O my soul,
Can you hear Jesus’ urgent call to repent?
This call to repent went out long ago to the church in Thyatira and it remains today. But let’s first marvel at Jesus’ generous assessment of that church.
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.
‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.’
― Revelation 2:18-19
Among the church in Thyatira were these commended by Jesus for their love and faith and service and patient endurance. O my soul, how are your own love and faith and service and patient endurance? Jesus knows! His eyes are like a flame of fire and nothing is hidden from him.
And did you notice the generosity in his assessment? Their latter works exceeded the first⸺some were slow starters. Jesus did not dwell on what came before. He commended them for how they were now. O my soul, leave the past behind! Jesus does not dwell on what came before and nor must you. Know that he is generous in his assessment also of you, desiring for you only what is good. He loves you and is committed to you and demands reciprocity in these. Rejoice that it is so!
But it was not all good news in Thyatira.
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. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.
― Revelation 2:20-21
Before we come specifically to the seduction and the sexual immorality, let’s notice something significant here⸺a similarity and a difference with what we read in Jesus’ letter to the church in Ephesus. Here we have a woman calling herself a prophetess and leading the church astray. In the church in Ephesus there were false apostles also leading the church astray. If that is the similarity what is the difference? Isn’t it that she was given time to repent and they were not? Recall that there was no call to repentance for those false apostles in Ephesus. They were simply excluded by Jesus and rejected. Tremble at that judgment and that rejection.
Now our instinct may be to characterise Jezebel’s sin as utterly heinous, far worse than what was happening in Ephesus, but pause to consider that Jesus did in fact give her that time to repent. This is not something we can understand in its entirety but surely warns us off ranking sins and ranking sinners.
And what of those she was leading astray?
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, and I will strike her children dead.
― Revelation 2:22-23a
Repent! O my soul, notice the urgency to repent. Jesus came to break the chains of bondage to sin and death and to give life in all its abundance, and repentance and faith are the means to receive this precious and lavish gift. But her children, her spiritual offspring who refuse this gift will be struck dead.
And what is this death? Is it not that final, second death?
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.
― Revelation 2:11
And what then of the specifics of the sin⸺sexual immorality and eating of food sacrificed to idols. Of the former we can say one thing immediately.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
― 1 Corinthians 6:15, 18-20
How different this is from how our own world views such things. Sexual immorality deeply grieves the Lord, for it is a corruption and a debasement of his wonderful gift to those he made in his own image.
But there is something wider going on here. The pagan worship of the day was centred around ritual sexual acts with temple prostitutes and eating of food sacrificed to idols, and this had come in to the church. How this dishonoured the Lord! It was the worldliness of the day invading his church.
And what of worldliness invading the church in our own time? How this dishonours the Lord! And lest you be thinking that what was being rebuked in Thyatira was merely outward behaviour, think again.
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.
― Revelation 2:23b
Jesus is the one who searches mind and heart. Mind and heart are where the Lord is first honoured or dishonoured. As Jesus said,
What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
― Mark 7:20-23
So what must you repent of? O my soul, do not brush this question aside in complacency. Jesus searches mind and heart, and so must you.
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
― Proverbs 4:23
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
― 1 John 1:9
And hear again Jesus’ own voice.
“Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
― Luke 15:10
O my soul, repent, leave the past behind, and bring joy before the angels of God! 🙏