To the one who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  Rev. 3:21, 22.
 
    This promise contains something truly special that doesn't become obvious until you have looked at all seven overcomer promises in the seven letters to the churches.  In stairstep progression each church receives more and more promises, perhaps to counter the increasing degeneration seen as one reads through the seven letters.  The first church, Ephesus, has a single promise: the overcomer there will gain the right to eat from the tree of life.
 
    The second church, Smyrna, gets two promises.  Revelation 2:10, 11, offers the overcomer in Smyrna both the crown of life and the assurance that he or she will not be hurt by the second death.
 
    Verse 17 offers the overcomer in Pergamum three things: the hidden manna, the white stone, and a new name, one that will be written on the white stone.
 
    I think you can see where this is going.  The fourth church, Thyatira, has a total of four promises in verses 26-28.  The overcomer in Thyatira receives authority over the nations.  He will rule them with an iron scepter, will dash them in pieces, and will also be given the morning star.
 
    The overcomer in Sardis (Rev. 3:4, 5) walks with Jesus and dresses in white.  Not only that--he or she has assurance that nothing will blot their names out of the book of life.  Instead they will have their names acknowledged both before Jesus' Father and before His angels.
 
    By now it should not surprise us that the sixth church, Philadelphia, receives no less than six promises from Jesus.  According to Revelation 3:10-12 God will protect the overcomers from the hour of trial, they will be pillars in the temple of God, and they will never again leave it.  That makes three.  In addition, God will write His name on them as well as the name of the city of God and Jesus' own new name.  Whatever that last item means, the promises are a total of six.  And if you add up all the promises to the first six churches you get a total of 21 promises, seven times three!
 
    Does that mean Laodicea is going to get seven promises?  No.  It actually has only one.  But it is the promise to end all promises.  In verse 21 the overcomer in Laodicea gets to sit with Jesus on His throne!  That one promise incorporates all the 21 promises received by the other six churches.  If you sit with Jesus on His throne, you have everything!
 
    Just as Laodicea is the most hopeless of the seven churches, it is also the one that gets the best promise.  The church who has nothing receives the promise of everything!  "Where sin abounds grace does much more abound."
 
Lord, in my hour of greatest need, I claim Your greatest promise!

  Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone should hear My voice and open the door I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.  Rev. 3:20.
 
    Jesus presents Himself as standing outside the door into Laodicea, knocking and seeking an invitation to enter.  Philadelphia's door is the door of salvation.  Christ holds it open, and no one can shut it.  But the door here is shut not by Jesus but by Laodicea itself.  It is an allusion to the Song of Solomon.  Note the story behind this imagery.
 
    "I slept but my heart was awake.  Listen!  My lover is knocking:
 
    " 'Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one.  My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.'
 
    " 'I have taken off my robe--must I put it on again?  I have washed my feet--must I soil them again?"
 
    "My lover thrusts his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him.  I arose to open for my lover, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the lock.  I opened for my lover, but my lover had left; he was gone.  My heart sank at his departure.  I looked for him but did not find him.  I called him but he did not answer" (S. of Sol. 5:2-6, NIV).
 
    Solomon's original wife was the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt (1 Kings 3:1, 2).  Though based on a political alliance, a loving marriage seems to have developed.  While in later life Solomon assembled a massive harem, recent research suggests that he was monogomous for the first 20 years (1 Kings 9:9, 10; 11:1-4) (Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: A Theology of Sexuality on the Old Testament).  Affairs of state were such that direct contact between the king and queen may have been quite intermittent, since they lived in different but adjoining palaces (1 Kings 7:7, 8).
 
    The story told in this song may reflect a night when the queen knew Solomon was in town and thinking of her.
 
    The Song of Solomon is the story of a particular woman in Solomon's harem, who may have been his favorite.  She had been hoping he would come for her that night.  After waiting and waiting, she finally gave up and went to sleep.  Then he arrives!  But in her sleepiness she did not jump up and invite him in.  "No, not now.  I don't feel like getting up and putting my robe on again.  My feet might get dirty on the floor."  Finally she has a change of heart and runs to the door and opens it.  The tragedy is that he is already gone.
 
    This is a scary scenario when applied to a church.  Jesus does not force His way in, but allows us to make the choice.  The message here is that the church has no time to lose.  If Laodicea does not act soon, it will be too late.
 
Lord, am I ignoring You?  Am I deaf to Your knocking at my heart?  Draw me to the door of my heart today!  I don't want to delay opening to You.

    As many as I love I reprove and discipline;be earnest, therefore, and repent.  Rev. 3:19.
 
    We live in a world in which counseling and psychology have taught us all to be gentle with other people in recognition of our common suffering.  As a result we see people's misbehavior more as sickness than as sin.  And it is certainly true that all of us have been victimized to some degree.  But the spiritual outcome of this approach can be an unwillingness to hear rebuke, even when it comes from the mouth of Jesus Himself.  Few want to hear from a God who will speak harshly to us.  But the fact is that Jesus confronts those He loves, and He often does so forcefully.  Genuine confrontation can save a lot of heartache.  Let me illustrate.
 
    The lead elements of the German Army crest the hill.  Below them lies the Rhine River, deep with runoff from melting snow.  Even at this distance, the German presence violates the Versailles Treaty of 1918.  Riding in the turret of the lead tank, the commander halts the column and scans into the distance.  The French gun emplacements on the opposing shore remain silent.
 
    The column moves forward slowly, listening for the first sounds of incoming artillery.  The tanks make their way down to the waterfront and deploy without incident.  Unwilling to start a war, the French do nothing.  Only years later, after the end of the war, will the Allies discover Hitler's secret orders for the troops occupying the Rhine Valley on that March morning in 1936.  He told them that at the first sign of French resistance they should beat a hasty retreat.
 
    We'll never know for sure, but perhaps humanity could have averted World War II if the French had resisted that day.  Had Hitler's reputation been damaged, the generals might not have been so cooperative with him.  Millions of lives might have been saved had Hitler discovered in 1936 that other nations would hold him accountable for violating the peace.
 
    Allied leaders feared armed conflict, but they failed to avoid it.  And their inaction likely made if much worse.  Neither the German people nor the leaders of their armed forces were prepared for war at the time.  Resistance would have forced Hitler to back down.  His army at that time was no match for the French alone, much less the combined weight of the Allies.  The prestige he gained--the influence with both the German people and the general military staff--and the knowledge that the Allies were too fearful to confront him gave Hitler the opportunity to increase his armed forces and make several conquests through sheer intimidation.  By the time war did come, Hitler's forces were much stronger, and he was able to initiate hostilities at the time of his choosing.  Postponing confrontation only made the conflict more severe.
 
Lord, thank You for the many times You have confronted me through Your Word and through other people.  I choose to be more receptive in the future.

 As many as I love I reprove and discipline; be earnest, therefore, and repent.  Rev. 3:19.
 
    Christmas is an exciting season for 6-year-olds.  Nicholas was a kindergarten, busily memorizing songs for his school's winter pageant.  A dress rehearsal would take place the morning of the pageant, and parents who had scheduling conflicts that evening got a chance to view the presentation.
 
    Most American public schools have stopped referring to the holiday as "Christmas," so the Christian parents did not expect more than the typical holiday entertainment, songs about the reindeer and Santa Clause, snowflakes and good cheer.  And to no one's surprise, the children were all dressed in fuzzy mittens and red sweaters, with bright knit caps on their heads.  It was a bit surprising, therefore, when Nicholas' class rose up to sing "Christmas Love."
 
    The children in the front row of the class held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song.  As the class would sing "C is for Christmas," a child would hold up the letter C.  Then, "H is for happy," and so on, until the whole group had spelled out the complete message, "Christmas Love."
 
    The performance was going smoothly until everyone began to notice a small, quiet girl in the front row holding the letter M upside down, totally unaware that her letter looked like a W.  The audience of first through sixth graders snickered at her mistake.  But she had no idea that they were laughing at her, so she stood tall, proudly holding her W.
 
    Although the teachers in the audience tried to quiet the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised.  A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen.  In that instant everyone realized the true reason they were there, the reason why anyone was celebrating the holiday in the first place, the real purpose for the festivities.  For when one of the children held high the last letter, the message read loud and clear: Christ was love!
 
    The word "love" is rare in the book of Revelation.  Jesus loves us (Rev. 1:5); the Ephesians have left their first love (Rev. 2:4); and the church at Thyatira shows a lot of love, patience, and service (verse 19).  Jesus loves the church at Philadelphia (Rev. 3:9); the people of God do not love their lives to the point of avoiding death (Rev. 12:11); and those outside the New Jerusalem love falsehood (Rev. 22:15).  So Revelation seems to emphasize reproving and the disciplining more than love.  That makes this text very important, because it shows that while bad things sometimes happen to God's people, a loving hand still guides all things for our ultimate good.
 
Lord, You sprinkle tokens of Your love throughout my life, even though I tend to overlook them.  Open my eyes to see them today.

    I counsel you to buy from Me gold purified in the fire, in order that you might be rich, and white garments, in order that you might be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness might not be revealed, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes, in order that you might see.  Rev. 3:18.
 
    Although the message to the seven churches have universal value, Jesus was certainly addressing a first-century church and its condition through His servant John.  If the present condition of the ancient city of Laodicea is any indication, the church at Laodicea never accepted the counsel it received.
 
    After passing by an ancient water channel, the bus lets you off at the base of Laodicea's tell (or mound), the top of which proves to be a farmer's field.  As you walk through the field you look down and see chips of marble and clay piping scattered throughout the surface soil.  With a sense of awe you realize that a great city lies just below the surface (archaeologists have never seriously excavated Laodicea).  Further on one can see remnants of a public bath and other structures sticking up out of the ground.  Laodicea has been deserted for more than 1,500 years!  In a real sense the church at Laodicea did get spewed out of Jesus' mouth (Rev. 3:16), because it no longer exists.
 
    But in another and deeper sense Laodicea still does survive.  The author of Revelation seems to associate the church with the last-day people of God, who face the final battle of earth's history, Armageddon.  You see, the counsel Jesus offers to Laodicea in our text for today echoes that given to those facing Armageddon (Rev. 16:15).  The two passages have four Greek words in common: "garments," "shame," "nakedness," and the verb for seeing.  No other text in the Bible has this exact same combination of words.
 
    Notice Revelation 16:15: "Behold, I come like a thief!  Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed" (NIV).  The words for clothes and naked are fairly obvious, even in translation.  The words translated "shamefully exposed" represents the two major Greek words for "see" and "shame."  When God makes a call to the final generation of earth's history, He uses the language of Laodicea!  While the city of Laodicea is dead, something of it lingers to the end of time.
 
    So in some sense the message to Laodicea represents the followers of Jesus who experience the last crisis of earth's history.  God summons the final remnant to accept the counsel to Laodicea and to take hold of the true wealth that God offers.  The message to Laodicea is, in a special sense, to us as well.
 
Lord, I need Your garment of righteousness today.  Give me clear vision to discern good from evil in everything that happens to me.

I counsel you to buy from Me gold purified in the fire, in order that you might be rich, and white garments, in order that you might be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness might not be revealed, and eyesalve to anoint your eyes, in order that you might see.  Rev. 3:18.
 
    The gold purified in the fire represents the kind of faith that lasts to the end.  I believe that faith is primarily a gift from God, but we can do some things to increase it.
 
    When I was working on my doctorate, I spent the majority of my waking hours at a small desk in the library.  While the general atmosphere of the library was quiet, sometimes on our little corner vigorous discussions would take place among two or three doctoral students.  During one of those times a colleague shocked me to the core.  He had worked many years as a pastor outside of North America.  He told me that where he came from the number one topic of discussion among ministers was whether or not God exists!  I don't share this to poke fun or vent my horror, but simply to point out that maintaining a living walk with God in the midst of a highly secular technological age is no easy matter.  We live in a time of spiritual crisis.
 
    In the Western world this spiritual crisis particularly afflicts those that grew up in the turmoil of the 1960s.  Many things once handed down as certainties have proved to be questionable as fact.  Some things taught as "God's truth" seem to have been more about keeping certain people in power.  As a result, my generation has felt betrayed and has tended to lay everything open to question.
 
    The advent of computer technology and the internet has fundamentally changed the way people think and reason.  The speed and complexity of life have accelerated rapidly.  Nothing seems stable anymore.  Jobs get downsized the minute your salary becomes comfortable.  Where you live seem subject to chance more than intention.  As a result, extended families find themselves ripped apart.
 
    In these challenging times we need to consciously and intentionally cultivate a relationship with God.  One of the best ways to do so is to talk about it.  Speak about it often and in a wide variety of contexts.  Faith strengthens when we share it.  In the words of Ellen White: "The more you talk of faith, the more faith you will have."  Spend time with people who are full of faith.  Every day remind yourself to accept the gold that Jesus offers and allow the circumstances of life to polish that gold into an enduring luster.
 
Lord, in the busyness of the urgent it is so easy to live from hour to hour without reference to You.  I want to keep You at the center of attention today.  Increase my faith.

Because you say, "I am rich and prosperous and I have need of nothing," and have not known that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.  Rev. 3:17.
 
    Have you ever met a person who took better care of the dogs in their life than they did of their children?  The dogs never receive a cross word, never go hungry, and receive every attention known to canines at any hour of the day or night.  No sacrifice seems too great.  A friend of mine observed about one such situation: "I don't believe in reincarnation, but if I did, I would like to come back as one of Pat's dogs!"  Dogs treated in such a way usually feel special and strut around assuming that they are entitled to such treatment.
 
    At the opposite end of the dog spectrum are many animals I have seen in the course of my travels around the world.  In places where the people are downtrodden and poor, dogs often get treated as the lowest of the low.  Listless, underfed, and pitiful, they never wag their tails, and it seems that almost everyone kicks at them in order to add to their misery.  The animals are dirty and shifty-eyed, cowering at the approach of humans.
 
    The Laodiceans are like the pampered dogs.  They assume that their prosperity and ease are rights that they are entitled to.  As a result they have little sense that sin has relegated us all to a deep inner wretchedness that the outward marks of wealth and culture only mask.  Yet the abused and mistreated in this world deeply feel the pitiful condition that the Laodiceans have hidden from themselves.  They can hardly lift up their eyes to look at the face of another, much less pray for healing.
 
    A middle-aged man worked in an office.  Childhood molestations had left him vulnerable to the approach of sexual predators in academy and college.  Although desiring to marry and have a family, he feared intimacy and emotionally ran for cover whenever a single woman tried to engage him in conversation.  People thought he was a bit cold and were usually unwilling to go anywhere near the pain lodged in his heart.  Finally a pastor saw through the guarded façade and invested many hours in a friendship that allowed the secrets to come out and be dealt with.
 
    If we saw people as Jesus does, I think that we would be shocked by the miserable lives most live.  Seldom nourished by the Word of God or the gentle touch of others, their spiritual lives are listless, and in the quiet moments of the night they indeed see themselves as miserable, poor, blind, and naked.  If we have been touched and transformed by the grace of God, then we are called to go forth and be God's gentle healers of broken people.  Would that life's Laodiceans were as aware of their own need.
 
Lord, open my eyes to those who are weak, whether or not they realize their weakness.

 Because you say, "I am rich and prosperous and I have need of nothing," and have not known that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.  Rev. 3:17. 
 
    What is wrong with Laodicea?  In a human sense, nothing.  It has achieved what all human beings desire: comfort, ease, the alleviation of all its needs.  But Laodicea is a church, and Jesus Christ has called the church to a life of self-sacrificial service.  The church must leave its comfort zone and take radical risks to share the gospel with those in need.  Our comfort zone, however, can be deceptively hidden even from ourselves.
 
    Bruce Olsen tells of his efforts to take the gospel to the Motilon people in a remote part of South America.  He learned to speak the language, and the people came to accept his presence.  Eventually his closest Motilon friend became a Christian, but otherwise he had little response to his efforts.
 
    One Motilon custom included marathon singing sessions in which, suspended in hammocks high above the ground, they sung out the news that each of them had heard and experienced during the previous days.  During one of these festivals Olson listened as his friend, the first Motilon Christian, sang out the story of Jesus, and the story of his personal conversion.  For 14 hours, while a formerly hostile neighboring chief repeated it word for word, note for note, the gospel rang out through the jungle night.
 
    Although a positive development, the missionary himself was uncomfortable with what happened.  "It seemed so heathen," he wrote.  "The music, chanted in a strange minor key, sounded like witch music.  It seemed to degrade the gospel.  Yet when I looked back at the people around me and at the chief, swinging in his hammock, I could see they were listening as though their lives depended upon it.  Bobby was giving them spiritual truth through the song."
 
    To the missionary it sounded like witch music.  Motilon music, as well as their language, had previously served false gods.  Yet the missionary would not hesitate to translate the Bible into the Motilon language in spite of its pagan connotations.  The gospel had to come to the Motilon people in a language they could understand.
 
    The same was true of their music.  How could God sing to the Motilon except in a musical language that communicated to them?  Bach chorales and early-American folk hymns would not do the job.  The missionary's Laodicean comfort zone had become an obstacle to the gospel.  When it came to spiritual things he thought his way was the only right one, his favorite Christian music the only appropriate type for transmitting the gospel.  Because he was unable to move past his comfort zone, God bypassed him and sang to the Motilon in their own way.
 
Lord, disturb my comfort zone and use me to connect with some lost person today.

 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either cold or hot.  So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor clod, I am about to vomit you out of My mouth.  Rev. 3:15, 16.
 
    The letter to Laodicea describes the church in terms of lukewarm water.  Hot drinks and cold drinks can both be refreshing.  A cold drink on a hot day really hits the spot.  A hot drink on a clod day warms your toes the way few things can.  But lukewarm water on any kind of day is nauseating to most people.
 
    About six miles from ancient Laodicea was the city of Heirapolis, the Yellowstone Park of the ancient biblical world.  It had geysers, bubbling springs, and extensive terraces of mineral water.  In fact, the terraces stand out visibly anywhere on the site of ancient Laodicea.  The water in Heirapolis was and is hot.  A few miles to the east of Laodicea was Colossae.  There the groundwater was cold.  But Laodicea had no natural source of water.  The city was located where it was because it was the junction between two major roads.  So Laodicea piped its water from the hot springs at Heirapolis, and by the time it reached the city the water was lukewarm.
 
    The first time I visited Heirapolis, now the Turkish resort city of Pamukkale, my family discovered a wonderful illustration of this text at the Hotel Pam.  Behind the hotel is a series of terraced pools that look like hot springs.  A fountain at the top spills hot spring water into the pool.  The water comes out at 56° C (roughly 135° F), and each pool spills over to the level below a little cooler than the previous one.  At the bottom of the terraces is a waterfall that descends into a cool pool complete with stalactites and stalagmites (artificial).  Next to the cool pool is an unheated pool the same temperature as the air.
 
    You walk up and down the terrace, testing the temperature of the water.  When you find the temperature you like, you get in.  Then when you are tired of that level you go higher or lower, depending on your preference.  I noticed that people flocked to the hot water at the top and the cold water pool at he bottom.  Many would go back and forth between the hot and cold.  But nobody chose the middle, the lukewarm pools!  It was just not comfortable or relaxing.
 
    The point Jesus seems to have been making was that the church at Laodicea was unattractive and useless, like the lukewarm parts of the Pam Hotel pool.  The church at Laodicea was satisfied with less than God's best--it was absorbed in mediocrity.  Jesus' response to the church is arresting.  "You make Me want to throw up!"  Previous churches were in deterioration or decline, but this church is really in trouble.
 
Lord, save me from lukewarmness.  May my witness be refreshing to all today.

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea, write: These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Ruler of God's creation.  Rev. 3:14.
 
    Instead of "the Ruler of God's creation," some translations read "the Beginning of God's creation."  Why the big difference?  Because the underlying Greek word (arche--pronounced roughly as ar-kay) is ambiguous.  Jesus is the arche of God's creation.  Arche can indicate "old" or "beginning," as in "archaeology," the study of old things.  But it can also indicate rulership--the first in the kingdom.  Our English word "patriarch" means "rule by the father," and "monarchy" means "rule of one."  So the word arche has a double significance.   
 
    In the Greek Old Testament arche is the first major word in the Bible--"in the beginning [en arche] God created."  So Revelation 3:14 points us to Genesis 1:1.  Jesus comes to Laodicea as the "Ruler of God's creation."  The counterpart of the original ruler of God's creation, Adam (Gen. 1:26-28), He is the "new" Adam or the "second" Adam (Rom. 5:1; 1 Cor. 15).
 
    The biblical creation story describes Adam in terms of three basic relationships: 1. First of all, Adam was in relationship with God.  As the "image of God" (Gen. 1:26, 27) he had great dignity, but his relationship with God was that of a subordinate to a superior.  2. The image of God included both male and female (verse 27).  God created the human race for relationship with others, regardless of gender or ethnic background.  3. The image of God also included dominion over the earth (verses 26, 28).  Adam ruled over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the creatures that move along the ground.
 
    When Jesus came to this earth, He was Adam as Adam was intended to be.  1. He had a perfect relationship with God, obeying everything that God told him to do (John 8:28; 14:28; 15:10).  2. He had a perfect relationship with others, living a life of humble service and self-sacrifice (Mark 10:45; John 13:1-17; Phil 2:5-7).  3. And He had a perfect relationship with the earth and its creatures.  Animals obeyed His commands (John 21:2-11; Matt. 17:24-27; Mark 11:1-7).  The winds and the waves were subject to Him (Matt. 8:26, 27).  In every sense Jesus was Adam as Adam was intended to be.
 
    As the Second Adam, Jesus walked over the ground we all experience.  Like the first Adam, we have a history of failure, dysfunction, and disgrace.  But Jesus can replace my flawed personal history with His own perfect history.  That leaves me to hope that I can be more like the Second Adam and less like the first.
 
Lord, thank You for the new history I have in Jesus Christ.  Today I purpose to live as He lived, not to earn Your favor, but in gratitude for all He has done for me!