Revelation 2:20-23 “Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. (21) And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. (22) Indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. (23) I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.”
The above quoted passage of scripture gives us a vivid account of how our Lord deals with believers that continue in sin. In the church at Thyatira there was a believer who was obviously deluded into thinking that she was called by the Lord to be a prophetess. And so because the elders of that church had allowed her to teach she had developed a following among the saints in the church. Over time, because she had been allowed to continue teaching even though our Lord had not called her to ministry, she had started to teach more and more false doctrine, even to the point that she was now even teaching fellow believers to commit sexual immorality and eat things offered to idols. In this passage our Lord tells us that He had given her time to repent and that she had not repented, because of which the Lord would judge her and her followers with sickness and tribulation. The Lord then goes on to say that if she and her followers still refused to repent, that He would eventually judge them with physical death. So why did the Lord do all of this? He did all of these interventions to prevent these believers from ultimately committing the sin to death and thus being condemned with the world. The above example illustrates to us just how the Lord judges those who refuse to judge themselves. This is a clear example of that which the apostle Paul spoke about to the church at Corinth, for you will recall that they were also judged with weakness, sickness and eventually physical death. There are times when we see believers who become ill and we see believers who die early deaths, and we ask how it is that our Lord Jesus allowed these tragedies to come upon them. Sometimes the reason for these events taking place in their lives is because they have refused to judge themselves and so the Lord has stepped in and judged them accordingly. And so we have seen in this section that our Lord first gives us time to repent of our sin. If after a while we refuse to judge ourselves and repent of our sin, then He allows sickness and tribulation to come upon us. If we still refuse to judge ourselves and repent of our sin, even in our sickness and tribulation, then He will eventually judge us with physical death. He does all of this so that we will not reach the stage of committing the sin to death and thus being condemned with the world.
Michael E.B. Maher
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