Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Is everybody in the Laodicean Church (the seventh of Revelation 2, and 3:14-21), lukewarm? The actual text, the words of Jesus, do not make exceptions.
It's like the ten "virgins” of the parable in Matthew 25; they "allslumbered and slept” (vs. 5; the original has it, they nodded and then they all sacked out in deep sleep). But five had prepared in advance by stocking a supply of oil, and at "midnight,” the hour when it is the hardest to awaken out of deep sleep, the cry went forth, "The Bridegroom comes!” The cry caught everybody asleep.
Yes, everybody in Laodicea is lukewarm, just as everybody in Elijah's ancient Israel was either actively worshipping Baal or "answering not a word” in defense of truth when he challenged them on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings 18:21). "All have sinned" [aorist tense, in one punctiliar point of time, Rom. 3:23), but "all” have been given the gift of justification "in Christ” (vs. 24; 5:15-18). In other words, all ten of the "virgins of Matthew 25 had been given equal access "to them that sell [so they could] buy for yourselves” (Matt. 25:9).
Has the "midnight” come when the cry goes forth?
The story in the Song of Solomon (5:2-8) has the woman snug in bed, warm and cozy, thinking only of her own comfort while her one true Lover out in the cold rain is banging on the door to be let in. She rebuffs Him. Then realizing how wrong she was, she belatedly got up to let Him in, at last thinking of Him instead of herself, and by then He was … GONE.
It's time for some serious thinking.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 24, 2006.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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