I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.
I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—
neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need
a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched,
pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from
me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich;
and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your
shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes,
so you can see.
~Revelations 3:15-18
The writer of Revelations was not writing this to non-believers. He was writing it to a group of Christians. Because he is warning about SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS, it is necessary to absolutely accept on faith that what he is writing applies to YOU. Applies to me. Applies to everyone.
Whatever you have done, whatever good works you are responsible for, however wise you are, however correct your doctrine, and however much you believe yourself to be "saved."
If you would like to think it does not apply to you, then accept that it does anyway. You must accept it even on the negligible chance that it isn't true: accept it anyway. You say you are rich, I say you are poor. You say you are clothed in fine clothing, I say you are naked. I am too. We are speaking of blindness, like the Emperor's New Clothes.
People who are only blind in their eyes know they are blind. Even if they were blind from birth and have no first-hand experience of being sighted, they know they are blind because people tell them and because sighted people can do what they cannot. So they all know they are blind. Spiritual blindness and intellectual blindness are not the same thing as physical blindness. When your mind is blind, you cannot see what is wrong with your thinking, and when your spirit is blind you cannot understand the ways in which you have fallen away from God.
Indeed, I will share with you a very uncomfortable truth, which is:
The greater the light one has and the more truth one believes;
the more well-thought out your beliefs and practices;
the more you can claim righteousness in your actions;
the greater the risk of rejecting even greater truth and more light.
This light and this wisdom leads one to assume that they already have all that they need. Taking pride in the truths they have already received creates a mindset that rejects, by default, any new light. The authoritarian principles in the Church increase this problem. "Who are you to question the pastor, the Bishop, the Apostles?" Just as once was said, "Who are you to question the scribes, the Priests, the Pharisees? What miracle can you perform to prove you have a right to say that?"
The scribes, priests and pharisees were not considered scum-bums, they were according to the beliefs of the people the most knowledgeable, the most righteous, the most pious. The Billy Graham's of their day. We have the impression of them now as being two-faced hypocrites, but they genuinely were highly regarded by the people for their wisdom. They are the forebearers of today's Rabbinical Judaism. The elect, the chosen few. They had the most light, they studied the scriptures the most, held closest to the law. But they rejected a new light when it came among them, which is why Jesus said that the only sign they get is the sign of Jonah. Jonah who was in the belly of the whale 3 days and nights, but also Jonah who preached to the biggest sinners around, the Ninevites, and they believed. The Ninevites' belief in their own knowledge did not prevent them from acquiring new knowledge of their shortcomings before God.
"Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet;
tell my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins."
~Isaiah 58:1
It is to God's own people that Isaiah spoke this warning, not some pagans somewhere. Tell the house of Jacob, Israel, their sins. God's own people are being warned of sinning. Moving it up to the present day, how often do Christians accuse Christians, particularly their own kind of Christians, for their shortcomings? Christians today blame everyone but themselves. They'll go into a tizzy over supposedly pagan Starbucks cups (is anyone forcing them to drink Starbucks?) but not over hard-heartedness towards innocent refugees. They will fret about whether the Ten Commandments are able to be posted in courthouses while they break those commandments every day. They worship with their mouths, but their hearts are in a different place. They confuse religion with politics and worship at the altar of political change.
Revelations speaks of "Babylon" as the devil's world order. Because of this spiritual blindness, those who are fully immersed in Babylon do not know it and cannot see it. We must all accept that this is not a possibility that could only happen to non-Christians or persons not of our particular sect, but to ourselves, and take that possibility with absolute seriousness.
