The Prophetic Meaning of the Letters of Revelation

I received an email from someone who said, Hey, you never finished your series of sermons on the book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3. I thought about it, and I thought, no, actually I didn't. I went through the seven churches, but there is another message attached to that that people usually are very interested in, and that is the viewpoint of Revelation 2 and 3 as a long-term prophecy about the church. When we looked at Revelation 2 and 3 and those seven churches, we looked at it from the viewpoint that those seven churches actually existed, which they did, around 100 AD, and what it was like to live in those churches. Each one had developed differently. Each one had its own set of problems, and we went through those seven churches in seven sermons. We also looked at how those kinds of congregations can form anytime, anyplace, based upon the development of the people in those congregations. I mean, for 2,000 years, congregations have been formed, lasted sometimes for generations, and died. Some of them became like Sardis, where they just went through the motions, didn't care anymore. Others lasted. There are congregations that lasted for hundreds of years and gone through different developments over that time period. So we looked at how those seven churches of that time, they reflect churches throughout history. We also looked at how it's important for us to understand as individuals, because in every one of those churches, not everybody had the same problems mentioned. If you were in Philadelphia, you may not have had a Philadelphia approach. Or if you lived in Ephesus, because there are times where Jesus says to those people, different churches, He says, you know, not everybody here believes this heresy. You hang on to what you have. There are other places where He told people, okay, this church is coming apart. Just keep the good you have, because you're so messed up, it's not going to get fixed.

So you realize that not everybody in any congregation at any given time, even in one of the churches, He says, even in your church, there's some that aren't like this. He says that. So each one of these congregations developed differently. But it also shows us how individuals, you know, in Ephesus, it says they lost their first love. I'm sure there was somebody in Ephesus who hadn't lost their first love. They probably found it a little uncomfortable to be in that congregation. So you have seven specific kinds of churches. You have all of us need to understand that any of us can fall into those seven different kinds of viewpoints or attitudes. And then there's another way of looking at this, and that's the reason at the beginning of those series of sermons, I said all three of these ways have validity to them. There's a depth to the message of Revelation 2 and 3, and that is that just like much of the book of Revelation, there is a prophetic element to Revelation 2 and 3. The prophetic element looks at Revelation 2 and 3 and says these seven types of congregations represent seven different time periods in the history of the church until Christ comes back. And so you can look at times in history and say, wow, this church or this time period was very much like the message to the Ephesians, or this time period was very much like the message to Thyatira or Pergamos. And so you actually have time periods.

Now, it's very difficult to sit down and work out exact dates for those time periods. In fact, it's absolutely impossible. And in the worldwide Church of God, when sermons were given on Revelation 2 and 3, usually they were about the prophetic message. I always go back to what did it mean to the original audience because, wow, what it meant to them was powerful. Plus, remember, the command is all the churches are to read all the messages. Every one of those messages is to be read by everybody. And also, Jesus comes to every one of those churches. He talks about coming to them. But when we look at the concept of a prophetic message and that those seven messages reach out over time in the seven different time periods, that wasn't new to the worldwide Church of God.

In fact, in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that became very popular among certain Protestant denominations. C.I. Scofield and I have a copy of the Bible study. He had a Bible with Bible study notes in it, huge volumes of Bible study notes. And his first edition, which was in 1909, second edition was 1917, he's the one that really made it popular in the Protestant world.

Hey, there's a prophetic message to this. There's seven different time periods. Of course, he looked at those, and the way he divided those up were from his viewpoint. Other Protestants came along and they all, you could get charts from that time period of the seven church eras and what they mean. They would look at Thyatira and say, it's a corrupt church, that's the Catholic church.

And what it's talking about is the Middle Ages when the Catholic church tried to stomp out all other churches, and they would look at it that way. Sabbath keepers very early on began to look at Revelation 2 and 3 in the United States as church eras back into the 1800s again. Before that, you just don't find it taught that much. It's interesting that the Church of God Seventh Day really broke that down. I mean, there's a book that some of you may have heard of years ago.

It was a very popular book. Historically, it had some problems to it, but it's A History of the True Religion by Duggar and Dodd, published in 1936. I have a second edition at home. I don't have the 1936 edition. But they looked at these church eras through the viewpoint of the history of Sabbath keepers. Although it's very interesting, it wasn't a whole lot different in terms of time frame as what was being taught by Protestants. I mean, everybody looked at the Middle Ages and said, that's Thyatira because they're trying to stamp out all other churches because they're so corrupt.

Now, some of you, this is brand new, and I'm not going through it in great detail. Some of you are saying, this means nothing to me. But understand, this has been a teaching of Sabbath-keeping churches for a long time, for 100 years at least, that there are very distinct time periods inside church history that goes back and is to be understood by Revelation 2 and 3.

In the worldwide Church of God, it was looked at that the Ephesus church became an era and that the Ephesus church era was the early church. Now, exact dates become impossible. The Smyrna church was somewhere around 130 to 300. Remember, they were persecuted, and it was between 130 and 300 that Christians were persecuted greatly by the Roman Empire. Then you have from 300 to 1,000 Pergamos. And remember, we went through Pergamos and how they ended up in the seat of Satan that was there in the city that they were in. We went through what that meant to those people who received it.

But of course, it was tied into the fact that a false Christianity formed in terms of a church era. There's Thyatira, which was around 1,000 to 1,400 when Christendom was formed. And that literally, it was believed that Catholicism was the Church of God on the earth. You have this Sardis era, 1400 to the early 1900s, that was seen as the Protestant Reformation. The Philadelphia era was the early 1900s and would go on until Christ returned.

But it would also be in conjunction with Laodicea that would start in there, and the two of those would be the predominant attitudes when Christ returns. Now, there's a number of reasons for all that.

Now, you listen to all that and you think, well, why would anybody come to those conclusions? And first of all, Christ does say He's coming back to those churches. So there has to be some prophetic message to it.

In fact, there's an interesting statement made in Revelation 3. See, I'm not going to go through great proof of eras. I'm just telling you where that idea comes from. The more you get into the proof of eras, the more it becomes impossible to determine exact dates. It's just not possible. There are reasons why those conclusions were put together.

Revelation 3, verse 10. This is to the church at Philadelphia. Now, we read this when we went through the whole church of Philadelphia, what we know about its history, what we know about the city, and what we know about from here what their strengths and weaknesses were as a congregation. It says, because you have kept my command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth.

Now, that has been, once again, wasn't brand new. Say, when Herbert Armstrong started to teach this, this was taught in the Protestant world at the time. In fact, most Protestant commentators to this day will say this has to be talking about Christ's return and the tribulation before that. So that means this church has to be existing at that time. And that's one of the reasons why this whole conversation, this whole interpretation began. This church has to be existing at the time Christ comes back because He promises that they won't go through the day of the Lord. They're not going to be punished like the rest of the world. Now, let's go to the Olivet prophecy. Okay, you went through that quickly. Well, we have, once again, it wasn't my purpose to get up here now and explain all the different ways you could put together church eras. It was to say that that is an interpretation that historically has been part of what we teach and historically not just of us, but of a bigger context. Matthew 24. Because we're going to look at something in the Olivet prophecy, because we're going to come back to the Olivet prophecy that Jesus gave later. Verse 21.

Breaking into the middle of this prophecy, because remember, it goes two entire chapters. Chapter 24 and 25 are all part of the Olivet prophecy. And we spend a lot of time usually in chapter 4 and not enough time in chapter 25. And the reason I say that, chapter 25, is his parables that he uses as prophecies about the church at the end. So Matthew 25 are parables about the church at the end time. So this does tie into Revelation 2 and 3 if those churches stretch out over time. Not the exact same people in the town of Philadelphia today. Although the Church of God Seventh-day claimed that the Philadelphia era of the church started in 1789, I believe it was, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And it's because there was a declaration of religious freedom, and there were Sabbath keepers in Philadelphia. I don't know how many Sabbath keepers were in Philadelphia at the time. I know there were a lot in Rhode Island, but there were Sabbath keepers throughout the 13 colonies. So he says here, verse 21, "...for then there will be great tribulations, such as not been since the beginning of the world, until this time no ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh should be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened." So we have a time of great trial on the entire world. And this time, of course, if you go through the Olivet prophecy, you go through the book of Revelation, is what's called the Day of the Lord. It's after the time of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's when the church is beginning to be persecuted because this beast power has come on the scene. And this beast power takes a great control over the world economy. It doesn't last very long because everybody starts fighting. But there's this time period where that happens. So this ties in with what we look at in Revelation 2 and 3, that Philadelphia, people with this certain attitude are going to be saved from this. Now, this is used by people who believe in the rapture to prove the rapture. We have never looked at it that way because the rapture falls apart pretty easily. But there are promises, and we're not going to go through that today, of people being protected, of people of God being protected through the tribulation. There are other promises that they won't. Some will and some won't. That's just, you know, some people have a work to do. Some people need to be tried in a fire. There's reasons why some people do, some people don't. So this brings us down to, okay, we've got all this information out there, but what does it mean to me? What it really means, and this is what's important, if we can see these church eras, and it's interesting, all the Protestant groups that I've found out that teach about church eras and all the Sabbath-keeping groups that teach about church eras all agree on one thing.

The state of the church before Christ comes back is described to the Laodiceans. They all agree on it. If there's eras and one is the last one, then what is the, in Christ comes back, then what is the state of the church then? The state of the church will predominantly be like Laodicea. Now, not everybody will be that way. I mean, we just read where there are people who have the attitude and the approach that Philadelphia did. Those people are promised that they're going to be protected. We find others, one of the churches, he says he's going to destroy when he comes back. That's right. Now, these are all churches of God. Now, that doesn't mean everybody that was in that church is going to be destroyed, but it does mean that people with that attitude are facing a judgment. So we look at this, we lay it out, we say, okay, the predominant attitude is going to be the attitude of Laodicea. Now, I went through in great detail Laodicea in the last sermon that I gave on this. I want to just go back to part of it. I want to go back to part of it, and then I want to end by going back to the prophecy that Jesus gave on the All of It prophecy about the church. I didn't go through that, of course, when I was going through Laodicea, but I'm going to show you how some of this connects together. So let's go to Revelation 3. So we're going to review now some material we covered, not all of it, but some of it to recap what we looked at. Revelation 3, verse 14. 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. I know your works, that you're neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. Now, what we covered last time was it's interesting that Laodicea had two water supplies that came in. They had no natural water supply for a city. Why not? Because they had no natural water supply one of them came from the mountains and started very cold. One of them literally came from hot springs and was very hot. By the time that water got into the town square, because they would run it into a big area where people could come dip out water, you know, there'd be a big fountain. And then you go to the ruins of Roman cities today, you'll see the big fountain that was in the middle of the town. This water would run there. By the time it got there, the cold water and the hot water had one basic quality the same. It was lukewarm and tasted terrible.

He said, you can't be one or the other. You know, the cold water that came out of the mountains is refreshing. It's good for you. Or you could be the hot water, which was the hot springs where you could go and, you know, sit in the hot springs and get bodily help from that. You don't get anything from this water. That's what's interesting. He says, I'll spew you out of my mouth with something that really meant something to lay the sea, because I imagine people taking water for the first time from the town square, the town fountain would spit it out.

So these two sources come in, but they don't produce anything good. He says, I'd rather be one or the other, not this, not lukewarm.

He says, I will vomit you out of my mouth.

Because you say, now it gets very interesting here because this is, he gives the problem, the core of the problem. The core of the problem is an attitude. Laodicea is not here condemned for the doctrine of Balaam, the doctrine of Nicolae Aetens, like some of the other churches. They are not directly indicted for sexual sins, like some of the other churches. Some of the things the other churches that Christ condemns them for so greatly, they're not condemned for it. Now, they have their own heresies. We have to just find out what they are. But he condemns them for something very interesting. And this is what makes Laodicea such a hard church to get. This would have been a very difficult group of people to get to understand their problem. Because you say, verse 17, I am rich and I become wealthy and I have need of nothing. The main problem was how they saw themselves.

The main problem of Laodicea was how they saw themselves. They saw themselves. Now, they were a rich city, but he doesn't just mean physically rich. Because notice the next statement, and do not know that you're wretched, miserable, blind, and naked. Now, it would be easy to tell anyone in the church that was a Laodicean because they'd just be wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. So all the naked people running around, those must be Laodiceans.

Spiritually, the problem here is they see themselves as something very, very special before God. That's how they see themselves. They are very, very special before God.

Now, it's interesting once again, naked Laodicea was famous for this wool that they made. They had these herds of sheep and they would bring it in and they literally had the factories to make it into clothing. They were famous for that, for the clothing. Blind. There was a hospital there that actually produced an eye salve for certain eye ointments or ailments that was exported all over the Roman Empire. And wealthy. Well, they were a wealthy city. So he takes three things that they're very, very famous for and uses them in a spiritual sense. You have no idea that spiritually you are poor and spiritually you are blind and spiritually you're naked. You don't see that. You see yourself differently.

He says, I counsel you to buy for me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich and white raiments that you may be clothed. White, of course, means righteousness. He says you need to find out what true spiritual wealth is and true spiritual righteousness is. That you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed and anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see. He says you need these things spiritually. You're famous for it physically, but there's something wrong in the way you see yourselves as Christians. He has not condemned them yet for a single heresy.

But he has condemned them for the way they see themselves. He says, As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, therefore be zealous and repent. By hold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come to him and dine with him. And he with me to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. In their self-sufficiency, Jesus Christ is knocking at the door of their church, and they don't even hear it. This is a great warning, and that's why if we're going to talk about church errors, we could go back and try to put in all the little historical little bits and pieces. We could, you know, it's like pieces of a puzzle. It's okay, this was probably this era, and this was probably that era. Nobody can construct it very well. Back if you go far enough, like some of the Adventists, they will claim there are certain groups that were Sabbath keepers back in the early Middle Ages, and you read what they actually taught, and they weren't. But they were anti-Catholic. So basically, everybody was anti-Catholic gets in this list. Well, okay.

But you can find the bits and pieces. But if we have a warning here, not just to the Laodiceans of that day, or not just to us individually, but a warning to the entire church at the end time, that this is going to be the predominant attitude. Now, there's other attitudes, those other churches that are just as scary. I mean, Ephesus is amazing. Ephesus has not one single wrong teaching mentioned. In fact, they're commended for having the truth. They have the truth down pack, but they have lost their love for God and their love for each other. And that's what they are condemned for.

So there's a warning here for all of us all the time. But this is the warning for the church at the end because why? Because this is going to be the predominant attitude at the end if we do see this as a prophetic message. He doesn't say they're dead. You know, the Sardis church was dead. If you remember when I went through the sermon on Sardis, I went through how churches die, the steps of how a church dies. And so it gets to the place they're going through the motions, but it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. You know, I worry about sometimes, are there people that aren't coming to church not because of health issues, but because it's easier to sit at home and watch television, watch the services online while drinking coffee and wearing your pajamas.

Because that's not legitimate. That's how a church dies. Now, health reasons are absolutely legitimate. Health concerns are absolutely legitimate. But because it's easy, but you notice the Laodiceans aren't accused of that. You know, you think of Luke Warmus, oh, I don't care, right? I don't care. I just don't care. Now that's Sardis. What is it about the Laodiceans that God is so angry with them? And all he says here is, you see yourself one way and you don't see yourself the way I see you. What is it? The only way we can know that, we can't really know it from the history of Laodicea, we have nothing outside the Scripture on the Laodicean church. No information about them, just about the city and the area around it. What we do know is we have a letter written to them. If you go to the book of Colossians, the letter Paul writes to Colossae, he says, read this to the Laodiceans. He says it twice. And read Laodiceans' letter to Colossae. Now, God chose not to save the church, the Laodicea, but we actually have one to them. So if we really want to understand the issues inside Laodicea, we just go to Colossians. In other words, the Colossians' churchmates had the same problems. He didn't say, take the letter to Colossians and send it to the Pergamos church. He said, send it to Laodicea. And of course, they weren't that far apart. When we look at Colossians and you read that first chapter, the thing that is the most obvious is that the core message is you don't understand the centrality of Jesus Christ. Do you understand the centrality of Jesus Christ? There was, he had explained how God the Father created all things through Jesus Christ, and therefore Jesus Christ is the Creator. He talks about Jesus Christ as Savior, as Master, and as the Head of the church. So what we have is a problem here in Colossae that we would understand is also the problem in the Holy Spirit. And we have to understand that it is also the problem in Laodicea. As Laodicea is very sure of themselves, in fact, they must have most of the doctrines or many of the doctrines right. We're going to talk about a few that Colossae had wrong that they must have had wrong. They get a lot of things right, but they see themselves as, we got it right. And there's this pride in we got it right.

And in that, there is neither the hotness of healing and God's working through us in that way or there is this cold, refreshing, helpful, caring thing. Neither of those are there. You say, oh, well, then it'd be easy to tell them they must be absolutely lethargic. No. Luke, Luke, Worm, and Lethargy don't necessarily mean the same thing.

They don't necessarily mean the same thing. Not in the context of this, because it's comparing two types of water that is helpful for human beings and one kind that is not. So what is it? They don't understand Jesus Christ as the head of the church. They don't understand what God is doing through Jesus Christ. So there's a lack of understanding in that.

And then let's go to Colossians 2.16. Colossians 2.16. I'm not going to go through this in the way that you've heard it read so many times, and I didn't do this when I did the sermon. But in the sermon, I was talking about the lay of the sea and viewpoint, but I wanted to look at this now in terms of, is this becoming our viewpoint?

That we do this, but it has no real service to God. But it makes us feel real good about ourselves.

We do this. We come to Sabbath services. We do what we're supposed to do, but it has no real service to God. Colossians 2.16 is the famous passage in which many use it to say, you don't have to keep the Sabbath anymore. And usually when we go through this, we show that that's not what it means. What it means is, and especially when you look at the tenses in the Greek, it means that they're judging. A group is judging another group in the church on how they keep the Sabbath, on eating and drinking, on what they should do in terms of the Sabbath or the Holy Days. And this is the way it's always been. I mean, it's very interesting to read in the first or the second century. One of the big things that Christians really judge people over in the second century was how many times a week you fasted. Many churches, Christian churches in the second century, had two days a week set apart just for fasting. And if you didn't fast on those two days, but that's because the Jews had two days a week that they set aside for fasting, and the Christians had to make sure they weren't on the same day because that would mean they're being Jewish. It leads to things like today. Why do Catholics not eat meat on Fridays? That actually goes clear back to that time period. Well, because you eat fish. Why? That's the symbol of Jesus, and Jesus died on a Friday. So in honoring Him, we're not going to eat meat. We're going to show Him, and we're going to suffer for Him. Not eating meat was a way of suffering for Christ. What's it have to do with collagion? Well, let's look at this. In that concept of realizing this isn't saying, don't keep the Sabbath, this is saying there's a problem in the colossi and the way people are seeing themselves and treating each other. So let no one judge you in eating or drinking, which is literally what it means, or regarding a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath, which are a shadow of things that come, but the substance is of Christ. Now, I want you to understand it's in the present tense. They are a shadow of the things that come. If people weren't keeping these, this statement makes no sense.

Don't judge you for something you're not doing.

So the Colossi Church was having an issue because some people were judging on how they did this.

And He says the substance is Christ. We're back to the main problem, a lack of understanding of who Jesus Christ is and a relationship with Jesus Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward. Now we're really going to get into the issues here. Taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding to those things which He has not seen, vainly puffed up in His fleshly mind. So what we have here is condemnation taking place. Now we think, well, man, if you're a little warm, you wouldn't condemn anybody. You wouldn't care. Oh, I don't care. Do whatever you want. No. What we see here is they're neither hot and helping people, maybe even correcting people properly. They're neither cold and loving and caring. And, you know, they're neither that. They simply look at themselves and say, I'm rich and creased with goods and eat nothing, but you have a problem. So let me tell you what your problem is. So they're a little bit... And how do they do that? False humility.

It seems like they're very humble because they seem, in some ways, very obedient. But in other ways, they're not.

Worship of angels. Now we get into a doctrinal issue.

The worship of angels was part of what was going on in Colossae. And since they're told to read this in Laodicea, we must assume also Laodicea. A hierarchy of angels. They may even be getting into the teaching that Jesus was an angel. And the only reason you can sort of come to that conclusion is, why is He defending Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Creator so hard in this letter?

And trutings of those things which He has not seen vainly puffed up in His fleshly mind. Secret knowledge. I understand what you don't understand. And I am rich in a crease of goods and need of nothing. Now the thing is, if someone has that approach, they will be committing sins that they will not see.

How can they see them? They don't need to see them. And so, yes, sin will be part of the whole Laodicean experience because they don't see their own sins. They can see them in others. So I think about the Laodicean, if you walked into the church and said, are you a Laodicean? And He said, well, sure, I live in Laodicea. But in a sense of a modern sense, if someone has a Laodicean approach to life, the one thing they do know, they're not a Laodicean. They can't be. Can't be. Because I'm rich in a crease of goods and need of nothing.

So there's going to be allowances for their sins. Allowances for their sins. Allowances for their sins. He says, and not holding fast to the head from whom all the body nourish and knit together by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God.

He said, you're not holding on to the head of the church, looking for Him for solutions. That's one thing I've learned over the years. I remember my mother telling me years and years ago, my mom would, well, I've told you things she used to tell me that she was a blunt woman, you know. Not with many people, but with me she was.

She told me, you're going to have a great trial later in your life that's going to be horrible for you. I said, what's that? She said, you see what the church is supposed to be, and it's never going to be that.

It's never going to be exactly what it's supposed to be. It never has and never will be. And you're going to spend a lifetime trying to get help the church be what it's supposed to be, loving and caring for each other, having the doctrines right, doing it. And she said, it's never going to happen.

And someday in your life, in the future, you're going to have to come to grips with that.

But you can spend your whole life doing it anyways.

If we see Christ as the head, we will be knit together. If we're not knit together, it's because we don't see Christ as the head. Christ is my head taking me this way. Christ is my head taking me another way. Christ is my head going over here.

But the problem is the church is always going to be messy. We're never going to know how to answer everything. We're going to be dealt new hands all the time that we had never faced before. The Apostle Paul never faced ever. There's things we face, they were never faced with.

And we have to wrestle with it. And we have to have God's Spirit. And we have to keep looking to our Father and to Christ as the head of the church and say, you have to lead us. Or we just run around like all over the place beating each other up.

And he says, therefore, if you died with Christ, he keeps going back. Remember who died for you. Remember how you got where you are. Any knowledge you have that's good knowledge, you didn't make up, I didn't make up, we got it from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ, for the basic principles of the world, why as though living in the world do you subject yourself to regulations? Now we find something else. He can't be talking about regulations in the Bible. He's talking about regulations of the world. Right? So he's not here talking about eating pork. Someone say, he's saying, why do you subject yourself to regulations of the world by not eating pork? It's not a regulation of the world. It's in the Bible.

So he's very specific. Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concern things which perish with the using, according to the commandments and doctrines of men. Now these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

That is asceticism right there. Perfect explanation of asceticism. We have all these physical regulations that can be seen, and these physical regulations show everybody how good we are. How good we are. And so we show that.

And he says, it looks good. It looks good. But in the end, it doesn't change who you are. And Scripture, and receiving God's Spirit, and our relationship with God, our relationship with Jesus Christ the head of the church does what? It changes who we are.

So we can get stricter and stricter and stricter and stricter in what we think are physical things. Right? And there are physical things that are important. I'm not saying all physical things aren't important. They are. But we can make up things. I mean, we can literally make up things. I can think of things throughout the years that have been made up. Now, there are customs that a church can have that we are and can live by. I mean, you think of some of the things in the Bible, off the top of my head, I think of Paul saying, okay, man should not have long hair. And if anybody seems contentious in this, tell them we have no such custom in the church of God. Okay? So we... Okay. Now, exactly how long that is, I don't know. He didn't tell us.

So we've got to figure that out. But understand his point. You know, there are physical things are important and we have to figure out what they are. We have to figure out what they are. So we start to see this is a little complicated, isn't it? The Laodiceans aren't just people that, oh, I don't care. The Laodiceans, if colossing is a message to them, the Laodicean attitude is, oh, I care a lot. In fact, I care so much, I'm special.

And I'm so special that I look at everybody else and say, you're not special.

They're neither hot, they're cold. They...

You know, it's just an approach that says we look down on all the other Christians, all the others in our group and in whatever group. Now, that's a complicated thing right there. But we'll never understand the problem of the Laodiceans unless we read colossi because it's written to them. And it is a very complicated thing. They seem to have a lot of knowledge. They also have false knowledge mixed in with it and can't tell the difference. Now, we all have done that. I mean, I don't know everything in the Bible. And the one thing I've found through life is that every once in a while I have to change something.

I have to look at the Word of God every once in a while and say, oh, that's not what I was thinking. Now, there's a core that I believe we have that's absolutely from God, that core. But every once in a while there's something that's out here in a limb someplace, a twig, and it's like, oh, wow. But I'm thinking, I'm sure glad I didn't say that in my last sermon. Because I'd have to get up the next week and probably say, you know, I shouldn't have said this. But the core is right. But the core is right because God gave it to us.

And we are responsible to God for what He gives us. Now, let's go to Matthew 25. Let's go. I've quickly, you know, I've covered a lot of material.

Why there is a belief that Revelation 2 and 3 isn't just to those people. It's just not about attitudes that are in the church at any given time, which is true. It's not just about congregations that form. And I've been to different congregations over the years that, well, that one's sort of like this, and this one's sort of like Ephesus, or this one's sort of like Philadelphia or whatever.

It also has a prophetic meaning. And that suddenly makes Laodicea very important, because that's the problem with the church at the end, and it is something that Jesus hits very hard. Now, not all Laodiceans are going to lake a fire. You know, Laodiceans are going to have to learn, just like everybody else, to work through the problems in their lives. But it is interesting that He does tell them, I'll spew you out of my mouth. That scares me.

Because you're no longer in the body of Christ.

That's a very stern warning.

So we're back to the Olivet Prophecy, and He talks about the Tribulation, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And then He switches into four parables, and He's talking about the church. So let's go to chapter 25, verse 1. Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now, five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Now, it's interesting. It doesn't say a bride. It says ten virgins. I don't know of any significance to the number ten in here. The point is, there's more than one, because He's breaking us down into individuals. The church is the bride of Christ, but it's made up of a lot of individuals, right? So here, the bridegroom's coming, and there's ten brides? Well, that's basically what it says. There's only one. But what it's saying is individuals here that are coming to meet the bridegroom. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. And while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. Now, remember, this is a parable told inside the Olivet prophecy about the end time. So it's the prophecy about the church. And you can apply this many times, but it's specifically about when Christ comes back, He's the bridegroom. So this is a specific prophecy about the church when Christ comes back. And He says, He talks about these virgins, which is used all the time to mean someone who is right with God, someone who's called by God, someone who has God's Spirit. So these are the people of God, and they have oil, which throughout the scriptures is the symbol of God's Holy Spirit. So they have lamps with oil burning. This is a very easy, you know, some parables get difficult to understand, but we've got oil in a lamp and it's burning. Oil symbol of God's Spirit, virgins, they're all called by God to become part of the bride. And they're there, and they sleep. This is what's really interesting. The whole church goes to sleep.

The whole church goes to sleep.

And at midnight a cry was heard, Behold, the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet Him. Christ is coming, wake up, church! That's the message. And they wake up.

It wasn't like, well, three of them were awake. One of them stayed awake, they'll tell the other ones. No, they all would sleep. It's a proclivity of the church at the end to be spiritually numb, spiritually sleepy. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.

The foolish ones say, We can't do this. We're not prepared. Help us. And the problem is, of course, the oil can only come from God. Help us. We're not prepared. We don't have the strength to face this. We're not ready to do this. But the wise answered, saying, No, lest there should not be enough for us and you, but go rather to those who sell it and buy for yourselves. Now, people have tried to make that statement into a lot of different things.

I believe it's just a nice adding to the story. It supplies a story flow to it. Because only God can give us the oil. I mean, how do you go buy it? You know, give us some of your oil is a cry for help. And the others say, well, I can only, I can't, what can I do for you? I can't give you what I can't give you. Only God can give you that. You're going to have to go be prepared or get prepared in your relationship with God.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with them to the wedding and the door was shut. And afterward, the other virgins came also and said, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Surely I say to you, I do not know you.

You don't belong here. You don't belong here. Now, there's been some that have wondered, maybe the point is, is they didn't have oil. Maybe they really weren't virgins. They just thought they were. You know, you try to read all the depth that this could be, or it could mean, no, they were virgins. They were given oil by God. They were given His Spirit. And in the end, they don't go. That's a frightening statement. That's a frightening statement.

Because you know why? If God gives us His Holy Spirit, that means we'll make it. The only way we don't is we give up His Holy Spirit. Now, as God doesn't fail, we fail. God never fails, and He won't fail you, but we can fail Him. And He says, there are these virgins who are there, and Christ says, I don't know you.

Why are you here? Verse 13, watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. What's the point being made? To fill us with fear? No. It's to remind us how serious this is. What God has given us, and God has called us, and God has made us carry these lamps filled with oil, and God has given us the oil, and God has called us, and when Christ is coming back, He's going to take us there.

And we can't be like walking around saying, well, you know what? I need some oil in my lamp, but that's okay. I spent my oil because I'm special.

I'm rich and accreased with goods and need of nothing, except maybe some of your oil over there, bud. Give me some oil. I've looked at your life, and you don't use it anyway, so can I have some of your oil?

See, I'm not saying this is directly connected to a Laodicean concept or attitude or approach, but when you look at the Laodicean approach, you can look at it and say, oh my.

But they all sleep. Before Christ comes back, the church is going to go to sleep some.

Now, I don't like that. I think we should be pounding on doors and my mom was right.

But it's what it said.

But you and I don't have to be that way. That's the great message of Revelation 2 and 3. We can still be Philadelphians, or we can still be those that were like Smyrna. I don't want to be like Smyrna because they lived in abject poverty and they were persecuted. But you know, that's the only of the seven churches he says nothing bad about. He just says, you are rich. Now, those are the rich ones living in abject poverty and being persecuted. And the only thing Christ says to them, that's those people got it together. Because even to the Philadelphians, he says, be careful that no man takes your crown.

We can get so upset with other people that we lose our crown because of other people, or because of false doctrine that comes from other people, although Philadelphia is never accused of false doctrine. It's other people. And they can lose their crown over.

The foolish virgins are unprepared. There's an old saying, the champions don't become champions in the ring. They're merely recognized. In other words, they trained, and in the ring, they're recognized the champions because they prepared. We are in a time of preparation for the return of Jesus Christ. And you know, I don't know if that's 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, but you and I are preparing for it in a world that's going to become more and more difficult to stay focused, to stay focused on what God's doing in your life.

So let's briefly look at, just summarize then, what's it like to be a lady to see them? They believed in their own spiritual self-sufficiency. They believed they were in need of nothing. They had a form of godliness, but had a weak understanding of God's work through Jesus Christ, as Savior and Master, and as Head of the Church. They were very strict in physical matters, but they didn't see their own inner spiritual state before. God. It was before God that they didn't understand who they were. They seemed very spiritual, as they judged others on issues that aren't biblically spelled out. And they saw themselves as possessors of special secret knowledge that made them superior.

They would seem very good, but they didn't understand who they were. They would seem very good Christians, but they don't produce anything in terms of God, the relationship with God.

According to the Olivet prophecy, the whole church is going to go to sleep. It may already be there. I don't know where we are. People ask me, where are we in the end time? I don't know. I do know the time of sorrows is coming. The time of sorrows is coming, and that's long before the tribulation, or at least sometime before the tribulation. And we could be in that, because it does involve basically the collapse of society. And I don't mean that to be, oh no, gloom and doom. I don't give too many gloom and doom sermons. But we have to realize that reality may happen. It's going to happen sooner or later. It may happen in our lifetimes. That's not a bad thing. I mean, you don't look forward to it, but you know what's going to happen in the end. Right? And I'm going in for a surgery. It's like one in a million something goes wrong. And I prayed about it and prayed about it. And I was anointed. And you know what? God may say, you're the one in a million. Or I may be here in a couple of weeks and not even need these glasses. And all you can do is trust God and move forward. Right? That's all you can do in life. Trust God and move forward. And let God get you through everything.

Let's go to finish with Romans 13. Romans 13. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter when Christ is coming back. We have a problem. If we give a crisis coming back tomorrow sermon every single week, you know what will happen to you, all of you? You'll go to sleep. No one can take living on the edge all the time. Right? Part of the problem in our society today is the constant, oh, COVID's gone. Oh, COVID's going to kill all of you. Right? Oh, the economy's going to collapse. Oh, it's not going to collapse. Oh, nobody wants to work anymore. Oh, you know, there's going to be absolutely no jobs in six months. It's a constant crisis. You know, if every sermon's a constant crisis, you're all going to go to sleep. No one can take that. But every once in a while, we have to say it. Every once in a while, we have to say, we have to be ready for this. We have to be prepared. We can't let ourselves deteriorate into what Jesus said the church would become, that some in the church will not be prepared when He comes back. And that's why, let's end with Romans 13, verse 11. And do this, knowing the time that now is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. It's a whole lot nearer than when I first believed. And if you're 18 years old and you're first believing and Christ doesn't come back for 40 years, you know what you're going to be telling people? It's a whole lot closer than when I first believed, because it's going to happen sometime. And you're called to know that, participate in what God's doing. I can't imagine facing this world with no knowledge of what's going to happen. I mean, I read something the other day, and it was interviewing with young people, and they believe absolutely that none of them will reach 35, because climate change is going to kill every one of them, with tsunamis and drought and eight feet of snow. I mean, and they're just frightened. Now, there is climate change, and sometimes we do mess up our environment as human beings, and it can be pretty bad. Climate change happens all the time, by the way.

I can remember when I was a kid where we'd have winters in Pennsylvania where there was three feet of snow. They even had a winter like that in 20 years. But then people would talk about how, oh yeah, back in 1915, you know, and they'd tell what it was like then. You think, what? What do you mean it was hot? We got three feet of snow. What do you mean it was hot in Pennsylvania in 1915? I love that voice, because I get to use that now, you know. Well, I remember when I was a kid. I'm going to work on that. I'm going to get that into a Sean Connery thing, and I just see it.

Here I am talking about something serious, and I go off on that. Here he goes, verse 12. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. That message is to us every day, every day. That's the same message from God. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. We follow that, and when Jesus Christ returns, He will open the door for us.