I’ve been thinking a lot lately on what it means to be spiritually blind.  This was the condition of the lukewarm Church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22) and certainly would seem to apply to us today.  The question is, “How can you make a blind man see?”

While out praying this morning, one conclusion I came to, is that if a man is blind, me holding a poster in front of his face will do absolutely no good!  Paul talks about this in his letter to the Galatians, “…before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.”  (Galatians 3.1)  And yet they were spiritually blind to it!

Think of it this way… I could take a great big poster board with a drawing of the crucifixion and HUGE letters saying “Jesus died for your sins!”, and if you’re physically blind, what good would it do?  You wouldn’t be able to see it! 

I could write the best song telling of the glories of Jesus and how He left heaven for us, but if you were physically deaf, would good would it be to you?  You’d never hear a note or word, all would be silent.

And THAT is precisely the trouble we have reaching the lukewarm church!  God’s Word tells us that part of the “lukewarm condition” is that of BLINDNESS.  You see the trouble?  “How do you make a blind man see?”

We can preach endlessly about being lukewarm, but it has no power unless God opens the eyes, and unstops the ears!  That is why in all the letters to the churches of Revelation 2-3 we read this phrase, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”. 

Our condition of spiritual blindness requires a spiritual remedy.  I can listen to 10,000 messages on “the lukewarm church” and never really “hear”.  I am DEAF!  I can watch videos and movies and never see.  I am BLIND! 

The point is, we need a move of God’s Spirit.  Jesus is the only one who can open blind eyes and deaf ears.  When he does, suddenly we see and hear!  You whose eyes have been opened… pray!  Pray for the eyes of God’s people to see.  Pray for the outpouring of the Spirit of God.   Pray that God would give His people “ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches”!   Our great need is for revival.  We need God to come down. “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!” (Isaiah 64.1)

Our human effort amounts to nothing more than holding a poster in front of a blind man’s eyes.  We need Jesus to heal the blind man!

The defining word for the Church in Laodicea was, “you do not realize…”  And in the list of things they didn’t realize?  That they were blind… they were totally BLIND to the fact that they were blind!  They would have thought God’s rebuke was for someone else, but the rebuke was NOT for someone else, the rebuke was for them!

I wrote a song once about the lukewarm church.  I recorded it, but the funny thing is I think everyone thought it was about someone else- not a single person that I know of thought it was about them!  When I wrote it back in 1996 I guess I thought it was for someone else too.  But God started to show me, “Mike, it’s about you as well!”  Rebuked by my own song!  I started thinking, “What would the church be like if I had lived more for Jesus these last 25 years?  If I hadn’t compromised, been cold and lukewarm, been in love with the world, toyed with sin?  How would I have impacted my family, the church and the world around me?  When we backslide, drift, and lose our first love we’re often totally blind to just how far we’ve wandered away from the Lord.  Our compromise can actually begin to feel normal until God opens our eyes to see Him as He really is.

You know what Isaiah said to the Lord when he saw Him as He really is?  “Woe is me!  I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”  (Isaiah 6:5)

It wasn’t just the people that had a problem, Isaiah had a problem and it became perfectly clear to him:  Isaiah was a man of unclean lips and he lived among a people of unclean lips…. He identified himself as part of the problem.  The church isn’t lukewarm because there’s just a couple of lukewarm Christians out there.  The church is lukewarm because of me, and most likely many, many of you.  How long will we stay blind to that?  Do we even see at all that we’re part of the problem?  What part are we playing in the church being lukewarm?

The most common phrase quoted about the church in Laodicea is?  My guess would be, “So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

I wonder why we do that; tell only half the story?  We like to thunder the judgment and forget the mercy!  James tells us that, “Mercy triumphs over judgment”, but you’d never know it by the way we act sometimes.  I used to be very good at proclaiming judgment.  I’d visit a church with thunder and lightning!  I’d always leave wondering why I did that.  I was so aware of my need of mercy, but so hard on others.  Then one day God stopped me in the middle of my message.  I was speaking on “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion!”  I was emoting, and pointing my finger, and practically shouting when I heard God’s still small voice say to me, “Is THAT the way I say it?”  No, it wasn’t, he made plain to me.  He was pleading.  His cry was out of a heart of mercy!  He didn’t want to judge, so his warning came as a plea, a cry of love!  By this time I’d started singing the next song while this conversation with God was going on in my head.  Then I heard Him say, “Now tell them how I say it!”  Oh boy, I was instantly humbled.  I stopped my song right in the middle of it all and said, “I need to tell you something…”  I could tell by the expressions on peoples faces that they were puzzled.  I must have looked like quite the double personality up there, swinging from “hell fire and brimstone” to “Jesus loves His little lambs”!  The tone of my voice, the look of my countenance, had all suddenly changed as I told the people what God had just told me… His mercy triumphs over judgment!

You’d think that would have cured me of my “wrath of God” delivery methods.  It didn’t.  But it did make me start thinking, and over time I came to ask myself, “Why do I ask God for mercy when it comes to me, but call down judgment when it comes to others?”  I was so aware of my own need for grace, but sure had a hard time extending it to the lives of others.  I had become a Pharisee!  And a judge!  And I thought I was being a minister of the gospel! 

Now the funny thing is, I learned that people thought that all the shouting, and thundering and such was spiritual!  What????  Yes, many thought my behavior was “anointed”!  I found that out after I decided I wasn’t going to do it anymore.  I explained my decision to some people who I thought would say, “Oh, good!  We’ve been waiting for that!”  But instead I got, “Are you SURE?  It’s so powerful when you speak like that!”

Well, it might have sounded powerful, but I was sure God was telling me it wasn’t spiritual, and I changed my ways.  It all came down to attitude.  (Jeremiah represents the correct attitude: Jeremiah was a “weeping prophet”.  He told the truth, but his heart was filled with mercy.)  In the New Testament we’d called that, “speaking the truth in love”!

Which brings me back to the church of Laodicea.  Why do we always hear just half the story?  Why is it always about Jesus spitting us lukewarm Christians out of His mouth?  Why isn’t it about Him giving us an invitation to dine with Him?  Think about that!  THAT’S in there too!  We have an invitation to dine with Jesus!  How can we just leave that out when we talk about the lukewarm church?  Jesus asks you to have supper or breakfast with Him and you don’t think that’s worth mentioning??

His message to the church in Laodicea is exactly what He explained to me that day when I was thundering my judgment… it’s not about judgment, it’s about mercy… “I want you to dine with me!”  He tells us the reason He’s rebuked us and disciplined us is BECAUSE HE LOVES US!  He goes on to tell us THAT’S the reason we should repent and then GIVES US AN INVITATION TO DINE WITH HIM!

“Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and He with me.”

Yes, that’s right, Jesus wants to have dinner with you!  He wants to hang out and have fellowship!  THAT’S the whole reason for all the other stuff written to the church of Laodicea.  It’s not about Him wanting to judge you, it’s about Him wanting to love you and be with Him!  Revelation 3:20 is often used to call the unsaved to come to eternal life in Christ, but the truth is, in context it’s actually an invitation that God is making to a wayward church!  “Turn from your lukewarm life and come have dinner with me!”  Wow!

Find it at Revelation 3:14-22