Thoughts on Revelation 2

Today’s reading: Psalms 30-31; Revelation 2

There are two things that stand out to me this morning in Jesus’ words to the church in Thyatira: God’s patient mercy, and how much this sounds like the broader church in American today.

God’s Patient Mercy

In terms of God’s patient mercy, Jesus says that He has given Jezebel time to repent and she has not, so He is going to deal with her. This is kind of amazing to me. Here you have this woman, falsely claiming to be a prophetess of God, and using the platform that she has built on that claim to lead people into sexual immorality and idolatry. It doesn’t sound like you could get much more brazenly sinful and heedless of God than that, and yet, God has still given her time to repent rather than harshly casting her out. Clearly, as He says, He is going to deal with her severely, but, in His patient mercy, He has held off so far.

I call this out this morning because it is so easy, at times, to feel like God is ready to be done with us when we fall into sin. We all have different areas of sin we struggle with, and especially in those areas that plague us, when we once again give into temptation, Satan whispers into our ear, “Really? Again? Do you even care about your faith? Clearly not. When are you going to stop faking it and just give up?” Or our flesh tells us that there is no way God could still love us after we have been so continually unfaithful to Him. But His dealings with Jezebel point us to the truth of it. If He has been so patient, giving a brazen, hedonistic, false prophetess, actively seeking to lead people astray, time to repent, how much more so you? You who want to follow the Lord but are struggling to break out of old habits and the patterns of thought that have formed and strengthened those habits. You who are wanting and seeking to grow, but feel mired down by the weight of your sin. You who care what the Lord has to say, and want to agree with Him where your sin is concerned, but are feeling overpowered by your flesh at times. If God was so patient with Jezebel, how much more so with you?

I don’t say this to encourage you in your sin, or to say that we should regard sin flippantly, banking on the patient mercy of God, because clearly, as Jesus says here, that patience was coming to an end for Jezebel. But that patience was coming to an end for Jezebel because she was not interested in repentance, and this is very different from the Christian who wants to love, follow, and serve the Lord, but keeps falling back into sin. Fight to be free from your sin. Confess your sin to faithful brothers or sisters who can help you grow in freedom. Battle the lies of temptation and deception with the truth of God’s Word and seek, day by day, greater and greater freedom. Live openly in the light, in the midst of your failure, and trust God to carry you forward and grow you in His Spirit, and you never have to fear reaching the end of His patient mercy. If He was willing to be patient with Jezebel, in her unrepentant, brazen, public sin, how much more so you? There is never a need to fear that you have sinned too much or too many times that He is going to cast you out.

There is always more grace in Christ than there is sin in you.

The Church Today

My other thought this morning is how much this sounds like it is describing the broader church in America today.

I have a hard time imaging a faithful church today letting this happen. If you have someone claiming to be a prophet of God, and using that "role" to actively lead people into sin, the elders and leaders of the church are hopefully not going to stand by and just let it happen. And honestly, with so many options for churches today, I imagine such a person would prefer to move on to a less spiritually conservative church where they can operate freely and not face pushback from the leaders or members of the church. I assume it was different back then though, without the abundance of churches to pick from, and with a much smaller/tighter-knit community, where, even if you kicked Jezebel out of the church, everyone still knows and sees her regularly in the community, allowing her to continue on with the same type of influence, even if not within church walls.

But whatever this would or wouldn't look like within a particular church, it definitely seems to fit with patterns in the broader church today. How many churches will ignore, downplay, or even directly deny biblical teachings on issues like sexuality in order to make their doctrine more palatable, or to simply make it agree with their own personal whims? On the one hand, you have churches who will refuse to speak too boldly about sexual immorality for fear of alienating and losing the younger generation who are embroiled in pornography and elicit sexual relationships. That's bad enough, but far worse, how many churches have begun calling good what the Bible calls sin? How many churches today don't stop at opening their doors to the LGBT+ community (as they rightly should), but actively affirm LGBT+ lifestyles as good and godly? How many churches today, rather than calling people to turn to Christ in repentance are ultimately teaching people to embrace their sin? 

Morality is not defined by the culture's current whims, but by the Word of God. And I fear that too many well meaning, faithful, spiritually conservative churches are "tolerating the woman Jezebel" by not taking a stand against these increasingly progressive church movements happening all around us.

I also want to be clear in this, that I'm not talking about churches taking a stand against non-Christians living a lifestyle God calls sinful. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people - not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler - not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

Jesus does not take issue with the church in Thyatira for having sexually immoral people and idolaters in their city, He takes issue with them abiding by such people in the church. So I don't say this to get churches taking up banners to fight a culture war against the non-Christians around us, but I do say that we should we willing to fight a war with those so-called brothers and sisters who reject the Word of God and, supposedly in the name of Christ, teach people to embrace all kinds of ungodliness and evil. If we don't take a stand for the truth, we swing wide the already broad gate leading to destruction for so many confused and lost people, thinking they are encountering God in church, when the reality is that they couldn't be father from Him and are in desperate need of His gospel. 

We, as the broader, faithful church community, need to take a stand on the truth, call sin sin, making clear that those “Christian” churches who refuse to do the same are not faithful shepherds, but wolves in sheep’s clothing, leading many astray. It is not our job to make the gospel palatable, but to declare it boldly, letting people be offended by it, and letting the Holy Spirit do His work of convicting them of their sin and calling them to repentance and the grace that can only be found in Christ.