The Lukewarm Church in the Last Days
Sermon Transcript
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“The Last Days and the Lukewarm Church.” We pick up where we ended last week as we’re looking at the letters to the seven church of Asia Minor that were given to these seven church 2000 years ago and recorded for us in Revelation 2 and 3. In fact, let’s begin again in Revelation 1:11 where Jesus says to John, who is an exile on the island of Patmos, He says, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches.” And then He lists these churches. “To Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” Seven physical places. You can still travel to those places today along the west coast of modern day Turkey. But these were real churches in real places with real people 2000 years ago. And it’s a reminder, these seven letters and these seven churches are, in the context of the book of Revelation that every church in every generation needs to stand guard over the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Every church in every generation needs to watch and wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Every church in every generation needs to understand her role in God’s eternal plan through the lens of Biblical prophecy. These seven letters to these seven churches are not an interruption to the prophetic though in the book of Revelation. They’re very much a part of it. And so let’s pick it up in chapter 3. Last week we looked at the first four of these letters and these churches. We said the letter to Ephesus…that Ephesus was the loveless church. Then we went to Smyrna. Smyrna was the persecuted church. And then to Pergamum. Pergamum was the…all right. Let’s try that again. Pergamum was the compromising church. And then we went to Thyatira. Thyatira is the corrupt church.
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Now, in chapter 3:1-6 we have a letter from Jesus to a church in a place called Sardis. And we call this one the dead church. You say, “Pastor, that’s a harsh accusation or assessment of it.” No, those are the words of Jesus to this church in a place called Sardis. This is the place where you strap on your seatbelts and you kind of get ready for a very difficult assessment here. Jesus says in verse 1, “To the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.’” Dead. Again, what a hard, hard assessment, diagnosis of what was happening inside the church in Sardis. Kind of an oxymoron almost, to have the word dead and church in the same sentence. We don’t think of a church as being dead, but very much alive with people. But, no, this church in Sardis could be named the First Church of the Zombies. Zombies are real popular today, aren’t they? The night of “The Walking Dead” and all of that. A zombie is something that appears very much alive but is actually dead. And that’s what Jesus says about this church. “You have a reputation for being alive, but when I look on the inside, you’re dead. You’re dead.” And it kind of reminds me of maybe what the poet could have written about the church of Sardis. “Outwardly splendid as of old, inwardly lifeless, dead and cold. Her force and fire, all spent and gone. Like the dead moon, she still shines on.” That was the church at Sardis. I wouldn’t walk across the street to attend a dead church, and neither would you. But a church that’s alive is worth the drive from wherever you are, right? A church that’s alive is worth the drive. Why did Jesus call this one a dead church? Are there any clues in the letter that He sent to them that help us understand what brought this church to death? Well, I think there are some clues. And keep in mind that in every one of these letters, Jesus introduces Himself, kind of reintroduces Himself by reaching back into chapter 1 and grabbing one of the visions of the glorified and resurrected Jesus and applies it to this particular church. He sort of customizes that vision to each of the churches, giving us some indication that maybe how He introduces Himself, how He customizes His vision to them gives us some indication of what might have been going on inside that church.
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So to the church at Sardis He says, “The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.” That leads me to believe that perhaps one of the reasons this was a dead church is because the Holy Spirit was not welcome in this place. The reference here to the seven spirits was a reference to the Holy Spirit. We saw that in chapter 1. You go all the way back to the Old Testament book of Isaiah for what the seven spirits was all about. It’s not that there are seven holy spirits. No, the trinity is one God who expresses Himself in three distinct persons and personalities—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the expression of the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament book of Isaiah is the seven spirits of God. So this is just an Old Testament reference to the Holy Spirit. And because Jesus had to kind of reintroduce the Holy Spirit to this church, you kind of get the sense that maybe the Holy Spirit was absent in this place or wasn’t very welcome in this place. And there is certainly a lot of theology about the Holy Spirit that gets misunderstood and miscommunicated in our world today. But make no mistake about it, friends. The Holy Spirit is vital to the life of any church. You can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater because you don’t want to go to some extreme in your pneumatology, your theology of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is who empowers and enlightens the Church. We know that from Acts 2. Jesus told His disciples, “You stay here. You wait and you pray until the Holy Spirit comes. Because I’m going back to the Father, but you can’t do this on your own.” And we learn very early on is that the only way the Church successfully carries out her mission is through the enabling power and resources of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost.
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Now, a lot of the confusion around the theology of the Holy Spirit happens relative to the terminology of pneumatology. Okay? And two terms that are important to understand related to the Holy Spirit is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit—when it happens, how it happens, the evidence of it, and so on and so forth. The baptism of the Holy Spirit as I understand it best from scripture happens once and it happens at the moment of salvation. And the question is, do you have the Holy Spirit? And if you're a true believer in Jesus Christ, guess what? You’ve got the Holy Spirit. You’ve got all the Holy Spirit you’re ever gonna get. He comes to live inside of us at the moment of salvation. And Ephesians 1:13-14 said it’s God’s down payment on our salvation. It’s real estate language there. The earnest money deposit is the Holy Spirit. So if you’re a true believer in Jesus Christ, you’ve got the Holy Spirit. You got Him at the moment of salvation. Romans says, “If you do not have the spirit of God, you do not belong to Him.” So the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life who comes at the moment of salvation is evidence that you are a child of God and belong to Him by faith. That’s the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We’re never commanded in scripture to be baptized in the Spirit. It just happens at the moment of salvation. And you get Him. You got all the Spirit you’re ever gonna get it. The filling of the Holy Spirit though, the Bible tells us and commands us, “Be filled with the Holy Spirit.” That’s not about whether you have Him. That’s about whether He has you. That’s not about content, it’s about control. That’s why Paul says, “Don’t be drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Just as alcohol will consume you and control you, no, in a sense, be drunk with the Holy Spirit. Let Him fill you. Let Him control you. How does that happen? Day by day, moment by moment, when we say yes to the Spirit and no to the world, the flesh and the devil. That’s how you live the Christian life. That’s how you experience success in the Christian life. And any understanding or any attempt to live the Christian life apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit empowering us and enlightening us and giving us the enabling resources to live the Christian life successfully, well, it leads to a dead church. Now, there are a lot of churches where you don’t talk about the Holy Spirit. You know, we don’t want to go to this extreme over here, so He’s the silent member of the trinity. And that was probably the church in Sardis. And Jesus had to reintroduce them to the seven spirits of God.
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But there’s more here. Not just that. He also mentions the seven stars. Remember, the seven stars that Jesus held in His right hands, the mystery of the seven stars, those were the seven angels or messengers, probably the pastors of those churches. Why does Jesus mention them here? Well, probably because there was a leadership problem at the church in Sardis. And it had something to do with maybe the fact that godly, spirit-filled leaders were absent. Oh, there were leaders in the church, but they were fleshly leaders. They weren’t spirit-filled leaders who were walking by and keeping in step with the Spirit of God as the New Testament teaches us to do. I always say that the most dangers person in the church the leader in the church, the pastor or ministry leader, who is walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit. Because decisions then are not made through prayer and through spiritual discernment and through the saturation of the heart with the Word of God. They’re just business decisions or fleshly decisions. And that’s probably what was going on here in the church at Sardis.
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Now, a third reason that they might have been dead, as Jesus says, is because the church was full of Christians in name only. Because when Jesus says, “I know your works and you have a reputation for being alive,” He says, “but you are dead,” I’m reminded of what Paul says in Ephesians 2:1. He says, “Before you came to Christ,”—he’s speaking to Christians—“you were (past tense)…you were dead in your trespasses and sins.” It’s an important diagnosis of our spiritual condition apart from Christ, that we’re dead spiritually. And this is why Jesus said to a religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee in the 1st century, He said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again.” It’s not optional here. And what He was talking about was, you know, there are some people who are spiritual zombies. Physically alive but spiritually dead. That part of us that was created to have a relationship with God needs to be brought to life. So we’re born into this world and, in fact, spiritual zombies. Physically alive, but that part of us that was created to have a relationship with God is dead. And Jesus says, “You must be born again.” So one of the primary definitions of a dead church is where the vast majority of people in that church and maybe even the leaders of that church are not born again. They’ve not experienced the regenerating power of Jesus Christ and the regenerating power and ministry of the Holy Spirit in their life. Their still dead spiritually. And then a fourth reason as you look into this letter is because perhaps they were complacent believers, and this led to their death. I don’t have time to read the entire letter. You can do that on your own. But as you do, you’ll notice that Jesus tells them twice to wake up. He says in verse 2, “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of God.” And He tells them again a little bit later to wake up or He will come like a thief in the night and take what they already have. This was a church that had fallen asleep on the job and that led to their death. Historians tell us that the city of Sardis was the capital city of the Lydian Empire for many, many years, if not decades and centuries. And it was impervious to the invading armies. The city was high upon a hill, and it was very well-protected. But there was twice in the history of the church where the invading armies penetrated it and overtook the city. And historians say it was during a time when the people grew complacent, and they stopped putting the watchmen on the wall. What a picture this is of the Church today, how important it is for us to watch and wait for the second coming of Jesus Christ. To watch with diligence and vigilance, because we’re in a spiritual battle. And until Jesus comes gain, the invading armies—the world, the flesh, the devil—will do whatever he can to invade the Church and to take her off in a different direction. We can’t afford to be complacent in these times or else maybe Jesus will come and say, “I pronounce death over this church.” It’s a hard assessment. This is one of the most difficult letters. There’s nothing positive said about this church. Jesus arrived and said, “It’s dead.”
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So let’s move on the next one before we get a little bit too convicted on this, right? The next one is the church of Philadelphia, and it’s a bright light among the seven. Just like there’s nothing positive said about the church at Sardis, there’s nothing at all negative said about the church in Philadelphia. This is a faithful church. This is the faithful church because in verse 8 Jesus says these words. “You have kept my word and have not denied my name.” Boy, wouldn’t that be great that it’s said of this church and the people who go to this church, “You’ve kept my word. And against the cultural resistance, you’ve not denied My name.” The church in every generation fights against the cultural resistance, fights against the world, the flesh and the devil. This was a church, the Philadelphia church…not up the road in Pennsylvania. No, 2000 years ago in Asia Minor along the western coast of modern day Turkey there was the city of Philadelphia about 35 miles north of Sardis. And this was a great, great church. And Jesus spends most of the time talking about the rewards of their faithfulness. “You’ve done a great job,” He says, “keeping My Word and not denying my name.” And because of that there were some rewards—I call them rewards of faithfulness—given to the Philadelphia church. And, by the way, of all these seven letters, whatever is said of these churches corporately…understand, the church is not a building; it’s a people. It’s not an organization; it’s an organism. And so whatever applies to this church corporately applies to the individuals in that church. And so receive the application of these letters in a very personal kind of way. You stay true to the Word of God. You choose not to deny His name even though the culture is pushing against us to do so. And there are some rewards to faithfulness. What are those rewards? Well, the first is a fresh revelation of Jesus and a greater intimacy with Him. Why do I say that? Here is how Jesus introduces Himself to the church in Philadelphia. Verse 7, “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.’” Before we get to the specifics of the opened and closed door, what I want you notice is this is a revelation or vision of Jesus you won’t find in chapter 1. In all the other letters He reaches back into chapter 1 and pulls out, you know, what was already stated in chapter 1 and points that to that church. This is a little bit of extra Jesus that the church in Philadelphia gets. They get a fresh revelation, a fresh vision, a fresh intimacy with Jesus because they were faithful to His Word and they did not deny His name. And it sort of reminds me of something that Jesus said to His disciples on the night before He was crucified. In John 14:23 He says, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my Father with love him, and we will come to him, and we will abide with him.” It’s very intimate language. Jesus says, “If you love Me, keep my commandments. And if you do, my Father with love you and I will love you. And we’ll come a little bit closer to you. We’ll make our home with you, our abode with you. We’ll abide with you.” And Jesus goes on in chapter 15 of John to talk about that intimacy, “Abide in me as my words abide in you, as the vine intimately abides in the vine.” One of the benefits, one of the rewards of faithfulness is a closer relationship with Jesus. A closer revelation. A closer understanding of who He is. And He shares that with this church in Philadelphia. He pulls something out of the Old Testament. Not something that’s found in chapter 1, but something that’s communicated earlier in the scriptures. And he applies it to Himself, and He shares that with the church in Philadelphia. Don’t you want a deeper intimacy with Jesus, a fresh revelation, an understanding, a vision of who He is? Well, Jesus says “If you love Me, keep my commandments. And if you keep My Word and you don’t deny my name…those are the kinds of people I want to hang out with,” Jesus says.
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Second benefit or reward of faithfulness is a new opportunity. And this goes back to that open and closed door thing. He says, “The key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.” He goes on in verse 8 and says, “Behold, I have set before you, church of Philadelphia, an open door which no one is able to shut. I know that you (0:19:00.0) have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” This church had a new opportunity opened up to them, an open door. And, yes, sometimes God leads us through open and closed doors. That happened to the apostle Paul in the book of Acts. He was traveling around on his journeys in the 1st century. And he wanted to go take the gospel into this place. And he says, “The Holy Spirit resisted us.” And then he went over here and he says, you know, “The spirit of Jesus, you know, said no.” And then he had a vision one night of a man in Macedonia saying, “Come on over here.” And he went over that direction and he says a wide open door for ministry happened. Yes, sometimes God leads us by opening and closing doors. He’s the sovereign one who opens so that no one can shut and shuts so that no one can open. And maybe you’ve been trying to make a decision, discern the will of God for your life. You’ve been knocking on a lot of doors and none of them have been opening. Trust the sovereign God who (0:20:00.1) opens so that no one shut and who shuts so that no one can open. And until He opens a door to you, stay faithful to His Word, keep His Word, and don’t deny His name. And let Him sovereignly choose the time when He opens and shuts, and shuts and then opens again. And He says to this church in Philadelphia, this faithful, faithful church, He says, “There is a door open before you, and no one is able to shut it.” Now, some people would say “Well, that’s because this church was big. And it was powerful and it was prosperous. And it could throw money here, and it had, you know, powerful people in the church that could open this door.” No, Jesus goes on to say, “I know that you have little power. There aren’t all these congressmen in here or city officials. And, you know, you’re just regular, everyday people, and you’re not this big, influential church. But you know Me. And I’ll open the doors that need to be opened. I’ll close the doors that shouldn’t be opened. And when I open a door wide for ministry for you, the world’s gonna look in and say, ‘How did that happen? What’s the secret to your success?’” And the simple answer is, “I know Jesus has the key of David. And He opens some doors, and He shuts others. We kept His name, we kept His Word, and we just let Him sovereignly lead us.”
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A third reward is spiritual protection. And let’s just keep in mind that when God opens wide a door for ministry or opportunity, you know, sometimes the enemy is lurking behind that door. The apostle Paul figured that out when he said, “A wide open door was given to us in ministry, and many adversaries were there at the same time,” he said. That’s not unusual in God’s work and how He leads us. Sometimes He says, “Go. Go, my child. Here’s an open door. Here’s a green light.” You go “boom”! You run right into a difficult time and an adversarial time. Well, that’s why He says to the church in Philadelphia in verse 9, “Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you.” He goes on to say, “Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon,” He says. “Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.” Yeah, sometimes when you walk through an open door that God has opened for you sovereignly that you couldn’t open yourself, right on the other side you have what Jesus called the synagogue of Satan. Oh my. You have adversaries. Don’t take that as, “Oh, I made a bad decision here.” No, that’s a time to trust the Lord to do what He says He’s gonna do for the Philadelphians here. He says of that synagogue of Satan, He says, “They will learn that I have loved you because when they come I will make them bow down before your feet.” Let God fight your battles for you. The battle belongs to Him anyway, right? And He can fight that battle and deal with your enemies and your adversaries a whole lot better than you and I can. And our adversary really is the world, the flesh, and the devil. It’s not your spouse. It’s not your brother or sister in Christ. My mate is not my enemy. My fellow brother and sister in Christ is not my enemy. The world, the flesh, and the devil are my enemies, right? Let’s keep that in good view there, and Jesus will provide the spiritual protection. He says to them, “I will keep you from the hour of trial.” What hour of trial is He talking about there? Well, in the context of the book of Revelation, we’re talking about the Tribulation period, that seven-year period of time which is the worst of time on earth yet to be fulfilled in Bible prophecy. Jacob’s trouble. Daniel’s 70th week. “From the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.” And then He says, “I’m coming soon.” Just in that phraseology there I see a timeline here. He says, “I will keep you. I will keep you from the hour.” Rapture of the Church. Reference 1 Thessalonians 4. Next event on God’s calendar, the Church is out of this world before the Tribulation. That’s my understanding of it. I know there’s a lot of debate on the timeline of Bible prophecy. My best understanding is next event is the rapture. Church does not go through the Tribulation period. Then the hour of trial that is coming to the whole world. Then “I am coming soon,” the second coming of Jesus Christ. And so you have the book-ended events of the rapture of the Church, the seven-year Tribulation, second coming of Jesus Christ all right there in the letter to the Philadelphians as a way of expressing to them, “I got your back side. I’m protecting you spiritually. I’m opening a door, a wide door for ministry, but don’t think it’s easy street. There will be adversaries on the other side. The synagogue of Satan is gonna dog you. But I’ve taken care of them. And I’ve also protected you from the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole world.” Philadelphia is a wonderful church. You and I would want to go to a church like that. You and I would want to receive a letter like Jesus sent to the church in Philadelphia, a faithful church that just kept God’s Word. That kept His name and honored His name and chose not to deny His name as others have.
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Now, all of that brings us to the seventh church. This is the church at Laodicea. I titled this message “The Last Days and the Lukewarm Church”. Here is what Jesus said to this church. And this another time to strap on your seatbelts and to just be prepared for a difficult assessment. Verse 15, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” If our understanding of the letters to the seven churches is two-fold…and keep in mind that Bible prophecy often has a near-term fulfillment and a long-term fulfillment. That’s true in the Old and the New Testament. What Jesus said about this church was near-term to them in the 1st century. This was a real church with real people who was diagnosed as being lukewarm. But if we understand these seven churches to be representative of the flow of church history from the beginning of the church age 2000 years ago up to last days and the final days of the last days, then the church at Laodicea probably best represents not only the Church as it is just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ, but also—if you believe we are in the final days of the last days—the Church in our time. And that’s a chilling, chilling indictment of God’s people 2000 years ago and perhaps God’s people today as well. Now, it’s interesting. When Jesus sees apostasy of false teaching in the church He gets mad. Those fires we saw in His eyes in chapter 1, yeah, that was pointed to the compromising church in Pergamum. And He gets mad at apostasy. When it comes to lukewarmness though, He gets sick to His stomach. He says, “I wish you were either hot or cold toward Me. But you’re lukewarm. You’re tepid in spirit, and it makes Me want to vomit you out of my mouth,” He says.
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John Stott was a fabulous theologian in the 20th century. He died not long ago. And he wrote about the lukewarm church. He says, “The Laodicean church was a half-hearted church. Perhaps none of the seven letters is more appropriate to our times than this. It describes vividly the respectable, sentimental, nominal, skin-deep religiosity, which is so widely spread among us today.” He says, “Our Christianity is flabby and anemic. We appear to have taken a lukewarm bath in religion.” That’s certainly a description of this church 2000 years ago, even in Jesus time or shortly after. And it’s a description of the Church just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ. You decide whether we’re in the final days of the last days and whether we’re in the lukewarm church days. Sure seems like it, doesn’t it? Where we’ve lost our passion for Jesus. I meet a lot of people who kind of remind me of Wilbur Rees, who came up with this little thing called “Three Dollars Worth of God.” He says, “I’d like to buy, oh, $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.” And that describes the inhabitants of the lukewarm church. Just give me enough of God to let me just kind of sit back and soak in this warmth back of skin-deep religiosity, and I’ll be just fine. Preach me feel-good sermons. Well, let me tell you something. Other than the church at Philadelphia and maybe the one at Smyrna, there’s not a feel-good message in at least five of these letters. Because Jesus says to the church at Laodicea, “Those whom I love, I rebuke and I discipline.” If you’ve never been disciplined by the Lord, well, the writer of Hebrews says you may not be a child of God because every father disciplines his son. We know that in father/son relationships. And our Father in heaven, when He sees that His Church is heading in a bad direction, He doesn't remain silent. No, He says, “I rebuke those. I discipline those. And then I encourage them to come back.”
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There are three heart temperatures that the Bible talks about and we need to be aware of. One is a burning heart. Do you remember one of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus when two men were traveling on a road to city called Emmaus? And they were all chattering up about what had happened in Jerusalem—the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus; all the rumors about His resurrection. They were trying to figure this out from the Old Testament and the scriptures and all of that. And suddenly Jesus comes walking along next to them, opens up the Old Testament scriptures and talks to them about Messiah. And right about the time they turned to Him and recognized it was Jesus, the Bible says He disappeared. And the conversation those two men had afterwards...they said, “Were not our hearts burning when He talked about all the prophecies and all that had just taken place in Jerusalem?” Does your heart burn for Jesus. Is there something burning in your heart this morning? Maybe when I was talking about this idea that you must be born again because that part of you that was created to have a relationship with God is spiritually dead when you’re born. Maybe something related to that was burning in your spirit. Take that as evidence of the Holy Spirit calling you to faith in Jesus Christ. If there is not something burning in your heart for Jesus…maybe you don’t have a burning heart. Maybe you have a cold heart. And that’s another heart temperature the Bible talks about. Matthew 24 and 25 is known as the Olivet Discourse. This is a time when Jesus sat down with four of His disciples—Peter, James, John, and Andrew—and talked about the end times just days before He went to the cross. And He said that as we get closer and closer to the end of the age, in the last days, he said, “lawlessness will increase and the love in our hearts will grow cold.” Don’t you feel like that’s kind of happening in our culture today? I mean, lawlessness is on the rise. It’s hard to find justice. We’re living in this chaotic culture. And the coldness, the crassness, the lack of civility, the corrosiveness in our language and in our culture and in our kindness toward one another, it just seems to be evaporating. You think it’s bad now, as we get closer and closer to the end of the age love will grow cold in our hearts toward one another. Because everybody is looking about for number one, trying to figure out with all the chaos going on in the world, how do I take care of myself? Get out of my way while I do so. That’ll be the temperature in many, many hearts toward the end of the age.
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So there is burning heart and the cold heart, and the, of course, the lukewarm heart. Jesus says, “I wish you were one or the other. I could deal with that. But this lukewarmness I hard for me to deal with.” They were a dispassionate church, this Laodicean one. And in a dispassionate, lukewarm church you’ll hear people say things like, “Ah, let’s not get too worked up about this. Let’s not get too excited. Let’s not be too fanatical about our faith. You know, let’s not wear our religion on our sleeves.” Or my favorite, “You know, my religion is a private thing. It’s a private thing.” Yeah, it’s so private that nobody outside the warm, tepid church that you’re in knows that you’re a believer. It’s that private. It’s so private that you’ve denied the name of Jesus Christ outside of the four walls of your lukewarm church. Let’s not go there. They were a dispassionate, dispassionate church. They were also a deceived church. Jesus goes on in verse 17. Listen to this. I know this is hard, but these are the words of Jesus. He says in verse 19, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” Verse 17. Let’s go back there. He says, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” You know, it’s easy to just ease your way into a warm, lukewarm bath of religion and say, “We’re okay. We’re just fine. We’re rich. We’re prosperous. We’ve got a lot of good things going.” And Jesus, with His laser-like vision and diagnostic eyes, looks inside and says, “No, you are poor. You are naked. You are pitiful.” And then He goes on to give them a prescription for how to get out of their lukewarmness. He says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” Are you zealous for God?
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I remember years ago, first church that I served there was a guy who came one Sunday morning. I met him after the service at the door. Put out my hand to meet a first-time visitor. I said, “Sir, what’s your name?” He says, “I’m a zealot for God.” I said, “Well, okay, okay. You seem a little odd for God for me, but, you know…” But, you know, as I got to know him, he was zealous for Jesus. There wasn’t a lukewarm, tepid temperature in his spirit. And that’s what Jesus was looking for. Not a warm bath in religion, skin-deep religiosity. He says, “Be zealous and repent.” Because here is a third thing about the lukewarm church. It’s a dangerous church. It’s dangerous because it will never fight for the purity and the exclusivity of the gospel. It’ll just capitulate to a culture who says tolerate all religions. It’s a dangerous church because it won’t stand against the evils of our day. Oh, yes, I know we need to be known for what we stand for, for the gospel. But when evil raises its ugly head in our culture, do we stand against that? Do we stand against the gale-force winds that are blowing against the culture and against the church? A lukewarm church won’t do that. It’ll just capitulate to the culture. And a lukewarm church in dangerous because it won’t fight for things like religious freedom and liberty. It’ll just let it sort of fade away. Sort of like the church during the Holocaust. And there were many religious leaders who just know capitulated to Hitler during that time. They were liberal, lukewarm folks. And there were others that stood the ground and, like Bonhoeffer, lost his life for it. Jesus doesn’t give up on the lukewarm church back that, and He doesn’t give up now. I love what He says in verse 20. After He tells them to be zealous and repent, He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Here is the picture of Jesus, gentleman Jesus. Not knocking down the door, but knocking on the door. Not screaming and yelling and ranting and raving. But just saying, “I’m here. If I knock on the door and if anyone hears my voice and opens the door,” He says, “I’ll come in. And we’ll sit down and have a meal together.” This is near Eastern language related to hospitality and intimacy. He says, “We’ll come in and we’ll share a meal together.” You see, Jesus hasn’t given up on the lukewarm church. But He says, “I’m knocking at the door. I’m knocking at the door. I’m not gonna force my way in. You can continue living in your lukewarmness and your tepidness of spirit and your warm bath of skin-deep religiosity. Or you can hear my knock at the door and hear my voice. You can open up that door and let me in. And when I come in, I’m gonna want to head straight to the master suite, because that’s where I belong. And I’m gonna take charge here, because I’m the head of the Church. And everything works a whole lot better when I’m in charge. But you’re gonna have to let me in.” Now, we’ve used this Revelation 3:20 in evangelistic settings, but understand it in the context here. Jesus is saying this to a church that went bad, that went lukewarm. And He’s giving them a second change. He even goes on to say, “The one who conquers,” verse 21, “I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” Probably a reference to that time when the Church returns with Jesus at the second coming at the end of the Great Tribulation. And then afterwards Jesus sets up His millennial reign on this earth. He sets up His Davidic kingdom on this earth for a thousand years. And those who have conquered reign with Him. What a picture of grace. It reminds me of how Jesus said to Peter, who denied Him three times, “Peter, I’m gonna give you a second chance. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep.” And Peter went on to lead the early church in such a marvelous way. He’s giving a second chance to the lukewarm church and saying, “If you just hear my knock, hear my voice, open the door, let me in. We’ll have fellowship together, and we’ll rule and reign together. Wow! What an invitation is that.
0:39:39.3
These are some pretty powerful letters, are they not? Again, not an interruption to the flow of prophetic thought in the book of Revelation, but important ones for us to look inside ourselves as a church, as the people of God. Because our job is to watch and to wait for the second coming of Christ, to put our hands to the plow, to the work that God has given to us, to that mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ who go and make disciples, to understand that we’re in a spiritual battle, to fight for the purity and the exclusivity of the gospel, to understand we’re in a spiritual battle and to stand strong and to be faithful like the church at Philadelphia. But, oh, how easy it is. The vast majority of churches went off in directions where Jesus had to come in gentle and otherwise ways and give a corrective assessment and diagnosis and prescription for how they can get right again. So I don’t know where these seven letters strike you individually or personally or how they strike up corporately as a church. But they’re important reminders for us as we get ready for the rest of our study through the book of Revelation and many of the exciting future events in Bible prophecy we all sit on the edge of our seats to talk about. But God’s Church in the midst of all that is a very, very interesting one. Beyond Revelation 2 and 3 the Church is not mentioned. Revelation 4 we see the Church in heavenly worship because the Church has been raptured out of this world. Chapter 5, 6 and following, all the way through chapter 19 is that seven-year period of tribulation on this earth. And the Church is not found on the earth as understand and as many other scholars do as well. And that’s important for us to remember. Let’s pray together.
0:41:35.5
Father, thank You so much for Your Word. Thank You for speaking directly to us and not antsing around issues. Because we need the truth, Father. And how You take a word like this and letters like this that were written not only to churches back then, but to us today. Lord, align us to Your Word. And in those places where we need to make spiritual decisions in our lives personally and individually, help us to do just that. We love You, Father. We thank You for Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father, promised to return. And we want to stand faithfully watching and waiting for Your return as we carry out Your mission in this place. And we pray this in Jesus’s name and for His sake, amen.
0:42:50.2