Letters from Jesus: This is Your Final Warning!
Revelation 3:14-22
In 1991 Karen and I took a vacation to Puerta Villarta, Mexico. What warning is given to every tourist headed Mexico? Don’t…drink the water. Believe me—we were very careful. Some restaurants would post a sign stating that their water was filtered and if there was no sign, we would make sure we asked them. If there was ice in our soda we asked if that was filtered as well. See, the problem is that you can’t always tell if the water is good or bad simply by tasting it. You could take a drink and never realize it was contaminated until hours later. I’m glad to report that neither Karen nor I ever got sick from drinking the water. It was the chicken that got us. I kid you not. To this day I have never been more sick than I was on that vacation. We were both sick for almost half of the vacation. What’s the moral of this story? Instead of the old adage—“don’t drink the water”, I guess the moral is, “Don’t eat the chicken!”
The point is that the comparison of contaminated water can be applied to churches. Just as you can’t tell good water from bad water by merely tasting it, you can’t always tell a good church from a bad church from a simple “taste” of what they have to offer. As we saw last week, about five out of the ten largest churches in the U.S. teach a dangerous false gospel of prosperity. We may not be able to taste what a church has to offer and immediately know whether or not it is safe, but God needs only to take a small sip to know whether or not a church is healthy or contaminated.
In our final look at Jesus’ letter to the churches in Revelation, we will see that Jesus “tasted” what the church in Laodicea had to offer and it made him sick. Here is Jesus’ well-known condemnation of that church: because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. How would you like to be known as the church that made God sick? By the way, the word translated as “spit” is the Greek word “emetos”. Does that sound like any English word you know? An emetic is medicine given to make you vomit and an emesis basin is what they give you in the hospital if you think you’re going to vomit. So it’s even worse than at first glance—how would you like to be known as the church that made God throw up? That would make for a good advertising campaign, wouldn’t it? “Come to Grace Church—we’re the church that made God throw up!”
You might wonder why I am being so graphic. I am being graphic only because the Bible—the very words of Jesus—are graphic. What happens to you when you hear of something horrifying on the news or else when a tragedy strikes your own life? We say things like, “that makes me sick”. Sometimes we do actually get physically sick over such things. Jesus was not saying that he was actually going to throw up, but he found something so distasteful in the Laodicean church—something so awful that Jesus used this graphic language to describe it. What was it that sickened Jesus so much? The sin of self-sufficiency and pride. Now if self-sufficiency was such an offense to God 2,000 years ago, don’t you think that it would still be offensive to God today? This may be one of the most common sins in the church because like contaminated water, you don’t see it right away. Let’s read the full message to this church and see how this can apply to our church—because all kidding aside, we do not want to be the church that made God sick.
14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
God despises self-sufficiency. Jesus made this clear to the church in Laodicea. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. This is a well known passage of Scripture, but there has been much misunderstanding about what Jesus meant by hot and cold. Lukewarm has been interpreted to mean kind of a lazy Christian. He or she is lukewarm—they don’t have a burning hot passion for Christ, but they haven’t abandoned God either—they just go through the motions. Therefore if Jesus said I wish you were either hot or cold, hot would mean one who is passionately following Christ and cold would mean a nearly dead believer or unbeliever. Now why would Jesus wish that the church in Laodicea be filled with cold, dead believers or unbelievers? The answer is—of course he wouldn’t have wanted this.
The references to cold and hot come from the local geography of Laodicea. The town of Laodicea had a water supply problem so they had to have their water piped in from a town called Hierapolis about six miles away. Hierapolis was famous for its hot springs. Another adjacent town, Colossae, was known for its cold springs. Both of these springs, hot and cold, would have been purified waters—safe to drink and, in the case of the cold springs, refreshing as well. The lukewarm water of Laodicea would have been anything but refreshing and possibly contaminated as well. The point is that Jesus was making a comparison between these two extremes of purity and goodness—hot and cold—and between the impure presence of the church in Laodicea which he describes as lukewarm.
The next verse begins to describe the impurities of their church. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Laodicea was in reality a very wealthy town. Perhaps their material wealth is part of what gave them an over confident sense of self-sufficiency. Notice the comparison between Laodicea and the town of Smyrna from last week. They were poverty stricken yet Jesus declared them to be rich. In contrast, Laodicea is overflowing with money yet Jesus declared them to be poor.
Jesus also said they were naked. This is a hard-hitting accusation. Increasingly in our culture, to be naked is a good thing, not a shameful thing. Nakedness and near-nakedness is a sign of power, freedom and influence. But in the middle eastern cultures, nakedness was, and still is, a sign of great shame. During King David’s rule some of David’s men were captured by the enemy and they “shaved off half of each man’s beard and cut off their garments in the middle of the buttocks.” (2 Sam. 10:4) This is why the Iraqi prisoners were paraded around naked—in order to shame them.
How about Adam and Eve—why were they ashamed? Nakedness itself is not the issue. Before they sinned they were both naked an unashamed. After they sinned they were still naked, but now they were ashamed. The thing that made the difference was their sin of self-sufficiency and pride. Notice the similarity of words between Adam and Eve and the Laodicean church. Adam and Eve said, “We will be like God” whereas the Laodicean church said “we don’t need God.” They are both saying the same thing. If I am like God, then I have no need of him. But here is the difference between the two. Adam and Eve were naked and were painfully aware of their shame, but the Laodicean, while actually clothed, were unaware of their shame and guilt. Spiritually they thought they were OK, but Jesus told them they were spiritually naked. It’s a little like the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Tin that story the emperor prances around completely naked all the while believing he is clothed in majestic garments. The emperor is the only one who doesn’t know he is naked. In Laodicea, Jesus was the only one who knew they were spiritually naked. The church members would have complemented one another on their spiritual service and good works, completely unaware of their own depraved state of shame and nakedness.
Jesus also accused the church of being blind. Do you recall who else Jesus spoke with during his earthly ministry that thought they could “see” well? Some Pharisees who were listening to Jesus asked, “What, are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim to see, your guilt remains.” The Pharisees believed they possessed spiritual sight and insight, but Jesus knew that their self-sufficiency was the cause of the spiritual blindness. The Laodicean believers likewise thought they possessed spiritual sight, unaware of their spiritual blindness.
They thought they were rich but they were actually poor. They thought they were beautifully clothed when they were actually naked. They thought they could see but they were spiritually blind. This is the problem with the sin of self-sufficiency—you don’t know when you have it. We are fully aware of many sins we struggle with, but the prideful and self-sufficient person has deceived themselves into thinking they are OK. Self- sufficiency leads to self-deception. This is what makes prideful attitudes inherently dangerous. Let me show you how this happens. The apostle John, who wrote the book of Revelation, offers a sound, Biblical explanation. You’ll see why I call this the “spiral of sin”.
1. WE LIE 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. When we first try to hide our sin we lie and make excuses. “It’s really not that bad”; “I’m not doing anything that bad”; “most people in my church struggle with the same sin I do.” We downplay our sin or outright lie about it in order to protect ourselves from more shame. This will eventually lead to step two…
2. WE DECEIVE OURSELVES 8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Eventually we begin to believe our own lie. Now I understand that it would be rare for anyone to claim sinless perfection, although it still happens in the Christian community. We might acknowledge that we are not perfect, but, you know what, God and I are doing just fine. We can no longer see our own sin—we are truly deceived and blinded to our sin. Isn’t this what happened with David and Bathsheba? David needed a good friend to come along and open his eyes to the truth. If we continue in our self-deception long enough finally it will lead to step 3…
3. WE CALL GOD A LIAR 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. At this stage even if Jesus himself were to point out our sin, we would deny it. We would call God a liar to his face.
Another
way of demonstrating this spiral of sin is with the Johari Window. There are
four parts to this and if we are talking about sin, it goes like this. The first
quadrant are things that I see and you see. This is a sin that is not hidden and
which you are probably trying to overcome. The second quadrant are sins that you
see, but I don’t. You knowingly keep them hidden from others. This would equal
step one in John’s spiral of sin. In the next two quadrants you are unaware of
your sin. It may or may not be visible to me.
If the self-deception is so strong, how can a person ever know if they have the sin of self-sufficiency? Let me give you a list that may help diagnose this in your life.
1. You have never surrendered to the Lordship of Christ. Perhaps you have been hanging around church or checking out God for a while. This is great, but until you wave the white flag and surrender to the Christ as your sovereign king, you a living your life without God.
2. You struggle with prayerlessness. Fundamentally, prayer is a statement of our dependence on God. If we pray little it must be that we really don’t need God. A self-sufficient person does not need to pray. One who recognizes their spiritual poverty will need to pray.
3. You are more concerned about the sins of others than you are your own sin. Generally it is easier to find fault in others than it is in ourselves.
4. You are not very teachable. Whenever people make suggestions to you, you rarely take their advice. You are stubborn, more likely to talk to others than listen to them and usually think your way is the best way.
5. You do not practice confession. I am not referring to the occasional “I’m sorry God”, but a regular weekly, if not daily practice of confession. If you are not confessing then you are not aware of your sin.
6. You have never asked a trusted friend to name your sin or sins. Once I asked Karen which of the fruits of the Holy Spirit I was most deficient. She answered me honestly—and accurately by the way.
God despises self-sufficiency, but instead requires Christ-sufficiency. Either Jesus is sufficient for your life or else he isn’t. Which is it for you? Let’s see what Jesus’ solution to self-sufficiency. He said, . 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. They were poor, naked and blind, so of course the solution was to buy gold, to be clothed and to heal their vision. The key is that all of these things must come from Christ. Adam and Eve were naked and ashamed so they tried to make their own clothes. They sewed fig leaves together to make a crude covering. This was yet another attempt at self-sufficiency on their part. They tried to cover over their own nakedness and shame, but their efforts were not even close to good enough. God himself killed the first animals and used the skins for a full body covering. This animal sacrifice looked forward to the sacrificial system to atone for sin which in turn looked forward to the final sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So in that sense we could say that Adam and Eve were clothed by Christ.
Only through the sufficiency of Christ can we get healing balm for our eyes so that we can see the self-deceptive nature of our self-sufficiency. If your pride is not visible to others and you are blinded to it yourself, how can you ever break free of its prison? You must pray a dangerous prayer for God to reveal your pride to you.
Jesus also counsels us to buy gold from him. Every Christian is spiritually bankrupt. Do you recall Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount? “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Being “poor in spirit” is the same as being spiritually bankrupt. That’s what the word “poor” means. It doesn’t mean having less than others. It doesn’t mean struggling to make ends meet. The word “poor” means that you are bankrupt—you have nothing. There are no reserves—there is no savings for a rainy day—there is no forgotten bank account to which you can turn—you are bankrupt. Are you aware that every day you wake up and pull yourself out of bed that you begin the day you are poor in spirit and spiritually bankrupt? If you are fully aware of this, then Jesus said you will be blessed. You will be blessed because your bankrupt heart will force you to turn to Christ for your sufficiency. But if you think you have some spiritual reserves then you will not be blessed.
Do you realize that we have excommunicated Jesus from the church? Yes, we kicked Jesus out of church. Why do you think he wrote this to Laodicea? 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Usually we think of this verse in relation to unbelievers. Many gospel presentations conclude with this verse. But don’t forget who this letter was written to—it was written to the church in Laodicea. Now of course such a church would have its share of unbelievers and it can apply to them as well, but Jesus intended this verse for Christians who kicked him out of their lives. It’s simple—if you are self-sufficient, then you don’t need Jesus and have effectively excommunicated him from your life.
But even though we have kicked him out, God invites us again into true intimacy. This is the love of God, that he would condescend himself to knocking at the door of our heart to come in again. How many of your doors will remain closed? For this church in Laodicea, this was their final warning. They were very close to being vomited out by Jesus, but even still he wanted back in. Christian, you are spiritually bankrupt. Will you let Jesus back in so that he, and he alone can be your sufficiency?
Rich Maurer
June 6, 2004