You need to be either cold or hot

Mrs. Kang Hyun Shil

January 23 2017

“You need to be either cold or hot, 

and if you are just lukewarm I am going 

to spew you out of my mouth”

Today our Bible passage is Revelation Ch. 3: 14-19 (KJV)

14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; these things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

The content that I will be speaking about today is from the book of Revelation that was written by the apostle John when he was old and when he was on the Island of Patmos. When he was old, the apostle John gave warnings, scolded the church and also conveyed words that he had received directly from God. In this book of Revelation John speaks to seven different churches. Today I want to explain about the content that he spoke to the last of the seven, the church of the Laodiceans.

This content to the Laodiceans contains some very fearful warning. He said, “I know thy works, and that you are neither cold not hot; you need to fix this. Here is said, “You need to be either cold or hot, and if you are just lukewarm I am going to spew you out of my mouth.” We need to take these words today to check ourselves, and to see how we are in relation to God. We need to check ourselves to see whether we are in a position that is hot or whether we are in a position that is lukewarm. We need to see that we understand what God wants us to do, and that we are doing our best to fulfill that, and also what True Father wants us to do, and that we are doing our best to fulfill his desire.

Of course God would like for us to be hot, but He says that you are not hot and not even cold, but you are lukewarm, so He will spit you out. Spitting out a person means that God will put us in a place that has nothing to do with Him. Right now we are in the last days, which means that we are in the time of judgment; everything is being judged. Jesus said that in the last days he will not come to us with warnings or with scalding but rather he would come to us as a thief in the night. To come as a thief means that He would come unexpected in a way that we are not thinking of, at a time that we do not expect, that he will bring down the fearful fires of judgment on us again.

We are living in a fearful time but we do not fear; we do not feel fear. We feel that we are just living normally and that we have what we need; we are rich. But God says, “No! You don’t realize how poor you are, you don’t realize how blind you are, you don’t realize the shame of your own nakedness”.

We need to think very deeply about these revelations that the apostles John wrote on the Island of Patmos; we need to think of them in term of our life today. Here John said that we think we need nothing; that we have everything that we need, but actually we need a lot, we are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. And we need to move out of the lukewarm position where we stand to a position where we are hot; to do that we have to fervently repent. And John said that if you do not do that, and you are not able to repent, and become hot, then God will spit you out and put you in a position where you will have no relationship with Him.

So we need to beg God, “You can take everything that I have, but please do not take away my relationship with you as you are my Father and I am your son, your daughter”.

And John said 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire. ‘Gold that has been tried in the fire’ means: we need to have that kind of faith, a faith that has been tried in the fire. To do this Jesus tells us that we need to forgive 7 times 7 ie 49 times and also repent of our own sins. This is the extent to which we must repent.

Last October I realized that I was living in a position where I did not know what was going to happen to me, even five minutes later. So I set a 40 day prayer condition to ask for God’s guidance in my life. And I prayed and I also set a certain condition. I could have set the condition after praying but I was concerned about what would happen if I were to go to the spiritual world during my prayer; it would mean that I would go to the spiritual world without setting that condition. So I decided to do the condition before the prayer. That was how urgent I felt!

I hope that you will spend a moment this morning asking yourself whether you are relating to heaven with a hot faith, whether you are just lukewarm, or whether you have become completely cold. And please realize that you may think you want for nothing, that you have everything you need, but from God’s perspective you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. Blind means that we do not have the spiritual vision, we are not able to see spiritually what is going on. This is the warning that the apostle John gave us.

And John says further in verse 18 that we must purchase “a white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see”.

To purchase an eyesalve means that we need to be able to see spiritually and be able to discern between good and evil, between truth and falsehood.

So this morning let us repent! We must purchase a white raiment, this means we must cleanse ourself; we must make sure that our actions are in accordance with God’s will. So let’s use this morning as a time to repent and check ourself in light of our pledge to God and let’s make ourselves right with God! Thank you very much.