Letters to Philadelphia and Laodicea
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The book of Revelation issues a call to be faithful. Yet not all of its first readers heeded that call. Today, W. Robert Godfrey contrasts Jesus' last two letters to the churches in Revelation, urging us to hear our Lord's warnings.
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Meet Today's Teacher:
W. Robert Godfrey is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and chairman of Ligonier Ministries. He is president emeritus and professor emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary California.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Here's a church that has become worldly. And Jesus is saying to this church here, you are actually |
| 0:06.9 | the very opposite of what you think you are. You think you're rich, but you're poor. You think you've |
| 0:12.4 | arrived, but you haven't. You're about to lose everything. Of all the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation, perhaps it is the letter to the church in |
| 0:26.6 | Laodicea that's most well known. They were neither hot nor cold. They were lukewarm. |
| 0:33.1 | And it was to this church that Jesus said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. |
| 0:39.3 | Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, |
| 0:41.3 | and welcome to this Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. |
| 0:45.3 | Today we come to the end of our short study |
| 0:48.3 | of the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation. |
| 0:51.3 | These messages that you've been hearing on Saturdays are from W. Robert |
| 0:55.8 | Godfrey's overview of the Book of Revelation titled Blessed Hope. And for the final time, |
| 1:02.0 | we'll send you the complete series on DVD and unlock the messages and study guide in the free |
| 1:07.5 | Ligeneer app when you give a donation at Renewing Your Mind.org before midnight. |
| 1:12.8 | Be quick as this offer won't be repeated next Saturday. |
| 1:17.2 | There are two final letters to consider, one to the church in Philadelphia and one to the church in Laudoccia. |
| 1:24.7 | And these two letters couldn't be more different. |
| 1:30.2 | One to a faithful church and another to a worldly church. Here's Dr. Godfrey. |
| 1:35.6 | Well, we come back to our first cycle to look at the last two letters in that cycle. Remember, |
| 1:42.0 | I'm arguing the whole book is organized around seven cycles, and each cycle |
| 1:46.6 | has seven subdivisions, sometimes with an introduction to the seven, sometimes not, but here we're |
| 1:53.6 | looking at those seven subdivisions, which in this case are seven letters to the churches. And we've |
| 2:00.2 | come to the sixth letter to the letter to the church in Philadelphia, |
... |
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