Revelation 3:17
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
The verse sets a self-satisfied claim to be spiritually rich and in need of nothing against the true condition of being wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, unknown to the one who makes it. It is spoken by the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, to the Laodiceans concerning their works, leading to the counsel to buy gold, white raiment and eyesalve and to the call to be zealous, repent, open the door and overcome. It applies in the present time in the last days while the last message of mercy is being proclaimed, picturing professed people with great light awaiting Christ's coming. Poverty is lack of love, nakedness is lack of pure righteous character, and blindness is failure to see defects and lack of grace, all to be remedied by buying from Christ faith that works by love, His righteousness, and spiritual discernment. Those who continue in the condition will be rejected from Christ's mouth, yet those who repent are not left without hope, for the rebuke is given in mercy to a people entrusted with truth.
Words and Literary Setting
The claim to be rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing is a self-satisfied profession of spiritual wealth that hides great want of soul, trusting in own knowledge and goodness and past experience while neglecting prayer and self-examination and becoming engrossed with cares and earthly gain. It is answered by the true condition unknown to the speaker, that of being wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, a state of spiritual poverty and blindness that must be honestly recognized rather than covered by confidence in progress or conformity to the world and desire for human approval. That exposure lays bare false self-confidence and lukewarmness like that of the nominal church left behind, and it points to the gracious remedy that follows, faith that works by love bringing harmony with God, with gold and white raiment and eye-salve to be received through zealous repentance lest there be rejection.
The words are those of the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God, spoken to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans concerning its works. They come after the rebuke of lukewarm works that will cause spewing out of the mouth, exposing the saying of richness and need of nothing as ignorance of wretchedness and misery and poverty and blindness and nakedness. They lead to the counsel to buy from Him gold tried in the fire in order to be rich, and white raiment in order to be clothed, and eyesalve in order to see, and to the assurance that loving rebuke and chastening call for zeal and repentance. They lead further to the promise of fellowship to whoever opens the door and to the promise to the overcomer of sitting with Christ in His throne, belonging with the messages to Ephesus, Pergamos, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22 as message after message of the last testimony written at the command to write things seen and present and to come.
The message stands as part of a most solemn and tremendous testimony for the last days, made known by Christ Himself to John on the Isle of Patmos and revealing the last events of this earth's history. It is given to keep minds from the confusion by which Satan seeks to deceive even the elect and gain a great victory, and the whole of Revelation 3 must be read and understood and traced through, with special force in its first three verses. It comes at this time with special meaning for the present time as a message of mercy that God is still sending, to be read with prayer asking God to show its import and to be carefully studied now. It warns that men will arise claiming new light whose theories if received would destroy faith in truths that have stood the test for half a century, and that those accepting false theories regarding God make of no effect the plain Word of God and are in great danger of finally looking upon the whole Bible as fiction.
It belongs to the messages given to the churches in Asia, which portray the state of things existing in the churches of the religious world today and give the history of Satan's effort to bring dissension into the church, a difficulty that must be met today. The name of its church is symbolic of the Christian church in a period of the Christian era, and the number seven indicates completeness, showing that the message extends to the end of time and is in force today. Its figures are symbolic of the state of God's professed people, the wheat developing among the tares, with truth standing on its own eternal basis in contrast with error. It shows Christ weighing the characters of those who have taken His name, with every individual under His supervision, acquainted with the thoughts and intents of the heart as well as every word and act, knowing all about religious experience and whom each loves and serves, and it calls for close self-examination. It gives guiding light from the experience of the past for each soul, showing Christ as the great Head moving in the midst of the candlesticks who will never be without a church, showing faithful and true witnesses standing unflinchingly when the test comes, and showing that if some fail to testify their candle will be put out and the faithful will take the places of those who refuse to shine. It is a warning from the Messenger of heaven, coming not from human lips but from lips that cannot be moved by human influence, penned by inspiration of the Spirit as words of mercy and encouragement and warning to those who have a name that they live but are dead and to stewards who thought it their privilege to ascend to the highest places, all to give careful attention and heed, to be watchful, to do first works, to strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, and to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Every word of Revelation 3 is to be diligently studied because it points out the danger of losing hold upon the things heard and learned from the Source of all light. It is a charge to watchmen, ministers, and doctors in every place watching for souls as those who must give account, to guard every outpost, to answer in clear decided tones under the Holy Spirit, to permit no soul to pass into the shadow of uncertainty and to lead no soul wrong into the snare of the enemy to become confused and perish, and to rouse themselves and not be stubborn in unbelief, because the blood of souls caused to perish will be required at their hands. It calls to remember how truth was received and heard, to hold fast and to repent, and to refuse even for a moment interpretations that would loosen one pin or remove one pillar from the platform of truth. Such refusal is needed since human interpretations and the reception of fables spoil faith, confuse understanding, and make faith in Jesus Christ of none effect, and since faulty theories so subtle coming through influence of mind upon mind by those who have departed from the faith can imperceptibly imbue the mind and draw away from the faith. It applies to the people of God in their present spiritual condition, who for Christ's sake must open their eyes to discern spiritual things.
Time and People Addressed
The verse applies in the present time, in the last days, while the most solemn third angel's message is being proclaimed as the last message of mercy, following Philadelphia with unquestionable application so that none is left without opportunity to hear the Spirit. It pictures professed people with great light awaiting Christ's coming in a most trying time before the close of earth's history, who believe themselves spiritually rich and in need of nothing yet are unaware of being wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Their likeness to the world has made their distinctness invisible, for they are conformed to the world and seek human approval rather than God's approval, like the nominal church they had left. They have left first love and are in a fearful condition of self-righteousness, pride, self-reliance, self-importance, and dependence on human capabilities, saying they are rich and need nothing while remaining proud, boastful, and unconverted and failing to follow the clear light of truth and revelation of the Scriptures. Through these words Jesus Himself speaks to them, calling Seventh-day Adventists who have received great light to realize their poverty and need of the graces of the Spirit of truth and righteousness, to come in childlike trustfulness with melting love filling every heart, to repent zealously, and to receive gold tried in fire, white raiment, and eyesalve or face rejection.
The verse exposes Seventh-day Adventist churches whose religious life is in many cases a lie, with guilt for self-deception resting upon them and upon brethren assembled in General Conference. Though the subject has been set before them again and again, their dissatisfaction with their spiritual condition has not been deep and painful enough to work reform. Against their false riches stands the true riches Christ offers, His grace and salvation and the white vesture of His own righteousness, with heavenly treasure to be bought from Him by opening the door of the heart to Him as He knocks. The same condition belongs to a large share of those who profess to keep God's commandments, who sincerely believed they enjoyed the blessings of the gospel and were rich in God's favor while the True Witness declared them poor, naked, blind, and miserable. Human judgment of spiritual standing is not God's judgment, for His thoughts and ways are not human thoughts and ways and He does not see as humans see, and this applies to leaders and people in Battle Creek who lacked light and discernment yet were looked to for guidance because they did not heed His counsel. At a time when the end of all things is at hand, the people of God, especially those at Battle Creek, are described as backslidden and behind in spiritual condition without knowing it, bringing grief and terrible dearth and darkness upon the church because thorough work has not been made in confessing sin, much of that darkness traceable to the influence of particular individuals.
The verse is given to particular congregations and places, belonging to the church in Los Angeles and to churches generally as part of the messages of the third chapter of Revelation given from heaven. It calls for a deep work of grace in the heart, for awakening from sleep, for doing the work God has given to do, and for giving the unconverted evidence of belief in truth of heavenly origin and of practice of the truth professed. It warns the church at Healdsburg that pride, worldliness, formalism, and self-sufficiency leave members spiritually destitute despite claims of abundant blessings and boasting of spiritual wealth. It describes those professing to believe the truth, particularly in California, who flatter themselves that they are right with God when principles of truth are not in their hearts, in a cold, formal, backslidden state claiming need of nothing while wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, for whom a great work must be done and who can be brought into working order only by diligent, persevering earnestness in heeding the True Witness. It applies to many in New York who need to receive gold, white raiment, and eyesalve and to be zealous and repent, zeal meaning earnest, determined effort to overcome worldly, selfish love and become consecrated, devoted Christians. It describes the present state of the church in California and all through the churches in America as Laodicean, needing to fall upon the Rock and be broken, to arouse and act as one man, and to be earnest and alive while destruction of human life increases, the world remains unwarned, and the day of the Lord approaches suddenly.
The same self-satisfied condition belongs to Battle Creek in self-deceived indifference where God's Spirit cannot strive, which God abhors, with people saying they are rich and increased and need nothing while God declares the opposite true. In the Battle Creek church the loss of spiritual discernment and departure of heavenly influence are linked to lack of pity and faith and to sharp, critical, censorious conduct by men handling sacred things, with those resisting light and evidence walking as blind men who do not know at what they stumble and making crooked paths so the lame are turned out of the way. Though souls for whom Christ died had the Holy Spirit breathed upon them and proffered again and again, the time to honor God and respond by cultivating love for heavenly things and beholding Jesus was neglected, the heavenly anointing departed and mischief came in because the soul was not trained to pity and faith scarcely had existence. This blindness led the church, proud of privileges and professions and feeling it lacked nothing, to reject humble, self-denying help judged by poor appearance instead of recognizing Christlike character and service, as shown in rejecting a humble missionary and the help offered through Hannah More. Its call applies to institutions there which need purifying and temple cleansing, to be given clearly and distinctly as warning, so that those who try to control or scrutinize others recognize their own deficiencies and seek God humbly.
The verse portrays the spiritual condition of the Jewish nation when they did not receive Christ, when they rejected Bible prophecies of His coming and chose their own way according to natural preferences, welcoming encouragement and counting warnings as nothing, recorded for admonition not to follow their unbelief and worldliness. It is exemplified by the Pharisees who despite temporal and spiritual privileges, education, and worldly wealth boasted of needing nothing while wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, and when offered the pearl of great price disdained it, so that publicans and harlots go into the kingdom before them, showing wealth and education cannot bring anyone nearer God or secure salvation. The same words describe the condition the gospel meets when it takes people as they are, where a self-sufficient rich person beholding Jesus' loveliness and self-sacrifice sees true condition by contrast, becomes humble, prefers Christ to self, and lays hold of eternal life. It describes nominal first-day Adventists as Laodiceans who will make a mighty effort yet not get victory, while one with truth chases a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, lost in foggy terrible fear with anguish seizing them, daring not admit the shut door belongs to God and was done by the Holy Ghost, calling it of the devil against their own lives, and needing instead to look at the Pattern meek and lowly in heart and shut eyes to everything but present saving truth. It also applies to Protestant churches worshiping the false sabbath, left naked without one text to sustain it and blindfolded by sophistry.
The verse gives a message of great importance to ministers of the gospel and to ministers' wives and families, calling them to search deep and make clean work for eternity, letting the convicting, converting power of the gospel remove every unsanctified, unconverted, irreligious element from their homes as part of the highest education taught by God Himself through living the Word and obeying all commandments. Ministers lacking heartfelt piety and devotion are urged to heed the True Witness's reproof and counsel so God can work for and with them. It applies to youth and young workers left to their own strength and conformed to the world, distant from God and unreceptive to divine influence though believing themselves in need of nothing, working to uplift themselves with words, spirit, and actions unlike Christ and revealing self in everything. Their claim to be rich and increased with goods is pride and self-exaltation covering spiritual poverty, and unless they die to self and stop cherishing self, Christ will not work with them but leave them to exhibit littleness, pride, haughtiness, and poverty. It applies to schools that have left first love with hardness and coldness, and to families and the church in the home needing reform, religion in the home, pure conversation, converted parents, and thorough training of children to well-balanced characters the Lord can approve, without which essential duties neglected the blessing of God cannot be expected.
The verse describes God's professed people of present truth mostly as lukewarm professors with a name but no zeal, on neutral ground neither cold nor hot, professing to love truth yet deficient in fervor and devotion, unwilling to die to self and follow closely yet unwilling to give it up wholly. It exposes backsliding and failure to recognize true spiritual condition and need, so they may not heed the message sent them, with hardness of heart limiting its work and sins long shutting Jesus out. Their claim to be rich and in need of nothing is self-flattery hiding true standing before God, and their only hope is a clear view of that standing and knowledge of their disease, that they lack internal grace and are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Yet the message to Laodicea offers hope if heeded, calling the church to abandon self-complacency and lethargy, to examine hearts, confess sin, repent zealously and earnestly, become humble, receive Jesus' presence, and be fitted for the loud cry of the third angel. It warns the self-sufficient who have had great light and many opportunities yet not appreciated them to receive the warning humbly and not assume readiness, to heed most earnestly in this their day the counsel of the True Witness, to keep living connection with God and seek a higher standard lest they become lukewarm ready to be spewed out, and it rebukes years of inactive lukewarmness that has not entered cities and established memorials.
Condition of Self-Deception
The condition is having left first love and become cold and formal and lukewarm in vitality and consecration, with lifeless profession without the warmth of the Spirit that is offensive and nauseating to Christ. It is laying off spiritual garments, absenting from services, letting lamps burn feebly, and having a name to live while dead. It is self-confident determination to carry out own ideas and plans, with great light and knowledge but no striving to give that light to the world in works that are living principles. It is pride, self-righteousness, self-reliance, self-importance and dependence on human capabilities, failing to follow clear light while remaining proud, boastful and unconverted. The description is not overwrought and applies now as a gracious last call to repentance to a backslidden church, for God abhors indifference in religious things.
The verse exposes divided half-hearted service where people are half for Christ and half for the world, halting between God and the world and content with a worldly standard. It is connecting too closely with the world, trusting in self and not feeling personal weakness and need of the Spirit, which is disgusting in God's pure eyes and brings rejection. Remaining lukewarm in this self-satisfied feeling of being rich and secure and in need of nothing is a stumbling block, just as running ahead of Christ to take up work He has not entrusted is a stumbling block. Their divided commitment leaves them spiritually deficient.
The verse describes carnal security and mistaken belief of spiritual excellence and completeness, where people believe they have enough and trust past experience and sufficiency. They claim spiritual wealth, growth, abundance and self-sufficiency while failing to recognize they are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. They think they have all needed light and fail to go on to perfection, which brings defeat and ruin and can cause loss of truth's sanctifying power. Their confidence in own goodness and claims of knowledge hides need and alienation from God, yet the True Witness's diagnosis is correct.
The phrase and knowest not means complete self-ignorance without clear spiritual eyesight, for people can be spiritually blind without recognizing it. They reject light and reproof and remain unaware in darkness corresponding to the light refused, failing to discern faults and defections while God withholds His Spirit. Erroneous ideas about own merits and about God lull them into carnal security even while they may preach solemn truths, leaving them blind, naked and alienated from Christ's life. Impenitence blinds men responsible for the work in many places from knowing dangers surrounding it.
The verse shows Sabbath-keepers rejoicing in irrefutable truth yet resting satisfied without advancing in the divine life. It is boasting of having truth and sometimes advocating it in unbecoming manner while feeling no lack, with faith not made perfect by works. It is mistaking form for spirit and power, supposing building is right while working by worldly policy against the law, disobeying known commands so profession is false. It is flattering self secure with nothing to repent of while spiritually deficient, believing to stand on the right foundation accepted by God when there is no conformity to His will and need of all things.
Those exalted by human judgment are pronounced by God to be in this poor condition while many condemned by men are vindicated by God. Human judgment often errs with defective discernment in condemning others, while God looks at the heart and reads motives that prompt action. This exposes the contrast between confident judgment that the church flourishes and is spiritually prosperous and its actual state through pride, covetousness, love of the world and unrepented sins. Well pleased with self and believing rich in knowledge of truth, their riches spoil the life, self-satisfaction is terrible to cherish, and blinded eyes do not discern wretchedness. Separated from Jesus in whom hope centers, satisfied with smartness and thinking themselves wise, they do not keep God's law nor do what pleases Him, so works offend God, His righteousness is not in them, and garments remain defiled by the world below the uplifted standard.
The verse shows the condition of many whose names are on church books but who are not truly converted through personal connection with Christ. Their hearts have not fallen on the Rock, so they are proud of wholeness, full of self-esteem and self-love and love of praise, wanting a dignified religion wide enough to take in own attributes, which excludes the Saviour and God cannot accept unless wholly His. They sneer in countenance and heart at simplicity of true godliness, supposing advancement beyond such weakness, with no experience in preaching of the cross so it is foolishness to them, wise in own conceits. Knowledge of the Word has not sanctified lives and fervent love is absent after resisting grace, abusing privileges, neglecting opportunities, and settling into ingratitude, hollow formalism, insincerity and rejection of repeated rebukes. Worldliness and self-exaltation blind them to true poverty, blindness and nakedness, so they do not value present truth and lack holiness, devotion and sanctification through belief.
The description is not overwrought or exaggerated and applies to God's people now out of harmony with truth and law, having little purity and holiness. It is a diseased tepid neither-cold-nor-hot state most offensive to Christ, shown especially in selfish greedy grasping spirit departing from equity in buying and selling, filling the soul-temple with merchandise as a den of thieves and dishonoring truth. Blindness means the Spirit has not illumined minds so they do not see sinfulness and feel no need, and earthly treasure and intellect cannot cure it, for true riches are faith and love. The great mass in that unseen backslidden lukewarm complacent condition, spiritually dead while professing and denying power, coming and going without change and unmoved by reproof and by justification by faith, will meet bitter disappointment lacking the seal of God if they continue and are rejected with abhorrence.
The verse describes professed followers conformed to the world with no distinctness, seeking human approval more than God's. It applies especially to God's people today become so like the world that no difference can be seen, claiming spiritual riches and need of nothing while spiritually destitute. It claims material and spiritual sufficiency from lukewarm half-hearted service and faith not shown through obedience, so others cannot see they have been with Jesus. It applies to many churches today who know the faith but have not changed, to a large class not following Jesus in self-denial, to those professing truth but unconverted and unprepared, to the careless mistaking wealth and numbers for favor, and to those gradually departing until heaven's light is withdrawn unknowingly.
The verse shows people satisfied with attainments and confident in goodness, knowledge and progress, trusting own wisdom and works. They count themselves secure while failing to recognize poverty, including wrongs and neglected duties, selfishness, pride and love of the world, which must be plainly exposed by rebuke rather than false assurance. Self-righteous religion cannot be earned by acts, feeling whole keeps them from seeking grace, and workers exalting self in filthy self-righteousness need conversion. Pretentious piety and self-sufficiency with works opposed to holy principles, brought on by unbelief and resistance and despiteful words against messages, will be given opportunity to see sinfulness, while careless indifference that does not plead and agonize will be shaken out in the shaking.
The claim to be rich is a religion of vanity and perilous pride, words devoid of vitality and character destitute of moral strength. It is seeing as the world sees and calling evil good, feeling full so one goes away empty and choosing bondage instead of union with Christ. Self-satisfaction is blindness, patchwork mixing self and Christ spreads till none of Christ remains, and cold professors weighed in God's test lack light, renewal and living faith. With close scrutiny nothing escapes searching gaze, including faults, neglects, departures and shortcomings, and greater light neglected increases accountability. Pride, worldly fashion, empty talk and selfishness expose poverty, evil can choke good seed, and the terrible deception must be awakened from by decisive action.
The verse shows people with light neglecting to follow it, blinded and hardened by selfish love of the world. They fail to understand the position to occupy after great light, feeling rich with no lack while having need of much, needing simplicity, humility, contrition and low estimate of self to be taught and receive the Spirit. Pretentious piety opposing holy principles risks being cast away, past experience and profession do not save, and stubborn pride hinders good and resists healing grace. Mere claims to advanced knowledge do not show acceptance, overcoming comes only by whole-hearted obedience as Christ overcame, and only falling on the Rock broken with decided change gives hope.
The verse requires reading revealed truth with no idle indifference under a heavenly Watcher marking words, deportment and motives. It demands cleansed, purified, sanctified understanding and striving character, with mind purified by obeying truth, for all are taking sides between blessing and curse. It means sleeping, reckless insensibility to sin, heedless of warning and unable to see peril and need. It means prized wisdom that is foolishness without being emptied of self and centered in Christ, feeling rich without lived knowledge and steady growth. It means helpless sin-stained blindness ensnared by the devil, needing to come to the Saviour in faith at the foot of the cross to be lifted up, and needing renewed life and power from God through repentance of lukewarmness.
The verse describes one unaware of misery whose life was absorbed in buying cheaply and selling dearly without practical spirituality or Christlike love, holding office in name only. It describes those professing much while living a denial and becoming more Laodicean by resisting the Spirit, cherishing disbelief and refusing sent help. It describes those assuming they possess enough and stopping seeking, bankrupt without recognizing need, for true desire presses beyond earthly gain toward grace and heavenly treasure. It describes those proud and self-sufficient with reformation guilt remaining without restitution, for repentance includes confessing to the harmed and making restitution through kindness, and pride is hardest to overcome though hope remains for the humbled. It describes churches far from Christ full of Pharisaism, souls deceived by sin yet pleased with self, and lukewarm self-satisfaction that must awaken to conform to God's will with diligent personal application, no more flattery, self decreasing and Christ increasing.
Jesus stands before each dwelling proclaiming the verse to unwilling hearers whose pride shuts Him out. Clothed in worthless self-righteousness they feel whole and are insulted to be called naked, walking in sparks of their own kindling in profession without works and without discerning defects. They live in guilty self-deception away from light and rich treasures of grace, imagining rich when bankrupt, the whole life a lie triumphed over by Satan in terrible deception of needing nothing. Those who think these sharp words belong to others are the very ones to whom they belong. As part of Revelation 3 it presses being on the right side as in Noah's day when the largest number chose wrong, and it describes a class not purified by obedience whose unsanctified wisdom and spoiled profession show need of conversion while time remains.
Meaning of Rich Poor Blind Naked
To say I am rich and have need of nothing is to claim spiritual richness and self-sufficiency while revealing great want of soul, not knowing the true condition as wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. It is to trust own knowledge and goodness, to be satisfied with self and past experience, to neglect prayer and self-examination, and to be blinded to self while professing to have the truth without personal godliness. It is to be too worldly-minded, with the cares of this life engrossing attention and the eternal enterprise made secondary, loving this world and setting affection on earthly treasure with an avaricious, close, penurious, selfish spirit and hard unyielding temper. To make laying up earthly treasure the business of life leaves a person wretched and poor and blind and naked even while passing as wealthy and prosperous in the world, for worldly wealth and status do not make one rich toward God. Those who feel rich and in need of nothing are still bound by love of the world in the heart, clinging to earthly treasure and property, and are called to give up the world out of the heart, to lay farm and property upon the altar and sell to meet the need of God's cause rather than pulling back to keep treasure here; true riches belong to those who lay up treasure in heaven, who are rich indeed even if they own no land. Such profession without sanctification, selfish and ease-loving and wrapped up in self, doing nothing for God's cause if it can be avoided and robbing God in tithes and offerings, denies by works the faith professed as pilgrim and stranger waiting for and loving the appearing of Christ, and unless filled with self-denial and good works gives observers no confidence in the message of His near coming.
The verse is answered by Christ's gracious counsel to buy from Him what is lacking: gold tried in the fire that one may be rich, white raiment that one may be clothed, and eyesalve that one may see. Poverty is lack of love, nakedness is lack of pure character, blindness is failure to see defects and lack of grace, and true riches are faith that works by love, righteousness, and spiritual discernment. Those who believe themselves spiritually rich and need nothing must recognize their soul's need to receive the heavenly treasure provided in Christ, for they need everything. The Laodicean words expose conformity to the world and seeking human approval rather than God's, like the nominal church left behind, and unless there is zealous repentance and reception of spiritual riches, righteousness, and discernment, rejection follows.
White raiment is Christ's righteousness formed in the character, marked by purity of heart and motive, and it does not cover continued unrighteousness or disobedience. Those who appear to possess the ornaments of God's sanctuary but are not clothed with Christ's righteousness will be exposed in the testing time and left in the shame of their nakedness, when final separation reveals genuine godliness from outward appearance. Professed believers may believe facts about Christ without receiving Him as personal Saviour, remaining unchanged in character and daily habits, while self-righteousness cannot take the place of the wedding garment which must be received and shown in a purified life. To say I am rich and clothed with garments of righteousness while unfit for the marriage supper of the Lamb, speaking boastful words that bring glory to men rather than to God and threatening to bring the law against opposers, proves lack of the Spirit's leading and of conversion, displeasing to Christ and leading God's people into strange paths unless changed.
Blindness is occupying the mind with others' faults instead of searching one's own heart, leaving the tangled mass of fault-finding to correct one's own evil and dwell upon faith, for Satan opposes right understanding of this searching work. It is the mind darkened by yielding to temptation and indulging sin until the moral sense is perverted, conscience disregarded, and power to distinguish right from wrong lost, so that forms of religion and its doctrines may still be zealously maintained while destitute of its spirit. When the Spirit by reproof declares this unknown condition, the person cannot see its truth yet must accept it by faith and not rise against the humble instrument, for God mercifully sets the unknown before him so repentance can occur before it is too late; despising the warning leaves him self-deceived in blindness, while heeding it and zealously separating from sin opens the heart for the Saviour to dwell. The straight testimony is needed to expose wrongs and remove corruption, while God's people draw near and have character cleansed by the Lamb's blood so they can see sin as God sees it, receiving eyesalve as spiritual discernment to recognize satanic schemes including dishonest speculation that robs widows and orphans. Those influenced by Satan's deceptive science have lost spiritual eyesight and cannot see their true condition.
The verse shows the true moral state as poor and wretched and blind and naked and in want of all things apart from Christ's grace and power to help. The soul apart from Christ must contemplate its poverty and nakedness until humbled and abased, for only by having Christ's righteousness in and upon the soul can heaven's scrutiny be stood. Recognizing this condition should lead to turning wholeheartedly to the Lord, asking Him to remove sin and make one His child, then praising Him for love and compassion, with tender compassionate unity toward fellow believers as fruit of cherishing His love. As divine light exposes spiritual poverty and unrighteousness, the self-sufficient who have lost the love of God cry to Christ for rescue, and that desperate cry becomes prayer of faith in Him who saves completely those who come to God through Him. Christ invites such weary heavy-laden ones to come just as they are for rest without first fitting themselves to come, giving salvation freely and not selling it, lifting up the helpless sin-stained one who comes in faith and casts himself at the foot of the cross.
Like a fig tree covered with leaves, churches and ministers may boast of spiritual wealth while actually wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, making a show of life with only pretentious foliage to offer Christ who comes hungering for fruits of righteousness. Having left first love they fall into blindness, hardness of heart, and stubbornness of mind, so that even prayer and presentation of Bible truth from habit is deficient and unacceptable. Claiming to be in the truth without practicing its principles is self-deception, with weakness and inefficiency coming from following own impulses instead of God's will, being led by another spirit, not knowing the meaning of the written Word, and being alive without the law. Trusting own wisdom and works and weaving human merit into religion regards self as spiritually rich while failing to recognize true poverty, for salvation cannot be earned by religious acts and self-righteous religion is spiritual blindness and destitution. Those who recognize spiritual poverty long for Christ's help and value Jesus' help through reliance on God's power, while those who feel whole and self-sufficient do not seek His grace and righteousness, pride closing their hearts to offered blessing.
How Condition Shows Itself
The claim to need nothing is clouded by selfishness and covetousness, so that material prosperity is mistaken for spiritual favor while the soul remains wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. A greedy grasping spirit in buying and selling fills the soul-temple with merchandise and makes it a den of thieves, dishonoring truth and departing from equity and justice. Love for earthly treasure above heaven leaves the church lukewarm and scarcely heeding the call to zeal and repentance, with only a few afflicting their souls, and unless it speedily arises it will go into darkness and be overcome. Wealth, education, numbers and influence are taken as proof of favor, while entrusted means are consumed instead of returned in gifts and offerings, and stewards without excuse are to practice self-sacrifice and enter new fields.
The supposed richness hides that the love of Christ is not abiding, self is not crucified, and conversion is not perfected. The spirit is hard and unjust, without union and without love for others, needing opened eyes, broken hearts, confession to God and forgiveness sought of one another unto humility and rejoicing. There is gross neglect to encourage brethren and to relieve needy workers in severe and trying labor, with hearts hard as steel and flint toward one another in self-exaltation and grasping all for self. Selfish loveless persons in responsibility must have change of heart, for self-satisfaction contradicts being repositories of eternal truth to bear the messages of Revelation 14 and proclaim salvation to those on the brink of ruin.
The verse exposes talebearing, gossiping fault-finders who seek spots and stains in others while their own souls are open to Satan and closed to the compassion, pity and love of Christ. Poverty is lack of love which is the gold, nakedness is lack of pure spotless character which is the white raiment, blindness is failure to see own defects and lack of grace and Spirit which eyesalve would heal, and without buying these from the True Witness they remain a curse to the truth professed. It rebukes those enclosed in self-righteousness who judge motives with scales God never gave, who feel unappreciated and draw away cold as an iceberg instead of showing affection, and who act as detectives controlling brethren while blind to own faults. It applies like Job's comforters to those who turn the message against others to condemn them, and calls for putting away the self-centered, boastful, accusing spirit by humbling the heart, lest Christ be unable to present names to His Father.
And knowest not means complete self-ignorance without clear spiritual eyesight, so that if sight were given self would be despised and the present standing abandoned. It applies to members who block God's work by unbelief, faultfinding, criticism, sitting in judgment on messengers, and standing directly in the way of the Holy Spirit while claiming to believe truth. It describes hard unimpressible hearts that justify self, hinder the church, refuse to gather with Christ and scatter abroad, question the message, criticize the messenger, and speak evil of things not understood. It comes home to those who do not apply it to themselves but misuse speech and pen to praise opposers of the last-day work and worship human agency, and to self-confident men perverted to carry their own way who try faithful workers by holding back God-bidden work and must be pitied, prayed for, anointed with eyesalve, and if unconverted not left to guide the flock.
The verse meets those with great light who make their own systems the standard, saying anything contrary must be false, exalting pretentious human assertions above heaven-sent light and calling that light darkness. It is a present warning from the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God, against vague fanciful views about God and nature, calling for faith founded on the revealed Word, the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus, with gold, raiment, eyesalve, rebuke unto zeal and repentance, opening the door to communion, and sitting with Him in His throne in view of His soon coming. It exposes responsible men in publishing houses whose presses print error and false science, dishonoring God, weakening the work, sowing ruin, with paralyzed sense of sacredness, feeble pulse, lukewarm indifference, perverted taste and inability to distinguish sacred from common. It marks those deceived by heresies and false reasoning and those lost in fogs of sophistry speaking damaging theories, who need the fallow ground of the heart broken up and spiritual light dawning before God can work through them.
The verse rebukes lifeless purposeless messages that lull people to sleep and leave backsliders with a tame pointless message while ministers and members sleep and the world perishes. The self-satisfied profession covers true poverty and blindness and calls for appropriate pointed discourses under sense of awful judgment soon to fall, proclaimed by lips touched with live coal from the divine altar. The arousing message needed is the truth for this time exalting Christ's righteousness, and asleep watchmen giving no positive warning or silencing the testimony would leave the church in lukewarmness, so faithful watchmen must cry aloud and spare not.
The True Witness rebukes giving up to self-indulgence rather than growing in self-denial, backsliding on health reform, failing to cherish light, and sacrificing life and health through appetite and carnal lusts, calling to follow closely the self-denying Saviour. It applies most decidedly to insipid experience bearing no decided witness for truth, requiring reform where institutions are permeated with the world's spirit, including that meat not be placed before patients in sanitariums and that homes and families reform and take up responsibilities. It exposes those who indulge appetite and harmful habits while speaking of self-denial, and those who store knowledge while neglecting virtue and purity of thought, speech and action, becoming self-righteous and misrepresenting truth so others are turned away.
Half-heartedness appears in leaning on the arm of the law and depending on lawyers, legal documents and agreements, with worldly-cut garments and worldly principles stealthily introduced, a disgrace abhorrent to God. Commerce by worldly principles is taken as security while spiritual perception is blind and the condition poor before God, and worldly success can bring ruin. It is seen in those claiming present truth yet mingling with the world and its politics, losing hold on Christ without compassion, amiability or gentleness, boasting riches in scriptural knowledge while poor, wretched, miserable, blind and naked, blinded by the god of this world, needing inward purity.
The verse shows cherishing and exalting self instead of dying to self, in pride and haughtiness hiding spiritual poverty from the humble contrite whom the Lord hears and revives and with whom Christ works. Cold hardness of heart comes through pride in worldly wisdom and ambition to be first, hindering gospel success despite boundless resources, binding men with agreements instead of receiving light, with words and works disgusting to the self-denying Redeemer who will spew them out and not hear prayers nor commend service, while babes feeling dependence receive hidden truth and exert stronger influence. A stubborn dictating spirit that turns sullen and uncongenial when crossed is a clog and no benefit, unworthy of the name Christian, out of harmony with Christ, thinking too much of self and cherishing satanic feelings toward the faithful, unfit for responsibility until converting power sanctifies, convicts of defects and refines. An exalted whole spirit that will not bear reproof but rises in self-justifying anger, impatience and faultfinding indulges carnal passions far from God and truth, with God's Spirit withdrawn unknown, nourished when the church excuses it instead of dealing straightly.
The verse describes those long in truth, in trust and privilege, yet feeble, inefficient and fragmentary for lack of the Holy Spirit, needing healthy action and revival through Bible principles to become burning shining lights. It reveals defective experience in tame lifeless heartless prayers God does not accept, calling for burdened humbling, earnest seeking, improved prayer, opening Scriptures to others, receiving the Spirit, zealous repentance and wrestling for souls so the candle burns brightly worldwide instead of being rejected. Sleeping professors suffer spiritual insensibility from lack of watchfulness, with strange illusions, unclear ideas and judgment, fancy ruling the brain, landmarks indistinct, grip on pillars of faith slipping, and pride flattering self as rich while the opposite is true. Flowery lofty wordy prayer telling God a story as if He did not know is unnoticed and disgusting, while earnest simple broken penitent prayer with sweet meek spirit, approaching as undeserving suppliants needing mercy, is always acceptable.
The verse faithfully describes those in charge of publishing houses as lukewarm and self-satisfied on losing ground, proved by proud spirits, worldly methods, unchristlike spirit, practiced deception, injurious matter and wasteful spending on large presses, who must examine, pity their souls, humble, see error and repent lest judgment come near. It marks the Battle Creek school and publishing house as lacking light and unable to distinguish truth from error for failing to heed the True Witness, and leaders standing in self-confidence disregarding warnings. It applies to the Medical Missionary Association not doing its named work nor preparing people for judgment, dishonoring God while false sentiments take its place, and to Dr. Kellogg as losing bearings after encouraging the enemy and finding it hard to admit mistakes. It meets self-confidence as a snare, as in Bro. B exalting opinion above light in books and papers and needing childlike conversion, and the puffed high-minded unteachable man thinking he knows all worth knowing, whose first wisdom is to see his poor wretched blind naked self, take humble place and become teachable.
Lukewarm faith is exposed in selfishness contradicting profession, where works not profession decide, and in influence drawing youth into worldly amusements and weakening seriousness. It appears in self-esteem and self-sufficiency among Sabbath-school members hiding poverty, and in outward pride of dress with ruffles and bonnets covered with bows and ribbons as index of inward pride while professing to wait for changed bodies. It unites with the world under worldly policy in mirth, jesting, singing and music giving no glory to God, asserting sufficiency, denying fault, indifferent to counsels against lukewarmness, in darkness leading others worldward. It deceives young workers distant from God and conformed to the world, and shows in vanity and levity driving away messengers, lethargic heartless Sabbath singing, and idlers resting in unfruitful plans instead of finding fitted work and seeking needy souls as the shepherd seeks the lost.
Possessing truth and unanswerable arguments while secure in reasoning neglects piety, purity and hourly obedience, and success fosters pride with cold barren ineffective work discouraging others. Step-by-step union with fashion and the world's spirit withdraws heaven's light unknowingly, leaving profession of being well off while of the world, dressed nearly like the world, and spued out unknown as blind wretched naked. God gives time for excitement and fear to pass, then tests step by step whether cherished idols are prized above Jesus, exposing them through successive points of truth, to be overcome or be spued out, with overcomers purified for latter rain and translation. Years against light corrupt faith until pure religion is unknown, instruction heard without appropriation being the sure result of rejecting warnings.
Much knowledge without true religion becomes a stumbling block more abhorred than infidelity, with tainted accomplishments serving imaginings and appetites, no progress in grace, unwillingness to change, and no more hope than the veriest sinner unless born again. Erring people erect idols and serve them, separating from God and suffering even for truth's sake while the Lord's eye is upon them, called by the Laodicean rebuke to repentance. Instruction received but not taken to heart follows rejecting warnings and appeals, with blessings withdrawn because testimonies were not heeded and solemn responsibilities neglected. Daily need is to learn meekness and lowliness and receive Christ's righteousness in every household, to search Scripture lest blindness to true condition remain, to be sanctified through obedience with conscience purged unto perfect love, obedience and conformity to Christ in mind, soul and body, cutting away self and sin and going on to perfection.
The constant claim contradicts the calling to hold eternal truth and communicate light in corresponding works, trading talents and influence for the Lord instead of leaving them unused for self-pleasing. Some rest at ease crying peace while sudden destruction comes, some claim to guide in holiness while fruitless and turning from the law as test, some trust finite man and push men into notice in backsliding friendship with the world. Some preach and pray with lip service while the heart is far, in pitiable darkness and idolatry unfit to hold forth the Word of life, needing to turn from idols to the living God and do diligent essential work after examining course. The solemn warning of Revelation 3:14-21 has weight now, calling the self-satisfied to humility, to a fair Christlike spirit toward differing views, to keeping God's commandments, and to receiving old light shining forth on Christ's righteousness in connection with the law.
Many claim belief but have lost first love, blinded by dissension and misunderstanding, needing the Spirit to open minds, with repentance and clearing away dissension as first work. Spiritual life grown feeble and lukewarm requires revival and reformation lest complacency become abhorrent and the Lord refuse acknowledgment. Present churches strengthen themselves in their own way by their own impulses, refusing admonitions, growing careless and yielding without opposition to well-laid plots, in a time marked by pride, ambition, self-exaltation, hypocrisy and deception. The soul apart from Christ must be humbled to stand scrutiny, made tender by the Spirit, thoroughly converted from self to life in Christ, bearing fruit instead of cumbering ground, and done quickly today while mercy accepts despite imperfections. Cherishing corrupting principles instead of fine gold brings disaster especially in men of trust, and serving God while guiding in unholiness misrepresents Christ and turns from the law.
God's people taken by a worldly spirit lack deep humility, brotherly love, pity and courtesy, divided by hard speeches and selfish interests while Satan seeks to extinguish truth, called to rally, disentangle from the world, die to self-interests, draw near as yoke-fellows and repent with zeal. Proud self-sufficient people thinking confession humiliation, like Satan, stand in garments of self-righteousness that fall in heavenly courts leaving them ashamed naked condemned, with underhand advantage-taking, forgotten justice, feeble moral power and refuge of lies failing in the test. Resisters of heaven-sent messages become too blind to feel absence of the Sun of Righteousness, unbelief in testimonies shutting away light and leaving greatest need of grace to discover deficiency. Long torpor as apparent death needs renewed straight testimony unto revival and resurrection into living energy, with neglect of Christ-given work despite knowledge and profession of His soon coming showing lack of life. Ceremony without love is nauseating, tares ripening reveal disaster, the blood-bought church rocked in carnal security rejects floods of light, and self-confidence working away from Christ's words and turning weapons against brethren calls for a different order.
Christ's Remedy and Invitation
The verse calls for awakening from self-sufficiency and confidence in own righteousness that hides true misery, poverty, blindness and nakedness, exposing a hard and unjust spirit without union and without love for others. It is addressed to those who have left first love and claim to be rich and in need of nothing while ignorant of being wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and it summons them to realize that condition and turn to God in repentance. If they continue they will be renounced and spewed out, so now is the time to stop working under the great deceiver and, seeing danger, to make earnest work for repentance by denying self, taking up the cross and following Christ. All who believe must know they are in peril when feeling spiritually rich and exalting self while professing to serve, a verdict that applies especially to those connected with institutions. The remedy is to have eyes opened to see self as is, hearts broken over hard unloving conduct, rubbish cleared from the heart's door to let Jesus in, root of bitterness cast out because it defiles many, sins confessed before God with forgiveness asked of one another, prayer with strong crying and tears for self and for others in the same blindness, zeal and repentance leading to deep humility and Pentecostal rejoicing, with each righting known wrongs in faith rather than merely mourning.
Souls in danger of losing eternal life still have opportunity, for it is not too late to heed the counsel to buy from Christ. Every hearer is to come into close relation with God, come out from the world and be separate and touch not the unclean, walk humbly and contritely with God to have reviving help, show appreciation for the gift of Christ, wrestle for the crown of immortality and the life that measures with the life of God, receive the eternal weight of glory promised to every overcomer, and get ready to meet the Lord in peace at His very soon coming in the clouds of heaven. Truly receiving the solemn testimony exposes the condition and leads to deep repentance, obedience, purification, raising the standard of truth and speaking plainly, and fitness for the loud cry of the third angel. When first presented it stirred people everywhere, but many lost its effect when a powerful work was not seen in a short time, yet it will not accomplish its work in a few short months for God has given the message time to do its work, and efforts since have been blessed to bring many from error and darkness to rejoice in truth. Resisting or rejecting it causes division and a shaking among the people, and the strait testimony will meet resistance and continue to the end, with some pleading with God in strong faith while indifferent people who do not resist surrounding darkness will be shut in by it.
Those who feel they need nothing more, lacking an abiding Christ and therefore lacking power, exalting self and hiding Jesus by poor selfish humanity to the loss of a world in darkness, are as God sees them wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, yet they need not be discouraged. The True Witness counsels them to buy gold tried in the fire, white raiment and eyesalve, and the One who died to save promises power to overcome self and selfishness and to reveal Christ full of grace and truth. When lives are cleansed from moral and spiritual pollution and eyes anointed with heavenly eyesalve, the sin-sick condition is seen, and seeing it drives souls to come to the fountain opened for Judah and Jerusalem and apply the cleansing blood of Christ without delay to secure advantages prepared for all who love Him and keep His commandments. Heeding demands turning to the Lord as independently as possible, humbling the soul, no longer rushing on unthinkingly in independence and self-counsel, drawing near to God so purposes change and more purity and meekness and lowliness of Christ is brought into the work, seeking God while He may be found, forsaking wicked ways and thoughts and returning to the Lord, and coming to Jesus just as they are to receive mercy and abundant pardon through the deep moving of the Spirit.
The people described cling to doubts and darling sins, think reproof uncalled for or not meant for them, triumph in clearness and strength of truth sustained by plain Scriptural testimony while not living in obedience to all requirements, and lack Bible humility, patience, faith, love, self-denial, watchfulness, sacrifice, holiness and practical knowledge of Bible truth that leads to lowliness and conformity of will to Christ. They are in great deception with sin prevailing and in greatest need of grace and spiritual discernment to discover deficiency in spiritual knowledge and almost every qualification for perfect Christian character. Their wrongs and sins have brought wretchedness, blindness, poverty and fearful deception, so they must recognize wrongs, repent earnestly and put sins away through direct pointed testimony that names sin plainly, calls sins sins, confronts iniquity promptly and firmly, lives in the church reproving wrongs, arouses to action and leads to self-abasement, confession, zealous repentance. That message for the present time, brought by A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner, must be received not as word of men but as Word of God and reflected as God-given rays, caught first by those long experienced who search the Scriptures to see if its testimony agrees and receive it into a good and honest heart to become a living channel with clear perception, sanctified imagination, exalted conceptions of truth, a heart joyful in God and a clear powerful convincing testimony, moving beyond professed belief to practiced faith representing Christ in spirit, words and all character with Christ as chief cornerstone. Barring the heart through prejudice, reports, unbelief and magnifying every objectionable point leaves darkness, loss of place intended, missing links in providence, loss of rich experience, and becoming a snare and stumbling block, while those at war with faithful reproof cry for smooth things and resist.
The warning belongs to the Laodicean message to be proclaimed to all the churches with power as now especially applicable and as truth for this time with distinct and particular evidence, exposing professed Christians who claim to be well supplied and satisfied with human endeavors yet manifest pride, ambition, self-exaltation, double-dealing, hypocrisy, deception, disobedience and transgression of the law, weighed in the balances of the sanctuary and found wanting, offensive, lukewarm and in danger of being spewed out with abhorrence. It is a close clean-cut warning like a sharp two-edged sword demanding persevering labor to set before them their true condition, especially for those fallen from first love and first zeal while claiming to be in the highways of Christian experience, calling for humble repentance now to receive pardon and save the soul from death, urgent because repentance has been mixed with hay, wood and stubble bringing wrong works and underhand dealing while talking principle and acting satanic principles, with every evil work coming into judgment. The message and its messengers treated as man's word and held in doubt and ridicule are robbed of influence on mind and heart and leave darkness, while those who receive present the true state and fear to make light lest they lay a stumbling block, for the church must recognize and act on this word from God rather than dismiss it as human. The True Witness knocking to save those not heeding light uses reproof for salvation, the straight testimony lightly heeded when truly received leads to repentance and purification, and under the Spirit's power the message breaks up the soul as rich blessing.
The rebuke does not show lack of love, for He rebukes and corrects those He loves in mercy, wounding only to heal and reproving, rebuking and chastening only to restore, not to tear down, discourage, dishearten or cause to perish but to bring to final restoration and approval. When people believe they are prosperous and need nothing they are actually in need of everything, and the warning is practical to ministers and people alike. God is leading out a people and has a chosen church made depositaries of law with sacred trust and eternal truth to give the world, so He reproves and corrects through this message instead of rejecting, and no message from God pronounces this church Babylon or calls His people out of her. Though applicable to members marked by pride, self-sufficiency, stubborn unbelief and refusal to yield ideas despite strong evidence piled upon evidence, it does not mean the church will cease to exist, be blotted out, or be broken into separate groups, nor warrant leaving the organized people, for tares and wheat must grow together until angels separate at harvest.
Blindness is greatest where correction is refused and reproofs and warnings despised, giving Satan great power in this waiting watching time over the selfish, proud and lovers of sin ever assailed with doubts as he suggests doubts and devises objections to pointed testimony, while many count unbelief, questioning and quibbling as virtue and intelligence. God does not remove all occasion for unbelief but gives evidence to be carefully investigated with humble mind and teachable spirit, with all to decide from weight of evidence. Those who resist the straight testimony, indulge self and refuse to repent do not recognize how sinful their actions are, and at judgment will be ashamed of ingratitude and rebellion when books recording works are opened, where confession and tears then will not undo a spoiled record or defend evaders of truth, and some claiming to follow Christ will be counted among the unrepentant deceived to eternal ruin.
Deliverance requires buying from Christ gold tried in the fire that they may be rich, white raiment that they may be clothed and shame of nakedness covered, and eyesalve that they may see. The needed riches are faith that works by love and character refined through trial, pictured as pure gold worth more than earthly riches; the white clothing is spotless character made clean by the Redeemer's blood; the eyesalve is grace giving discernment of spiritual things and exposing sin. Comparing life with the Bible's practical teachings, humbling before God and receiving grace reveal poverty and wretchedness, and when grace illuminates hearts blindness to sins and need of correction is removed. Union with Christ opens eyes to poverty, brings humble dependence, justification by faith, fruitful obedience and an opened heart to Jesus as seller of heavenly treasures, to be sought now before the day of God presents every case exactly as it is, for lukewarmness and resistance if persisted in leave unchanged and unfit for membership in God's family.
Warning Rejection and Hope
Continuing in the self-satisfied state brings rejection, for those who will not heed the faithful Witness, repent zealously, and receive spiritual gold, white clothing, and eyesight will be renounced and spewed out. The church that claims to be rich in truth yet has no more vitality and consecration than fallen nominal churches stands no more in divine favor than they do, and those who have united with the commandment-keeping people yet go on in lukewarmness will receive the plagues just as surely as those who oppose the law. Christ cannot present their names before the Father while they remain in that condition. Yet those who repent are not left without hope, for the rebuke is given in mercy because God is leading a chosen people entrusted with the law and eternal truth, and He reproves rather than casting them off.
Only those sanctified through the truth will make up the royal family in the heavenly mansions prepared for those who love God and keep His commandments. The promise stands open to whoever hears Christ knocking, opens the door, and communes with Him, and to every overcomer is granted to sit with Christ on His throne as He overcame and sat with His Father. The verse with the rest of the message thus holds out precious promises to the overcomer while warning that need may go unrecognized, and souls in danger of losing eternal life still have opportunity because it is not too late to heed the counsel to buy from Him. That requires coming into close relation with God, coming out separate and touching not the unclean, walking humbly and contritely to have reviving help, wrestling for immortality, and getting ready for His very soon coming.
The verse gives earnest warning to prepare to meet the Lord coming in the clouds with power and great glory, confronting indifference to foretold signs with evidence that the end is right upon us. Heeding it requires advancing day by day and not receiving grace in vain, with watchfulness and prayer in faith bringing the Holy Spirit as saving strength. The message calls churches in every place to be converted and to practice an elevating, ennobling, sanctifying faith, urging its warnings home so that men and women will seek the Lord while He may be found.
The fearful exposure of wretchedness, poverty, blindness, and nakedness is designed to arouse discovery of backslidings and cherished sins that have long shut Jesus out. It is meant to bring close examination of heart, confession of sin, deep humility, purification, and zealous repentance, so that the people may be favored with Jesus’ presence and fitted for the loud cry of the third angel. When first presented it stirred the people everywhere, but many lost its effect when no powerful work appeared in a short time; it was not to accomplish its work in a few months, but God gave it time to do its work, and if the counsel were fully heeded He would work in greater power, while even amid hardness the efforts since have brought many from error and darkness to rejoice in truth.
The careless and indifferent who claim riches and need of nothing do not prize victory and salvation enough to plead perseveringly and agonize for it, so they do not obtain it. In the shaking they are shaken out and left behind in darkness, and their numbers are at once made up by others taking hold of truth and coming into the ranks. The testimony of the True Witness leaves no room for self-deception and must live in the church as pointed testimony that reproves wrongs, calls sins by name, meets iniquity promptly to put it away, and arouses to self-abasement, confession, and zealous repentance, while those at war with faithful reproof cry for smooth things and resist it.
The self-satisfied claim must be refused, for folding the hands in false security, crying peace and safety, trusting past experience, and failing to go on to perfection brings defeat and ruin, and complacency that rests at ease bars from heaven without thorough repentance. Instead there is to be whole dependence on God, looking upward by faith through Satan’s shadow into the sanctuary within the holy of holies where Christ pleads as advocate, and asking in faith for the Holy Spirit in full reviving power to teach and sanctify. When purification takes place in the ranks boasting will cease, while God remains unchanged toward faithful servants who humble the heart by confession, receive truth as it is in Jesus, and keep garments spotless.
The verse warns against self-righteousness and spiritual pride, for profession of devotion and good works does not mean possession of true riches, and it calls the self-deceived to receive from Christ the riches, clothing, and sight they lack. It exposes a lukewarm, slumbering church destitute of Christ’s presence and of true riches; if the church refuses to hear His voice as the heavenly Merchant and refuses to open the door, He will pass on and leave it in that destitute yet self-satisfied state. It also describes workers who labor to exalt self and need conversion, neither cold nor hot, boasting of riches while clothed with filthy self-righteousness.
The spell of lukewarmness, in which Satan has lulled the church to sleep under darkness with great power knowing his time is short, will be broken only by more than common effort, earnest effort, persevering prayer, and fixed determination like that used to gain a worldly treasure. Indifference and sloth amid increasing dangers will result in loss of personal religion and of heaven unless there is renewed energy, vigilant action, putting on the whole armor of God, and earnest untiring effort stimulated by the shortness of time, while angels excelling in strength wait to be called to aid so faith is not eclipsed. Each person must take deep interest in his own case, turn the eyes within, afflict the soul, mourn, pray, and beg for salvation, and self-complacency that avoids self-denying work reveals need for growth and for Jesus as physician. Earnest personal work to save others melts the surrounding coldness, for loving service breaks up selfish covetous lukewarmness that does not recognize its ruin.
Receiving the True Witness
The True Witness stands against vain boasting of being rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing, for that boast has been made and is still being made and all of it is vain. He knows lukewarm works and sees to the very center of the soul, telling exactly what people are and what they must become in order to be saved. Healing requires sensing personal weakness and inability, humbling the heart before God, confessing errors, coming into light and freedom, and accepting the light sent, because light unconfessed and unimproved becomes darkness to those who refuse to receive it and walk in it. The verse exposes self-deceived professors who claim spiritual wealth while not knowing their true wretched condition, and it is to be quoted directly to cut through self-justification and general principles that make no impression. This applies especially to those who criticize ministers and people in home and church, sow doubt and unbelief, withhold tithes and offerings, and act as agents through whom accusations are brought against the brethren, who must receive the heaven-sent rebuke as truth rather than criticize message and messenger, change leaders from Satan to Christ, yoke up with Christ for transformation into kind helpers, and decide for life by repentance.
The Laodicean testimony belongs to every place and in every sense, and God is working for His people so they must work with energy with Him. It is meant to lead each person to examine and work on his own heart, to turn the eyes within, afflict the soul, mourn and pray and beg for salvation, and take a deep interest in his own case with more than common efforts, not to judge or direct others or oppress them with fanatical influences. Its work is searching one's own heart carefully, correcting one's own evil, leaving the tangled mass of fault-finding, dwelling upon the great principles of faith, and each one moving in understandingly with an experience for himself. The down condition where the church feels down but knows not how to arise can be arisen from in one place as well as in others by drinking of the salvation of God, by individually taking hold of the work in earnest, being zealous and repenting, righting all known wrongs, then believing God accepts and receives, taking God at His word and seeking Him diligently instead of going mourning, with believing itself part of the work, climbing up by faith because He is faithful that promised. Each must take care of his own soul's interest rather than become burdened to reprove and bear down upon brethren for not repenting zealously enough, for watching others, binding burdens God did not dictate, and attending to others' consciences instead of one's own puts the doer in darkness and in worse condition than those reproved. The Lord has shown sufficient to correct these evils for about two years, and those holding to them must lay that wrong experience aside and commence anew, for God is willing to give again all the good that was had, while Satan is unwilling for this matter to be understood rightly and those refusing the message remain in blindness and plunge further into difficulty.
Saying rich means too high opinion of one's own judgment, being exalted, leaning on feeling and leaning on the judgment of others instead of God. Those in this condition must throw away feeling, feel destitution, repent with becoming zeal, and buy gold that they may be rich, eyesalve that they may see, and white raiment that they may be clothed, and this call will affect souls. Relying on outward religious duties may bring a feeling of spiritual richness and self-sufficiency while the true condition remains wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, and such self-centered confidence does not bring God's approval or blessing. Trusting self and own wisdom while thinking to need nothing and failing to recognize spiritual poverty and need of a Saviour repeats the mistake of Cain and the Pharisees, who lack confession of sin and dependence on Christ.
The wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked condition is the starting place that those with little experience must realize about themselves instead of becoming puffed up to reprove and teach those long established, sanctified, and suffering for the truth. When truth is received in love it purifies and purges away dross and tin, and the one in whom that great work is done stops feeling rich and increased in goods and in need of nothing. Instead of excitement, noise, forward self-confidence, and taking the place of teachers before learning first principles, knowing its sanctifying power brings humility under its sweet powerful influence, the peaceable fruits of righteousness to the glory of God, understanding of what truth has done, and esteeming others better than self. This same self-deceived condition belongs to one who has drunk deeply of the spirit of worldlings and cherishes unsanctified ambition to be remarkable by worldly praise and exaltation, who does not know he is poor, blind, benighted and deceived. He needs heavenly wisdom to return, to separate from the world, to walk in the cast-up path and follow Jesus, and to have eyes anointed with heavenly eyesalve so he makes no mistake, for the message is a personal call with the gates of life thrown wide open and Jesus and angels calling him to come.
Saying I am rich while lacking Christlikeness leaves a person wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked in the end, for declaration of faith diluted by natural traits of character has lost its saving virtue by losing Christlikeness. Haphazard belief and practice not after the lessons of Christ is vain faith with no saving virtue, for the heart must contain either treasures of goodness or treasures of evil. The receiver of truth with good treasure brings forth good things, while one who claims to believe without practicing brings forth evil things which wound, discourage, and destroy. Being rich and increased means self-satisfaction while indulging all passions of the carnal heart, being far from God and far from truth, breaking commandments and dishonoring parents, with a whole spirit exalted in own eyes that will not bear reproof but rises to justify self, grows angry, and is impatient, fretful and faultfinding. Not knowing the true state means God's Spirit has been withdrawn without it being known, a blindness nourished and fostered when the church calls the condition a small thing and holds the person up instead of dealing straightly with sins.
Unbelief in testimonies of warning, encouragement, and reproof shuts away light and closes eyes, leaving God's people ignorant of their true condition. Those who think the reproof of the Spirit is uncalled for or does not mean them are in greatest need of grace and spiritual discernment to discover deficiency in spiritual knowledge. The present condition needing the message, especially in schools, means having left first love, with hardness and coldness and want of sympathy except for a favorite few. It calls for a higher standard reached by working in Christ and in Christ's way, being meek and lowly of heart with true religion giving rest even in hardest conflict, seeking and saving the lost with the Spirit of the true Helper, the Spirit of Christ, through transformation of character, conversion, and a new heart.
The verse belongs to straight testimony that must be given to the church to expose character unworthy of the Christian name, for God will have only those earnestly striving to be right. Opportunity is given to develop character, but those developing unworthy character have no right to privileges of the house of God. False sympathy that excuses wrong and shields the erring, whether children or members, from right church action must die, for it began in heaven at the fall of Satan and has existed ever since, it blunts straight testimony, and it pleases Satan. Heeding it in harmony means laying the hand decidedly upon wrong, reproving individual wrong outside the pulpit, not shunning plain reproof nor being tried with those who give it, withholding sympathy from disaffected ones, discerning circumstances and character, standing in union with faithful fellow laborers who can manage and counsel, and not building up those needing to be torn down and deserving severe censure. It exposes lack of judgment in one set and willful in own opinions, thinking he knows best, thinking preaching brethren lack judgment when the lack is in himself, feeling chafed that full confidence is not placed in him, feeling wrong toward brethren, pulling apart in jealousy and injuring their influence, and by that course scattering and tearing down instead of pulling with fellow laborers.
The message is applicable to the church, proving it far behind in spirituality, evidenced by the tame, shiftless way camp-meetings are held and the choosing of out-of-the-way locations to save expense, as if to hide light, which is not in God's order. It is sent to idlers in the vineyard who say they are not qualified to work and rest in unfruitful thoughts and plans. For the sake of their own souls they must find what they are fitted to do and fill their place, seek wisdom God alone can give, search for needy souls in every place as the true shepherd searches for lost sheep, study Scriptures more diligently, and walk carefully and humbly before God in obedience to simple truth.
Claimants may be unaware of being wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked while claiming spiritual richness and self-sufficiency, especially after leaving the platform of truth and using religious claims to support deceptive theories, exposing self-deception and false confidence. Christ's knowledge of works makes clear that outward confidence does not conceal the real state before God, exposing self-exaltation and blindness to spiritual need. Feeling rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing is blindness and ignorance regarding needs of the work leaving stewards without excuse, so those at the heart of the work must not hold that self-satisfied feeling but be faithful stewards practicing true Bible religion of self-sacrifice at every step, closely examining and knowing needs, advantages, and defects of each field, and working with unselfish interest for extension of truth worldwide, giving consideration to the work everywhere, entering new fields, and accomplishing the work as a whole. A person believing good works and standing leave him complete while satisfied with self and past experience neglects prayer and self-examination and excuses faults, and such self-righteousness leaves him in spiritual darkness and keeps Christ from receiving His rightful place and glory.