I know your deeds, your love and your faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
Nevertheless, I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet.  Revelation 2:19-20

Have you ever tolerated something just because it was easier to tolerate it than to do something about it?.

How many times do we tolerate being mistreated in relationships because it is easier than confrontation?

The church at Thyatira had a woman named Jezebel who claimed to be a prophet but was not.  She was a false prophet who led the members into sinful behavior.  I would imagine that at least some of the members saw what this woman was all about early in the game, but for whatever reason, they just tolerated her behavior and allowed her to continue leading fellow members into sin.  Obviously, it was easier to tolerate her behavior than address it.  Remember, God never calls us to do the easy stuff.

Now God saw all the members good deeds and was pleased with them, but their good deeds were basically being erased by their sinful behavior as they followed this false prophet.  They were tolerating her sinful behavior.  When we tolerate something wrong in our lives it just gets worse.  It drags us in and down.

Doing all these good works but tolerating this type of sin reminds me of the way some people diet.  I have worked with people who will go into a fast food restaurant and order a cheeseburger, fries, and apple pie and all super sized and then get a large diet drink.  Hmm, does the diet drink cancel out the calories from all the other stuff?  Wouldn’t it be great if it did?  I mean I would be willing to eat a rice cake if I could follow it up with a hot fudge sundae and know that the rice cake had cancelled all the fat and calories from my hot fudge sundae.  Now we all know that it does not work that way.  Nor does it work that way with good deeds and sinful behavior.

You can give to the needy, feed the poor, build homes for orphans and that will not cancel out your abusive behavior or your porn addiction.

God sees the good we do, but he also sees the bad we do.  He sees what we are willing to tolerate. In this scripture passage, he is addressing a church.  A church is tolerating this type of behavior.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want God to hold anything against me.  Here he says that he holds this against them that they tolerate this woman, Jezebel.  Several years ago a friend used the term Jezebel spirit and I had no idea what she was talking about.  I have since learned that this term refers to one of the most evil spirits and it is a spirit of control. You can research this spirit as I have done and you will find that it is very hard to eliminate.  But as we see in this scripture, we must not tolerate it.  Ephesians 6 tells us how to handle spiritual warfare.

We are to help our fellow Christian as much as we can, but we are to beware of those who claim to be Christians but go around stirring up strife.  Last week we read a scripture passage that told us to go and speak privately with this person and if we cannot reconcile in this way to go back with two or three witnesses and if that still doesn’t work to bring them before the church.  We are told in scripture that if that doesn’t work to break all ties with that person.

It is kind of like a truck stuck in the mud.  You can take another truck with a wench on it and maybe pull it out of the mud.  The other thing that could happen is that the truck that is stuck, could pull the truck that is not stuck into the mud with it.  Now you take a huge tractor and put the wench on it and it easily pulls the truck out of the mud.  You see sometimes we try to pull people out of their sin and they just pull us in there with them.  We need something much bigger than us to do the job.  That would be Jesus Christ.

So please be careful of what you may be tolerating in your life.  If you are tolerating sinful behavior thinking that you can save this person, remember only Jesus saves.  We can plant the seed, we can give them something to think about but if they refuse to turn from their ways, then we need to take a step back and turn it over to God.  God tells us to turn the other cheek when someone comes against us, but he never tells us to fall in with someone who is willfully disobedient to Him.

So what are you tolerating? Are you tolerating a friend that is constantly telling dirty jokes and showing you the last porn that he has pulled up on his computer?  Are you tolerating the friend that loves to gossip and stir up strife and discord?  Are you tolerating the friend that is cheating on their spouse?  Are you joining in or trying to justify their behavior?  Remember our scripture from last week, the Bible tells us how to handle this in Matthew 18.  It also tells us that if they will not listen, to no longer associate with them.  Be careful, God states very clearly in our scripture passage for today that he holds it against us if we tolerate their behavior even if we are doing a ton of good deeds.  So your diet drink may not cancel out your triple cheeseburger, but your associating with a Jezebel will cancel out your good deeds.

Remember you may lose a friend, but you should measure your friends by quality not quantity.

Have a great day!