Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Would you rather be called Jezebel or intolerant?
[00:00:07] That's the question for the church in Thyatira.
[00:00:11] Now, Jezebel probably is not on the list of names that you thought to name your daughter.
[00:00:19] I hope not. And maybe if that's the case today, it's going to get really awkward in just a few moments.
[00:00:26] But also, when we think about the word intolerant, that's not something we want to be called or labeled either.
[00:00:36] We live in a culture where intolerance or tolerance, a culture where tolerance is a virtue.
[00:00:45] But we have to understand when we come to the Bible, tolerance is actually a vice.
[00:00:50] It's. It's not something to be embraced.
[00:00:54] Paul says very clear in the book of Romans that we are to abhor, which means to hate what is evil and we are to cling to what is good.
[00:01:04] Now, certainly in society, there are things that we in some sense tolerate.
[00:01:12] We bear with others. Even in our country, as American citizens, folks have rights to certain things that we quote, tolerate.
[00:01:23] In the context of the church. We are called to bear with one another for the sake of unity. There are certain preferences in the church that others have. There are secondary doctrinal issues.
[00:01:37] We don't really tolerate those things.
[00:01:40] You might say that we bear with one another for the sake of unity.
[00:01:45] But when it comes to this word tolerate, we in no way, a church or Christians in our own hearts and lives are to tolerate sin.
[00:01:57] And the picture we get of Jesus here is one who in no way tolerates sin, in any way tolerates sin. He is intolerant of sin.
[00:02:09] And hopefully what we see today is his intolerance of sin, is him loving the church, him refusing to accept sin in the life of the church and refusing to tolerate. A church that tolerates sin is his love and care for the church.
[00:02:32] We first of all see in this passage that Jesus is the final word to the church. Notice verse 18.
[00:02:40] And to the angel of the church of Thyatira. Remember, John is standing before the this vision of Christ that this angel has given him Christ in his unveiled attributes as this kingly priest who is walking among the churches, who is with the churches and purging the churches of sin.
[00:03:03] And as we move through each church, he addresses specific sin in each church. And we're going to see characteristics of Christ that kind of call back to that vision because it's what each individual church needs. But at the same time, it applies to all the churches. They all read this letter. The messenger would go from one church to the next, maybe making a Copy of the letter, leaving it with the church, but taking this letter to all of these churches.
[00:03:33] And here he says to the angel of the church, again, this might be the pastor of the church, whoever speaks to the church. It could be a guardian angel in the church, but it's a messenger to the church in Thyatira. This would have been a smaller city to the southeast of Pergamum that we talked about last week. So this is the next church on the stop.
[00:03:56] But this would have been a smaller city compared to all the other cities that we've talked about so far. There would have been a population of about 40,000. This city was. Would have been a lot like Richmond, Kentucky.
[00:04:10] Rule, blue collar, work ethic.
[00:04:15] They were known for hundreds of trade guilds, we might even say unions that oversaw commerce and labor and business in the city.
[00:04:27] There would have been blacksmith unions or guilds, bronze smith, potters, weavers, stone cutters.
[00:04:35] We even read in Acts 17 of A Lady named Lydia who was a dyer of purple. She is from Thyatira. She would have been a part of one of these trade guilds and they kind of ran the city.
[00:04:50] But the guilds were very much like fraternities, bad fraternities, hosting parties with rituals that drinks immorality. And each of these trade guilds would have a mascot God that they got together and they swore allegiance to. And everything they did was in honor of this mascot God.
[00:05:18] You attended the parties to be endorsed.
[00:05:22] Imagine being a welder or electrician or a carpenter.
[00:05:26] And to get certified or licensed in your trade, you had to go worship a false God.
[00:05:35] You had to gather with the other folks in your trade who gave allegiance to a false God.
[00:05:42] To keep patrons, you had to lift a glass to the iron God or spend an evening with a temple servant of Aphrodite.
[00:05:54] Imagine such a culture.
[00:05:57] Imagine the cultural pressure to have to give allegiance to a false God, to have to tolerate or even condone sin for the sake of your business.
[00:06:11] But we don't have to imagine that.
[00:06:14] Many of us here today have experienced that.
[00:06:18] Fly the flag, change the color in your logo, or be canceled.
[00:06:24] I'll Never forget in 2020 getting emails from mechanics and grocery stores.
[00:06:31] We just want you to know we are in full support of whatever the latest movement was.
[00:06:37] See, why does a grocery store have to tell me that they support this movement?
[00:06:44] Just sell me groceries. Just change my oil.
[00:06:48] But there was cultural pressure to affirm the latest immorality sin.
[00:07:00] We know what this pressure is like.
[00:07:04] And it is amid such cultural oppression that Jesus speaks to A church, and says, you cannot compromise in light of such cultural oppression, even if it cost you your job, even if it cost you your trade, you can't do it.
[00:07:23] And so notice he emphasizes who he is as he addresses this church. He says, write the words of the Son of God. What's interesting is this is the only letter in Revelation that mentions the Son of God.
[00:07:38] We know Jesus is the Son of God, so why has he not used that term yet?
[00:07:45] Well, there was also the God of Apollo, Zeus's son. And he was seen as the Son of God in Thyatira. He was actually portrayed with all kinds of bronze features. He was the God of sunlight.
[00:08:05] And so what Jesus is saying here is the God who protects your city, this sun God who everybody gives allegiance to. There is one greater than him who is speaking there is the actual Son of God, not Zeus's son, the Son of God.
[00:08:24] Notice who has eyes aflame of fire like a flame of fire.
[00:08:31] Notice again the comparison to this sun God, Apollo.
[00:08:36] And notice whose feet are like burnished bronze.
[00:08:40] So you've seen the images of this sun God in your city.
[00:08:44] You've seen the bronze statues, you've seen the coins. Well, there is one who is speaking to your city who is greater than your little God.
[00:08:56] It is the Son of God, the real Son of God. And we saw earlier in Revelation, these features describe something about Jesus.
[00:09:05] Notice eyes like a flame of fire, eyes that see everything, they penetrate. They know everything about you.
[00:09:15] They pierce through you. But we also know with fire, it purges.
[00:09:21] It burns the bad away and leaves good. And so then he mentions feet that are like burnished bronze, bronze that has been purified.
[00:09:32] And we made reference to this, these bronze feet.
[00:09:37] We made reference to the Book of Daniel, where this kingdom comes and crushes all other kingdoms, this kingdom that has gone through the fiery furnace and has been purged.
[00:09:51] And we said, this is Jesus, immovable rule, One who has gone through the fiery furnace and yet has planted his feet conquering sin and death. This is the immovable kingdom that will rule forever. And so we can put this imagery together and we can say Jesus, with his eyes of fire, is purging, polishing his church until he, like a bronze smith, would take bronze and polish it and burn it until he saw his face in the bronze. That is what Jesus is doing to his church with his eyes of fire. He is purging the church of sin until he sees the reflection of his rule in the church.
[00:10:40] And so the question is, how do you respond to his eyes of fire?
[00:10:45] As you open up the word of God. And we often read the Word of God and we say, God knows things about me that I didn't even know. I didn't know that was sin.
[00:10:54] The eyes of fire are purging you so that you would submit to the rule of Christ. How do you respond to those things? How do you respond to Jesus purging presence in your life through the Word of God? Because what he is doing is he is making you more like himself.
[00:11:14] He is polishing his image in your life.
[00:11:18] And oftentimes that involves suffering, involves repentance of sin, things that are difficult, things that burn at first but are good in the end.
[00:11:30] And notice what the eyes of fire see in the church first of all sees good. He says, I know your works. Now, the word works throughout his use because these folks know about work, so their life revolved around. But he says, I know your works, your love.
[00:11:47] You sacrifice for one another and your faith. You believe in the Word of God and you obey the Word of God and you trust in the word of God. I see that in the life of your church.
[00:12:01] And he says, your acts of service, you're kind to one another, impatient, endurance. This refers to the fact that you even suffer in some ways, but you continue to endure for the sake of the gospel. And then he says, and your latter works exceed the first meaning. You're growing.
[00:12:21] Jesus in some sense says, I am seeing more clearly over and over as you grow through this process, my image in the church, you are growing. This is good.
[00:12:34] I know the good in your church, but I also know the bad.
[00:12:40] And what is the bad?
[00:12:42] He sees the good, but he also sees a Jezebel in the church. Notice verse 20.
[00:12:48] I have this against you, that you tolerate.
[00:12:54] Now, this word tolerate is used really only five times in the Bible.
[00:13:00] And if you look in the context, it's always about something negative.
[00:13:05] It's that you tolerate sin and that's bad.
[00:13:09] That you tolerate most of the time it is used for sexual immorality.
[00:13:15] He says, you are condoning, you are accepting sin.
[00:13:22] And if we think about the church in Ephesus, remember the church in Ephesus, they were the church who judged. False teachers. They judged, but they had no love. Thyatira is the church of love, but no judge.
[00:13:36] They don't judge the false teaching of this one person, the woman, Jezebel. Now, that's not in a term of endearment.
[00:13:45] We often think about Jezebel as a label for a promiscuous woman.
[00:13:52] And we think about the Old Testament Jezebel, who was the daughter of the high priest of Ashtrath, the fertility God, and she married King Ahab.
[00:14:04] And Jezebel built a temple to BAAL in Israel.
[00:14:10] She used her influence, she used her power to promote idolatry in Israel.
[00:14:16] And she opposed, we think about Elijah. She opposed, opposed every prophet that opposed her. And then she began to have the prophets of Israel slaughtered as they condemned her.
[00:14:31] Now, she was immoral, but the primary reason she's called a Jezebel or an adulteress, why this word is associated with this is to commit idolatry was an act of adultery against Yahweh.
[00:14:50] Yahweh had made a covenant with Israel.
[00:14:53] And if you begin to worship other gods, you are being unfaithful to Yahweh, who is your husband, in some sense, you are committing adultery against the covenant that you made with the Lord.
[00:15:08] And what we see is that there is a woman in this church who has come to prominence as a Jezebel.
[00:15:16] What is she doing? She is luring the members of the church away from Christ into sin.
[00:15:25] She is playing the role of a harlot for the people of God.
[00:15:32] She's a Jezebel.
[00:15:33] Now that probably that wasn't her name.
[00:15:37] Just like last week we looked at Balaam and Balak are used, two names used there, by the way, you have to know your Old Testament to understand revelation. It's all the way through.
[00:15:48] But this woman is labeled this way because she is luring the people of God into idolatry.
[00:15:55] But first of all, what are the characteristics of a Jezebel? And that's not just a woman in the church. Anyone can be a Jezebel who leads the people of God into false teaching and idolatry. Well, first of all, we see that Jezebel is self appointed. Notice she calls herself a prophetess to the people of the church. Why should you listen to me? I am a prophetess.
[00:16:20] I have a word from God for you. That's why you should listen to me. But she is self appointed. And we have so many self appointed prophets in the world today.
[00:16:33] We see influencers on social media, we see the TikTok therapist, and often you ask, what qualifications do they have? Oh, they have a modem and a microphone so they can tell me how to live my life.
[00:16:47] And they know more than the people who know me and often the people in my church who love me.
[00:16:54] So one of the things you can do as you listen to podcasts and as you take part in all the resources that are out there. I want to encourage you to do this. Begin to ask those that you take advice from and counsel from. What local church is that person a member of?
[00:17:10] You can just simply ask what credentials they have because most of them don't have many.
[00:17:16] But for a Christian, just ask those that you're really into and you receive a lot of good stuff from what local church holds them accountable for going rogue?
[00:17:29] Because many of these people we latch our life to and it sounds really good in the moment and they don't have accountability and they don't have authority. They're just self proclaimed prophets. Eventually they go rogue.
[00:17:42] So ask the question, what local church are they a member of? There's a lot of fired pastors, there's a lot of Bible study leaders who have left their local church to gain a platform.
[00:17:55] Are they just self proclaimed prophets? But next we see that they speak with authority beyond scripture. We moved on down in the text. We see that what she is propagating Jesus calls the deep things of Satan. And one of the things seers or oracle givers would do during this time is they would go to places, sites where gas fumes would come through the earth and they would take people to these places. And as the fumes came out of the earth, they would stand over them and claim to be receiving messages from the underworld.
[00:18:36] And it was knowledge that nobody else could get.
[00:18:41] They claimed that they were, they understood the deep things that normal folks can't.
[00:18:49] We see this everywhere.
[00:18:51] The Word faith movement is full of teachers who have revelation that nobody else has.
[00:18:58] You look in certain churches and there are false prophets in the Word faith movement who are teaching the prosperity gospel. And they get revelations from God that they are to receive money and that they are to receive accolades that the church is just to bow down before them.
[00:19:14] Why are they to do that? Well, I got revelation from God that you can't hear.
[00:19:18] Where is that in the Bible? No, God speaks to me.
[00:19:22] That's what's going on with this Jezebel.
[00:19:26] I'll never forget several years ago we had someone in our church come to us, the pastors, and they were putting pressure on us to do certain things.
[00:19:39] And the things that they were saying were not all bad, but they were being extremely impatient.
[00:19:47] And we began to ask, so why do you want us to do this?
[00:19:54] And it would have been different if they said this is my preference.
[00:19:57] But they continue to tell us, I have a word from the Lord that you should do this. And if we don't do this as a church, we are in Sin.
[00:20:07] And we began to press, well, how did you get this word from the Lord that we didn't get?
[00:20:13] And I'll never forget that response. I'm just really close to the Lord and he speaks to me in ways that I don't think he speaks to anybody else.
[00:20:23] And we said, no.
[00:20:25] See you later.
[00:20:27] When Ashlyn Lex voted to sell their downtown property and move to the Wellington area where they are now, the night we all voted to do that, I had a lady approach me in the church and say, this is not God's will for our church.
[00:20:45] I believe not. I believe God has told me we should not sell the downtown property.
[00:20:54] We should not build across town.
[00:20:57] Just like Abraham gave land to Lot.
[00:21:02] What we should do as a church is give our property to another church for free.
[00:21:08] And I said, that is not the will of the Lord for our church.
[00:21:14] And she said, you doubt?
[00:21:16] Said it's beyond doubt.
[00:21:18] 300 people just sought the will of the Lord and said, this is what we should do.
[00:21:23] What is it about you?
[00:21:25] And she said, I am a prophetess.
[00:21:29] Do you believe me?
[00:21:31] No, I do not.
[00:21:34] Do you see how that works?
[00:21:37] But it culminates here in does this lead to sin?
[00:21:41] So they give them self authority. They have deep things that they understand that other people don't. And then it leads to sin. And it always does. When you see someone who is rogue authority and they're saying things that other people can't understand and it's going to eventually lead to sin and immorality. And that's what happens with this prophetess. Notice she is teaching and seducing my servants to practice immorality, to eat food sacrificed to idols. And we talked about last week this intimate fellowship with the gods that include a meal and immorality. But. But the point here is that this is sin.
[00:22:18] This is these. These things are clear.
[00:22:22] Clearly not to be tolerated in the church. There's sin.
[00:22:26] But because she is a self aboard prophetess and she has authority beyond the scriptures that other people don't have, she can say, no, this is the will of God that you sin.
[00:22:38] It is never the will of God that you disobey God ever.
[00:22:44] And if you say, if you are called to disobey God, you can say, I feel led.
[00:22:50] I have a peace in my heart.
[00:22:52] That's not God.
[00:22:54] God will not call you to disobey his scriptures. He will not call you to disobey his will.
[00:23:01] And here's the thing about this idea that we use with peace. I have a piece about this.
[00:23:07] You do understand you can be at peace with sin.
[00:23:12] That is who we are.
[00:23:13] We just read the Scripture. Our hearts are wicked, they're deceitful. Your heart can convince you because you have a peace in your heart to sin.
[00:23:23] And by the way, obedience isn't always peaceful.
[00:23:28] Sometimes we are called to do hard things out of obedience and move through unpeaceful waters because there is joy and peace on the other side of those things.
[00:23:39] So if it leads to sin, it's not the will of God, it's not the word of God, but this is what she is leading the church to do. So we've seen what Jezebel does in the church. What does Jesus do in the church? Notice, first of all, he calls for repentance. Notice I gave her time to repent.
[00:23:58] Now, some of you, if you go back and you listen to the sermon last week, I want to emphasize the issue is not the sin, the sin is issue.
[00:24:09] But when it comes to repentance and restoration, reconciliation, the issue is turning from the sin.
[00:24:19] You're not shunned, you're not alienated, you're not cast out by Jesus when you sin.
[00:24:26] But when you don't repent of the sin, you continue to disfellowship yourself from Jesus. And notice we've just read some really horrible things about Jezebel.
[00:24:38] Just the name Jezebel, we would say this is a horrible, wicked person.
[00:24:43] But notice Jesus has given her a chance to repent, to turn from her sin, but she refuses to notice. She refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.
[00:24:57] Now throughout these passages, we begin to go, is this idolatry or is it immorality? And it's both.
[00:25:05] And the Scriptures unite those things in teaching against idolatry over and over.
[00:25:14] It's both and, and so often sexual sin vividly displays what the idolatry is.
[00:25:25] Sexual sin is a vivid display of idolatry. You are literally giving your body and soul to someone other than God, even if it's the idol of self gratification, that is immorality, that's adultery. And so these things are. Sometimes you don't even know what he's talking about here. It's both. And, and in this case, the idolatry included sexual immorality. But notice she won't repent of it.
[00:25:57] So Jesus is calling this prophetess to repent. And she wants so notice what he does. He judges the sin. Behold, I will throw her on a sickbed. And those who commit adultery with her. When God eventually purged Israel of Jezebel, she was Thrown. Notice the word thrown out of a window. She was thrown to the ground, fell out, and then she was trampled by horses.
[00:26:27] And the prophecy is that she was trampled by horses, eventually eaten by dogs so that she would become dung that animals would eat so that she would have no headstone or remembrance in Israel.
[00:26:44] God wiped her out totally from Israel's memory.
[00:26:49] And here Jesus says, I'm going to judge this Jezebel severely. Notice he says, sick bed. There were couches at these parties that were used for immorality. And what he is saying here is, the places of her wickedness will become places of sickness.
[00:27:08] The party bed will become the hospital bed.
[00:27:11] And notice, I will throw into great tribulation all who follow her, who commit adultery with her notice, unless they repent of their works. Again, the issue is repentance. I can't emphasize that enough. There are desires in our heart. There is past that we have.
[00:27:35] There are moments where we sin against Christ and it is wicked and it is wrong and we must be broken of those things. But the issue is always repentance.
[00:27:44] And even in the sight of such wickedness, Jesus gives opportunity for repentance.
[00:27:51] And in judging Jezebel, there is opportunity for those who follow her to repent.
[00:27:57] But notice, he says, and I will strike her children dead again. Followers of spiritual adultery, they will be punished. Those who follow after her in the church, they will be punished too.
[00:28:10] And so Jezebel is to turn. The folks in the church who have been lured away are to turn from their sin.
[00:28:17] But the sin in Thyatira is this.
[00:28:20] They are being more tolerant than Jesus in claiming its love.
[00:28:25] Notice how serious Jesus is with this sin.
[00:28:30] The graphic words.
[00:28:33] A lot of times we go, oh, the God of the Old Testament, he is. He's so mean and bad. And I don't think anyone's read Revelation because this is the same God who feels the same way about sin.
[00:28:48] Now the cross is in the middle of the book, so there's hope and mercy.
[00:28:54] But Jesus hates sin.
[00:28:57] And he is against a church that thinks they are more tolerant than him and calling it love. Jesus just doesn't understand the culture.
[00:29:09] If Jesus wrote the Bible today, it would sound a lot different. Do you understand how wicked this culture was?
[00:29:15] Do you understand what was accepted in this culture?
[00:29:18] It doesn't change the message. The message was the same.
[00:29:22] And so Jesus is clarifying the witness.
[00:29:26] So he calls to repentance, he judges and he clarifies the witness. Notice.
[00:29:32] So Jesus point here is that all of the churches notice and all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart. The word is actually heart and kidneys, the deepest part of who we are.
[00:29:49] Jesus knows and sees these eyes of fire.
[00:29:53] And he says, I will give to each of you according to your works. Again, this idea of, of trade work. You will be paid for what you do.
[00:30:03] The wages of sin is death.
[00:30:07] This is a direct quote from Jeremiah 17 that we read earlier.
[00:30:11] But what Jesus wants to understand, remember, is written to all churches.
[00:30:15] You can't tolerate sin this way.
[00:30:18] And I want you to understand the devastation of sin in a church, if you just keep tolerating, leads to a lot of pain and agony. And so don't tolerate sin in the church.
[00:30:31] Don't tolerate this sort of sin in the church.
[00:30:36] And one of the things we see here is love is magnified when sin is clarified.
[00:30:42] Love is magnified when sin is clarified. We read this and we say Jesus is full of hate and vengeance here. Hate and vengeance towards sin. He loves his church enough to purge his church of sin. And so he's clarifying what sin is and it magnifies his love.
[00:31:02] How does that work out for us? Well, Jesus tells us that we're sinners, that we've fallen short of the glory of God, and he clearly explains how we've fallen short of the glory of God. This is sin, this is idolatry, this is wickedness, this is deception.
[00:31:20] Jesus is very clear in the Bible of what sin is.
[00:31:26] That's not unloving, because what does he do?
[00:31:30] He then gives his life for sinners and his love is magnified because our sin has been clarified that he would die for the sexually immoral, the idolaters, that he would die for us, guilty of such sin, that magnifies his love.
[00:31:53] And so we as a church and friends have to reflect such love and witness in the church. In the same way, we have to clarify what sin is in the lives of those we love to magnify our love.
[00:32:11] I love you enough to tell you that this relationship is sinful.
[00:32:17] I love you enough to tell you that this is wrong.
[00:32:22] I love you enough to warn you that a believer in Christ full of the Holy Spirit won't continue to choose that.
[00:32:32] I love you enough to say it.
[00:32:35] I'm not going to tolerate you to hell.
[00:32:39] I love you.
[00:32:41] Listen, that's got to be a part of this.
[00:32:48] Silence, tolerance.
[00:32:55] Those you claim to love leads them to destroying their life, a lot of misery if they don't repent. Hell. Do you really love them?
[00:33:07] Do you love them enough to clarify their sin.
[00:33:11] Because then when you step in and say, I'm praying for you, can I come over and wash your dishes for you?
[00:33:23] I can't come to the wedding, but I'll come over and mow your yard, I'll bring you a meal.
[00:33:33] You're welcome in my house whenever. I love you.
[00:33:38] Do you see how that works?
[00:33:40] Then they know you really do love them because you don't agree and you're not going to tolerate. So they understand that you really do love them.
[00:33:50] And so when we clarify sin, our love is magnified. But when we do, when we don't clarify sin, our love is irrelevant, meaningless. And maybe it's just not love, maybe it's self centered idolatry.
[00:34:08] Love is magnified when sin is clarified. And that's what Jesus does in his church. And then he gives the church a better promise.
[00:34:16] Notice as we Continue in verse 24, we see a better promise. One of the things that's going on here is Domitian, the emperor who called himself God and he's killing Christians who refused to worship him. Domitian had a son die as a child.
[00:34:32] And Domitian issued the making of these coins. And you can even find pictures of these coins online with this child, his son on the back. And he's holding seven stars. Does that sound familiar?
[00:34:47] He's holding seven stars. In Revelation chapter one, we see that it is Jesus who holds the seven stars. Again, he is the real son of God.
[00:34:56] He is the. He is the real ruler of the galaxy.
[00:35:01] And notice what this king does for those who obey and follow and trust him. Verse 24, he says to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold. I want to emphasize this hold that's important throughout this passage to hold this teaching.
[00:35:16] Remember, Jesus holds the stars.
[00:35:21] You hold to the teaching of this cosmic king, but you do not hold to the teaching that you have learned that it's called the deep things of Satan. You hold something better to you I say, I do not lay any other burden on you. I'm not going to give you anything else to hold judgment, the destruction of sin.
[00:35:44] Only hold fast what you have until I come.
[00:35:48] What is it that we hold?
[00:35:52] The one who conquers and keeps my word until the end, I will give him authority over all the nations.
[00:35:58] What do we hold in Christ?
[00:36:02] We hold this kingdom that will rule the nations.
[00:36:05] And he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces. And I myself have received authority from my Father. Again, again, there's Allusion to the trade guilds here. There's iron that crushes pottery. You are holding the rod of iron with Christ, and you will rule with him and crush all others.
[00:36:26] So whatever trade guild has the upper hand with the gods, doesn't matter. Jesus is the one who holds the galaxies and you will rule with him forever. You don't have to leverage yourself for influence or status in your community.
[00:36:41] You have the kingdom. This is direct quote from Psalm chapter 2, verse 9. And it's a picture of Jesus who's been raised from the dead and the Father has given him the right to rule. Here's what you hold in Christ through the gospel, the kingdom that rules forever.
[00:36:56] So give yourself over to lesser kingdoms.
[00:36:59] You are holding as you hold the gospel and the word of God, the kingdom of Christ. And notice verse 28, I will give him the morning star.
[00:37:09] And many believed or thought that Venus was the first star that you see before dawn.
[00:37:18] And here he's saying, you will be given the first star. Remember, the stars represent rule. You will be given the preeminent rule. But here we know he's talking about Christ. Because in numbers 2417, we see a star will come out of Jacob, a scepter shall rise out of Israel.
[00:37:37] And we know who that is. In Revelation 22, verse 16, Jesus says, I am the bright and morning star.
[00:37:44] So what do we hold onto in the Gospel that we're not to let go of?
[00:37:49] The kingdom that will rule?
[00:37:52] Not just the kingdom, the king.
[00:37:55] You have Jesus.
[00:37:57] And God says, if you are faithful and you are true, and you continue to persevere, clinging to the gospel and following after Christ, trusting in him alone, turning from your sin, you will be given Christ and his kingdom forever. He says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. I want you to understand all of this, that there is something better for you. And here's the point. God's intolerance of our sin isn't taking good away from us.
[00:38:28] I have to tell myself that the lure of sin and knowing God says no, don't say that. Don't do that. Don't go there.
[00:38:41] God, do you not want me to be happy?
[00:38:44] No. I want something better for you. And it's Christ.
[00:38:49] Do you believe that?
[00:38:51] Do you believe that that's how we fight sin?
[00:38:56] Is the one who sent His Son and loved us enough to die for our sin.
[00:39:01] He loves us more than sin could ever love us, more than anyone or anything and forever in this kingdom. In his presence, the psalmist says, there Is pleasure evermore.
[00:39:18] We can't even fathom the joy and pleasure that we're going to have with Christ forever.
[00:39:24] And here he's pleading with the church. Understand there is a better promise.
[00:39:31] Don't let go of the promise to grab the air and sand that is promised the pleasure of this world. Don't let go. Oh, it's better.
[00:39:48] It's better to cling to the kingdom.
[00:39:51] Jezebel promises better, but she gives less in the moment and she kills you in the long term. You die listening to the voice of Jezebel.
[00:40:02] And so the question for all of us here today, here's what we like to do.
[00:40:06] Those people out there, they struggle with this.
[00:40:10] The church in general struggles with this.
[00:40:13] Sometimes we even say our church struggles with this.
[00:40:19] No, we start with getting the log out of our own eye and the Jezebel spirit out of our own heart.
[00:40:27] And so in light of all this, are you tolerating a Jezebel spirit who's hijacked your heart?
[00:40:33] Not just the church in Thyatira, but your heart?
[00:40:37] Have you become a self appointed prophet who just know that's what we think with, that's what we do with sin in essence is Jesus. I just know better than you.
[00:40:49] I just know better than you.
[00:40:52] I know you're Lord, your creator. You created me, you died for my sin, you rose from the dead, you promised me eternity. I just know better than you though about this thing.
[00:41:06] Are you a self appointed prophet?
[00:41:09] Jesus says yeah, you know some things and it's called the deep things of Satan.
[00:41:14] Are you choosing the deep things of Satan because a Jezebel spirit has hijacked your heart, God, your design?
[00:41:24] It just doesn't fit with my life right now.
[00:41:29] Do you understand what it would be like Jesus to live in this culture?
[00:41:36] I don't think you really understand how my heart is wired up.
[00:41:40] He created you, he knows everything about you and he still called you to something better.
[00:41:48] And the call here is to be intolerant of sin, not just in the church, but in your heart, to repent of it, to turn from it and to by faith believe it leads to something better.
[00:42:01] And so when it comes to your own sin, would you rather be called a Jezebel or intolerant?
