By J.C. Philpot
Preached at Zoar Chapel, Great Alie Street, London, on Lord's Day Evening, August 3, 1846
"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see." Rev. 3:17, 18
These words, I need scarcely remark, are addressed to the church of Laodicea. The seven churches in Asia Minor are thought by some to represent so many distinct phases or appearances of the church from the Lord's ascension to his coming a second time in glory. But, whether it be so or not, one thing is certain, that the messages addressed to them are pregnant with the richest instruction; that they are adapted to the wants and exigencies of the church of God in all time; and that they form a part of the inspired word of truth, of that treasury out of which the Holy Ghost applies promises, precepts, and counsels, as the church of God from time to time needs. Of all these churches, that of Laodicea seems to have been most deeply sunk, to have departed most widely from the right ways of the Lord. But we are not to suppose that the church of Laodicea had drunk in erroneous principles. We have no charge brought against her that she had fallen into error or heresy. She, no doubt, maintained the truth; but how did she maintain it? In form, but not in power; in the letter, but not in the spirit. She had all the requisites of a church, as to external forms; but the life-giving Spirit of God was sadly wanting. Yet, with all her declensions and all her decays, she was doubtless a church of God; for she is addressed as such. The Lord gives counsels, such as he gave her, to those only that are his. But she had departed from the state in which she was when first named in the New Testament, for we have her honourably mentioned about thirty years preceding this time in the Epistle to the Colossians (4:13-16.) Those thirty years had witnessed a great change in her. Many of her gracious members had been taken home; and circumstances had introduced into her communion those who appeared to be, but were not, partakers of the grace of God. Thus, though she maintained all the external appearance of a church of God, the eye of eternal Purity and Omniscience detected in her those symptoms which marked her decay, and probably were the prelude to her utter excision.
In considering these words, we may look:--
I.--At the state of the Laodicean church.
II.--At the good and wise counsel that the Lord gives her.
I.--With respect to the state of the Laodicean church, we may observe that there was her real state, and there was her fancied state. These did not agree. In her own opinion, she was "rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing." But the Lord knew her to be in a very different state, actually and experimentally, from what she thought of herself, and the standing she maintained among her sister churches. He knew, that with all her pretensions, she was really "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Let us, then, take a glance at her fancied state, before we enter more minutely into her real state.
i. What she says of her fancied state, she no doubt uttered in the honesty of her heart. Like a person in a consumption, she was unaware of the malady preying upon her vitals: she sincerely believed she was what she appeared to be. It was the language of sincerity, though it was the language of mistake. She had no eyes to see her spiritual condition, no tender conscience to feel it, no spirit of discernment to be aware of it. When therefore, she said she was "rich, and increased with goods, and had need of nothing," she really believed that things were with her as she professed them to be. But the Lord's eye viewed her far, far differently.
