The Bible tells us we're to let our light shine before men. We're to live out our faith in a way that draws other people to God. But today on Truth for Life we'll find out how it's possible for wealth to actually dull our shine. Alistair Begg is teaching from the book of Revelation from chapter 3.
We're studying verses 1 through 6, along with verses 14 through 22. I remember when I was about seventeen, getting in the car in Ilkley, once I got my driver's license and I wrote through a few friends in there along with me, and off we made the journey through Harrogate and over to York, always on a Sunday afternoon. And the reason being that we wanted to go to St. Michael LaBellefry, where the late David Watson was teaching the Bible in the Sunday evening services.
And what a thrill it was. And when I realized that David Watson, as a young curate, had been sent to St. Michael LaBellefry because the church was in disrepair. It was physically in disrepair. It was falling apart. It was spiritually in disrepair. It was a dead place. But by and large, he was sent there by the diocese so that he could kind of practice on the dead and the dying and the sleeping. Because after all, the plans by the diocese was, we'll shut St. Michael LaBellefry down. Good. Nice try.
Not in the plans of Jesus, unfortunately. Suddenly the people are there. Suddenly the singing is vibrant.
What has happened? Well, they woke up. Who woke them up? The risen Lord Jesus.
How did he wake them up? Taking them in his hands, filling them with his Spirit, driving them again to their knees, showing them the inconsistency of their pilgrimage. Now, I look at this church in Sardis, and it chills me. I find myself saying, O breath of life, come sweeping through us and revive your church with life and power. Cleanse us, renew us, and fit your church to meet this hour.
And the promise you will notice there is so very clear. He who overcomes will like them, verse 5, be dressed in white. I'll never erase his name from the book of life. I'm so glad we sang that hymn.
My name from the palms of his hands, eternity cannot erase, because they're there marked with indelible grace. Now, the gravity of the situation calls for the severity of Christ's assessment. And the severity of the Lord Jesus' assessment is an occasion for hope and encouragement, because he is speaking to those, verse 6, who have ears to hear. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. I'm so thankful for all this wonderful music and hymnody that we've been enjoying, and I was just telling Graham that we probably sing more of his stuff in our church than any other church that I've found in America, at least because of the strength of the lyrics, as well as the wonderful melody lines.
But I'm of a vintage where I had another whole hymnody that is locked in a file in my head. We used to sing a chorus that said, I'm listening in. I'm listening in to what God says about my sin. Are you listening in? I'm not so concerned whether you're listening to me.
You may have tuned in and out half a dozen times already. But he and she who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, you've got to listen to the Lord Jesus. Now, it is that very call to listen which ties all of the messages together.
And let me just show you briefly in the Laodicean context that this is at the very heart of the Word that is given to them. Because the most familiar verse, probably in the whole book of Revelation, falls in that passage there in verse 20, where Jesus says, I'm at the door and I knock and anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. Most of us are very familiar with that verse and used in an evangelistic context.
Many of us may not be as familiar with the framework in which it is found. And it will behove us as we wrap this up this morning just to say to ourselves now, to whom and in what context is Jesus speaking? You will notice again the pattern at the beginning to the angel, and then here are the words of the Amen. Who is the Amen? Jesus, who is the faithful and true witness, he is the ruler over God's creation.
He reigns. And he comes in all of his might and all of his authority, and again he gives his assessment in verse 13. He says, I know your deeds.
I know you. And again, it's not a pleasant message. He says, I know your deeds that you're neither cold nor hot. They were like a cup of tea in an American restaurant. With apologies to my American friends, they can make a lot of things, but they can't make a cup of tea. So I have given up on tea in America and I've turned my teeth black, drinking this disgraceful coffee, which they've managed successfully to send to the over the Atlantic Ocean.
I noticed because I watched all of you. Coffee, please. Coffee, please. Coffee, please. Now the minority who haven't soiled their clothes are still drinking tea. But you ask for tea.
It comes in a wee teapot thing. I'm not going to digress on this, but anyway, I don't need to explain. You're a well-traveled group and I don't want this to make it back home and then they'll throw me out. But that'll be okay too.
Anyway, let's move along. This context, incidentally, was a financial center. It was known for its banking.
It had all of the accoutrements that would go with wealth. It was famous also for its sheep and particularly for a soft black wool that was woven into expensive garments. The kind of clothes that you would be able to wear and people say, did you get that from Laodicea? A bit like when they rub you and go, cashmere. Black wool, that kind of thing. So it was the sort of thing that you would want to have.
And if you could have a label on it as well, then you'd feel even better. So I said, Laodicea, like that. People go, very nice indeed. And thirdly, it was known for its medical school and particularly apparently the department of ophthalmology that had developed some kind of salve that had been useful in certain forms of eye condition. And in this environment, the church is set, financially prosperous, skillful in its business practices, known for its medical facility. And God has placed his people in the heart of that. Some of them are involved in each of these areas. They're involved in all of the diversity of life in Laodicea. And there Jesus says, I want you to shine, you in your small corner and I in mine as the song goes.
I want you to reflect the light that is me in your life and to that community. But once again, it would appear that they were absorbed by the culture, because the nature of their spiritual condition, as is given to us in this little phrase, is actually deplorable. When I read around this, I discovered things that I never knew before, which isn't difficult for me.
I do that all the time. But in contrast to Herapolis, a nearby city which was known for its very warm medicinal springs, and Colossae, which had its water supply served by a fresh mountain spring, Laodicea's water supply came from a fair distance, passed through a long piping system, and in particularly in the warmer summer months, the water was at best tepid by the time it came out. And so one of the features of a Laodicean would be, like if he's riding his bike—it's an anachronism—if he's riding his pony, and he stopped for a drink of water, he'd take a drink of water and then go, oh man, this water here in Laodicea, it stinks. So there are people spitting all the time in Laodicea. They're all like, everywhere you go, spitting. Now Jesus, who knows their deeds, says, hey, spitters, a spitting community, you make me want to spit you out of my mouth. That's not a very impressive assessment, is it? It would be one thing if they were immediately aware of their circumstances, but the fact is that the environment in which they're living has clouded them from the reality that they're facing. They've got enough of the surrounding culture injected, inoculated into them, so as to create enough of the disease to prevent them from it taking complete root, but the fact of the matter is they're compromised.
They've lost their cutting edge. Jesus looks on them and says to them, listen, this isn't the way it should be. Your condition is deplorable and furthermore, you're self-deceived. When you speak, you say, he says, I know the kind of things you say. You say I'm rich. I don't need anything.
The fact is you don't know that you're poor and wretched and blind. You know, if we've conducted interviews with people going out of the churches in Laodicea and had a little group of university students there with a clipboard and a sheet and said, excuse me, I'd just like to have a little conversation with you before you leave. What we're going to do is we're going to score it on one to ten with ten being high. I'd just like you to rate yourself on a variety of things.
The fact of the matter is that people will be scoring themselves way beyond seven and in many cases right up to ten. Yes, we're all very good, fine, faithful, insightful folks. We're well catered for. We have everything we need. If we can help you in any way at all, we are the ones who are ready to come to your aid, you poor, incarcerated, persecuted believers who need our help so dreadfully.
Oh yes? Well, of course, in one sense, it's true. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if the vibrancy of the persecuted church of the persecuted church is significantly greater than the vibrancy of the average local congregation out of which I have come. I don't know about you. But we congratulate ourselves, confused by our material circumstances, with a heightened sense of our own importance as a result of what we've been able to do and the things that people say about us and solve our consciences by putting something in an envelope and sending it halfway around the world to who knows where.
Christ looks into our churches, takes the lid off the church and says, I know your deeds. It would be one thing if you were blazing hot. I'd actually rather you were freezing cold, but you are in this dreadful position, a horrible situation. And the last night in the pen circumstances, I got a sausage roll. I couldn't resist it.
It was long and it was calling to me from the thing when I stood up. And I promised my wife as well. I said, no, no sausage rolls. I won't eat sausage rolls. And then my very first night I ate a sausage roll.
Anyway, confession is good for the soul. But I said to the lady, can you make it really hot? And she looked at me like, well, yes. And she did, because I'll tell you, lukewarm sausage rolls, oh, bad.
I mean, really bad. When that pastry is sort of like, and the sausage, you don't know, right? You're like, oh, I can't eat this.
You're looking around for somewhere, you're folding it up in your napkin, trying to be discreet, putting it away. Give me a really hot or just put it on ice, but don't give me one of those lukewarm sausage rolls. I think Jesus would be perfectly happy with this illustration. If there's any doubt. He said, that's right, son, preach it. Sure. I mean, I said, Walter, you can use sausage rolls. It doesn't matter.
It's the same point. Where are you? If you're freezing cold, you need Christ. If you're blazing hot, you need Christ. If you're like the men of the grand old Duke of York, neither up nor down, you need Christ. What do we need?
Jesus. We sing a song back home that goes, all that I need is you, Jesus, all that I need is you, from early in the morning till late at night, all that I need is you. All that I need is you.
I sing that to myself all the time. You think about your church, you think you're smart. What do you need to see Christ in all His majesty and all His authority? You think about your church and you say, what can we possibly do?
There's millions of people in this city. What are we? Look at us. I mean, look at the choir. Look at the worship team. I mean, look at these people.
Did you ever see a funnier group of people in all your life? And look at the deacon giving thanks for the bread. Man, does his wife choose his shirts? What's the deal with that? Oh, the world's so big and so powerful and so mighty and here we come trudging in. What do we need? We need a sight of the Lord Jesus Christ, you see, because otherwise we're going to spin helplessly out of control. Focus. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face. And then the things of earth, they grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Wealth had bred in them a sense of self-sufficiency. They wore nice clothes. They were oblivious to their spiritual nakedness.
They boasted of the department of ophthalmology, and they were spiritually blind. And Jesus says, I know you inside and out, and I find little to my liking. You're stale, you're stagnant, you brag, I'm rich, I've made it, I need nothing.
You're oblivious to the fact that you're pitiful, you're like a blind beggar, you're threadbare, and you're homeless. So is that it? No. Is Christ about to abandon them? No.
That's the wonderful thing about grace, isn't it? This is an honest assessment. You think this, you think this, you think this. The fact is this, this, and this, we'd be tempted to say, so away you go home and I'm going to get another football team. I'm sending them, put your jerseys in a pile and get out of here, for there's nothing I can do with you. Now I'm the manager of a football team, you understand.
Anybody can do that. But if you're a wee red-haired Scotsman who just became the manager of the team that beat Derby yesterday afternoon, they scored those four great goals. He says, okay, come on, boys. I'm at the door, I'm knocking. We're going back to basics. We're going to trap it, we're going to pass it. We're going to run into space. We're going to move off the ball. We're going to cover for one another. We're going to be a team. Do you understand that? Yes. Let's go. Jesus comes to the church. A rag-tagging bobtail operation, if ever there was one. His assessment is not good.
The prognosis is poor. But he doesn't say, put your jerseys down and I'll go get another group. He says, come here, we're going to be a team. I'm standing at the door and knocking. And if you hear my voice and open the door, listen what I'm going to do. I will come in and I will eat with you. He doesn't say, and if you hear my voice, I'm going to give you a pass.
And if you have that pass, then you can come to my house sometime and you'll be included with a big group of people. And you can come and say, I'm going to eat at Jesus' house. No, Jesus comes to eat at our house. He says, I will come into you and I will eat with you. I will sit at your table. This morning, as I had my breakfast, a lady came to me and said, can I sit here? And I said, yes. And then she said, oh no, I'm not going to sit here. I'm going over there.
So I said, okay. So then she went away to another table and I started to talk to two other people. And when I turned back, there was no lady and there was no table. Even my table was gone. I was table-less. I don't know what happened, but I was done.
So what could I do? You know, just stand and eat your Weetabix by yourself. I was in need of somebody to say, you can sit here. Jesus says, hey, can you hear my voice? It's John 14 incidentally.
If a man loves me, he will keep my commandments and I too will love him. And along with the Father, I will come and I will show myself to him. I just kept my hair cut the other day and there was a Korean lady. And I couldn't hardly understand a word she said, but she told me that she met Jesus. And so I thought she's going to tell me, you know, like on 42nd street, she saw him coming out of a taxi or something like that. But she said, I know I see his face, but I hear his voice.
And then, and they said, but I know I actually hear his voice. I not see his face, but I met him. I met him and her face just lit up. And I said, how did you meet him? And she told me the story of how she met him.
There's no doubt in her mind. He walks with her. He talks with her.
He tells her that she's his own. There's communion. The promise, a seat at the table and the promise, a place on the throne.
Hey saints, lift up your eyes. Jesus says, buy your gold from me, buy your clothes from me, buy your medicine from me. If you buy the medicine from me, then you'll really see. Buy your clothes from me, because you've been half naked long enough, buy your gold from me through the refiner's fire.
How do we understand this? In light of Isaiah 55, that's part of your homework. Take my counsel, he says. Get on the boil. Repent. Listen. Open the door. Acknowledge that you need the Lord Jesus Christ.
And incidentally, the meal, the word that is used there of supping, is ditenone, which refers to not a meal that you would get on the fly while you were going to Platform 7, but a meal à la France, where you would sit for a long time as an expression of companionship and enjoyment and friendship and fellowship and everything else, and it's all tied in. Jesus says, if you listen to me and you hear my voice and you open the door, I'll be there. So, poor old Sardis and Laodicea, not a particularly happy story, but what a wonderful gesture on the part of the risen Christ as he comes to bless his people. May he come to our hearts today. Let us pray. God our Father, we pray that the words of my mouth, the thoughts of our hearts, may be acceptable in your sight, out of a multitude of words.
God grant that we might hear your voice. Stir us up by way of pure remembrance, we pray. Turn our gaze to Christ. Cleanse us. Fill us. Use us for your glory. For Jesus' sake, we ask it. Amen.
There is great danger in becoming self-sufficient and adapting to the practices of the surrounding community. You're listening to Alistair Begg. This is Truth for Life. It's easy for any of us to be absorbed into the culture when our Bibles get dusty. That's the reason we teach the Bible every day here on Truth for Life. Our pattern is to teach verse by verse from the Scriptures, knowing that the Bible is without error.
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I'm Bob Lapine. We're learning that Jesus often warned churches in order to give them a chance to repent, to change their ways, but sometimes he commended churches. So what does Jesus find praiseworthy in a church? We'll find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-04-20 13:25:00 / 2023-04-20 13:34:16 / 9