Introduction

Revelation 2:18-29 ESV  “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.  (19)  “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.  (20)  But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.  (21)  I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.  (22)  Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works,  (23)  and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.  (24)  But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden.  (25)  Only hold fast what you have until I come.  (26)  The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations,  (27)  and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.  (28)  And I will give him the morning star.  (29)  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Revelation 2:20 ESV  But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

• Well church, today we wrap up the second chapter of the book of Revelation.
  • And, with it here is our third sermon on the letter to the church in Thyatira.
    • Remember we spent two weeks talking about the works of love, faith, service, and patient endurance… and we talked about how we are a church that really does do these works, but we must remember that we want our latter works to exceed our first.
  • And I love being able to preach those sermons… and spend some time talking about love and faith and service and endurance…
    • Because today we are going to be talking about sin and wrath and repentance and holiness.
    • And you know I had a guy recently tell me “Pastor, you preach too much on sin and wrath and repentance… you need to preach more on happy things”
      • And I am like… BRO… I preach through the Scripture… verse by verse… it’s not like I am skipping over the happy stuff to get to the wrath…
      • But for some reason, God in His infinite wisdom spends time talking about sin and wrath and righteousness and holiness in His holy word…
        • So if there must be benefit for us? Amen? Otherwise why would God spend so much time talking about it?
  • Therefore, when scripture talks about love and faith and service and patient endurance, that’s what I am going to preach on… and when it talks about sin and repentance and holiness, that’s what I am going to preach on.
    • But listen, as you are going to see in today’s sermon… there is nothing icky about repentance… and for the born again, for the true Christian, repentance and holiness is so BEAUTIFUL and something to be celebrated… not something to be scorned…
• Now all of that was to prepare you for today’s sermon, todays sermon is titled:
  • How Jezebel Will Destroy this Church… How Jezebel Will, if given the chance, Destroy Christian Life Church.

• So, how will Jezebel destroy CLC if given the chance?
  • The same way she has destroyed most other churches and denominations in America… through the most prevalent sin in the American Church…
  • That’s our first point this morning “The Most prevalent Sin in the American Church”.

Point One – The Most Prevalent Sin in the American Church

• Now I intentionally did not write what I think is the most prevalent sin in the American church because I want you to think about it for a moment…
  • Consider our text today about Jezebel…
  • What is the sin that kills churches and destroys denominations…
  • What is the sin that runs rampant in America today? Go ahead, take a moment to think about it and answer it your head.
    • Some may say it is sexual sin, fornication, and adultery?
    • Others may point the finger to Abortion, which is a result of sexual sin, fornication, and adultery.
    • Maybe you got a little more theological with your answer and said “False idols, vain tradition, or false religion:”
    • Possibly your mind went a completely different way and started think about financial sin and worshiping money over God…
• And all of those answers are good, but I don’t think they are the right answer.
  • You see the sin of the church of Thyatira was not sexual immorality, or false idol worship, or false gospels, or false prophecy, or false teachings…
  • No those were not the sins of the church of Thyatira… those were the sins of this woman called Jezebel who happened to be IN the church of Thyatira… those are Jezebels sins… not the church’s sin…
• What then is the church’s sin in this situation… what is this sin that I am calling the most prevalent sin in the American Church?
  • The answer can be found in our Key Verse this morning:

Revelation 2:20 ESV  But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

• THE MOST PREVELANT SIN IN THE AMERICAN CHURCH IS TOLERANCE!
  • That was the sin of the church of Thyatira… That they TOLERATED the woman Jezabel.
  • That’s what the scripture says “This I have against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel… who does all these awful things”.
    • You see God does not, and CAN not tolerate sin… because He is Holy…

Psalm 5:4 NLT O God, you take no pleasure in wickedness; you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked.

• So the question needs to be “If God can not tolerate sin.. then why do we as Christian’s do it”.
  • And we can argue all day about this…
    • Some would say “Let He without sin cast the first stone”
    • While others would say “Have nothing to do with people who call themselves Christians yet are sexually immoral, partake in idolatry, are drunkards, and/or swindlers…
    • Some would say: But we are to bear with one another in gentleness and patience!
    • While others would say “Cast the sexually immoral out of the church!
    • Some would say “Judge not, yest ye be judged!”
    • While others would reply “If someone brings a false gospel, let them be accursed!”
  • Which camp is right? The one that says we should bear with one another, not being quick to judge, but being quick to forgive?
    • Or the camp that says we can not, most not, WILL not tolerate sin.
  • Well both camps are correct, because all of those arguments come straight from scripture…
    • But they are arguing two different points… The problem is that in the American church we confuse Patience with Tolerance.
    • One camp is arguing that we should be patient with others… and we should be…
      • The other camp is arguing that we should not tolerate sin, and we shouldn’t.
    • But what is the difference?
• Well we see that in the church of Thyatira.

Revelation 2:20-21 ESV  But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.  (21)  I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

• God gave her time to repent… but at no point was he OK with her sin.
  • Patience is saying: “I am not ok with this, but I love you enough to give you time to come back to holiness… and I want to help you find true repentance, even if it take some time…”
  • Tolerance is “Even though I would never do what you are doing, I don’t care if you do it… do it as much as you like for as long as you like, its whatever”.
• A church that is patient with sin:
  • Welcomes people no matter how wicked they are, loves them, invites them in, and shares the gospel with them… urging them to come to Christ.
  • They don’t condemn the sinner, but condemn the sin.
  • They sacrifice over and over and over to help bring the sinner to repentance.
  • They pray for, fast for, and plead with the sinner to change…
  • They do whatever it takes to bring sinners to repentance.
    • They don’t throw stones, they don’t call names, they don’t form cliques in order to exclude others… they are patient with the sinner as they do everything they can to bring the sinner to repentance…
    • But that patience is NOT infinite… eventually the patience must come to an end. Because infinite patience is not patience at all… infinite patience is tolerance…
• A church that tolerates sin:
  • Let’s people who are horrifically sexually immoral be on the worship team…
  • They let people who are financially greedy be their pastor…
  • They let pedophiles run their youth and children’s ministry…
  • They let people who aren’t even Christians teach classes in their church.
  • They hold secular celebrations with filthy music and pagan traditions in their churches…
    • They tolerate it, they don’t care, it’s whatever…
      • And God removes the lampstands from these churches… God destroys these churches… God doesn’t allow them to continue in their anointing.
      • It is why whole denominations are on their death beds… it is why half the churches in Cedar rapids have closed their doors since we planted this church 8 years ago.
      • AND IT IS THE WAY THAT JEZEBEL WILL DESTROY THIS CHURCH… She will start slowly… and bit by bit she will try to get us to tolerate her and her sin…
        • And she will call us a bigot if we don’t tolerate her…
        • And she will try to change the laws to force us to tolerate her…
        • And she will try to indoctrinate our children to tolerate her…
        • And she will get the world to persecute us if we don’t tolerate her…
        • But we must RESIST and REJECT tolerance in all forms.
        • GOD IS HOLY and so we must strive to be holy!
• Now that brings us to our second point this morning: The Beauty of Repentance (It’s OK to Be Holy)

Point Two – The Beauty of Repentance (It’s OK to Be Holy)

Revelation 2:20-25 ESV  But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.  (21)  I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.  (22)  Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works,  (23)  and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.  (24)  But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden.  (25)  Only hold fast what you have until I come.

• There were two groups of people in the church of Thyatira… those who tolerated the women Jezebel… and those who rejected her…
  • One group finds destruction and tribulation and judgment…
  • The other group is encouraged to hold fast until Jesus comes back… and what is their reward?
    • They will rule over nations, they will receive authority, and they will receive Christ who’s name here is the Morning Star:

Revelation 2:26-28 ESV  The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations,  (27)  and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.  (28)  And I will give him the morning star.

• So which group do you want to be in?
  • As for me, I want to be in the group that is not destroyed!
• But the world urges us, pushes us, demands of us… TOLERANCE. They don’t want us to preach holiness… they don’t want us to live righteously.
  • They are perfectly happy with us preaching grace and mercy, BUT WE ARE NOT ALLOWED, at least by their standards, WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO PREACH HOLINESS.
• G.K. Beale, in his commentary on these verses, asks this very important question:
  • “Have we lost sight of the holiness of God because of our preoccupation with the mercy of God?”
  • I want you to try to answer that question, answer it in your head… think of yourself, your own worldview and mindset…
  • “Have you lost sight of the holiness of God because of your preoccupation with the mercy of God?”
• How do you look at holiness? Do you look at it as a thing of beauty, or a thing of filth?
  • For those who may not know, holiness means “To be set apart” or “To be uncommon”…
    • In regards to sin, the common thing to do is to sin, to accept sin, to want others to sin… the uncommon thing is to reject sin, to repent from sin, to despise sin.
      • So for a Christian, to be holy is to be set apart from sin.
      • Far more so for God, who is Holy, there is not even a shadow of sin about Him… not a hint of sin. He is so far removed from sin.
• But the world doesn’t want us to even talk about sin…
  • Because it might make people feel bad… we should be tolerant of peoples feelings…
  • NO! You should feel bad about your sin…
    • And let those bad feelings DRIVE you to repentance.
      • There is shame in sin, but there is no shame in repentance, because Christ has already paid the price… Repentance is beautiful and a thing to be rejoiced over.
    • And urging people to repent is not a shameful thing, as the world makes it out to be, it is a BEAUTIFUL thing.
• Did you guys hear this story from 2017?
  • A man in Germany was driving his ludicrously expensive Tesla model S down the freeway when he noticed a car driving at high speeds very recklessly…
    • Well this germen hero in a Tesla got close enough to the reckless car to realize the driver was passed out at the wheel.
    • So, what did he do, he rammed the car into the guardrail, got in front of it, and hit the breaks… the car hit his rear end and he kept slowing down until both vehicles were stopped.
    • Turns out the reckless driver had suffered a stroke while driving, and the Tesla driver, by intentionally ramming and slowing down his vehicle… he saved this mans life…
      • This man can now live a peaceful, happy joyful life… that would have likely ended in death that day if the Tesla driver did not act.
• Now, if this was a parable and not a true event… the WORLD… the JEZEBELS might say it like this:
  • How awful! A man was minding his own business driving down the autobahn… not hurting anyone…
    • Sure he was driving crazy, but he was the only one in the car… why should anyone else care…
    • But some bigot in a Tesla who thinks everyone should drive like he drives, got so angry at this driver that he actually rammed his car off the road.
    • Road rage laws should be in place so this never happens again… I mean this Tesla driver completely totaled this other mans car.
    • WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST BE MORE TOLERANT DRIVERS?!
• It sounds ridiculous, but that is how the world treats the church…
  • They think that all we want is for people to act like us…
  • To think like us…
  • To be like us…
    • BUT WE ARE LIKE: DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE!

1 John 2:15-17 ESV  Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  (16)  For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.  (17)  And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

• I want people to repent because I want them to be holy, I want them to be righteous…
  • But mostly because I want them to live forever, I want them to be free, I want them to live in the love of the father from now until eternity.
• Holiness is a beautiful thing… it comes with contentment, it comes with peace, it comes with a fulness of joy, it comes with a closeness to God you can not experience when living in sin, it comes with an eternal father, an eternal home, and an eternal life…
  • WHY WOULDEN’T WE WANT THAT FOR PEOPLE.
  • WHY WOULDEN’T WE URGE PEOPLE TO REPENT.

Speaking of Jezebel in the letter to the Church in Thyatira this is what Christ says:

Revelation 2:21 ESV  I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

• Listen church, if you are living in sin… living outside the will of God… you have been given time to repent, and that is a beautiful thing, but that time will come to an end…
  • That driver who had a stroke… his drive down the Autobahn was going to end one way or another…
    • Praise God for the Tesla driver who ended that drive early by using a controlled crash into the guard rail… because otherwise it would have ended much worse.
• How is your sin going to end, church, will it end in repentance and life and freedom and love and joy…
  • Or will it end when Christ’s patience ends?
• Listen if you are living in sin… I don’t mean you mess up every once in a while but repent and move on…
  • I mean if you are LIVING in sin… if you are having sex outside of marriage…
    • If you are cheating on your taxes.
    • If you are stealing, doing illegal drugs, getting drunk every weekend… whatever…
    • If you are LIVING in sin… PLEASE come to repentance… please do everything you can to get away from that sin…
      • And it starts by TELLING someone and asking for help…
      • I hope you have a discipler that you can confess to…
      • If not, find Pastor Mike or Pastor Tina and get one…
      • In the meantime Come to Pastor Jared or Pastor Elizabeth or Pastor Amanda or any other leader in this church and confess your sin, and as for help…
        • But here is the kicker, if you go to your spiritual leaders for help… You actually have to do what they say…
          • Otherwise you will likely fall right back into that sin.
• But when you confess, when you repent, when you obey… the freedom you will find, the joy you will find the beauty you will find, it will be worth it all.
• Church let us obey 1 Peter 1:16 that tells us that we must be Holy as He is Holy, amen?!

Conclusion

Turn On Children’s Blessings Lamp

• Let me conclude with this…
  • We strive to be a church that is loving…
    • Not just in words, but in action.
  • We strive to be welcoming to all people, to let all people regardless of their culture, or background, or current lifestyle choices… that we would welcome all…
  • And we strive to be a church that is patient in all areas… we are not perfect, but it is our goal… to be patient with everyone who walks through those doors, regardless of the situation.
    • But we will not tolerate sin.
      • We have had to ask a few people to leave the church, because their sin was so rampant that it was affecting and sometimes even endangering the church.
      • Other’s, we have confronted their sin… people who abuse women and children… and they decided to leave the church instead of repent.
    • But for all people, we are patient, if you live in sin we are going to plead with you and work with you that you might repent…
      • But eventually enough is enough, because we as a church are striving to be holy.
    • So if someone ever tells you we kicked them out of church, it may be true… but it is never a surprise, it always comes after months and months, if not years and years, of counseling, praying, fasting, and pleading.
    • But this is God’s church, and she will be Holy!
• Gospel Call