I would like to read from Revelation 3, starting in verse 14. This is the last letter of the seven letters to the seven churches found in Revelation 1–3. So, this is the letter to the angel of the assembly in Laodicea, starting in Revelation 3:14.
And to the angel of the assembly in Laodicea write:
These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God:
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spew thee out of My mouth.
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eye salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see.
As many as I love, I reprove and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the assemblies.
Let us pray together.
Lord, we thank You that we can, right in this time, right now, even have the experience of having an ear to hear and being open-hearted toward You. Lord, we come to You in that way. We come looking to You not only to speak to us, but to really pierce our ears this morning, that we can have a full openness toward You.
We pray You would bless the Word as we look into this, that each one of us would have the Word continue to dwell richly in the depths of our hearts, really working out things in our own lives and even in our assembly. Lord, we pray that Your Word would have a full effect and that it would remain with us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
With this letter, there are a number of familiar passages that we are used to. Maybe more than half of us have heard messages or read books or commentaries concerning the church in Laodicea. As we read it, there is quite a rebuke, counsel, exhortation, and call for repentance.
For us, though, as we look at it, we want to hear the Lord if He is rebuking. We especially want to see something that we have been trying to look at with these seven churches. There is an expression of Christ, a testimony of Christ, something that this church should be showing.
It is this description that we read in Revelation 3:14, where the Lord Jesus describes Himself: “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” These descriptions of Christ are our narrowed focus. They are what the Lord is looking at and what He is using to bring out the flame of fire with this testimony of the church in Laodicea.
One familiar passage, for example, is the concept of lukewarm water. Even in the English language in America, people use this expression without knowing the biblical passage. In Revelation 3:15–16, He says, “Because thou art neither cold nor hot, because thou art lukewarm, I am about to spew thee out of My mouth.”
In general, we understand this concept. It gives us the feeling of what was going on with the assembly in Laodicea. Probably, for believers at that time, it had extra local meanings.
As they dug up the remains around that area, they found an old Roman aqueduct that was there at the time of this letter. It piped water in from a hot spring. It had holes throughout it for opening the pipe and cleaning out what settled in the water—like the white flakes that can settle in the bottom of a hot-water tank at home.
They piped hot water into their city, but by the time it got there, the temperature was lukewarm. They had many problems with it clogging up the pipes. You almost wonder whether the believers, as they read this, thought, “Yes, we always spew this water out of our mouths as it comes into our city.” They would have understood lukewarm water and its lack of benefit.
I actually made my water lukewarm today on purpose, just to maintain the feeling of lukewarmness. It is not as enjoyable. It is not as refreshing as cold water, of course, and it is not like having hot water, if you are from another country and like hot water. I have adapted to it—I like it—but they may have had unique reminders of this as they sat in their homes and received this letter.
Laodicea was part of a tri-city area that included Colossae, where we have the letter to the Colossians, and another city mentioned in Colossians, Hierapolis. They were all near one another. Colossae was perhaps a twenty-minute drive away, and Hierapolis about ten minutes from Laodicea.
Epaphras, the one used by the Lord to raise up the assembly in Colossae, seems also to have been used in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Colossians 4:13 mentions how he labored much among believers in Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. If you were in one city, you were almost automatically in the other two.
As far as water was concerned, the water coming into Colossae was cold, coming down from a high mountain or hill. Hierapolis had hot springs. So, when the believers in Laodicea received this letter, they may at first have thought of the physical meaning. They may have thought, “If only we lived in Colossae, with its refreshing cool water, or in the nearby city with hot springs. But we have lukewarm water piped in, clogging our pipes all the time.”
Yet, without knowing any of this local history, there is a spiritual meaning they had to catch. I think they could catch it right away. All of us can catch this: lukewarmness is something that is not right for a believer.
When we think of heat in relation to a believer, He says, “Be zealous therefore, and repent.” When you are hot, on fire—not thinking of water for a moment, but of temperature—there is passion for Christ. There is heat behind what we are doing. There is movement and strong reality.
When we think of being cold toward the Lord, we think of something wrong with our relationship. We are not thinking of cool, refreshing waters, but of being cold-hearted toward the Lord. Why would that be better than lukewarmness? When we are cold, we know that we are cold, and at least there is hope of repentance.
If you are far from the Lord, because you know it, He can work to convict you, and your conscience is alive to it. Because of that, you are not satisfied, and you are not tricked. Instead, you know what is happening, you are ready to repent, and you can respond to His convicting Word.
Think of the first letter of John. He mentions the concept of walking in light. He mentions people who have sins, how they confess their sins before the Lord, are forgiven, and then fellowship with the Lord and walk in light.
But the greatest problem in that first chapter is somebody deceiving themselves. It is somebody who says that they have no sin. Perhaps they are trying to deceive others at first, saying, “I am walking in the light,” while hanging on to a proud stance and not wanting to admit that they have failed or are walking in darkness.
The person walking in darkness has much hope, because they can quickly confess their sins as the light comes and they respond. This is like when the Lord Jesus came to earth. The sinners had more experiences of salvation than the self-righteous ones, who were a little proud and outwardly seemed to walk better than the others.
But it was because they were lukewarm. They had many things to offer. They had many good works. “I know thy works.” They had much going on, but they also had a type of pride that kept them from realizing their true state.
They were not cold, and neither were they hot. There were people who were hot, and as soon as they saw Christ, they responded right away. They were the ones who had responded to John the Baptist. As soon as Jesus came and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world,” they had already repented. They were hot for the Lord, ready for the Messiah, and responded right away.
We understand this lukewarm concept. He does say, “I will spew thee out of My mouth.” If you think of turning on hot water at home and letting it sit for a while, or drinking bath water before anyone has swum in it, you just do not drink it. In the same way, the Lord would almost rather see someone on one side or the other, because He can work with them.
But when we get settled and have the mindset described in this letter—“I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing”—we have deceived ourselves. Sometimes, mentally, we call this a type of obsession. Not that I am obsessed with something, but that I am obsessed in my mind, where I am tricked. I think what is true is not actually true. I think I am walking with the Lord, but actually something is wrong.
Another thing locally to realize is that Laodicea had begun at the same time as the church in Colossae. Imagine their beginnings: the Apostle Paul preaching in Ephesus, sharing in the school of Tyrannus, and all Asia Minor hearing. Epaphras, a man of God from Colossae, was going back and forth and laboring in this tri-city area, and groups were raised up.
When Paul later wrote the letter to the Colossians, Epaphras was with him in prison as a fellow prisoner. Paul told the Colossians to make sure the letter was shared with believers in Laodicea. So, these believers in this specific church, in this city, had read the letter to the Colossians.
They had also had their own letter, which we do not have, and it was read to the believers in Colossae. Why would he have them read the same letters? Because what was happening in the tri-city area was probably very similar. They were likely going through many of the same things that the Colossian believers were facing.
If we want background on the Laodicean believers, we can read and discover what happened with the church in Colossae. We can see their great beginnings and their good foundation. But because of their zeal, heat, and passion for the Lord, they wanted their works and outward matters to be perfect.
They accidentally swallowed much of the Judaizing method and got into many law-type matters. They were not confused exactly as the Galatians were, becoming all law, but they got into many physical, outward things. They were entering the Old Testament in a confused way, though it was because of their zeal for the Lord.
At the same time, their minds were willing to discover things of Christ and of God. They accidentally swallowed corrupt teaching that sought to use knowledge to reach extra heights of God—this kind of Gnostic concept of thinking one’s way into more and more discoveries.
So, when the letter to the Colossians was written and shared with Laodicea, it was all Christ. It was all this Person. Everything has to do with Him. Everything brings in the focus and purpose of God’s Son, Christ.
It mentions that He is the beginning of the creation, or the firstborn of all creation. He is the One through whom all creation was made. We have just read in Revelation 3:14 that part of the testimony is “the beginning of the creation of God.”
There would have been a connection for them: just as in that letter, they saw Christ not only as the beginning of creation, but as the One in whom all creation is summed up. Everything goes into a full focus on Him, a full worship of Him. All authorities and everything else—the creation is made for Him, by Him, and through Him.
There is a real lifting up when you read Colossians, and even a call to be lifted up and to put on Christ. Seated with Christ, we are to set our minds on things above. This was their foundation as a local assembly.
With that good foundation, it is possible they had repented from earlier errors and turned in the past. This was a generation ago. Perhaps the Laodicean church and the believers in Hierapolis had responded, and what they discovered was Christ. They had the Person of Christ.
There was such a complete revelation of Christ, such a height of revelation. The letters to the Colossians and Ephesians are large, in-depth visions of Christ and the church. They had this in their hands, probably reading it over and over. This was their foundation.
They had a better letter than many church groups. Everybody eventually shared letters, obviously, but they had such good vision and such good practices that they held onto them. Perhaps, in the passing of a generation, they held onto everything. They still had their works. “I know thy works,” He says.
It is actually not quite a rebuke at first. He gets right to the point: “Thou art neither cold nor hot.” Their works were not the works of the Nicolaitans, or works tied to evil or the world. Their outward works were good.
Their knowledge must have been so good that they could have boasted, “I am rich. I have so much knowledge.” Even in that, they thought they had sight, but He says, “Thou art blind.” They thought they were clothed with righteousness because they were walking outwardly in these things.
The letter to the Colossians mentions many ways of walking as a Christian. They had much to boast of, but the problem was that it became their own thing. Because of pride, deception came in. They no longer saw themselves in the light of the reality that we see when we are with Christ.
When we see Him and all that He is, when we see Him as our everything, we see what we really are and what we are in Christ. “I am the chief of sinners.” But because they were seeing their own things, almost like the fall of Satan, they began looking around and wanting to hold onto what they had received.
They wanted to be faithful and true to what the Lord had shown them all the way to the end. They wanted to be a faithful and true witness. They were holding onto the package they had received, standing for it, perhaps fighting for it. But with this background, they lost the main thing, which is Christ Himself.
As it says in the letter, He is outside the church. “I stand at the door and knock. If you hear My voice, open the door and let Me in. I will come in and fellowship with you. I will sup with you.” This was their current experience.
Another way of looking at the church in Laodicea is that these church groups represent time periods of the church age. They represent a movement, a time period, and also a way of church practice—at least the last four do.
After the Philadelphian church movement, there was the brethren movement, a love of the brethren. They really discovered Christ, the kingship of David, and the authority of Christ. They gathered simply with Him as the Head. They held onto His name, and the Word of God was alive to them.
They discovered so much in that time period, more than in many previous ages. So much of the Word became unpacked. There were so many discoveries. It is amazing to read their writings—revelation after revelation.
But as they discovered these things, pretty quickly, within the first generation, they wanted to hold onto them. An unnecessary, accidental type of pride crept in among the brethren.
Even with my Bible translation here, the Darby translation, this translation is great. Darby was a man of God, used greatly by the Lord. Others also knew correctness in teaching and had many riches in teaching and practice—even in the way they broke bread and gathered simply unto the Lord.
They wanted to hold onto these things so much that they sometimes accidentally lost the Person of Christ. If you imagine cutting off everyone’s ability to say the wrong thing, most of us would stop talking. Who would get up to share if everything always had to match exactly with the current understanding?
When they got this far, even great ministers of the Word said something slightly different. Maybe it was off; maybe it was only a different angle. But either way, they were cut off. It became what is called Exclusive Brethren, excluding those who were not walking this way, who were not in this practice, or who did not hold all these teachings.
A great divide developed. Eventually, people spoke of Exclusive or Open Brethren, and so on. Perhaps there were still those going the Philadelphian way at first, and then this new movement happened unnecessarily.
Outwardly, it was like the Philadelphian way. They practiced the same things. The works were there, the knowledge was there, and the testimony looked as though it was there. If you looked for the things expected in Philadelphia, they were all there in Laodicea.
But the Lord Jesus says, “I am on the outside, knocking. You left Me.” Remember Romans 14: receive those whom the Lord receives, not for determining questions and doctrines and trying to make sure they are all correct.
Do not put up a rope and stop everybody on the other side who does not understand everything you understand. Do not refuse to let them break bread with you. Receive whoever the Lord has received.
If you will not receive those who have a different understanding, but Christ has received them, then He will not be in the midst of the assembly to sup with us and break bread with us. If someone has received Christ and Christ has received them, then they come to the table and we receive them.
We are not questioning, “How much do you know? How much do you understand?” Our heart is for the Lord’s presence—for Him to be here, for us to sup with Him, and for us to fellowship with Him.
This is what happened later as the development of the Philadelphian way continued. More discoveries took place in different countries and areas, but there is always this pattern that can happen accidentally. No one sees it coming, because it is a deception in the mind.
As the movement goes forward, believers hang onto the testimony and seek to be faithful and true witnesses. Then, before they know it, the Lord is missing. There is something wrong, and the Lord is outside saying, “You look correct, but I am not there.”
This is a danger we should all realize, especially for us, as we seek to go the church way of Philadelphia. Only the Lord knows where we truly are at any given time. But we can tremble at the flesh, realize we need to walk in the light, and always be before the Lord.
We need to know that He could call in a small way or a large way: “Make sure I am in the midst of you, and not outside knocking. Make sure pride does not creep in.” This is a warning for all of us, wherever we are actually at.
This warning concerns not only the way of the church, but also the church time period in which we live. Every new movement among these church groups affects the whole church everywhere.
Even with Philadelphia, though not everyone was brought in to gather simply as believers, Protestants and Catholics were affected by the insight gained, the passion for souls, discoveries in God’s Word, and the heart for the Lord’s kingdom and return.
During that short time period, there was a great burst of life all around. Even if someone was not among the brethren, there was great help for the whole church. The same has happened with Laodicea. Its effect has reached everyone everywhere.
If you look around Christianity in general, in our time period, no matter what our church group is like, what direction we are going, or what our individual state may be, our church time period is the Laodicean time period. It is the last church period, the one leading into the Lord’s return.
For us, of all people, we should pay attention. In general, Christianity knows so much. We have more books available than ever. With the right software, you can check hundreds of commentaries on one verse at the same time. Even free software can give you many commentaries at once.
You can find books in libraries and online. Most of the old, good books are available. We can read many riches of revelation. We can stand on the shoulders of everything passed down through the ages, if we spend the time to gain it.
But if we gain this only as knowledge, we are in a Laodicean pattern. Our sight is not revelation sight; it is doctrine sight. As we discover practices and so on, even if things are wrong, the feeling becomes that our works are better than ever.
I read something from a preacher at a very large group, a man who writes books. He was boasting that, though we look different than before, everyone in the past would have wished to live in our time, where they could use television, the internet, and all these things at our hands.
He said, “We are in the best spot ever, and our church practice is the best ever.” As I read that, I thought, “Like Laodicea.” Not technically a Laodicean group, perhaps, but the feeling was, “I am rich. I have need of nothing.”
We are richer than ever compared with the past, standing on all of church history and going forward. Yet the Lord says, “I am on the outside, knocking at the door.” This is the experience prophetically speaking.
There is a testimony that should be present. There is an expression of Christ that should be there. Because there is so much to say about repentance and coming through this, we can quickly gloss over the description of Christ.
“These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” What do you think of when He says, “the Amen”? We all say amen at different times, and probably quite rightly, but it can be confusing.
My little boy, the one-year-old, says “amen” when we pray at meals. Sometimes, if I pray too long, he says it in the middle of the prayer. But he understands what amen means, at least a little bit at that time.
We have some practice of it. We say amen many times when we are praying. We also have this witness experience of amen when someone is saying something—whether preaching, sharing at a fellowship time, or praying.
It is not necessarily the end of a prayer or praise declaration. There can simply be an amen inside you, a witness that says, “Amen.” Sometimes you say it aloud. Sometimes it is under your breath because you do not want to distract everybody.
But if we are free, someone can say “Amen” when something is said that witnesses so deeply that they do not want to wait. Where does this word come from? It is one of these universal words taken from the original Hebrew, brought into Greek, Latin, and English. Hardly anyone translates it; they simply say, “Amen.”
Sometimes, though, in order to understand its meaning, it is translated in English Bibles, and we do not always know it is the same word. Amen means something firm. It is a word for something firm and solid.
It sounds like the Hebrew word for faith. When they said that something was faithful, they used this rooted amen word. They began to use it for something or someone so faithful: “This is faithful. This is a faithful saying. This is trustworthy. This is definitely solid, really faithful.”
They would say, “Amen, amen.” This is faithful faith. This is solidly faithful. In the New Testament, sometimes it is not translated “amen,” but “certainly,” “truly,” or something like that.
The other part connected to it is “truly” or “true.” When Jesus says this twenty-five times or so—“Verily, verily, I say unto you,” or “Truly, truly, I say unto you”—He is actually saying, “Amen, amen, I say unto you.”
We do not normally use amen this way. If I had something definite to tell you that I knew from the Lord and wanted you to pay attention to, I would not say, “Hey, amen, amen,” and then tell you. You would say, “What? We did not say anything. What do you mean, amen to?”
Instead, we say, “This is certain. This is solid. Let me explain this to you.” That is why translations say, “Truly, truly, I say unto you,” and then Jesus speaks.
So, amen means faithful—firm and solid. It also means truly, truly, as in, “This is of a truth.” It also means what we commonly understand as a witness.
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says that if someone speaks in a tongue, how can someone say amen to what is spoken if they do not understand, unless there is an interpretation? When there is interpretation, prophecy, or sharing, and you understand it and have the witness inside, you can say, “Amen.”
It is also used in the New Testament after praise to the Lord, or after a declaration of grace and peace. There will be an amen at the end. This was used in the synagogues before this time. At the end of a Scripture reading, they would say, “Amen,” and the whole congregation would say, “Amen.”
It was a call and response of witness. Is there a witness? Yes, there is a witness. Is this firm? Yes, this is firm. It could be after praise, prayer, or Scripture. I think that is our general understanding.
This title is used of Jesus in a clear way in 2 Corinthians 1:20. The Apostle Paul is explaining that he wanted to visit the Corinthians, but could not. He asks whether they made plans according to the flesh in a carnal way. No—he was a spiritual man seeking to be led by the Lord.
He had plans to go, just as James says that we should say, “If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that.” It is a trembling kind of planning. Paul was explaining that they had not made plans in a flippant way.
There was a delay, but all the promises of God, through all delays and all these matters, are found in Him. In Christ is the yea, and in Him is the amen.
There is firmness, truth, and a real witness in this Person that all this will happen. Whether there is a delay or not, there is Someone solid: He is the Amen. However long it takes to be accomplished, it will be accomplished.
The phrase “faithful and true” is used in Revelation 19. The Lord Jesus comes back on a white horse, and His name is “Faithful and True.” As He comes, all the promises that need fulfillment, and all apparent delay, are answered in Him.
Second Peter says that the Lord does not delay His coming as some think. People ask, “Why does He delay? Is the Lord ever coming? It has been this way since the beginning of creation.” But when He comes as the Faithful and True One on the white horse, everything is fulfilled in that Person.
He takes back the earth, defeats the enemy, and judgment comes upon God’s enemies. The whole package of final promises, the amen, and the truth of all God’s Word is found in this Person.
Think of resurrection. In John 11, when Lazarus had died—had fallen asleep—they said, “I know that he shall rise again.” They knew it would happen. But Jesus brought their attention to the Person and said, “I am the resurrection.”
Suddenly, there is a different understanding. It is not merely that promises will happen someday, or whether they will ever happen. In Him is the yea and the amen. He is the faithful and true witness Himself.
The description “the faithful and true witness” is an unfolding of the word amen. Amen means faithful and true witness. We should see this all together as one thing.
When we think of the last stage and age of the church, leading up to His return, there is the feeling that the Lord is returning, but also the feeling that He is delaying. There is hope to hang on and be a faithful and true witness in this time.
In the Laodicean age of the church, as all this is happening, our only hope is this one Person who is the Amen and the faithful and true witness. In that one Person, we can do this.
If He is in our midst, if He is fellowshipping with us, we find that we have the amen. We can be faithful, true, and a witness in the testimony in this last time, even right now.
As He calls to them, showing that He is outside and that they have a real problem in missing Him, the call is for them to receive Him and bring Him in. As they do that, they find that they are actually faithful and true witnesses.
I want to bring this up as a possibility. If you have a noble heart, if you have had a good beginning, if you want to finish well, and if you want always to be faithful to the Lord, it is possible to slip accidentally into the Laodicean way.
If what we want is to be faithful and true to the end of our days, to have that testimony as an assembly or as an individual, it is still possible that we can slip into this accidental Laodicean way. It happens if we lose the Person.
But if all our goods are found in this one Person, Christ—if we know that He is faithful to take us through, if we can commit the good deposit to Him, bring it to Him, and know that if we have Him, we have it—then there is hope.
If I have Him, I have the testimony. If I have Him, the Faithful One, then I can be faithful. If I have Him, the True One, then I can live in reality and truth.
The other aspect of this testimony is that He is the beginning of the creation of God. He is the very beginning of the creation of God.
I mentioned how this is stated in Colossians and how they had this revelation of Him as the beginning. It not only means that He is the beginning, but that everything in creation has to do with Him.
We can remember Him as the beginning of God’s creation physically, in our present old creation. John 1 says that in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Everything that has being, everything created, was made by Him and through Him.
He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Yet the concept of the beginning of the creation of God shows us the way to let Him in the door and the way forward after we have let Him in.
John 1 gives us a way of experiencing Christ. His own did not receive Him, but as many as received Him, He gave them the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name. This is John 1:11–13.
Those who received Him received the Person. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Men loved darkness rather than light. But as people received Him and the light shone, darkness was exposed. That was their way of faith, and they were born again as children of God.
Believers have this experience in general. When we were saved, we received Christ. We received Him with all His light, with all the need to confess our sins, and everything else. If He is actually outside and we receive Him in, it is an act of faith.
Yet when we receive Him in, there will be the pain of darkness coming into light—especially the darkness of our mental obsession, this darkness that says, “I am okay.”
The hardest part is saying, “Lord, I am confused. There has been confusion in my heart, but I am willing for You to show me.” As we open the door and bring Him in for fellowship, He unravels the darkness inside us.
Where we became proud and thought we had something, where we thought we had a teaching, He removes the confusion and shows us that He Himself is where the truth is. Then that teaching becomes embedded in Christ.
We may have thought we had works. Instead, He removes the confusion. If we own our own works, they are filthy rags. But the works of Christ, the righteousnesses of the saints, are by His grace and found in Him.
He is the One with whom all this must be packaged. He is the beginning of creation who comes in, and we receive Him in this way.
When we think of Him as the beginning of creation, remember 2 Corinthians 5: if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. There is a new creature, but that new creature is in the new creation in Christ. As we have been brought into this new creation, He is the beginning of it.
Think about the Laodicean attitude. It happens because you reach such a good height of practice and understanding. Take any message on any topic. If I am going to hear a sharing and I know all the information that will be said, perhaps from previous messages, reading, or books, the feeling can be, “I am rich. I have need of nothing from this message.”
The difference is that when we are not looking for information but looking for Christ, everything is different. We do not need new information. We do not need to learn about the aqueducts coming into Laodicea. What does that help anyway? I do not even know why I said it. It is just interesting, right?
We do not need new information. We need the Person of Christ. The discovery that brings us through the Laodicean way is always a deeper discovery of Christ Himself.
You can break bread for the thousandth time, the ten-thousandth time. It is the old story of the gospel, the same bread and the same cup. Perhaps, in that moment, you are not receiving a new doctrine while remembering the Lord, but you are supping with Christ. You are fellowshipping with Christ.
The deepest and most spiritual man of God, and the most learned person, the one who has had the most insights, can fellowship with Christ, and it is wonderful and glorious. They discover something further.
We begin to discover the unsearchable riches of Christ. As He is the beginning of the new creation, He is building this new creation. Having received Christ Himself, we have received the beginning of this new creation, but the New Jerusalem is not fully built.
There are further discoveries to be made in our own lives and in all the things of Christ. Ephesians 3 speaks of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Instead of saying, “I am rich and have need of nothing,” concerning doctrine, we get into the Person of Christ. Even one doctrine begins to unfold. It may begin with a revelation of Christ, but it can come packaged with teaching, with mental understanding.
As we unfold the whole package of Christ, it is unsearchable. There are riches into which we keep entering, and they have to do with life and reality.
The next time you sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” there may be something deeper. You may say, “I have known this all the times I sang it since I was a child.” But when you sing it this time, there is depth of experience, life, and reality in it.
Many of us understand this concept, but woe to us if we get the feeling of the Laodiceans—if we sit and are interested only when something new comes.
The renewed mind of the Laodiceans, as He says, “Be zealous therefore, and repent,” becomes a mind that always wants the Person. In Him is the Amen and the faithful and true witness. In Him is all the new creation. We discover everything in this Person.
The whole mindset becomes, “I want to fellowship with Him. I never want Him on the outside.” If I do not get enough new doctrines or insights, that is okay. If I even lose some of my riches, as long as I have this Person, I find that He is unsearchable.
At the beginning of God’s creation, in the old creation, light came first. In Genesis 1, God said, “Let there be light.” With believers, the same comparison is made in Colossians and Corinthians.
Just as God spoke and said, “Let there be light,” so when we became believers and received Christ, the glory of Christ shone upon us. We started this new creation. Let there be light.
But when we get light, it is only day one. Whatever light we have received, it is a full day, then a full night. There is a full night and a full day. But when you get the light, it is just day one. It is the beginning of the creation of God.
Continue to the second day as things develop, and to the third day as development continues. Something happens with the waters, something with the land, and then more detail comes concerning the land, waters, sky, and heavens. Everything becomes more and more detailed.
This is not necessarily more knowledge. It is not always simply to do with light. It is the unsearchable riches of Christ that we are to discover.
Being faithful and true witnesses is not merely hanging onto what we have gained up to this point. In repentance, we realize that what we really gained was the Person.
We do hang onto Him, but we realize He is going somewhere. When we have received this Amen, Christ, and He is among us, He also begins the new creation. He says, “I am the beginning of the creation.”
As we have Christ in our midst, developments continue to spread out into more and more discoveries of Christ. This is true in a local church experience and definitely in the life of an individual believer, because overcomers are called to respond and individuals are called to have an ear to hear.
In this letter, He says, “If thou hear My voice, and open the door.” Of all the letters, the call to the overcomers is, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” In this letter, it is very clearly an ear to hear what He is saying.
As we have this ear to hear and receive Him in, we go forward not wanting to fall into the relaxed, lukewarm Laodicean feeling of merely maintaining what we have as a believer or as a church group.
Instead, we have Christ. He is the new creation. We have touched the beginning of the new creation. What more is there of Christ? “Lord, show us all that there is in that.”
You can go into seven days of one area, and then He brings you into a new area of light—another area of light that He has shown you. It is all Christ. It is all in the new creation of Christ.
If we find anything of Christ, or anything that the Lord leads us into, it will all be kept in the Person of Christ. We are never in danger of getting sidetracked if we keep it this way, with the Person always central.
The Lord may lead you into an expansion of a particular truth, practice, or experience of Christ. But if you have the Person constantly, we do not need to worry about failing to be faithful and true witnesses, because He is the faithful and true witness.
We may step into another realm, another next step from where we have been as believers, but it is always Christ, always the Person of Christ. I think this is the way forward.
He says, “If thou hear My voice, open the door.” At the end, the description of the overcomers connects with this:
He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne,
as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.
Notice the experience here. The Lord Jesus overcame, and He sat down with His Father in His throne. Because He overcame, if we overcome, we can sit down with Him in His throne.
Connect this with His promise to those who repent. He comes into the midst, and He sits down on His throne. There is a future aspect with the kingdom, of course, and thrones are mentioned in Revelation 20.
“I saw thrones, and they sat upon them.” These are the overcomers, those who had an ear to hear. But all the thrones mentioned in the kingdom age for Christians who overcome are in one throne: Christ’s throne. They sit down with Him in His throne.
Spiritually, there is such union and connection. They are not in separate homes. Even concerning kingship, lordship, and rulership, they are with Christ on His throne.
Every expression of His kingship, every expression of Him as King and Lord, is an expression of Christ Himself. It is His throne going forth, even though it spreads into many thrones.
As we receive Him into our midst, He sups with us. But it is only the Lord’s table when the Lord is the Head of the meeting, when it is actually His table. Otherwise, it is just something else.
Whatever we do mentally, if He is not the Head of the church, then He is not there. It is always, “You are sitting with Me on My throne.” It is always His throne.
Remember that the Faithful and True Witness is the description of Christ as He comes back on the white horse with His sword drawn, defeating His enemies. On His garment and upon His thigh is written, “King of kings, and Lord of lords.”
As we receive Him ahead of time—not merely waiting for the future—we see Him as the faithful and true witness. The world will see Him coming, but those behind Him on their white horses have the testimony that He is the faithful and true witness.
We are faithful and true witnesses that He is the faithful and true witness. We have an amen response that He is the Amen. We are part of this new creation because He is the beginning of the new creation.
You see this throne coming on a white horse, and those who sit with Him on His throne coming on horses with Him. It is like that in the church today spiritually. As we bring Him into the midst, He leads the way, but only as the Lord of the church.
The name Laodicea prophetically has meaning. It relates to the laity, the people, and their opinions or thoughts. The city was named after someone’s wife—Antiochus II Theos, centuries before this time—but the name has significance.
The Lord may have chosen this church group rather than Colossae because of the name. As we become relaxed because we know the Lord’s ways, know how He acts from history and Scripture, and have much revelation, we can accidentally set Him aside concerning direction.
We know what should be done, so we quickly make decisions without seeking the Head, without the throne, without sitting with Him on the throne, and without Him being King of kings.
Instead, accidentally, we can have all our opinions. We can take a vote, as has become common in this age of Christianity. It becomes the common people asking, “What does everybody want?”
In some places, a man has taken the place of the Head of the church. But more and more, the people take that place and voting occurs. Even one-man leaders are afraid of their jobs if the deacons vote them out, because of the opinions of the people.
Even in a normal assembly experience that should be moving rightly, with correct practices and Christ as Head, if we know too much in a relaxed way, we can lose Him as Lord.
To have the right experience in an assembly, it remains the same: “He is Lord. My ear is pierced.” As we bring Him in, it is not merely that we want Him in our midst. We say, “Lord, You are the beginning of the new creation. As we receive You, how are You leading us?”
What discoveries this year do You have for us to make of Christ? If something has been perfect for ten years, is there something further that You are leading us into? Not that anything in the past has been bad, but in the furtherance of the new creation, is He bringing us into more?
It is always the Person of Christ, just as in the letter to the Colossians. It is always God’s purpose. We see Christ as everything, but we are only experiencing the beginning of this.
As an individual, you have an ear to hear and receive Him into your own life and heart. As we were saying with the hymn, whatever the room is like, we do not wait until it is perfect. We do not wait until all the darkness is gone.
Those who were around Jesus could not wait. He came to them, and they came with tears. They fell at His feet with tears, wiped His feet with their hair, and came to Him as sinners.
They received Him as sinners. They received Him in their mess. We may think, “I have to get some things right, and then I want to have the Lord in my midst.” That is the wrong idea.
“Be zealous therefore, and repent” means, “Lord, come in right now and help me clear out this mess. You are the Lord of lords. You are the King of kings. I am willing.” That is our repentance.
Especially as believers, there is this individual call. I think all of us can welcome this. We can all have this kind of prayer now, without someone needing to yell at us.
He says, “As many as I love, I reprove and chasten.” He begins by exhorting them gently: “I counsel thee.” But sometimes He has to rebuke us sharply. We run into something, He disciplines us, and hard circumstances come to wake us up.
He causes us to realize that something is wrong, something is missing, and something is not there. Then we recognize that even His counsel is full of love.
“Buy of Me gold refined by fire.” This is real faith, not mere doctrine. How do we buy? Isaiah 55 says, “Come, buy, and eat… without money and without price.” There is an experience of buying, though we are not buying in the ordinary sense. There is a price to pay.
The price is that as we bring Him in, He is Lord. We yield to Him. We yield our messed-up homes to Him, and He becomes Lord of the house. He makes His home there and dwells in us.
He says to get eye salve to anoint our eyes. As He comes in, we receive Him, believe in Him, and have the Person right there. We receive vision and sight of Christ.
Instead of what we thought we saw, now we see the Person. Instead of looking down at ourselves and saying, “I am rich, I have gotten riches, and everything is right,” our eyes are opened and we know that we are wretched and miserable.
It is like Romans 7. The man thought he was doing the law and keeping all the law until something came, and then he said, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?” This is our experience, but the deliverance is there. Thanks be to God.
As we realize our wretchedness, our eyes also see Christ. We see that our garments are filthy garments. It is like Adam and Eve in the garden. Their eyes were opened in a wrong way, and they saw that they were naked.
They hid themselves and made their own garments, but they realized their fig leaves were no good. They were merely human righteousness. Then He clothes us with Himself.
As we walk by faith with Him, always with the Person, our outfit, wedding garment, and way of walking speak of righteousness. We know Christ is our righteousness, but as we walk, there is another layer of walking with Christ that becomes another garment.
It becomes our works of Christ, the works prepared beforehand. As we walk in this way, it is always the Person. We are never settled with merely ourselves.
That is the brief encouragement this morning. If we have this ear to hear, if we welcome Him in right now, He will actually come in and fellowship with us. The promise is so good.
The promise is that we will sit with Him. He may even use us to have some kingship experience now—not only to be priests in His house, but kings in His house. Yet it is always on His throne, always with the very Person of Christ.
Let us come to Him in this way. Let us pray.
Lord, we come to You as believers in this age of Laodicea, standing in the midst of Christianity. We know what our time period has done to all of us. We know this settling in that has happened with all of us, and how we have relaxed so much.
Whatever our experience is this morning, we want to confess that we open the door to You and want to let You in. Not only let You in, but confess You as the Lord of lords. We confess You as the King of kings.
Lord, we come to sit with You on Your throne. We come to have Your throne in our midst and Your throne in our hearts, in our very hearts. We confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord.
Lord, we pray that as You come, You would hold nothing back with Your light. Do not let us live in any darkness, but truly shine Your light in all of us. Bring out all our confusion, misunderstandings, and all our being settled or satisfied with things where we think we have attained.
Lord, all we want is Christ Himself. We commit ourselves to You, wanting to be faithful and true witnesses and to have the real testimony all the way to the very end.
Lord, as we take the exhortations, encouragement, and messages that You have spoken to all these churches, we come to You and really pierce our ears. We say, “Lord, bring us to be faithful all the way to the end. Bring us to be true.”
We look to You and call You our Amen. You are our everything, Lord. We thank You for bringing us into this. In Jesus’ name, amen.