Messages to the Churches: Laodicea

Part 1

Tim Moore: So how about it, Nathan, what jumps out at you from Jesus’ message to the church at Laodicea?

Nathan Jones: Well, you’ve got to compare it to the church before that, and that’s Philadelphia. And Philadelphia was a church that was on the ball. It was out there sending missionaries. It had a passion for the Lord. He had nothing negative to say about the church of Philadelphia. And then we get to Laodicea. And as we just said, Laodicea was an actual church in what today would be Western Turkey. But the Lord always meant these churches to represent timeframes and time periods, and so it represents the time period from about the 1920s to today, where the Church of Higher Criticism, excuse me, the German School of Higher Criticism decided that they were going to decide what verses in the Bible were actually Jesus’ words and which weren’t. And it undermined the faith of so many people, and it left a church that was apathetic. And so that’s what we’re going to call the church of Laodicea, the Apathetic Church.

Tim Moore: So, just to jump ahead of ourselves a little bit in terms of the application which churches have we been through, and what periods of time do we submit they represent? We started, obviously, with Jesus’ words to the church at Ephesus, and we said that’s the early church, the early church that was founded by the Lord Himself but really spread by the apostles and by the early church fathers. And so what period did that represent?

Nathan Jones: Yeah, that would be the first century Church, about 30 to 95, and we call that the Legalistic Church. It had lost its first love. The Lord says, “You have patience, endurance, and you hate evil,” but this has then the negative thing, because, you know, for each church there’s a positive and the negative with a few exceptions, the negative is “but you’ve abandoned your first love.” And Ephesus, you know, they were the first century church, they loved the Lord, but as they started putting the formation of a church together, you have to have rules and regulation, and soon those rules and regulations became more important than the reason why they were attending church, and that was Jesus Christ.

Tim Moore: And then we got to the church at Smyrna. Smyrna following that very first church, as finally the church was embraced, if you will, by the Roman Empire. So what period does that represent?

Nathan Jones: So the Church of Smyrna would be about 95 to 312.

Tim Moore: Okay, before the embracing, I’m sorry, yes.

Nathan Jones: Right.

Tim Moore: Right after the early Church Fathers, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Nathan Jones: Right. This was a church that was under great persecution, the Roman Empire. And the Jewish people didn’t want them to be considered part of their sect and get the same persecution. And so the early church was ostracized and they were the ones thrown to lions and killed by gladiators and crucified. The Lord says this is their condemnation. “You suffer tribulation and poverty. You’re suffering,” you know, “you’re faithful still.” But He says, “Do not fear what you’re about to suffer.” So there’s nothing negative for this church. In other words, their suffering brought about great faith and great perseverance.

Tim Moore: It certainly did. And that’s where I meant to say, we get to the third church mentioned in Revelation 2, the church at Pergamum, when finally the emperor of Rome decides that he wants to embrace the faith, he makes that the official faith of the Roman Empire. And of course the church spread very quickly, but not everyone who claims to be an adherent to the Christian faith was a true follower of Christ in this time period. So what’s the admonition to Pergamum, and what time period does that represent?

Nathan Jones: So that’s about 312 to 590. We’re going to call this, the last was the Persecuted Church, this is the Apostate Church. Basically, what the Romans did is they in the past had taken all the Greek gods, scratched out their names, and put Roman names on them. Well, now that Constantine had made it the state religion and church and state were merged, they erased the Roman names and scratched in saint names. So it became saint worship and Mary veneration and stuff like that. So the Lord says, “Hey, you hold fast to My name,” they were dedicated to the name of Christ, “but you hold onto false teachings.” They kept that Babylonian religion that had morphed into the different empires, and they merged it and basically created what we call today Catholicism.

Tim Moore: They certainly did. That led to the church at Thyatira. What period does Thyatira represent?

Nathan Jones: So that’s the middle age church, 590 to about 1517. And we call that the Pagan Church. So once you fall into apostasy, then the next step is pure paganism. We see a lot of churches today that have moved into that, especially ones with the LGBT flags out front and the ordination of women and stuff like that that is unbiblical. The Lord says, “Hey, you have good works, love, faith, and endurance.” The church of the middle age, they had leper colonies, they had hospices, they created hospitals. The church did a lot of good work at the time, “but you tolerate sexual immorality.” Both physically sexual immorality as well as spiritual immorality by adopting all that paganism into it.

Tim Moore: Certainly. That led to the church at Sardis. And Sardis represents a period where the Lord is calling the church to wake up. And so we get into the Reformation timeframe, and there is some wakening happening, but what period does Sardis represent?

Nathan Jones: Yeah, Sardis would be the 1517 to 1750. We call this the Dead Church. Now, we’re like, well, wait a minute, that’s the Reformation. But I’ve been reading through Foxe’s Book of Martyrs finally, and the amount of people that were killed for just reading the Bible in their native language. They were burned at the stake, they were staked at low tide and washed away, they were stoned to death, they were killed for believing in the Bible and not going through the church. So basically the church had become dead. But with all like a seed, a seed that’s dead in the ground, we know life comes after, and that’s the next church.

Tim Moore: And that was actually the State Church that was dead. Too often the states, if you will, of Europe and the Western world and even the Eastern Church as well had adopted the church, sort of like the Holy Roman Empire, but they were killing true faith and even killing true faithful Christians. And so the Lord rebukes the church at Sardis, and that is the period represented, but it yields to the church at Philadelphia.

And we saw, for a period of about 200 years, the church of Philadelphia representing the great outpouring of evangelism, where the Gospel was shared all around the world through modern technology like ships and the ability to sail and navigate around the world, obviously all the way into the 20th century virtually, where we have the explosion of all sorts of electronic means of sharing the Gospel. We’re using that today. And so the Lord does not rebuke the church at Philadelphia per se but commends them for their great faithfulness and evangelism.

Nathan Jones: And it’s no mistake, the fact that from 1750 to about 1925, this great alive church, this passionate church, also brought in one of the greatest technological revolutions in history. When people have their faith in Jesus Christ and they’re morally directed as they should, then the Lord blesses them. And we saw tremendous growth in civilization, as poverty decreased, food expanded, you know, the nations of the world became more united. So it was a wonderful time period, the Gospel spread, but that leads us up to the church that we’re going to address now.

Tim Moore: It does, and I even have to touch on this regarding the period represented by the church at Philadelphia. When people have their worldview aligned with a biblical, Christian worldview, when they understand that the universe is a universe of order created by a God of order, then they begin to explore and investigate and be curious because they recognize that God established everything. Prior to that, there was so many false understandings of even the universe, the cosmos, but it was Christians who were the first scientists and were the first inventors, oftentimes, that led to the great prosperity we’ve experienced in these last years.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely.

Tim Moore: But as you said, for about the last century, and folks, it has been virtually a century.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, hundred years.

Tim Moore: We’re living in the period of Laodicea, and that’s where we are today. So obviously these various churches had deeds oftentimes that the Lord commended, but sometimes things that He challenged them for. And that brings us to the church at Laodicea, where the Lord says He knows their deeds, but really there’s not much commendation. So, Nathan, we’ve got a little time today. Let’s step through the letter to the church at Laodicea verse-by-verse and see what jumps out at us, beginning obviously in 3:14. The introduction to this passage, “The angel to the church of Laodicea write.” And the Lord says, “The amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of creation of God, says this.” So what jumps out at you in that first verse, I should say?

Nathan Jones: Well, all seven letters follow the same pattern. There’s an address to the angel, the guardian angel or pastor or both, that guard over that church, that’s who the letter’s written to. And then the Lord reveals something about Himself.

Tim Moore: Yes.

Nathan Jones: You know, He’s the amen. He’s the final, He’s the last word, you know? He’s faithful. You can always trust in the Lord, and you can believe everything He says because He’s a true witness. And Tim, I love how each of these letters, Jesus reveals a little more about Himself and confirms more about Himself to know that we have the one and only God, the King of king and Lord of lords, and we can put our faith and trust in Him.

Tim Moore: We certainly can, I love this particular verse because it is so revealing. The amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning and the End. And that takes me back to Revelation 1:8, where Jesus refers to Himself as the Alpha and Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. It takes me forward to the last chapter in Revelation, Chapter 22, where Jesus refers to Himself in verse 13 as the Alpha and Omega again, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I can’t help but think about John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.” Or John 8:58, when Jesus testified to the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I Am.”

Nathan Jones: I Am.

Tim Moore: And He has always been in existence because He has always been God. He was there at the beginning, and He has seen the end, which is why He can testify.

Nathan Jones: I love it how when Moses was talking to the Lord through the burning bush, he says, “Well, who do I tell people you are?” And He says, “I Am, Yahweh.” You know, it’s just “I exist.” I mean, what more do you need to say? “I exist,” He’s the King.

Tim Moore: The eternal I Am.

Nathan Jones: Well, the I Am has a message to the church at Laodicea, and it’s not a good one. Pick up in verse 15. Says, “I know your works,” He doesn’t elaborate, “that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth.”

Tim Moore: Boy, what a dramatic picture.

Nathan Jones: Wow!

Tim Moore: You know, I love the fact that Jesus says, “I know your deeds.” And this to me conveys the omniscience of God. He knows all, there’s nothing that is hidden from Him. Any thought we have, any behavior we act out upon, He knows. And then right in verse 16, He cannot tolerate that which is not holy, because He is holy. So we have the omniscience and the holiness of God right here in these two verses.

Nathan Jones: What’s interesting about the town of Laodicea is it was not near any natural waterways or springs. So what they would do is they’d use an aqueduct, and they’d bring the water down into Laodicea. And as the water traveled down the aqueduct, you know, would sit in the sun, and by the time the Laodiceans got the water, it was lukewarm. Now, I get up in the middle of the night and get a drink sometimes, and we have our water circulator tied, oddly enough, to my sink. And so the water’s always lukewarm. I can never get it hot and I can never get it cold. And it’s like, ugh. So I go to my wife’s sink to get the cold water. And that’s what the Laodiceans, the Lord is making a connection here, He’s saying, hey, you guys are used to drinking ugh, you know, lukewarm water. You know it’s disgusting. That’s what I think about your faith.

Tim Moore: Wow.

Nathan Jones: You believe in me, sure, but the passion just isn’t there.

Tim Moore: And that brings us right to the next verse. In verse 17, Jesus says, “Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Boy, Nathan, it reminds me that so often our self-perception is flawed, especially for those who are self-righteous. And that’s exactly what the Lord is saying. These are Christians, or at least self-proclaiming Christians in this church, but their self-perception is far removed from reality, as God is revealing it.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, we call these today cultural Christians or Easter Christians or Christmas-Easter Christians, you only see them at church Christmas and Easter. They’re just, they believe in the Lord, it’s up here, but it really hasn’t come into here yet. And then you’ve got to wonder, are you saved? He calls them a church, so these people must have a saving faith, but at the same time, they’re just not passionate, they’re just going through the motions. And if we look at the churches as representative of time periods, in this last century, we’ve seen the church grow exponentially, it’s been fantastic.

But what we’ve generated is a lot of churches that are cultural and traditions, they have wonderful buildings, they have endless programs. You know, they have great sermons. You know, it’s a great show, great worship, but the people are just going through the motions. And the Lord either wants, you know, He says it’s better off if you were cold and dead. I mean, it’s interesting that He gives praise to the Dead Church more for at least choosing a side than those who are just take a middle of the road.

Tim Moore: I appreciate you recognizing that sometimes those who would think that they’re in the faith, and at least in a church, may not be. Have they really been changed in their hearts? But I want to bring it even closer to home, I want to bring it right down to me. Where sometimes is my self-perception lacking? And am I truly aligned with a God’s eye view of myself and of the world around me, or am I so confident in my own self-righteousness? I think there is an introspection that we have to have as we read these messages to the churches, not just how it applies to others who are lacking in their own faithfulness, but Lord, where do I fall short? Where would Your Spirit speak to my heart? And we’re going to get to that in just a moment.

In the very next verse, the Lord advises these people here at Laodicea to buy from Him gold refined by fire so that they might become rich, white garments so that they might clothe their nakedness, and that the shame of their nakedness not be revealed to the world, and eye salve to anoint their eyes so that they might see. What is the deal with eye salve, and why is that so important in this church?

Nathan Jones: Well, Laodicea as a town was known to be a medical town as well. They were widely known, not only for their bad water, but for their eye salve. So, again, the Lord, being the perfect teacher that He is, is making that connection that people would understand. Wait a minute, we create eye salve, and You’re saying that we need eye salve?

Tim Moore: Salve. Salve.

Nathan Jones: Salve or salve? All right, I’m not, my daughter’s the nurse, not me, but yeah, eye salve. And so here He’s saying is that, hey, you guys think you’ve got it all. Now, again, He’s not talking about they’re really naked and poor and they’re really blind. It’s spiritually, he says, hey, you guys are going through the motions and thinking you are super Christians, but you are nothing compared to the churches before you, even the Dead Church. Man, that is a wake-up call.

Tim Moore: It really is, I think that so applies to the Western Church today, who does think that we are so rich. I mean, most of our churches are paid off, or at least they have a mortgage that they’re able to pay, they have beautiful buildings, they have facilities, they have programs, but are they really rich in terms of spiritual good that they are doing on behalf of the Kingdom of God, or do we become self-righteous and confident? “Lord, we have need of nothing.” Are the dreams and hopes we have even for our own lives accomplished by our own strength, or do we rely upon the Lord and we can do nothing without the strength of Him?

Nathan Jones: Tim, I was reading a report recently how many young men are leaving contemporary churches and going into Greek and Russian Orthodox and even Catholicism because they feel that the current churches have become so pop culture that they’re lacking the solemnity of a service, the seriousness of the Lord. And so, it’s an interesting trend to see young men, 20s, 30s, leaving our Protestant churches and going into Greek and Russian Orthodoxy and all that because they want services that, even though doctrinally might speak somewhat questionable, are passionate about God and have a heart and center for God. That’s a telling sign.

Tim Moore: It is a telling sign. I think it’s something, again, that we have to bring home. So this takes us to our next verse, verse 19, where Jesus says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. Therefore be zealous and repent.”

Nathan, I can’t help but think about the Proverb, Chapter 3:12, where the writer says, “For whom the Lord loves He reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” And obviously the writer of Hebrews had the same thing in mind when in Hebrews 12 he wrote this: “As you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons.”

And now he cites directly from that passage in Proverbs, “My son, do not lightly regard the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” And then he goes on to talk about how discipline is actually good for us, finishing in verse 11. “For the discipline of the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

I think some Christians think, why would I be disciplined, and what do I have to repent over? I think it’s a great lie, even within the Church, that Satan has convinced too many of us you have nothing to repent for. And so let’s separate, repentance unto salvation, and what is meant by this passage, when even you and I sometimes should turn back from the course we’re on to be more dedicated to serving the Lord faithfully. What is it talking about?

Nathan Jones: Well, obviously these people are saved because the Lord’s bringing to the fact that they’ve gotten into a condition where, you know, it’s just they’re going through the motions. I think today some of the reports you hear about all the Bibles that we have today, you know, all the study resources, and yet as a generation, we are the least read in the Bible of any generation before, yet we’re drowning in Bible studies and lessons and videos and things. So the Lord’s calling us to repentance, like, I think that’s a great point, not to salvation. But there’s times when your relationship isn’t right with somebody, and you say, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake.” You know, your wife, for instance, hey, I’ve been neglecting you for something…

Tim Moore: Often.

Nathan Jones: Often. You know, you have to fix that relationship. And that’s what the Lord’s saying, He says, “The best life, you know, not your best life now, but your best life for eternity is to have that perfect relationship with Me, and you’re not in it right now. Repent. In other words, say you’re sorry. Come back to me, and I’m going to show you that perfect relationship.” And that’s what He promises in there. He says, you know, be zealous and repent.
And then He comes to this next verse, which I love, and we quote this all the time. Verse 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 dine with him, and he with Me.” Isn’t it interesting that here we’re talking about a church, and Jesus isn’t in the church, He’s outside of the church knocking on the door, hoping that church will let Him in.

Tim Moore: Oh!

Nathan Jones: And that’s a sad testimony to many churches today.

Tim Moore: It is a sad testimony. It’s a sad testimony to many Christian lives that sometimes we get so busy, so caught up that not only do we not hear, but the Lords even outside saying, “Can I come back into your life?” Because we get misguided and misdirected. I go back to the point that the word repent actually means turn back. Now, there is a repentance unto salvation.

When I recognize the sheer horror of my sinfulness, my sin, and I repent before the Lord, I accept Jesus Christ, He covers my sins, and I’m saved. That’s what we refer to as eternal salvation. And it cannot be lost by me losing it in a moment, He has assured me I have salvation for all eternity, and yet I can stray like him. That’s the song that that I refer to often. Like a sheep I’m prone to wander, prone to leave the Lord I love. If I’ve wandered away from Him, then the other meaning of repentance, or the same meaning of turning back comes into play.

In Hebrew, the verb shuv meant to turn and go a different direction. In the Greek there’s a word that I probably can’t pronounce, Metanoiein, which mean to change one’s mindset. So Nathan, there’s times even in my Christian walk where I’ve realized, Lord, I’m straying. I’m down the wrong direction. I need to turn back to You and get right with You because You love me and I certainly want to love You. And that’s not a repentance unto salvation, but that’s simply changing the wrong direction I’m on and continuing to walk with the Lord.

Nathan Jones: And the point that the church thinks it’s already rich means that there’s lots of distractions, you know?

Tim Moore: Oh, man.

Nathan Jones: There’s lots of stuff going on. You know, you’re doing church, you’re feeling church, you’re experiencing it, but you’re missing the center of it. And it’s almost like the Legalistic Church of Ephesus, is that they got so into church, how it works, they missed the purpose of why they were there to begin with. But the Lord says to him, verse 21, “who overcomes, I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” So Tim, we’ve been bringing about this overcomer again and again with these letters. Well, let’s remind folks, what is an overcomer?

Tim Moore: So an overcomer, we hearken right back to 1 John 5:5. “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” If you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you are by definition an overcomer. The Lord urges you, just as He does these churches, to turn back from whatever wrong direction you’re on, even in your faith walk. But be aligned with Him, walk with Him, welcome Him into your life at all times because He loves you. Nathan, that is exactly what I draw out of that great verse 19, where the Lord says, “Those whom I love.” He’s not reproving and piling on discipline because He has anything of animosity toward us, but because He loves us. He loved us enough to come and give Himself as a sacrifice for me, for you, for all who are watching today.

Nathan Jones: When my wife, Heather, and I were first dating, we worked at a church plant together in Philadelphia. And we had kids coming in, some of the most undisciplined kids you could imagine. And they were searching, which is wonderful, but they were completely undisciplined because they had parents who weren’t involved in their lives, who never corrected them or showed them the right way.

Here we have a loving Father saying, “Hey, the fact that I am disciplining you shows I love you.” Not saying these kids didn’t have parents that loved them, but they never disciplined them. A Lord that disciplines us means He’s trying to get us, like you said, to repent, to turn that 180 degrees to get back on the right track, back on that perfect relationship with Him. And really, an overarching theme throughout the entire Bible is the restoration of the relationship between man and God and how God makes it possible. And He reiterates that again and again in these letters.

Tim Moore: He certainly does, and His purpose and plan for us is that we would, as that verse you just read, reign with Him. And that takes us right back to 2 Timothy 2:12. “If we endure, we will also reign with Him.” And Nathan, that points us to the coming day of the Lord when Jesus comes to the Earth to reign on Mount Zion, and we will return with Him in our glorified bodies and reign with Him.

The challenge for all of us is left to us in verse 22. “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear with the Spirit says to the churches.” There are so many demands clamoring for our attention today. Do I really have the ear to hear? Do all Christians have ears to hear? I would say yes. But are we hearing and heeding the Spirit, or are we grieving the Spirit and tuning Him out? And that’s the challenge for all of us right now.

Nathan Jones: Right, that’s why we need to be in our Bibles, reading our Bibles, and we need to be praying. Those are the two things the Lord is calling us to do to stay attuned with Him.

Tim Moore: To stay attuned with Him. Well, folks, if you would like to dive deeper, there’s so much more we could say. We will continue to say more in the weeks, the months, the years to come until the Lord returns, but we have a great resource for you that we’d like to share with you today.
[Announcer] Lamb & Lion Ministries is pleased to offer an updated verse-by-verse expository study of Revelation. Based on Dr. David Reagan’s original overview of Revelation, this new study guide contains QR codes to digitally remastered audios recorded by Dr. David Reagan himself. It steps through the entire book of Revelation in an easy-to-follow manner. The expanded and improved study guide is filled with colorful graphics and bonus material to enrich your own study of Revelation. The full-color printed copy of the Revelation Study Guide can be yours for only $25, and that includes all the links to the online audios at no extra charge. Just call the number on the screen or visit our online store. If you prefer, you can download the study guide itself from our website for $10. You’ll find the Lamb & Lion Ministries Revelation Study Guide to be a valuable aid to your study of God’s prophetic word.

Closing

Tim Moore: We hope this miniseries has been a blessing to you and that it has opened the eyes and ears of your heart to learn what the Holy Spirit wants you to understand from Jesus’ letters to the Churches of Revelation.

Nathan Jones: And whether you accept the interpretation that these letters were addressed to literal geographic churches and offer insights to periods throughout the Church Age and to types of churches throughout the world today, we know there are important lessons for all who believe in Jesus Christ and aspire to be an overcomer.

Tim Moore: In coming months, we’ll return to Revelation again and again. We will endeavor to take a deep dive into this culminating book of Bible prophecy because, as Jesus testified, it describes the things which must soon take place and because there is a twice repeated promise of blessing for those who read and hear the words of Revelation and heed the things which are written in it.

Nathan Jones: And in the coming weeks, we have some other exciting topics to bring to you. Join us each week as we explore different facets of Christ IN Prophecy, always pointing to our great God and Savior and soon coming King, Jesus Christ.

Tim Moore: As we close out this series, I will leave you with the hope-filled promise Jesus offers to any who invite Him into their heart. He promised, “I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. And I will grant to him to sit down with Me on my throne.” “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!'” Indeed. Come, Lord Jesus. Godspeed!

Event

[Announcer] This February, Lamb & Lion Ministries is offering an interactive streaming Bible study. This four-part Lunch & Learn series will commence at 11:30 AM Central each Thursday in February. The topic will be the churches of Revelation, based on Jesus’ letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapters two and three. Just visit LambLion.com to learn more and download an outline for each week’s lesson. Then, join Tim and Nathan on our Christ In Prophecy YouTube channel. We’ll look forward to seeing you there!

End of Program