November 18, 2001

Revelation 3:14-22

Healing for a Church with Clogged Arteries

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – Ann Landers wrote, Mrs. X was stark-naked and just about to step into the shower when the doorbell rang. She hollered, Who is it? He shouted back, It's the blind man. She figured it was safe, so she opened the door. He looked at her in shock and asked, Where do you want me to hang these blinds, lady?
2. Context – Jesus talks about nakedness and hot and cold water in His letter to the church in Laodicea. And while these aren’t topics you would normally associate with a church (unless you’re a trustee and the plumbing’s busted!), they have an awful lot to do with what church is all about. Let’s read Revelation 3:14-22 and see what Jesus means by all this.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Revelation 3:14-22, from The Message – Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the Church. God’s Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God’s Creation, says: I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot – far better to be cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, "I’m rich, I’ve got it made, I need nothing from anyone," oblivious that in fact you’re a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless. Here’s what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that’s been through the refiner’s fire. Then you’ll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You’ve gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see. The people I love, I call to account – prod and correct and guide so that they’ll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God! Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you. Conquerors will sit alongside me at the head table, just as I, having conquered, took the place of honor at the side of my Father. That’s my gift to the conquerors! Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches.
2. This is a very confusing passage in some ways. But Jesus is speaking plainly to the church in Laodicea, and He wants us to understand what He is saying and be changed by His life-giving words.

1. Gross Water

1. You know, until recently I didn’t fully understand the hot/cold thing about the church in Laodicea. In the Faith Lessons video series, Ray Vander Laan clarifies what Jesus says. Near Laodicea up on a mountain was a city called Hierapolis. This city was famous for its natural hot mineral springs, which were reputed to have healing properties. Also near Laodicea in another direction was the city of Colosse, whose Christians Paul wrote one of his letters to. Colosse was located at the foot of snowy peaks and was famous for its refreshingly clear, cold, invigorating water. When Jesus spoke of the church in Laodicea as being neither hot nor cold, He was giving them a very vivid and contrasting word picture. The church in Laodicea wasn’t healing to the world around it like the hot mineral springs and bathing pools at Hierapolis. Likewise, the church in Laodicea wasn’t refreshing and invigorating to the world around it like the cold spring water of Colosse.
2. Jesus went further. He said that the Laodicean Christians were lukewarm. He was painting another vivid word picture for them. You see, the hot mineral springs from Hierapolis and the cold springs from Colosse joined the river that winds through the valley where Laodicea was located. The place where river water was piped from to Laodicea was downstream of this junction. What happens when you mix hot, thick mineral water and cold spring water? You get thick, lukewarm water. That’s what went through the pipe. Laodicea was very well known for having terrible water. People would rather drink just about anything else than the water that was piped down to the city. Likewise, the people of Laodicea would buy into just about anything else than the lukewarm, thick, unpalatable lives the Christians in Laodicea were living. Instead of being healing or invigorating, they were revolting.
3. Jesus then cuts to the heart of the matter – the reason they were so dead. They were rich. Laodicea was a very affluent city. It had an extensive textile industry, extremely prosperous banking establishments, and a medical school that produced a famous eye salve from stuff called Phrygian powder. The city was so wealthy that, when destroyed by an earthquake in the early first century, the citizens refused the emperor’s offer to rebuild the city and paid for the rebuilding project themselves. So when Jesus tells these Christians that they are poor, blind, and naked, He isn’t just telling them that they are no different than the culture around them, He’s attacking the very sources of their pride and self-confidence. He’s saying, "You don’t need this stuff – you need what only I can provide."
4. We tend to think that Jesus is just giving them a swift kick and that it was too late for them to do anything, that Jesus was giving the warning so that future generations of Christians wouldn’t make the same mistake. That’s wrong! He says, "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent." He wouldn’t be talking this way to them if He didn’t love them and if He wasn’t trying to provide the healing for them that they couldn’t provide on their own. His goal was for them to be healed, for their relationship with God to be restored so that they could receive the rewards He provides to conquerors.
5. Illustration – There is a bumper sticker that says, Pride is what we have. Vanity is what others have. Pride is very ugly in God’s sight, and also very likely to keep us from experiencing the healing God has for us. A Montreal newspaper reported this conversation involving an U.S. Navy vessel off the coast of Newfoundland: "Please divert your course 15 degrees to avert a collision." "Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees." "This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again: Divert your course." "No, I say again: Divert YOUR course." "This is an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. We are a large warship. Divert your course at once!" "This is a lighthouse. Your call." Pride not only often makes us look stupid, it keeps us from truly knowing God. Pride got the Laodicean church in serious trouble with God, and it will do the same for us!

1. Damage Control

1. We need to backtrack. An interesting archaeological discovery was made a few years ago. They found a section of the water pipe that led from the river into the city. It was about six inches in diameter on the outside, but something different on the inside. Decades of that tepid, slow-moving, mineral filled water caused that pipe to become coated on the inside. In fact, the pipe was so filled that the six-inch pipe was reduced to about an inch of water flow. That gross and disgusting water plugged up the pipe to the point that it was on the verge of cutting off the life of the city. The only thing that would have helped the city is a new water pipe and a new water source – running the same water through a different pipe would have brought the same result.
2. Just as the water pipes in Laodicea became plugged, so too can our physical hearts become plugged by plaque. Scientists have discovered that some folks genetically have thicker and slower moving blood than most folks. These scientists believe that these people are much more likely to have plaque form in their arteries than others, because the slow, thick blood doesn’t have the ability to clean the arteries as well as normal blood. Once the blockage occurs, there really are only a few options. Medication sometimes will clear the blockage. Balloon angioplasty can force the plaque to be spread out in the arteries and allow more blood to flow. Or bypass surgery may be needed, where veins are taken from the legs to create a way around the blockage into the heart. In the worst cases, so much damage has been done to the heart that a transplant must be done.
3. Very often when we find our spiritual arteries plugged, where we’ve allowed sin or doubt or fear to cut us off from the Source of our spiritual life, we try some of these solutions. When we cut ourselves off from God, we sometimes try to medicate the pain without finding a cure for the symptoms. We’ll try drugs, alcohol, sex, TV, food, money or any number of other worldly tricks to numb the pain. Or we’ll try a spiritual angioplasty, eliminating one form of blockage in an attempt to pacify our hurting souls. Or we’ll try bypass surgery – turning to another form of distraction without dealing with the cause of the blockage. But what we really need is a transplant. We need a new spiritual heart, one only God can give. In Ezekiel 11:19-20, God says, I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. ²⁰ Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. When sin, doubt, or fear makes our spiritual heart plugged-up, stony and unspiritual, we need our God to remove it and replace it with one that hungers and thirsts only after Him. One that is able to listen to His voice and to obey Him, to follow and serve Him and Him alone whole-heartedly. A heart that can love.
4. Do you need that kind of heart, one that only God can give? Have thick, sluggish, death-filled fears, doubts, and sins replaced the free-flowing, life-giving Spirit of God? God can give you a new heart, and He can do it right now! All you have to do is ask Him to do it, and surrender your right to live your life on your terms to Him. Then your heart and your life will both be transformed.
5. Cindy Jacobs, in Possessing the Gates of the Enemy, writes, Sometimes we take a little shower at Calvary rather than let God deeply cut and wash away the hurts with his atoning blood. Oftentimes we are unaware of the extent of the damage to our hearts until we are in difficult situations and our bitterness reveals itself in our words and actions. Unless we let the Holy Spirit shine his light on all the unforgiveness in our lives, our prayers will be tainted by the wounds of our hearts. Altar Call (?)

1. Healing for the Body, Too

1. As theological conservatives, we sometimes make the mistake of placing limitations on what we will allow the Spirit to do in our lives and in our churches. One of these areas where we limit the Spirit is healing. Spiritual healing we sometimes do okay on, but not physical. There are some folks who need physical or emotional healing here today. This is not an afterthought to today’s message, but an integral part of it. There are some areas where God says, like He did with Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you to bear up under this, and I want to develop your character through suffering." This is true in my own life – God uses my arthritis and bad back and limited mobility to mold me into the kind of man He has for me to be. But before I knew this to be true, I prayed hard for years to be healed. God said no to me, but to say that He would say no to everyone who needs healing on that basis is to deny what the Bible teaches. God often has different plans if we just have the faith to believe Him.
2. The Bible outlines several causes for physical and emotional wounds. I’m not going to go into great detail on any of them, but I’m going to make you aware of what they are. The first cause we think of for physical or emotional pain is sin. Sometimes this is the cause, and people just like you need someone to compassionate pray for and with them to be set free from sin and healed physically and emotionally. And often it’s not the sin we’ve committed, but the sin others have inflicted on us. God can heal both. Other physical and emotional illnesses are caused by the effects of sin building up over the generations since Adam and Eve. The cumulative effects of sin cause faulty genetics, and God can heal from these kinds of pain as well. Sometimes physical and emotional pain is caused by demonic oppression – yes, that’s possible even for born-again Christians. God can provide healing and deliverance. Sometimes illnesses are caused by demonic possession, and God can heal and deliver these folks. There are times when God allows people to be stricken so that their healing will bring glory to Himself through their lives. Wrong thinking sometimes causes physical and emotional problems. God can heal our patterns of thinking and feeling.
3. I think you’re getting the point. The God who wants to give you a spiritual heart transplant is the same God who can heal you physically and emotionally. But I’ll never forget one thing I heard Tom Atkins, the main speaker at Summer Conference one year, said during a healing service – faith plays a part. There is really no way to tell what part it plays, because sometimes people with great faith aren’t healed and people with little faith are. God’s will is what matters. I believe the most important thing is to be able to say, "God, I believe that You want to heal me, either now or in eternity. I am going forward now because I have faith that You are going to heal me. I’m asking in faith that You heal me right now. My faith in You is not dependent on whether or not You heal me, but I’m coming forward now believing that You will." Do you understand what I’m saying? God chooses when each person is healed, so we can’t say, "If You don’t heal me I’m ditching You!"
4. Hebrews 11:1 says, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. If you have faith to believe God for healing now, exercise that faith. Take care of the spiritual first! If your spiritual arteries are clogged, come forward in faith and in submission to God and ask for prayer that you will receive a new spiritual heart from God. If that takes care of your need for healing, great! But if you need physical or emotional healing as well, ask for healing prayer for that as well. If your spiritual heart is alive and healthy, but you need physical or emotional healing, come forward in faith and in submission to God and ask for healing prayer. Folks who love you will pray with you. Don’t miss the opportunity to receive life from the heart of our God!

1. Conclusion

1. Once again, if you need God to take out your plugged-up spiritual heart of stone and replace it with a heart pleasing to Him, come forward and pray and be anointed and prayed for. If you need Him to heal you physically or emotionally, come forward and pray and be anointed and prayed for. If you need both, come forward and pray and be anointed and prayed for. God wants to speak to you at your point of need right now.
2. For those who aren’t coming forward, you have two jobs. First, pray that those folks who need to come forward will overcome their fears and come up. Second, pray that the work God wants to do in their hearts and lives will not be hindered by the lies of the enemy of our souls. Pray hard!
3. Let’s pray.