Pastor John, today we have a question that we get via email quite often and it's a simple

question.

What does it mean to be spiritually lukewarm?

Well, if somebody asked me that Tony, the first thing I would say is do you mean you want

me to say what your pastor meant last Sunday or what the Bible means and I don't know what

their pastor said last Sunday, so all I've got to go on here is the Bible and the Bible

only uses this word, I mean the whole Bible, Septuagint, Hebrew Testament, Greek New Testament

only uses this word one time and so I know what they're talking about, they're talking

about Revelation 3, 15 and 16, so here is what it says, Jesus says to the leo to see in

church, I know your works, you are neither cold nor hot, would you were either cold or hot,

so because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth and

that is about as scary as it gets, right?

If a Christian says lukewarm, that means he may spit me out of his mouth, that means rejection,

so I can see what the question comes up.

I'll give my take on this, some people take cold and hot to refer to both good things, cold is

good because iced tea is great and hot is good because hot coffee is good and so I would that you

were cold or hot means I would that you were serviceable for refreshment as cold or I would that

you were warming as hot, I doubt frankly that's what it means, I mean there wouldn't be any

theological error in that I don't think, but I'm inclined to think that when he says cold,

he doesn't mean something positive, but rather he means utter indifference to the gospel and to

Christ outside the church, a person who's blatantly rejecting Christ and unbelieving and hot

are those who are utterly devoted to Christ, like Paul said in Romans 12 11, boil, the word is,

...