To Laodicea: I Am Knocking at the Door - Churches of Revelation Part 7

as the head of the church jesus christ gives some very serious warnings to the seven churches in revelation two and three we've been going through the a series of sermons on those seven churches and we've been looking at what did the message mean to them not necessarily okay let's look at it and try to decide it's prophetic meaning which we'll talk about in the last sermon we do on this subject but what did it mean to them we've looked at what we know about those churches from the messages given to them or from other biblical information we have or so a little bit of historical information but we take and we try to study what did the were those people like what did it mean what did it mean to get this message and what did it mean when it was read to you because it was very personal to them it was very personal to each one of them and out of the six churches that we've covered so far we know that five of them very stern warnings from jesus christ as the head of the church each of these messages to these churches begins with a description that jesus gives about himself and that's what's so interesting about this as i mentioned before it'd be interesting to take an entire sermon and just cover all those introductions because it's something that christ is revealing about himself to us as he reveals unto these seven churches he told those in ephesus repent and do the first works else i come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place remember they were a church that doctorally had it all right they had stood up those who had tried to bring false doctrine into the church and yet they lost their first law but said and here he says i can i may remove your lamp stand in other words if you don't repent you won't be my church anymore he tells though the pergamos to repent or else i will come to you quickly and here's what's i mean this is the church of god he says they will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. remember we went through that except for smyrna smyrna was the only church that was not given a warning they were simply told that they hung up they were hanging on to the truth in spite of the fact that they lived in abject poverty and that they were persecuted oh good you know the only good church is the one that's living in power in poverty and being killed right he told the church that thyatira which was the most paganized of all the churches that he would if they didn't repent kill their children this isn't to the world this isn't the pagans this isn't the beast power these are the words of jesus christ to his church it we don't you know to read through all these which a lot of times we pick and choose when we run out of this and we miss that there's some real important points in here to the church at sardis which he said was a dead church he says they would he would come to them as a thief they wouldn't even be prepared for him and in philadelphia he said hold fast what you have though no man can take your crown the problem that the philadelphia church then was dealing with was that people could get offended by other people or mistreat other people or come along with some argument or something that they were letting other people take their crown it wasn't necessarily you know false doctrine it wasn't some of the other things like the immorality that some of the churches experienced with them it was something with each other and he told them be careful that you don't let another person take your crim and now we're to the last church on the list the church of laodicea laodicea like philadelphia was one of the newer churches yeah it had only been around for about 350 years by the time that or not the church but i mean the city about 350 years when uh john wrote to them now we think wow 350 years that's a long time but now that was pretty much a new city in terms of how long some of the cities in asia minor had been and they were famous for three things even their name by the way is very interesting their name is is actually a woman's name there was a greek king who founded laodicea he named it after his wife so it's it's a it was his wife's name but they were known for three things they were a financial banking center money would come in and out of this city none of the other cities were a banking center that we've gone through as far as these seven cities of the churches but this one was a banking center so you can imagine the wealth that flows in and out of the city it was famous because around outside of laodicea they raised a certain kind of sheep that had black wool and they would use that wool to create clothing that was imported or exported i'm sorry all over the empire so you know there was this famous black wolf that they made clothing out of that they made enough that they exported out and of course another way that they became a wealthy city and then they were also known as a medical center um and they produced two things that once again they exported an eye salve and an ointment for the ears were two different kinds of ointments they created one for the eyes and one for the ears and they found some of the old coins from the ancient time of of land to see him and of course on the front's always going to be caesar right usually the back of a coin would have the local leader or a temple usually one of the gods or goddesses on it they would have one of their doctors on it okay so they had doctors names on some of the coins so it was a medical center and they they were known for making this special ointments for your eyes and for your ears they also had a large jewish population although that doesn't seem to have you know that's the message given to laodicea they're not mentioned at all so let's go to revelation 3. revelation 3 and let's look at the message to the church of laodicea what can we learn about who they were the first people who received this and then what's important for us because remember all the churches are supposed to read all the messages all the time because these are problems whatever church that that existed at that time these are problems that could be in the church of god at any time in fact as a pastor i can say i've been in churches where it was like i was in three or four of these churches in one congregation you know the the the pluses and the minuses the strengths are the weaknesses i mean i still i still can't wrap my mind around how thyatira was praised by jesus christ for their faith more so than most of the other churches for their faith and their good works and then contempt condemned for their absolutely absolute heresies that they believed you start to realize each of these churches develop differently and each of them had their own problems verse 14 and to the angel the church of the laodiceans right these things says the amen the faithful the true witness the beginning of the creation of god once again jesus christ revealing as the messenger here to these people he said an angel but he's the messenger and he says here's who i am i know your works they are neither cold or hot i could wish that you were cold or hot so then because you are lukewarm and either cold or hot i will vomit you out of my mouth you stop it you think about that it's it's an odd imagery right you're neither cold or hot so i'm going to spit you out but it's a very frightening warning what he's saying is i'm going to throw you out of my body so there's a threat here to the laodiceans that they could end up outside of the body of christ because they're neither cold or hot now over the years i have read a lot of explanations of what that means and i've heard a lot of sermons whether it's the radio church of god the worldwide church of god the united church of god on what that cold and hot means okay what does it mean to be lukewarm and sometimes the explanation is well the lukewarm is you're just sort of not paying attention you're just walking through life in a stupor uh this basically you know not really caring but you know when we read through these churches that describes sardis the dead church the dying church where they didn't even know they were dying when i look at this today what i want to look at is a specific statement we're going to get into as we go through it and what does that mean okay because i mentioned in one of the sermons that the laodiceans didn't have heresies like some of the other churches and i didn't have a couple people come and say well they had to have heresies they said oh yeah they do but they're not the same as the other churches their heresies come from a different place and they don't have the the immorality of the nicole iantons they're not condemned for that so what is their problem are they the dead church no so what does it mean to be lukewarm if you look at this other plausible explanation okay that's what we're going to look at if you look at colossae klossy we have the book of collages written to colossae colossae wasn't that far away and it's about 10 to 12 miles away areopolis is about six miles away now you think okay there's two cities close by but laodicea did not have a large natural water supply it you know there wasn't some huge lake you know or a huge river running through i mean they had water but not enough for this growing city so what they did is they shipped water from those other two places in now that's what the romans this was one of the greatest engineering feats of the ancient world aqueducts now you think about aeriopolis six miles away you've got to get water six miles and it's not straight and it's not downhill right up and down and all over the place you got to cross mountains and valleys and they built those aqueducts so they could start water at one place and it would move push itself up push itself down and get to where they wanted it to go once they got the water moving as long as you pumped water at the other end it would end up at the far end and colossae was between 10 and 12 miles away it was amazing they pumped two water supplies into the city now the water supply would come in the rich people by the way did have indoor plumbing indoor water supply but the average person didn't water would come into great big pools where they'd pump the water into the water came from two different sources were two different kinds of water one was a very cold water and the other was a very hot water probably mineral springs it i mean just came up out of the ground which you know mineral water doesn't always taste that good but you know you get hot water running over miles through stone aqueducts and cold water running many miles through aqueducts and coming in and being dumped into these pools that stuff must have tasted terrible it would be tepid it was just terrible tasting that's why this would have meant something to them i taste your water and i go i'd spit it out probably that happened all the time visitors would come into landozia go out to one of the pools get a drink of water and spit it out say this is the worst water i've ever had so there's something here that means something to these people so hot and cold may not mean you know i remember hot hot was i heard a sermon years ago where hot meant on fire to do the work of god and cold men unconverted the other thing i problem i find with that is if i had a big gulp of very hot water i'd spit it out so is that what it meant to these people i mean we can make analogies that are maybe accurate analogies i'm not talking about accurate analogies i'm talking about what did it mean to these people okay and it meant that we live in a city where people spit our water out because it's tepid it's neither hot you know it's not the hot springs where people go probably to you know health conditions you go to hot springs they do that today and it's not the cold refreshing water that comes this way they all come together what create what it's created is the worst water around but it's all we have to drink so then we have to figure out what the lukewarmness is okay so why does he describe this as lukewarmness so let's go to verse 17. verse 17. he says now remember i will vomit you out of my mouth so i'm going to spit this out this this this tastes really bad okay christ's reaction to them is it you taste bad to me he says like uh because you say i am rich have become wealthy and have need of nothing and do not know that you're wretched miserable poor blind and naked now it'd be easy to spot i guess a lady sand just look for any poor blind naked person that says they're rich and that's a way to sing so obviously this isn't a physical description right spiritually they look at themselves and say i am rich i can see i have righteous clothing on and this is their problem see we all do you know like i said i have commentaries i have whole books written on this part of revelation i have what i've heard in the church over the years and it goes all over the place but what did they read the thing that would have jumped out to them was the problem is is how you see yourself the problem in laodicea is how they see themselves we're gonna have to go through and describe well how did they see themselves then well obviously they think they're rich in others a lady to see it wasn't somebody like in sardis where you go into the churches like man these people they're not much different to the world they just sort of you know you go to their services there's no energy there's not a good message the people don't even talk about god they just talk about what's happening at work there's no camaraderie no that's sardis that's not laodicea laodicea knows they've got it all together they know they've got it all together they know we know the bible we know the scripture we do what's right and yet god looks at them and says christ says no you're naked in fact it's very interesting uh that in this in this uh what what jesus says here you know what were they famous for banking center he says you think you're wealthy and you're not they're famous for making this this fine clothing that's sent out exported all over the place you think you're wearing fine clothing you're naked they're known for ice isab and we're going to see where he even brings that in in other words he had he goes adam and and i think there must be a reason here the very pride of their city is why he goes after them and that is important for us to understand that's important for us to understand once again they know there's nothing wrong with them there can't be verse 15. what we're looking at are people who are incredibly self-sufficient and self-satisfied when they look at their righteousness and they would appeared righteous to other people so i would have known laodicea if i had to walk to that place i'd recognize that attitude right away probably you would not have you would have said wow these people have it all together so verse 18. he says i counsel you christ says to buy for me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich and white garments that you may be clothed that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and anoint your eyes with i said that you may see see where he goes right after the things the three things they're so famous for in their city watch i believe and i'm just extrapolating something out of this you know sometimes you you have to uh speculate a little bit part of their problem was they were really proud to be laying deceans in their communities i mean they had they had quite a city and i think this is important for us as americans we sometimes impose into the bible american ideals that are not biblical ideals we're proud to be americans because let's face it in all of history there's been no place like this for all of its problems and its evils and it's you know it's still been the best place to live but we have to be careful just because we have lots of wealth we export lots of things we have all this science that we're so proud of that doesn't mean we impose that on the bible and i really think that's part of the problem of laodicea but why because why would he go after their city you know he doesn't go after the city in any other of these of these messages but he goes after their city the three things they're famous for it says no you're not wealthy spiritually you're poor and you think you dress nice you are naked and you think you can see my way he says you're absolutely blind you're absolutely blind verse 19 then as many as i love i rebuke and chasten therefore be zealous and repent so here's their call to repent behold i stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door i will come to him and dine with him and he with me that's most that statement right there we can zip through and miss what jesus christ is saying this is the church of the people who know they've got it right and to all if you saw them you would say these people have it right this is the way god's church should be and jesus christ isn't in the church jesus christ is standing outside the church knocking on the door and they can't even hear him they're having such a good time never thought of laodicea quite that way before did you jesus christ is knocking on the door is he's not even the building that's the imagery that's here i'm not even in the building they've locked the door on me and that's why he gives them such a strong condemnation that he was going to rebuke and chasten them now they don't get the same condemnation by by the way as some of the other churches some of the other churches get hit a lot harder than this and what christ says he's going to do if they don't repent but he tells these people i am going to correct you because you're going to have to change so remember they think they're spiritually complete now what happens when you think you've got it all together you look at everybody else and say well you don't have it all together when you think you have it all together when i think i have it all together it's just new it's just human nature you look at everybody okay but that person may have it together but that person doesn't that burns the deficit not like me they don't have it all together they don't know what i know they're not as righteous as i am they're not as strict as i am they're not as good as i am now i want to make this point this doesn't mean we accept each other's sins in fact we're supposed to go talk to each other about our sins you know if you know someone who's you know got an alcohol problem and they've gone off the wagon you're supposed to go talk to them about it that's what scripture says you're supposed to go talk to them and try to bring them back get them back on track so no it doesn't mean we ignore each other's sins and it sure doesn't mean we ignore what's the sin in the world you know well okay it's okay we just love everybody so it really doesn't matter and of course that's the new age christianity we all just love one another so what you do doesn't matter and of course anyone who has read matthew mark luke and john would know that is the exact opposite of what jesus christ taught so when they call it christianity they're wrong because either what jesus said is true about himself or he's insane that's why christians need to read matthew mark luke and john before they decide if they're christians or not because either jesus said certain things that are true in which your actions do matter certain things are condemned and he is the son of god and he is the only way to god you know the new age christianity is there's all religions lead to the same god and jesus said that's not true either what he says is true or he's not i mean it's that simple he's either insane or he's true what he's talking here is is that the laodiceans as we go through this we'll see what they do is they look at everybody else that are christians and they're always measuring themselves because they're so self-sufficient they're so self-satisfied self-sufficiency is good if you're going to go out and work have a job take care of yourself self-sufficiency which is a lot of what our countries build on is not good spiritually you can't be spiritually self-sufficient you can't by the very definition of what it means to be biblical definition of what it means to be spiritual how can you be spiritually self-sufficient you'd have to be god only god is spiritually self-sufficient you and i aren't but what do we know then about laodicea not much we can put through a little history of it we could go and show how many different armies marched through and who some other governors were but we really can't tell you about the church except in one place let's go to colossians chapter 4. colossians chapter 4. we'll come back here towards the end colossians 4 verse 16. remember colossi is not too far away now this is written around 60 babies around 60 a.d so this is a long time before you know this is it's 40 years later over 40 years later the john writes revelation so we're going back in time but he says to the people in colossae in verse 16 of chapter 4 paul writes now when this epistle is read among you see that it is read also in the church of the laodiceans and that you likewise read the epistle from laodicea now we don't have the letter god did not choose to save paul's letter that he wrote the laodicea all we have is the one to the colossians but both of them were to read it and as we go through this what we're going to see is the concerns that paul had he's really concerned about these two churches are based on the same thing so we can go back in time and know a little bit about the problems and issues in laodicea 40 years between john writes now i'm not saying you can take now everything in the book of colossians and imprint it on laodicea what i'm saying is historically we can go back and say there were foundational flaws in the laodicean church 40 years before john wrote we can say that much so the time by the time john writes they're probably worse by the time jesus inspires him and says here's what i want you to tell them they're probably worse so if we look at colossians it's a very uh it's a very interesting letter that paul writes here it's very concise some of his letters aren't so concise it's a very concise letter in so many ways if you go through chapter one chapter one is one of the most complete explanations of jesus christ he makes four major points in colossians 1. jesus christ is the firstborn from the dead jesus christ is the creator okay so he existed before he came to earth he is the head of the church he stresses that remember last week i told you to remember the philadelphia church they had the key of david which is the authority of jesus christ okay so they were submitting to jesus christ a problem in colossae was they didn't totally appreciate jesus christ as the head of the church we can assume then that is part of the problem in laodicea once again that's an assumption and he came into flesh and died to reconcile us to god the first whole chapter explains all of that in a very concise way so he introduces this you have to understand who jesus christ is and he introduces it with this is the mystery now that's a very important word in greek culture because by this time you have the protognostic concepts coming along because [Music] the greeks believe the foundation of everything is knowledge it's the foundation of education which in our country today is the foundation of education the jews have a different viewpoint foundation of knowledge is wisdom i mean the foundation of education i'm sorry foundation of education is wisdom there's a difference between the foundation of education is knowledge and the foundation is wisdom those are two different approaches so the greek said it's knowledge and you know what the more the more knowledge you have the more superior person you are and the more secret knowledge you have and now that got into christianity the better the christian the more secret knowledge you have the more understanding that you have that nobody else has only you and a few others so even though you're part of a very select group they're all part of the of the christian church well there's not that many christian churches around why i'm part of this congregation well there's only 50 of us yeah but i'm part of the eight that have the real understanding you see that's the problem with gnosis when you see everything founded upon knowledge now let's go to collages two verse one paul says for i want you to know what a great conflict i have for you and those in laodicea and for as many who have not seen my face in the flesh so he specifically says i'm in conflict here i worry about you because of what's happening what's happening verse 4. now this i say lest anyone should deceive you with pervase a per se pervasive i'm super safe smart words he says people are going to come along and try to deceive you so there's a deception going on verse 8 be lest beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men according to the basic principles of the world and not according to christ he keeps bringing it back to the mystery this is the core most important things but somehow in colossae and must be in laodicea christ wasn't enough there was a greater mystery we had to know what is the greater mystery you see paul dealing with some corinth because of the greek culture he talks about the wisdom of man the wisdom of of god and how these things clash they were looking for deeper understanding than what was given to them so what's very interesting is when we go down to verse 16. i'm not going to go through verse 16 and 17 the way we normally read them because what we do is we go through this section because verse 16 and 17 is used so many times in part of the protestant world to prove that you don't have to keep the sabbath in the holy days and we've covered that many times and and you know you could study that or or give a sermonette on it sometime or whatever but it's it's important part of understanding what it really means and they had to be keeping the sabbath and holy days for this even makes sense okay as we go so i'm not going to go through the explanation of of this they had to be keeping them i want to go through the real problem that's happening verse 16. so let no one judge you in food or in drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbas okay see you don't have to keep the sabbath in the holy days actually it's interesting in food and drink is actually in the greek is active in eating and drinking okay don't let anyone judge you in your eating and drinking and keeping of the sabbath i mean you can literally translate it that way but the point thing is his focal point is judging oh see don't judge me if i don't keep the sabbath that's what they say it means it's judging them on how they're doing it he says which are a shadow of things to come but the substances of christ now let's go through the rest of what he says here in the next couple verses because you'll start to see what he's really talking about unless someone i'm sorry let no one cheat you of your reward taking delight in false humility and worship of angels intruding into those things which has not he has not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind okay the problem here is false humility worship of angels and i've got it all together i know what you don't know false humility you know over the years of the church we've always struggled with time and you know and we will always continue to struggle with these issues because they're difficult where is it that what god expects us to do and where is it are we imposing upon it something that we want to do and what we know false humility will drive you to enforce your ideas on everybody else i remember years ago a woman coming to me and saying i cannot sing onward christian soldiers it's an it's an evil song i sang it in a church i used to go to and i cannot sing it i said well then don't it's okay you know if it's being led just stand there don't sing i if that goes against your conscience i understand conscience is important thing don't sing it no everybody else has to stop singing it i can't be in a church where anybody sings that song so she left this is what false humility is i know what's best because i'm right before god i got it all together but it's something that the scripture doesn't clearly say but my interpretation of it is such that everybody has to do it i mean this comes up all the time and of course as you know if i don't have a biblical i mean if the bible says something i'm going to tell you if i don't have a clear biblical um teaching i will expound on it some and then there's a point i'll say you have to make that call you know i get that all the time should i do this well let's work through the decision-making process and then you're going to have to decide i can't tell you what to do on this now if you're going to ask me if you're can i steal i'm going to say no uh i had a this comes up all the time i have a oven cleaner and it has some kind of i don't know what's in it that's used for a leavening agent and uh i should i throw it out for the days of lemon bread and my answer is well do you plan on eating it well no it'll kill me okay but i still feel i should the moment they say that i say then throw it out whatever's not of faith to sin i'll come help you throw it out it's okay but you can't make everybody else throw out theirs they don't plan on eating their oven cleaner you see now if someone says i throw up my oven cleaner nobody should be upset with that and if someone doesn't throw out their oven cleaner nobody should be upset with that either we can't judge each other on certain things we can judge each other on on sin if you know someone who's gossiping and and causing you know a rift between people the church you're actually required to go tell that person please stop this because they're doing something against the scripture but oven cleaner is a personal issue so many things are personal issues i catch a lot of flack sometimes because i won't make people's decisions you know should i take uh inoculations or not and my answer is i would not take the ones that have fetal you know there's there's they actually took c cells from t-cells from uh fetuses there's a moral problem with that okay should i take them well that's up to you what advice did you give none what's your opinion my opinion is my opinion why are you interested in my opinion i'm not a doctor you see what i mean i can tell you i can help you make decisions and so some people do and some people don't and we can't judge each other on that but in laodicea they would depending on which group you're in you would judge everybody else as bad as evil you start to understand this problem i am rich in a creeps with goods in need of nothing there's the problem we've made up so many pro problems with them and so do somebody the commentaries everybody's missing the obvious i immerse your case with goods in need of nothing and so you have the worship of angels i'll just mention that once again secret knowledge angelology has always been an issue in the development of the church um throughout hundreds of years people get into angels and pretty soon they're trying to contact angels or they have different levels of angels or they they talk to angels they see angels in everything you know oh an angel did that you know an angel helped my son hit a home run probably not that's called a movie called angels in the outfield or whatever okay yeah it didn't happen in your life i never saw the movie is that what the movie's about does it okay good um i remember my kids seeing it so one of the problems we look at here just from looking at what we read in leia laodicea and the little bit we did here in collages read through the whole letter to the colossians you know what he ends up with let me tell you how to really be a new person in christ that's how he ends up you know chapter three is basically let me explain what it means to be a new person and let me break this down into practicality even gets into marriage before the end of it this is what christianity is about being this new person and yes that includes obviously obeying the law of god so let's okay we're looking at around 60 a.d and we're looking ahead 40 some years we're saying okay what are some of the things that might have carried over here because you see them mentioned well they had a lack of understanding and appreciation of how god's plan of salvation is carried out through jesus christ they believe that jesus christ they talked about jesus christ they would have sung hymns of jesus christ but they really didn't understand what was going on they didn't understand his centrality as creator the centrality is the firstborn of the dead as as the head of the church how he rec his blood reconciles us to god all the things we talk about and put together through the keeping of the holy days that's the whole holy days sets up that plan shows it they didn't they don't understand it or ancient laodicea did not they were spiritually self-sufficient and self-satisfied with their righteousness they believed they had it all together that's where their lukewarmness comes from it doesn't come from i don't care it comes from of course i care and i got it right third because they were quick to judge others they were they would cause this unity in the church that's interested in colossians he told them you know you shouldn't have this disunity in the church they weren't you know yes there could be disunity if we believe that if someone starts teaching that we shouldn't keep the sabbath because you know why that's a false teaching but this was over things they shouldn't have been disunified over and then fourth they believed in secret knowledge they looked for deeper understandings that made them better than others now you want to put this into a capsulized form we can there is a parable given by jesus that describes this attitude exactly now i read this a couple months ago in a sermon but i'm going to read it again let's go to luke 18. i didn't plan to read it with this sermon but i couldn't find a better description when you go through what we just covered and i just scratched the surface of colossians you need to read that yourself but it is a message to the laodiceans 40 years before john i think that laid the foundation for many pro issues i know i'm saying i think here i'm speculating a little i tried to tell you what i am yeah but if we have a letter that they're supposed to read there's a reason they're supposed to read it luke back in colossians luke chapter 18. verse 9. this is jesus luke puts this little bit of commentary and he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others we see their motivation now luke says that it's very interesting because jesus didn't if i was living in the first century judea and jesus started this parable halfway through i would think he's giving me the perfect example of a good man and i would have known men like this so understand it changes gears in the middle it goes some places that nobody hearing this for the first time would have understood and luke adds a commentary to like this isn't going where you think here is the motivation of the people he's talking about two men went over to the temple to pray one pharisee the other to tax the tax collector this isn't the story of two uh a jew that followed god and a pagan this isn't the story of a pharisee in a roman this is a story about two people that were practicing jews members of the people of god who went into the temple you are practicing christians you are the temple of god we are brought here together as the assembly of god so this this could be us this could be us and the pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself with himself god i thank you that i'm not like other men extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this tax collector understand probably everything he said was true now he remember this is the true story this is a parable jesus is setting this up because there are people saying i know pharisees like this i've known him my whole life he's never committed adultery he's always been honest jesus doesn't say by the way that he is any of these things many laodiceans were not extortioners or adulterers they're not they're not condemned for those kinds of things like some of the other churches were i mean if you walked into laodicea it'd be like wow good solid folks that's not how jesus saw them and he says or even as his tax collector i fast twice a week i give tithes of all that i possess remember why in colossians the the people of colossian land to see and were related to see it were judging people well you don't keep the sabbath as strict as you should you can read through i didn't read all of it i mean he there's all kinds of things that you know you you don't do this you don't do that you don't they're being judged for all these standards made by these people in the church that said you're not as righteous as i am because you're not doing it right now we all know that we should go do our jobs on the sabbath but just give an example you know someone will say well on the sabbath i do this i mean i know people that will not let their children go swimming on the sabbath and i know people who have a swimming pool and let their children go swimming on the sabbath okay people come to me well which is right and which is wrong that's not a judgment you and i are to make now if they're doing other things on the sabbath i could go say no that's you shouldn't do that because i have a biblical reason but this is your decision and you're held responsible to god for your decision you're supposed to be mature enough we're all supposed to be mature enough to say that's your call that's not my call there are some things that aren't none of our calls there's god's call that's what we talk about most the time is things are god's call right but see that's the problem with the laodiceans this is the problem here of the pharisee and so everything is outward because he says i fast twice a week i give ties of all that i have now should you fast yes should you tithe yes so aren't these good things well it's okay except if you look at somebody else and say you know what god's blessed me i have a better job than you because i'm a better person than you so i can pay better ties now you say how ridiculous is that i've heard it i'm not singing him you but you know what i mean we will judge people on the craziest things well god said what do you mean that you don't want to say that because you may lose your job the next day okay it's possible so what we have to realize as we go through here this man was doing these things that's why or in the parable jesus makes him doing those things he makes him up for a reason because the problem here isn't what he's doing necessarily it's why he's doing it it's how he sees himself as a christian remember the problem with the laodiceans i am rich and increased with goods in need of nothing isn't that what this guy sang and the tax collector standing afar off raised his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner i tell you jesus says this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted justified allowed to come into a relationship with god the pharisee did not understand that he may be in the temple but god was outside his house knocking on the door you see hey hey this is my house why are you shutting because it's god's house it's the temple why are you shutting me out of my house for that's exactly what is happening in ladies jesus christ is pounding on the door and they don't even know it don't even know it because i'm okay i get it all right i get the secret knowledge i can use everything real strict and i i feel good about it they were just really lukewarm in their approach to god because their religion was about themselves and not god so here's what i want you to do i'm going to wrap this up just some things to do i want all of you to take some time and fast and pray now if you go to i fast or twice this week you're probably in trouble but i want to fast and i want you to fast and pray to god for him to teach you true humility i'm going to do that over the next few months i'm going to take some time and fast and pray now pray for humility but pray that god gives it to you with mercy or you may wake up the next day naked and poured blind okay you don't want it literally you may don't ask for that level of humility right off the bat but ask god to give you humility we also must study the scriptures to be grounded in the true mystery read colossians read it tear it apart look at it what's the true mystery there that all other mysteries of the biblical mysteries are based on and then we have to stop despising one another right remember the pharisee trusted himself and despise others we have to cut each other some slack even the weakest of us has value to god and just because someone's weak spiritually doesn't mean we should beat up on them now they need encouragement sometimes people need correction i'm not saying people don't need correction unfortunately i have to do that from time to time but why do we do it is it for their good because we love them because we want everybody to be moving in the same direction we want people restored we want to cover a sin if somebody repents of something we want to cover it we don't want everybody else to know we got to cut each other some slack and we've got to stop beating each other up on things that aren't biblical that are biblical we have to stop doing that now remember the old comedian i don't remember his name you know you're a redneck when how many remember that i remember the guy's name some of you do jeff foxworthy that's right well you know what if i just read this and you said yeah i hope these people pray and trap fast for community i hope my wife studies the scriptures yeah i hope my life that person over there starts cutting me more slack yeah well then you're probably elated to see because you don't need these things if you're ladies so you see the problem here's the problem with the lady attitude they don't see it they just don't see it that's why you have to turn it on yourself don't turn it on anybody else turn it on yourself and here's what god then promises will end up in revelation 3 verse 21 he says to the people laodicea to him who overcomes i will grant to sit with me on my throne as i also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne it's interesting he doesn't say near as negative things to them here at the end that he does some of the other churches and then he says he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches there's a lot more latency read collagens you know do this study think of it start fasting and praying for humility so we've now covered the biblical teachings what we have about those seven churches we do have one more sermon in the series where we'll have to look at revelation two or three in a greater context and what does it mean prophetically and that's what we'll cover next time

Channel: UCG Nashville - TN

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Id: cF7Tduv7jEQ

Length: 53min 48sec (3228 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021