Romans 13:11, High Time to Awake
Romans 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The Apostle Paul warns the believers against spiritual slumber and tardiness. He exhorts the church to spiritual alertness and vigilance. Our Lord Jesus is returning soon to take the church to glory. When Jesus comes, He will reward His faithful servants. We are to make sure that when the trumpet call comes, we will be caught up to heaven just like the godly Enoch who was taken to heaven physically without seeing death.
Genesis 5:21-24 And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: 22 And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
For the slothful, there will be a loss of reward like the church in Laodicea, the worst of the seven churches described in Revelation 2-3. This church in Laodicea is the last and the worst of the lot. The church in Laodicea is in a state of spiritual delusion. The church in Ephesus had a coldness of heart and the chill is bad for her spiritual health, she needed to rekindle that first love. It was obvious. The suffering and persecuted church in Smyrna thought itself poor when it was really spiritually rich, fervently in spirit. Thyatira, too, had a warmness of heart, a fervency of love though infiltrated subtly with falsehood and not dealing with sin. Progressively, Pergamos is worse than Thyatira in that sin has come in openly and has to be dealt with for her salvation, though there is still that fervency of love in the midst of persecution, one saint was martyred. The church in Sardis is pronounced dead and at least they admit that there is that deadness or coldness in them. The church in Philadelphia is fervent in spirit, faithfully serving the Lord. But this 7
But this 7th church in Laodicea is one of her kind! She is neither hot nor cold, in a state of self-delusion. It was going through the motions of piety. But sadly, there was no true piety. Yet, it is claiming itself pious, very much like the state of Israel during the time of Christ, the state of spiritual hypocrisy. If you expose them, they turn against you.
Nevertheless, our Lord loves this church in Laodicea and sought her repentance, that they may come back to Him, though the words may not be well received as did Jesus’s encounter with the Pharisees and Scribes.
May we be up and about the Lord’s business. Amen.
