Laodicea is Rebuked: Part 6

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore, and repent. Revelation 3:19

I am convinced that before we will see Pentecostal results follow our preaching, there will first have to be a Pentecostal work done in us. In 1888, when the message of righteousness by faith came to our church in a strong way, Ellen White said that the work of that message was to lay “the glory of man in the dust” (Testimonies to Ministers, 456). Unless that takes place, unless we can say from the heart, “Not I, but Christ,” He cannot take over completely and finish His work.

It would be wonderful if the Laodicean message had ended with the counsel in verse 18. Unfortunately, there is more. Like the Jews, we have been stiff-necked and rebellious. So the Lord has had to take an additional step. That step is found in verse 19: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.” Ellen White has written: “The testimony of the True Witness has not been half heeded. The solemn testimony upon which the destiny of the church hangs has been lightly esteemed, if not entirely disregarded. This testimony must work deep repentance, and all that truly receive it will obey it and be purified.” (Testimonies for the Church 1:181).

Let”s examine, then, the rebuke the True Witness gives Laodicea. The first thing we notice is how He begins: “As many as I love, I rebuke”” Thank God, He doesn’t rebuke us in anger but out of a deep, loving concern for Laodicea. This has always been true in God”s dealings with his people. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not”” (Hebrews 12:6, 7).

However, some of us have had human fathers who chastened us in anger. They wanted to give vent to their feelings. Sometimes human parents discipline unjustly or excessively or from the wrong motives. God, however, disciplines us “for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.” (verse 10).

In spite of our failures, God loves us. God’s love is unconditional. So the first thing to realize about the rebuke Christ gives Laodicea is that it is based in His unconditional love. His love causes Him to rebuke and chasten us.

A rebuke usually refers to a verbal reproof or correction. For example, Jesus rebuked Peter once, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” (Mark 8:33). He rebuked the eleven disciples for their unbelief (see Mark 16:14). He rebuked those who were criticizing Mary (see John 12:7). Through the prophets, God sent rebukes to His Old Testament people many times. He has also sent rebukes to His church today through Ellen White. In one such rebuke she wrote:

“Oh, for a religious awakening! The angels of God are going from church to church, doing their duty; and Christ is knocking at the door of your hearts for entrance. But the means that God has devised to awaken the church to a sense of their spiritual destitution have not been regarded. The voice of the True Witness has been heard in reproof, but has not been obeyed. Men have chosen to follow their own way instead of God’s way because self was not crucified in them. Thus the light has had but little effect upon the minds and hearts.” (5T: 719-720).

If we still don”t listen even after He has rebuked us verbally, God has to take a further step to correct the problem, a much tougher measure. Those He loves, He first rebukes. But if that is ineffective He says, “I will have to chasten you as well”. The word chasten means “to punish”. This punishment could be physical; it could be economic. It is something that God allows to happen to you for the purpose of correcting or disciplining you. But remember that even His chastening issues from, and is administered in love.

The Babylonian captivity is an example of how God chastens. For years, He tried to get Israel to turn from idolatry, but they would not listen. He rebuked them through prophet after prophet. Finally, as a last resort, God said, “You won’t listen to rebuke, so I will chasten you. I will allow a foreign, pagan government to take you captive.” It was His final resort because Israel would not listen to earlier rebukes. And if we refuse to listen to God, He will chastise us as well. I don”t know what form it might take. It could be a financial collapse; it could be something else that would knock the props from under us. Our whole social system might come under attack. The Babylonian captivity was devastating to the Jews. But remember, God’s chastisements are an evidence of His love and concern. “As many as I love… I rebuke and chasten”. (Revelation 3:19).

Jesus uses the illustration of the vine and its branches to symbolize His relationship to us, and ours to Him (see John 15:1-8). He wants to produce fruit in us and therefore He has to prune the branches. Now, pruning is painful, but it has a beautiful purpose. And God hopes the result is beautiful as well “a rich harvest of fruit in our lives. This disciplining, refining, pruning process is apparent throughout Scripture from beginning to end. God disciplines in love in order to reproduce His love and His righteousness in us.

In the context of Christ’s message to Laodicea, what is the purpose of His rebukes and His chastening” It is that we will repent and be zealous of good works. Notice that the words rebuke and chasten are in the present tense. God will continue to use these methods until they achieve the desired result. It’s interesting that the word John uses for zealous is from the same root as the word hot used earlier in describing the works God wishes Laodicea possessed. God is saying, then: “I want you to get hot in terms of your works by repenting and becoming zealous.”

The word repent means simply “a change of mind”. That”s what the Greek word means “a change of mind or direction. It”s a U-turn. When God asks us to repent, He’s saying, “I want you to make a U-turn from being self-centered to being God-centered, from depending on self to depending on Me.”

Remember the conflict between our evaluation of our own spiritual condition and Christ”s evaluation of us. Because works of the law have deceived us, we think that we are “rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” But Christ assures us that we are “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). Here are two conflicting opinions ” ours and Christ’s. To repent means to give up our opinion of ourselves and to accept Christ”s opinion of us. If we don”t do this, we will have to learn the hard way, as Peter did, that Christ is right and we are wrong.

At the Passover feast, when Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper, Peter had to learn through chastisement that Jesus knew him better than he knew himself. After supper, Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” (Luke 22:31, 32). In the Middle East, farmers sifted wheat by placing the threshed grain on a flat tray of woven grass. Then they threw the contents into the air; the wind would blow away the lighter chaff while the grain would fall back onto the tray. “Pay attention, Peter,” Jesus warned, “Satan wants to treat you like chaff and blow you away, to separate you from Me.”

Satan was trying to destroy Peter’s faith. That is always his plan.

When he discourages us, when he makes life difficult for us, he always has a single objective: to destroy our faith. Notice Peter’s response to Jesus’ warning. “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.” (verse 33).

Peter was so sure that Jesus was wrong. “What on earth are You talking about, Lord” I fail You” My faith fail” You”re mistaken, Lord. I don”t need Your prayers. I’ll never fail”

Did Peter fail, or didn’t he” He certainly did. Just as Jesus had predicted, Peter denied Him three times and with cursing and swearing. In Jewish thinking, to deny God with cursing was to commit the unpardonable sin. God could not forgive such a person, for he had reached the point of no return. So when Peter cursed and denied the Lord, he no doubt felt that there was no hope for him.

But did Jesus abandon Peter because of his sin and his spiritual arrogance” No. Even though Peter failed Him, Jesus didn”t forsake him. After the resurrection, before Jesus saw Peter, even before He had appeared to any of the disciples, the angel at the tomb told Mary, “Go your way, tell His (Jesus”) disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him” (Mark 16:7). If Mary had told Jesus” friends, “The angel said that Jesus will appear to the disciples,” Peter would have thought, That doesn”t include me; I”ve denied him, and there is no hope for me. But Jesus wanted Peter to know that he was specifically included, that he was still a disciple, even though he had failed so miserably.

Peter had to learn the hard way to trust Jesus and distrust self. Peter had failed his Lord and denied Him three times. But now he was broken. His spiritual arrogance was gone. He had repented. When they met later on the seashore after the resurrection, Jesus didn”t say, “I told you so, Peter; now you must suffer.” Instead, He forgave him and reinstated him. It’s true that He put Peter through an embarrassing, bitter experience in order to chasten him. Twice, Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love (agape) Me”” And Peter replied twice, “You know that I love (philos) You” (see John 21:15). There is a play on words in these verses that doesn”t come across in English.

Jesus was asking , “Peter, do you love Me unconditionally””

And Peter responded, “Lord, You know that I love You”, but he used the word that means fluctuating, unreliable, human love. In other words, Peter was saying, “Lord, You know all along how frail and unreliable my love is. I didn’t believe You, but now I admit you were right, and I was wrong. I repent.”

Then the third time, Jesus switched to philos and said, “Peter, do you love (philos) Me”” In other words, “Is this the only kind of love you have for Me, Peter” This unreliable, human kind of love””

Peter was hurt. He said, “Lord, You know everything. You know that I love (philos) You. That’s all the love I’m capable of in myself.” And Jesus was not discouraged by Peter’s response. He said in effect, “Now that you are converted, I can use you. Feed My sheep; feed My lambs.”

God cannot fully use us until we have lost confidence in self. When God’s people put self aside and make room for the Holy Spirit to take over, the work will be finished. That is what God is looking for. We need to repent. We need to repent of our pride ” whether it’s individual pride or denominational pride. We need to admit that we have failed God. God says to us, just as Paul told the Jews, “You claim to know the truth: You claim to understand what is right and what is wrong from God”s law, but you have blasphemed the name of God in the eyes of the world” (see Romans 2:17-24).

Christ has a negative opinion of our spiritual achievements. He is saying, “I want you to repent. I want you to give up your
opinions about yourself. I want you to take your righteousness and lay it in the dust. Accept My white clothing ” My righteousness. Accept the eye salve that will enable you to see clearly.” Are we willing to say, “God, You are right. We have failed to reveal Your character of love to the world”” Are we willing to repent”

Ellen White challenges us:

“The Lord calls for a renewal of the straight testimony borne in years past. He calls for a renewal of spiritual life. The spiritual energies of His people have long been torpid, but there is to be a resurrection from apparent death. By prayer and confession of sin we must clear the King”s highway. When we do this, the power of the Spirit will come to us. We need the Pentecostal energy. This will come, for the Lord has promised to send His Spirit as the all-conquering power.” (Gospel Workers, 307, 308)

Not just Peter, but each of the disciples at the Lord’s Supper were full of confidence in themselves. Each of them disagreed with Christ when He said, “All of you will forsake Me.” They were full of self, and as a result they were always jealous of one another. Even at the Lord”s Supper they were competing to be the greatest in the kingdom (see Luke 22). They each wanted to be the prime minister or the finance minister. Their focus was egocentric.

We have a similar situation in the church whenever we have an election. We join factions, and those who are close friends of a particular person will say, “When you get into power, I hope you will give me a high position.” The disciples had this mentality. Then came the cross, and their hopes were dashed to pieces. They said, “We thought He was the One who was going to restore the kingdom and establish it. But now He is dead.” They were downcast, and their faith had failed.

But forty days later, these same disciples were of one heart and mind in the upper room. Self had been crucified, they had experienced deep repentance. The cross had done its work in their lives, turning them from self to Jesus. We need this same experience. Self must be crucified. It is painful, but God demands it. When we say in deep repentance, “God, I admit that in me there is nothing good. I admit that in my human nature I am capable of any sin, no matter how gross. Cleanse me. Change my heart and my life” ” when we have this experience then we will understand what the disciples felt at Pentecost. All who belong to Christ, says Paul, have crucified the flesh with its desires and passions (see Galatians 5:24).

When I see what Hitler did to the Jews or what Idi Amin did to his own people in Uganda and realize that my sinful human nature is no different from theirs, then I must acknowledge that given the right set of circumstances, I am capable of doing just what these men did. We look at the Holocaust and say, “How could the Germans do that”” They could practice these atrocities because they turned their backs on God. When Hitler repudiated God, then unrighteousness came naturally. And when this world turns its back on God, we will find that we are capable of doing exactly what Hitler did. In fact, we are doing it now to a certain degree. When we condone abortion on demand and kill millions of unwanted babies each year, are we really different from those who killed some six million Jews in Nazi Germany”

It”s crucial that we repent as the True Witness calls on us to do. We should pray that God will not have to chastise us anymore. We need to surrender to His testimony and admit that we are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. We need to admit that He is right and that our only hope is to accept the heavenly merchandise through deep, heartfelt repentance. Only then can we be filled with his Spirit and power. Then we will turn the world upside down, as the early disciples did.

During her lifetime, Ellen White pleaded for and hoped to see this repentance, but did not. Notice these two statements:

“The message to Laodicea has not accomplished that zealous repentance among God’s people which I expected to see, and my perplexity of mind has been great” 1T:185.

“The same disobedience and failure that were seen in the Jewish church have characterized in a greater degree the people who have had this great light from heaven in the last messages of warning. Shall we, like them, squander our opportunities and privileges until God shall permit oppression and persecution to come upon us?” 5T:456-457

God doesn”t give up easily, He isn”t through with us yet, He is patient. It is true we have drifted far from God”s blueprint. We have failed to lift up Christ as we should. But God has not forsaken us. He still intends to fill us with His righteousness so that the world can see, “Christ in us, the hope of glory”.

“Eternal interests are at stake; the time of probation is almost over; and Christ, as if loath to lose one single soul, reproves and rebukes, that sin may be discarded.

There is no other time for preparation, for the Laodicean message covers ecclesiastical history, to the very end of time.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent.” Prophetic Waymarks p 492 by Stephen Haskell.

“The token of love ” this, strange as it may seem, is chastisement” If we are without chastisement, we are not sons.” (Hebrews 12:5-8) Daniel and the Revelation p 456 Uriah Smith 1907 edition.
Amen

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