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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.
Christ's Testimony
Series Revelation
| Sermon ID | 12210128426 |
| Duration | 39:05 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Revelation 3:14 |
| Language | English |
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