God is Patient
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:4
Most of us have things we are able to endure and things with which we are very impatient.
It is amazing to me that God is patient with sinners.
In Revelation 2:19-21 Jesus says to the church at Thyatira, “I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 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.”
So this was a church in which Jesus saw works, love, faith, and service. There must have been believers there. He also saw a church tolerating a false teacher. It appears no one would confront with her sin. The chapter goes on to talk about how she had dragged others into sin with her while the believers in the church stood by and allowed it to continue.
Christ says He is now done being patient as he has offered this Jezebel opportunities to repent and she chose not to. In Revelation 2:22 Jesus proclaims, “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.”
Confronting someone in the church about sin is never easy. I do not envy the position of Pastor and Elder when it comes to church discipline. But, what struck me about the judgment that has come down on Jezebel from Thyatira, is that the church, in failing to confront and stop her false teaching, has now condemned other believers and this woman’s children to the wrath of God. (Who is now offering them an opportunity to repent. Revelation 2:22)
When we read that sin leads to death in the Bible it is not just the death of the person committing the sin but it is anyone they happen to influence and take with them. If the church in Thyatira had been willing to confront and excommunicate Jezebel, would others have been protected? Yes.
There is a time, a place, and a gracious way for us to confront sin. This is especially important for leaders in the church, but every believer who knows that someone is teaching falsely has a responsibility to stop or correct that teaching.
God makes Himself known in judgment and in patience. “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 23b-24
Do we know our Bibles well enough to recognize false teaching? Are we concerned enough about others facing the wrath of God to speak the truth?
God is patient in waiting for repentance – but He will not wait forever.