"Letters for Home - Part 4" | Pastor Ben Kellert

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."

Vs 18 - Eyes like blazing fire - judgement to expose sin

          -Feet like burnished bronze - he will trample sin underfoot

#1 - The Judge

• What we allow, we become!
• Jesus, the Righteous Judge - when we tolerate sin in our lives, Christ gets upset.
• Hebrews 10:26-31 "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, ²⁷ but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
• There is consequence to sin.

*"I haven't come here to make friends, I've come here to make faithful followers to embrace Christ!" - Pastor Ben*

#2 - The Church Exposed

• Thyatira - Blue collar city, trade guilds...
• Good News - vs 19 - It takes hard work, faith, love and perseverance
• Bad News - vs 20-21 - The church was tolerating sin; Jezebel, the evil prophetess, encouraged people to tolerated sin, including sexual immorality
• If people deliberately reject the Lord's authority, He is no longer their God... and then they have to find another god... (and that's a scary thought!!)

It's impossible for us to live without something to live for!

• Don't tolerate sin!  When we tolerate sin, we are following another god!

#3 - The Sinners Judged

3 Judgements:

1. Jezebel - vs 22a
2. Those who listen to Jezebel - disease
3. Those who follow Jezebel - lake of fire

Unless they repent...

Jesus always gives us an opportunity for repentance!

#4 - The Faithful are Encouraged

• Vs 25 - "...hold on to what you have until I come..."

2 Promises:

1. We'll rule with Christ (vs 26-27)
2. We'll receive Christ (vs 28)

He is the bright and morning star!

Who is this message for?  "Those who have ears to hear"  (ALL of us!)

*Next, click here to watch the full replay of this message: "Letters from Home - Part 4"