Revelation Chapter 2 - March 30, 2009

Sorry about the long wait...

The churches described in chapter two paint a clear picture of struggles that the church is still dealing with today...why do we never learn!

Ephesus - They are walking the fence line between true accountability and sinful judgementalism. If you go too far towards not being judgemental, there is no accountability and you just stand aside as fellow Christians send their lives of the deep end. On the other hand, if you become accountability Nazi's like the people in Ephesus seem to be doing, you replace love with judgement and forget the mercy that allowed you to connect to God in the first place. 

Smyrna - Jesus offers no bad comments for the church in Smyrna, he just offers them words of strength and encouragement for the coming persecution they are going to face. It seems that sometimes, the worse the situation you are facing in life...the better the faith environment is. These people in Smyrna have no time o sit idly and turn to sinful things - their lives are in jeopardy because of their faith every day. I think one of the reasons we see so many Christians screwing up and living out lukewarm faiths is because it is so easy o be a Christian in America.

Pergamum - Jesus thanks them for holding to their faith in the midst of a wicked culture, but they are also falling victim to the lures of that culture. They are allowing vile cultural elements to slip into their church and twist their beliefs. That would never happen here in the States (That was sarcasm if you didn't pick up on that)!

Thyatira - Sounds like this church has so much going for it, yet some of them are still being drawn into sexual immorality, because the leadership will not confront a woman living in sin. How many times have we seen incredible churches torn apart because of sexual immorality. No wonder Jesus refers to sexual sins as the deep things of Satan, because they are some of his most powerful tools of destruction.