LIVING IN LAODICEA

A husband and wife have a child. The mother stays home with her newborn for two months, but gets restless and decides that staying home with her child is not really what she wants to do. Mom looks around and sees that everyone else has bought new cars, a new house, and the latest fashions and she knows that she can never have these things by staying home and raising a child. And besides, no one will really appreciate her if she stays home with her child. She is never quite sure what to say when someone asks her where she works. But she is sure that simply being a wife and mother is not good enough for her. So mom goes back to work and sends her two month old to daycare for someone else to raise.

A couple is planning a wedding. The two young people are so excited about getting married and are making big plans. She will wear white and they will get married in a church, even though they never go. They will buy each other a gift for their wedding day, but why, when they have already given away the most important and precious gift two people can give each other. They already live in the same house and share the same bed. So what is there to look forward to after the wedding?

The people above do not know it, but God talks about them in the Bible. Jesus said in Rev. 3:17-18, "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."

Some people think that if they have material possessions and wealth that they have everything they need to be content. But Christ tells the church at Laodicea that material wealth can never bring true contentment, only He can. People think today that because they have new cars, nice houses, and the latest fads in fashions that they are rich, but Christ says they are not. Christ says that if we do not know Him we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

Today, man still behaves just like he has during all of the 6000 years which have already passed. Men and women still do what is right in their own eyes. (Deut. 12:8) Many people would rather have material wealth in this life than spiritual wealth in the next. Christ knew this situation well and had this to say about it, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mat. 16:26)

Man has changed very little since the two verses above were written. The one change that has taken place is that man is now living in the last days. We are living in the last era of time before Christ returns to take his children home and deny those that have denied him. We are living in Laodicea. (Rev. 3:14-22) It is only when Christ returns that man will realize that there are no material possessions on this earth that can even come close to comparing with the riches in Heaven. But there are at least two things that come close: saving yourself for that special person on your wedding night, and raising your own children.