Revelation 1:25

“Only hold on to what you have until I come.”

Jesus shows himself to the believers in Thyatira as having blazing eyes, seeing all – the afflicted and the afflictors – and with burnished bronze feet.  Said simply, Jesus never blinks and he knows suffering!  His feet know the fire of blazing furnaces.  And his eyes of sympathy see every lash that Satan uses against Jesus’ followers and every deed of mercy that they give.

I suppose every follower of Jesus, if truly faithful, will inevitably face some kind of suffering because Satan is active and because no culture is a true friend to Jesus Christ and the Gospel of mercy.  We simply “do not fit.”  Thus all kinds of suffering await us.  Our great sufferer, Jesus, is in us!  That we must never forget.

Jesus, having encouraged the believers in Thyatira, now warms them against pushing Jesus aside and fashioning a “Christian life” that blends with the dominant pagan values in the culture.  Evidently those who did so thought that they had discovered “deep secrets” that were unknown by their fellow believers.  These “secrets” were nothing less than Satan’s attempt to lure them away from their uncomplicated faith in Jesus Christ which brought them a high standard of behavior. Jesus exposed this horrible blight.  The appeal was to sexual impurity and Emperor veneration.

Then he commended the believers because they “have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets.” 2:24   Those “deep secrets” had no place in the life of the believing community. It is simply playing into the enemy’s hands.

Then Jesus urged the believers to “hold on to what you have.”  In other words, do not release what you first received for what looks like something a bit better. Nothing is better than Jesus.  To join “secret” cults meant losing Jesus.

We live in a culture where perversions of all kinds seek to allure believers to serve Satan. Truly we do well to “hold on to” what we have.  If we let go of that then, behold, we are simply neo-pagans, certainly not simple Christians.