Revelation 2:19-21
19 ‘I know your deeds, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your last deeds are more numerous and greater than the first. 20 But I have this [charge] against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess [claiming to be inspired], and she teaches and misleads My bond-servants so that they commit [acts of sexual] immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols.
Tolerance of a false prophetess whose teachings misled servants of God to commit acts of sexual immorality and eat food sacrificed to idols. That was the shortfall of the church in Thyatira almost similar to the warning to the church in Pergamum.
“What you tolerate you will eventually accept!” Those words spoken to me by my pastor many years ago I have never forgotten. To tolerate is to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.
The church had allowed a false prophetess among them and she was stumbling block to the body of believers. Because of her sexual immorality and eating food offered to idols became something that this church also tolerated.
God is very clear when it comes to sexual immorality and sometimes we get very casual with it in the church today.
Ephesians 5:3 (AMP)
3 But sexual immorality and all [moral] impurity [indecent, offensive behavior] or greed must not even be hinted at among you, as is proper among saints [for as believers our way of life, whether in public or in private, reflects the validity of our faith].
There must even be a hint of sexual immorality among us. This means it is an issue that we have to take very seriously and not take casually. We should not tolerate the lifestyle of those living together and they are not married. We should not tolerate the lifestyle of those we know are promiscuous and also those who love to flirt with every other person in our midst. Remember not even a hint, this deals with so many areas and how we relate to each other.
Many times we only get to hear of sexual sin when the girl gets pregnant and because it cannot be hidden any longer it must be brought out in the open but what about all the other practices we have tolerated that surround the whole area of sexual immorality?
Remember;
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (AMP)
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; [a]neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [by perversion], nor [b]those who participate in homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers [whose words are used as weapons to abuse, insult, humiliate, intimidate, or slander], nor swindlers will inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God.
