Transcription of the Video: Hot or Cold

Laodicea is a beautiful location in Asia Minor. Nearby are the great ruins of the cities of Colossae and Hierapolis, known for their springs - hot at Hierapolis and cold and Colossae. 

To the church at Laodicea, in between those two, John wrote, "I know your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were one or the other. But because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I'm about to spit you out of my mouth."

What was it about the believers in Laodicea that led John to address them with those words? To portray their unfaithfulness in terms of hot and cold water? Could it be that there's more to the meaning of hot water and cold water than what meets the eye when you first read that verse?

Today, we're in a very beautiful fertile valley called the Lycus River Valley. We're at a place where there are actually three cities. If you look across the valley - mostly north - you'll see the white cliffs over there. Just above those white cliffs was the city of Hierapolis. Just to the east of us and at the foot of the huge mountain that you can see just beyond, the city of Colossae. It's probably most well-known to us because Paul wrote a letter there called Colossians. And because his friend Philemon and his slave Onesimus came from Colossae. 

We're here today in the city of Laodicea. The Bible mentions that there was an evangelist and an apostle named Philip. Tradition holds that Philip was one of the Christians who came to bring the message to Hierapolis. That's fascinating in one sense, because Philip came from the little city of Bethsaida. He was one of the first disciples from a very rural farm village. You have to imagine this guy who really hadn't lived in this kind of a world, coming up that busy street. 

There's a fantastic gate called the Domitian Gate. It was just two gigantic towers and three arches with a beautiful gateway opening onto a street that ran from the north end to the south end of town about a mile and a half. It's really an amazing sight. 

Now it was a custom in those ancient cities that your city gates would often represent the god or goddess who was the protector of that city. The gate of Hierapolis was devoted to the emperor - Domitian. He was one of the first emperors to call himself god. And in a sense, to enter through the gate is to acknowledge, "I've come under the protection. I plan to obey the emperor." 

But if it was Philip, we're fairly sure he didn't do that. Because up on a hill is a small building called the Philip Martyrium, where by church tradition, Philip was remembered because he and his children chose to say, "Jesus is king, not the emperor." And they died for it. They paid the ultimate price for their faith. 

And it strikes me, people, as we come to this place in Asia Minor that understanding our roots and our ancestors is the understanding that they had been taught by Jesus in their experiences with him or had heard about those experiences from others, things that they would need to give them the confidence and the belief that the whole world was going to change. It did. The whole world changed. 

Do you really believe that if you live for Jesus the same thing could happen? How do we dare even suggest that it couldn't? It's the same Jesus. Maybe what we need to learn from those early missionaries walking on that colonnaded street with its worn paving stones and its glorious monuments is that if you know Jesus, if you know him from his word so that you know what he said and you know what he did, you'll  have confidence to know he can do it again. And before God, I challenge you as he's challenged me to have the passion of Philip.

You walk in further in this glorious city down that street and very soon you come to the religious area - the Apollo Temple. There it stands. There's not too much left but the stairway going up in grand style, encircled with some columns. And off in one corner is the city fountain called Nymphaeum. The water came from an aqueduct up above and ran fresh water right into a big beautiful fountain right in the middle of the Apollo Temple - as if the citizens of Hierapolis were saying, "Apollo is the source of light. If you want water, you come to Apollo, because he gives life." 

And I can imagine those early disciples thinking or saying, "It's not Apollo. It's Jesus. Let me tell you about him."

Next to the Apollo Temple, something that's really striking to anyone who goes there, there's a hole into the ground right next to the temple, that's written about by ancient writers, called the Plutonium. They found it recently. The Plutonium was, according to ancient belief, the gates to the underworld where, Pluto, in Latin or Hades, in Greek, lived. Now apparently, this particular place underground had poisonous gasses in it. So if animals like a cow or a bull or birds were put into that hole, they would immediately die. But the priests of Apollo knew enough, I guess, to hold their breath and go in. And they could come out without dying. And people were amazed about their power over the power of death.

But it was called the devil's hole or the place of Pluto or the gates of Hades. And I wonder whether those early disciples remembered Caesarea Philippi and Jesus saying, "Listen. If you guys will go out and build my church even on Apollo Temples, even the gates of hell won't stand in your way."

If you walk a little farther, there's a glorious theater. To walk in there is to be absolutely amazed at the architecture and the style and the power of that place. What's noted in this theater is the beauty of the statuary across the front and carved frieze and the niches along the front of the stage where the statues were placed that the plays were about or the god or goddess that the plays were devoted to.

In the Greek world, the theater was the place where plays were put on as a way of saying, "This is who we are. This is our worldview being presented to you on a stage." And putting all their gods and goddesses along the front or along the frieze on the back of the stage was a very clear way of them saying, "We're not embarrassed. This play, these plays, this drama presents to us, to you the visitor what we believe in." It's striking how honest they were. Amazing. In spite of the theater, in spite of the temples, the place blossomed for Jesus Christ.

But I think what's most impressive about Hierapolis is what you can see from here. Look at those white cliffs. They're formed by hot springs that run out of the foot of that hill. Now because of that water, this town was known for its hot baths. And the hot bath, especially the one just outside the city gate at Hierapolis is spectacular. One can only imagine what that must have looked like as it was filled with the hot water that came bubbling up and filling the baths. There were private baths, baths in people's homes, and gigantic public baths. And everybody, certainly in this part of the world, knew if you were tired, if your feet ached from walking on hard gravel, if you were sick in some way, you could probably find some kind of help over at Hierapolis.

People came from mile in this world - hundreds of miles - just to find the cures and the healing of arthritis and skin diseases and even abdominal problems. They would take small amounts of it to sit in the hot springs of Hierapolis. The famous white cliffs and the baths. It was quite a city.

Colossae - there's not too much to see. It's in this direction at the foot of a gigantic mountain. It was founded a couple of hundred years before Hierapolis. But Colossae was known for something, even as a city in decline. Because those mountains - Mount Cadmus - immediately behind Colossae is almost always snow covered. And most of the year, thundering down that mountainside are dozens or even hundreds of fresh, clear, cold water streams that came running down into this fertile valley and helped to make the Lycus River Valley everything that you see it is today. 

In the springtime or in the summertime, hundreds of streams trickling and running everywhere, thundering over waterfalls, cold fresh, invigorating water. In fact, people talked about the cold water of Colossae and how wonderful it was if you were thirsty or tired or needed new life, how wonderful it was to go to Colossae and taste that fresh water. 

And Laodicea, it did have an interesting drawback. We know that its water wasn't good. In fact, if you stop at the water pipes over here, you can see encrusted inside, several inches of thick calcification because the water was warm, tepid, and filled with minerals. It made people sort of nauseas to drink it. So they didn't have a very good water supply. But they were a rich and powerful city.

In fact, if we ask the question, "What can we learn about Laodicea from the letter John wrote them," we immediately discover that he was using things familiar to these people to teach them. 

This city was widely known for its black wool. And the wool was unusually soft and was used to make a garment that was known all around the Roman world - the black wool of Laodicea. It was also known - or its industry made it famous - the industry of eye salve. There was a certain rock in the area that would be ground into a powder and then rolled up or put up into little, tiny rolls and then used on people's eyes or in some cases, for people's ears. And the salve of Laodicea was famous to improve people's eyesight or hearing. It made a lot of money sending that salve around the world. 

This city was also a banking center. There was gold exchange here. Famous ancient people came here to invest money. In fact, this place had become so rich, there's an interesting story told by an ancient writer. The city was destroyed by an earthquake. The emperor came and said, "We'll rebuild you."

When they came to Laodicea, the folks of Laodicea said, "Thank you very much, Mr. Emperor. But we're rich. We've acquired great wealth. We don't need anything. Keep your money." 

Now listen again to John. To the Christian church that had one time apparently had been so vibrant and alive here, John said, "You say, 'I'm rich. I've acquired great wealth. I don't need a thing.' Little do you know how wretched, poor, pitiful, blind you are."

He says to the folks of this town - at that time of vibrant, alive city, "I know your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were one or the other. But because you are lukewarm, you may sick."

Now I always understood that to mean, hot is for God and cold is against God and that God was saying, "I'd rather have you be against me (cold) than lukewarm," which means apethetic. I don't think so anymore. Here's what I think. Hot and cold in this context are both good. 

Think of what a Christian here would have thought if John said, "I wish you were hot." I'm sure he or she would have looked across this valley and said, "There's the hot water. It brings healing. It brings restoration. It brings comfort to ache and pain and disease. I understand hot." 

"And cold - cold is wonderful. It's refreshing. It's uplifting. It gives a new burst of energy and enthusiasm and life. Cold is good." 

"But that lousy lukewarm water over here at the Nymphaeum of Laodicea is disgusting. Because as the cold water runs down and the hot water runs down, when they both get to the river that runs through the valley, what good are they? You can't drink it. It's full of all those minerals. You might as well not sit in it. It's not warm or hot anymore. It doesn't do you any good. It's worthless."

Do you remember, he once said to those disciples - people like Philip - "If you do it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters - give them cold water, give them clothing when they're naked, give them food when they're hungry, visit them when they're in prison - if you do it to the least of them, you do it to me." 

It seems to me that what John is saying is, "Jesus' battle plan is so simple. Go out to a hurting world that's in big trouble. Go with passion. Go believing that it will happen. But I want you to be hot water to people. Be a healer. Be a comforter. Be a restorer."

Or, "I want you to be cold water to people. Be an uplifter, somebody who brings new life, somebody who encourages. Because people need a touch of Jesus through you. But if you don't do anybody any good, you make me sick."

When is the last time you brought the comfort of the love of Jesus to a hurting person? When was the last time you took time out of your schedule to go to somebody who's hungry or alone or broken or rejected or depressed? When is the last time any of us was cold water? That enthusiastic encouragement of someone who's discouraged, that taste of the new life that is Jesus. The main way was to bring the caring, loving touch of Jesus to hurting people. One person to one person. 

It didn't take big organizations. It didn't take gigantic buildings and programs; though, those can be very useful. It took one loving, caring person who said, "Jesus gave me hot water and cold water, and I give it to you." And when they stopped doing that, not only did it turn God's stomach, but the church died.

We had an interesting experience, if you recall. We climbed up the hillside the first day we were here. And we noted the ruins of a very ancient Greek theater. It was destroyed, remember, by an earthquake. There's not too much left of it. A few rows, a few stones down the side. They look like steps. Maybe they were steps. Maybe they were the part that held the benches there. And the rest of it is gone. 

And we noted something. Shortly before the message first got here, this place got devastated by two earthquakes - one in 17 AD, one in 60 AD. And one of the things that happened, we learned from ancient sources, is those people began to question their gods. "Apollo didn't save us. Zeus," the god here, "didn't save us. Demeter in Colossae didn't save us. Who will help us?"

God had given those early believers a window. People's faith had been shaken. They were looking for somebody to fill the gap to provide care and love and help and encouragement. It's almost as if God opened the window and said to the Christians, "Come on it. Show them the love of Jesus, and they'll turn their allegiance to him." Instead, apparently, they were lukewarm. 

I believe that God has given us many challenges here. One of them that I will take back most powerfully is that God wants us to do in our culture what they did in theirs. And there are all kinds of wonderful ways to do this. 

But it seems to me - the bottom line - are communities of Christians who bring the love of Jesus to hurting, broken people. And if there ever was a world that needed that, it's ours. I challenge you to be a loving, caring person who brings Jesus with a caring, loving relationship with a broken person. 

It was that simple. Asia Minor changed because of caring people. So can any other country or empire. May God be praised. Amen.