The church at Laodicea: Part 4 of 5 (series: Lessons on Revelations

by John Lowe
(Woodruff, S.C.)

What the LAODICEANS’ could see had become more valuable to them than what is unseen and eternal. Christ was showing the LAODICEANS’ that true value is not in material possessions but in a right relationship with God. You have nothing if you don’t have a vital relationship with Christ. Their possessions and achievements were valueless compared with the everlasting future of Christ’s kingdom. Worldliness always clouds spiritual vision, and lack of spiritual vision is serious, or “where there is no vision the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).

19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Here is a verse which echoes a truth found elsewhere in the New Testament—God disciplines those He loves. His rebuke and discipline came because of His love for the church. Christ will “spit out” those who disobey (v. 16), but He will discipline those He loves. God’s purpose in discipline is not to punish but to bring people back to Him. God may discipline you to help you out of your uncaring attitude, but he uses only loving discipline. You can avoid God’s discipline by drawing near to Him again through confession, service, worship, and studying His Word. Just as the spirit of love can be rekindled in marriage, so the Holy Spirit can reignite our zeal for God when we allow Him to work in our hearts.

The word “ZEALOUS” means “to be hot.” This is His last message to the church. He says, “BE ZEALOUS.” Be hot. Get on fire for God. He is ordering this church to forsake its lukewarm state, and he says, “REPENT.” This church needs repentance more than all the others. And the message of repentance is for the contemporary church, but you will not be popular if you preached that, I can assure you.

Verses 18 and 20 indicate that Christ was speaking here to unbelievers. God certainly loves the unconverted (John 3:16). And chasten (literally “reprove”) often refers to God’s convicting and punishing the unregenerate (Matthew 18:17; 1 Corinthians 14:24; 2 Timothy 2:25).

“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons” (Hebrews 12:6-8, KJV). Any person who can live in sin, prosper in sin, be happy in sin and continue in sin without the chastening hand of God being placed upon him, has never been a son.

Repentance is the very last thing a sinner wants to do, and it is the very last thing a saint wants to do. We would rather do anything than REPENT. The repentance referred to here is not an ongoing daily repentance, but a once-for-all, turning-from-your-old-way kind of change.

Verse 19 is a quotation from Proverbs 3:12, but one word is altered. In the Greek of the Septuagint, the word for love is agapan which indicates the unconquerable attitude of goodwill which nothing can turn to hate; but it is a word which maybe has more of the head than the heart in it; and in the quotation, the Risen Christ changes agapan to philein.

There is no surer way of allowing a child to end in ruin than to allow him to do whatever he likes. It is a fact of life that the best athlete and the finest scholar receive the most demanding training. The discipline of God is not something which we should resent, but something for which we should be devoutly thankful.

20 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.

This verse is well-known and is often used in conjunction with a picture of Jesus standing at a door, knocking, and asking to be let in. The words, ‘I . . . WILL SUP WITH HIM, AND HE WITH ME’ do not refer to a meal shared with a stranger, but with a meal shared among friends who know each other well. There is no picture of intimacy more striking than that of setting at a common table and breaking bread together. This is the picture of the relationship of the Christian to God as the Christian comes to Him in Jesus Christ. There is nearness; there is sympathy; there is understanding; there is fellowship.

This word picture has been derived from two different sources.
• It has been taken as a warning that the end is near, and that the coming of Christ is at hand. The Christian must be ready to open whenever he hears his Lord knocking—“And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately (Luke 12:36). The Christian must live well and live in love because the Judge is standing at the doors—“Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors!” (James 5:9). If that is the picture here, this phrase contains a warning and tells men to take care, for Jesus Christ the Judge and King is at the door.
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• We cannot say that that meaning is impossible and yet it does not seem to fit the context, for the atmosphere of the passage is not so much warning as it is love. The origin of the passage is much more likely to be in Solomon’s Song when the lover stands at the door of his beloved and pleads with her to open: “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night” (Solomon’s Song 5:2). Here is Christ the lover knocking at the door of the hearts of men. And in this picture, we see certain great truths of the Christian religion.
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• We see the leading of Christ. He stands at the door of the human heart and knocks. The unique new fact that Christianity brought into this world is that God is the seeker of man. No other religion has the vision of a seeking God. Here is the picture of Christ searching for sinful man who did not want Him. Surely love can go no further than that.
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We see the offer of Christ. As the Authorized Version has it, “I will come in and sup with him.” If a man will open the door, Jesus Christ will come in and linger long with him. He enters the believer’s heart and makes it His home. “I WILL SUP WITH HIM.” He takes what we put at His disposal and, as he did with the loaves and fishes, blesses it, multiplies it, and makes it a blessing to others. “AND HE WITH ME,” He says, thus promising that, if we open our hearts to Him, He will open heaven to us.

• We see the human responsibility. Christ pleads and offers, but it is all to no avail if a man will not open the door.

The LAODICEAN church was complacent and rich. They felt self-satisfied, but they didn’t have Christ’s presence among them. Christ knocked at the door of their hearts, but they were so busy enjoying worldly pleasures that they didn’t notice Him trying to enter. The pleasures of this world—money, security, material possessions—can be dangerous because their temporary satisfaction can make people—even believers—indifferent to God’s offer of lasting satisfaction. The people in the church in Laodicea needed to accept Christ for the first time, for some (or “all”) of them had never made that commitment. Others needed to return to wholehearted faith in Him.

Please notice, the Lord Jesus does not command the Laodiceans to buy (v. 18), nor does He force entrance (v. 20). “I STAND . . . I KNOCK.” You may rest assured that the Lord Jesus will never force Himself upon any home, any church, or any nation. He loves all, He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He is searching for the unsaved and—He will never force Himself upon anyone. The Lord will never intrude where He is not wanted.

To the unsaved Jesus is saying, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9, KJV). The door of salvation is always open to sinners—they need not knock. But the church door of the Laodicean assembly was closed in the face of Jesus, and He stood on the outside, knocking. This is an alternate interpretation, but it may fit the context even better. Christ was seeking to enter this church that bore His name, but lacked a single true believer. This distressing letter was His knocking. Both interpretations are true, but His invitation in the closing days of this dispensation is, “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.” Jesus makes this appeal to the individual. God can do great things in a church, even through one dedicated individual. Salvation is and always has been personal, and everyone must decide for themselves whether to accept or reject Christ’s invitation.