Poor and wretched

The last message of the seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor is probably the most well-known because of the illustrations used in association with it. This was a sickening church with nothing to commend it and with Christ knocking on its door.

Laodicea was a wealthy city and when, like Sardis and Philadelphia, it was destroyed by an earthquake, instead of following their example and accepting help to rebuild itself, it refused all offers and counted on its own resources.

Unfortunately the church went the same way – believing itself to be rich it wanted to manage without help. Jesus’ verdict was that instead of being rich, it was poor and wretched. All was not lost however. He told the members what to do and thundered on the door to gain admittance to his church in order to turn things around. How many churches have excluded Christ today? How we need to listen to this message!