JUST HOLD ON

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”

Revelation 2:24-25

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We live in an increasingly evil world. Sin isn’t just running rampant, out of the dark recesses where it used to lurk and into public view on a consistent basis, it’s right in our faces, every single day.

All this might lead us to believe we have a sin problem but if we believe this, we are missing the true and proper source of the world’s maligned condition. For this world doesn’t have a sin problem. It’s got a godlessness one.

Indeed, since the advent of mankind, those who willingly chose to walk away from God have ended up in partnership with Satan. That’s the way it works because any one person can only be partnered with one or the other.

Adam and Eve decided that eating forbidden fruit, an act encouraged by the enemy who took the form of a serpent, was more important than obedience to God. And with their act of insolence, sin would infect the DNA of every single person afterwards.

We quickly saw the horrific impact of this as Cain, jealous over the Lord’s favor falling more on his brother than himself after each gave Him offerings, murdered Abel after ignoring God’s warnings about what could happen if he didn’t give attention to “sin crouching at his door”, sin that desired to “have” him (Genesis 4:6-7).   

Godlessness will always produce behavior defined by wickedness and this fact has been proven time and time again since the days of the first family to present.

Over the past couple days, we have been looking at Jesus’ letter to the church of Thyatira and in yesterday’s message, we found the Savior condemning the congregants of tolerating the sinful teaching of an evil female prophetess named Jezebel who was in their midst. After she refused to repent, He promised judgment on her and anyone who would align themselves with her teaching and beliefs.

As for those who shunned the godlessness of Jezebel, we find Jesus providing them guidance as to what they were to do in the midst of the evil around them and His words serve as important direction for us today as well. Let’s look at His words again here:

“Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’” Revelation 2:24-25

While some Christians in Thyatira had fallen prey to Satan’s work through Jezebel, much like their progenitors, Adam and Eve, there was a segment of the church who refused to “hold to her teaching” and therefore reject “Satan’s so-called deep secrets”. For them, Jesus promised not give them “any other burden” except to do one thing.

They were to hold on to what they had until He would come.

Through His words, Jesus was telling the believers in Thyatira to just hold fast to Him, to His strength and power, and to His words which contained promises they needed to cling to during times of trial, promised that included His assurance that He would come back to save them and bring them to eternal life.

This statement from Jesus was meant to bring comfort and peace to His disciples in Thyatira and they still speak to us today here in the 21st century. Yes, we are living in an increasingly dangerous world where iniquity is embraced and treated as being acceptable but Jesus would tell us not lose heart but to just hold on for He is going to return and take us to a place where evil will exist no more.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.