Is God Tolerant?
A well known rabbi was taking part in a radio discussion programme with a number of other people. He was obviously popular, listened to and laughed with. His personality shone with a broad smile and twinkling of the eye. Probably a large part of his popularity was because of his tolerance. Although a Jew himself he never criticised the views of anyone else. He used to say,
“This is true for me.”
He also said that other views, even contradictory views, might be true for others. Tolerance does make people popular, they always affirm others and their opinions. It is becoming a god of this age - ‘Don’t rock the boat at any cost’.
This week a lady who lives in our road said something similar. She had been brought up as a Christian, her family are Christians but when living in a Muslim country she realised that many Muslims were very pleasant people so does it really matter what people believe? So she turned her back on Jesus. She added,
‘I would like to have a faith, and it is nice that you find your faith helpful.”
Doesn’t truth matter any more in matters of religious faith? It matters in nearly every other walk of life! We need to remember that the God of the Bible has a most attractive gracious character:
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” Exodus 34:6-7
This character was also seen in Jesus. God abounds in love and is slow to anger. However Jesus, his apostles and the descriptions of God in the Old Testament all reveal a God who hates tolerance. This is a shocking statement to many today. Tolerance is one of the most popular precepts or gods of our western societies. Teachers are told they must be tolerant of badly behaved children. They can be disciplined if they oppose a selfish angry child and are told ‘That’s just their way of expressing themselves.”
Petty theft and shoplifting are currently at record-high levels in England and Wales. Recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that shoplifting offences reached their highest point in early 2025 since current police recording practices began in 2003. Recorded offences rose by approximately 20% between 2024 and 2025. Retail groups like the British Retail Consortium (BRC) suggest the official numbers are just the "tip of the iceberg," estimating actual incidents may exceed 20 million annually as many go unreported. Should we shrug our shoulders at this in the name of tolerance?
Examples of Jesus’ intolerance
Jesus loved people, he loved those who were suffering even if it was, to some degree, their fault. He forgave the woman taken in the act of adultery although he did then say to her, ‘Go and sin no more’. Yet Jesus was utterly intolerant of some teaching and behaviour. in Matthew 23 he said to the Pharisees the most critical words. ‘Woe to you . . .’ he said seven times because he saw that their religion was man centred. They looked for glory from man, not from God, they were ‘blind guides’, ‘blind fools’ who were like ‘whitewashed tombs which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.’ The Pharisees taught that an oath taken on the temple was invalid, but an oath taken on the gold of the temple was binding (Matthew 23:16). Jesus doesn’t say:
“Those are interesting ideas.”
On the contrary, he says to them:
“On the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Matthew 23:28
There is no suggestion that their values may be valid for them but not for others. Truth is what God sees as truth. This may be different to what people, whether religious or not, think of as truth. Jesus is very straightforward, warning these very religious people that unless they change they will not enter the Kingdom of God , they will not go to heaven.
When Jesus talked to the woman of Samaria in John 4 she recognises his authority and tries to draw him on one of the great religious questions of the day, where should God be worshipped?The Samaritans were taught that they could approach God on a mountain in Samaria. Jesus could have been conciliatory and tolerant to this view. However he rejects it as untrue. He says that true worship is spiritual, a matter of the heart and not one of geography, but he goes further and stresses that the Jews are the only source of salvation.
Repeatedly, in the gospels, Jesus presents himself as the ultimate authority:
“You have heard it said . . . but I tell you . . .” Matthew 5:21, 27, 31-33
When Paul pronounced a curse on anyone teaching a different gospel to that of Jesus and his apostles he was following the intolerance of his Master.
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” Galatians 1:8-9
Christians are not to be tolerant of those teaching any ideas that are contrary to what Jesus and his apostles taught:
“In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or slaps you in the face.” 2 Corinthians 11:20
Although God always accepts people who humbly repent and turn back to him, he is particularly intolerant of both false doctrine and sinful behaviour. Similarly, Christians must follow their Lord’s example by welcoming and being patient with all kinds of fallen, sinful people. We are however to speak and act against those who claim to be God’s people yet who change what he teaches. Christians are not the ethical policemen of society but our churches must strive to be holy, we must behave in a Christ-like way. Paul wrote:
“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people -not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler - not even to eat with such a one.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-11
God is a holy God and is utterly intolerant of sin, especially when it is committed by those who claim to be his people. He is however slow to act and full of grace and is utterly tolerant when sinners turn to him for forgiveness and help.
Jesus is intolerant of some churches
In the book of Revelation, Jesus discusses seven different churches in Asia Minor and is critical of all but two.
The church in Ephesus was doctrinally orthodox but something was missing, they had lost, better departed from, their first love - the Lord Jesus. Pleasing him was no longer the purpose of their lives.
The church in Sardis was a popular church and seemed to be the church to belong to. They had a reputation of being lively, but the Lord, who looks at people’s hearts, saw differently. Sardis was asleep, just existing and they, like some churches today, will die in their sleep. They were not active for Christ. All Christians should be active for Christ, bearing fruit for him.
The churches at Pergamum and Thyatira were tolerant of immorality The teaching of Balaam is interesting he:
“. . . taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality.” Revelation 2:14
There was one or more Jezebels active in these churches. Jezebel was Ahab’s wicked queen, she
“Misleads my servants into sexual immorality . . .’ Revelation 2:20
Today we live in days of great moral laxity. Our television screens and videos are full of pornographic material that is so seductive. Today there are many churches who are tolerant of immorality. In Jeremiah’s time people had forgotten God
“Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But my people have changed their glory for what does not profit. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; Be very desolate, says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn for themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:11- 13
These verses are very powerful. We are spending our money on things that do not satisfy; we are drinking from cisterns that can hold no water. Our satisfaction is not being met in the things of this world. We try to satisfy ourselves with money and power, education, sex, pornography, boyfriends and girlfriends, toys and earthly possessions that allow us fun and entertainment for a time, but yet all these things lead to a deeper sense of need, a deeper longing for satisfaction, because they do not fill that need. C.S. Lewis states:
“We are half hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased.”
We, as human beings, are far too easily pleased. We fool around with so many things that do not satisfy, things that do not, and cannot, fill that void and emptiness for long, all because we are far too easily pleased. We think so often that the things of this world will satisfy, when we always end up falling short of what we desire. Many of our problems are because we are not seeking the right things. The joy that is offered to us, the peace that is offered to us, and the satisfaction that is offered to us, are all available if we would only grab hold of Jesus and His offer to be our satisfaction.
A great illustration of this is the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. He took the inheritance his father had given him, left home, and went to a far-off country where he squandered his inheritance money on riotous living, on things that would not satisfy. He was far too easily pleased and fooled into thinking that this was what life was all about, only to fall short. When he had a lot of money, he had a lot of friends and parties. But when the money was gone, so were his friends. At this point in time, he begins to “go down hill” in a major way, to the point of living with pigs and eating the slop they ate. Martyn Lloyd-Jones quotes J.N. Darby:
“To be hungry is not enough; I must be really starving to know what is in His heart towards me. When the prodigal son was hungry he went to feed upon husks, but when he was starving, he turned to his father.”
In Matthew 5:6, Jesus is not just talking about mere hunger, but about those starving after righteousness.
Why is this crisis happening
Ancient writers like Cicero and Plato recognised that man was responsible for our fellow men because we have responsibilities to God. Cicero said,
“Without god, there could be no justice or concord among people.”
Is it a coincidence that the problems we face in schools and society as a whole have worsened because of the social experiment being conducted - an attempt to create a utopian secular society, a society without God, and now we are reaping the reward of this stupidity.
We are fulfilling the prophecy of the brilliant philosopher, the German Friedrick Nietzsche. He died when young of cerebral syphilis,. He argued that in the twentieth century God would be dead - not that he would be dead, he remained too smart for that just by looking at the stars and galaxies. He foresaw that societies would live as if there was no God. We would dissociate ourselves from God our creator.
When God is dead who do we worship? It is usually ourselves.
The Church in Laodicea
Let us finish by looking at the church in the city of Laodicea. There were seven Laodiceae in the ancient world. They were founded in 2nd century BC by the Seleucid king Antiochus II and named after his wife, Laodice. The one we are looking at was built on the Lycus valley, inland from Ephesus in Asia Minor.
This was a prosperous city, both financially and socially. It is interesting that, by 40 years after the death of Jesus, the church there had the same difficulties as many churches today.
In 70 AD Laodicea was an affluent modern town, brimming with self-confidence.
Medical Centre
The city of Laodicea was not far from the temple of Men Karon, a God of healing. A famous medical school had been established there. Consequently many leading doctors lived in Laodicea. Up the road was Hierapolis where there were, and still are, some hot water springs. Very hot indeed and a local health spa thrived there. We have swum in the ancient spa that is still there. Some of this water was channelled along conduits and aqueducts down to Laodicea, though by the time it reached there it was tepid and the minerals made it unpleasant to drink.
At these springs there was a very fine, grey, oily mud, which was used as an eye salve or ointment. The locals dug up this mud and made it into bars, shaped like little bread rolls. Many of these bars have been excavated all around the roman world. Each was stamped with ‘Made in Laodicea’. These bars was ground, made into a paste and were used as a remedy for many eye diseases. This could be the origin of the modern ‘mud pack’ that some apply to their face.
Now look at Revelation 3:18:
“. . . and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see.”
Literally the Greek reads ‘eye - little bread roll”!
Materially prosperous
Laodicea was also a very prosperous banking centre. The city’s central position on the great trade route from East to West helped and several branch roads also radiated out from there. Consequently several banks were stablished there. When Cicero was travelling through Asia he arranged to exchange his cheques for gold at these banks.
When there was a major earthquake in 60 AD, that destroyed many cities in that area, the civic leaders disdained from seeking help from the emperor, as many other cities did, because they had enough money to repair the damage. Their boast was something like that slogan of Harold Macmillan prior to the 1959 UK General Election,
“You’ve never had it so good!”
The Laodicean slogan was similar,
“I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing”
They didn’t even need the Emperor’s help. What was worse they didn’t really need God’s help.
Note again what Revelation 3:18 says:
“I counsel you to buy from me gold, refined in the fire.”
The church was infected with the self satisfaction of the town, but God says ‘Buy my gold, pure holy gold”. This is not literal but spiritual talk.
Fashion Centre
Laodicea was not only a medical and banking centre, it was also a clothing centre. On the hills outside the city a special type of back sheep grazed. These had beautiful glossy black wool. Laodicea was renowned for producing this very valuable wool. This wool was woven into cloaks called ‘Trimata’ which were famous throughout the Roman world. Laodicea had another name ‘Trimatoria’. Look at Revelation 3:18 again:
“I counsel you to buy from me . . . white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness.”
These are all pictures of the despicable spiritual state of the people in the church of Laodicea. God saw them as spiritually naked. They desperately needed to be clothed in christ’s righteousness. They were seemingly prosperous, self-sufficient and flourishing but in God’s eyes they had been seriously tainted by the self-sufficiency of their surroundings. The Christians thought they were successful but actually they were not bearing any fruit for the Lord Jesus.
Look at verse 17 and see what Jesus thinks of them:
“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
Spiritually Poor - in spite of being a banking centre
Spiritually Blind - in spite of their clay tablets
Spiritually Naked - in spite of their ‘trimata’
The church was far too tolerant and so had drifted away from God.
“God gave them all they desired, but sent a leaness to their souls.” Psalm 106:15
This message is not just for churches but to each of us individually. God doesn’t look at our outward appearance, our status or even our involvement in society or the church. He wants something very different
“God wants our personal devotion to himself, to Jesus, and nothing less.”
What does God see when he looks at our hearts. Does he see people who really love him, whose lives are devoted to living for him and his Son? It is all too easy to have a form of religiosity, to go to church out of habit, have orthodox doctrines but not to be really committed to Christ.
In Shakespeare’s play ‘Richard II’ he says of Bolingbroke,
“He bowed before the king - but in his heart he was not really his servant.”
We can be like this with the Lord Jesus. Look at what God says about the respectable people in the Laodicean church:
“I know your heart - you are neither cold nor hot.” Revelation 3:15
Steaming hot water left Hierapolis but by the time it arrived in Laodicea it was tepid, lukewarm. This is surely another spiritual picture. The Christians there were not on fire for Christ. Jesus didn’t mean more to them than anything else. God’s reaction to a lukewarm commitment to himself is seen in verse 16:
“. . . I am about to spew you out of my mouth.”
They would be rejected by God because they were not the sort of followers he was looking for. A visiting preacher was talking with someone after the service in a village church and asked:
“Are you a member of this church?”
“Oh yes, my family have been buried here for years.”
We are going through what Jesus talks about in his Sermon on the Mount and he has a similar strong warning to those who claim to be Christian leaders, who even preach Christian sermons or exhibit remarkable gifts, yet who personally do not live as God wants and do not have a personal relationship with Jesus.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:21-23
Do you see how intolerant Jesus is? He is so because this is for our eternal good. He is lovingly warning us to look closely at ourselves and see ourselves as God sees us. He detests lukewarm followers who occasionally do things with God in mind. He wants us all to be totally committed to him. It is loving to be intolerant sometimes.
One of my mentors in surgery was very famous with a massive private practice. When young he had been a very keen Christian but then he let his life become too full for God. He told me:
“My medicine is my Christianity now.”
This is not uncommon. Sir Richard Gregory was sometime editor of ‘Nature’ the prestigious science journal. He wrote his own epitaph:
“My grandfather preached the gospel of Christ,
My father preached the gospel of socialism,
I preach the gospel of science.”
What a comedown. Science and socialism have their place but they cannot bring us back to a relationship with God or give us eternal security. Nothing can replace the gospel of Jesus who came from his Father to his earth in order to die for each of us so that we can have the opportunity of being part of God’s family.
Some people say:
“But I am just as good as most and better than many’
Jesus teaches us that if we are not devoted to him we are in real trouble. Our word devoted comes from the Latin, it is the past participle of dēvovēre, which means to "dedicated by a vow”. It will be little benefit to us to perish respectably and in decent company if we lack one thing, and that one thing is fatal. All we have achieved on earth will be little benefit to us if that one vital problem has not been solved. The fatal flaw many have is not to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus.
So much for the painful diagnosis. Now comes the good news.
Treatment is available
The members of the Laodicean church are challenged to seek something of real value from God:
“I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.” Revelation 3:18
There is hope, but everything depends on how people react. What should they do when their behaviour is criticised? When we feel ‘got at’ we can either respond constructively or become angry. God is intolerant for our good, he disciplines us:
“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.” Revelation 3:19
This morning I received a postcard from a Jehovah’s Witness in which he quotes Psalm 37:29:
“The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it for ever.”
What he didn’t say is how we can become ‘righteous’ so |I sent him a text message to ask. His long reply never mentioned Jesus! The land that this verse talks about must be heaven or the ‘new earth’ as the righteous will live there for ever. The end of that Psalm gives the answer: The righteous are those who have been saved by the Lord because they have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus and have then been credited with his righteousness. These verses remind us that we cannot earn our salvation by the way we live or by our religious practices:
“The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.” Psalm 37:39-40
John also reminds the Laodiceans and us how we can become acceptable to God:
“So be earnest and repent.”
To ‘be earnest’ means to take God seriously, to ‘be zealous’ about him. To repent means to turn back to Jesus as our Saviour and Lord. This is a total commitment. The Greek word for repent is metanoia, meta- meaning change and noia meaning mind. Repentance is not just feeling sorry for things we have done wrong, it is a change in the direction of my life, away from living for myself to living for the Lord Jesus. The response Jesus Christ asks of each one of us is that we should change direction and ask Christ back into the driving seat of our lives. Jesus is the key to salvation. Paul was intolerant of any view that demeans the truth about Jesus and the gospel:
“We demolish arguments, ents and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” 2 Corinthians 10:5
Some may say,
“I tried that when I was younger, but it didn’t seem to work.”
The writer G.K Chesterman says to such people:
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but found difficult and not tried.”
Others may say:
“Yes, I know I should change, I am just waiting for something to happen, for some spiritual experience to confirm this is the right step.”
There is an old Chinese saying that is relevant:
“Man wait long time, with mouth wide open, waiting till roast duck fly in.”
Jesus says it is up to us to do something. Joshua said to God’s people,
’Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” Joshua 24:15
Our destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a status to be accepted. Verse 20 explains how this change takes place. This is the verse that helped me to become a Christian.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Revelation 3:20
Note who is speaking - it is Jesus himself. This is a picture of Jesus standing at the door of a person’s life, waiting to be invited in. We hear him knocking in our consciences. He is asking to be allowed in to become the centre of our lives.
Martin Luther, the ex-monk who became a church reformer, faced much formalised religion in his day. He famously said:
“The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns. It is one thing to say ‘Christ is Saviour’, it is quite another thing to say, ‘Jesus Christ is my Saviour and my Lord.’
Sir James Simpson was a surgeon who, amongst other things, first introduced chloroform into medical practice. When he was old he was interviewed by a newspaper reporter who asked,
“What was your most important discovery?”
He smiled and replied:
“I discovered that I was a sinner and that Christ was my Saviour.”
This is the message to the Laodicean church and to ours today:
“Earthly success means little, to know the Lord Jesus is everything.”
The seventeenth century preacher George Whitefield used to ask people:
“Do you know for certain that your sins are forgiven?”
We can know for certain, John Bunyan, the tinker who became a preacher in this area of England knew how not to live:
“To run a little now and then, by fits and starts, or halfway, or almost thither, but to run for my life, to run through all the difficulties, and to continue therein to the end of the race, which must be the end of my life.”
Everyone of us has a decision to make, what will it be? The choice is Christ or me.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, you know the hearts of each one of us. You know whether we are spiritually hot or cold, or just lukewarm, and where we stand in relation to you. We bow our heads before you, as you knock asking to be let in.
Please give us the grace to repent, to change direction and live the rest of our lives saying,
“Yes, Lord, come into my life, you are from now on my Saviour and my Lord.”
BVP
Interested readers may also like to see the next article, ‘Are there different types of Christians?"‘
