Scripture: Revelation 2:18-29
Listen link: https://www.lcepc.org Then look for “Sermons” tab.
Truth or consequences. Remember that game show? It was a comical way of putting people in a practical joke type of situation if they couldn’t answer a quiz question truthfully, or correctly. Either tell the truth or pay the consequences. That was fun to watch. Another slant on the concept of truth or consequences is the little factoid that says, “Ideas have consequences.” That is actually the title of a book that was published back in 1948. It argues that all our modern difficulties in society, such as relativism and apathy, and lack of respect for authority, are the result of a philosophical shift away from belief in absolute authority.
In other words, rejecting the Bible as the truth of God has led to the current situation. But you didn’t need a philosopher to tell you that did you? It’s pretty obvious! It’s obvious to us today! What’s interesting is that if this book had been taken seriously 70 years ago when it was written, we might not be where we are today, because the author, Richard M. Weaver, included a prescription in his book for how to avoid the consequences that he prophetically saw coming.
Weaver wrote back in 1948, “Today, many think that it does not matter what a man believes, but it does. What a man believes tells him what the world is for. If people can’t agree what the world is for, they can never agree on all the little things in life either. People don’t want others to take what they believe too seriously. This is how religion is currently viewed. Our various thoughts and assumptions about ideas are what give them meaning. Our ideas must be harmonized by some vision. Our task is to find that harmonization.”
That was written 70 years ago and today we are living with the consequences of not finding that harmonization. But that harmonizing vision had been offered already, thousands of years earlier, when God began speaking to human beings. Sadly, we very easily forget or ignore what God says about ultimate reality.
More on truth or consequences comes with parenting. It is our task to let our kids know what’s really going on in their worlds. We have to issue warnings to the kids sometimes and instructions for good behavior often come with descriptions of consequences for bad behavior. The best consequences are the natural consequences that are the actual result of the bad behavior. That’s not arbitrary. It’s like, don’t touch the stove or you will burn your hand and that will hurt. That’s a description of natural consequences. It’s different from, “Don’t touch the stove or I will send you to your room.” Getting sent to your room for disobeying is a different kind of consequence. It can sound arbitrary and unrelated to the offense. But it is just as real, if the parents keep their word.
Now let’s talk about spiritual consequences. In the world where we live, some of the temptations to break God’s law do not seem to have natural physical consequences. For example, God told Adam and Eve that they would die when they ate the forbidden fruit. But they didn’t die physically. They were still alive. But everything else had changed. The spiritual consequences were very real. They suddenly knew they were naked and ashamed. They were suddenly afraid of God and tried to avoid him. They had to leave the garden. Life itself got a lot harder. And they suffered a great spiritual separation between themselves and God. In other words, they were spiritually dead. Spiritual consequences for our actions are very real. They are just not always obvious to us. Hence, we need Jesus’ help and guidance and sometimes his judgement, as in the case of Thyatira today.
First though, in Thyartira’s job review, Jesus gave a list of the good things going on there. He says, “These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.” That’s four good things.
First, he mentioned deeds. This means their good deeds had a positive impact on the community, transforming it from a society of self-centered and greedy people with no regard for the poor and needy into a community that did care about justice, actively, generously and even sacrificially giving of itself to make a difference, right the wrongs and aid the poor. That’s faith in action, or good deeds.
Second, he commended them for their love and faith. Love kept them together in good fellowship and faith defined that fellowship along the lines of the gospel.
Third, Jesus told them he knew of their service and perseverance. The church must have added new believers as well as just survive.
So, finally, the fourth thing Jesus commended them for was their growth and progress. They are now doing more than they did at first. So, this was in several ways a successful church that really had a lot going for it. But then Jesus had to give them the bad news.
In verses 20 – 23 he says, “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.”
Please take note of the strong words Jesus used in warning the Christians in Thyatira about the dangers of the Jezebel compromise. They are the focus of this review, placed in the center of the message to Thyatira, which in Middle Eastern writing is the main point, the most important space in the paragraph. It is as if to say, in spite of the good things going on around this issue, the truth of spiritual adultery among them, and its consequences for them, is Jesus’ central focus because it can undo all the good. This Jezebel is the target of Jesus’ angry sounding judgment.
Jezebel is probably not the actual name of the person causing all this trouble. Jezebel is a famous name among the Jews. She was an evil queen in the nation of Israel hundreds of years earlier. She would have been very well known to at least the Jewish members of the church. Therefore, the name of Jezebel is a symbolic name for a woman of authority who is doing evil. There must have been such a woman in the church, an actual member of the community of faith. She would not have been an outsider but an actual member of the community and in a position of respect, as a teacher, or even a prophetess.
Jesus said that this authority figure in the church was doing a very dangerous thing among them. “By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” Once again this in reference to the pagan cultic practices in the trade guilds of their society. It is one thing for individual Christians to be tempted to participate in the trade guilds in order to find work and avoid persecution. But it is quite another thing to have a teacher in a church actually telling and teaching people that such behavior is exactly what they ought to do and that it is a perfectly fine way for Christians to behave!
This Jezebel was given that name because she was misleading the Christians. And she herself needed to heed Jesus’ warning in Matthew 18:6, where it says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to those who lead them astray.” But if she would not change, then Jesus was telling the rest of the congregation that she must not be tolerated.
The Ephesus church had been commended by Jesus because they did not tolerate false teachers. But here in Thyatira the problem was that they did. Ephesus was told to remember their first love. Perhaps in Thyatira the people loved too much, and in the wrong way! It would mean that they loved with a soft love that tolerated false teaching instead of a tough love that correctly discerned and resisted false ways of looking at matters of importance.
The reason for the false teaching had to do with the effort to fit in with the culture so as to make a living and avoid persecution. Remember, the trade guilds that controlled the local economy demanded pagan worship practices and anybody who didn’t comply was thought of as both an atheist and also unemployable. So, there was pressure to go along with the culture and one person who succumbed to that temptation was this Jezebel who added to her sins by teaching her congregation that God will understand if you have to eat a little food sacrificed to idols, etc. Thus, she led others astray with her.
In contrast, there is a message all through the Bible, that God wants his people to be different. Not different as in weird, but different as in motivated and lead by Godly wisdom rather than worldly thinking. That is profoundly true. If all we're doing is fitting in with the world around us, something is wrong. This does not mean self-righteousness, thinking we're better than others. It means self-sacrifice, living the difficult life of swimming against the current.
That is something that we have to be careful about today. We are to be in the world, but not of it. That’s just like a boat, that is supposed to be in the water but not of it. A boat is no use if it is not in the water. At the same time, we want to be sure that there is no water in the boat, so it doesn’t sink! What good would it be for a fishing boat or a rescue boat to be all rigged up and equipped for the job it is supposed to do if it isn’t sea worthy in the first place? If there are so many leaks that the crew has to spend its time continuously bailing water back out, they’re not going to catch any fish or rescue anybody. They’re going to need to be rescued. So, in the Church at Thyatira, Jesus came to the rescue by telling them the truth about their false teacher and pointing out the consequences of continuing to follow her if they did not repent.
As has been said before, our modern culture preaches tolerance of everything, everything except intolerance! We are told over and over again, “Do not judge.” We are told to assume that everyone is trying their best to do what is right and we are not to have any ideas about right and wrong that we could apply to someone else. This all relates back to what Weaver wrote back in 1948, “Today, many think that it does not matter what a man believes… People don’t want others to take what they believe too seriously.”
But it should be taken seriously, and it does matter! I am afraid a lot of bad water may be getting into our fellow“ship.” It is easy to be infected with a relativistic world view that has very little respect for authority because of the belief that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Everyone has been told, “Just follow your heart.” As if the inner workings of one’s own consciousness are a reliable source of direction. Also, nobody likes to be the only one who seems to be disagreeing with popular opinion. There is a lot of pressure to conform!
And it isn’t easy to have any confidence in what I think is right unless I have an objective source of truth that is not dependent at all on how I feel about it. The Bible says that the human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Fortunately, the Bible offers itself as the antidote to the deceitfulness of the human heart.
The Bible presents itself as the font of wisdom and the source of truth that everyone could and should rely upon and trust. The Bible presents itself as if it were like a ruler or a straight edge against which any other thought or philosophy could be compared to see it if it true. The Bible IS true. We trust that. Anything out of line with what the Bible says would be untrue. This is why a healthy church insists upon the essentials of the faith and the centrality of the word of God. The Bible can seal the leaks that otherwise let the world’s way of thinking seep back into our fellowship. That’s the factor that seems to be missing in Thyatira.
Now as to the severity of the warnings. First of all, they look like as close to natural or logical consequences as you can get. For those who are either figuratively or literally practicing sexual immorality, which often happens in a bed, Jesus says, “So I will cast her on a bed of suffering.” And this only after he has patiently given her time to repent.
He also warned her followers, “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.” The adultery Jesus is talking about is probably really in reference to the impure faith of being involved with pagan worship. Adultery is really a word that means impure. That is why some products used to be advertised for their purity using the word, unadulterated.
But far from merely being angry, we should realize that the warnings of Jesus are expressions of his love. For example, a child might be told, “Don’t go near that stove or I will grab your hand and yank you away.” That would require a parent who is always watching and ready to act, always present in the moment so that if the child approaches the stove the parent can act immediately and prevent the burn from happening. Jesus is always with us in just such a way.
Think of the child who has received such a warning. The little one approaches the stove anyway. Suddenly a larger, stronger hand grabs the wrist of the little child and yanks it away from the hot stove. What an unpleasant experience it could be for the child, to be forcibly swung around and dragged away from the intended goal. There may be some slight physical pain, but there is the even greater pain of indignation at being frustrated and not allowed to do what one wants. I know how my granddaughter behaves! Poor child! But think how much more unpleasant and long lasting the consequences would have been if the child had touched the hot stove. Better a sore arm and hurt feelings than a burned palm! The yank away from the stove was an act of love that prevented greater harm.
Jesus’ warnings in his letters to the churches are just like that. They are expressions of his love. And if he comes to make someone suffer for their sins, his desire is to produce repentance unto salvation. He wants to save his children and not let them get burned. If he didn’t punish and give a chance to repent, they might burn forever in the lake of fire.
The hope of the gospel lies in this. Heaven is not filled with people who never made mistakes! It is 100 % filled with people who did make mistakes, sinners who have repented, except for Jesus, who is God. For sinners and for believers, repentance form sin is a genuine opportunity to experience or re-experience the power of the gospel to save our souls and set us back on the path of righteousness. So, Jesus ends again on a positive note. “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.’
That line to hold onto reminds me of “cling to the vine.” “Abide in Christ.” Keep the faith. Knowing the truth of who you are in Christ has consequences too. As you trust in the blood of Jesus for your sanctification, you will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit more and more.
So, dear friends, we must cling to the truth in the Scriptures about salvation and wise living or else we will face the consequences wrought by a lack of faith in Jesus. But takes heart, for the promise given in Thyatira is still a good one for us. This is Truth, “To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end,” there will come this consequence, “I will give authority over the nations—that one will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father.” I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
And so, let us pray. Oh Lord, we do want to have ears to hear your truth and take every thought captive and block out and false hood so that we are more and more in the world to reach the lost but not of the world, not becoming more like them, but leading them to become more like you as we pursue our own lives to become more like you. Help us Lord, to always hear your voice to always hear your truth. You’re still speaking to us today, through your Word, and in our hearts, by your spirit at work in us. So, we pray Lord, that we will take the time to be attentive, to hear and to obey and give you the honor that is due your mighty and glorious name, so that you will have your own way in us and we will see a bit of heaven come on earth as it is in heaven because we obey. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Listen link: https://www.lcepc.org Then look for “Sermons” tab.
Truth or consequences. Remember that game show? It was a comical way of putting people in a practical joke type of situation if they couldn’t answer a quiz question truthfully, or correctly. Either tell the truth or pay the consequences. That was fun to watch. Another slant on the concept of truth or consequences is the little factoid that says, “Ideas have consequences.” That is actually the title of a book that was published back in 1948. It argues that all our modern difficulties in society, such as relativism and apathy, and lack of respect for authority, are the result of a philosophical shift away from belief in absolute authority.
In other words, rejecting the Bible as the truth of God has led to the current situation. But you didn’t need a philosopher to tell you that did you? It’s pretty obvious! It’s obvious to us today! What’s interesting is that if this book had been taken seriously 70 years ago when it was written, we might not be where we are today, because the author, Richard M. Weaver, included a prescription in his book for how to avoid the consequences that he prophetically saw coming.
Weaver wrote back in 1948, “Today, many think that it does not matter what a man believes, but it does. What a man believes tells him what the world is for. If people can’t agree what the world is for, they can never agree on all the little things in life either. People don’t want others to take what they believe too seriously. This is how religion is currently viewed. Our various thoughts and assumptions about ideas are what give them meaning. Our ideas must be harmonized by some vision. Our task is to find that harmonization.”
That was written 70 years ago and today we are living with the consequences of not finding that harmonization. But that harmonizing vision had been offered already, thousands of years earlier, when God began speaking to human beings. Sadly, we very easily forget or ignore what God says about ultimate reality.
More on truth or consequences comes with parenting. It is our task to let our kids know what’s really going on in their worlds. We have to issue warnings to the kids sometimes and instructions for good behavior often come with descriptions of consequences for bad behavior. The best consequences are the natural consequences that are the actual result of the bad behavior. That’s not arbitrary. It’s like, don’t touch the stove or you will burn your hand and that will hurt. That’s a description of natural consequences. It’s different from, “Don’t touch the stove or I will send you to your room.” Getting sent to your room for disobeying is a different kind of consequence. It can sound arbitrary and unrelated to the offense. But it is just as real, if the parents keep their word.
Now let’s talk about spiritual consequences. In the world where we live, some of the temptations to break God’s law do not seem to have natural physical consequences. For example, God told Adam and Eve that they would die when they ate the forbidden fruit. But they didn’t die physically. They were still alive. But everything else had changed. The spiritual consequences were very real. They suddenly knew they were naked and ashamed. They were suddenly afraid of God and tried to avoid him. They had to leave the garden. Life itself got a lot harder. And they suffered a great spiritual separation between themselves and God. In other words, they were spiritually dead. Spiritual consequences for our actions are very real. They are just not always obvious to us. Hence, we need Jesus’ help and guidance and sometimes his judgement, as in the case of Thyatira today.
First though, in Thyartira’s job review, Jesus gave a list of the good things going on there. He says, “These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.” That’s four good things.
First, he mentioned deeds. This means their good deeds had a positive impact on the community, transforming it from a society of self-centered and greedy people with no regard for the poor and needy into a community that did care about justice, actively, generously and even sacrificially giving of itself to make a difference, right the wrongs and aid the poor. That’s faith in action, or good deeds.
Second, he commended them for their love and faith. Love kept them together in good fellowship and faith defined that fellowship along the lines of the gospel.
Third, Jesus told them he knew of their service and perseverance. The church must have added new believers as well as just survive.
So, finally, the fourth thing Jesus commended them for was their growth and progress. They are now doing more than they did at first. So, this was in several ways a successful church that really had a lot going for it. But then Jesus had to give them the bad news.
In verses 20 – 23 he says, “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.”
Please take note of the strong words Jesus used in warning the Christians in Thyatira about the dangers of the Jezebel compromise. They are the focus of this review, placed in the center of the message to Thyatira, which in Middle Eastern writing is the main point, the most important space in the paragraph. It is as if to say, in spite of the good things going on around this issue, the truth of spiritual adultery among them, and its consequences for them, is Jesus’ central focus because it can undo all the good. This Jezebel is the target of Jesus’ angry sounding judgment.
Jezebel is probably not the actual name of the person causing all this trouble. Jezebel is a famous name among the Jews. She was an evil queen in the nation of Israel hundreds of years earlier. She would have been very well known to at least the Jewish members of the church. Therefore, the name of Jezebel is a symbolic name for a woman of authority who is doing evil. There must have been such a woman in the church, an actual member of the community of faith. She would not have been an outsider but an actual member of the community and in a position of respect, as a teacher, or even a prophetess.
Jesus said that this authority figure in the church was doing a very dangerous thing among them. “By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” Once again this in reference to the pagan cultic practices in the trade guilds of their society. It is one thing for individual Christians to be tempted to participate in the trade guilds in order to find work and avoid persecution. But it is quite another thing to have a teacher in a church actually telling and teaching people that such behavior is exactly what they ought to do and that it is a perfectly fine way for Christians to behave!
This Jezebel was given that name because she was misleading the Christians. And she herself needed to heed Jesus’ warning in Matthew 18:6, where it says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to those who lead them astray.” But if she would not change, then Jesus was telling the rest of the congregation that she must not be tolerated.
The Ephesus church had been commended by Jesus because they did not tolerate false teachers. But here in Thyatira the problem was that they did. Ephesus was told to remember their first love. Perhaps in Thyatira the people loved too much, and in the wrong way! It would mean that they loved with a soft love that tolerated false teaching instead of a tough love that correctly discerned and resisted false ways of looking at matters of importance.
The reason for the false teaching had to do with the effort to fit in with the culture so as to make a living and avoid persecution. Remember, the trade guilds that controlled the local economy demanded pagan worship practices and anybody who didn’t comply was thought of as both an atheist and also unemployable. So, there was pressure to go along with the culture and one person who succumbed to that temptation was this Jezebel who added to her sins by teaching her congregation that God will understand if you have to eat a little food sacrificed to idols, etc. Thus, she led others astray with her.
In contrast, there is a message all through the Bible, that God wants his people to be different. Not different as in weird, but different as in motivated and lead by Godly wisdom rather than worldly thinking. That is profoundly true. If all we're doing is fitting in with the world around us, something is wrong. This does not mean self-righteousness, thinking we're better than others. It means self-sacrifice, living the difficult life of swimming against the current.
That is something that we have to be careful about today. We are to be in the world, but not of it. That’s just like a boat, that is supposed to be in the water but not of it. A boat is no use if it is not in the water. At the same time, we want to be sure that there is no water in the boat, so it doesn’t sink! What good would it be for a fishing boat or a rescue boat to be all rigged up and equipped for the job it is supposed to do if it isn’t sea worthy in the first place? If there are so many leaks that the crew has to spend its time continuously bailing water back out, they’re not going to catch any fish or rescue anybody. They’re going to need to be rescued. So, in the Church at Thyatira, Jesus came to the rescue by telling them the truth about their false teacher and pointing out the consequences of continuing to follow her if they did not repent.
As has been said before, our modern culture preaches tolerance of everything, everything except intolerance! We are told over and over again, “Do not judge.” We are told to assume that everyone is trying their best to do what is right and we are not to have any ideas about right and wrong that we could apply to someone else. This all relates back to what Weaver wrote back in 1948, “Today, many think that it does not matter what a man believes… People don’t want others to take what they believe too seriously.”
But it should be taken seriously, and it does matter! I am afraid a lot of bad water may be getting into our fellow“ship.” It is easy to be infected with a relativistic world view that has very little respect for authority because of the belief that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Everyone has been told, “Just follow your heart.” As if the inner workings of one’s own consciousness are a reliable source of direction. Also, nobody likes to be the only one who seems to be disagreeing with popular opinion. There is a lot of pressure to conform!
And it isn’t easy to have any confidence in what I think is right unless I have an objective source of truth that is not dependent at all on how I feel about it. The Bible says that the human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Fortunately, the Bible offers itself as the antidote to the deceitfulness of the human heart.
The Bible presents itself as the font of wisdom and the source of truth that everyone could and should rely upon and trust. The Bible presents itself as if it were like a ruler or a straight edge against which any other thought or philosophy could be compared to see it if it true. The Bible IS true. We trust that. Anything out of line with what the Bible says would be untrue. This is why a healthy church insists upon the essentials of the faith and the centrality of the word of God. The Bible can seal the leaks that otherwise let the world’s way of thinking seep back into our fellowship. That’s the factor that seems to be missing in Thyatira.
Now as to the severity of the warnings. First of all, they look like as close to natural or logical consequences as you can get. For those who are either figuratively or literally practicing sexual immorality, which often happens in a bed, Jesus says, “So I will cast her on a bed of suffering.” And this only after he has patiently given her time to repent.
He also warned her followers, “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.” The adultery Jesus is talking about is probably really in reference to the impure faith of being involved with pagan worship. Adultery is really a word that means impure. That is why some products used to be advertised for their purity using the word, unadulterated.
But far from merely being angry, we should realize that the warnings of Jesus are expressions of his love. For example, a child might be told, “Don’t go near that stove or I will grab your hand and yank you away.” That would require a parent who is always watching and ready to act, always present in the moment so that if the child approaches the stove the parent can act immediately and prevent the burn from happening. Jesus is always with us in just such a way.
Think of the child who has received such a warning. The little one approaches the stove anyway. Suddenly a larger, stronger hand grabs the wrist of the little child and yanks it away from the hot stove. What an unpleasant experience it could be for the child, to be forcibly swung around and dragged away from the intended goal. There may be some slight physical pain, but there is the even greater pain of indignation at being frustrated and not allowed to do what one wants. I know how my granddaughter behaves! Poor child! But think how much more unpleasant and long lasting the consequences would have been if the child had touched the hot stove. Better a sore arm and hurt feelings than a burned palm! The yank away from the stove was an act of love that prevented greater harm.
Jesus’ warnings in his letters to the churches are just like that. They are expressions of his love. And if he comes to make someone suffer for their sins, his desire is to produce repentance unto salvation. He wants to save his children and not let them get burned. If he didn’t punish and give a chance to repent, they might burn forever in the lake of fire.
The hope of the gospel lies in this. Heaven is not filled with people who never made mistakes! It is 100 % filled with people who did make mistakes, sinners who have repented, except for Jesus, who is God. For sinners and for believers, repentance form sin is a genuine opportunity to experience or re-experience the power of the gospel to save our souls and set us back on the path of righteousness. So, Jesus ends again on a positive note. “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.’
That line to hold onto reminds me of “cling to the vine.” “Abide in Christ.” Keep the faith. Knowing the truth of who you are in Christ has consequences too. As you trust in the blood of Jesus for your sanctification, you will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit more and more.
So, dear friends, we must cling to the truth in the Scriptures about salvation and wise living or else we will face the consequences wrought by a lack of faith in Jesus. But takes heart, for the promise given in Thyatira is still a good one for us. This is Truth, “To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end,” there will come this consequence, “I will give authority over the nations—that one will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father.” I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
And so, let us pray. Oh Lord, we do want to have ears to hear your truth and take every thought captive and block out and false hood so that we are more and more in the world to reach the lost but not of the world, not becoming more like them, but leading them to become more like you as we pursue our own lives to become more like you. Help us Lord, to always hear your voice to always hear your truth. You’re still speaking to us today, through your Word, and in our hearts, by your spirit at work in us. So, we pray Lord, that we will take the time to be attentive, to hear and to obey and give you the honor that is due your mighty and glorious name, so that you will have your own way in us and we will see a bit of heaven come on earth as it is in heaven because we obey. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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