It was to the last church the Lord addressed in the Book of Revelation, the church of Laodicea, that He gave His greatest promise to. Those promises are for His people today. They are for you. When most people think of the church of Laodicea, they think of the negative rather than the positive. It is time to consider these great promises. First, we need to see why they are so great. Then we need to understand how overcoming the negative things this church confronted will produce some of the greatest overcomers, the greatest saints, the world has ever known.

          The church of Laodicea was so prosperous that, as Francis Frangipane once said of today’s church, “They had everything they needed but God.” This caused them to become lukewarm, and made the Lord so sick that He would vomit them out of His mouth. Being lukewarm is the worst condition a Christian can fall into. It reveals an ultimate contempt for the Lord. Indifference is the greatest affront to any relationship. Therefore, to know Almighty God and be lukewarm toward Him is the greatest insult of all.

          The Lord called the church at Laodicea to “therefore be zealous and repent” (see Revelation 3:19). We must recover and keep our zeal for the Lord if we are going to make it through these times. How do we do that?

          The Lord sent fire from His presence to light the fire on the altar in both the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple that Solomon built. He then commanded the priests to keep the fire going. God has lit every fire in every heart that has ever turned to Him. However, He expects us to keep it going. We do this by prayer, worship, daily reading and studying His written Word to us, fellowship with others who have the fire, and being the witnesses we are called to be. 

          As we covered several weeks ago, we lose the fire when we give ourselves to sin and wickedness. This leads to lawlessness as described in Romans 6. The Lord warned that lawlessness would cause the love of most to grow cold. This has been well proven in our times.

          Recently, when I was having lunch with Bob Jones, a prophetic friend, he said an amazing thing. He said that the unity of the church that is coming would only include about 10% of Christians. I know that sounds unthinkable to many, but there is truth to this. Even in light of knowing we are entering the greatest harvest, a sound and repeated biblical truth is “the remnant principle.”

          The remnant principle was at work when the resurrected Lord told five hundred people to go to Jerusalem to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. However, just a few weeks later, there were only 120 gathered there. Yet that remnant was in “one accord” or unity. Do you realize that often our churches or ministries are shrinking so that we can come into a higher unity that can release a greater glory and purpose?

          As Abraham demonstrated, true faith grows stronger with the passage of time, not weaker. The passage of time between when the promise is given and the fulfillment of that promise will usually thin out the crowd by removing those who do not have true faith, but are just caught up in the excitement of the moment.

          This does not mean that those with true faith will not waver sometimes too, but overall, true faith grows with the passage of time. Is our faith growing stronger, or are we going to slip into the majority that drifts away?

          People tend to draw their security by how many people are with them. True faith doesn’t. True faith is faith in God, not how many people are with us. True faith is demonstrated by patience, which is why we are told that it is through “faith and patience” that we will inherit the promises (see Hebrews 6:12).