REVISITING CHRIST’S MESSAGE TO TODAY’S EVANGELICALS

Part I: Identifying Revelation 3:14-22 As Christ’s Message To Today’s Evangelicals

(Revelation 3:14-22)

I. Introduction

A. Though all Scripture is God-breathed and equips us unto every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17), it would be important that we heed God’s comments ESPECIALLY to US in OUR era WERE He to have made them!

B. Christ actually DID this in Revelation 3:14-22, and we validate this claim in this introductory lesson:

II. Identifying Revelation 3:14-22 As Christ’s Message To Today’s Evangelicals, Revelation 3:14-22.

A. God has a personal message in the book of Revelation for every believer between John’s era and the rapture:

1. Rev. 1:1, 3 states that Revelation is God’s message to His servants on what will occur in the near term!

2. Since John wrote the book of Revelation over 1900 years ago (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 1785), for the book’s message to be near term for each of God’s servants in Church History, there must be sections of prophetic messages in the book that address each Christian’s ERA in Church History.

B. The Rev. 2-3 churches can be seen as successive eras of Church History (B. K. C., N. T., p. 932; J. Dwight Pentecost, Things To Come, p. 151ff). In our “Thru the Bible Synthesis” series, we identified 7 eras: (1) Rev. 2:1-7 - Ephesus, Apostolic Church (A. D. 33-100); (2) Rev. 2:8-11 - Smyrna, Persecuted Church (64-311); (3) Rev. 2:12-17 - Pergamum, Compromising Church (300-800); (4) Rev. 2:18-29 – Thyatira, Catholic Church (800-1517); (5) Rev. 3:1-6 - Sardis, Reformation Church (1517-1890); (6) Rev. 3:7-13 - Philadelphia, Fundamentalism (1890-1950); (7) Rev. 3:14-22 - Laodicea, Current Evangelicalism (1950-Rapture).

C. In support of this view, (1) each Rev. 2-3 message starts with the Greek words Tade legei, and they appear elsewhere in the N. T. only in Acts 21:11 to announce a prophecy of a near term event (U. B. S. Grk. N. T., p. 844; Analyt. Grk. Lex., p. 396; Moult. & Ged., A Con. of the Grk. Test., p. 683). (2) Tade, a demonstrative pronoun, stresses that the message it introduces applies to that church versus the other 6 (A. T. Robertson, A Gram. of the Grk. N. T., 1934, p. 289f), so one such church depicts the era of each believer in Church History.

(3) The phrase “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear” in each Rev. 2-3 message, according to Matthew 13:9-17, signals that each message is in parable form to be Biblically clarified by and for God’s servants. (4) The first 3 churches have this phrase before the phrase of a promise of reward for overcoming where the last 4 churches have the phrase after the promise phrase, revealing that though the first three eras are fulfilled as prophesied, their messages are also applicable for reward for Third World believers at later dates! (5) Thus, using these guidelines, we detected the 7 eras listed in “II, B” above in our “Thru the Bible Synthesis.”

D. In viewing Rev. 3:7-13 in that series, we found that God punished the old Roman Empire peoples for heeding 20^th century Liberal Theology’s use of uniformitarian evolution to deny the divine inspiration of Scripture and the truth of the 2 Peter 3:4-10 prediction by Fundamentalists that uniformitarian evolution was false, and that the universe would pass away with fervent heat. God allowed the explosions of two atom bombs to end WWII publicly to vindicate Fundamentalism’s theological accuracy and to validate the truthfulness of 2 Peter 3:4-10!

E. Then, about 1950, “new evangelicals” tried to boost outreach by abandoning Fundamentalism’s separation from the world by asserting a presumed more marketable Reformed Theology posture before the lost world and by interacting intellectually with unsaved scholars. (Armstrong, The Coming Evangelical Crisis, p. 29-31)

F. The result of this effort has been an unedifying advance of the old Calvinist-Arminian divide, Ibid., p. 32-33:

1. Arminian Charismatics reacted to Augustinian-Calvinist predestination in the push for Reformed Theology by stressing false experience (Quebedeaux, The New Charismatics, p. 30-31; Ibid., Armstrong, p. 179)

2. A preoccupation with pagan philosophy by “New Arminian” evangelicals in their interacting with unsaved intellectuals led them to react to Calvinism like old Liberal theologians, creating deep error, Ibid., p. 33f.

G. Thus, Christ’s Rev. 3:15-16 complaint that the Laodiceans were neither the desired “cold” nor the desired “hot” water fits this twofold classification of today’s evangelicals who live after the Fundamentalist era:

1. Laodicea piped cold water from Colossae and hot water from Heliopolis by conduits laid overland, but their exposure to the world’s climate left both pipes yielding lukewarm water. (New Bib. Dict., p. 717)

2. Similarly, Calvinists push doctrine (“cold” water) and Arminians experience (“hot” water), but Christ exposes both theologies and their effects on life and ministry as being corrupted by worldly pagan error!

Lesson: Christ’s words to the Revelation 3:14-22 Laodiceans is His message to each of us believers in our era!

Application: May we all heed Christ’s message in Revelation 3:14-22 for our lives and ministries for His blessing!