Revelation 2:18-29

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and it's my great joy and privilege to be leading us through the last book in the library we call the Bible.

66 books, a wide variety of literary genres.

We have historical narrative, we have ancient poetry, ancient songs, we have prophetic literature, we have gospel records which really give us the life and teachings of Jesus.

We have these different letters that have been written throughout the New Testament, especially the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, the Apostle Peter.

John and Peter, especially people that knew Jesus quite well.

And then our gospel records are really eyewitness or near-eyewitness accounts on the life and teachings of Jesus.

Revelation, the last book in the Bible, is a powerful book.

It's a great combination of three different genres of literature.

Apocalyptic literature, as it's called.

That means it's it's an unveiling or a revealing, and that's why we call it revelation.

It's something we couldn't have discovered on our own, but God took the initiative and revealed to us, if you will.

Prophetic literature, and that it speaks forth, it's as if uh someone was saying, Thus saith the Lord, as well as points forward to events yet to occur.

And so it's apocalyptic, it's prophetic, and as well, the third uh genre of literature is that it is a pist, it's like an epistle, it's a letter.

And indeed, in chapters two and three, we have seven letters written to seven angels or messengers of the seven churches in Asia Minor.

We're in the middle of that, and today we'll be looking at the letter to the church at Thyatira, the fourth of the letters.

Uh, before we get going, I want to remind you that uh the whole book is made up of a total of seven different visions.

Very easy to sort of uh break it out that way, and chapters one through three are the first, would be what comprise the first vision.

The Apostle John is literally on his face in this vision before Jesus.

In chapter one, we see that, and he's he's not worried about the future, and this is where we kind of get the idea that the the book of Revelation, even though some people have thought it was all about scaring us and that sort of thing about the future.

No, it's not meant to lead us to worry about the future.

But just like John in chapter one, it's meant to lead us to drop to our knees in wonder and in worship uh the Savior, the Redeemer, uh the one who really is the focus of the book of Revelation.

So let me just remind you, uh, you can look up here on the screen, you can see the map, and in that map, what you've got is uh the seven different cities that these seven different churches are in.

And we're studying, as I say, the seven letters that make up chapters two and three of Revelation.

The Isle of Patmos, where John is writing from, is in little white letters, teeny little white letters.

You can see it in the lower left part of the map.

It's actually offshore, even though it's on the in the pink and red region on that map.

And then you could see how easy it would be to take a get on board ship and go right to the port of Ephesus, which is probably the biggest of the cities uh and uh most significant of the cities, and then uh due north of that to Smyrna, north a little bit east of that, Pergamum, and now we're kind of cresting the top of what would be a horseshoe-shaped route, the old Roman postal and trade route that these seven cities sat in, and you can see that right on the map, and headed for Thyatira, about 40 miles south and east of Pergamum.

And Pergamum, while a uh city that would have been uh more about politics and the worship of the uh pagan deities with its many temples, uh, here we have in Thyatira a city that's more about commerce.

Uh, well known for its uh guilds or trade centers, if you will.

So there might be uh a potter's guild, a baker's guild, uh uh those that work with metal, for instance, bronze and copper, they would have a guild there.

Uh those that deal in fabrics, uh not only the weaving together of fabric, but the sale of fabric, that all sort of based out of this city, Thyatira.

Not as big as the other cities we've studied already, but nonetheless still very important uh from the standpoint of its commerce.

Uh, it too had some of its own temples that were um uh put up in honor of the pagan deities, whether they were from the Greek Pantheon or the Roman Pantheon, uh as it as it followed the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire right behind it.

Um, but they there there would be this sort of polytheistic worldview about the gods, and most of them would be named or framed as if they were uh given to one particular task in creation, as opposed to being the god over creation.

So here you would have um uh a temple to Apollo, the son of Zeus, for instance.

It's one of the reasons why Jesus in this letter um uh describes himself as the son of God.

In other words, he's the real son of God.

Um and so these letters, each written to one of the different seven cities, seem to have a certain format to them and a common pattern, if you will.

And as we did, I'll try to point out some of uh some of those interesting things about each of the letters that speak to what was going on in the ground, on the ground rather, at that time in history in the church in, for instance, Thyatira today.

Uh and yet, the other thing I love about these letters, and the other thing I love about the book of Revelation, just like our Bibles throughout, timeless in its truth.

So unique in its origin and that it's God-breathed, God inspired, but timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, transforming in its power.

So let's take a look then at the letter to the angel of the church, Thyatira.

If you'll set your eyes on the page, or perhaps swipe there on your device if that's how you have your Bible.

Uh, let me pray for us too.

Lord, thank you so much uh for revealing yourself to us, taking the initiative to do that.

Don't leave us in the dark, Lord.

Reveal yourself more and more and more to us each and every day, Lord.

Uh what we see not show us, what we know not, teach us, I pray.

And what we are not, Lord, make us.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen.

Verse 18, chapter 2, the book of Revelation, the letter to the angel at the church of Thyotih.

To the angel of the church in Thyotira, right, and this is Jesus instructing John to write this all down.

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.

Isn't that powerful?

What an affirmation, what a what a commendation on the part of Jesus to this church.

But, verse 20 says, I have this against you.

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.

Notice the connection between idolatry and immorality in this problem within this otherwise healthy church.

Uh another timeless truth about our scriptures reminding us that idolatry, uh, that kind of thing where we turn away from the God who's really there, um, that that problem that we have vertically always ends up with some kind of problem, leading us into some problem on a horizontal level as well.

And he gave her time to print, but her will is engaged belligerently against repenting.

And that just makes me want to ask myself the question: what's the disposition of my will as well when it comes to repentance?

Especially when I know the gospel, I I I believe the gospel.

I know what the outcome of my repentance is.

He, Jesus, welcomes repentance sinners.

Um, his arms are open wide, just like they were when they were nailed to the cross.

Uh repentance is uh is a joyful thing because we know the outcome.

He receives us, he will in no wise cast us out.

John 6 37 says, There isn't anything I could do that would make him cast me out if I come to him.

He's eager to forgive.

Same for you.

Wherever you may be at today, he's eager to forgive.

Jezebel refused that.

She was set in her will against repentance.

And that has a consequence.

When you choose to live your life apart from God, when you choose to say no to God's offer of forgiveness and grace and mercy, um you'll get what you want if you want life without God.

Um and it's not good.

It's something we should take s very seriously as we learn here.

Verse 21, I gave her to repent.

She does not want to repent of her immorality.

Behold, then I will cast her upon a bed of sickness and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.

And so the image is there.

He's gonna he even uses that image, I'm gonna cast her on a bed of sickness.

And her her her great sin is manifest in sexual immorality, which would have employed a bed.

And so that bed is that immorality, that idolatry, is going to turn in against her on a bed of sickness, is what he says.

And it gets worse because there's collateral damage, reminding us that no sin is ever private.

Um verse 22, he says, I'll cast her upon this bed of sickness.

Verse 23, and I will kill her children with pestilence.

In other words, there will be disease that continues to affect even her children because she's chosen to live a sexually immoral life.

There are um collateral damage, uh, consequences for others whom we say we love when we sin.

No sin is ever private and secluded, if you will.

And all the churches will know that I'm he who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

So here he is the one who searches the minds and hearts.

And remember, he has said he's the one with the eyes like flame of fire, penetrating vision.

We can't hide from him.

Can't hide anything from him.

He knows exactly what's going on inside of our hearts, but probably knows us better than we know ourselves, as a matter of fact, and what motives lie behind the way we act, the attitudes that we have and embrace.

And he says, he he warns them and he wants to wake them up as well.

There's still time for them to repent as they get this letter, as they hear this word, that he's the one who will search their minds and hearts and will give to each one of you according to your deeds.

Notice how much initiative Jesus says he's taking here in this letter.

Now, I know your deeds.

He's very much in the middle of his church.

As in chapter one, he's revealing himself to the Apostle John, who's prostrate, lying on the ground before him, and he he turns around and looks and sees Jesus, and he's moving among the seven lampstands, which Jesus tells him represents the seven churches.

Jesus, right in the center and moving among his churches.

I pray that we would have a greater awareness of his moving among us as the village chapel.

And here in Nashville, as he moves among all of the churches, all of our sister and brother churches here in Nashville that name the name of Christ, that we would all have a sense of his presence among us.

And that even in this time where we have social isolation and economic hardship for many of you, and perhaps uh and perhaps worse in terms of loss of life or loved ones, uh, may we know the presence of Christ.

And that presence is meant to bring us not worry, but to bring us to wonder and to worship because of who he is, the kind of Savior and Redeemer He is, the kind of one who's eager for us to repent.

And it reveals to us in advance what the result will be as we turn to him in repentance.

Uh I say to you, the rest, verse 24 pivots, doesn't I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, that's those who have not fallen to this charismatic message of this wildly popular uh Jezebel, uh, who might be akin to somebody today who uh perhaps a popular author or or singer or or public speaker that leads people astray.

Um yeah, to to you know, some people have used this term uh uh of late for these deconversion stories.

That's there's nothing new about that at all.

People are acting as if that's like, oh my goodness, oh, look at all the people.

No, that's been happening since the beginning, since even before this time, people have been turning away from God.

Because the human heart is an idol factory, you see.

And our tendency is to create these idols and begin to worship them.

And it's interesting how they look, think, and act just like we want them, because we're essentially creating God in our own image, aren't we?

And yet they fail us every time.

They turn in on us and they're self-destructive.

And what her was uh sexual immorality and idolatry turned into a bed of sickness, and a bed of sickness that affected even her own children and all of those that followed her and would not repent.

But to the others, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the quote deep things of Satan, as they call them, I place no other burden on you.

So anybody that comes along saying they want to uh reveal to you the deep things or the deeper things, um, just understand this.

The deep things of God have been revealed here.

And that's why we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

That's why we do that on our knees, uh, inviting the Holy Spirit to speak to us and reveal to us those things that he wants us to know about himself, and uh also to reveal to us the ways that we should respond to him in each and every situation.

And of course, we could respond with great joy, uh, knowing that he isn't placing any other burden on us, but simply to repent and to turn to him.

Nevertheless, what you have, hold fast until I come, verse 25 says.

So here are these uh uh this sort of challenge or exhortation in this letter, right?

He wants you to hold fast what you have.

That part of that that that bit of the gospel that you do understand, hold fast to that.

Do we understand everything there is to know?

Do we know everything there is to know about God?

No, we don't.

We're finite creatures trying to understand an infinite being, and that'll that we just don't have the capacity for that.

But what we do know, we can know with some authority.

Why?

Because it comes from the Word of God, which is revealed to us, uh, where God has inspired over 40 different authors over uh 1600 year period of time, these different authors coming from all different walks of life.

And and this book, like I said, more like a library of all these different genres of literature.

So whether you're poetically minded or whether you're philosophically minded, either way, the the message of the Bible can speak to you right where you're at.

And this book, Revelation, is fascinating to me.

Eye popping, heart thumping, mind-blowing, in the way it combines all these genres of literature.

Hold fast until he comes.

And he who overcomes, verse 26, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.

So Christ intends to share what ultimately God is going to give him when he sets all things right.

Christ intends to share that.

That's why we call this study of revelation the hope of glory.

Um, because we're not only hoping to see God's glory ultimately, um, we are hoping to be experiencing God's glory, uh, to forever be praising him side by side with our brothers and sisters from every tribe and every tongue, uh, every kind of people group you can imagine on this planet worshiping God together for all eternity and enjoying him, delighting in him, and finding in him uh all joy that we so have been longing for in a world that's set right, because he comes.

And he comes with justice and righteousness to set things right.

Well, to him whoever comes and 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.

Uh, these images, as I mentioned before, uh the book of Revelation has uh images it pulls from literally all sixty-five of the other books of the Bible.

Here's a couple from Isaiah and Jeremiah that you would find if you were to read those and study those books.

And then Jesus says in verse 28, and I will give him the these are the ones that overcome, okay?

These are the ones that remain faithful to him.

Uh, these are the ones that continue to trust in him to be their savior and redeemer, um, that that don't wander away from following him, that continue to deny themselves, take up their cross, and to follow Jesus along the pilgrim way, to those who overcome.

He will give him the morning star, verse 28 says.

What a great, wild image that is.

Uh, what could that possibly be?

Well, those of you who have read to the end of the book in chapter 22 know exactly what he's saying.

Not only will you share with me in this glory, uh, not only will you experience that uh when he sets up his new kingdom, but I will give him myself.

He's the one who is the morning star.

He himself is beautiful.

And then he closes off with that formula that Jesus used so often when he was walking the planet and is recorded in the gospels.

He who has an ear to hear, uh, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

I love this.

So, two things true there.

The spirit is speaking, and we should be listening.

That's really important for us.

And I often, when I study a book that's like this book, um, and really any book of scripture, I need to be asking myself, I might be doing the acoustical function of hearing it, but am I listening to it?

And more than that, am I not just a uh a hearer of the word, am I a doer of the word as well?

As he summons me to himself, do I turn to him?

Or like Jezebel, do I turn away?

Well, let's look at the common pattern of these letters, and I think that's how we can best explore the depths here.

The city name of the church is always mentioned.

Of course, here it's Thyatire or the reference to Christ of chapter one.

We have uh that same sort of uh touching back, looking back, if you will, to how Jesus reveals himself in chapter one.

Uh we see that right there in uh verses 14 and 15, that he's the one with eyes like a flame of fire, and with uh feet like burnished bronze.

Another image that uh also connects back to Daniel chapter 10, as a matter of fact.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

And uh, as he reveals who he is, what we see is that both of these images, eyes like a flame of fire, uh, feet like burnished bronze, these are intense and powerful.

He has he's got the penetrating eyes that can see through, burn right through the facade that that people might.

Try to put up and try to in some way hide from God.

The great news is you can't hide from God.

And the reason it's great news is because he knows me fully and he still loves me completely.

Yeah, I can't hide from him.

He knows the depths of my sin.

He knows the things I flirt with, the temptations I flirt with, and the times I have fallen to those temptations.

He knows all of that.

And so it's good news that someone knows you fully and yet still loves you completely.

That's what we're all really longing for, isn't it?

One of the reasons most of us try to hide ourselves, our true self, from others is because we're afraid they won't love us.

But with Jesus, we don't have to be afraid of that.

He already knows us fully and loves us completely.

Christ remains central here in his church, as we see in uh Revelation chapter 1, and he wants to remain central in the church at Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

And so he's constantly waking us up.

Even churches like Thyatira that are very commendable.

Now let's talk about that just for a second for the commendation that they receive in verse 19.

Take a look at that with me.

I know your deeds and your love and faith and service and perseverance or patient endurance, right?

And that your deeds of late are greater than at first.

There's so much there.

I mean, he begins with this great commendation to them.

Um it it says, yeah, I know your motives, your faith and love.

Those are great motives that lead them to service and that lead them to patient endurance of the suffering that they might be going through, the the social isolation and the economic hardship that they were experiencing.

And uh even in our own day and time, some of us may be experiencing that.

And that's another reason why we look to our Bibles with these timeless truths, with similar kinds of human predicaments that really require divine intervention and redemption.

And why I can take great comfort and hope in the Jesus who reveals himself here in the book of Revelation.

He knows their deeds, their love, their faith, their service, their perseverance.

And I like this, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first.

So here he says, I know your motives, love and faith, I know your actions, service, persevering, patience, you know, all that.

I know all of that, but I also know your trajectory, spiritually speaking.

Your deeds now are greater than they were at first.

And so it's almost the opposite of what the situation was in Ephesus, because their love here is increasing.

Their deeds here are increasing.

And their vulnerability is not so much something from outside as it is something from inside.

It's not a pressure from without, it's a poison from within.

And so here comes that in the next verse, right?

The accusation to them, I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, verse 20 says, who calls herself a prophetess.

In other words, she's self-appointed, not church-appointed.

She's untethered.

Again, much like we see in our own day and time, without the covering and the sort of tethering of the context of the community of faith, just completely out on her own.

She calls herself a prophetess who misleads God's people with these twin compromises of sexual immorality and spiritual idolatry, and who will not repent.

The accusation against Thyatira was that they tolerated this in their midst.

And so the actual accusation is a weakness on the part of the leadership, uh, a vulnerability, if you will, toward spiritual syncretism, um, because they wouldn't correct the problem that was in their midst.

And this declaration exposed their vulnerability to spiritual drift and declension.

This is what Jesus is saying.

Hey, wake up, folks.

You need to see what's happening here.

There's an increasing wave of people moving towards this message of this person, Jezebel.

Evidently, there was a woman who was uh perhaps a very charismatic personality.

We don't know uh that her name was necessarily Jezebel, could be an image uh meant to recall to the Jewish Christians among them.

Um, that Gentile pagan queen and the wife of uh Israel's king Ahab from the 9th century BC when the prophet Elijah uh was being used by God in such powerful ways.

Um, but that Jezebel, that that person that caused such havoc and brought so much in the way of idolatry and immorality uh into Israel and turned the hearts of God's people away from God.

Uh one of those things, of course, would be the context that the first and second century church was living in.

Again, uh the kind of suffering that exists because of the fact that they were under the pressures of the imperial cult, worship Caesar or die, worship Caesar or be put in jail, in prison, like John is on the Isle of Patmos, not knowing whether or not you'd be put to death the next morning or not, you know.

And um, in the same way, uh they might also find economic hardships in their own cities, as those who refused to um acknowledge Caesar as Lord didn't have, weren't given the annual certificate.

Um, it'd be like a license to do business, if you will.

And so they were marginalized on a societal level, and they also would face great economic hardships.

So in their time, Christianity was actually seen as a spiritual virus, if you will, and the prevailing culture uh would isolate those Christians, and the uh economic hardships would come as well as all other uh kinds of difficulties for them, right there in Thyatira, right there in Smyrna Pergamum, and in Ephesus as well.

It was both toxic and intoxicating because um there is idolatry that's being uh that they're being tempted toward, but also sexual immorality, sort of a anything goes, you can do whatever you want, live any way you want.

And Jezebel, right there in the middle of this church, teaching this kind of thing and inviting others uh to join her and to follow along with her.

According to Jesus, what was needed wasn't tolerance, but repentance.

And I know we all think of tolerance as a really good thing, but we need to think about what that word actually means.

It's almost meaningless in our culture anymore.

Um those who uh promoted the idea of tolerance for years and years and years uh have now sort of bent it, twisted its meaning now.

Um tolerance means approval of anything, permissiveness, if you will.

Real tolerance to me is um living in and among and with people who think and believe differently, perhaps behave differently than I do, and yet we find ways to be civil to one another, to be loving and kind to one another.

That's what real tolerance is.

Um the tolerance is love toward others who are different than me.

Not just sort of an abdication of good thinking and just saying, well, all ideas have equal value.

Well, all ideas don't have equal value.

If the double yellow line means anything, if gravity means anything at all, the idea that you can fly is not true.

And so ideas really do matter, and Jesus is trying to drive that home with these folks.

The exhortation comes, and I love this.

Um when he says in verse 25, what you have, hold fast until I come.

I love this.

Hold fast to what you have.

It means we must guard what is taught in our churches.

We must not allow the novelty teachings that come along, especially the ones that sound like, you know, they would tickle our ears and draw us away because it's a freedom to do whatever you want to do and be whoever you want to be.

And like we saw last week, it's the sort of twin errors of antinomianism, uh, lawlessness, if you will, uh, which would lead us to think anything goes when it comes to our sexuality.

Um, and yet at the same time, uh there's the opposite uh end of that uh error, which is this legalism.

And what we learned so beautifully from that, Sinclair Ferguson last week was that grace is opposed to both errors.

It's not somewhere in the middle of sort of uh antinomianism and legalism.

No, no, no, no.

Grace is opposed to both of those altogether.

Uh and that's where our gospel is, and that's why it's such good news.

It's interesting to me that 25 to 30 years before Revelation is written, the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Ephesus, which, you know, a sister church to Thyatira, right over in that same region.

The Apostle Paul writing to his young pastoral protege, a guy named Timothy, in what is perhaps the last writing of the Apostle Paul, 2 Timothy, says this in chapter 4, verses 3 through 4.

For the time is coming when people will not endure a sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

A wonder.

As Revelation, this book, is being circulated around to the seven cities, and as they're reading all of this, do any of them think back to the time when they had read 2 Timothy, that letter as well?

And do any of them see how the warning of the Apostle Paul is now being realized during the time of the writing of and distribution of the book of Revelation itself?

And I wonder also for us here at the village chapel and in the church worldwide, do we not recognize that we could be vulnerable in some of the same ways?

These are timeless truths that the Lord has revealed to us and uh timeless warnings for all of us, and yet timeless encouragement as well as timeless exhortation, right?

Timeless motivating promises to he who overcomes, verse 26, and he who keeps my deeds.

So it's not it's not just about hearing the word, but it's being hearers and doers of Jesus' word.

Uh to him I'll give authority over the nations.

Jesus promising that he will share his authority, his glory, if you will.

We can trust him to remain faithful to us always, of course.

But he's inviting us, he's summoning us to remain faithful to him as well.

And ultimately, he's going to give us himself.

I love this motivating promise that he's the morning star.

He'll give us the morning star because that's what ultimately we're really longing for, isn't it?

Not just the things that God can give us, not just the things that God will point out to us, but himself.

See, he's what we're really and ultimately longing for, whether we recognize that or not.

And I would say the same thing for you.

Um, he has placed eternity in our hearts.

And that's why those of us who have achieved much, acquired much, accomplished much, all of that, we find ourselves chronically dissatisfied.

We find ourselves always going, okay, I made it.

But somehow it's not really what I was looking for.

I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

We sing it so well, it resonates with us so much.

Why?

Because what we're looking for is Him.

And we have to turn to Him.

And that's what repentance is.

It's a twofold turn.

It isn't just turning away from my sin, stop doing that.

It's not just behavior modification.

That's what mere religion would be.

The gospel's much more than that.

It's awesome.

It's a two-fold turn.

Turn away from our sin and turn toward Jesus.

See, He's what we're longing for.

And He's what's on offer to you and to me.

This morning star Himself.

So then the summons, the letter closes with this beautiful summons.

He who has an ear, let him hear.

I've got two of them.

They're holding up my glasses, as I've said before.

You may have two.

And uh I can hear better with one than the other.

But the question really isn't about the acoustic function of them.

The question is about my heart.

Yeah, am I listening?

Do I hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches?

So, according to Jesus, the church at Thyatira wasn't just facing pressure from without but a poison within.

And the weak leadership would not confront or root out someone who was untethered, um, self-appointed, uh, with a novelty message that tickled the ears of the intellectually gullible, the spiritually unsuspecting, and the morally naive.

I hope it's not us.

I pray to God that's not us.

I pray to God that it's not you, and I really pray to God that it's not me.

I'm that selfish, I'm sorry.

Uh but I want for all of us to turn our eyes uh upon Jesus, to look to him, the morning star, the one we're really longing for, you see.

Um because he's the one that can truly uh fulfill us in the deepest longings of our souls.

The delight that we so desire to find is to be found in him.

So, like Os Guinness says, the problem at Thyatire, it's not wolves at the door, it's termites in the floor.

So well said, so pithy.

I love that.

It's almost Chestertonian.

Um, the problem for us in the church is always going to be that way.

It's not just the wolves at the door.

But are we decaying from within in some way because we're not holding fast to the gospel?

The exhortations from this letter hold fast to the truths of the gospel.

Keep investing in a growing, healthy, spiritual life, as he says in verse 19.

You're always moving forward toward him.

Um keep loving God, keep loving others, keep serving God, keep serving others.

All of this is just having that kind of spiritual vigilance that uh that that results in a moral vitality and a social engagement with others.

Um, I know a lot of people like to sort of make it sort of opposite poles of the social gospel and and and the sort of doctrinal gospel.

It's not either-or, trust me, folks.

This is a gospel that literally changes the way we think about everything.

I mean, here is the one who on a vertical level comes in and radically transforms our minds and hearts so that everything about our horizontal world changes as well.

The way we see ourselves, the way we see others, the way we think about what it means to be a human person, and the society of persons as well, and our responsibility to that society of persons.

Whether they're poor, whether they're wealthy, whether they're the same color as us, whether they live the same way we live, believe what we believe or not.

We're called to represent Christ and his gospel.

How do we figure out, uh, how do we discern between the Jezebel message, if you will, that draws us into idolatry and immorality?

How do we discern that from the real truth that we're to hold fast to?

I like the way Jonathan Edwards said it.

Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God.

That is, I must have that disposition of heart and will that says to God, I bow before you not only morally, but intellectually as well.

I bow before you intentionally, bending, bowing my will before yours.

I want my ideas to agree with you, God.

And somebody might then say, Well, how do we know?

God's ideas.

Folks, that's why we study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.

We want to hear from God through his revealed word.

And we want to hear from the Holy Spirit.

And so we get on our knees as we read this book.

We want to lean forward.

We want to have our ears open so that we might hear from Jesus as he speaks to us.

Um learning to discern what's true, uh, learning to rightly divide the Word of God is important.

Kevin DeYoung in his book, Where and How do we draw the line?

We should steer clear of theological wrangling that is speculative.

In other words, it goes beyond Scripture.

We should steer clear of uh theological uh thinking that is vain, more about being right than being helpful.

Uh that's endless.

No real answer is possible or desired, and needless.

In other words, it's just about mere semantics.

Great read there.

Uh where and how do we draw the line in terms of discerning God's will?

We look to Scripture.

We don't go beyond Scripture.

We don't also fall, we we also take its message seriously and don't fall short of what it teaches us.

And so here from Revelation, we be we should be on our guard holding fast so that we don't fall into spiritual idolatry or sexual immorality.

And then this last quote, which I think is really powerful from Tim Keller, encouraging us to trust in, to lean upon and rest in Christ.

He says, love without truth is sentimentality.

It supports and affirms us, but keeps us in denial about our flaws.

Truth without love is harshness.

It gives us information, but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

God's saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are, and yet also radical unconditional commitment to us.

The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent.

The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God's mercy and grace.

And what's beautiful about God's mercy and grace, you guys, I shared this at uh Thanksgiving Thursdays this past week.

I had read in a in a book called Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortland, is that is that this this gift of God's grace and mercy at work in our lives leads us to this rest.

And this rest is it's all a gift.

It's not a transaction.

It's not me coming up with the right money, amount of money for it, or the right kind of moral scoring moral points, or balancing out the scale.

That's not it.

It only comes as a gift as we turn to Jesus and believe him, trust in him, hope in our Redeemer, recognizing how much we need Him.