The Test of Holiness

The Test of HOliness

rEVELATION 2:12-17

Main Idea: Jesus reveals what is truly in our hearts, which either leads to our hardened defiance or repentant faithfulness

I. The Evil We Tolerate (2:18-20)

Three movements of Jesus:

  1. The Revealing Look

  2. The Affirmation of Works

  3. The Loving Confrontation.

Performing: minimizing God’s holiness by reducing His standard to something we can meet, thereby meriting His favor

Pretending: minimizing sin by making ourselves out to be something we are not

 II. The Rewiring We Need (2:21-25)

Three Rewirings We Need:

  1. Rewired Understanding of Immorality

  2. Rewired Understanding of Sin's Consequences

  3. Rewired View of Freedom

I have to wonder: when encouraging them to go ahead and participate, did she perhaps add, “Jesus knows your heart,” suggesting that Jesus would judge their hearts to be in the right place even when their bodies were invested in sexual immorality? If so, in a way she was right. Jesus did know their hearts. His eyes like a flame of fire saw into their souls to see exactly what their hearts were like. And what he saw was not innocence and good intentions but spiritual adultery worthy of eternal punishment. Sexual sin is spiritual adultery. Idolatry is spiritual adultery. No one can persist in sexual sin and adultery, excusing it as either unchosen orientation or basic human need, assuming that “God knows my heart and will forgive me” and expect that he or she will not be burned by the fire of God’s anger.

-Nancy Guthrie, Blessed

Ephesians 2:1-6: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…

The Gaze of Christ is:

  1. Sympathetic

  2. Loving

  3. Freeing

III. The Reward We Are Promised (2:21-25)

Three rewards that are promised to those who conquer:

  1. Authority Over All Nations.

  2. Rule with a Rod of Iron

  3. The Morning Star

()