5 September 2021
Series: THE CHURCH

THE CHURCH: THYATIRA, THE TOLERANT CHURCH

Speaker: Fred Sigle

SUNDAY LESSON, 9/5/21
THE CHURCH: THYATIRA, THE TOLERANT CHURCH
Revelation 2:18-29
 
“TOLERANCE!” That is the buzz word of the 21st century. Our culture teaches that we are to be tolerant of everyone and everything, and if you aren’t then you will be labeled “INTOLERANT”.
 
Christians whose mission is to reach out to all people regardless of who they are or what they’ve done, certainly don’t want to be called “intolerant”. Yet, it is because of the tolerance of the Christians at Thyatira that the glorified Christ is extremely angry.
 
So are we or are we not to be tolerant Christians?
Revelation 2:18-29

18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

20 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. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 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. 23 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.

24 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, 25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.’

26 To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— 27 that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’[a]—just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give that one the morning star. 29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.