Verse 16 states, “So because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Why was this church lukewarm?
April 20, 2024
Speaker: David Mitchell
Passage: Revelation 3:14-22
We have been in the Book of Revelation, and we’ve been looking at the seven letters to the seven different churches. Before we dive into the seventh letter to the church in Laodicea, I want to call our attention to something that shows up in this passage in Revelation 3, verses 14 to 22. In each of the seven letters to the seven different churches, we learn different unique characteristics of Jesus, the speaker of these words. Here is Jesus seven times coming to seven different churches, real historical churches, and speaking to them. We read, as we look at each of the seven letters, the different descriptions of Him.
We read that He is the One who holds the seven stars. We read that He is the one who is holy and true. That He is the one whose eyes are like blazing fire. His feet are like burnished bronze. Out of his mouth comes the Word of God like a sharp and double-edged sword. We read that He is the one who died and rose again. He holds the seven spirits of God, He walks amongst the seven lampstands, and He is the first and the last. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.
So in each of these letters, we read something unique about Jesus that gives us the full picture of who He is and who is speaking. It matters because of the intensity of the message that He’s speaking. We have to understand the intensity of the One that the message is coming from. And in Laodicea, this seventh letter, we learned something unique about Him and how He is described; one of His names, in a sense. Jesus is described in Revelation 3 verse 14 as “the Amen.”
What is amen? Amen is the word that we say at the end of prayers. Why do we say that word? Because “amen” means so be it. It means I’m in alignment, I’m in agreement with the will of God. Amen is not just something that Jesus says; amen is who Jesus is. It’s not just words that He uses; it’s the posture of His entire life and His heart—that He is amen. This means that if He is amen, then He, by His very nature, is in alignment and total adherence to the will of God.
The invitation is: what would it look like for us as a church to not simply be people who say Amen, but to be people who choose to live lives that are Amen? To be a people whose lives are a response to the will of God, and we are in total alignment with that will? So when we read the words of Jesus that He speaks to Laodicea, and they’re not words that are great to hear, He is Amen. What does that mean? That means that the will of God comes directly through Him. He is not out of alignment, He is in perfect alignment.
So if we want to, in the same way, hear the voice of God, our prayers don’t simply need to end with the word amen. Our lives need to be postured to amen. Does that make sense? We need to be in this posture to God. I don’t wait to hear what He says to then say, so be it. I say, God, so be it to whatever You’re about to say. That’s the difference. Amen is not just something I add to the end when I feel like it. God, Amen. Now what do You have to say to me?
So let’s dive into Revelation chapter 3, verses 14 to 22. It says this:
“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 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. Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
So when we look at the seven different letters, they are addressing different things that Jesus finds in His church. And we know we can look at ourselves, we can look at our church, we can look at the church in America, and we can identify with some of those things. Jesus is speaking to real historical churches, and we have to understand the message that He was giving to them in that time. But we also have to listen through the lens of the Spirit to say, Jesus, what are You saying to us?
When we look at the different letters to the seven different churches, we can certainly identify with them. We see that we permit and allow sexual immorality, right? We see that we have the worship of idols. We see that we permit and allow false teaching. We see all of these things through the letters, and we are convicted of them ourselves, or we should be.
But the letter to Laodicea, I would suggest, perhaps most closely relates to the American Church because the problem they were dealing with was their relationship to money. It is not that we don’t deal with sexual immorality; it is rife in our culture. It is not that we don’t deal with false teaching; it is everywhere. But we certainly deal with our self-reliance on our own wealth.
Jesus says this in Revelation chapter three: “the problem that I have with you is that you are neither hot nor cold. You are lukewarm.” In our language and in our culture, we take lukewarm to mean “indifferent.” What we sometimes falsely or mistakenly translate this passage to mean is that Jesus is saying, I would rather you be hot, like fully all in for Me, or I’d rather you be cold, like completely disregarding Me, than indifferent. I’d rather you be against Me than lukewarm and indifferent. Right? We’ve heard that teaching before.
That’s not what this is about. It wouldn’t make sense. That isn’t what Jesus is saying. What He’s actually addressing is something specific that is going on in the church in Laodicea. To understand what He’s saying, we have to do a bit of a geography lesson.
Laodicea as a city sits between these two cities: Hierapolis on one side and Colossae on the other. Hierapolis is known for its hot springs. And so when Jesus says, “you are neither hot nor cold,” He’s pointing to the cities on either side of them. He’s saying Hierapolis is the city that is known for its hot springs. What are hot springs good for? They have medicinal value, they have relaxing value, they bring comfort and healing to people. Then on the other side is the city Colossae which is known for this river that flows from Mount Cadmus. It’s this ice-cold, refreshing water that of course brings drinking water and refreshment to the city.
So Jesus is pointing to the hot and the cold, and He’s saying, You are neither. You neither have the power to heal nor the ability to bring refreshment. You are useless. For this city and the historical image we get, there are maybe two explanations we can see. One is that they were in a place where they were mixing the two waters. And when you mix the two, you get neither. It becomes useless.
Here, Jesus would be saying, you’re not bringing healing to the people around you, nor are you bringing refreshment and quenching of thirst to the people around you. You are bringing lukewarm water. You have become so mixed up and so diluted in your faith that you are useless. You have lost your power, and you have lost your ability.
The second explanation is that in order for them to get water into this city, they had to bring it in via an aqueduct, and so the water is far from its source flowing in. Because it’s traveling so far in the heat of the sun, it’s warming up, and it’s mixing with the calcium, and now it’s becoming calcified, and now it’s growing a stench. Now, it’s becoming lukewarm, and lukewarm water carries bacteria with it.
In this interpretation, Jesus is saying, you are created to have power and ability to bring healing and refreshment, and you are bringing neither. In fact, you are the kind of thing right now that has grown bacteria. You are not only useless, you are dangerous.
And so the question for us, Church, is to consider where have we become so mixed up and diluted in our faith? Where have we gone so far from the source that we have grown bacteria; that we have become useless and dangerous to the Kingdom?
We look at this and say, well, how did they become diluted? How did they become dangerous? It is because of their relationship to money.
Now, here’s the point of this: Jesus doesn’t want your money, Jesus wants your heart. And if your heart is connected to your money, He will take your money to save your heart.
We know this because we see it in the Scriptures. It says in the Gospels that a rich young ruler came to Jesus. Now, if Jesus was a charlatan, if Jesus was a guru, this was like the perfect person to come into your store, right? He’s rich, he’s young, and he’s a ruler. That is a perfect bullseye of what He would want to extend His Kingdom. But Jesus has a conversation with him that is fearless.
This rich young man comes to Him and says, “I have done everything You have asked. I have kept all the commands. What else should I do?” And Jesus says, “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come follow Me.” Now, if Jesus was a charlatan or a guru, He would have said, sell everything you have and give it to Me. Jesus doesn’t want his money. Jesus wants his heart.
I want you to imagine that this was not a rich young ruler, but a rich young nation. A rich young nation or a rich young church comes before Him today and says, Lord, I’ve done everything You’ve asked. I’ve kept all Your commands. What more should I do? And He says, I want your heart.
In Revelation chapter 3, what Jesus is doing for this church is going after the thing that has diluted them, that has grown bacteria within them, that has made them useless and dangerous to the world around them. He goes after this. He says, You are neither hot nor cold. You are lukewarm. This water that’s filled with bacteria, that’s useless, that’s lost its refreshing quality and also lost its healing power. He says, I am about to spit you out. He uses the Greek word “mello” which means about to.
And so we see repeated in the letters of Revelation this theme where His call to repent, His call to turn away from that life, appears to have a time clock on it. We see this in the letter to the church in Thyatira. Of the woman He calls Jezebel, the so-called prophetess, He says, I have given her time to repent, but she has refused. I gave her time, but she chose not to. It’s as if what He’s saying then to the church in Thyatira is, if you don’t deal with this now, I will deal with it.
In the same way to the church in Laodicea, He’s saying, This is the problem. You’re not hot, you’re not cold. You’re useless. You’re sickening. I’m about to spit you out. And Church, we may find ourselves today in the about to call of God. What Revelation teaches us is that if you feel the conviction, the call of God, you cannot wait until tomorrow. Today is that day of salvation. So whatever it is that He is calling us, individually and collectively, to lay down, today is the day. Don’t wait until next week.
To the church in Laodicea, He says, “You think you are rich, and yet you are poor.” Notice that a couple of letters ago to the Church in Smyrna, He had the opposite problem. They were a church that was poor and in poverty, and He says, “You are poor, and yet you are rich.” What He’s saying to the Church in Smyrna is, economically you have nothing, but spiritually, you have everything. You are poor, and yet you are rich.
The problem in Laodicea is the opposite problem. The problem is that they have so much economic wealth in the physical realm that they assume that equates to the spiritual, but it does not. We can make the mistake of looking at our physical, economic condition and assume that if it’s healthy in the physical, it must be healthy in the spiritual. But that is not what happens.
In fact, we see in Hosea chapter 12, verse 8, where it says the tribe of Ephraim boasts, “How rich I have become. I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors, they can find in me no iniquity that is sinful.” We can equate all of the earthly blessings that we have around us to this idea that it must mean everything is right between me and God. What Jesus is doing in Revelation 3 is addressing this head on, just like the Lord does in Hosea, where He says in response to that word from Ephraim, “I am the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt. I will again make you dwell in tents as in the days of the appointed feast.” If that wealth that you have begins to own you, I will take it away so that your heart remains because you cannot serve two masters.
The challenge that we find in this is about our relationship to money. Jesus speaks a lot about money, right? He speaks a lot about money and possessions. Of the 38 parables that Jesus tells, about 12 of the 38 are about money or possessions. This is something that He goes after with intensity. He speaks even more about money than He does about Heaven in terms of word count. This is something that He is focused on because of how it trips us up.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus will tell this parable about managing money, but if you read it you will see that Jesus is not addressing their wealth; He is addressing how they manage their wealth. What He shows in Luke chapter 16 is that how we manage our wealth is intended to be something that expands the Kingdom of God. Otherwise, He says, if you cannot be trusted in that, you will not be trusted in much.
There’s a Bible app by Nicky Gumbel. He also has a British accent, so you’re safe. It’s excellent, and this week, he was talking about this passage in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus is saying, “How much more will your Father in Heaven give you?” We have a God of how much more. We do not have a God who deals in scarcity. We have a God who deals in abundance. He is the God of how much more, but Church, we must be faithful in little. That is all that is within our control. Whether He gives us much is up to Him, but we must be faithful in little.
To the church in Revelation chapter 3, He says, “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.”
Laodicea was an incredibly wealthy city. We know this because in AD 61, there was an earthquake that flattened the city. And in most cases, if your city gets flattened in that part of the world, the neighboring states will come in and bring money and resources to help rebuild it right. But Tacitus, who is a historian of that time, writes, “One of the most famous cities of Asia, Laodicea, was in that same year overthrown by an earthquake and without any relief from us, recovered itself by its own resources.”
You say, how do you know that? Because Dustin told me, all right? Do you think I’ve read a history book in 20 years? No. Dustin could email me anything and I would include it in the teaching. But look, here’s what it says, “…without any relief from us, recovered itself by its own resources.”
William Barclay, in his commentary, will say of Laodicea, “The problem was that it was wealthy. It was so wealthy, it did not even need God.” If there is any part of your life, whether financial or otherwise, where you believe you have wealth and do not need Him, then today is the day to repent of becoming lukewarm. What they have done is they have lost sight of their dependence on Him.
Remember, it says of Jesus, in Revelations chapter 1 and chapter 2, that His eyes are like blazing fire. He can see things that you and I can’t see. And so the invitation is for us to come before Him in prayer and say, Jesus, what are the things that You realize that I don’t realize? What are the things that You see that I can’t see?
Here’s what we know about Laodicea. As I said earlier, it was an incredibly wealthy city. It was known for its wealth, and yet Jesus says, You are poor. It was a city that was known for its textile business and clothing, and Jesus says, You are naked. It was a city that was known for its medicinal treatment of eyes. That’s why He’ll speak about the salve on your eyes. It’s known for treating eye disease, and yet Jesus says, You are blind.
They equated their wealth, their textile industry, and their eyesight treatment with all this power, yet Jesus says, You are not rich, you are poor. You are not clothed, you are naked. You cannot see, you are blind. And so we have to come before Him individually and collectively and say, Jesus, what are the things that You realize about me that I don’t realize about myself? What are the things that You can see that I can’t see?
We see not only in Revelation 3 to Laodicea, but we see in all seven of the letters what I would call the severity and the kindness of Jesus. Before we studied Revelation, we studied Romans together, and in Romans chapter 13, Paul will point to the kindness and the severity of God. In our case, we think of that as being like oil and water, right? Kindness and severity can’t go hand in hand. But here’s how they go hand in hand through the voice of Jesus: if something is killing you, if something is destroying you from the inside out, the kind thing to do is to address it with severity. It’s to cut that thing out.
So we see that the severity of Jesus here is intimately linked to His kindness. Again, we have to humbly and courageously come before Him and say, Jesus, Lord God, where do You need to be severe with me? He says in Revelation chapter three, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” We come before Jesus. We say, Jesus, I know you love me. Will you rebuke me? Will you discipline me that I may repent?
There’s a trade He gives them in Revelation chapter 3, where He says in verse 18, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich.” That’s the trade that Jesus invites us into through repentance. We see repentance like that in the story of the prodigal son, right? Perhaps the most famous story ever told.
We see that the son, who left with all his inheritance, finally turned around when he realized he was eating with the pigs. He comes back to his father and his father runs and embraces him, and the son says, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Call me a slave. He says, I’ve sinned against you. The father never denies that he has sinned. He doesn’t say, No, don’t be silly. You never did anything wrong. The father receives that word and turns to his servants and says, go kill the fatted calf because my son has returned. The son says, I am no longer worthy to be called your son, and the father ignores any of that.
That’s repentance. That’s exchanging your gold for His gold. And, to be blunt about it, in Revelation, the exchange rate is pretty good. Now is a good time to trade. It’s a good time to buy in; to trade what you have for what He has. See in Revelation chapters 1, 2, and 3, Jesus the Amen, the one in total alignment to God, goes after our relationship to sex, after our relationship to money, and after our unwillingness to come under authority. What Jesus is dealing with is our attitudes, our identity, and our finances—the things we hold closest to us.
If you today are caught up in sexual immorality, what He’s saying to you is, would you give me your gold, and I’ll give you Mine? If you’re caught up in false teaching, He says, would you give me that? Would you give me the false, and I’ll give you the true? If you’re caught up in being diluted and mixed up in the wealth of this world, if hot and cold have combined to create something that no longer has power and no longer has ability to expand His Kingdom, then He says, Give Me your gold and I’ll give you Mine. Let’s stand together and pray.
Father God, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the remarkable clarity that You bring to us of how You go after the things that will destroy us because You love us. So may we be a people, may we be a church, who brings both the heart-healing power to our city and the cool, quenching refreshment. That whatever we’re mixed up in, wherever we’re diluted, You will bring purity. We pray this in Jesus’s name, amen.
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