COLD OR HOT

“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.”

-Revelation 3:19

In the first century, Laodicea was a wealthy banking center. It became famous for its medical center which specialized in eye problems. And eye salve was produced in Laodicea which was exported all over the known world.

Laodicea was also not without a Christian witness. We know that Paul instructed the Colossians to read the letter he had written to the Church at Laodicea, and asked that his letter to the Colossians be copied and sent to the Laodicean believers.

A generation after the Laodicean church was born, another letter was sent to the Church there – a stinging rebuke which came from the pen of John the Apostle. In this letter, Christ says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15, 16). The rebuke continues, “Because you say, ‘I am rich and I have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich, and white garments that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes that you may see” (3:17, 18).

What happened in the generation that had passed since the warmth of first love was born in the hearts of the Laodiceans? Complacency, smugness, and indifference had taken its toll. The Laodiceans thought they had everything they needed. They had material riches but were spiritually impoverished. They exported eye salve all over the world but were blind to their true condition.