Daily Devotional For March 23, 2025
I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth. Rev 3:15-16.
The Laodicean church is described in terms of lukewarm water. Hot drinks and cold drinks can both be refreshing. A cold drink on a hot day really hits the spot. A hot drink on a cold day warms your toes the way few things can. But lukewarm water on any kind of day is nauseating to most people.
About six miles from ancient Laodicea was the city of Heirapolis, the Yellowstone Park of the ancient biblical world. There are geysers, bubbling springs, and extensive terraces of mineral water. In fact, the terraces stand out visibly from anywhere on the site of ancient Laodicea. The water in Hierapolis was and is hot. A few miles to the east of Laodicea was Colossae, there the ground water was cold. But Laodicea had no natural source of water. The city was located where it was because it was the junction between two major roads. So Laodicea piped its water from hot springs far away and by the time it reached the city the water was lukewarm.
The first time I visited Heirapolis, now the Turkish resort city of Pamukkale, my family discovered a wonderful illustration of this text at the Hotel Pam. Behind the hotel is a series of terraced pools that look like a hot springs. A fountain at the top spills hot spring water into the pool. The water comes out at 56o C., roughly 130o F., and each pool spills over to the level below which is a little cooler than the previous one. At the bottom of the terraces is a waterfall that descends into a cool pool complete with stalactites and stalagmites (artificial). Next to the cool pool is an unheated pool the same temperature as the air.
You go up and down the terrace, testing the temperature of the water. When you find the temperature you prefer you get in. When you are tired of that level you go higher or lower, depending on your preference. I noticed that people flocked to the hot water at the top and the cold water pool at the bottom. Many would go back and forth between the hot and the cold. But nobody was in the middle, the lukewarm pools! It was just not comfortable or relaxing.
The point Jesus seems to have been making was that the church at Laodicea was unattractive and useless like the lukewarm parts of the Pam Hotel pool. The church at Laodicea was satisfied with less than God’s best, it was absorbed in mediocrity. Jesus’ response to the church is arresting. “You make Me want to throw up!” Previous churches were in deterioration or decline, but this church is really in trouble.
Lord, save me from lukewarmness. May my witness be refreshing to all today.