Because thou art THUS lukewarm and ART neither [cold nor hot] HOT NOR COLD.—“Retaining the forms of worship and faith in a Creator and in a future life, but viewing these chiefly through their own or other men’s philosophies and theories, and ignoring the Bible as an infallible teacher of the Divine purposes. These, while retaining the Bible, disbelieve its narratives, especially that of Eden and the fall. Retaining the name of Jesus, and calling Him the Christ and the Savior, they regard Him merely as an excellent though not infallible Exemplar, and reject entirely His Ransom‐sacrifice—His cross. Claiming the Fatherhood of God to extend to sinners, they repudiate both the curse and the Mediator.”—C. 167. [I will spue thee out of My] REFRAIN THY mouth.—She is bidden to hold her peace. She needs to _study_, not to teach; and so the following verses indicate.—Hos. 5:6; 9:12. 3:17. Because thou sayest I am rich.—I have all the spiritual light that exists in the world. “I have much goods laid up for many years.” (Luke 12:19.) “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.”—Rev. 18:7; Hos. 12:8; 1 Cor. 4:8. And Increased with goods.—“Laodiceans count their numbers and their donations by millions, and say, ‘We are rich as never before.’ Alas, that they do not realize that these are earthly riches of the kind which our Lord declares are no evidence of His favor during this Gospel Age, but rather to the contrary! And they see not the true riches which the Lord admires, and which are the foretaste of His favor and the coming Kingdom wealth.”—Z. ’01‐56. And have need of nothing.—“They will not own that they have departed from the right ways of the Lord: in their own estimation they are rich and increased with goods, spiritual as well as temporal, and have need of nothing.”—Mal. 3:7; Z. ’92‐261. And knowest not that thou.—Of all others, so the Greek indicates. Art wretched.—“To our eternal disgrace, the United States leads all civilized countries in homicides—over 8,000 yearly. There are twelve murders in New England to one in London; in California seventy‐five to one; in Nevada 245 to one.” (Z. ’08‐83.) “Each nation feels that theirs is the greatest talent, theirs are the finest guns, theirs the best everything; and it is this feeling of self‐sufficiency that led the nations into the present conflict. They think that they are so good and so great that God could not help giving them the victory.”—Z. ’15‐174. And miserable.—“How blind we all have been not to have noticed: (1) That the numbers of the heathen in proportion even to the nominally Christian doubled last century; (2) That if we could bring all the heathen up to the standard of our most civilized nation it would mean that God’s will would be less done the world over than it is now.”—Z. ’08‐83. And poor.—“The Laodicean Church is poor in that she has so little of the Master’s Spirit, so little of the Truth and of the Spirit of the Truth.”—Z. ’01‐56.