[AI translation] I have read only an excerpt from the letter that the head of the churches, Jesus Christ, wrote to the church in Laodicea and to his overseer. In the same letter, there are more familiar details, such as the words "neither cold nor hot", "I will spit out of my mouth", and "I will stand at the door and knock". All of these details will be discussed later in the day, because the theme for our youth silence today is the Laodicean letter. In the programme for this service of the day, for this particular service, these two verses of the whole letter are the only ones that I have read. It is difficult, of course, to discuss these two verses separately, out of context, but let us try... Jesus Christ is speaking here of the most insidious disease of Christian church life and its cure. Perhaps this disease is lurking among us, even ravaging us, and perhaps we need this healing? Let us take a closer look!What kind of people is this Word talking about? People who say or think to themselves: 'I am rich and I have become rich and I need nothing! So: it is not a complaint against them that those people have renounced their Christian faith and gone back to the old pagan idolatry. Nor that they have sunk back into some kind of corporate sin or immorality. Nor that they have denied any of the great truths of Christianity. It's not that they don't believe, for example, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body - no! They are not bad people - but what is wrong with them? It's that they are self-satisfied. "I'm rich, I don't need anything" - that's what they feel! They're fed up, they don't want more, they don't want better, they don't want to move on. Well, is that so abominable in the eyes of Jesus, is that so insidious a disease of the Christian church? Yes. It is also very hateful and very bad in the world, when a scientist, for example, says: Now I know everything, I don't need to study any more. Such a person, no matter how much he has learned, will soon be so far behind that he will be almost uneducated among the other true scholars. Or if a violinist, for example, were to say: I don't need any further study, I have reached the highest level, I know everything! Such a person would fail miserably at his very first concert! I don't believe that there is anyone, whether a scientist or an artist, who would dare to say seriously: I don't need anything any more. It is only in our relationship with God, only in our knowledge of the things of God, that we very quickly reach a state where we no longer desire more, we no longer strive. "I already know enough of the Bible, why should I read it? I have already been confirmed, what more do I need? I go to church, I don't hurt a fly, I say my daily prayers, what more do I need, what more do I need? That's all I need of religion, of prayer, of the Bible, of faith, no more! What for? I am not a priest!" - Somehow I feel this kind of spirit behind the statement, "I am rich, I need nothing".
It's not evil, it's quite a bona fide self-deception - the full man, of course, the man who is full of himself, is convinced that he's all right with God and with other people. Nothing wrong here! (Such self-consciousness: if everybody were as decent a man as I am, there would be nothing wrong in the world.) And indeed there is nothing wrong but not to desire the better, not to strive for progress, for greater moral purity, for deeper faith, for truer love, for a truer following of Christ. Nothing else is wrong! But then it is a great evil! And the greatest of all is that the person does not even know how much trouble he has! That is the danger of this kind of spiritual condition. A friend of mine just found out that he had TB in his lungs a long time ago, he shouldn't have been living the way he was living a long time ago, but he couldn't. He thought he was fine. Now that it's out, he's in a very, very serious condition. Well, that's what it is here. We're talking about a man who is miserable, miserable, but he doesn't know it! A beggar who is poor but doesn't know it, thinks he's rich. A man who is blind but doesn't know it. He thinks he sees! He who is naked but does not know it! For such a man is in terrible peril, but he knows not!
Such a man must first of all be made aware of his trouble, so that he may know the truth! This is what Jesus does: he ruthlessly exposes the problem, he names it. He says, you self-satisfied Christian man, know that you are miserable! Let us say that you are oppressed. Your Christianity is not true Christianity, it is a repressed, oppressed form of Christianity, a caricature of the true. You approve of everything, you nod your head, you make polite promises, for example here at the Lord's table, but you never really get excited, your eyes never sparkle with inner joy, there is no power in your piety, in your prayer, no credibility in your testimony, no fruit in your faith. You are confounded between faith and unbelief, between gratitude and complaint, between purity and fornication, between love and hatred, between the thought of forgiveness and revenge, between resignation and selfishness; you are confounded between Christ and the world - there are no sharp contours to your Christian life, it is not distinctive, it is not recognizable, it is blended with the world! Is this not a miserable, oppressed Christianity? Are you satisfied with that?! Is that what you are happy with?!
Then Jesus continues. Let us say that you have a mortal affliction, a sickness. Why should I be so miserable, what have I done, what great sin, what "mortal" sin do I have? Look: a merchant doesn't have to make a great effort to go broke. It is enough for him to neglect his business for a while, to become a little rude to his customers, to become a little untiring, slovenly, lazy: he will certainly go out of business. Or a farmer: it is not necessary to put particularly harmful plants in his land to spoil it. The land will produce the blight on its own, it is enough for the farmer to tolerate it with his hands folded, it is enough for him not to fight it relentlessly - his farm will inevitably be ruined. Well, then, it is not necessary to commit some great sin, some scandalous wickedness, to damage a man's soul, to destroy his salvation: it is enough to neglect the Word, to neglect prayer, to idly watch the wildness of his soul, to neglect the care of his soul, to struggle against his sins, to long for something more, something better, something deeper, something truer: he will inevitably soon be ruined spiritually, he will be damned! Is Jesus not right when he says: "you are... the wretch"?! Is it not the Christian life that is not a miserable one, that goes on to damnation by mentioning the name of Jesus?!
Brethren! Let not your own hearts deceive you! I am often so concerned that some of you who have been listening to the preaching here for 20 years and still have not faced the question of your own salvation seriously! - Is it not to you that Jesus is now saying: 'Don't you know that you are the wretch who is still deluding yourself, who still thinks that you are all right with God?!
And he relentlessly goes on with this terrible revelation: "You are... the poor!" You're not poor in what you think you are, not in earthly goods, money, wealth... We think we wouldn't be so miserable if we had more money, if we had more of this and that. Well, there is another poverty, much more distressing than material poverty: having nothing, really nothing, to pay your debt to God! If God should one day call you to account, as we all must one day appear at the great reckoning, you will not be able to plead there such and such merits, deeds, sufferings, and there you will no longer be able to conceal your poverty before God! I've seen it happen that someone has lost a fortune or a loved one and then they find out how poor they are. His life was left so miserably empty and poor that he felt he was no longer worth living. Nothing to live for! He had nothing left, no one. That's when he found out how poor he was, he didn't know it before! Without the living Jesus Christ, everyone is poor.
Jesus also says: You are the naked one. Your soul also needs clothes to protect it, to cover it. The naked soul is not only ugly, unbearably ugly, but also exposed to all kinds of infections, temptations, protected by nothing, exposed to all spiritual dangers, like the naked body in the thorny bushes or in the winter frost. Do you not feel that your soul is often cold?! Do you not feel how helpless you are against all temptations? Jesus says: You are the naked one!
And he even says: You are the blind! It is precisely because you cannot see your own wretched, wretched, poor and naked condition, you cannot see the danger, you cannot see into yourself, you do not know yourself, you have never really become aware of who you are, of how abominable you must be in the eyes of Jesus. The rich man in the parable was actually blind, but he could see. He had lived his whole life blind, he could not see the connection between his own wealth and Lazarus' poverty, he could not really see his own situation and his own task, he could not see the wallowing misery of another man, he could not see the meaning of his own life. And when he did see things and connections: it was too late! The rich man in the parable was not an evil man, he did not harm a fly, he was just blind, he was poor, he was naked, he was miserable and wretched. It was basically the most tragic life!
Do you have to be like that?! - No! No, I don't. Look, even now, Jesus comes after such people with the greatest love, he addresses such people. He says to us also, "I counsel thee, that thou take of me gold tried with fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the nakedness of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thine eyes with ointment of healing, that thou mayest see." So he tried gold in the fire. What is this? In any case, it's some timeless and valuable wealth. A value that is of value in the fire, in the trial, in the privation, in the deprivation. What is it? I have already realized, my brothers and sisters, that there is only one such real value, which is worth more than thousands of dollars and all other riches; which really remains in the fire: the friendship of Jesus, the nearness and reality of Jesus, the communion of life with Him. One of our hymns says: "Yet I remain a rich man: God and heaven are mine!" Daniel's three companions in the burning fiery furnace remained such rich lords, so rich lords that even the poor wretched king envied them. If Christ is your Saviour, you can say, You have it all! But what have you, if Christ be not yours? You have nothing! For Christ is Life! And if He is not in you, you are like the damned! You have no real life in you! Therefore, "Take from me gold tried in the fire."
And white raiment for your clothing. This too is a symbol, a symbol of Christ's righteousness, in which He clothes the naked soul as it were in a new celebratory garment. The longitudinal threads of this garment are woven from obedience to God's law, and the crosswise threads from suffering the penalty of sin. It is these two: the obedience and the atonement of Christ that make up what we call: Christ's righteousness, and this he puts on us like a snow-white robe, covering us with it, protecting us with it, adorning us with it. Henceforth, it is not your own sweaty efforts that shine on you, but the beauty of Christ, and you do not need to make an effort to do good, because everything goes almost automatically, the Christian life becomes true, authentic, victorious.
And the eye healer Jesus offers you, anoint your eyes with it so that you may see. It is about the mysterious effect of the Spirit of Christ, the effect that happened at the first Pentecost, under the influence of Peter's sermon, when 3,000 people opened their eyes, cried out and voiced the pain of their awakened conscience: "What shall we do, brothers, men?" (Acts 2,37) Their terrible sins, of which they had been unaware, were now suddenly laid bare before them in all their horror. Then, when the apostle spoke to them again of the forgiveness of sins, of the sacrifice of Jesus, again, as if at the touch of some invisible hand, all 3,000 saw Him crucified. They saw Him as the only Saviour, they believed in Him and became new people. Oh, brothers and sisters, what if this mysterious eye-healing Irishman opened the eyes of many blind people today? Some might be struck down with the knowledge of their sins, others would be happy to grasp in Jesus the new life and happiness they have found!
"Take from me!" says Jesus! Not for money! For free! Just as he says for the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. "Take, eat!" he says here, "Take of me gold tried with fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the nakedness of thy nakedness may not appear; and anoint thine eyes with ointment of healing, that thou mayest see." See how Jesus urges you! He wants each one of us to go home from this service with this gold, with a new garment and with the healing eye-cloth, and to show his partner, his child, his brother or sister at home what precious treasures he has, and to encourage them to come and buy!
"Take from me", says Jesus! Go to Him! But really go to Him, not to one of His servants, not to me. I can't give any of you gold, clothes or medicine like this! I am only an employee whose job is to call you to Jesus. The loving-hearted and glorious Jesus is above me, waiting for you this day, right now, this very moment, to deal with you personally. So go beyond me, beyond us, with courage, and take from the glorious Saviour Himself gold tried in fire, white new clothes and eye- healing scrip, that you may be truly happy!
Amen
Date: 2 March 1958.
Lesson
Lk 16,19-31