Did you know that there is a church which makes God sick—so sick that He feels like throwing up? It’s found in the last book of your Bible, and it’s probably the church that many of us belong to.

Revelation 3:14 starts out with, “Unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write.“ Now we are getting into a church that is known for its lukewarmness. Would this be an organic church or a mystical church? These are the two we often speak of. The mystical church, we say, is made up of true, faithful followers of Christ everywhere, regardless of what denomination they belong to. If genuine followers of Christ make up the mystical church, then could the mystical church be lukewarm? No. So, this would have to be the organic church, wouldn’t it?—the organized church. Does God have an organized church?

Yes. That is one major premise to keep in mind as we consider this chapter.

“These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God“ (Revelation 3:14). Who is that? It’s Jesus. In fact, He is really the author of the book of Revelation: “The revelation of Jesus Christ“ (Revelation 1:1). This is His book. Not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John’s. Revelation is the closest thing to being Jesus’ own book that there is in the Bible.

And then begins something that we’re not so familiar with: a rebuking, hard-hitting Saviour. He reaches out and comes on strong on occasion. He did that when He was here in person. He says, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot,“ (Revelation 3:15). So here we come to another interesting fact. God prefers cold to lukewarm. True? It says it. God prefers cold to lukewarm. Why would that possibly be? Do you have any ideas? Have you ever been cold? Then you have a greater chance of looking for some warmth than the one who is lukewarm. At least you know your condition.

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth“ (Revelation 3:16). Lukewarm people make God sick! And they make Him want to throw up. Really, that’s what it’s saying, isn’t it? You make Me sick. “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“ (Revelation 3:17). In these verses (15 to 17) we have the rebuke to Laodicea, the rebuke to lukewarm people. Nail this down in your minds: verses 15 to 17 comprise the rebuke to Laodicea.

In order to have Laodicea you’d have to have a church, an organized church, that was more than half lukewarm people, wouldn’t you? Otherwise it would be called something else. It’s just logical. We say that the United States of America has a democratic government because the majority of the people believe in a democracy. If they believed in something else, it would be called something else. So the majority of the people in Laodicea are lukewarm, which means you would have a lot of lukewarm people around, wouldn’t you? If you had four million church members in Laodicea, you’d have more than two million lukewarm people. And if that’s true, then you could expect lukewarm people to be everywhere. You could expect them in churches, you could expect them in Sabbath Schools, you could expect them in institutions, and even as leaders in the Laodicean church. You could expect many Laodicean preachers. The lukewarmness would permeate all through the system.

Well, what is lukewarm? That’s the next question. Lukewarm is a combination of cold and hot. When you want to get lukewarm water out of the faucet in the kitchen, you turn on equal parts of cold on the right side, and hot on the left side. That’s the way it usually is. This doesn’t help a whole lot because it would be ridiculous for us to imagine church members who were cold on the right side and hot on the left side.

Let the Bible interpret itself. It tells what makes a person lukewarm. In Matthew 23 Jesus is hitting hard against the religious people of His day. He says, You people are a bunch of hypocrites. You scribes and Pharisees are like whited sepulchers. You are like snakes and sons of snakes. That’s what He called them—’You snakes.“ With tears in His voice, He called them snakes. And that gets kind of tricky too. I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t come out right. But Jesus had a way of rebuking people with tears in His voice.

The common denominator all through Matthew 23 is this white sepulcher analogy. People back then were very much acquainted with this illustration. Once a year they’d go out into the tombs, the cemeteries of their day, and they’d take a bucket of whitewash and splash whitewash on the tombs of the prophets that their fathers had killed. It was their version of Memorial Day. After splashing some whitewash, they’d put a few flowers around, and say, “My, wasn’t it terrible what they did to these prophets?“ They could cry a little bit, splash some more whitewash on the tombs, and say, “Isn’t it awful what our fathers did to these wonderful prophets?“ And they would cry and carry on some more, until finally their whitewash buckets were empty. And the tombs looked pretty good for another year.

Then they went back to Jerusalem and planned the crucifixion. Isn’t that the way it was? They were tithe payers, Sabbath keepers, and health reformers. They wouldn’t even think of eating a gnat that fell in their soup, and they were great on family worship. In fact, they were anxious to get back from the crucifixion in time for sundown worship!

But Jesus said to them, You people are just like the sepulchers you whitewash every year. You look good on the outside, but inside you are full of dead men’s bones. That sounds like rotten—rotten on the inside, but you look good on the outside. Well, let’s substitute the words from Revelation 3. They were hot on the outside but cold on the inside. So, where do we get the combination of hot and cold? By the Bible’s own illustration. A lukewarm person is cold on the inside, but he goes through the right motions so he looks hot on the outside. The lukewarm person does all the right things for all the wrong reasons. The Laodicean person—the lukewarm person that Jesus rebuked, who makes Him sick—is religious, but he’s not spiritual. He’s gone through the motions, beating a hard path between his house and the church door, but he doesn’t know the Lord.

The lukewarm person knows the rules, but he doesn’t know the Saviour. You can’t call him antireligious or unreligious. He may be very religious. He may be very interested in holding high standards. But he doesn’t have the heart religion that counts. This is what Jesus revealed the last church would be like up until shortly before He comes. And He revealed it centuries ago. Isn’t that interesting? God isn’t taken off guard by the condition of the organic church before Jesus comes. He knew it all along.

Unfortunately, here is where some of the graybeards get excited. They say, “Look, we need to get after the people in the church for all their sins and really level with them on these rebukes. We can let them know how wretched they are—how miserable, poor, blind, and naked they are, by rebuking them for their sins. Just let them have it. Preach the straight testimony. Give them the standards question, and give them the meat question. Let them have it. Cry between the porch and the altar, and spare not. Then we will bring on the latter rain and the loud cry and finish God’s work. We’ve got to get these people off their Laodicean seats.“ And so for years we’ve had those who worked on the rebuke to Laodicea.

Up in the Northwest, they had a reform campaign going. Everybody was supposed to become a vegetarian. The “revival“ went along OK until one day someone found a salmon in the local elder’s deep freeze, and that was the end of that revival. I guess he’d sneaked it in when nobody was looking. Back East I remember someone was going to start a reform and get Laodicea warmed up by having everyone put on the right clothes and take off their hatpins and everything else questionable. This would bring on the “revival.“ Instead it made petty judges and spies out of people.

I remember during my first year in the ministry, a godly man was going around even making altar calls on the basis of getting people to take off their tie clasps and their watch- bands. I wanted to do the right thing, so I took off my tie clasp. Then I got tired of my tie going in the soup. So one day I got a bobby pin and put it on for a tie clasp. It made a good tie clasp. Then people began noticing my bobby pin. They’d say, ‘What’s that?“

‘Well, that’s a bobby pin.“

“And why do you have that on?“

“Because I don’t believe in wearing tie clasps. I’m holding up the standards. I’m bringing on a revival.“ And I discovered that “the last state of this man was worse than the first.“ I had become proud of my bobby pin!

Now don’t get me wrong. Back when I was growing up, we wouldn’t have known what to do with a piece of meat if it had been given to us. I grew up in a very conservative environment, and I have a lot of respect for my godly parents. I’m not campaigning to lower anything. But it just so happens that the revival and reformation and getting Laodicea out of the lukewarm state never happen that way. Never. That’s simply adding more of the same to Laodicea. Too often those who “cry aloud and spare not“ are talking about externals. The work must always begin in the heart and work from there to the outside. That’s why Jesus is right when He says in the next verses, “I counsel thee… .“ There it is, in verse 18—Jesus’ counsel. “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.“

The gold is faith and love. That’s what lukewarm people need. And what’s the white raiment? The righteousness of Christ. And what’s the eyesalve? The Holy Spirit, which brings discernment and understanding concerning our need.

So if you were to paraphrase God’s counsel to Laodicea, it would look something like this: You need the righteousness of Christ, through faith, and love brought into your heart by the Holy Spirit. That’s what lukewarm people need. And that’s the counsel to Laodicea. First of all, He tells us what’s wrong with us, and then He says, Here’s the counsel. Isn’t it wonderful that God loves us so much He never gets after us or rebukes us without bringing along an answer? He doesn’t wound without bringing oil and wine to pour into the wound. He doesn’t cut or hurt without having something to heal that cut or hurt. And He never allows us to fall without reaching down to pick us up. That’s why He gives us His counsel.

There’s something else very fascinating, particularly today. All of us know that there will be no such thing as a lukewarm person when Jesus comes again. Up until shortly before He comes, you have this description of three classes of people: hot, cold, and lukewarm. But when He comes, you have only hot or cold, and there are other names for them: the righteous and the wicked, the wheat and the tares, the wise and the foolish, and on and on it goes. There are only two when He comes, but there are three until shortly before He comes. So what happens with the third group before Jesus comes? What happens to lukewarm people? Where do they go? They become either hot or cold. They don’t stay where they are.

The next practical question is, What makes them go one way or the other? That’s even more intriguing. I’d like to propose that there will come a time in this world’s history when Jesus will wait no longer, in spite of what some people may say. Often we say that Jesus is giving us the opportunity to hasten His coming. Have you ever heard that? But, when you use the words, “hasten His coming,“ what are you suggesting? What do we understand by that phrase?

Suppose I quit preaching at 12:15, and everybody knows we’re supposed to quit at 12:00, not 12:15. I had the privilege of “hastening“ the close, of making it happen before 12:15. Otherwise I wouldn’t use the word hasten to refer to the time I quit my sermon. You don’t use the word hasten unless there is a point beyond which I will preach no longer.

I believe that for many years God’s people have had the privilege of hastening His coming. We can be so involved that His coming will come earlier than the point He has already fixed, that we forget there is a point past which Jesus waits no longer. However, I don’t believe it’s based on a timeclock. I believe it’s based on conditions. We avoid getting into time setting, but we do understand conditions. When conditions in world history have reached that final point, then God, by the Holy Spirit, the angels, and the message of Christ’s righteousness that nothing can stop, will cause people to go one way or the other. A great polarization will take place, and all the lukewarm people will disappear. I believe we have signs in the church today that make the sun, moon, and stars look like antiques. I believe Jesus’ coming is right upon us. I don’t have any question about it.

I’d like to say in the same breath that I am also among those who are sick and tired of this mentality that’s been around since gunpowder was invented, that He’s coming tomorrow. Do you know what I mean? The stock market goes down a few notches, and “Oh, this is it! This is it! Christ is coming tomorrow!“ The pope comes to visit in Yankee Stadium, “This is it, this is it.“ Hostages … “This is it!“ Everything that happens, “This is it, Christ is coming tomorrow.“ Some of us have gotten tired of that “Wolf, wolf’ syndrome. But when we finally come to some mighty, incontrovertible evidences in the church, among the people, that Jesus’ coming is right upon us, then in spite of our indifference because of the old ‘Wolf, wolf’ syndrome, we can begin to say it—yes, we believe it—that Jesus is coming very soon.

It’s very unlikely that we can call ‘Wolf, wolf’ when there is no wolf any longer. What’s the reason? Because the message of Christ and His righteousness is rising, and nothing is stopping it. Nothing. And the devil’s trying everything he can to stop it. But it’s rising. There are two aspects of this righteousness that are rising—His righteousness for us, and His righteousness in us. Both of them are going to rise, and both of them, in their proper balance and emphasis, will cause people to go one way or the other.

This is what is happening fast today. And as a result the genuine, true, remnant church will develop that which has only been the doctrinal remnant up to this point. I believe in the doctrinal remnant church, and I believe that’s what it has been called properly, if you think of the pure doctrine, the right doctrine. But there is also an experiential remnant church. You must have the right doctrine and the right experience together in order to have the true remnant church. All of us know that you can be a member of the doctrinal remnant church and not be one of the remnant. Isn’t that true? So the real remnant people are those who believe in the remnant doctrine, but they also have the remnant experience of those who are hot, who are getting hotter every day with the love of God and are excited about the things of His kingdom.

Another interesting thing is that just before Jesus comes, many, many backsliders will return, and many good, old-time church members will leave. That will be a painful event—a breathtaking event. Many of the good old-timers will brace their feet and say, “Don’t give me that.“ I’ve had them say it to me—“You young whippersnapper, don’t tell me that all my years of tithe paying and Sabbath keeping aren’t going to guarantee me an entrance into heaven. Don’t tell me that the old text isn’t so, “Blessed are they that DO His commandments, that they may have a RIGHT to the tree of life.’ Don’t give me this.“

I’ve had preachers warn me. Twenty years ago, one preacher told me, “You’re on the right track, young fellow, but you’d better not preach that too loudly, or you’ll get into trouble. And if you’d preached that twenty years ago [forty years ago now], you’d have been out on your ear.“

Some of us have been interested in the message of Jesus and His righteousness for a long time, and the reason we have been interested is that we need it. It’s the “good“ people who never sin, who never fall or fail, who don’t have any problems at all—these are the ones who don’t feel the need of the righteousness of Christ.

One day my boy came to me and said, “Dad, why do you stay with this business of religion? It’s because it’s your job, isn’t it?“ I thought about that for a while, and the Lord gave me an answer. The reason I stay with this business of God, faith, Bible, and religion is the ‘love that will not let me go.“ I’ve tried to get out. I’ve tried to get out a number of times, but He won’t let me. Several years ago there was nothing I wanted more than to get out of the ministry, but Jesus wouldn’t let me go, because He knew that I’d give up the rest of it too. And I’m thankful that He does not let us go.

Now, as we come to the very close of this chapter, Jesus says, Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him—eat with him, and fellowship with him. That’s what He wants. Communion, fellowship, contact with you and me. That’s the way this story ends. “Behold I stand at the door and knock.“ But when Jesus knocks at the door, I don’t want to be down in the basement playing with my ham radio.

I like ham radio. I can remember when I studied for my “ham“ license. I’d passed my test with the Federal Communications Commission, but I had to wait six weeks for my license to come so I could go on the air and talk to other hams around the world. I can remember hoping that Jesus wouldn’t come for at least six weeks, because I wanted to get a taste of this ham-radio business. Well, that’s gross, isn’t it? When He knocks at the door, I don’t want to be down in the basement tinkering with my hobby. It’s all right to have a hobby, but that hobby must never compete with Jesus.

When Jesus knocks at the door, I don’t want to be out in the kitchen stuffing myself, either. Do you? When Jesus knocks at the door, I don’t want to be out in the garage polishing my Mercedes, or whatever else you’ve got, or putting on mag wheels. I don’t want to be out in the family room watching the “idiot box“ either. Do you? And when He knocks at the door, I’d like to hear that knock, every day, and answer it, and say, Here I am. When the roll is called up yonder, I want to be there. Isn’t it beautiful that Jesus still knocks and that we can still answer? I’m glad that the door of probation is still open. I believe it is. But I don’t believe it’s going to be open much longer.

Whenever I talk to someone who has just come out of the asphalt jungle, and I hear a little bit about what Jesus has done in bringing him out, I say, Well, this is another sign that Jesus’ coming is right upon us. And when I see some old-time church members leaving—and they’re doing that now, they are leaving—I say, Let’s cry, let’s weep about it. But, let’s also rejoice, and lift up our heads, for our redemption draws nigh.

The last thing that happens is that people trade places. A number of backsliders have come back. I’d like to praise the Lord for you. I thank God for you, and for what it does for me, and for the rest of us, to know that you have responded and that Jesus is still working. Thank God once again for the love that will not let any of us go.