Copyright, 1910, by Milton C. Wilcox. "Let the Revelation speak and tell what is truth. . . . Uplift Jesus as the center of all hope."
X. Laodicea
HE last of the series, representing the last condition to be developed in the church of the Christian dispensation! There were four cities by the name of Laodicea in ancient times, but the ancient capital of Greater Phrygia is doubtless the one referred to. It lay about forty miles directly east of Ephesus, and but a little way northwest of Colosse. The churches of the two cities are mentioned by Paul, to both of which he addressed epistles, tho the one sent to Laodicea is not now extant. See Col. 2:1; 4:16. The city was once a seat of Roman governors of Asia. It was in part destroyed by earthquakes, and finally abandoned by its inhabitants. In its ruins are a stadium, three theaters, one of which is 450 feet in diameter, and ruins of other buildings.
The name "Laodicea" means "justice of the people," or "the judging of the people." As a type the Laodicean condition brings us to the close of the Christian dispensation, with the judgment pending. This will appear more fully in our study.
The Answer of the Text
[The answers to the questions are from the American Revised Version. Omitting questions, and disregarding sometimes the capital at the beginning and the period at the close of an answer, the text may be read continuously. In notes and comments both versions are used without designation.]
1. How does our Lord address Himself to the church in Laodicea?
And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These things saith the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
2. What sad condition is revealed in the message?
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.
3. What did the Master desire?
I would thou wert cold or hot.
4. In what would continuance in Laodicea’s condition result?
So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of My mouth.
5. How does He elsewise express her spiritual condition?
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
6. What counsel does the Faithful Witness give?
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see.
7. What assurance of His love does the Master give?
As many as I love, I reprove and chasten.
8. What earnest exhortation does our Lord make?
Be zealous therefore, and repent.
9. How near does the True Witness come to this unconsciously "wretched one," and what gracious invitation does He give?
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
10. What is the promise to the victor?
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
11. How is the message emphasized to all?
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Note and Comment
1. The Amen.—The word is from the Hebrew meaning "truth." See "God of truth," Isa. 65:16, margin of A.R.V. The word is used to express strong confirmation of statement (Deut. 27:15-26), or confirmatory response at the close of a prayer, somewhat equivalent to "May it be as prayed," or "So be it" (Ps. 106:48; 1 Cor. 14:16). "Amen, amen," is often rendered "verily, verily" in John’s Gospel. The term is applied to our Lord as the One through whom all truth is given and in whom and by whom all truth is confirmed. He would have the last of His church know that as His word had been confirmed all through the past, so it would be still. He is the Witness faithful and true ever, in warning, in exhortation, in promise. The title, too, indicates that this is the closing letter of a series. The beginning of the creation of God.—Not that He was the first created, but that God created through Him from the beginning. "For by Him were all things created." He, too, in His Deity is the first and the last.
2. I know thy works.—This is never a sad message to the humble, trusting soul. To the false, the hypocritical, the self-righteous, it is unpleasant and crushing to know that God knows, and to have Him reveal those works. Neither cold nor hot.—Cold and hot are conditions of feeling, and hence of action. "Hot" may denote earnest zeal. "Cold" may indicate a great sense of need. But this church feels neither.
3. I would thou wert.—God does not leave us in our comfortable condition. He does not look with pleasure upon those "at ease in Zion," when there is wickedness rampant everywhere, when souls are falling under the power of sin, when a great world is to be warned. He would have the soul zealous and earnest, or at least bemoaning its own condition, and desiring to better it.
4. Lukewarm is a satisfying condition to the person reclining at ease; but lukewarm drink is nauseous to the one who is thirsty or weary, looking for refreshment. Rotherham reads, and so, too, the Greek, "I am about to vomit thee out of My mouth." O, how sickening to the Master is such a condition!
5. I am rich, and increased with goods.—There has arisen in God’s providence and purpose in these last days, since 1844, a wonderful reform movement, inaugurated by a poor people, with meager resources, few in number, with no human advantages. This movement includes within its scope every true reform, and all down-trodden truth of God’s Word, however unpopular; among these the return to "the old paths" of Bible truth; faith in Christ Jesus as the only Saviour from sin, the only Giver of righteousness and life; the Decalogue as the great moral standard, to cleanse from its transgressions and to restore to the loving obedience of which the Gospel is given; the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, as taught by the law and the Word, and by precept and example of Jesus Christ, and prophet, and apostle; the outpouring of the [[FIGURE]]7Holy Spirit and the restoration of spiritual gifts; belief in the prophecies of God's Word, and hence the second coming of Christ Jesus to raise to immortality the righteous dead, to immortalize the righteous living, to destroy sin and all identified with the baleful thing, and to restore the sinless earth for the eternal home of man. This movement has especially emphasized the great study of the sanctuary or the priesthood of the Bible, centering in Jesus Christ our Lord, and throwing marvelous light over the great subject of the atonement and our Lord's coming. Health and temperance reform, religious liberty, and the education and training of the whole individual, have been strongly emphasized.
The people, the denomination which bears the burden of this work, is the Seventh-day Adventist, the name setting forth two prominent characteristics of their belief which in their fulness involve all others. Marvelously have they advanced. Numerous schools have been established, publishing houses have been built in many lands, sanitariums have been erected in all parts of the world, and according to the last Federal census this people are doing missionary work in more lands than any other religious denomination. They have established missions in forty-three of all the countries which have been entered by any others, while no other denomination has entered more than ten.
All this is good; but it was to be expected. The truth is of God; it is God's message for this time which they bear (Rev. 14:6-14), and the message in God's plan must be given. Tho men should refuse to herald it abroad, God is able of insensate stones to give it voice. The sad thing is that its great, mighty, consistent, harmonious truth should be held to be the assets of a denomination in which they could boast, or that the spirit of great, numerous, and worldly and wealthy denominations, who boast of their long and honorable history and great numbers, should take possession of any part of a people so small as to be utterly insignificant were it not for the mighty message of God they are bearing to the world. What if membership and conferences have more than trebled in the last two decades? what if educational institutions above the primary grades have been more than multiplied by ten? what if publishing houses have more than quadrupled in the same period, and publications are issued in sixty-two languages instead of three? what if sanitariums have been multiplied by twenty-seven, and mission fields and workers in a far greater ratio? None of these are cause for boasting, nor can we say of the treasuries of God, we are "rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." He who is the most greatly blessed of God, if he take those blessings to himself, or feel satisfied in their possession and the progress they bring despite his selfishness, is the most wretched of all men, tho he know it not,—wretched and poor and blind and miserable and naked.
6. I counsel thee.—God has eternal riches for the lukewarm; but even He, the Infinite One, can not compel their acceptance. They are the riches of faith and hope and love, "the exceeding riches of His grace," without which no character is acceptable in His sight, and with which in possession no soul will boast or be lukewarm. See 1 Cor. 13:1-13; James 2:5; Eph. 2:7. Then will his boast be in Christ Jesus alone. White garments of Christ's righteousness, not that wrought out by human endeavor. Phil. 3:9; Rev. 7:14. He who trusts in his own righteousness, will stand naked in the judgment; he who yields all his own to Christ Jesus and takes by faith the robe woven by Christ in the loom of heaven, will never be seen naked. Every imperfection will be covered by Christ. Eye-salve, the Holy Spirit. God would have us see "visions," or seeings, as He sees. Only the Spirit-anointed eyes can thus see, only the anointing from the Holy One (1 John 2:20) can clear the dull sight of world-blinded eyes. Buy, by giving up all that is worthless to the universe, and worse than worthless, ruinous, and take from Him, "without money and without price." Isa. 55:1-3.
7. Reprove, . . . chasten.—God does not reprove to find fault, but to let us know our true condition. He does not chasten us to please Himself, but to do us good, to correct our ways. Let not the hard heart rebel. Take the reproof as evidence of infinite kindness, take His wise chastening as tokens of His infinite love. See Heb. 12:5-10.
8. Be zealous, . . . repent.—What, the lukewarm?—Yes, the lukewarm, repent, and be zealous in the repenting. The lukewarm soul can not, must not go by feeling. Feeling is not faith. Faith accepts just what God says, and acts upon it whatever the feeling. Turn from the selfishness, the boasting, the self-satisfaction, the sins of ease and deadly apathy; confess these sins before God, and ask for pardon, for a tender heart, for godly sorrow for sin, for love, for Christ Jesus.
9. Behold, I stand at the door and knock.—Behold the love of the Master. Uninviting as Laodicea is, the Master not only admonishes, warns, reproves, entreats, but He comes to the very door, and knocks, and calls to self-imprisoned souls in Laodicea. Knock, knock, knock, O, how many times He knocks. Yet the hearts grown cold and hard do not hear. He calls again and again, but they do not respond.
Behold a Stranger at the door!
He gently knocks, has knocked before,
Has waited long, is waiting still;
You treat no other friend so ill.
If any man hear.—He speaks to you alone, soul. He appeals to each soul in Laodicea. If you will take away the rubbish, and open the door, the very fulness of the Godhead will enter and sit down to your table. He will sup with you. But what have you to set before Him? What have you but your mistakes and blunders, and troubles and sorrows? It is not an inviting board; but the Master's presence will make them glow with beauty. He will share them with you; He died that He might bear them all with you, and you with them. And then He will transform your mean board to the table of a monarch, and pile it high with all the delectable bounties and viands of heaven, seasoned with His own infinite sweetness and love, and bid you to feast with Him. How great are these blessings! It is Jesus Christ, just before He comes, inviting the remnant ones into the anteroom of heaven, where the charmed vision can almost compass the supernal glory. Open the door, and welcome the True Witness.
10. He that overcometh.—The victor by the grace of Christ over himself, over evil, over every lust and sin, shall reign with Christ. "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him." 2 Tim. 2:12. See John 17:24; Rom. 8:17, 18. When Christ overcame in our behalf He took His seat as our High Priest on the right hand of the throne of the Father, the throne of grace. Heb. 8:1; 4:16. When every soul is gathered in, He will leave the8throne of the Father, and take a seat upon His own throne, that of His father David. See Ps. 110:1; Zech. 6:13; Luke 1:32, 33. He will take His throne, at His second coming, in the New Jerusalem above, the capital city of this new earth. Matt. 25:31; Rev. 21:1-7. Thus the apostle states the matter: "Then cometh the end [of Christ's reign as priest upon the Father's throne], when He [Christ] shall deliver up the kingdom [of grace] to God, even the Father; when He [the Father] shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He [Christ] must reign [on the throne of the Father, Ps. 110:1] till He [the Father] hath put all His [Christ's] enemies under His [Christ's] feet. The last enemy that shall be abolished is death." 1 Cor. 15:24-26. Then Christ shall reign forever, in the earth made new; and His regenerated, immortal overcomers shall reign with Him.
