In this third article, we continue by drawing from Revelation 3:20:
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
Christ makes it very plain in this epistle to the messenger of the church of the Laodiceans that lukewarmness is a spiritual state or condition. It is evident the pastor was to reveal to his congregation that they were in a state of lukewarmness. Although there is the implication that this condition possibly could change, it seems clear by the end of the epistle that they will choose not to change. The statement is obvious: “I will,” or in the original Greek, “I am about, I’m on the verge, I’m at the point of spewing you out of my mouth.” The church of the End Time is in a state of lukewarmness, a state far more dangerous than coldness. The state of lukewarmness is another term in the Bible for apostasy.
Beginning in verse 19 and to the end of the epistle of this chapter, Christ turns from speaking to the church and addresses the individual. This he refers to individuals of the remnant or the elect of that period of Church history. From one perspective, this could be a person who is on the verge of entering or has entered lukewarmness; God will give him an ear. Or it may be an individual who has not slipped into lukewarmness in his personal living; he has continued by grace as an overcomer.
No works of the first six churches are mentioned in the last church. No problems of the first six are seen in the seventh. This is a new phase, a last phase of the church; it is like none other. Rather than reappearances of old master sins or works, this phase in Church history births a neo-realm of Christianity through the Laodicean Church. It is interesting that since the beginning of the twentieth century, the word neo has become the prominent term by the world church. Neo-Orthodoxy, Neo-Morality, Neo-Evangelicalism, and Neo-Pentecostalism are all terms coined by their proponents. These are their terms representing a new breed within public Christianity. Their cry has intelligently shouted the biblical Jesus out of the church.
The Hearing Ear
Crucial to these brief final verses of chapter 3 is the concept of hearing. God designed and created the human ear for two important things: for hearing and for balance. Nerves traveling from the ear to the brain carry electrical impulses communicating both balancing and auditory information.
The auditory impulses include information concerning frequency and decibels. Whereas decibels concern the loudness or softness of the sound, frequency communicates the highness or lowness of pitch. There are so many sounds the ear receives on a given day. A very acute ear can detect frequencies as low as 20 to 16 vibrations per second. The lowest of these are more often felt than truly heard. Higher detectable sound frequencies by the ear can reach an average of 20,000 vibrations per second; some gifted hearers can discern pitches as high as 38,000 vibrations per second. Many animals go beyond the human ear: dogs, up to 45,000 vps; bats, up to 100,000 vps; and porpoises, up to 150,000 vps.
The ears detect not only frequency but also intensity or loudness of sounds, measured in decibels (dB). The ticking watch is around 20 dB, a whisper is about 30 dB; the average conversation, normal tone, is between 50 and 60 dB. Lawnmowers and chain saws are about 90 to 95 dB, and when standing about five feet from a jet engine, full-blast, up to about 130 to 140 dB. When you get to 145 you are crossing the threshold from pain into unconsciousness.
The ears are an important part of the body of an individual. From a spiritual perspective God has given this great ability to the inward man as well. All humans have an outward man and inward man (having nothing to do with Jesus, the new man). A sinner has an inward man; he has an outward man. The outward man is ever perishing, declining, and decaying. Nevertheless, the cry from God is to allow the new man Jesus Christ to come into our inward man.
It is clear in the Scriptures that there are correlating faculties between the physical body and the soul of the inward man. This is not figurative language; this is a literal language in a spiritual realm. Whatever is observed for the physical body has a counterpart within the concept of the soul. For example, the ability of the soul to taste is not figurative or metaphorical. This is literal in the spiritual concept of the inward man. A person can taste of the world or he can taste of the Lord. He can either feed off the world’s putrefaction or he can taste and see that the Lord is good and literally feed from God’s Word. Although the heart is mentioned over eight hundred times in the Bible, only twice does it refer to the physical heart; the rest of the times it concerns the spiritual heart—either of a sinner or of a Christian. It is a literal, spiritual heart. This heart is the fountain and the seat of the affections and desires of our life.
Like the ability to taste, the soul can also see. People can be physically blind, such as the prophet Ahijah of the Old Testament. But oh, what he saw through the power of God in sight and truth that were needed in his time.
Furthermore, the soul has the ability, literally, to hear. This matter of hearing is crucial throughout the Scriptures. Although Genesis chapter 3 gives us the oldest human sin recorded in the Bible, we are told in Romans 5:19 what specific sin Adam committed that day. The apostle Paul declares that by one man’s disobedience sin entered into the world. The Greek word here for “disobedience” is parakoe, meaning Adam refused to hear. In Genesis 2 God told Adam he was to till, dress and keep the garden. God also explicitly told Adam about the trees of which he could freely eat, adding that he could not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lest he die. Adam heard God’s Word that day; however, Adam failed to hear that Word on the day of temptation and yielded knowingly to the temptation given through his wife.
The Jew in the Old Testament viewed the ear as the important instrument to receive the communication of the knowledge of God as well as commands of God. The ear was given primarily to hear and obey those commands. One final part of the seven-day consecration of the high priest, as recorded in Leviticus, was the placing of blood on the right ear lobe of that priest. This was symbolic of that which was to be literal. The priest was ever to hear the Word of God and by hearing the Word he must keep it; he could not fail to hear or fail to keep God’s commands.
In Leviticus 14, when a leper was healed of God, he was to come back to the priest to be cleansed from that leprosy. When this cleansing took place there were two things that were placed on his ear: first blood and then oil. This declared that the leprosy had come because of sin, the sin of a failing to hear the Word of God; now, God had healed him through repentance and forgiveness. In the restoration of this man he was rededicating that ear to God placing it back under the blood. What he failed to do—failing to hear the Word—will now be under the blood. The oil was to symbolically declare that the ear would now be anointed to continue to hear the Word of God.
Those That Hear the Word
Luke 8:4–15 presents another declaration concerning the truth of hearing. Following the parable of the sower, the disciples asked Jesus to explain the parable. In verse 11 Jesus states, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” Then Jesus explains four types of soil into which the seed can be cast. In verse 12, “Those by the way side are they that hear” (they hear the Word), but “then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts.”
Now what does hearing do? Hear-ing produces thoughts. The hearing of sound immediately produces thought. The air molecules stirred by conversation reaches one’s ear where it is transformed into electrical impulses that provoke the brain to thought. A person may audibly hear the Word of God, but in order to be saved, he must both hear and believe. It must go from the ear of the body to the ear of the soul. Each individual must believe, that is, he must hear that word in his heart. For as a “man thinketh in his heart,” that is what he is.
However, in this context Jesus says that the Devil can take away the Word out of one’s heart lest that one should believe and be saved. From this “hearing” comes Faith. This hearing is not physical hearing; even the physically deaf can become Christians. Unbelievers can hear, but how often the Devil comes and takes the word that they heard out of the heart, lest they should believe and be saved.
In verse 13, “They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe.” In this soil the hearing does continue toward believing, but only for a while. In time of temptation or testing of that Word they fall away. In verse 14, the language changes a little. “And that which fell among the thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.” In this soil they are hearing to a point to be saved. They may have been saved in a crisis, but their life is not being saved. They are not continuing to hear. They have heard, but they are not presently hearing.
Finally, there is the soil of verse 15: “But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience.” In each of these four soils there is a deepening of receiving the seed. First, there is a hearing but not believing; there is a hearing and believing for a time; there is having heard or when they heard, but other voices vie with that soul’s ear. The cares of life, the deceitfulness of riches, the pleasures of life—these will produce that lukewarmness. They have heard, but they have allowed the other voices to quell the hearing.
Nevertheless, the good soil declares that they have heard. They also continue in the present tense to keep it, that is, they continue to hear. One may go through all four stages of these soils in his life. He may have had byway soil at one time, hearing but not believing; from the byway he may have come to rocky soil, evidenced by a vacillating life of backsliding and restoration. Even more prominent in our day is the thorny soil. According to Luke 21:34–36, the cares of life will be intensified in the End Time. These cares and pleasures tend to crowd out what I am to be hearing from God. Although they may be legitimate pleasures, oh, how the pleasures of life can begin to slowly choke out what I have heard from the Lord.
It is the fourth soil that the Christian must come to. This soil is a heart that is good; it is a heart that is honest, continually hearing and keeping the Word of God. This soil gives evidence there has been a deepening of the soul’s ear, a cultivating of the soul’s ear to the sensitivities of God and His Word—even to the whispers of God.
Ecclesiastes chapter 12 affirms that the ears physically begin to change as we get older. The aging process limits our ability to appreciate the full spectrum of sound in, for example, profound and beautiful music. However, this is not true about the soul! The older we grow in our walk with God through hearing and believing, the broader the range of spiritual frequency and sensitivity we have toward His callings upon the soul. Oh, to hear God, to understand His Word and His commands! Even if I am privately reading the Bible—not audibly reading—my heart can be literally hearing. How much more sensitive can the ear of the soul become as one continues to hear, to keep and to obey over a lifetime with God! How sensitive, years down the road, will my life be to the insight of the sounds of God coming to me?
The Hearing of the Love Slave
Another insight to this truth of hearing is found in Exodus 21 concerning the love slave. In a slave’s seventh year with his master, he is faced with a choice. For six years he has been required to hear his master; perhaps, at times, it was with a stubborn heart, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes complaining over the commands of his master. At the beginning of his seventh year with this master, according to the Law, he could be set free.
Nevertheless, there was a provision in the Law if that servant had come to love his master, and thus the word or commands of his master. If this servant is now willing to give the rest of his life to continue to hear this beloved master, never again will he have the choice to leave this master. This once-in-a-lifetime choice concerns committing the rest of his life to this master. If he personally chooses to remain, it is because the servant loves the master. He loves his commands; he loves his word.
This servant, after going before the judges of the gate, next is to go to the door (Christ is the Door, John 10) and to the door post (the Post of the Door is the Cross), where his earlobe is to be placed. Next, the hammer of the Word of God and the spike of the Spirit of God drive a hole through that ear lobe crucifying, yea, circumcising that ear. This ear is now to be more sensitive than at any other time in its life. The very whispers of God that ear will delight in!
Psalm 40:6 declares, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened.” This is the language of Exodus 21’s love slave! “Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my God.” Why is this true? Because, “thy law is within my heart.”
This kind of love is not true of a carnal Christian; it is not true of a lukewarm Christian. These stubbornly react to the Word of God; they seek a new Christianity that somehow mixes the pleasures of this world with God. In contrast, as a true believer is going on with God, God is dealing with every part of his soul, including the ear. His ear should be coming to a greater sensitivity and a greater delight in the Word. Although the world is filled with the voice of many masters, this love slave is dedicated to only one voice, one word: his master’s. He knows his voice; he knows his word. It could be in the dead of night, yet the slave immediately hears and obeys the wishes of his master. He knows it to be the voice of his beloved master that speaketh.
Unlike this rare relationship of the love slave, so many Christians today are like those described by Stephen just before his stoning: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye resist the word” (Acts 7:51).
The Spiritual Ear
In I Corinthians 2, Paul deals with the ear of the outward and inward man. Note verses 9 through 13:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen [the physical eye hath not seen], nor ear heard [the physical ear has not heard], neither have entered into the heart of man, the things [this is going to be the words of God] which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them [these things] unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep [deeper] things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
As Christians, we now are in a spirit world; verse 14 clarifies, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
My ear is to hear; my ear is to respond. God declares in the Book of Deuteronomy, through Moses, “that your ears are heavy,” sluggish. They are slow to hear God, slow to respond to Him. This concerns the literal ability of the soul to sluggishly hear.
He that Hath an Ear Let Him Hear
Several times in the Synoptic Gospels we read this phrase, “he that hath ears to hear.” What do you do with the ear? You don’t smell with it; you don’t taste with it. “He that hath the ears to hear, let him hear.” It is not until we get to the Book of Revelation that this phrase returns. Seven times it appears in chapters 2 and 3, culminating in Laodicea: “He that hath an ear.” What do you do with an ear? You are not to be deaf with it; you are not to put your hands over your ears like those who refused to hear Stephen preach. If you have an ear, you are to hear with that ear.
What is the problem of the state of lukewarmness? The apostle Paul gives this final exhortation to Timothy in II Timothy 4:2 “to preach the Word.” He didn’t say preach psychology; he didn’t say preach self-esteem, or preach philosophy, or contemporary thought, or that which will please the mob, the populous. Timothy was to preach the Word, whether convenient or not, whether they wanted to hear it or not, in season and out of season. And in this preaching, he was to “reprove” or bring to conviction.
If our sermons don’t bring conviction, we are not preaching the Word of God. We must preach in reproving, rebuking, exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine (or teaching). Neo-evangelicalism has popularized expository preaching, “Expository preaching” is merely teaching, not biblical preaching! Teaching is not preaching. Preaching is exhorting; preaching is reproving, preaching is rebuking; nevertheless, while you are preaching you are educating the people spiritually. Merely just teaching, just going down and giving an exposition from verse to verse, is not preaching. We cannot call teaching preaching. The ideal preacher is the pastor-teacher referred to in Ephesians 4:11. Today’s pastors are copping out by getting the people fat with objective knowledge served without application; there is no rebuking; there is no condemning. Peter on the Day of Pentecost presented the Gospel, and with many other words exhorted them to save themselves “from this untoward generation.”
Second Timothy 4:3 reminds us that “the time will come [the season will come, the season of Laodicea], when they will not endure [they will not put up with] sound doctrine [healthy teaching] but after their own lusts, shall they heap [or accumulate] to themselves teachers.” Why? Another word is found here to describe the ear: an itching ear. Itching-ear hearers are those that have become tired of oft-repeated truth and they are longing for something new. It is the oft-repeated truth from generation to generation that is most important. Apostasy did not begin so much with believers; it began with the mob rule of the populous. This group grew tired of the old hymns, tired of the old preaching, tired of the old standards, tired of hearing strong preaching; they wanted a softer voice. According to this passage, it is the people that have produced the false prophets of our time. They have turned their ears from the truth; note verse 4: “They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables [or myths].” They create and accumulate unto themselves these teachers. All such men are a product of the people. This sounds so similar to the excuse of King Saul; “the people made me do this”—the people, the people, the people.
Conclusion
The Laodicean Church is a product of the people. They are tired of Bible preaching; they are tired of Bible teaching; and they want something that is more palatable to their carnal, worldly lukewarmness. I remember my father preaching in open-air tabernacles, a thousand or two thousand people on July nights with the sweat flies all around, no backs to the benches. He would preach for two and a half hours, followed by altars filled past midnight with people crying out as the Word of God dealt with them. We see not such desperation today. A preacher who preaches over thirty minutes is met with complainers or those who merely walk out, refusing to hear.
Proverbs 20:12 declares, “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.” For a man to see in these days is a gift from God; for a man to hear the true voice of Christ amidst the many “Jesus” voices is a gift from God. Note the Lord’s exhortation to Ezekiel: “All my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears” (3:10). In that we live in days such as Amos where the Lord has sent a famine of the hearing of the words of the Lord (8:11), one will now almost have to compass land and sea in order to find a true Bible preacher.
The remnant must have an “ear” to hear in these days in which we live. Only God can give it. Pray for it, dear Christian: pray that God will give you the hearing ear and the seeing eye in order to make it through this last church age before the coming of Christ.