2. “ Thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot” --3:15-16. While outward rejection may, in some sense, appear to be preferable to cold profession, it does not seem in harmony with the grace of redemption to make this passage mean that God would rather these Laodiceans had never accepted the gospel at first. The purpose of the comparison is to rebuke lukewarmness, which produces nausea. It means that fervency is a condition of fidelity. Fervent heat (2 Peter 3:10) means intense heat; and fervent water is boiling water; and in Romans 12:10, Paul admonishes the members of the body to be “ fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” The Lord’ s aversion to the state of lukewarmness is expressed in the warning I will spew thee out of my mouth. The advocates of the absolute and unconditional security of the believer have appropriated the words of Paul in Ephesians 1:13, that the believer is “ sealed with that holy Spirit,” to their dogma of the impossibility of apostasy, by claiming that a sealed believer cannot get out. Aside from the fallacy of the argument itself, the Lord’ s statement to the Laodiceans explains how an unfaithful believer does get out--he is spewed out, by the Lord Jesus Christ himself.