Listening to bad advice

Revelation 2:12-17

A word that is popular today is “tolerate” to disagree but still allow others to have freedom of speech, beliefs, and actions as long as they are not hurting someone else. As with so many cases mankind generalizes and compromises to the extreme, in part because of their refusal to listen and obey God’s Word. God never told us to tolerate He tells us to love and instruct, to confront and to forgive but tolerating someone who believes differently than you do is not new. The church at Pergamum began to do this as well and notice it was by no coincidence that they lived where they did “Satan’s city”. The closer we live to sin the more compromise, which often reveals itself in the form of being “tolerant” presses in to our daily lives, even without us realizing it.

"I know that you live in the city where Satan has his throne, yet you have remained loyal to Me. You refused to deny Me even when Antipas, My faithful witness, was martyred among you there in Satan's city.
(Rev 2:13 NLT)

Though God understands all that does not mean He will compromise on righteousness or His holiness. He sees why we compromise but that does not mean He accepts our reasoning. God will not allow unrighteousness and anything less than holiness into His presence and even though our own righteousness is as filthy rags we enter His courtroom through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. To compromise on God’s standard is no less revolting than a law enforcement officer compromising on the law he or she has sworn to uphold. Nothing turns my stomach faster that to watch a police officer twist the law for their own benefit; whether it is allowing an off-duty officer to speed or acting out in rage and then those over the offender give him or her a slap on the wrist while anyone else better watch out because the same people will come down on civilians with the full force of the law. This is but a taste of what God must feel when we as “Christians” manipulate God’s Word for our benefit, to fit our unique circumstances. God’s commandments are not ours to bend to meet our needs but if we are truly His we preserve His Word in our hearts.

"But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
(Rev 2:14-16 NLT)