Revelation 3:14-19 “And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, 'These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: (15) “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. (16) So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. (17) Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'--and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked-- (18) I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. (19) As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore, be zealous and repent.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the Lord Jesus revealed to us what inheritance awaited the church of Laodicea, and so it would benefit us to look at this graphic account that Lord gave us. In His letter there were no believers whom the Lord commended in this particular church, for none of them were walking as they should. The believers in this church were walking in covetousness, because material wealth was all that mattered to them. There are two main things that are revealed to us in this passage of scripture that I want to focus on. Firstly, we see that even in their sinful state our Lord still acknowledged them as being His children. They were borderline believers however and they were very close to committing the sin to death and thus being removed from the body of Christ, for the Lord threatened to vomit them out of His mouth unless they repented. Nevertheless at the time this letter was written these saints were still in His kingdom. Secondly, our Lord revealed their state as it existed in heaven at the time He spoke to them. He said to them that they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. In other words they had no inheritance stored up for them in heaven, and unless these believers repented their status would remain the same and they would have no inheritance on their day of judgement. And so, our Lord couldn’t make it any clearer than that, and we are not to be deceived into thinking that no matter how we live our lives that we will not be held to account on that day.
I will close off this section with an account of the following dream that our Lord Jesus gave to me regarding that which we have discussed in this section. The background to this dream is that I had been in a backslidden condition for a number of years, and as I briefly mentioned earlier, through the prayers of my wife and others, I was restored to fellowship once again with my Lord and Saviour. In my dream, I was standing between two men, and we were waiting our turn to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. There seemed to be a long queue winding up towards the judgment seat. The man on my right said, “Well at least we are saved”. He then disappeared. I knew instinctively that he had no works that he had done that the Lord would reward him for. Then the man on my left and I were standing before the throne. I was standing to the side between the Lord and this man watching as this man was being judged. The man was on my left and I was aware of Jesus standing on my right, but I did not see Him or look at Him. While we stood there, I heard the Lord speaking to the man on my left and He began to list the deeds that he should have done while he was on the earth. For each deed He spoke about, He showed the reward that the Father had given Jesus to give to this man (I cannot describe the rewards but they were of great beauty. I do recall seeing a crown amongst the rewards). It was evident that this man had not done what the Lord had asked him to do. The Lord spoke in the following manner; “I spoke to you on this occasion and asked you to do this deed but you did not obey Me. And I asked you to speak to this person but you did not obey Me”. I do not know the details of each time that this man had not been obedient to the Lord, but I know that I became more and more alarmed and concerned for the individual as each account was mentioned. By the time the Lord had listed the fifth or sixth incident I could no longer restrain myself and I burst into tears of remorse for this individual, for my heart was broken for him. I then realised that the Lord was in fact dealing with me in the dream, and tearfully I repented before the Lord and asked His forgiveness for not having obeyed Him in my life as I ought to have done. I then found myself walking back down from the throne, still in tears but now they were tears of joy. For I had joy in my heart knowing that my time had not yet come for me to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And knowing that by the grace of God I still had time to be obedient to the Lord in what He had called me to do on the earth. Although the Lord was dealing with me in this dream the principle remains valid for all of us. We need to be obedient to what the Lord calls each of us to do on this earth, and that it is never the Lord’s will that we are just saved.
Michael E.B. Maher
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