HOLDING FAST

Revelation 2:18-29 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
21 November, 1999
All Rights Reserved

1. INTRODUCTION
   
   The great bulk of the Christian faith consists of holding fast. There are exciting times of rocketing growth, both spiritually and numerically, such as the early days of the churches in Asia Minor in the first century. But then things settled down to a long-term pattern of relative stability. Management consultant Peter Drucker has said that for business, the primary strategy for success is to go where there are opportunities and exploit them. We call this missionary work.
   
   By contrast, Drucker has told business executives for half a century that merely solving the problems of a mature business will not restart the engine of growth. This is also true for specific local churches, most of which grew rapidly at some point in their history. But local churches can't move to the new places of rapid growth. That's why they are local churches. They participate in sending missionaries to areas of rapid growth such as Russia, China, and Cuba are today. Local churches, by their very nature, seek to exploit local opportunities for growth through crusades, personal witnessing, mailing, the use of the media, and other forms of outreach. They plug away, moving forward modestly without much fanfare. With a few exceptions, "keepin' on keepin' on" is what they are all about.
   
   Where this leaves the average believer in a local church for most of his Christian life is holding fast during times of slow numerical growth, plateau, or decline. This is very unpopular in America where the desire of all is bigger, better, and faster in everything. How should we think about this basic reality of spiritual life in Christ? Jesus' letter to the church of Thyatira tells us God's perspective that holding fast in Christ is victory, worthy of great reward in His kingdom! And holding fast in light of the return of Christ is the only command which he issued to this church: "'Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come'" (Rev. 2:25). Fortunately for our understanding, Christ explained to those first century believers that holding fast meant hanging on to some specific things and rejecting other specific things.
   
   
2. THINGS UPON WHICH TO HOLD
   
   The list of things upon which to hold fast is in the first few verses: "And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this: 'I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first'" (Rev. 2:18-19).
   
   First and foremost, Christ commended the Thyatirans for holding fast in love. The specific Greek word for love used here can best be illustrated by contrasting it with the two other Greek words for love. The first is "eros," or sexual love. While this aspect of love is designed by God to be part of the blessing of marriage, when taken out of marriage it becomes self-serving. By its very nature, giving sexual pleasure to another results in pleasure for ourselves. This can become an utterly mercenary thing, as it has for so many today. We often give sexual love merely to get pleasure in return.
   
   The second Greek word is "phileo," which refers to familial or brotherly love. In the context of a godly family and the church, this is a high, holy, and wonderful thing. Yet as an end in itself, it too can become a means to personal gratification. There can be a tendency to participate in friendships for the sake of what we receive. Certainly today we see many people who consider the family only a means to receive this reciprocal form of love. As soon as the reciprocity fails, the love fails. In fact, it is now common to state marriage vows in this manner: "I pledge my life to you as long as we both shall love." It might be paraphrased crassly as: "I'm with you as long as it is a good deal for me."
   
   In stark contrast to these contractual forms of limited love, Christ commands us to hold fast to "agape" love. "Agape" is covenantal rather than contractual. In a contract, when one party fails to keep his end, the contract is breached and becomes null and void. In a covenant, failure of one party cannot nullify the connection between people because faithfulness has been pledged to God first, and then man. In covenantal love we say: "I pledge before God to love you. As long as God loves me, I will love you. And that's forever." That means that we love our spouses, our children, and our brothers and sisters in Christ even when it is all giving on our end--even when it is a "bad deal." God says: "I did not make any deal with you when I gave my Son to die for you. I just loved you as a gift. Now you give the gift of love to others." That's what "agape" means. And as we saw in Christ's words to Ephesus, any church which fails here will be disestablished by Christ, which is the removal of his blessing and power.
   The three other characteristics of holding fast also share in the nature of a covenant with God rather than a contract with man. For example, faith is not an exchange. We do not give God faith in order to get something in return. Faith is also not a force, as is taught by faith healers. Faith is merely a connector through which God, who is just waiting for an opportunity to bless us, transmits an abundance of overwhelming heavenly gifts! Why is it merely a connector? Because it is part of a divine covenant whose terms are set entirely by God. If we act according to the terms of that covenant, the grace of God flows over us. If we act outside the terms of that covenant, we do something which Paul called "falling from grace" (Gal. 5:1-4). It's called that because God will never fall away from us. It is we who are in danger of falling away from him by violating the terms of the covenant.
   
   And what exactly is faith? It is the kind of glad trust that comes from the true knowledge of the God who is worthy of our trust. It is not ignorant. Famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietszche propounded a view which has taken over many of the mainline denominations that faith is a blind leap into the dark. It is a leap across a chasm to God. We must leap, he says, because there are no facts associated with faith. Faith is against reason. How sad for all the people leaping blindly across the chasm to they know not where! The genuine Christian merely observes that spanning that chasm is a sturdy wooden cross with some blood stains on it, and walks across to the blessedness of the knowledge of God in Christ. The teaching, death, resurrection, and miraculous church of Christ are among the most well-attested facts of history. Our trust in God is well-founded, and the most reasonable thing anyone can do is receive the gift of salvation by faith in Christ. As Isaiah prophesied: "'Come now, and let us reason together,' /Says the LORD, 'Though your sins are as scarlet, /They will be as white as snow; /Though they are red like crimson, /They will be like wool'" (Isa. 1:18).
   
   Christ continues by commending this church for their service. The term "service" is the same word for ministry, and there is no true ministry without a covenant relationship. We do not serve others for our own sake. We serve the Lord who commands us to serve real, flesh and blood people who may not ever repay us in any way. All true ministry is one way: from God, through us, to others: "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men" (Luke 6:35). Thus our service represents the character of God himself on the earth. That is why we all get mad when we discover that some famous Christian leader is living in opulence, when his Lord slept in the dirt.
   
   The final commendation of Christ for the believers at Thyatira was for their perseverance. They were, in fact, holding fast in many ways, and their deeds of faith had grown in excellence and number. Our steadfastness also grows out of our covenant with God. When things are going well we race forward in excitement, but often we are plodding onward in simple trust that Christ is fulfilling and will fulfill all of his promises to us. We don't quit because our expectations are not fulfilled at the moment. Hebrews speaks of the great men and women of faith who were steadfast: "They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated men of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised..." (Heb. 11:37-39). Our faith gives us the ability to carry on even when it makes no earthly sense because our heavenly reward is secure. Christ praised the Thyatiran church for holding fast this way, and we would do well to emulate them.
   
   
3. THINGS TO REJECT
   
   But all was not well in Thyatira. The church was being poisoned by a false teacher who was leading many astray: "'But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bondservants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols'" (Rev. 2:20). Note carefully that Christ's condemnation was for being tolerant of this foul perversion of the faith. Tolerance is not a virtue when it tolerates something Christ hates! It is a grave sin and a deadly spiritual weakness.
   
   For this reason, holding fast also requires that we reject certain things. In this instance, faithfulness to Christ requires that we reject false prophecy, false teaching, and false leadership. The first way to spot false prophecy is that it does not come true. This should be a no-brainer, but we observe prophets operating today who often prophesy things which do not happen, and they continue to be accepted. A second way to spot false prophecy is that it is out of keeping with the explicit teaching of the word of God. No true prophet will ever prophesy in contradiction to the word of God, and that word is the crucial test of every prophetic word. Every believer can do this simply by diligently studying the Bible.
   
   A third way to spot a false prophet is by discerning their spirit. When the disciples wanted to use God's power to burn up those who rejected their message, Christ corrected them: "But He turned and rebuked them, (and said, 'You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.')" (Luke 9:55-56a). So when you see a prophet speaking a word in personal anger rather than compassion for the brethren and for the lost, you know he or she is false.
   
   The same sort of tests can be used to reject false teachers. And finally, there is a test of true Christian leadership: Does it lead people into the holiness of Christ, or away from Christ into fleshly indulgence? Sometimes that is all we will be able to see about a false teacher or leader. Everything will look and sound good, but everyone on that path ends up in sinful behavior. Jesus said that good fruit does not come from a bad tree, so when you see bad fruit, it's from a bad tree!
   
   Such people must be rejected and confronted in love with the truth of Christ. God does this primarily through the word of God as mediated by faithful people. Repentance, which means a change of mind, is what God wants from these false leaders and their followers: "'And I gave her time to repent; and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with pestilence...'" (Rev. 2:21-23a). Why do sinners sin? Because they want to! Do not accept the modern excuses of psychological flaws, or social deprivation, or an amoral environment. Whatever we may say about bad behavior, God treats it all as sin.
   
   And sin brings judgment from God, both now and in the afterlife. "The wages of sin is death." In this case, God chose to display earthly punishments against the false teacher and her followers in order to discipline an overly tolerant and passive church: "'...And all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them-- I place no other burden on you.'" (Rev. 2:23b-24). Thus God glorifies himself as the church learns that he sees all and knows all.
   
   
4. CHRIST'S PROMISE
   
   Again Christ concludes his word to his church with a promise that the one with genuine faith whose life reveals the deeds of faith will be caught up into Christ to share in the joy of all he has and is: "'And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star'" (Rev. 2:26). Christ rules, and thus we will rule with him. He is the morning star, and we will shine with him. All this by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And all for the glory of God!
   
   
5. CONCLUSION
   
   Are you willing to hold fast in faith even when things do not look good? The story is told of J. Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, as he was bound for that great land on his first visit. His sailing ship was becalmed very near some islands where violent, cannibalistic savages were known to live. The captain came to Mr. Taylor and asked him to pray for help, because the ship was drifting near the islands. Taylor agreed on the condition that the captain hoist the sails. The captain resisted, saying that he would become a laughingstock if he unfurled the sails in a dead calm. Taylor replied by saying that he would not pray unless the captain hoisted the sails. It was done. A short time later, as Taylor was praying in his stateroom for this life and death need, a knock sounded at the door. The captain called out: "Are you still praying for wind?" "Yes," Taylor replied. "Well, you'd better stop praying, for we have more wind than we can manage."
   
   Are you willing to hoist the sails in your life by faith even when there is no wind? Much of holding fast to Christ must be done when there is no outward confirmation of forward motion for the church. Many are tempted to say: "See, we told you so! Your faith does not work!" But what will happen to us if the sails are not raised when God does send the wind? We cannot risk being unprepared, so I challenge you to "keep on keepin' on" in your walk with Christ. Keep doing the deeds of faith, even though you may not see the results you expect and desire. And pray for the day of his visitation, so that when he comes, you will be caught up and driven along by the wind of God! Hold fast--Christ is coming!