18 “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
19 “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practise sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. 24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. 25 Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
The fact that these letters to the churches are relevant to the life of the Church in the present day obliges us to ask what 21 and 22 mean in the context of the life of a fellowship. They can mean only this: that when evildoers in a fellowship, who exert a malign influence on others to their spiritual hurt and hindrance, fail to repent even when in longsuffering grace the Lord has been very patient and forbearing with them, He will lay them low in a bed of suffering and affliction as a chastisement for their sins. That this is a doctrine embedded in the Scriptures we cannot doubt. It is echoed unmistakably in 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 by Paul, 'For this cause (i.e. because of their continuing abuse of the holy mystery of the Lord's Supper) many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord'. It is evident also, for those who have eyes to see, in the life of the Church today. Nor need this surprise us, although it should make those determined to run athwart the divine purposes pause to think soberly; for what sort of Lord would He be Who left evil influences unchecked indefinitely among His people. Does a good parent remain unmoved and indifferent and inactive at the prospect of the break-up of his family life? Will he not take steps, however drastic, to prevent it? And will not a holy Lord, Whose eyes like a flame of fire search out all that is perilous to His people's welfare, act otherwise? He is a real Lord, the ever-living One, Who demands, on pain of punishment, that we take His grace seriously!