The Burning Bush Today

To the church at Laodicea the risen Christ said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20). This verse is often preached as an invitation for unbelievers to answer Christ’s knocking. While there may be a sense in which Christ knocks at the unbeliever’s door, the context of this verse has Jesus at the church door. I want to explain why I think that distinction is important.

Jesus had chided the Laodiceans for being lukewarm; they had lost their fiery passion for the Lord. His offer to come in and “sup with him” was the first-century equivalent to our saying, “Let’s get reacquainted.” A.W. Tozer explains why the acquaintance with Jesus is so important. “At the far-in hidden center of man’s being is a bush fitted to be the dwelling place of the Triune God. There God planned to rest and glow with moral and spiritual fire. Man by his sin forfeited this indescribably wonderful privilege and must now dwell there alone.” (A. W. Tozer and Gerald B. Smith, Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings, Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015, 201.)

The truly sad thing about the Laodiceans was that they should not have been alone. The burning bush Tozer imagines was available to all believers in Laodicea. The moral and spiritual fire of that bush is what the Laodiceans were lacking; so are many churches today, sadly. Polls consistently report that Christian moral behavior is little different from that of unbelievers. Christians have become lax in many areas of morality. One of the most obvious is sexual morals. Christian teens are sexually active at virtually the same rate as non-Christians. Believers often excuse adultery as proved by the percentage of Christians committing it being equal that of unbelievers. Cohabitation before marriage is ignored by many in the church who should be speaking out against it.

I have written several times on the subject of modesty of apparel. With few exceptions, believers have fallen prey to the gradual slide of modern culture into styles of dress that would never pass the modesty test of the New Testament. I wrote in “Debating Christian Cleavage” several years ago: “It is not good enough to be just a little less wrong than the culture; it is necessary to be at least a little more right than the culture.” What that means is our moral standards regarding apparel must be based on Scriptural standards rather than measured against worldly practices.

I have written extensively in recent posts about the moral depravity that is implicit in homosexual behavior. The moral fire that should be burning in believers regarding this issue has been quenched in some cases by a misunderstanding of how we are supposed to love the sinner but hate the sin. I think believers should feel pity for those who have been taught that their sexual perversion is natural and inevitable. But that must not keep us from insisting that their behavior is immoral in God’s eyes and must be resisted just like any other sinful behavior. Even if we allow that some immoral urges exist through either nature or nurture, biblical moral purity demands that those urges be resisted. It is no different for the thief, the murderer, the philanderer, or the homosexual.

I don’t want to promote the common misunderstanding that sexual sin is worse before God than any other. It matters greatly, but so does gluttony made obvious by obesity, gossip excused as prayer requests, covetousness revealed in crass materialism, or financial accountability especially as it relates to tithing. Any form of moral indifference would have Jesus knocking at the door of a church that overlooks it. Many of today’s churches are Laodicean in this respect.

I could list more areas of moral decline among today’s Christians, but Tozer points out that the Laodiceans were lacking in another, more serious way: they lacked spiritual fire. When Tozer suggested the metaphor of a burning bush at the center of our being, he was echoing the well-known line of St. Augustine: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in [God].” God wishes – no, demands – to be at the center of His children’s hearts. God establishes His residence in us through the agency of the Holy Spirit. This makes perfect sense because God is spirit, so His presence must be spiritual.

In a series of articles called “The Christian Parody” I lamented the fact that many people who call themselves Christian are a mere parody of true Christianity. Paul refers to people who have a form of godliness but lack the power that rightly belongs to it. That is a good description of a parody; it looks something like Christianity, but it lacks the spiritual component; it is empty – powerless. A church body made up of people who mouth religious words on Sunday but live just like their worldly neighbors the rest of the week is imitating the Laodicean church. Remember, Jesus threatened to vomit them out of His mouth.

The church that lacks the spiritual fire – the Laodicean church – lacks the presence of God; it lacks the glory of God. Pity the church that finds “Icabod” written on her walls. Without the Spirit, there can be no true worship. Without the Spirit, there can be no works of eternal significance. Without the Spirit, there is no guide to the truth. Without the Spirit there is nothing pleasing to God. Pray that the burning bush Tozer mentions would be a raging inferno in your heart because you are the church. Pray that you may find others with the same zeal to join you in your church.

Related Posts: People of the Flame; Paging Phinehas Eliazar; Despising the Down Payment; The Christian Parody Part One; Part Two; Part Three