What Does It Mean in Rev 3:16 Where the Lord Talks About Spewing Out of His Mouth?
1) Direct Answer
It means the Lord rejects the lukewarm church condition and removes it from being His mouthpiece. He will not speak through, endorse, or own that mixed, complacent state. He casts it out of His fellowship as a body, while still calling individuals to repent and overcome.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- “Because thou art lukewarm… I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). Lukewarm is neither hot (on fire of the Spirit) nor cold (openly unbelieving), but a safe, self-satisfied mixture.
- He describes them as saying, “I am rich… and have need of nothing,” yet He says they are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
- He counsels, “buy of me gold tried in the fire… white raiment… and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve” (Revelation 3:18)—true faith, His righteousness, and spiritual sight.
- He stands outside, knocking: “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in” (Revelation 3:20). The system is rejected, but individuals are invited.
- Overcomers are promised to sit with Him in His throne (Revelation 3:21).
The “mouth” in Scripture is the place of His Word and confession (Revelation 1:16; 2:16; Jeremiah 1:9; Romans 10:9-10). Being in His “mouth” pictures being the instrument He uses to speak and testify.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- The church is to be His Body on earth; the “mouth” is the part that speaks His Word.
- When a church becomes lukewarm—mixing truth with worldliness, boasting in wealth and programs while lacking the fire of the Spirit—He cannot let that represent Him. Like lukewarm water, it is nauseating, so He spews it out—He separates from it.
- Yet He loves and rebukes: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Revelation 3:19). Those who hear His voice and open to Him personally will dine with Him now and reign with Him as overcomers.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice, He rejects the lukewarm system, but He is calling out a people who will be hot with His life, clothed in His righteousness, and fit to speak His Word. Be zealous, repent, and let Him back inside.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Proving His Word
65-0426 §57
Watch Jesus in Luke 17:30, see, when He was saying there, about the end-time, how they would be like in days of Noah. Then He said, "And likewise in the days of Sodom..." said, "when the Son of man is being revealed." The Son of man, again. Not Son of God, Son of man. See that brings in Malachi 4, again, right straight back---all these other prophecies coming right in---how it's supposed to be done. He proves His word to be so. That's right. And notice, in doing so, how He is going to pour out His Spirit upon all f...
Hear ye Him
56-1215 §22
I said to that spring, I said, "Maybe you're so happy because once in awhile an animal comes by and drinks out of you." Said, "No." "Maybe once in a while a deer drinks from you." "Nope, that ain't what makes me jump and bubble." I said, "Well, maybe it's because I drink from you." "Nope, that ain't why." I say, "Well, what makes you bubble?" He said, "You understand," if he could've talked, he'd say, "You understand, it's not me bubbling, it's something behind me pushing me and making me bubble." That's the way it...
Revelation, Chapter 4c Throne of mercy and judgement
61-0108 §11
I used to think different from that till one day He spoke to me; had me to go back in the Word and think of how that the prophets all spoke of when John came, said the high places would be made low, and the low places made high, and how the power of God would work and all the mountains would skip like little rams, and the leaves would clap their hands. Well, that looked like that something really was going to take place, see. And when it did, what happened? An old fellow come out of the wilderness, probably a beard...
The ever-present water from the Rock
61-0723M §21
I'm waiting for a man to jump onto me again about something. Someone come to me not long ago and said, "The very idea, of Christ spitting on the ground with His spit, and making a cake and smearing it over somebody's eyes." Said, "How filthy dirty that was for Him to spit with His spit out of His mouth, how unsanitary it was to spit in dirt, and make mud cakes and put it over a man's eyes." I said, "But he come back seeing." See, that's it. And that same man... They opened up a nudist camp up there by my place---yo...
The End-time Evangelism
62-0603 §69
So this fellow said to me, "That would not work today. That's against the sanitation rule, health rules." And then that same man take his family, wife and all those children down there to that swimming pool where all those women and men, and in that water at times of the month that they shouldn't be in, and all that. They never go into the rest rooms sometimes, and all them dirty bodies and filth in there, and them spurting it through their mouth, and eyes, and things like that. And then say that Jesus spitting on...