The Church of Compromised Loyalty: Part 3 - Revelation 2: 20-21

0:53We're in the Revelation chapter 2, beginning in verse 18. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira, write, the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like burnished bronze, says this, I know your deeds, and your love, and faith, and service, and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. And she teaches and leads my bondservants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold to this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them, I place no other burden on you. Nevertheless, what you have, hold fast until I come. He who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces. As I have also received authority from my Father, and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

2:50Well, going back to Thyatira, where we are in the book of Revelation, as you know, we've come through. Several. Sorry, my it's not really advancing. Yes, it's on. My light is on. It's just not advanced. Can you back it up? It's still not. Okay, well, there it goes. Okay, so we've come to Ephesus. We've looked at Smyrna, going in a little bit of a circuit, Pergamum, and we've then, after we spend time in Thyratira, we'll be at Sardis. And just to bring you back to where Thyratira is, it's between Pergamum and Sardis. Sardis was the ancient capital city of the kingdom of Lydia, and Pergamum certainly became a kingdom in and of itself, and also during the time of Alexander the Great. So Thyratira was this city on the way. Whoever controlled Thyratira controlled Sardis and Pergamum. So it was a town that got run over many times, completely destroyed, completely rebuilt, and such was its history. Well, in the time of Rome, it became a good Center for Commerce. Rome controlled the area. There was relative peace. And so it became a very active commercial center. And so Thyratira was this place where there were all these trade unions, trade guilds, a lot of industry development. And one of the criteria, or one of the elements of this society, was to pay tribute to the god or goddesses of your trade or your professional organization. And so there were all these guild gods, these trade members, these pagan gods and celebrations to them, and participation was expected by the members. A lot of workplace pressure. There's a lot of application to the modern workplace from this letter.

5:37When you think about it, when any employer or industry or colleagues expect Christians to compromise their loyalty to Christ, whether by celebrating or participating in celebrating something they do not believe in, they put Christians in a very difficult situation. The primary The goal of the Christian employee is to please Christ in the workplace. Our loyalty to Christ extends to the workplace. In fact, that's where it's most actively displayed because that's where we're going to spend the best moments of our lives and the large part of our lives.

6:23And so, our first aim as a Christian employee is to please Christ. And that shows itself by being hardworking, submissive, resourceful, studious, honest, benevolent, respectful, loyal, kind, gracious, and a content employee. All this manifests Christ-likeness. And such an employee is a witness to Christ without even saying a word. You don't have to put an I love Jesus sticker on your cubicle to let everybody know. When you please Christ in the workplace, it becomes very evident to those around.

7:13And inevitably, there are temptations to compromise this loyalty to Christ. Sometimes they come from the inside. Listen, when we make our work, Work all about us, we compromise. When we make our work or our workplace all about us, we compromise. We take work to a level that God never intended. Just like the people in Thyratira, they took making an idol out of your work to a literal level. And we can do so spiritually by setting ourselves up as the one to be pleased, setting ourselves up as the one to make the workplace all about us.

8:11But then there are some compromises that we are pressured into, pressured into, adopting that which we don't agree with. Being forced to participate in something that we find is wrong, whether it's being dishonest, or whether it is to laugh at the unclean, or to approve and to participate in immoral activity, or to have to embrace and pray tribute to the gods. Of our professional organizations to embrace the ideology and the worldview. And it's all around us.

9:13Just in my professional organizations that I was part of, the view of man was a hyper-contradiction to the biblical view of man. Evolution reigns. Evolution is the ideology. Some of my professional organizations were being taken over by a radical environmentalism. And even though they say they were all about science, they became very political. And I was expected to go along with it. And dissent can be hard in those situations. Pressure to conform, pressure to embrace what your professional organization or your employer or your workplace embraces. And then pressure to celebrate, pressure to consume what they consume. It's all around us.

10:18Well, all of these temptations were present in Thyratira, but they had the added pressure of eating meat sacrificed to idols. Sacrifice to the trade guild gods and to participate in the illicit celebrations that accompanied them. And many in Thyratira had compromised in this regard. That's the church at Thyratira, the church not of endangered loyalty, like Pergamum, but the church of compromised loyalty. They had compromised their loyalty to Christ. I'm going to jump into that this morning.

11:04But before we do, it's clear from verse 19, look back, that they had much to commend them. Jesus liked their deeds. I know your deeds, your love, your faith, and service, and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. This sounds like a great church if we were just to stop there. They were exemplary in the social aspects of what Christ wants for his church. You'd even call them the socially correct church. They were good. They were love, faith, service, perseverance, and they were getting better at their deeds. They were growing in their ability to perform deeds of love and faith and service, perseverance. They're greater. They're showing progress.

12:02And so, an exemplary church. However, beginning in verse 20, something changes. We turn a dark corner into a dark alley that leads to a very dark place, into an evil of evils, a horror of horrors, a sickness of sickness, deep darkness. And at the heart of this darkness, we find an evil influence that has masterminded or has led this great church into such gross compromise. We stopped at verse 19 last time with what Jesus liked about this church. Today we're going to look at what Jesus disliked, picking it up in verse 20. I'll just read it. But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bondservants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.

13:28What does Jesus dislike about this church? Church. It says there in the first line, I have this against you, that you are tolerating. It's present. You are tolerating. You are tolerating this strong satanic influence. And Jesus makes it clear it's coming from a woman named Jezebel, a specific woman, that you tolerate the woman, Jezebel. The. Speaks of a definite article, the definite person, the specific woman, Jezebel. I don't think he's just talking about an evil influence here, that we're to spiritualize this. There is a woman here. I think it's best to take it as a specific woman. Yes, there's a spiritual influence. Yes, it's cast its shadow and cast its spell over the whole church, but it is being best articulated and driven through this one woman whom Jesus calls Jezebel.

14:37Interesting side to Jesus that you don't often come to the surface or we spend a lot of time on. He calls her Jezebel. There are a number of ideas of who this woman can be. I don't think we can really know for sure. But she's a specific. Woman. Some think she could have been the pastor's wife. I doubt it. Some think it could have been Lydia. Remember from Thyratira, that she had kind of gone rogue. I doubt it. The Lord opened her heart to receive the things of God. It wasn't Lydia. Some others think that it was this woman called Sybil, who was associated, this woman that was associated with the Temple of Apollo. They had a temple there to Apollo, and the ecstatic utterances and interpretation of all that, just like they had at Delphi, just like they had at Corinth, just like they had here at Thyratira, a temple to Apollo, and that she was the interpreter of the oracle, and so many suggest that this is the woman. The problem with that is that's an external influence to the church, and this is clearly an internal influence to the church. So you don't need to know much more than this is a woman, a specific woman, who Jesus calls Jezebel. She is leading people astray.

16:25Call this the spellbound church if you wanted. But what is interesting is this word tolerating. The verb is you are tolerating. It is the same word for forgiving. You are forgiving. You are putting up with. You are letting her get away with something. All these would fit in the meaning of this word, and certainly the emphasis here is upon your letting her get away with what she is doing. One of the interesting news stories that has been circulating for a while is this issue of the smash and grab and the mob shoplifters. I am sure you have seen some of these videos.

17:22It is one of these things in California where they have raised the dollar amount for how much merchandise has to be stolen in order for shoplifting to be considered a felony. So it is up to like $950 now. And some district attorneys are saying we are not going to prosecute these thefts under that certain amount. And so what has happened? Smash and grab, run in, broad daylight, brazen, brazen thieves going right in into different places and stealing. And getting it all on video and walking right out the door. And you'll even see a security guard watching it all happen.

18:09And there are specific district attorneys that are named that they're not doing anything. It's so bad that Walgreens has shut down five of its San Francisco Bay Area locations this past year because what they call ongoing organized retail crime. But what's interesting in these videos is you can watch these people go in, steal in broad daylight, sometimes with security standing by, and just getting away with it. And so that's the sense here. You're just watching this happen and you're letting them get away with it. Well, Jesus articulated a similar complaint against the church in Thyratira. You're letting Jezebel get away with this. You're tolerating, you're letting her get away with what she is doing.

19:13And she is an intensely satanic influence that had taken the church under her spell. And so we want to understand this satanic influence that Jesus calls. Jezebel. Four characteristics of the satanic influence at Jezebel. We want to understand this so that we can recognize this influence in our own time and to make sure that we don't put up with it. We don't come under her spell. First of all, Jesus called her Jezebel. Jezebel. This is one of the most evil influences in biblical history. She's up there with Balaam in terms of the satanic persona. Remember up at Pergamum, where Satan's throne is, there was the teaching of Balaam. We spent a lot of time looking at the teaching of Balaam. Well, here you have another persona articulated as Jezebel, very much on the same grounds. And so, Jezebel, this is what Jesus calls her.

20:33Jesus sees a persona in her that is consistent, identical with that of Jezebel of the Old Testament. So we're really not going to understand this evil influence at Dyratira without understanding a little bit about Jezebel. And I'll so I want to spend some time looking at this Old Testament figure, Jezebel. Jezebel, she is the evil influence behind King Ahab. Going all the way back to 1 Kings 21, she's one of the, she is the evil influence behind him.

21:20Listen to what it says about Ahab. 1 Kings 21, 25. Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord because Jezebel his wife incited him. Jezebel was the personality behind the evilest of kings that Israel had seen to his time. And she was known for her harlotries, as 2 Kings 9:22 and her witchcrafts. She was known for her harlotries and her witchcrafts. The word harlotries is referring to this spiritual adultery, this act of abandoning God. That's what harlotry is, the act of abandoning God and his ways to take up the ways of foreign gods and demons. And that's what she did. It's an act of harlotry, spiritual adultery. Spiritual infidelity today follows the same thing. It's the act of abandoning God and his ways to take up the ways of a foreign God or demons. Witchcrafts. Speak of Jezebel. Witchcrafts involve the means, methods, and mechanisms to bring about the act of abandoning God. Plain and simple.

22:57Well, her career, Jezebel's career. She was the daughter of Ethbael, the male deity of the Sidonians, the Phoenicians. And she promoted Baal worship along with the worship of Astarte. Astarte was Baal's female consort. But listen to what 1 Kings says, verse 16. 1 Kings 16:31 says about her, really about Ahab. It came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbael, king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worship him. So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in. Samaria. Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him. And so it is Jezebel behind this man, and through magic, through her superstition, through her sexual immorality, she promoted Baal worship in her household and in Israel. And Ahab goes along with it.

24:34But she is, we get another window into who this persona is. In 1 Kings 21, she is a liar, a murderer, an imposter, a slanderer, and a thief. Sounds like Satan himself. Yes, a very satanic persona. And you can see all of this in the way she orchestrated the murder of Naboth in 1 Kings 21. And so in 1 Kings 21, I want us to step through the narrative for just a moment so that you can understand and see the kind of woman Jezebel was.

25:141 Kings 21:1. I'll begin reading there. Now it came about after these things that Naboth, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard which was in Jezreel beside the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. Ahab spoke to Naboth. Saying, give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is close beside my house. And I will give you a better vineyard than it in its place. Or if you like, I will give you the price in money. But Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid me that I should give you the inheritance of my father. Yeah, no, this was Naboth's inheritance that God had given and had orchestrated a way that it would remain his.

26:00And Ahab's looking out the window, yeah, that'd make a great vegetable garden. I would really like to have that. But Naboth said, No. So in verse 4, Ahab came into his house, sullen and vexed, because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him. For he said, I will not give you the inheritance of my father. And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and ate no food. So he's sullen and vexed. He's crying. I didn't get the land. He told me no. Verse 5, but Jezebel, his wife, came to him and said to him, How is it that your spirit is so sullen and that you are not eating food? So he said to her, Because I spoke to Naboth and Jezreelite and said to him, Give me your vineyard for money, or else if it pleases you, I will give you a vineyard in its place. But he said, I will not give you my vineyard.

27:00Jezebel, his wife, said to him, Do you now reign over Israel? Arise, eat bread, and let your heart be joyful. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. She's like, You're the king. I'll get you the vineyard. So, beginning in verse 8, this is how she does it. So, she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal. See an imposter there? And sent letters to the elders and to the nobles who were living with Naboth in his city. Now, she wrote in the letter saying, Proclaim a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people, and seat two worthless men before him, and let them testify against him. See a liar?

27:54Saying, You cursed God and the king. Take him out and stone him to death. You see a slanderer and a murderer there? So the men of the city, of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them, just as it is written in the letters which she had sent them. And so they carry out her evil plan. When Jezebel, verse 15, heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise. Take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money. For Naboth is alive, is not alive, but dead. When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab rose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it. A liar, a murderer, imposter, a slanderer, and a thief. That's the persona of Jezebel. Then Jezebel goes on to practically kill all of the true prophets in Israel. And then she wanted to kill Elijah as well. You remember the great showdown at Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18, 450 worshipers of Baal or priests of Baal have a showdown with Elijah, who is the true God. And Elijah says, Choose you this day. Who are you going to serve? If Baal is God, serve him.

29:35But if God is God, serve him. And there is this showdown. Let's build an altar. Let's put a sacrifice on it. Let's see who answers by fire. Big showdown. Do you remember 1 Kings 18? The priests of Baal get out and spend all day. Praying and dancing and cutting themselves, and no fire. Elijah spends a good part of the day mocking their God, no fire. And then he douses sacrifice with water until it's just water's dripping everywhere. Simple prayer. And there, God answers with fire. 450 prophets are then taken out and killed.

30:34Now, you'd think that when Jezebel got word, that it might change her direction in life. But it doesn't. When she gets word, she says this: 1 Kings 19: Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, So may the gods do to me and even more if I do not make your life as one of them by tomorrow, about this time. In other words, I'm going to kill you for what you did. Now, you would think that this would stop her in her tracks, but she was unrepentant. Jezebel was unrepentant. Not only was she a liar, a murderer, an imposter. A slanderer, a thief, but she was unrepentant. After hearing what had happened at Mount Carmel, you would expect maybe repentance or at least a halt, but instead she doubled down and she seeks to kill Elijah. You know why? Because evil isn't interested in the truth, but hates the truth. Evil has no intentions of repenting, even in the face of overwhelming truth.

32:04And unrepentance is a core characteristic of the devil and all his people. Plain and simple. Evil doesn't repent. Evil doesn't want to repent, has no desire to repent. That's why nothing but a work of God and a work of grace can bring a man to repentance. It's not a human work, never has been. True repentance is a work of God's grace. Well, Jezebel, what can we say about this persona? Well, she was probably a very pretty woman by worldly standards. She was manipulative. She was controlling. She was immoral. She was seductive. She hated truth. She was. Syncretistic, taking worship of Israel, bringing into it with the worship of Baal, synchronizing them.

33:09She's very articulate. She was very influential in all of her slander and deceiving and being an imposter. This was Jezebel. She asserted herself as a prophetess, their own authority. She was a teacher and leader in Israel who blended the worship of false gods with the true God through immorality, and she had no intention of repenting. This is Jezebel of the Old Testament. And she became the very symbol of corruption and immorality, Jezebel. So when Jesus calls a person Jezebel, it's shocking.

34:09And what she does is she takes, just let me put this together, just in a simple worship that she brought in. Baal, Astoroth, Astarte. When you put those two together, the male and female, Deities, you end up with sexual immorality. Guess what comes out of sexual immorality? Unwanted children. Unwanted children. These places of worship became sex trafficking areas. Much of it. Many unwanted children. Guess what happens when you have a bunch of unwanted children? Then some of these centers of worship become places of death.

35:05In fact, this next week, going to spend some time in Jordan and Israel, one of the shocking things that really isn't brought to light in many of these archaeological digs that are going on, some of these ancient sites are literally landfills of human remains of babies. And it gives credibility to the Israeli conquest of Canaan because God was so put out with the sins and the crimes of the Canaanites that he drove them out. These archaeological sites are taken.

36:01The history of massive child sacrifice. And we look back. How could they do that? But a sober mind would say, we're not any better than they. Sexual immorality of the 60s, sexual revolution of the 60s led to a bunch of unwanted children, and the innocent pay the price. Nothing new. I never thought that I would see the overturn of Roe versus Wade in my life. Something to celebrate, a step forward. But it's important to recognize that the sexual immorality has not gone away, nor has unwanted children gone away.

37:12So we continue. We continue proclaiming biblical truth, calling people to change their trajectory, to embrace the God of the Bible, to embrace his ways, embrace his ideals for a sexual. Union. We continue. But what a blessed moment this past week. But we still have a long way to go. Well, the first characteristic of this evil influence at Thyratira is seen in her name. Her name is Jezebel. So let's go back to Revelation 2:20. I assure you, the next three points are not going to take as long.

38:03But you have to have a good understanding of Jezebel of the Old Testament before you could understand the Jezebel of Revelation chapter 2. She calls herself a prophetess. She calls herself a prophetess. Jesus called her Jezebel. She calls herself a prophetess. And this speaks of her self-appointed authority. Look back at verse 20. I have this against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess. She calls herself this. She is declaring, she is proclaiming herself a prophetess.

38:51She is claiming that she has the authority to speak for God, much like the Pythonists at the Temple of Apollo. In her day, she would claim to speak for God or speak for Apollo. This woman had set herself up as one who had authority to speak for God. She understood the spirit realm, understood what God was saying, and she spoke with the purpose of declaring that which other people couldn't understand. She claimed to speak for God, but it's very clear that she had to appoint herself to that task. Because certainly the apostolic community didn't appoint her to that. Her authority did not come from the apostles. Her authority did not come from Christ. Her authority didn't come from the church. Her authority didn't come from the scriptures. It was self-appointed, self-declared, and such is the way of the false teacher. I'm a prophet. I speak for God. Yeah, what's the credential? Listen, the degree to which I reflect what is in Scripture is the degree to which I speak for God.

40:12There is no authority in me. There is not authority in any of us. The Word of God has the authority. And we all have the same. That's why we all are to read and understand the Word and proclaim its truth and to recognize that authority is in Scripture alone. Not in powerful, persuasive figures, autocrats who set themselves up as a, I'm anointed. How dare you question my authority? Well, you are to question based upon the Word of God. Third, it's very clear that she was a teacher and leader.

40:59She says, look back at verse 20. You tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bondservants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. She leads astray. She is teaching and leading. That's what she's doing. She's in a place of authority, a place of teaching and leadership position in the church. And she is teaching her ideology and her rationale for entering into sexual immorality and entering into the eating of the things sacrificed to idols, probably associated with the trade guilds, justifying it in some way. Perhaps she was an influential guild leader herself. Who knows? Doesn't say. Maybe she was wealthy, doesn't say, but she was.

42:00Occupied a place of leadership. And she's leading astray. And the idea, it's from the word planos. Think about the idea of a planet in orbit. She is leading astray. She is taking my servants out of their proper orbit or their proper relation to God and taking them down another path, making them a wandering star. That would be the imagery. She's taking them out of their God-given place, God-given orbit, God-ordained way of living and worship, and leading them into error. But what's interesting is she's not just leading the unsuspecting. She is leading, look at my bondservants.

42:51My slaves, my bondservants. He's not just talking about unbelievers here. This is a profound deception. She is good in her rationale. She is good in articulating a reason to compromise, a reason to go directly against what the Jerusalem council told him. Do not eat things sacrificed to idols and do not practice sexual immorality. And she, in her self-appointed authority, had become very articulate, very skilled in taking the bondservants of Christ. Into both of those. It's an interesting statement here. Literal, she is teaching and leading my slaves, my bondservants, to prostitute would be a word, or to commit sexual immorality, but to prostitute themselves. Now, think about that imagery, especially if women leading my bondservants to prostitute themselves, or the men to prostitute themselves. Think about what would happen if we had in a church in our area where somebody was trying to teach and coach and coerce your daughters into prostitution.

44:19Hopefully, you wouldn't just stand around and let it happen. It should strike something at your core. And just like the smash and grab. This is going on, and Jesus is saying, you're letting her get away with it. Well, she was good. The point of it is that she was good at putting people into error. She effectively broke down the moral boundaries between the church. In the wicked world, and was actively leading people into gross sin. Fourth, look at verse 21. She had no intention of repenting. She had no intention of repenting. Look back at verse 21. I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. I gave her time to repent.

45:28I gave her a respite. I gave her a time to change her trajectory. Incredible. We'll come back to that in a minute as I conclude today, but and take some more time to look at verse 21. And just even relate this: what does a modern day Jezebel look like? I can give you many examples, but one I do not want you to miss, and specifically, since this is Pride Month, I want you to get one image in your mind of one such Jezebel-spirit person.

46:20Somebody sent me this image, and this is from a queer Eucharist event. In a church, an Anglican church. Let me tell you something. When you see the rainbow, and I'm talking, I'm not talking the one you used to see in Noah's Ark. I'm talking, when you see the symbol of the LGBTQ movement embraced by a church, you can be sure they are under the spell of Jezebel. And every Christian organization that unites itself to the ideology of the LGBTQ movement have opened up, have embraced every form of sexual immorality that God has expressly forbidden in his word.

47:34And those churches that are embracing, it's not a small thing. It is great departure from the God of Scripture, gross violation. And they're so good at it because entire denominations are going down this road. But let me speak a little bit about Pride Month. Since we don't want to just sit idly and let things go by, let me tell you about Pride Month. My issue isn't so much with the world as much as it is with those in the church who are embracing the ways of the world.

48:25Pride Month. Listen, even if you have accomplished something noble, you're not to become proud. If you want to know anything about the God of Scripture, the Christ of Scripture, he was humble. God opposes the proud. I don't care what you've done, I don't care how great of an accomplishment you have made, you are not to become proud. In fact, just listen to a few words from Proverbs 28, or 28, 25. An arrogant man stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will prosper. Proverbs 16, 19, it is better to be humble in spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16, 5, everyone who is proud, get this, everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Assuredly, he will not go unpunished. Proverbs 15, 25, the Lord will tear down the house of the proud. James 4, 6, God is opposed to the proud. He gives grace to the humble.

49:31Don't be proud. Listen, if anyone had occasion to be proud, it was Jesus. And yet he was humble. We are to imitate him. Have this attitude in you, Philippians 2:5, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. So those who are proud over good things or bad things are detached from the Christ, the humble Christ of Scripture.

50:14But to become proud over your participation in that which God hates is taking human arrogance to a whole nother level. So pride month is not a good direction for any people to go. It's a bad idea. Thankful month, yeah, that's a good idea. Well, in Thyratira, there were those who were embracing her way of life. And there were those who were afraid to comfort her. Both were under her spell. And so the satanic influence in Thyratira, Jesus called her Jezebel.

51:00She called herself a prophetess. She was a teacher and a leader in the church. She had no intention of repenting. There are many modern-day Jezebels. A Jezebelian spirit seems to be taking hold in many of our churches. Now, I know this issue is still very raw in the minds of Texans. This whole Uvalde police shooting, very raw, very painful. But one of the ongoing news stories is this outcry against the slow response to the shooting that was happening at the school. 70 minutes lapsed.

51:52And now there's all this blame game. Who is responsible? Was it the DPS? Was it the Rangers? Was it the school police chief? A lot of that's going on, but I want you to hear some of the outcry that's happening in some of these public meetings, and I'm sure you're very much aware. Speaking of the police chief, one person said, he failed us. Another, get this man out of our lives. Another, I just don't get how you can hear these kids crying and asking for help, but you're So scared to enter for whatever reason.

52:35But the basic question behind all this is: how could you let a person do such evil and simply stand there and let them get away with it? Welcome to Thyratira. Jesus is going to deal with her. He's going to deal with her, her children. He's going to deal with those who've embraced her way. He's going to deal with those he's led astray and all of those who are just sitting around letting her get away with it. Now, listen, I don't have an issue with the, I don't want to take on issues in the world. I recognize that the world is going to be the world, and the most critical thing for the church to do is to be the church.

53:29And that's why we speak on these things. We expect the world to go on in its lostness, but not so in the church. We have the light, and we are to proclaim the truth, and we are to stand on the truth. The world needs the church to be the church. And here's the good news. Here's the good news. Even Jezebel is extinct. Grace. He gives her time to repent. Even Jezebel. He gives her time to repent. He gives her a respite that means she may change her ways.

54:20That is the good news of our message. I don't care what you've been through. I don't care what the background is. I don't care what you've taken part of. The good news, you can be whole and made new, your sins forgiven. You be given a whole new life and taken away, as Daniel Kookine so wonderfully put it in the last Lord's table, to have your sins esponged. A new beginning in Christ. That's the good news. And that's what we proclaim. And you can see it even here.

54:55Even Jezebel is extended grace. So what do we do? Repent. Be turning away. Get a new trajectory in life. Don't just stand by and watch false systems and ideologies and personalities lead his people astray. And don't you be caught up in it yourself. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great grace that we see even in this text of your giving time to someone like Jesus. Jezebel, who was wreaking all kinds of havoc in your church and in the world, and confusion in the world, and a satanic persona. And yet you gave her time to repent. Father, we recognize that all of us living here today are just given a little time. Help us not to sin the sin of Jezebel and refuse you and refuse your invitation to repent and live a new life and to have our sins esponged and removed.

56:05So thank you so much. Go with us now in Jesus' name. Amen.