The Baptist Pillar © Brandon Bible Baptist Church 1992-Present www.baptistpillar.com
"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
M. L. Moser, Editor
From The Baptist Challenge, May 2014
[This message on “The Lord on the Outside” was preached Sunday evening, July 1, 1979, and is printed “as preached.” It is one of a series of 113 messages on the Book of Revelation preached at the Central Baptist Church, Little Rock, Arkansas over a period of two years, 1979-1981.].
Revelation chapter 3 beginning with verse 14, we will read that passage of scripture that relates to the church of Laodicea.
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
“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.
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
“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.
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. 3:14-22).
Remember last month that we talked to you about the chastening of the Lord; that the Lord talked about the fact that He chastens those that are His. That His chastening was because of His love for those that He chastens. That He chastens His own children, and that the Scripture says in the Book of Hebrews chapter 12 that if ye be without chastening, then you are not a child of God. You are a false professor, one who is simply a church member and nothing more.
Then the Lord urged them to repent. In verse 19 He says “Be zealous therefore, and repent.” The Lord then in verses 20 and 21, makes a promise to his church. He says:
“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. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”
Now I want to note the promises made in this verse. First we need to recognize to whom this promise is made. This promise is made to a church. It is made to those who are, at least, professing Christians. I have heard messages preached from this verse many times.
In fact, probably in my younger days, I also preached from this verse in a way in which I have preached it in a way in which I applied it to an unsaved person, a lost individual. I have preached it in a way in which I quoted “Behold I stand at the door and knock,” and stated that here God is standing outside of a person’s heart-door and He is knocking for entrance to enter so that he might save.
I do not know how many messages that I have heard preached concerning that, and preached along that line, but if you will note very clearly that is not the subject of this verse. Jesus is not standing outside of a lost sinner’s heart knocking on that heart to gain entrance. In reality, this does not even talk about salvation at all. Nowhere do you find, or does it say, that “if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come into him and will save him.” This does not say this at all.
This is a picture of Jesus standing on the outside of His own church, the church of Laodicea. Here is the Lord on the outside of His church, and He is knocking on the door of that church and seeking admittance into His own church. It does not say that if He gains admittance that He is going to save, but the promise of Jesus is to sup with those that open unto Him. Now the condition is this, He will sup with them if they open the door.
The church of Laodicea had everything. We have here in verses 16 and 17 “thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” This church had everything except one thing. They had everything except Christ. He was on the outside seeking to gain entrance by knocking. He is on the outside and excluded from that very church that claimed to be His.
You’ll also note that the appeal is not made to the whole church. The appeal is not made to the entire church, but to any individual member who will respond. When a church finds itself to be in the same state as this Laodicean church; when a church finds itself to be spiritually lukewarm; when a church finds itself to be in a spiritual state like this, the Lord does not speak to the church as a whole, but He speaks to particular ones within that church. “If any man will hear his voice,” so that if the church of Laodicea is to have a change in their character, it is going to have to be done as individuals within that church respond to the knock of the Lord.
I wonder if while we have been bringing these messages relative to the seven churches of Asia, and as we are now drawing to a close with this last church, the church that typifies the general run of Baptists just prior to the return of the Lord, I wonder if any of us have heard the knocking of the Lord as He seeks to gain entrance to our hearts so that He might sup with us. He doesn’t do it by means of going outside and knocking on the front door of the church.
Nor does He enter the vestibule and stand there at the entrance to the auditorium and knock on the door there seeking to gain entrance. But when the Lord seeks to gain entrance once again into His churches, He does it by means of knocking at the doors of the individual members of that church. Have you heard or felt the Lord knocking at your heart as we have been preaching?
Now I’m not talking about unsaved people. This is talking about Christians. This is talking about saved people. Have you felt, have you heard, have you become aware of the fact that God has been speaking to you as an individual and knocking at your heart telling you that if you will repent that He will come in and sup with you?
You see, this must be done on an individual basis within the church. God does not deal with the church on a mass scale where He comes in just a general fashion, but the Lord comes and speaks to each of us in a personal way. “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.”
You see, some members of this church responded. There will be some members of the church that will listen, and they will let Him in. But the church as a whole will only open their door to the Lord as the members as a whole open their door to the Lord.
It’s as we talked about last month concerning spiritual temperature. The spiritual fervor and zeal and temperature of a church will increase only as the spiritual temperature and fervor of the membership’s hearts increase. We’re all involved in this together. It is each man who will open up and listen and heed.
Now why does the Lord want to do this? Why stand at the door and knock? Did you ever wonder why the Lord wants to have your heart open to him? I’m talking about Christians now. Did you ever stop to think, why would God want me to open my heart unto Him? Let me give you some reasons.
The first reason is for companionship. You see, the church is the Lord’s companion, or the Lord’s bride, and He longs for companionship with His bride. Did you ever realize that God loves you as a husband loves a wife, as a groom loves his bride? The Lord wants fellowship. He wants companionship with you. You’re His bride, that is, this church, Central Baptist Church is a part of His bride and He longs for and desires companionship and fellowship with His bride.
Now what kind of bride would it be who did not long for and desire fellowship and companionship with her husband? I believe that we can safely say that the Lord feels this cold treatment, this lack of companionship more than it is possible for us to understand. After all, He loves you, and He longs for your companionship. He wants you to have fellowship with Him.
And how would it be for a husband to love his wife, and then his wife not want anything to do with him at all, not to want to be around him? She only wants to be around him just enough to satisfy the minimum requirements. And is that not the way most Christians are today, most church members are today, most of us are today? We come into companionship and fellowship with the Lord just as little as we can, so that we can reserve the rest of our time for other things - worldly things - and it so happens that it was this way in this church.
The second reason that the Lord desires for us to open our hearts where He might come in and sup with us, first is for companionship, but secondly because of things that He wants to do for His bride. You see, the Lord made the supreme sacrifice for His bride. When you turn to the book of Ephesians chapter five we read in verses 25-26, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”
Here we find that He made the supreme sacrifice. Because of this His desire is to protect and care for her. According to this verse, He has determined that He is going to cleanse His bride, and He is going to do it by the washing of water through or by the Word. That’s why He wants to have fellowship and companionship with us; that’s why He wants us to open the door of our heart and invite Him in, so that He might cleanse us by the washing of water by the Word.
Just as the Lord is determined to cleanse us, we must realize that Satan is just as determined to defile the Bride of Christ and usually we generously accommodate Satan by our lack of attention to leaven within the body. That is, we allow things to enter in that contaminate and defile rather than to cooperate with the Lord in keeping our body pure.
As a church, there are certain things we learn will come in as leaven into a church body that will make it defiled and will cause impurities to be there, things such as alien baptism, that is allowing people to become members who do not have scriptural baptism. If we’re not careful, we can become guilty of some of these things.
Secondly, inactive church members or delinquent church members. Who’s responsible for this? Satan is. Just as the Lord is determined to cleanse His bride, His church, Satan is determined to defile these churches, and often times he does so by causing us to be either delinquent or inactive in our membership within the church.
Another means is by our conforming to the world. We become conformed to the world. We imitate the world, we pattern after the world. We let the world set our standards. We let the world set our rules. Also, we sometimes embrace doctrines that belong to Protestantism and their practices, but mostly it’s a general indifference. We see here at this church of Laodicea, that this was the main problem they had; it was a state of indifference; indifference to everything. So the Lord says that He desires to come in and sup with them so that He might cleanse them by the washing of water by the Word.
Now then, He tells us what the reward will be if we respond. He says in verse 20, “Behold, I stand at the door 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.
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3:20-21).
Now how does He knock? He knocks by means of the Word, by means of the Holy Spirit who applies the Word and by means or through His providence. These are ways that God gets our attention. That’s what you knock for. When you go to a door and knock, it is to get the attention of that person who is on the inside of the door. The way that God attracts or gets our attention is by knocking through the Word, by the Holy Spirit, and even sometimes, by means of His providence as He allows certain things to occur and to happen to us.
Now for those who respond and who open unto Him, it says that He enters in and sups with them. It is possible for some within this church to have a very close spiritual relationship with the Lord where they have daily communion and fellowship with the Lord. At the same time there can be those within this church who are saved and yet are so far out of fellowship that God says they are just plain lukewarm and He is not there and having fellowship with them. It’s possible to have some of both, and probably do.
I mentioned to you last month that there were two articles that were of particular concern in The Baptist Challenge for that month, and I only got around to mentioning one of them, and it’s in the editorial column.
The second one is an article by Bro. Edwin Zellner who is a staff writer on the paper. He is pastor of the Victory Baptist Church in Denver, Colorado. In his article he is talking about spirituality within a church, and he raises the question. He asks, Do we have anybody in our churches today like Daniel, like John the Baptist, like the Apostle Paul, or like Matthew, or Peter, or any of these men of Bible days?
You say, no we don’t have Apostles today. Well, they weren’t apostles to start with. But remember that they were just regular ordinary everyday men like we are today. They weren’t super men. They were just plain everyday common flesh and blood like you and me. And why should we think it unreasonable for us to have somebody in our churches today like Paul who loved the Lord that much?
Is there anything that is unnatural about a Christian loving the Lord as much as did Paul or John, or Daniel, or Isaiah? Why can’t we have men like that today? What’s to stop it? They had their sins. They were sinful fleshly people just as we are, but they loved the Lord. It is possible that within Central Baptist Church we could have a man who loves the Lord that much, so that he could have daily communion, so that the Lord comes in and sups with him.
And why can’t we have women in our church like a Eunice, a Phebe, a Mary or a Martha? Why can’t we have women who are that spiritual today? There’s no reason why we can’t. Our world today is no different from what it was when they lived. You look at the moral standard of the world of that day and time, and I’ll tell you now, it was just as wicked as our world today. Look at the churches of that day and time.
Churches like the church at Corinth, or even the church at Antioch, or the church at Jerusalem, and you find that those churches had as much wickedness within those churches, and some of them even more wickedness than even some of our churches. And yet, within those churches there were people who had daily companionship with the Lord. They had responded to the knock of the Lord, and the Lord came in and supped with them. It can happen today. And for those who will respond, who will hear Him knock, He promises that He will do that.
Again, He says, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne” (Rev. 3:21). The overcomer then will be permitted to rule with Him.
Now the Lord doesn’t make that promise to any of these other churches. This is the worst church. This is the church that the Lord says that they are so lukewarm that He simply is going to spue them out of His mouth. Yet, it is to this church that He now offers a seat upon a throne. You see how ready God is to forgive? Do you see how longsuffering the Lord really is?
Do you see how God is so merciful that a church that even reaches the point that they have actually pushed Jesus out of the church to where He is on the outside knocking to get in, that He is still ready to allow them this privilege of being seated upon the throne along with Him, which makes us say that the highest place is in reach of the lowest?
No matter how far you may have gotten from God, the highest place is still there ready if you will repent. God says this to the worst of the lot. A church that He could not say anything good about at all, He offers them the highest reward that there was.
So you see, even for this church of Laodicea, it was not hopeless, and if any individual within that church would simply respond, God has these great promises for them.
Now how does all this apply to us today? Well, I’ve tried to make some applications as we have gone along, but I want to sort of summarize all of these applications.
The church of Laodicea was the worst church of the lot. If you or I were to pick out the worst church we’d probably pick out the church of Thyatira which was representative of the rise of Romanism, the Roman Catholic Church and all of their apostasy, their false doctrines, their persecutions, their inquisitions, etc.
Or we might have picked out that church that was representative of Protestantism, but the Lord picks out this church of Laodicea. You see, the Roman Catholic Church was already an apostate church. The Protestant churches were never really true churches of the Lord, and they have gone into apostasy. Now when we look to the church of Laodicea, we’re looking at a Baptist church, and that shows that we are going to see even Baptist churches going into the apostasy as well. There are already some.
In case you don’t know, that is the big fight that is going on within the Southern Baptist Convention right now. Apostasy! Apostasy in their schools. Apostasy in their seminaries! Lindsell, a former editor of Christianity Today and a leader within the Southern Baptist Convention says so. If I said it, they would ignore me and reject what I have to say, but here’s a Convention man saying so. And the big fight that they had on the floor of the Convention in Houston last month was over the fact that they said that not one single seminary and not one single college of the Southern Baptist Convention is sound in the faith.
Furthermore, they said that all of their colleges and their seminaries are riddled with men who do not believe in the verbal inspiration of the Word of God. Now, that is from men who are in the Southern Baptist Convention themselves. That’s what the issue was about. The issue is apostasy, and the seminaries and colleges are a part of the apostasy, and they are infecting and leading others astray into the apostasy.
And Lindsell and these others of the Baptists Faith and Freedom Committee (I believe that’s what they call themselves), whether they realize it or not, they are still part and parcel of the apostasy as they are supporting the apostasy when they urge people to stay in the Southern Baptist Convention, and to fight it from the inside. God never said to stay in but He said to separate.
And when they still urge and recommend their churches to continue the support of the Cooperative Program, which is where these leeches get their money to teach their apostasy, they become part and parcel of the whole system which supports false doctrine that is now permeating all of the schools of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Now I don’t always speak second hand on some of these things, because I went to Southern Baptist Convention schools. I graduated, and I got my degrees from Southern Baptist Convention schools, including the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I know what’s going on there from personal, firsthand knowledge, and it’s gotten far worse than what it was even when I was there.
In other words, the church of Laodicea refers to Baptist churches that are going into the apostasy which is going to culminate in the complete rejection of Christendom by all denominations including Baptists. And here we see Jesus Christ outside of His own church showing that He has been rejected.
Now the church of Laodicea, as we pointed out, is a picture of this present church age. What is the picture then? It is a place where we find the domination of preachers who stand for the truth. Paul says in Second Timothy chapter four that they will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. Why? Because they will not endure sound doctrine. What happens with a preacher who tries to preach the truth in the Southern Baptist Convention? He is ridiculed. He’s mocked. He’s made fun of. They try to keep him down. They dominate, control.
We also find the church of Laodicea is a picture of the injection of the world and worldliness into the church. So much so that you cannot tell any difference between the conduct of the membership of the church and the conduct of those that are of the world. No difference. Moral standards are identical. Dress standards are identical. Moral code is the same. No distinction made between the church and the world, it’s all the same. It didn’t use to be that way, but today you can’t tell the difference. It’s reached the point of lukewarmness- churches that will not take a strong position. They are non-positionalized churches. Compromisers!
Reminds me of the fellow they tried to put on the carpet as to what he believed. They said “Well, what do you believe?” He said, “I believe what my church believes.” They said, “Well, what does your church believe?” “Well my church believes what I believe.” And that’s about all they could get out of him. He just never told them anything. Churches have compromised today to where you can’t pin them down as to what they believe. They don’t want to be pinned down.
They have now developed so many different organizations within these churches that are foreign to the Word of God, that churches have been completely divorced and separated from the real work that God gave them to do, the work of preaching the gospel to the whole world. They have their boards, their mission societies, their mission secretaries, their mission committees, their mission directors. None of these are scriptural.
God intended that every New Testament church was to be their own mission society. God intended that each New Testament church was to be its own mission board, and not have any outside of the New Testament church. Each church was to be their own mission society. Each church was to do their own mission work. But instead they now organize their Conventions. They now organize their Associations. They have now organized their Fellowships and other organizations, and all of these are extra-scriptural organizations, and all of them are manmade.
The church of Laodicea is typical. Churches increased with goods. Great church buildings, great educational institutions, great publishing houses, wealthy mission boards, large endowments, and the emphasis is on nickels, noses and numbers. This is the Laodicean church.
Today, we’ve reached that point. That’s the way to determine a church’s greatness. We count up their numbers. If they don’t have great big numbers, there must be something wrong. If they don’t have baptisms every Sunday, something must be wrong. If they don’t have people walking down the aisles every Sunday, having rededications, or this or that, something must be wrong. All that they are using are fleshly means to build and promote numbers, because they are interested in noses, nickels, and numbers. But God doesn’t say all of these things. Yet in spite of all of this, Christ is on the outside.
A church’s wealth may indicate that they have money, but it doesn’t indicate they have spirituality. A church’s size may indicate that they have numbers, but it does not indicate the spirituality of that church.
Here was a church, the church of Laodicea, that was large, wealthy, increased with goods, and didn’t think they had need of anything at all, but they had no spirituality at all. It was a church that was lukewarm, ready to be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord. What is so sad is that they were not aware of their condition, even as there are churches like that today that are not aware of their condition.
But somebody says I thought the church was to make the world get better, and better, and better under the influence of the church; that the world was going to improve. Really we find the very opposite. The world is the same but the church has absorbed the world. It is not the church having its influence upon the world, but it is the world that is having its influence upon the church.
In First Timothy chapter 4 we read in the first verse, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times,” that means the last days, “some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” (1 Tim. 4:1-3).
Notice in chapter three of Second Timothy beginning in verse 1:
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
“Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
“Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away.
“For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
“Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
“Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
“But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
“But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
“Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:1-13).
Now these verses are not a description of the world, but a description of the churches of the last days, the Laodicean church age. In these verses that I read to you from this third chapter of Second Timothy, there are some eighteen sins listed here as affecting the churches of the last days. Of these eighteen sins, how many affect you? How many of these sins are true in your life?
Let’s don’t make it so broad and general that we evade it. Let’s make it personal. Let’s read these verses. Let’s look at our own lives in comparison with this, and let’s ask ourselves a question, “Am I guilty of these things? Am I guilty of the sins of the Laodicean church, the churches of the last days?
Am I guilty?” If so, then you are a part of the problem not the solution. But you can be a part of the solution if you will simply listen to Jesus as He speaks.
Speaking to you now as a member of one of the Lord’s churches, He says to you, not to your neighbor, not to your husband, not to your wife, not to your children, not to your parents, but Jesus Christ is speaking to you as a member of one of His churches.
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man,” that is, if you will “hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” There’s the solution.
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Rev. 3:19).There’s the solution. If you want to be part of the solution as to what you can do to make Central Baptist Church a more spiritual church, there’s the answer, and it has to be done by individuals. You cannot be concerned whether sister so-and-so or brother so-and-so does it or not. It has to be whether you personally are ready to get right with the Lord or not.
Let’s not be concerned about what so-and-so does or does not do. Let’s be concerned about us personally as individuals. Do I want to help make this church a more spiritual church? Do I want to help reclaim this church from spiritual lukewarmness? Do you?
If I were to ask for a show of hands, every hand would go up I’m sure, but there’s more to it than saying yes I do. Will you? Of all the seven letters that we find here, this letter has more meaning and more application to you and me today than all the other six because we are living in the times of the Laodicean church.
Finally He says, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. 3:22). Will you hear?
Now God will not force you. He will not make you. He will not drive you, but He will beg you. He will plead with you. He will implore you. He will try to love you to where you will respond with love toward Him, but this Laodicean church was so lukewarm and so cold that they would not even respond to the love offered to them by their own Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you?
As we have gone through these seven churches, I have tried to make these as personal as I could, to me as the pastor, and to you as a member.
As I preach, and as I discuss these matters with you, they are to me as well, for, as your pastor, I feel like I am just as guilty as anybody else. I believe all of us can find a place where we fit, but simply to admit it and do nothing about it is no solution at all. There must be real genuine repentance.
How spiritual are you? What is your temperature? Is God on the outside knocking at your heart? Do you need to be more spiritual than what you are to help bring more fervor and zeal into our worship of the Lord? Only you can change it. I can preach until I am black in the face, but if you will not, all the preaching will be in vain.
I close with one statement that I just happened to think about right now. My dad was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Van Buren, Arkansas, before he came to this church. That church was a wealthy church. They had lawyers, doctors, even the president of the largest bank of the city. In other words it was where all the wealthy people had their membership if they were Baptists.
He preached in that church for several years but he said they didn’t care how much he preached as long as they had a man who would preach the truth to them, that was all they wanted, but they weren’t going to do it. And Dad said that as long as he preached at that church, not one person ever said one word against what he preached. Occasionally somebody would say that’s really what you ought to preach. We need it. But no changes ever came about.
Finally one day the Lord opened the door here for Central Baptist Church to call him, and he came here. To show you the respect that that church had for him, they maintained that pulpit empty for six months, hoping that he would change his mind and go back, but Dad said all the time that he was there, that church stayed cold, and indifferent. It didn’t matter what he preached, they just would not change. They didn’t care. They were rich, increased with goods. They had need of nothing. And he could preach all he wanted. They liked his preaching. They thought he was a good preacher. They knew he preached the truth, but they just weren’t going to do it. So he left, and came here to Central Baptist Church.
I wonder why a church will listen to the truth, know the truth, know that it’s what they need, and yet still will not do it. I don’t know. But that’s the way it was with the church of Laodicea.
I don’t know whether we’re like that church of Laodicea or not, but I’m afraid that we’re getting pretty close to it if we’re not, and we are the only ones that can do anything about it, but we won’t do it unless we want to, and it’s going to have to be done by each of us as individuals.
Do you want to be more spiritual? Would you like to see the blessings of God really poured out upon this church? The solution then is to respond to the knock of Jesus Christ when He knocks upon our door.
As we preached during this period over these seven churches, has God spoken to your heart? Has He knocked on your heart? What will be your response? Most of those in the Laodicean church ignored it. They heard Him knock. They knew He was knocking, but they went on their worldly way satisfied to be lukewarm. Satisfied! Are you? You’re the only one that can make the change.