable.  This church for bankers is bankrupt.  This church for wool merchants is naked.  This church for purveyors of eye salve is blind.  Helpless objects of pity.  Worst of all, because they boasted and trusted in all their finery, while in reality they were dying of poverty and exposure.  Emperors, who not only failed to realise they had no clothes on, but who were dying because of it.  That is how Christ saw them.

This is what lies behind the Lord’s charge that they are “lukewarm” (vss.15-16): a well-known term in the modern Christian’s vocabulary.  Most Christians would understand being ‘hot’ in terms of being spiritually on the boil, fervent, zealous.  To be ‘cold’ is to be openly anti-Christian, anti-church, and pro-world.  Hence, to be ‘lukewarm’ is something in between: to be indifferent, neutral; to have mixed motives; to be compromising, to disregard principles, and so on.  It is then commonly asserted that God would rather have an honest, ‘cold’ pagan, than a ‘lukewarm’, pretend-Christian.  This is the usual way of putting it, and I’ve heard it said many times over in numerous sermons on this much-preached passage.

Now there’s some truth in this interpretation.  But I do wonder if perhaps it goes a little too far.  Certainly, the Lord hates indifference, compromise, and lack of zeal in His church.  And we must guard against these sinful tendencies.  For these temptations are always crouching at the door – at the door of the church, but also at your own back door, and mine – and they will waylay us if we let our guard down for even a moment.  It is always easy to slip into indifference and compromise.  We don’t have to try.  We have to try – put constant effort into – not slipping into these sins.

But is it really true to say that the Lord prefers out-and-out, open hatred, rejection of God?  Technically speaking, verses 15-16 contain no condemnation, nothing negative about being ‘cold’ at all.  Could this be the case if ‘cold’ meant open, unbelieving paganism?  Perhaps we push the expression too far, by spiritualising each of these terms, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’?  Maybe the whole thing is just a way of saying that the Laodiceans made the Lord sick!  That they disgusted Him, nauseated Him, like tepid water!

Perhaps, also, we need to examine this idea of tepid water (or wine, or whatever) being nauseating.  Until recently, I had never questioned this connection.  I am a coffee drinker.  I like hot coffee.  In the summer, I don’t mind an iced coffee.  But the one thing I can’t stand is a lukewarm coffee.  The meaning of the passage seemed very plain.  Trouble is, I’ve met some people who don’t mind lukewarm coffee at all.  And I can’t say that lukewarm coffee, or water, or whatever, really makes me sick.  Yet that is the strength of the language here: “Because you are lukewarm…  I will vomit you out of My mouth!”

There is, however, another explanation that I find rather attractive.  Admittedly, it comes from extra-Biblical sources, so we can’t put too much weight on it.  But it is worth looking at the text again with this information in mind.  For it is now known that Laodicea’s own water supply not only delivered water that was lukewarm, it also carried water that had an emetic effect – its impurities tended to make people sick!  While two of Laodicea’s neighbouring cities, Hierapolis and Colossae, were famous for their good water – Hierapolis for its good hot water, used for medicinal or therapeutic purposes; and Colossae for its supply of good cold water, excellent for drinking purposes.  The Lord may be using this background to say, “Give Me the hot, medicinal waters of Hierapolis!  Give Me the cold draught of Colossae!  But this lukewarm rubbish from Laodicea makes Me sick!”

But what is this lukewarmness?  I would suggest that it is their ineffective, inadequate human effort taken as a substitute for God’s free giving in Christ.  For by opting for human effort rather than for the gift of grace, they are excluding Christ, so much so that He is now pictured as standing outside the door of the church.  The church has, as it were, cast Him out.  They have stopped ‘doing business’ with Him to obtain the real, spiritual goods.  They prefer to do business with themselves.  To the point where Jesus has become a stranger to them.  And it is exclusion of Christ and His gifts, above all, that makes God sick!

Congregation, if we know things like this disgust the Lord – and what strong language this is, some of the strongest used to describe any New Testament church, one of the seven ‘stars’ held in Christ’s hand (Rev.1:16), that this church makes Him vomit – if we know this disgusts Him, nauseates Him, then this is something for which we should constantly examine ourselves, in order to expel it, with the aid of the Holy Spirit.

In what, or in whom, do we place our security?  And our church’s security?  Are we secure because, in our opinion, we’re OK as individuals, and as churches – sound, committed and faithful?  Is it perhaps because our jobs and finances and happy families are stable?  And we have good friends, and our church has good elders.  And our minister will keep an eye on things.  No, our future is secure because of the Lord alone – His free gifts: His Word, His promises, His grace, His Spirit, His preservation, His strength.  Resting in anything or anyone else disgusts the Lord!

2.  The Richness of Christ

The time had come, then, for Laodicea to replace its wrong view of itself as rich, with Christ’s view of that church as poverty-stricken.  To do that, they needed to look again at just how much wealth and richness lie within the Lord Jesus.  They need to see the contrast between themselves and Him.  We look at this as our second and final point: The Richness of Christ.

He is rich, first of all, in Truth.  He is the “Amen, the faithful and true Witness”.  This is also the way the Lord was introduced in 1:5.  It implies that He is genuine.  And that He sees everything truly, as it is; and tells it as it is.  They must therefore learn to trust the Lord’s evaluation of them, rather than their own.  To judge themselves by this “Amen”.  They have heard all about the Christ, and all He gives His people, all He’s done to redeem us, bless us, preserve us, and how faithfully He’s done that.  But now they’ve got to act on it.  So do we.

The Lord Jesus is rich, secondly, as the Source of all true wealth.  He is the “Beginning of Creation” (3:14).  The “First and the Last” (1:17).  “The Alpha and the Omega” (1:8).  The Fountain of all good in creation – everything good is ultimately made through and for and by and in Him.  He is the one who controls the market on ‘good’.  So if you want good, you can’t bypass Him.  The bankers of Laodicea want to be rich with spiritual gold, refined and purified, of the utmost value?  Then they must ‘buy’ from Him.  The wool merchants want white garments – not black, but purified, sanctified white, the clothing of righteousness and victory and salvation?  Then they must go to Christ.  The pharmacists and eye doctors want ointment to make the spiritually blind see?  They can get it only from Him.  The Laodiceans desperately need to ‘buy’ these very things.  We need them, too.  Every day.  But there is only one ‘Seller’.

Mention of buying’ and selling’, however, raises an important issue for it makes salvation sound like a business transaction.  Like something we can trade, or pay for, or earn, in our own strength and resources.  But that’s the very view Christ is condemning in the Laodicean church!  That’s something Reformed churches have always stood against.

To dispel that error, the text makes it very clear that Christ is also rich in initiative, while we are bankrupt in the same.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”.  Ironically, Arminians have traditionally used these words to play down Christ’s initiative.  They picture Him standing at the door of the human heart, patiently waiting, pleading, even begging.  So perhaps man – of his own free will – may deign to open the door and let Him in.

I want to say a few words about that interpretation.  Firstly, it is worth noting that the text is not talking so much about the human heart as about the church door.  Secondly, we are not talking about rank unbelievers, but a church that had all but pushed the Lord away from herself, out the door.  Thirdly, we are not talking about being ‘born again’, in which man is passive.  With regeneration, there is no opening of the door of the human heart by man himself.  The Holy Spirit does it all.  He takes, or captures, our heart and makes it new.

No, we are either talking about true conversion of those who thought they were good Christians but had never really known the Lord; or the restoration of genuine, but back-slidden, Christians.  To be sure, such people would first need to be born again, but the focus here is on man’s active response to that, in conversion, or in subsequent repentance.

Either way, we must not confuse our faith-response – in which, by God’s grace, we are enabled to be active – with that part of salvation in which God alone is active.

In any event, it is the excluded Christ who, in His sovereign grace, takes the initiative – not the Laodiceans.  He comes to this wretched church, and gives them one last opportunity to turn back; one last warning.  This knocking is not a timid begging.  It is wake-up call!  The Lord had every right to say, “Forget them!  If they want to treat Me this way, well they can jolly-well come to Me next time, if they want any help!”  But no, He graciously condescends to come one more time to this dying church.  The Lord is, after all, the Amen and the Faithful.  And Laodicea is still one of the seven stars in His hand.  He is faithful to His covenant-promises, even when men are not.

What we see here is not the timidity of a God who has subjected Himself to man’s free will.  In this knocking we see the sovereign power of God’s love, His grace, His perseverance – even with ‘worst case’ churches!  And that is all that can keep this pitiable congregation from death.

Even if the church, as a whole, would continue to reject the Lord, there is still another purpose to this knocking: to wake up elect individuals.  Even in this worst case’ church, the Lord does not intend to let the remnant perish with the rest.  “If any one hears My voice”; if even one of them responds, He will go in and dine with Him.  A wonderful, restored communion.  Even better in the next life, for those who overcome the temptation to exclude Christ: eternal fellowship with Jesus; ruling with Him, as we share His throne in God’s presence.  This is wealth indeed!  Riches beyond our wildest dreams!  A seat at a rich wedding feast and a throne combined.  For all those who ‘buy’ – who are enabled to accept – the free gifts of grace in Christ.  For us.

The warning, however, is that this free offer is not some over-indulgent, ‘soft love’.  Sure, it comes to a church you and I might have rejected, regarded as false.  But there is nothing weak and soft here.  It comes with strong words: Laodicea makes Christ sick!  It comes with reproof and discipline: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.”  Like a loving father, the Heavenly Father exposes the faults of His children and chastises them – in this case, through His only Son.  That’s what He’s doing here.  Reproving and disciplining is part of the wake-up ‘knocking’ at the door of the church.  This very critical, reproving letter is part of the knocking.

Moreover, the letter comes with a demand that they have no part in self-sufficiency: “Be zealous, therefore, and repent!”  Repentance and zeal is the only way of opening the door, their response to Christ’s initiative.  Because, ultimately, the only cure for lukewarmness’ is the readmission of Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit’s endowment of faith and repentance.  Without this, there will be no reprieve.  Not for them, not for you nor me.

For apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, all churches and all peoples stand condemned.  Nauseating to Him, vomited out of His mouth.  In that sense, we’re ultimately no better than Laodicea – in ourselves.  The difference is that those who see that the emperor has no clothes, no gold, no eye-salve – those enabled to see it, and confess it, and turn to Christ for these things – those ones are justified.  Not because they deserve it, but by pure grace.  While those – churches or individuals — who have nothing to say to God but, “Thank You God, that I’m so good and not like other men” – those people are condemned in their own sins.

Let us therefore be sure that we are among those who see the truth by looking to the Amen, the Faithful and true Witness.  And turn to buy, to seek the free gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And open up in response to Him, in confession and repentance, and a zealous desire to live for Him.

Amen.