The Epistle to the Church of
LAODICEA
Revelation 3:14-20
Laodicea was an emporium of trade, distinguished
especially for woollen manufactures of rare texture-fabrics woven from the
hair of the sheep and goats which browsed in vast flocks on the surrounding
pastures. It was also noted for those ointments and cosmetics so prized by
Orientals, and which still afford no inconsiderable commerce to the
surrounding cities. Being, moreover, on the high road of commerce between
Ephesus and the East, it had gathered within its walls a goodly number of
merchant-princes. Its gold was well known to the traders, who with their
caravans passed through its streets. Although shorn of much of its outward
magnificence in the year 62 A.D., owing to the devastations of an
earthquake, yet, as a test of its opulence, the havoc thus made, was
repaired by the citizens alone, unaided by any imperial grant. Now a
miserable village, there are yet remains, in the shape of broken columns and
ruined aqueducts, to attest its former luxurious splendor.
These characteristics may be mentioned, because some of
them at least, as will presently be seen, throw light on the peculiar
symbolism and figure employed in the Epistle. A Church had been planted
there in Apostolic days. Paul, thirty years previously, refers in his
Epistle to the adjoining Church of Colosse, to "the great conflict he had
for them of Laodicea." However successful that hard fight may have been in
the days of the Hero-Apostle, his death would seem to have turned the tide
of battle: the simplicity of the 'truth as it is in Jesus' succumbed before
the spirit of evil, which had its outward manifestation in worldliness,
pride, and lukewarmness.
The figurative language of the latter portion of the
letter (to which we shall in this chapter confine ourselves) seems
appropriately borrowed from the merchant city. Its material gold and silver
and gay clothing—its woollen mantles, silk trappings, and abundant
traffic—are taken as the symbols of boastful self-sufficiency and complacent
self-righteousness—masking and concealing its own utter beggary and
nakedness in the sight of God. The Great Redeemer, the author of the
Epistle, represents Himself as a traveling merchantman, the head of one of
these Eastern caravans, coming laden with true riches and heavenly
vestures, divine ointments and perfumes, to supply the place of the spurious
and the counterfeit. He personates such a merchantman going from house to
house and from door to door with His own priceless goods—those spiritual
verities which no material wealth can purchase.
Standing in front of each dwelling, He proclaims in the
ear of its residents, however unwilling to hear—"You say, I am rich, and
increased with goods" (or 'I have enriched myself'), "and have need of
nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable" (or rather, 'the
wretched one and the miserable one'), "and poor, and blind, and naked." And
then, having uttered the solemn protest and warning, He calls on His
listeners with their hoarded goods to draw near. He opens up these, His own
costly wares, the gold without alloy, which no Ophir mine could
produce—the glistering white vesture of His own righteousness, which no loom
on earth could weave—salves and aromatic oils for true spiritual
vision—ointments for the head, which no earthly laboratory could furnish.
These Laodiceans were living in guilty self-deception.
They were clad in gaudy clothing. They were imagining themselves to be in
king's houses while they were bankrupts—their whole life and being was a
lie. "Open your doors," says the Great Vender of spiritual riches—"transact
with ME." "I counsel you to buy from Me gold tried in the fire, that you may
be rich; and white clothing, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of
your nakedness may not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you
may see."
The summons however seems to be in vain. The earnest
importunate voice is, by these self-satisfied and self-contented Laodiceans,
disowned and neglected. On, however, He pursues His way from street to
street and from house to house, repeating the warning and the gracious
offer, until the shadows of evening begin to fall. The hours of His sojourn
are numbered. Tomorrow, this wayfaring Man, who has turned aside to tarry
for a night, must depart. By early morn the camels must be re-loaded, the
tents outside must be struck, and He must journey onwards to offer the
rejected treasures to other cities. But He will not leave—He will not
abandon His blessed purpose of love, without one other effort at the doors
of those who had in their folly spurned Him away. Though needing rest
Himself, He is busied from sunset until midnight-hour in re-traversing the
now silent streets, and thus exclaiming, as He stands in front of every
dwelling, "behold, I stand at the door and knock." Alas! for
Laodicea. These pleadings were disregarded. Christ had knocked at her
dwellings, but He had knocked in vain.
Separating these latter words of the Epistle from their
special reference to the Laodicean Church, and giving them a universal, or
rather a spiritual and personal application, let us dwell for a little on
this amazing picture. The rejected yet loving Savior—the Divine Merchantman
from the Heavenly City, a suppliant at the door of the sinner's heart. The
two brief words in this brief clause are each of them suggestive, "Behold I
STAND" and "Behold I KNOCK."
I. The attitude of standing suggests His
CONDESCENSION. If condescension be a relative term, and increases in
proportion to the distance and disparity between him who exercises it and
those who are its objects, where can there be condescension similar to this?
There are noble instances of condescension and kindness in earthly
chronicles. We have read of those of lofty rank, who, at the promptings
of philanthropy, have gone down into the dens of misery and vice, to relieve
suffering and mitigate wretchedness. Tales still linger in the memories of
nations, of disguised sovereigns entering the hovel of distress—hands that
grasped the scepter of empires, drying the orphan's tears, soothing
the infirmities of age, or the pangs of sorrow.
We can ascend a step higher still. We can leave the
crowns and monarchs of earth, and imagine one of those bright Seraphs
who hymn their songs in the upper Sanctuary coming down to our world on some
mandate of mercy, hovering around the straw-pallet of some Lazarus-beggar,
stooping to smooth his death-pillow, before bearing the spirit to Abraham's
bosom. But what even is this?—these angels bathing their wings of light in
the floods of infinite glory before the throne—what is this stoop of theirs,
in comparison with that marvelous tale of Him who announces Himself in the
opening of this Epistle as "the Amen—the faithful and true Witness—the
beginning of the creation of God"—whose throne is of old from
everlasting—the blaze of worlds, the jewels of His crown—who has reared
every arch and pillar in Nature's temple—making its bells to ring an eternal
chime to His glory? Yes! Behold Him who has kindled up the altar-fires of
Heaven, who calls every star by name, and from whose boundless empire this
tiny earth of ours would be no more missed, than the fall of the leaf in the
forest, or the bursting of the bubble on the ocean—to whom the universe is
but as the small dust of the balance, all time but as the beat of a pulse or
the swing of a pendulum! Behold Him, the mighty uncreated Lord, the
all-glorious Redeemer, "of whom are all things, and by whom are all things!"
Behold Him "as one that serves"—His head bared to the pitiless storm, a
petitioner at the door of a human heart!
2. This attitude of standing suggests further, the
thought of FORBEARANCE and IMPORTUNITY. "Behold I stand!" 'I have been
standing long,' He seems to say, 'and I am standing still; and though My
head is wet with dew and My locks with the drops of the night, I am
unrepulsed by a life of ingratitude—how can I give you up?' If He had been
the very kindest of human benefactors, His patience would have been long ago
exhausted, His pleadings silenced, His remonstrances closed. But "have you
not known, have you not heard, that the everlasting God the Lord, the
Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary?"
His loving appeals are like the billows which, century
after century, lashed into fury, have been beating on the rock-bound coast.
They make no departure. They strike, but return, chafed and buffeted and
baffled, to their ocean-bed, to gather up new strength for a fresh assault.
Emblem of the rocky heart. The ocean of a Savior's love has been knocking
and surging against it, for days and weeks and months and years. Yet, though
beaten back by that adamant stone, it returns with new force to the charge.
Wondrous thought, the importunity of Christ with sinners! What patience!
Think of the myriads of hearts He has thus been pleading with for 6000
years! Think of the different ages and dispensations! Think of the different
climates and tongues! Who would have imagined anything else but that these
stern refusals would have driven Him forever away to other hearts and homes
that would give a holier and kinder welcome? But, "Behold, I STAND!"
Let us pass now to inquire into the import of the second
term here used—"Behold, I KNOCK." Christ knocks at the door of the heart in
various ways.
1. He knocks by His Word. It is the rod of His
power. "Is not my Word as a hammer," says He, "that breaks the rock in
pieces?" His preached Word has ever been made by Him mighty to the pulling
down of strongholds. It would be a poor matter indeed for a mortal man, in
his own strength, with stammering tongue and feeble arm, to try and plead
with sinners, and wrench the bolts from the doors of their hearts. But, "the
wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than
men." It matters not by whom the warriors' bugle-note is sounded
which musters the host for the charge. It stirs the bosoms of the brave. It
may be piped by coward and unworthy lips: but the old, familiar,
heart-stirring strain sends the flush to the cheek and the flash to the eye,
and puts nerve and sinew into the most prostrate arm. The great
Gospel-trumpet, by whomsoever blown, is the trumpet of God. It sounds forth
the words of God; and, as such, they shall not return to Him void. Many a
poor, faint, coward-heart, in the hour of spiritual battle, hearing these,
out of weakness has been made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to
flight the armies of the aliens.
But see that you refuse not Him that speaks. Remember,
every resisted knocking will woefully diminish the chances of opening. If
first convictions are allowed to die away, the world's oblivion-power does
its work. The next Sabbath returns—its impressions are feebler. The heart,
from very familiarity, becomes gradually more callous, uninfluenced,
unimpressed—lapsing into awful unconsciousness to the perils and prospects
of eternity. And then, how sad! when these knockings of Christ fall, like
the gushing tears of the bereaved, as they sob their tale of unresponded-to
anguish in "the dull, cold ear of Death!"
2. Christ knocks by sickness. A bed of languishing
is spread. A man is called to renounce bodily strength and prosperity for an
unexpected pillow of pain. Christ had often and again knocked at his heart
while busied in the world; but the hum of an engrossing industry—the fever
of gain and money-making—allowed not the voice to be heard. He had given him
the talent of health; but he had been a traitor to his trust, for no atom of
time had been consecrated to the soul and eternity. He takes him aside and
lays him on a couch of disease. In the quiet of that lonely chamber, the
world's carking cares and siren voice now hushed and overborne, Jesus
speaks! Yes, and often He speaks there loudly too. The man is
hurried, without a note of warning, to the borders of the grave. The dim
lamp of life flickers in its socket. It was but last week he was in the
Exchange or in the market. It was but last week he was following his plough,
or digging his garden, or standing by his counter, or plying his vigorous
hand in his workshop. And this week, he reads in the physician's
countenance, and in the choking sobs and ill-suppressed tears around his
bed, that eternity is near at hand. How loudly does Christ then
knock! How loudly does He speak—"Prepare to meet your God!" While the answer
is breathed out in trembling agony, 'Lord, I cannot meet you as I am!—a few
more days—a few more weeks! Oh, spare me, that I may recover strength before
I go hence and be no more!'
Has He thus been speaking to any of us? Are we the living
monuments of His sparing mercy? Has He heard our prayer?—has He arrested the
axe, and revoked the sentence, "cut it down?" Let not His voice die away
like the retiring thunder. Be it ours to say—"I will pay You my vows which
my mouth has spoken and my lips have uttered while I was in trouble!" "The
living—the living, even he shall praise You, as I do this day!"
3. Once more, Christ knocks by bereavement and
death. This is the loudest knock of all. The lion is said to make the
forest echo loudest in a storm of thunder. With reverence be it said, He who
is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah," and who is spoken of in this Book as
uttering voices "as when a lion roars." Yes! Jesus speaks and knocks loudest
in the season of affliction—in the lowering, thundery, storm-wreathed sky.
Some beloved object of earthly affection is taken away. The world is a
wilderness to the stripped and desolate heart; embittered are all its joys,
poisoned its sweetest fountains. Who is there but can tell of such knockings
as these? When, seated in the chamber of dissolution, you saw some cherished
spirit taking its flight, leaving you to weep unavailing tears and to
breathe unavailing prayers—hoping against hope that it might be some wild
and feverish dream which the morrow would dispel? The morrow comes, but with
it the waking thoughts of agony—Jesus knocks! In the silence of that
death-chamber, when seated with emotions too deep for utterance, Jesus
knocks! Or when standing at the grave's mouth and committing loved dust to
its kindred dust—in the awful stillness and solemnity of that scene, Jesus
knocks! And when, returning home to the rifled and deserted dwelling, the
vacant seat is marked, the absent guest is missed, the joyous voice or
innocent prattle, familiar at every turn, its music gone, and gone for the
forever of time—and the deep, settled silence of desertion all that is left
in exchange—Jesus knocks!—Jesus speaks!
And what does He say? Poor trifler! who did prefer your
clay idols to Myself; admitting them within your heart, and keeping
Me standing outside—I have seen fit to dash one after another to the ground,
that you may be driven from the perishable to the eternal.
We cannot, however, enlarge. Time would fail to tell of
the many ways by which Jesus knocks. He knocks by prosperity.
He can knock through the blessings with which He loads us, as well as
through those He takes away. He knocks in all the vicissitudes of life. He
knocks by great events, and by trifling occurrences. It may be, the return
of some mournful anniversary; or the notice of a death in the obituary; or
the passage of a funeral in the street; or the reading of a simple tract; or
the well-timed observation or admonition of a friend. Jesus knocks! But who
can tell how long? At the present hour He may be making His last appeal—a
final remonstrance. For oh! though persistent—slow to abandon—reluctant to
give up—there is a point beyond which even His forbearance cannot go. And
THEN?—What then? The dread mark is affixed on the doomed and fated doorway,
and the awful word is uttered—"Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him
alone!" "How often would I have gathered you, and you would not?"
But the tread of His footstep is still heard. His angels
are still hovering around, waiting to carry tidings to Heaven of His
Spirit's knocking and hearts yielding. Surely this picture of the Laodicean
Church tells, as few other scriptures do, that no door, however long closed,
can be hopelessly shut—that no heart, however obdurate, can be beyond the
reach of grace and mercy. To those of whom He spoke—in the opening of the
Epistle, as 'lukewarm,' and of whom He uttered the strong language that, as
such, He would reject them with loathing, out of His mouth as a nauseous
thing—not only is it at their doors He stands pleading, but to them, if they
hearken, He gives the highest, the crowning and culminating promise of all.
Accepting the 'gold'—the riches of His grace and salvation—the 'white
clothing'—the glistering robe of His imputed and imparted righteousness, He
will make them sharers and partakers, and that too in its most exalted
aspects, of His heavenly bliss—"I will grant to sit with Me in My throne,
even as I also overcame, and am seated with My Father in His throne."
Let us give to Him the throne of our hearts, that He may
thus at last give to us the throne of His glory. Even now, as the Savior's
voice is heard, in the majesty of omnipotence, let there be the willing
response—"Come in, you blessed of the Lord; why do you stand outside?"