Evil Tolerated (Rev. 2:20-21)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 03/01/2005

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Evil Tolerated

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                         Reference:  Revelations 2:20-21

 

            Message of the verse:  20.  ‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

21.  ‘I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.  (NAS95)  20.  But I have this complaint against you. You are permitting that woman—that Jezebel who calls herself a prophet—to lead my servants astray. She is encouraging them to worship idols, eat food offered to idols, and commit sexual sin.  21  I gave her time to repent, but she would not turn away from her immorality.  (NLT)

            In these next four verses the Lord Jesus Christ tells those at Thyatira what He has against them, and He has many things against them.  Tolerance is something that is popular in today’s society, and believers should be tolerant of some actions until they go against the Word of God, and then if that is tolerated it becomes sin.  The believers at this church tolerated the practice of Jezebel, whose story is told in the OT book of 1Kings 16-19, and what she did was get the children of Israel to begin to worship Baal, and the way that she did this was to have them incorporate the worship of Baal with the worship of Jehovah.  In the same way this “Jezebel” was causing the people of this church to begin the worship of Rome with Christian worship and the Lord Jesus Christ was not happy with that.  The patience of the Lord is seen in verse twenty-one where He said that He has given this church time to repent and it does not want to repent of her immorality. 

            I do not know for sure if this “Jezebel” was a true believer or if she was one who had infiltrated into the church at Thyatira, but either way the church was tolerating her and that was in part the sin that the Lord was talking about here.  The believers were being slain for their belief in Christ, and they could not get jobs because of their belief in Christ, and this woman was showing them how to compromise their faith so that they could get a job, but the Lord did not want them to compromise, but be obedient to Him at all costs, for this world is not my home I am only passing through.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There has been far too many times in my life that I have compromised on things that maybe I should not have, and the main reason is fear, however there are many verses in Scripture that show that I am not to fear my circumstances, but only have fear for the Lord.  When this home here on earth is to comfortable and too meaningful to me then it will be easier for me to compromise my faith and this is sinful.  1Jo 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

 

The Word of God has brought conviction and challenge to my heart as I read it this morning.  The conviction has caused me to repent of wrong doing.

 

My Steps of Faith Today:  Trust in the Lord with all of my heart and lean not upon my own understanding, in all of my ways acknowledge Him and He will direct my path.