[AI translation] Let me announce at the outset that I am going to talk about only the first half of this Word, the other half will be the basic text of the sermon in the afternoon service. As with the other letters, it is good to know something about the city in which the letter is addressed to the congregation. Laodicea was once large and prosperous, founded by King Antiochus II and named after his wife Laodicea. It was perhaps the richest of the seven cities mentioned. Cicero remembers it as the city of the great banks. It was also famous for its pharmaceutical industry, producing face paints, ointments and all kinds of medicinal potions, and its third notable feature was woolen cloth, the textile trade. In this haughty, luxurious city lived the Christian congregation to which John sends the letter we are reading. It is probable that this church was the result of the apostle Paul's missionary work, but from the signs it seems that the apostle could not have found much joy in it. Of the seven churches in Asia Minor, this one is the most profound. In the epistles to the other churches, if there were complaints against the Lord of the Church, there was something to commend him. Here, however, there is only complaint; here there is no praise, only reproach. So let us take a look at what he has to say.He begins with this now very familiar sentence: 'I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot, whether thou be cold or hot. Therefore, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will put you out of my mouth". It is a miserable state of mind that the Scriptures express by the word cold: such is the cold-hearted man, the man with a hard heart, such is the cruel soul, the soul that rebels against God, the denier of the reality of God. But even more miserable than this is the lukewarm state of mind, which is both cold and warm, and therefore neither really cold nor warm. The lukewarm people are therefore the indifferent people: they are not God-deniers, not heathens, but they are worse than if they were. They listen to talk of Christ, the Church, the kingdom of God, as those who are old acquainted with the matter, smile kindly, nod approvingly, inquire courteously, make polite but unmeaning promises, if need be, but never enthusiastic, do nothing, their eyes do not light up at the sound of a costly promise or a great scheme. They remain mature, sober, so-called normal and secretly contemptuous of their fans.
In the face of God and His cause, cold sobriety, wise moderation, the objective middle way, means poverty and death rather than praise: I can only enter into intimate communion with God if I love Him passionately, if I am His admirer, if I am His for life and death! The lukewarm state means either that he has never really warmed up to Jesus, or that the old warmth has gone cold in him. I don't know how lukewarm the Christians were in Laodicea. There are certainly both kinds among us. The kind that has never really warmed up to Jesus. He has felt something warm, he has felt an invisible hand reaching out for him, a great, overwhelming love whipping at his heart, but he always evades it. He admits that God is right, his conscience has been moved, but that is all there is to it. His heart was already struck by the fountain of divine forgiving grace, he had only that one sin to confess, to lay down at the feet of Christ, he had only that one surrender to make, but he never took that last step. And so he slowly sank into a half-way state of lukewarm religiosity. But in lukewarm water, germs do not die, they grow even more. Even the germs of sin, which bring death, become harmless only when, in the fire of God's forgiving grace, you become hot with repentance and the desire to grasp God's grace by faith!
Then lukewarmness can also be a state of a certain cooling process, of having once been warm but no longer being so. Perhaps a conference, a Bible study, a sermon once fanned the flame of his soul, but since then that flame has been losing its light and warmth. Perhaps it was at his wedding or confirmation that he felt the warmth of faith burning through his heart, but since then he has forgotten how to fan that fire, and now only a little ember flickers under the ashes. Or perhaps he finds in his childhood memories some warmth that embellished his childhood, but alas, only that! Today he can no longer be enthusiastic about it. Moreover, there may be those whose father or mother was a man of a spirit infused with faith, whose ancestors have radiated much blessed warmth in the public life of the Church, and whose late descendants are content with as much warmth as the ancestry of the ancestral Reformed family radiates to them. On Reformation Day, it is especially good to remember that it is not enough to ponder the warm memories of a beautiful and glorious past. In a way, it is like running for the baton: the zealous efforts and running of our Reformer forebears are made futile if we who took over the baton from them do not run at full speed, if we lukewarmly represent the cause for which they burned! It is useless to have had the great initial speed 400 years ago if today's Protestant generation lags behind in the great race. The life of the Church is slowly going out among people of lukewarm faith, like the flame of the domestic hearth in a broken family. "Would that you were cold..." says Jesus. Astonishing: even total coldness is better than lukewarmness. It is easier to lead a true pagan to Christ than to shake up an indifferent Christian. Inward indifference is a greater enemy to the church of Christ than outward paganism, because this wound is opening up inside the body of the church and is slowly bleeding the church dry.
Satan's greatest triumph is not when he makes a soul an enemy of God, but when he makes him indifferent and lukewarm. To be lukewarm is to be cold and warm, two opposites meeting. And the result is that they mutually lose their strength. In the lukewarm soul there is something of both love and hatred; of both forgiveness and revenge; of both the desire for purity and the lust for fornication; of both renunciation and selfishness. There is in it, mingled together, prayer and blasphemy, faith and unbelief, thanksgiving and lamentation, warmth and cold. But the cold neutralizes the warmth and the warmth neutralizes the cold. If there are opposites in my soul, if I have something of Christ and something of the Antichrist in me, there is always a spiritual short-circuit, a paralysis. The Word of God always puts one before the question of either-or, that is, before a definite decision - and this can be postponed until one is finally confronted with the final either-or question: the reality of salvation or damnation. The two can no longer be confused, can no longer be reconciled, so that something of salvation and something of damnation are mixed together. Here there is no longer a lukewarm state: either salvation or damnation! There is a terrible verse in the book of Proverbs, "He who is soft in his work is the brother of him who destroys!" (Prov 18:9) lukewarmness is not as harmless as it seems: it destroys, it destroys, it ruins, it ruins. The lukewarm Christian destroys his church and destroys his own salvation!
Jesus says to such a one, "I will take you out of my mouth!" The point of this strange expression is not that Jesus utterly rejects such a church, but how abominable lukewarm spirituality, Christianity, is before the Lord of the church. As the stale water of a lukewarm puddle. It is good for nothing, neither for drinking, because it is not cold enough, nor refreshing, nor for washing, because it is not warm enough, nor cleansing. Even to the notorious Laodicea, He speaks not only with the sternness of the condemning Judge, but with the love of the healing Saviour, even here there is hope! Even now there is redemptive counsel: 'I counsel thee to take from me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the nakedness of thy nakedness may not show, and that thine eyes may be anointed with an eye- healing ointment, that thou mayest see.' See, says Jesus, that you are beggars, blind and naked. And he says this to the congregation in the famous city of bankers, medicine makers and textile merchants.
You need gold tried in the fire, white garments and iris for healing the eyes. Take from me, says Jesus, in the place where money could buy everything except what he offers: it has no price, it is free. The gold tried in the fire, whose price is not quoted in the banks of the big cities but in heaven, is a symbol of living faith, according to the Bible. What we need is renewal in faith according to Jesus' diagnosis, not grey or garish religious sentiments, but a living faith whereby we can live into Christ and Christ can live into our daily lives. So we need garments, the grace of forgiveness of sins, purification to the very core of our being, a change of life, sanctification of our speech, thoughts and actions, so that our body and soul, our conscious and unconscious world, are covered by the merit of Jesus. And for the healing of our eyes, so that we can see! That is, the mysterious power of the word of Truth, the Word of God, to open our eyes, to make us see the other man - brother and sister, the occasions of service, the concrete will of God.
Do we really need this heavenly gold, this heavenly garment, this heavenly Irishman? Jesus gives it freely! "Take from me", he says! Reach out your hand, take it! Don't leave here now without these precious gifts! Take from him a living faith, a purified life, a gospel vision. Take it from Him and take it home with you, into your daily life. It doesn't matter how you came here, with an indifferent heart, lukewarm - what matters is that you leave here not the same way you came, but gifted, empowered and healed!
Thou, O church, thou human soul, unto thee saith the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation, thy Saviour thy Lord, "I counsel thee, that thou mayest receive 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."
Amen
Date: 31 Oct 1954 Reformation.