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By: Michael Tao
Being inspired by the Holy Spirit, John wrote the letter of Revelation to seven churches in Asia Minor. Most of these churches had their problems (Revelation 2 & 3), God rebuked five of these seven churches; and he praised two of them, which were Smyrna and Philadelphia.
These churches also represent seven different stages in New Testament church history. By studying their names and their conditions in the Bible, we can have a clear picture of what periods of time they represent.
The word "Smyrna" (Revelation 2:8) meaning "bitterness", represented the church history from 100-313 AD, a period of Martyrdom. At that time a great number of Christians were put to death in the most cruel ways because they refused to worship the Roman King as God. Many of them were given the choice before being thrown into the lion dens of denying Christ, but they willingly chose to die for Christ.
The word "Philadelphia" (3:7) meaning "brotherly love", represented the church history from 1700-1920 AD, a period of Revival and Missionary Work. Christianity was growing speedily, many spiritual men fought the good fights for God and built great churches. The gospel gave life to many spiritually dead. The morality of mankind came to its new peak.
We are now at the final church stage which is the Laodiceans church (3:14), which started from approximately 1920 till the return of Christ. The meaning of its name is "human right". What is it like ?
It is nothing wrong to have human rights, yet when the emphasis in the Christian church is put on the human rights and not God's commandments, then this is definitely against the will of God. Human rights are also the best disguise for selfishness. Laodiceans church is also a "lukewarm"(3:16) church. Christians are destinated by God to follow Christ and obey God in a fervent spirit, and this is a spiritually hot condition. The world is cold, they have no care nor concern about God's business. When hot water mingles with the cold water, it turns into lukewarm. When Christians mix with the world, do whatever the world do, think the way the world think, have same kind of recreation the world does, and do not want to separate from the world, we are lukewarm.
There was plenty of lukewarm water at Laodicea due to the mixture of the hot spring from Hieropolis and a cold water stream from Colossae. Lukewarm water tastes awful, and is used by the sick people. God says, "I will spue you out of my mouth...": Christians will not lose their salvation, but we are no longer a holy vessel for God's use. God, out of his great love, will chasten these lukewarm Christians into repentence and get them on fire again, Revelation 3:19 says "as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent".
Today Laodicean type of churches are built by applying secular methods: people, programs and promotions. They prefer men with great titles, big names, outstanding academic backgrounds, and glamorous secular achievements. The Pastoral Epistles teach to prefer otherwise, which are the biblical standpoint, the spiritual condition, the moral standard, the life style, and the way of bringing up family. When we are not following the Bible, it is so easy to choose an unloving shepherd that wants his sheep to look at him and not at God.
Programs have their own use, because they can elicit excitement, can draw people's attention and perhaps can attract visitors, but programs can never replace plain Bible teachings in the church. Churches should never attract people to come by boasting on its social functions, its gymnasium, its sauna bath, or it's food catering service. There are churches giving out big material rewards to the children who attend Sunday school, there are churches providing many recreation programs including all sorts of sports, dancings, even Hindu Yoga and Eastern meditation. This is wrong. When promotion becomes regular, the congregation gets so used to the emotional high, and excitement will be mistaken as a sign of spiritual maturity. Emotion is unstable and can be most misleading, God does not exist in human excitement, but the Laodiceans church makes these two one.
A lukewarm church is a church that hates authorities. God clearly ordained three authorities on the surface of this earth : family, church, and government, yet members in a lukewarm church show no fear and no obedience to the parents, to the pastors, and to the government. A lukewarm church is a church that does not teach or pracrise church discipline, Matthew 18:15-20 and 1 Corinthians 5 to them are unknown tio them. A lukewarm church is a church where their church members would not mind at all to send their children to schools run by the Roman Catholics, as long as these schools can offer a better opportunity of entering into some major universities. In these Roman Catholic schools, the most wicked doctrine - salvation by works and by baptism is taught.
A lukewarm church is a church where the members believe their children should have their own right to choose to go to church or not. If God is true, the Bible is true, and sinners go to hell, why then should a child be left at the high risk of making a wrong decision? Can heaven and hell be a choice? Proverbs 29:15b says,"...But a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame...". We should take our children to the church, let them sit under the Word, see them get saved, help them to develop faith in the Lord and serve Him. And we, as parents, should teach them about the Lord at home and set the best example before them.
According to the Bible, church is the assembly of the local New Testament baptized believers. But the Laodicean Church is also a church filled with false believers, people that claim to be saved but actually they are not. A Laodicean Church is a church that does not have white raiment (Rev 3:18, 3:4,5), white raiment is the raiment of righteousness, a definite sign of salvation(Matthew 22:12) . With these false believers as church members, the church will be led into compromise. Within this lukewarm church, because of the great number of these false Christians, they can steer the direction of the church to wherever they want. They can direct the church in the world's way for the world's praises and not God's pleasure; and Biblical doctrines will be too harsh to followed.
It is a church that feels easy and comfortable in the midst if the sins in this world, it is a church that only teaches the love of God and ignores his justice; a church that puts Christ again on the cross, but it is today's church - a Laodicean Church.
