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Is Being Judgmental Necessary To Being A Christian?Revelation 2:18-29Compass Church Life Group LessonsRevelation #5We continue our study of the Book with Jesus’ letter to the Christians in Thyatira. Remember this Book is about being true disciples in a world of compromises. So please read the passage at least twice… slowly to comprehend it. Ask yourself questions as you read.What does Jesus say is good about this church? What does He compliment them for?Summarize what criticism Jesus has of these Christians?That raises the whole question of whether being judgmental is necessary to being a faithful Christian.Consider the following:What would you say is the quickest way to shut a Christian up about what the Bible says is right and wrong? Accuse her of being judgmental! Of being intolerant and a bigot. Hang those labels on a Christian and most will close their Bible. NFL star Reggie White was invited to speak to the Wisconsin State Legislature. He spoke about why homosexuality and same sex marriage is wrong in God’s eyes. People were horrified. Legislators walked out yelling he was judgmental and a ‘bigot’! CBS Sports cancelled a $6,000,000 deal with him. Reggie’s response? “Jesus owns me, not CBS.” It’s a big question today. Is drawing moral lines intolerant and judgmental or simply distinguishing moral from immoral? And is drawing moral lines necessary to being a Christian? G.K. Chesterton, the legendary British journalist, shed some light on that question. He said, “Morality is like art; it requires drawing lines somewhere.” The next time someone accuses you of being judgmental and intolerant, remember that. The fact is drawing moral lines is not being judgmental, it’s being moral. Morality by its very nature requires drawing moral lines. Refusing to draw moral lines is NOT being tolerant; it’s being immoral. Think about that. Today being a tolerant person is defined as never drawing moral lines because the minute you do, you are accused of being intolerant, and that is a hideous, unforgivable sin today that cannot be tolerated. But don’t you see the hypocrisy? You are accused of being intolerant because you dare to call something wrong, but the person doesn’t see they are intolerant of your intolerance! Silly blind hypocrisy. The answer to such an accuser should be “Hey, aren’t you being intolerant of my Christian moral lines?” Aren’t you being intolerant of my intolerance? And of course, they are. No one can actually live by this ideology of no moral lines. Follow them and you will hear them calling racism wrong, Trump supporters as deplorables and cutting in front of them in line is wrong. You will not hear them say, “Go ahead and bully my daughter. I’m not a judgmental person.” They inevitably are hypocritical because they will draw moral lines somewhere.Underline the most important or challenging sentence and say why.Summarize in a few sentences the argument against someone calling you judgmental and intolerant for drawing moral lines.What is the strength of that reasoning/defense?Christians are often accused of being hypocrites, but how can an atheist or moral relativist be a hypocrite?Surprise: Jesus is saying being tolerant is NOT a virtue. Consider this:It might surprise you that being tolerant is never a virtue in the Bible. In fact, in the case of these Christians Jesus says it is sin to be tolerant of sin. The problem is Jezebel. She is the most evil woman in the Bible. Remember she was a Phoenician and a worshipper of the cruel pagan gods Baal and his mistress Astarte, who are fertility gods. Worship was in the form of sexual orgies of husbands and wives with male and female temple prostitutes. Jezebel led Israel into raunchy, vulgar, smutty sexual immorality in God’s eyes. In the church at Thyatira there was a prominent woman who had great influence. She was using her prominence to lead Christians into immorality. Jesus names her Jezebel. That is not her real name. No one named their daughters after the most evil woman in the Old Testament. Jesus gave her that name to symbolically say she was like Jezebel of the Old Testament. Let me give you a little context historically. Thyatira was a craft center. It was famous for cloth died with a special purple dye, and for gold minted into coins, and all sorts of wood products. But to be in business, to work in these trades, you must join a trade union. Romans called them guilds. Christians were in a catch-22. If they did not join a guild, people would not hire them or do business with them. The problem is that each guild had its own god who was worshipped and prayed to at monthly meetings for prosperity and success. It gets worse. These meetings were drunken sexual orgies. Male and female prostitutes were the entertainment. But in order to be successful, Christians had to join these immoral sex parties, or it was financial suicide. Jezebel made it easy to compromise. She taught “Don’t mix business with Christianity.” “You’ve got to put food on the table, so do what you have to do.” “Don’t be so legalistic. You can’t take the Bible literally…” “Don’t be so judgmental of what people do.” “Be tolerant.” Those were Jezebel’s talking points in Thyatira and they still are Jezebel’s talking points today. Many Christians bought into Jezebel’s speech that compromise is necessary to success in the real world. So, the church was a mixed church. There were believers who were faithful to Jesus’ moral authority in their life and other believers who came to worship on Sunday but compromised and ignored His Word Monday through Saturday night. In verse 24 Jesus says; “But I also have a message for the rest of you who have not followed this false teaching.” It was a mixed church. Every church in every century is a mixed church -- obedient and disobedient Christians, followers of Jezebel sexually and followers of God’s Word sexually, those under Jesus’ moral authority and believers who reject it. In verse 20 Jesus says He has this against these Christians who have been moral. “That you tolerate that woman - - that Jezebel - - who leads my servants astray.” Jesus is intolerant of both immorality and Christians who silently tolerate! Why? Because what is not challenged becomes the new normal and spreads. At first a few are immoral sexually, and then more are immoral, and then more and soon most everyone is immoral. People think, what could be wrong with what most people are doing? What is tolerated grows.Haven’t we seen this in America. In the 1950’s the immorality of Woodstock and the 70’s was unimaginable. But then what is seen as normal sexually today was unimaginable at Woodstock. Whatever is tolerated gets worse. Always.Underline the key sentence or sentences in your opinion and say why.To tolerate what is wrong in God’s eyes is actually to compromise with sin.?That is what Jesus has against these Christians.What exactly does the quote say they are tolerating?In your opinion what are the top 2 sins many Christians are silent about and tolerating?In your opinion why don’t more Christians speak up and say that is wrong? And then, what would be your advice to us all about that?“Whatever is tolerated grows worse”. Is that true? Why is it so?Name one thing in America that is worse because it is tolerated.(Personal and private; share only if want prayer).?What in your marriage or in your family have you tolerated, and it is time to speak up??Consider the following:?Dare I speak up? It’s risky for a preacher today to speak up against Jezebel. By that I mean that many Christians don’t like a preacher to draw moral lines, especially if they are living outside those moral lines. What happens is that they call that preacher judgmental and leave that church and go to another church where they feel safe, where moral lines are not being drawn, except of course for rapists, murderers and racists, which they are NOT. That surely is the reason the preacher in the church at Thyatira did not speak up against Jezebel and her teaching. Too risky. Pray for this preacher at Compass. The stats are that 80% of Christians have sex before marriage and a high percentage of Christians live together before marriage. They are drinking Jezebel’s Kool-Aid. Today Jezebel has convinced many people of 2 lies about premarital sex. The 1st lie is that sex is merely physical and no big deal. The truth is sex binds our soul to the other person. Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 6:16 “Don’t you know he who has sex with a prostitute becomes one with her? As it is written, ‘The 2 shall become one.’” Sex is not merely physical. It binds the deepest part of us to the other person forever. This is the reason that a study done of 100,000 women who had been sexually active before marriage reported sexual dissatisfaction in their marriage. Sex bonds us to the other person and it’s inevitable that there will be memories and comparisons that can ruin sex in marriage. The 2nd lie is that living together is a good test run for compatibility in marriage. The truth is cohabitating before marriage actually increases the divorce rate by 50%. Why? You would think that by living together before marriage you would have worked out the bugs and known whether or not you’re compatible. The reason is pre-marital sex blinds us. We minimize problems in order not to jeopardize the relationship. Pre-marital sex blinds us and that is why couples who sleep together before marriage have a much higher rate of unhappy marriages or even divorces later. Later in marriage, sex will not solve problems we ignored before the wedding.Summarize in a few sentences the 2 reasons given not to live together before marriage.??In a few words what do you think people who are cohabitating would say to all this??How would you reply??Consider this:That is the 2nd message of this letter. Jesus will discipline Christians who will not come under His moral authority. Jesus says in verse 22, “Therefore I will throw her on a bed of pain with those who commit adultery with her unless they repent.” Jesus is saying He is forgiving if we repent, but if not, then we are in danger of God’s discipline. Jezebel will be on a “bed of pain” Do you see the irony? Her discipline is appropriate to her sin. Her bed has been a place where she has seduced men in the church into adultery with her. She’s a marriage wrecker. Remember that Jezebel in the Old Testament was a beautiful woman. She was easy on the eyes. And so was this Jezebel at Thyatira. She was attractive and hard for men to resist. In verse 21 Jesus writes “I gave her time to repent but she does not want to turn away from her immorality.” Jezebel feels no guilt. She has developed what the Bible calls “a seared conscience”. The word in Greek for seared means a hot iron has touched the flesh and killed the nerve endings so that we no longer feel pain from something hot and dangerous. A seared conscience: it does not feel guilt when it should, which means that they are people who hurt people. In a marriage it will mean that one person feels no guilt when they do hurtful things to the other. It means that they rarely if ever admit that they’ve done something wrong or hurtful. They will blame you. It’s your fault. You are amazed that they don’t see how they have been damaging to you. A seared conscience is insensitive in a marriage. They are incapable of changing because they see NO need to change! If you are dating someone like that, run. Notice Jesus said He gave them time to repent in this church, but they were unwilling. Therefore, He will bring pain. C. S. Lewis said “God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse the deaf.” That is why a Christian who is living outside God’s moral lines is in DANGER OF GOD’S DISCIPLINE. GOD will bring discipline to PURIFY us and make us less of the problem of pain and suffering in this world. Jezebel was destroying marriages. She was seducing men to her bed. Pain was the only hope to wake her conscience up.What does Jesus warn will happen to those who disobey?Discipline:?Why? How does C.S. Lewis help us understand God discipling people?Leaders: it is actually grace. It gets us off a road that leads to lots of misery and people being hurt. Discuss with group if that is true.Problem: not every bad thing is God’s discipline. Don’t blame on God sin of others or consequences of our choices.PrayMemory: “Morality is like art. It requires drawing lines somewhere.” G.K. Chesterton ................
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