Many Christians are happy to belong to a specific church and some may think that as soon as you are not disfellowshipped, it means that your spiritual life is good enough. The message to Laodicea, found in Revelation 3, speaks about the risk of being disfellowshipped by God, not [only] by people.
“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:16 (In other translations the word spue is spit or vomit)
We hear so often the words: “Be balanced, brother!” In Laodicean times they can mean many things. Sometimes they can mean the right thing but considering the blindness, the nakedness of Laodiceans, their balance is not the Biblical balance, it is not a balance which comes from God. Laodicean balance is very dangerous and nobody is safe following it. We have to be careful how we walk, what we believe, why we believe in these times. Only God’s Word and the leading of the Holy Spirit can guard our steps.
What means to be spiritually cold or hot? How are we weighed in the Heaven’s balance?
Spiritual deafness is something very serious. When people can’t hear God’s voice or when they can discern the voices speaking to them, their life is in big danger. But how can we hear God’s voice?
It’s all about beauty! So much time is invested by people, so much money, so much technology, just to improve the exterior beauty. Laodicean richness is used heavily in this direction. And still we are in a desperate situation, from God’s perspective.
God created everything beautiful, but since and Adam and Eve fell into sin, not everything around us is beautiful. There is still a lot of beauty around us and this makes us long for perfection, for greater beauty. When Jesus knocks at our door, if we accept Him inside and if we make Him Lord over our lives, His desire is to transform us into the most beautiful people in the world.
The most beautiful created being was Lucifer. If we want to learn how somebody can lose his / her beauty, we have to learn from what happened with Lucifer, why did he become Satan?
For all those willing to make improvements in terms of beauty, the Bible reveals very interesting information. The One who created everything beautiful, the Author of beauty is the only one who knows the secrets to become beautiful or to improve the beauty.
Very soon we will be witnesses to a revelation of beautiful people. The Bible calls them a remnant of faithful people who walk with God. They have a complete beauty: spiritual one, intellectual one and physical one. This complete beauty can be achieved by all those who accept Jesus’ call: “Follow Me”. It is not a one second transformation, but a process which lasts the whole life.
We need to speak about Laodicea and freedom of choice because in our previous presentation, “Time to Break Through” we mentioned that sometimes Jesus’ knocking at the door of our lives is not a very gentle one (as we would like it always to be). This is why many may ask: where is my freedom of choice? Where is my free will?
We need to understand God’s sovereignty in order to understand His right to intervene in our lives. And all the time His interventions have the purpose to save us from dangers we don’t understand and realize.
The apostle Paul experienced this breaking through in his life. He never complained that God “dared” to break through and turn his plans upside down. He was always thankful for that intervention (you can read it in Acts 9). In the presentation you can see a longer list with Biblical examples of people who were blessed with special interventions from God (like us) and who still had the freedom both to keep Jesus inside their lives or to “invite” him to get out forever.
Why do we keep Jesus at the door? Why Laodiceans don’t invite Jesus insire? Here are some reasons:
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock…” Revelation 3:20
In the full presentation of Revelation 3:20 entitled “Time to Break Through” (see the video below) you will find more details about this very known verse and very known picture. We mention below just few important points which are meant to recreate the visual picture of the verse in a more accurate way, more faithful to the biblical message.
The classical pictures trying to capture the scene described in the biblical verse are limited and sometimes misleading. As you can see in the pictures below, Jesus is quite passive, though a little bit concerned. You can’t see what’s happening in the house or the visibility is very limited. Do these pictures really show the reality of what the Bible wants to say? Is it our life really hidden from the eyes of Jesus? Can He really stay passive when He knows that, being Himself outside, it means that inside the house, with us, there is a very dangerous enemy?
Of course these pictures don’t represent faithfully what the Bible in its entirety speaks about Jesus and His concern about us. This is why we propose a different picture with a more biblical message:
Jesus is able to see any detail of our lives. Everything is transparent to Him. We can’t really hide anything from his sight. And because He can see what’s happening inside, He can’t be passive and relaxed. No normal father in the world could be passive and relaxed while his son or his daughter are inside a building with a dangerous guy around them. This is why a complementary picture would be one of a police team trying to break through in order to rescue a potential victim and to stop a dangerous person from harming somebody.
The breaking through takes place whenever somebody will pray with faith. It is very encouraging to read in the Bible about examples when people interceded for their dear ones and God did break through and rescued them. It is also encouraging when the victims of Satan obtained real freedom, the freedom from sin, even when they were not able to articulate a prayer but Jesus could read their hearts and their longing for freedom. (Matthew 8:28-34)
We have a mighty God, who is able to help us, who is ready to rescue us. And once we are rescued, we can intercede in prayer for the salvation of other souls around us.