Revelation chapter 3, beginning in verse 14. This morning we enter into the seventh and final epistle of Revelation chapters 2 and 3. Revelation chapter 3, beginning in verse 14. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy words, that thou art neither cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold fried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich. And white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear. And anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke 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 into him and will sup with him and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and set down with my father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Children, you might be familiar with the story, rather the parable of the boy who cried wolf. The story runs in this fashion. There once was a boy who really liked attention. And so as he was alone out on the hillside, he cried to the village, there's a wolf, there's a wolf, as if he or in some danger. There was no wolf, he simply liked the attention. All of the townspeople ran out to help him, only to find that there was no wolf. The townspeople returned to the town, and this young boy found himself alone again, and still desiring attention. So he goes again, and he cries, Wolf! Wolf! And the townspeople come running out again, only to find that there is no wolf and they return to the town and are now beginning to doubt very much whether or not this boy could be believed. And he does it a third time. Wolf! Wolf! They come running out and there is no wolf. Let me ask you children, if you heard this young boy cry wolf again, would you run out to help him? Would you believe that there really was a wolf present? No. No. And in the parable, that's exactly what happens. But this time there was a wolf. And when he cried out, wolf, wolf, none of the townspeople came anymore. They could no longer believe his testimony. They could no longer believe his witness. And the boy, because of his false witness ends up being consumed by the wolf. There was no one to help. Now, children, consider your parents. Your parents always tell you the truth, don't they? And so when your parents tell you something, you believe what they have to say because they always tell you the truth. They are what we would call faithful witnesses. that can be believed. Now imagine someone who for 6,000 years never ever told a lie and never ever deceived a single man. Would you believe him? Well, of course you would. Let us look very briefly at our text. This epistle to the Laodiceans falls out very much the way that the other epistles do. In verse 14, you have an introduction, Christ addressing himself to the angel of the church. Verses 15 through 20, you have the body of the epistle. And then in verses 21 and 22, you have the concluding promise. It appears that the church of Laodicea was among the worst of the churches in the region. Some have said that they think it to be the worst, perhaps. There is no commendation at all here, only criticism from the Lord. Apparently they suffered from what he found to be an insufferable lukewarmness. They were neither hot in their love for the Lord Jesus Christ, nor cold in hatred toward him. They were somewhat tepid. You know, when we think about drinking on a hot day, cold water is very refreshing. And even hot water has its uses if you're making tea or coffee, but not too many uses for lukewarm water. And it's generally not enjoyed by people. This is the analogy that the Lord brings. Their attitude is like lukewarmness. He doesn't find it to be tasty. He desires to spit it out. And yet, in spite of their condition, they are reckoned among the seven churches, a church still. And you see some of what they talk about in the confession of faith that we do find in the world churches in a wide variety of conditions and yet churches still. This morning I want to look at the introduction, just verse 14, and then consider the testimony of Jesus Christ to us. Verse 14, And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write. So here we have the author of the epistle, again, Jesus Christ. We have the scribe, which would be John, he's commanded to write, and the recipient, which is the angel or the officers of the church of Laodicea. In your outline, I've included our map again so that you could see it. We have now completed the circuit. John first addressed Ephesus, then Smyrna, then Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and now Laodicea. So you see the circular pattern. This has led some critics to suggest that perhaps this began as something of a circular letter, that this would have been its original circuit that it traveled. Hard to say for sure, but the circular pattern is relatively obvious. Laodicea was a relatively large city surrounded by a great wall. Very much like Rome, it was built on seven hills. They had three large marble theaters, so it was a center for Greco-Roman culture and cultural life. And there was a church here from the time of Paul's mission, we learn in Colossians chapter 4. We don't know if Paul was directly involved in its planting or not, we just know it was there by the time Paul wrote to the Colossian Christians. But obviously by this time, half a century later, this church is in some pretty serious decline. Jesus, as he has in all of the epistles, now identifies himself by a series of titles, which I will reduce to two, although he uses many more than two words, obviously. These things set the Amen, the faithful and true witness. Amen in Hebrew and in Greek and even in our own language is what is known as an asservative, which basically means it's used as a particle to signal a very strong assertion We put it on the end of our prayers. It means something like, so be it. We're all affirming or concurring in what has been prayed. Jesus, in his discourses, frequently liked to preface his sayings with Amen and frequently used the technique that the Hebrews liked so much of doubling it for emphasis. In our King James translation it comes across as verily, verily, but literally in the Greek it is amene, amene. Turn with me to John chapter 3 so you can see an example of this. We won't read all of it, but Jesus gives, actually in the space of just a couple of verses, four amenes to impress upon Nicodemus. the strength of what he is asserting, communicating very forcefully. Beginning in verse 1 of chapter 3, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, in the Greek, Amen, Amen, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. It is very interesting that this is introduced. Nicodemus initiates the conversation in one direction. You appear to be a very great teacher from God. Nobody could do these kinds of miracles unless God were with him. You might expect Jesus to respond, well, thank you very much. I'm so happy to be esteemed by you and your colleagues. But right away, he hits him with two focusing particles. Amen. Amen. So he pushes Nicodemus's flattery, perhaps, to the side and focuses him on what is immediately at hand. I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Jesus will continue throughout the discourse to talk to him in this way. Very strong assertions. Whenever you see that, verily, verily, in your King James translation, it's the amen, amen. And this is a point that Jesus is seeking to drive home with force. It appears in our text in Revelation chapter 3 that the amen is explained by the faithful and true witness. So Jesus is a witness to the truth with great fidelity. What he says can be believed and he asserts it consistently. I mean, a true witness says a true thing. A faithful witness says it whenever he's supposed to say it. You see, and Jesus is both of these. He speaks the truth and he does it faithfully and consistently. This will be very important. This self-identification of Jesus will be very important for what follows. And sometimes it can be tricky to see the relationship between the titles and the text. This is one of the easier ones. The Laodiceans have certain beliefs concerning themselves. Did you see that in verse 17? Thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. This is what they believe concerning themselves. They think that they're fine. Apparently, they believe themselves to be in a good temporal situation. We're increased with goods. We're fine. Also, spiritually, they seem to believe themselves to be in an adequate condition. So Jesus assertion to them. Is going to be counterintuitive for them or contrary to their own judgment concerning themselves. And so before Jesus delivers this difficult pronouncement, I mean, notice the contrast. I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. And knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. It could hardly be more counter to what they believe concerning themselves. Jesus prefaces all of this with what I say to you is true. I'm a faithful and true witness. Jesus takes to himself one other title here. That he is the beginning. In your outline, I actually did include the Greek text, the Arche of the creation of God. I included the Greek there because it is subject to a wide variety of interpretations. and possible constructions. And to tell you the truth, I'm not sure that beginning is my favorite rendering, unless it's understood in some fuller sense. We'll come to this in just a moment. The reason I say it's not my very favorite translation, because in calling him the beginning of the creation of God, the Aryans took this and ran with it as if he were the first creature, the first thing that was made. This is not what Arche communicates at all in its primary significance. Now here, if you if you look at some of these other things, you begin to understand beginning rightly. But Arche could be something like the first cause. So here it would be an assertion of the deity of Christ. You see how how opposite these can be. The first cause of the creation of God would be an assertion of his deity. And there you could be talking about the first cause of the physical creation or the first cause of the new creation, which is going to be a very large theme in the apocalypse by the time we get to the end. We see something of this in Revelation chapter 1 verse 5. Turn there with me, because here I do think we get a very solid clue as to what is intended in calling him the beginning of the creation of God. Revelation chapter one, verse five. This is in the midst of the benediction that John first pronounces and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness. So there you get a direct tie to our text. And the first begotten of the dead So, he's the beginning of the new creation or the first fruits of the resurrection. And the prince, interestingly enough, Archon, same lexeme as Arche, the prince, the first one, the ruler of the kings of the earth. Very interesting. In my own judgment, it's almost as if he now blends those last two, the beginning of the new creation, first begotten of the dead, and sovereign over all. Archon. Sovereign over all of the kings of the earth. This also has the advantage of, biblically speaking, everything I just said, whether or not it's the right interpretation of this particular passage, are all true doctrines from the scripture. A second possible interpretation here would be that Arche means something like supremacy and rule. So he is supreme over the creation of God or the ruler of the creation of God. Supreme over the first creation? Supreme over the second creation? And then the question becomes, well, what's in view here? It seems to me that all of this is in view with an emphasis upon supremacy. based on our immediate context in Revelation chapter 3. First of all, if you look at the epistle to the Laodiceans, we get these bits of evidence. One, he's going to be issuing commands to this church, giving them authoritative counsel. Second, he is going to declare himself as able to give spiritual goods. a sovereign dispensing of spiritual goods that no one else can give. And then finally, what looms largest in my mind is verse 21, the promise. And here you get supremacy or rule immediately in view. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am sat down with my Father in his throne. It does appear that supremacy is what is primarily in view. So we have here in balance Jesus as I am a faithful and true witness to be relied upon and I am the ruler of both the old creation or the physical creation and the new and probably with an accent upon the new creation. I did want to point out as I promised I would one impossible interpretation, which is that Jesus Christ is the first creature or merely a creature. I would just point back to work that we've already done in Revelation chapter one. Jesus is given throughout Revelation chapter one, divine titles and divine attributes that are not suitable to any creature. For example, when the father is identified as Alpha and Omega, first and last, him who is and who was and who is to come. Jesus takes those very same titles to himself in Revelation chapter one. Also. A verse you will all be familiar with. I do think that there's an allusion here to another bit of John's authorship. In the beginning, in Arche, was the word. and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So the whole idea that Jesus was in some way a creature is denied by John himself in John 1.1 and interestingly enough the vocabulary is very much the same. In the beginning, in our day, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and very God. We will delay considerations of Christ's supremacy to a later point in the epistle. I thought that it might be profitable for us to meditate upon Christ's testimony to us. And first, I wanted to do this in a general way and then in a very specific way. First of all, When we consider the full testimony of Jesus Christ, we should think of the spirit of Christ speaking through the prophets in all ages. In other words, your Bible is the testimony of Jesus Christ to you concerning the truth. And when we looked in that scripture, I wanted to highlight some of its central features. And if I might borrow the expression of John from his gospel, so that you might believe. Jesus Christ has put these things on record so that you might believe. Jesus Christ testifies concerning God, that there is but one God and he is the creator of all. He's the creator of man. We belong to him. We are his possession. He is sovereign over us, and He obliges us to obedience. In other words, having made us with our various abilities and capacities, He has a right to reap from us the fruit, the proper fruit of those abilities and capacities. Or in plainer language, He can obligate us to obey, and He does obligate us to obey, to bring forth what He desires. We also learn from the testimony of Jesus Christ that God is wholly. Infinitely opposite to all sin. Jesus Christ also delivers a testimony concerning man, namely that in our present state, we are rebels. We have a king, a creator, and we have rebelled against him and we are sinners by our very nature. And this raises a very important question and creates angst in the mind of every single person who has come to every any level of maturity in the earth, which is God is holy. And I know that he is. And I'm a sinner. So what is to become of me? Jesus Christ testifies to an infinite punishment that awaits unreconciled humanity. Man, if he is not reconciled to God, will for all of eternity continue to be an offense to God. And you have heard me say in times past, Jonathan Edwards, that our obligation to obey is in proportion to the worthiness of God to be obeyed. which is total and absolute and the heinousness of disobedience is in proportion to his worthiness to be obeyed, which is infinite. Since the heinousness of our sin, even the least of these, even those that hardly even seem to be sins in our eyes are nothing less than cosmic treason and the treading of God's infinite majesty and sovereignty. under our feet. And the punishment, the just punishment that is due to that is infinite and eternal. Man does everything that he can to suppress this great truth, and yet he remains anxious about it. You remember that Paul said men don't want to worship God, but they don't want to live with Thoughts of a holy God and infinite punishment in their minds, so they suppress these truths so that they can live comfortably. And yet, truths, these are indeed. We can give great thanks and praise that that is not the end of Christ's testimony, but he also testifies concerning himself, that the father in infinite love has provided a savior, his only begotten son and a way of salvation. Since we could not take away the burden of our guilt ourselves, the Son of God, infinitely adorable to the Father, made His appearance in this world, took up human flesh and atoned for His people in their same nature, suffering the wrath of God on Calvary's cross so that His people need not suffer God will not punish twice for the same sin. Christ has been punished for his people. But God's people also were under an obligation to obey and to obey perfectly. This Jesus also did for his people, rendering a perfect obedience on their behalf. This is why we speak of salvation as being a free salvation and a gracious salvation. Because there is nothing left for you to do. Christ has done all. And Christ represents all who believe. Jesus teaches us in the scriptures that we can be recipients of all of his benefits when we trust completely upon him for those benefits by faith. Do you believe this witness? Jesus has called himself the Amen. the faithful and true. Do you believe His witness? For 6,000 years He has never lied to man, and this is His testimony to us about the ultimate calamity, to fall into the hands of an angry God eternally, and about the way of salvation. Children, do you believe this witness? Do you believe what Jesus Christ says to us about the way of salvation? Do you trust his witness? And are you trusting him to represent you? In redemption, do you trust him to take away the guilt of your sins and to clothe you with his robe of perfect righteousness? This is Christ's general testimony to all of the world. I thought it might be also helpful for us to be specific for those of us who do believe. And Christ can testify to us concerning our own particular spiritual condition and circumstances very particularly and most acutely. As you know, the scriptures tell us that we suffer from a great inability to see ourselves the way that we really are. The Laodiceans are suffering from this spiritual malady, but we're told in the scripture that this is universal. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You think of the Laodiceans, their hearts are deceitful above all things, desperately wicked, and they have not discerned it. They haven't been able to search their own hearts to the bottom. How is it that we're going to be helped? How is it that we're going to come to a true estimate of ourselves and of our spiritual condition? Once again, the testimony of Jesus Christ delivered by the word of Christ, our Bibles and the spirit of Christ and pressing these things upon our hearts. Not too long ago, we did have occasion to visit Psalm 139, where David says, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. So here is an appeal for the omnipresent and omniscient Spirit of God to search him to the bottom, and to reveal to him what manner of man he is. to reveal what wickedness remains in him. And not so that he can continue in that wickedness, but so that he might repent of it and be led in the way everlasting. James says a similar thing about the word here. We've had a prayer directed to the spirit. But you remember that James says that the word of God, the law of God is like a mirror that reveals to a man his appearance. It reveals to him what manner of man he is. And James exhorts us, having seen what kind of person I am, I shouldn't leave the word and forget. So it's like a man who looks into a mirror, sees his appearance, but then he walks away and forgets what he looks like. So we see that God uses word and spirit, the word of Christ and the spirit of Christ to give us an accurate apprehension of our spiritual condition. And if I might say with Calvin, God's chief means of doing this is in preaching. You know, in recent days, as I have wrestled and struggled in my own soul, one of the things You might, when you look at yourself, think sometimes I hear things preached and then I don't do the things that I've heard. That goes for the preacher as well. I frequently preach things that I don't do very well. Even in recent days, I've been preaching on the doctrine of perseverance and have had struggles in soul hanging on. but I've been very grateful to God that the truth He's wanted to impress upon me is it's not the strength of my own grip, but the strength of His grip that keeps us. We have a hard time a lot of times gaining from preaching that accurate picture of ourselves. Sometimes we're not listening. Sometimes, and this is very common, when that accurate picture of the self comes in preaching, We take offense and we close our ears. We don't want to hear these things. So there's all kinds of problems in hearing preaching. And yet preaching is unquestionably the chief means that God uses the word and the spirit to reveal to us our true spiritual condition. We would all say it in the abstract, and this is the difficulty. We would all be willing to say in the abstract that it is true what Jeremiah says, my heart is deceitful and I fool myself. Frequently takes me a long time to see what manner of man I am. We all like that in the abstract. The problem comes when it comes to a particular point. And then the question comes to us in the language of our text, Christ has called himself a faithful and true witness. are we going to receive that witness? Can you imagine how difficult it was for these comfortable Laodiceans to hear poor, blind, wretched, naked with their own self-estimate? This is very hard to do in the concrete. And so with that in view, I would leave you with a few exhortations. When we prepare for sermons. You know this, but I'm going to tell you this anyway. It is really telling when folks go to visit a church, maybe that they've not been to before, or they hear a preacher on the Internet that they never heard before. And they might say something like, you know, he was a he was a good speaker or some sort of thing, which completely misses the point. You rarely hear what the point is, which is, I heard a sermon this Lord's Day and it was hard spiritual work. But no doubt as the Laodiceans were listening to the voice of Jesus Christ delivered through John, this is what it is. They probably didn't leave and say, you know, Jesus was a great orator and these sorts of things. This is hard. spiritual work. And this is what preaching ought to be. If we are going to engage in this hard spiritual work, we need to be prepared for it. It's like a man, you imagine a man who for a living digs trenches for laying pipes or something like that, and how foolish he would appear to his co-workers to show up in a a business suit with loafers, no gloves. He's not prepared for work. You try to work in that condition, it's not going to go very well. You're going to ruin your shoes. You're going to split your pants. You're going to blister your hands. You're not prepared to work. You were prepared for something else. But you weren't prepared to work. And when we come for sermons, we need to be prepared for hard spiritual work. Love's on. work boots on, hard hats on and ready to get down to do this. This is not about hearing fine speech. This is about the improvement of the soul. And you have probably heard me say in times past when something can be had in an easy way, I'm all for having it in an easy way, but the improvement of the soul can only be had in a difficult way. It comes with difficulty and with effort and frequently with pain. The best way to prepare ourselves for the hard spiritual work of preaching and listening to preaching is to be consistent with the worship in between the preaching. In other words, in your Bibles every day, with God's Word and His Spirit shining into your soul and examining yourself in the light of God's Word day by day, and in your family worship. This is how we get prepared and how we stay prepared to receive preaching. It doesn't come as a strange thing to you on Sunday because you did it on Saturday. And so when it came time for Sunday, you were ready to work again. You understood the dynamic. You've done it before. You've been doing it all week. Also, the chief barrier to this always is going to be pride. We need to humble ourselves before the voice of the Lord. for the Laodiceans who thought themselves to be in pretty good shape. This is a humbling delivery, and if they're going to profit from it, they're going to have to humble themselves before the Lord. I thought we would conclude by singing Psalm 139, the last portion, and doing the third exhortation, which is praying for the Spirit's assistance in fulfilling all of these things. Psalm 139, Verses 17 through 24.