Exodus 32:1-35; Matthew 27:15-26; Revelation 3:14-22
In the Bible we read of three occasions on which people exchanged God for something else. They wished to swap Him for various things. But this exchange is in itself something terrible. It is not only a huge delusion; it always ends disastrously for those who make it. That is why I want to warn you. Let us examine our hearts and see whether we too have begun to exchange or substitute God for something else in this life – whether an idol, our own self, the world, the spirit of the age, or even the gratification of our own religious feeling. As I preach this sermon I feel like the prophet Hosea. This word of God came to him (Hosea 8:1):
1 “Put the trumpet to your lips! An eagle is over the house of the Lord because the people have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law. (Hosea 8:1)
You see, God called Hosea to sound the alarm, to warn Israel of the enemy’s attack. And the enemy was coming, because Israel had exchanged God for idols. They had stopped doing God’s will and had broken their covenant relationship with God. We must understand that this is exactly what stands at the center of spiritual warfare. Satan tries in every way to break our right relationship with God. Why? Because Satan knows that as long as we are in covenant with God and He is on our side, we are invincible and untouchable. The devil can attack us, but he cannot defeat us. As the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:31:
If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)
But when we turn our back on Him, when we exchange Him for something else in this world, then God withdraws, and from victors we are turned into easy prey for the devil. So let us listen. Let us take heed, and if there is need – and there certainly is – let us be zealous to repent (Revelation 3:22).
22 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:22)
THE LIVING DELIVERER AGAINST THE DEAD IDOL
The first time, God was exchanged for a golden calf. The account of it is described in Exodus 32. It carries us to the Sinai desert, into the midst of the camp of Israel. There, however, is only Aaron, because at that very time Moses was on Mount Sinai, where God was giving Israel the Law and the instructions for building the tabernacle. God had already given Israel His Law. Moses had received God’s words, had spoken them to the people, had written them in a book, and the people had accepted them. But then Moses went up the mountain again, to receive further instructions and for God to give him the stone tablets on which He wrote the Ten Commandments with His own hand – “the tablets of the Testimony” – the symbol of the covenant. So Moses was up above, and the people were down below, at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 32:1).
1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” (Exodus 32:1)
Can you imagine? Moses is on Mount Sinai to fast and pray – he fasted and prayed forty days – and to meet with YAHWEH, the God of Israel, the same God who worked the ten plagues over Egypt and brought out His people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, from the house of slavery. And now, after He had parted the Red Sea before them and delivered them from their pursuers – drowning the Egyptians in the sea – He was making them into a people – a people with a constitution and laws, a people ordered according to God’s order – with one goal – to bring them into Canaan, into the Promised Land.
And at that very moment, the religious feeling of the Israelites was not satisfied. They wanted to have images before them – statues after the likeness of the Egyptian gods. Such is human nature. We want to have gods who are like us, who are a reflection of our own “self,” gods who justify our sinful impulses, and gods we can manipulate. (As I read these words I am reminded of the reality show “Big Brother,” so popular lately. These are the gods who are like us – we imitate them, we like them, we dislike them – and if we dislike them, we vote against them, or, if we like them, we vote for them.) But YAHWEH, the God of Israel, was not like that. He refused to be represented in any image. He called Himself simply “I AM” – the Ever-existing or Self-existing One, the Creator of heaven and earth, God Almighty, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. But the Israelites were not content. Although they had seen and experienced God’s power – had seen the ten plagues, had passed through the Red Sea on dry ground – even so, they were not content. They wanted something they could see, something they could touch, something they could manipulate – gods made by human hands, which they could see and before whose figures they could bow down.
I don’t know about you, but to me this looks like the veneration of those icons before which people bow and of which they say that the icons work the miracles. But it is not the icons that work the miracles. It is God who works miracles – the living God!
THE GOLDEN EARRINGS – THE GOLDEN CALF
Pressed by public opinion, Aaron – who in this case showed himself to be a weak leader – gave way, yielded to the pressure of the crowd, and although he did not agree with them, he satisfied their desire. He told them: “You want gods? No problem! You want an idol? That’s the easiest thing. Bring me enough gold and I’ll make it for you.”
2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:2-4)
How easy! How convenient! And how insulting to God, to the living God. What an ugly substitution. The true, living God, YAHWEH, the God of Israel had brought His people out of the land of Egypt. And now this miracle, this incredible demonstration of God’s mercy and power was being credited to a piece of gold, to an image of a calf. They said, “These are your gods” and notice, not “your god,” but “your gods.” This was an exchange, a substitution, a deception, a lie…
The Israelites were pleased with their new “god,” but their religiosity was still not satisfied – they wanted to establish their own religion, their own way of worship. They raised an altar before the golden calf, set up a festival, and began to offer it sacrifices, began to bow down to it.
THE DANCE OF IDOLATRY
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. (Exodus 32:5-6)
The Israelites rejoiced. They ate, drank and danced. But this joy, this worship was not before YAHWEH, but before the idols, before the calf that they themselves had made. This is precisely the difference between the true God and the idols – the idols are made by men – they are human inventions, while the true God created us, human beings. He cannot be manipulated, He cannot be controlled. He is above all.
All these acts of idolatry on the part of the Israelites did not go unnoticed.
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ (Exodus 32:7-8)
Notice, God said of the Israelites that they “have been quick to turn away” from His path – they were quick to commit sin. At the very moment when God was writing the first and second commandments on the stone tablets – “You shall have no other gods before Me!” and “You shall not make for yourself an idol!” – the Israelites were already breaking them. Moreover, notice, He did not call them “My people,” but, speaking to Moses, He called them “your people.” This shows what sin does – sin breaks our relationship with God. A little further down in the chapter we read how Moses characterizes the deeds of the people. In verse 31 we read:
31 So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. (Exodus 32:31)
That the people substituted idols for God – this was a “great sin.” Because of this cruel offense against the true God, God resolved to destroy them and offered Moses that he should become the patriarch of a new nation. But Moses, as the faithful leader of his people, interceded for them before God, and God spared them, God had pity on them. Nevertheless, the ones guilty of the crime were not spared. Moses summoned the Levites, they girded on their swords and cut down the instigators of the idolatry – about three thousand people fell that same day (v. 28). Those who substitute something for God, those who exchange God – they will never go unpunished. Therefore, may God keep us.
THEIR GLORY FOR THE IMAGE OF A BULL THAT EATS GRASS
Later, from the perspective of time gone by, the psalmist describes this crime of the Israelites like this (Psalm 106:19-23):
19 At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal. 20 They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass. 21 They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, 22 miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. 23 So he said he would destroy them— had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them. (Psalm 106:19-23)
In this case we see the power of intercession and that it can save a life, but today I would like to point out to you the exchange – how foolish it is. How foolish it is to exchange our God for something else, whatever it may be. “They exchanged their glorious God for an image of a bull, which eats grass.” They exchanged their Glory – their true benefactor, their true God, the most precious thing they had. And they exchanged it not even for a living bull, but only for “an image of a bull” – a bull that has no mind, a bull that can work no miracles, a bull whose only ability is to eat grass (but it could not even eat grass, since it was only an image of a bull – only a piece of gold). How foolish the exchange is, when we exchange God! For what will you exchange God? Can anything be compared to His glory? There has not been, and there never will be. In Psalm 115 we read of the living God, of the idols, and of the fate of those who make them and trust in them:
1 Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. 2 Why do the nations say, “Where is their God?” 3 Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. 4 But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. 5 They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. 6 They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. 7 They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. 8 Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:1-8)
This is the exchange of God for idols, and this is where it leads. Those who make it will become like their own idols – dead and lifeless.
Commenting on all this in one of his sermons, about 1,500 years later, the deacon Stephen says (Acts 7:37-43):
37 “This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’ 38 He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us. 39 “But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ 41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made. 42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: “‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel? 43 You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon. (Acts 7:37-43)
This is the essence of the idol – it is the work of human hands, it is a turning of our hearts back to the world. Today we do not have such images before which to bow. Or perhaps in the Orthodox and Catholic churches there are icons or statues before which people bow and which they kiss, thinking that the icon itself will help them. The official religion itself does not say this, but the people believe it so. And they go and bow to the image itself, to the icon itself, to the statue itself. Every such act of worship is idolatry. Because reliance is placed on something made by man.
But today there are also idols. And here it tells us what the essence of an idol is – it says that they “reveled in what their own hands had made.” The idol is this:
- something you put in the place of God, in first place in your life;
- it is something that determines your life, something that determines your values, something that determines your character;
- something before which you bow, something you admire, to which you give glory, something you like, something you adore – that is your idol!
If an image or picture or statue is made for beauty or decoration – then there is no problem, but if it is made for worship, then it becomes an idol. But today people bow not so much to images as to the works of their own hands. And this exchange is in fact a going back. It says that they “in their hearts turned back to Egypt.” The Israelites loved the Egyptian way of life, loved the Egyptian gods who justified that way of life. But God was calling them to be holy. And for us all this has one great application, because for us Egypt is a symbol of the world, of the system of this world, which is controlled by Satan. And the devil tempts us precisely in this – after we have come out of the world – even though outwardly we still keep going to church, even though outwardly we keep serving God – to turn back, in our hearts, to the world. And if we do it in our hearts, there is a danger that we ourselves will turn back and fall away from God. That is why Proverbs 4:23 says:
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23)
But we must know that if we do it – if we go back to the world – our last state will be worse than the first. In 2 Peter 2:20-22 the apostle Peter says:
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.” (2 Peter 2:20-22)
This is what we must guard against, this is what we must repent of – if, after we have known the Lord and have escaped the corruption of the world through Him, we again turn back in our hearts and once more come to love the old life; if, after we have known the Lord, we again turn our back on God and put something else in His place in our life. As the apostle John says in 1 John 5:21:
21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21)
THE EXCHANGED JESUS
Not only YAHWEH, the God of Israel, was exchanged by the Israelites. We are speaking of three exchanges. The first was in the Sinai desert. Fifteen hundred years later, when Jesus, God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, came in the flesh, He too was exchanged. He, the perfect, the innocent, the holy, the righteous Deliverer and Savior, was exchanged for a criminal, for a rioter, a rebel, a murderer and prisoner named Barabbas (Mark 15:7; Luke 23:25). This account carries us to Jerusalem, into the Praetorium – the residence of the Roman procurator. In Roman times the procurator was the governor of a province, fulfilling the role of commander-in-chief and judge. The procurator of the province of Judea at that time was Pontius Pilate.
Here again we have a picture similar to the one in the desert. Crowds of people, before whom stand weak leaders… But there too is the second Person of the Trinity – the incarnate God the Son. And they must choose who is to be killed – the Son of God or a murderer deserving a death sentence? You see, Pilate tried to release Jesus, because he understood that He was innocent, handed over out of envy, and did not deserve death. So he set the people before a choice, because he wanted somehow to get Jesus off – that He should not be killed. And Pilate even tried to predetermine this choice, by setting against the innocent Jesus, the righteous one whom the people accepted as king, a real criminal. But incited and manipulated by the chief priests and elders, the people gathered there again made the wrong choice – they chose Barabbas. They exchanged Jesus for Barabbas. And since Pilate, like Aaron in the previous case, was too soft to act rightly, he allowed this choice to be carried out. In Matthew 27:15-26 we read:
15 Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. 16 At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. 17 So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18 For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him. 19 While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.” 20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed. 21 “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor. “Barabbas,” they answered. 22 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify him!” 23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!” 24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!” 25 All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!” 26 Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. (Matthew 27:15-26)
This was a great mistake, a huge sin. The people exchanged the Deliverer and Savior for a murderer. They laid a curse upon themselves. And the consequences did not delay. In A.D. 70 Jerusalem was besieged by the three legions of Titus, who later became emperor. The negotiations conducted by Josephus Flavius failed, and the city, including the temple, was burned and razed to the ground. The victims number in the hundreds of thousands.
And, sadly, I want to tell you that this exchange – to choose something else over Jesus, so that He is crucified again – is possible today as well. In Hebrews it says that when we sin willfully, when we consciously and deliberately choose to do something against God’s will, which is clearly revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, we crucify Christ a second time. Then we make the same choice, the same substitution – we exchange the Son of God for something else.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance. To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. (Hebrews 6:4-6)
THE EXCHANGED RISEN CHRIST
We are speaking of three exchanges. The first was in the Desert, the second in Jerusalem, and the third is in Laodicea. Sadly, we can say that not only while He was in the flesh, but also after His resurrection and glorification, the Lord Jesus was again – and continues to be – exchanged by some people. In Revelation 3:20 we see the sad picture in which the risen Christ stands at the door of a church and knocks. This third exchange takes us to Laodicea, the chief city of the Roman province of Phrygia, around A.D. 90.
20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. (Revelation 3:20)
This picture is often used for evangelism, but in its context it refers to the church, to believers, to the Laodicean church, which some consider to be the church of the last times. And this picture raises the question: “If the Lord is outside the church, if the Lord is outside the believer, then who is inside?” “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock…” This is a terrible fact – He is outside! And I would like us to examine ourselves and to ask the question: “Is Jesus in us?” Let each one answer personally for himself before God. Because this is not an easy question, and do not be in a hurry to answer it.
14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:14-16)
This is why the Lord has left this church – because it has become lukewarm, and lukewarmness is insipid and disgusting to the Lord. When Jesus says here “I wish you were cold,” He does not mean that He wants the church to be completely unbelieving. “Cold” and “hot” in these verses are metaphors that refer not to faith, not even to emotions, but to deeds, to how useful the church is to its Lord. For Jesus said, “I know your deeds…” To understand these metaphors better, we must know that about 12 km north of Laodicea was Hierapolis, present-day Pamukkale. Hierapolis was famous for its hot springs and baths. And 16 km east of Laodicea was Colossae – known for its good cold water. But the water in Laodicea came by a ten-kilometer aqueduct, which began south of Laodicea. The water collected there was either naturally cooled from hot springs or came from colder springs, but passing from the beginning to the end of this ten-kilometer-long aqueduct it grew warm. So in Laodicea itself, with all its wealth, there was neither hot nor cold water, but only lukewarm. I want to show you that “cold” and “hot” in these verses do not refer to enthusiasm or zeal, but refer to usefulness. Cold water is tasty and pleasant to drink and is useful for quenching thirst. Hot mineral water, on the other hand, is healing and useful for the treatment of arthritis and various other ailments of the body. We know this from experience. Some go to mineral baths, others in the summer put the tap water in the refrigerator to cool it. But lukewarm water – it is insipid to the taste and unpleasant. So here it is a matter of usefulness, and with respect to usefulness – cold water is just as useful as hot (though for different purposes), while lukewarm water is useless.
15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16)
Reading Jesus’ words again in the light of what we know about the water in Laodicea and about its usefulness, they would sound like this: “I know your deeds, that you are useless to Me. I wish you were useful to Me in some way – I wish you were cold or hot – I wish you did some work for Me! But because you are useless – lukewarm – the kind from whom there is no benefit, I would like to be rid of you.” To be a Christian means to be useful to Christ, to please Him in everything – just as hot and cold water are useful and pleasant to us for meeting our respective needs. This church, however, was useful to itself, but not to Christ. It was pleased with itself, did not realize that it had problems. It said of itself, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing”… It felt “great,” felt proud. But it served itself. Its people satisfied their own needs, but they did not serve God. This church was not useful to Christ. It gratified its religious feeling. But did this church fulfill the Great Commission? Did this church make disciples? Did this church send out missionaries? I strongly doubt it. It was not useful to the Lord.
17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. (Revelation 3:17)
You say of yourself, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” This church is self-satisfied, pleased with itself and indifferent to the true questions of faith and discipleship. It does not realize its lukewarmness. On the contrary, it thinks everything is fine. Perhaps it has its own building. Perhaps it has organized itself perfectly. The services are perfect. People even come to the meetings. But something is missing – the fire is missing, the zeal is missing, the “thrill” for God is missing, the spiritual things and the true things that Jesus wants to be done. And the problem is that a church and a person in such a state of cooling and uselessness – they do not feel it.
These brothers and sisters of ours, perhaps like us, had allowed themselves to be too much influenced by the culture and the spirit of the age in which they lived. We must not conform to this world! This is what the apostle Paul says in Romans 12:1-2:
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)
The spirit of compromise and materialism had seeped into the assembly of the Laodiceans and had paralyzed their spiritual life. “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” – whether this referred to material or to spiritual things – we do not know. But since it is hard for us to grasp how a Christian church could boast of its material wealth, we are inclined to accept that the Laodicean church considered itself rich spiritually. It is possible that they regarded their material prosperity as a spiritual blessing and were thus blinded to their true condition.
It is interesting, however, that God’s assessment of the Laodicean church is exactly the opposite of its own assessment. You say of yourself, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But do you know what you really are? Wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. The sin of the church in Laodicea was twofold – not only were they useless to the Lord (lukewarm – neither cold nor hot – of no benefit whatsoever), but they also did not realize this uselessness of theirs to the Lord. They thought they were rich and useful. Jesus told them: “No!”
- You are wretched – because the angels of heaven, who rejoiced at your repentance, now lament over you!
- You are pitiful – because for the sake of the earthly, you have despised the heavenly!
- You are poor – because you no longer have Christ within you!
- You are blind – because you do not see your true condition and your need of true repentance!
- You are naked – because you are all talk and your words are not backed up by your deeds!
THE GOOD COUNSEL
In His mercy, God did not leave this wretched and sick church in the condition it was in. In His love He challenged it to repent and gave it a perfect plan of recovery.
17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. (Revelation 3:17-19)
See, in spite of everything, in spite of the grave condition in which this church found itself, Jesus loved it, it was His church. I want to tell you that us too – Jesus loves us! Even when we go astray, even when we fall away, even when we turn our back on Him, even when we drive Him out, Jesus continues to love us! But there is a short season of grace. And if we do not use this season of grace, then a moment will come in which we ourselves will pronounce our own sentence of being forever cut off and removed from Him. But for this reason He tells us: “Be earnest and repent!” And for this reason He rebukes us. These are the words of the Holy Spirit, these are the words of God’s Word, these are the words of Christ to each one of us. And He desires that we set right our relationship with Him and be on good terms with our God. To be useful, to do His will. For Jesus said:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)
Jesus said, “I know your deeds…” He is interested in our deeds, in our fruit.
And how can this correction happen? The measures which the risen Lord recommends be undertaken correspond exactly to the failings of the Laodiceans.
1. I counsel you to buy from Me “gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich.” You say that you are rich and do not need a thing, but in fact you are wretched, pitiful and poor. So buy from Me the true gold. I believe that the gold spoken of here is the values that only Christ can give us. He said (Matthew 5:3):
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
2. I counsel you to buy from Me “white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness.” You think you are dressed in fine clothes, but in fact you are naked! As it is said in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”: “The Emperor is naked!” You think you are clothed, but in fact you are naked. Your clothes are actually a fantasy – fantastic clothes that do not really exist. What shame! What disgrace! Jesus wants to tell us not to let the devil fool us, not to think that everything is fine with us. But to clothe ourselves with white clothes – these are deeds corresponding to our repentance, so that we are not all talk in our boasting.
3. I counsel you to buy from Me “salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.” In Laodicea they produced special ointments that were famous throughout the world of that time. One of them was called “Phrygian powder” and helped to improve eyesight. But these earthly ointments cannot help the Laodiceans. They need Christ’s salve, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, which helps us to see our spiritual condition as it really is. The Laodiceans thought they were one thing, but in fact they were another. They were not merely deceived about the truth; they were blind – they saw nothing. May the anointing of the Holy Spirit grant us always to see our true condition. May we not be blinded to what we need, but act so as to obtain it.
These three things – the true values of Christ, the deeds corresponding to repentance, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit – would restore the worth of the Laodiceans – their usefulness to the Lord – that they might be cold or hot, but not lukewarm.
As you hear about these three exchanges – the one in the Desert, the one in Jerusalem and the one in Laodicea – perhaps you are inwardly indignant and say to yourself:
- “How could these people exchange their God for idols?!
- How could these people exchange the Son of God for a prisoner and murderer?!
- How could these people exchange the Holy Spirit for the spirit of the age?!”
But think – are you not doing the same in your own life? Are we not doing the same as a church? How useful are we – not only to ourselves, but to the Lord? Let us examine ourselves and let God speak to us in our hearts. So that we may repent and once again have that blessed supper, that blessed communion with our Lord, at which He will sup with us and we with Him!