The Church at Thyatira: Revelation 2:18-28

**The Promise: Revelation 2:26-28

Will be given authority over the nations and be given the Bright Morning Star for those who overcome and hold fast to the Truth.

**The exhortation from Jesus: Revelation 2:19,23&24

To those who did not hold to the teaching of Jezebel but had love, faith, service, and patient endurance, and their works were greater than their first, Jesus laid no other burden on them but to hold on to the Truth they had. God will give them their reward according to their own works.


**The correction from Jesus: Revelation 2:20-23

Some were holding to the teachings of Jezebel. They were not to tolerate her or her teachings. The referrence to Jezebel for today is that many in the church are divorcing and/or having sexual relations outside of God's prescribed guidelines and holding to the doctrine of demons by insisting that they can be homosexual AND born-again! Rather than to see it as sin, the church has adopted the world's view and called it a "problem". Where there is no repentence, there is no sacrifice for sin.

"If we give up and turn our backs on all we've learned, all we've been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ's sacrifice and are left on our own to face the judgement -

and a mighty fierce judgement it will be!

If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God's Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that He'll hold us accountable and make us pay. He was quite explicit: 'Vengeance is Mine, and I won't overlook a thing', and 'God will judge His people'. Nobody's getting by with anything, believe me.

"Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse - some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn't touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's STILL a sure thing! BUT you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.

'It won't be long now, He's on the way; He'll show up most any minute.

But anyone who is right with Me thrives on loyal trust;

If he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy'

But we're not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.'

"And so I insist -and God backs me up on this- that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty headed mindless crowd. They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

"What this adds up to then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ's Body we're all connected to each other after all. So when you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.

Don't give the devil that kind of foothold in your life.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth.. Say only what helps, each word a gift. Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk.

Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, Christians have better use for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.

You can be sure that, using people, or religion or things, just for what you can get out of them - the usual variations on idolatry - will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of God.

Don't let yourselves be taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with Him. Don't even hang around people like that.

Don't waste your time on useless work, mere busywork, the barren pursuits of darkness. Expose these things for the sham they are. It's a scandal when people waste their lives on things they must do in the darkness where no one will see. Rip the covers off those frauds and see how attractive they look in the light of Christ.


But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to Him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life - a God fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you [put off the old man....be renewed in the spirit of your mind.(KJV)]

Don't grieve God. Don't break His heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for Himself. Don't take such a gift for granted.

Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.

Watch what God does, and then do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that.

You groped your way through the murk once, but no longer. You're out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. So no more stumbling around. Get on with it! The good, the right, the true [Truth] - these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours. Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.

The Message Bible -Hebrews 10:26-39; Ephesians 4:17-19,25,27,29,31,5:3,-7,11-13; 4:21-24,30-32, 5:1,2,8-10

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