SINFUL TOLERANCE

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In Christ, Mark

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

“Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads My servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.”

Revelation 2:20-23

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

We live in a world that seems to scream out for tolerance on a regular basis. It’s a tolerance which has seemingly no limits to it and thus is the challenge for Christians.

It’s not that the Bible teaches in tolerance. That couldn’t be further than the truth because one of the fruits of the Spirit is forbearance and a quick look at the definition of that word renders the following:

If you say that someone has shown forbearance, you admire them for behaving in a calm and sensible way about something that they have a right to be very upset or angry about.

In other words, when Christians exercise forbearance, they do so out of a sense of grace and mercy and forgiveness, the same grace and mercy and forgiveness God has shown them in life.

So where is the line drawn where tolerance is condemned?

We find the answer in today’s passage draw from our continuing study of Jesus’ letter to the church of Thyatira as found in the second chapter of Revelation 2. There we read the following:

“Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.”

In the opening verses leading into this passage, we found our Savior actually praising the Thyatira believers for doing more in the way of deeds, service, love, faith, and perseverance than they had done at first (Vv. 18-19). But note that all wasn’t well inside the congregation and Jesus doesn’t hold back in rebuking them for it.

Prior, He reminded His Thyatira disciples that He knew everything that they were doing, and everything means everything, good or bad. And so He was fully aware of how some congregants had actually tolerated a wicked false female prophet by the name of Jezebel, a woman who Jesus called out for the following acts of wickedness:

1. She had misled His servants through her teaching.

Jesus had no tolerance for those who spread falsehood, especially when it came to adversely influencing His disciples. He knew Jezebel was doing just that.

2. Through her false teaching, she convinced the Thyatira Christians to engage in “sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols”, neither of which are approved by God nor His Word.

Jesus had no tolerance level for such behavior but note that He did withhold His judgment on Jezebel while giving her a chance to “repent of her immorality”.

Did I mention that our Lord is a Lord of grace, mercy, and forgiveness?

Here, we find Jesus clearly showing this but unfortunately, Jezebel turned down the opportunity to change direction, leaving Jesus no other recourse than to punish her for the sins she committed within His church.

The consequences weren’t pleasant for we read where Jesus cast Jezebel onto a “bed of suffering” and hold anyone accountable who chose her ways and committed “adultery” unless they would “repent” of following “her ways”. Additionally, Jesus vowed to “strike” Jezebel’s “children dead”. There would be no future bloodlines associated with her.

In this message, we find Jesus validating that not all behavior is tolerable, not for Him nor His disciples. The line is drawn at blatant, willing sinful behavior which is unacceptable to Jesus and it should be unacceptable to anyone who is saved in His name.

So do we see the Christian church today speaking about sin...or tolerating it?

Unfortunately, the answer is, “It depends.” For there is Bible believing churches that will not waver in their resolve that God’s Word is inerrant and the ultimate authority regarding Christian conduct and the Gospel responsibility of the church with Jesus as the Head. But then there are a multitude of churches who cater to the world and its ways, so much so that you can’t see any distinction between the church and the world itself. Behavior that the scriptures clearly call sinful is embraced and accepted without any need or call for repentance.

It leaves me to wonder what Jesus thinks as He looks down on His churches but my wondering is put to an end when I read these following words that close out our verses for today. For there we find Him say this:

“...all the churches will know that I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.”

In other words, Jesus makes it clear to the church of Thyatira (as well as any church today) that He will bring correction to any Christian or body of Christians who tolerate sinfulness without taking action and as we saw in yesterday's message, He sees and knows everything. No one should want to be counted in that number.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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