We can see a progression in the churches. Beginning in Ephesus, we saw the church left their first love. If we as Christians leave our first love – that is if we love anyone or anything more than Jesus, then we’ve left our first love. Once we are away from our first love, we will begin compromising (the church at Pergamos). As we compromise and allow more things into our lives that don’t belong, we will end up corrupt.
- The Church at Thyatira
- The corrupt church
- There were two things that the Apostles commanded the gentiles not to do:
- Refrain from sexual immorality
- Don’t eat food sacrificed to idols
- There was a “prophetess” named Jezebel allowed to teach in the church who practiced both of these things, and encouraged others to do so.
- There were guilds in the city for each of the various trades.
- It was likely that in order to work in a particular trade, one needed to belong to the guild.
- The guilds would often have feasts and celebrations, during which they would worship their patron “gods”. Many times, this would involve sexual immorality as well as food sacrificed to idols.
- Jezebel would very likely tell people that it was permissible to participate in these events, despite the fact that they are blatantly sinful.
- After giving her time to repent, the Lord decided that He needed to deal with her once and for all for the good of the church.
The bottom line: Don’t tolerate sin! Whatever we allow in our lives will grow.
Key Scriptures: Revelation 2:18-29
