Sermon Title: The Lukewarm Church
Sermon Text: Revelation 3:14-22
Sermon Purpose: To call the hearer to avoid the status of lukewarmness, leading to good for nothingness.
Sermon Proposition: There are 4 exhortations given to the Lukewarm Church.

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: 15 "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked - 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. 21 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. 22 "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."’" Revelation 3:14-22 (NKJV)

Introduction:

The Church in Laodicea

The New Testament does not record anything about the founding of the church at Laodicea. Like most of the other six churches, it was likely established during Paul's ministry at Ephesus (Acts 19:10). Paul did not found it, since when he wrote Colossians some years later he still had not visited Laodicea (Col. 2:1). Since Paul's coworker Epaphras founded the church in nearby Colossae (Col. 1:6-7), he may well have founded the Laodicean church as well. Some have suggested that Archippus, Philemon's son (Philem. 2), was its pastor (cf. Col. 4:17), since the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions names Archippus as the bishop of Laodicea (vii, 46).

Laodicea

One of a triad of cities (with Colossae and Hierapolis) in the Lycus valley, about one hundred miles east of Ephesus, Laodicea was the southeasternmost of the seven cities, about forty miles from Philadelphia. Its sister cities were Colossae, about ten miles to the east, and Hierapolis, about six miles to the north. Located on a plateau several hundred feet high, Laodicea was geographically nearly impregnable. Its vulnerability to attack was due to the fact that it had to pipe in its water from several miles away through aqueducts that could easily be blocked or diverted by besieging forces.

Laodicea was founded by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus II and named after his first wife. Since he divorced her in 253 B.C., the city was most likely founded before that date. Though its original settlers were largely from Syria, a significant number of Jews also settled there. A local governor once forbade the Jews from sending the temple tax to Jerusalem. When they attempted to do so in spite of the prohibition, he confiscated the gold they intended for that tax. From the amount of the seized shipment, it has been calculated that 7,500 Jewish men lived in Laodicea; there would have been several thousand more women and children. Even the Talmud spoke scornfully of the life of ease and laxity lived by the Laodicean Jews.

With the coming of the Pax Romana (peace under Rome's rule), Laodicea prospered. It was strategically located at the junction of two important roads: the east-west road leading from Ephesus into the interior, and the north-south road from Pergamum to the Mediterranean Sea. That location made it an important commercial city. That the first century B.C. Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero cashed his letters of credit there reveals Laodicea to have been a strategic banking center. So wealthy did Laodicea become that it paid for its own reconstruction after a devastating earthquake in A.D. 60, rejecting offers of financial aid from Rome.

The city was also famous for the soft, black wool it produced. The wool was made into clothes and woven into carpets, both much sought after. Laodicea was also an important center of ancient medicine. The nearby temple of the Phrygian god Men Karou had an important medical school associated with it. That school was most famous for an eye salve that it had developed, which was exported all over the Greco-Roman world. All three industries, finance, wool, and the production of eye salve, come into play in this letter to the Laodicean church.

Taken from: "The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Revelation 1-11, Moody Press/Chicago, 1999