Revelation Chapter 3
VERSE 14 “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write…”
The following was taken from Brother Shallieu’s work, “The Keys of Revelation”.
This seventh and last period of the earthly pilgrimage of the nominal Church is styled “Laodicea.” There is a dual significance to this term, namely, (a) “a judged people” and (b) “justice for the people.” The Laodicean epoch commenced with the year 1878, the beginning of the Gospel Age harvest.
As the chief city of Phrygia Pacatiana in Asia Minor, Laodicea was situated a little south of Colossae and Hierapolis, near Denizli, about fifty-six miles east southeast of Smyrna. Laodicea lay on the line of a great road that gave rise to both its wealth and its pride. Ruins of the city still exist at a place called Eski-Hissar, signifying “old” or “decadent castle.”
The messenger to the Church of Laodicea was Charles Taze Russell; he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1852 and died in 1916. As was the case with the prior six messengers to the Church, Russell’s ministry was and still is viewed in an unfavorable light by contemporary religious orthodoxy (i.e. the professing church or church nominal). However, a dispassionate (un-biased) overview of the character and extent of his work will be seen to comport well with the prophesied content of the message to be declared in the Laodicean period.
Up to age fifteen Charles Russell believed as gospel truth only the sectarian doctrines he had been taught, including the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination and foreordination, in which an austere God shows partiality by electing a few to be saved and dooms the remainder to eternal suffering. As he grew older and matured in thought, he realized how discordant all the creeds of Christendom were. Not only did they sharply conflict with and contradict each other, but in many fundamentals, they were wholly irreconcilable with reason and were therefore in violent opposition to a proper concept of a just, wise, and loving God, which the Scriptures declare the Heavenly Father to be.
This discordance was brought to a head by Russell’s attempt to reclaim an infidel. The latter, through skillful questions that were unanswerable by either minister or layman from sectarian standpoints, and by the maneuvering of many seemingly paradoxical Scriptures, completely routed young Russell, who within a few months became an admitted skeptic. Here, as in nearly every similar case, the Bible was discarded along with the doctrines of the creeds. Few indeed under such circumstances study the Scriptures to see whether they have been properly interpreted, and up to this time Charles Taze Russell was no exception.
Desiring to learn the truth concerning the hereafter, he devoted the next few years to investigating the claims of leading oriental religions, all of which he found unworthy of credence. Hence, he approached manhood with a mind unsatisfied, a mind that, despite all efforts to the contrary, was still occasionally distressed because of the earlier impact of the eternal torment theory. Thus, the solace for head and heart so diligently sought seemed as remote as ever. He continually requested divine guidance through prayer.
In time he decided to examine the Scriptures—to search them from the viewpoint of a skeptic, divesting his mind of all prejudice. God rewarded his earnest endeavor by illuminating the Bible to him. Amazed at the harmonious testimony he found, which proved an unexpected but satisfactory answer, he undertook systematic Bible research. As a result, he gained complete confidence that the Bible was truly inspired by an all-wise, powerful, loving, and just Creator, worthy of adoration and worship. Thus, a sure anchor for a fainting hope was found, and an honest, truth-seeking heart rejoiced.
That which had at first threatened to be the utter shipwreck of faith in God and the Bible was, under Divine Providence, overruled for good, and merely wrecked his confidence in human creeds and systems of misinterpretation of the Bible. Gradually Russell was led to see that though each of the creeds contained some elements of truth, they were, on the whole, misleading and contradictory of God’s Word. He began to see what the theologians of the ages had failed to see—the harmony of the Word of God and the beauty of His plan.
In 1872 he gained a clearer view of the ransom sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary—that it is the foundation stone of Christianity, the strength of all hope of restitution. At this point he examined the subject of restitution from the standpoint of the ransom price given by Jesus for Adam, and consequently for all lost in Adam; and he was fully assured that ALL must come forth from their graves AND be brought to a clear knowledge of the truth and to a full opportunity to gain everlasting life in Christ.
He realized that the object of the Lord’s return is to bless, not to destroy, all the families of the earth. He recognized the difference between the Lord Jesus as the man who gave himself and the Lord who would come again, a spirit being, invisible to men . . . that his coming would be thief-like and NOT in the flesh (1 Tim. 2:5, 6). He further recognized that the harvest work, the gathering of the Church and the separation of the wheat from the tares, would progress in the end of the Gospel Age without the world (or the worldly church, the church nominal) being aware of it.
We will continue with Verse 14 and our look at Pastor Russell in our next post.
