The Worldly Church (Thyatira)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Rev 2:18-29
N: Pointer
Welcome
Welcome
Welcome and happy Father’s Day to all of you are fathers, have fathers, want to be fathers, and have lost your fathers. Thanks for making it a priority to be here this morning to gather with the church family to worship our heavenly Father. I am Bill Connors, senior pastor of the body of Christ here at Eastern Hills.
If you’re visiting this morning, I’d like to ask that you text the word WELCOME to 505-339-2004, and then follow the link you get back, which will take you to our digital communication card. We’d just like to be able to personally say welcome and thanks for being here. If you’d rather fill out a physical card, you can do that using the cards in the back of the pew in front of you. You can then drop those in the offering boxes by the doors at the close of service. Either way—digital or physical—I’d like to invite you to come down after service and meet me here at the front, so I can personally greet you and give you a gift to say thanks for being with Eastern Hills today.
I have two quick announcements to make this morning before we dive into the Scriptures:
Announcements
Announcements
Rich Hansen
Men’s Casual Archery tournament July 1 at 9 am in the FLC.
July 2nd picnic for everyone immediately after morning services.
Opening
Opening
This morning we return to our series on the messages to the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. I suppose that if the messages to the churches were a mountain that we were crossing, we’d be at the top, with three messages behind us, and then three more to go after this one. Remember our MAP that shows the path that the letter of the apocalypse would have taken as it was delivered to the churches originally—the same order that the messages to the seven churches appear in the text. We’ve seen Ephesus (The Loveless Church), Smyrna (The Persecuted Church), and Pergamum (The Distracted Church) so far in this series. Since I’ve covered things that are common to most or all of the messages in those first three sermons, if you’re just joining us in this sermon series, it might be helpful to go back and watch or listen to those previous sermons.
Our journey through these two chapters of Revelation brings us this morning to the church at Thyatira. This is the longest of the messages to the churches, and the most difficult—to the least known, least important, and least remarkable of the cities. Let’s stand in honor of God’s holy Word as we read our focal passage this morning, verses 18-29 of chapter 2:
18 “Write to the angel of the church in Thyatira: Thus says the Son of God, the one whose eyes are like a fiery flame and whose feet are like fine bronze: 19 I know your works—your love, faithfulness, service, and endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first. 20 But I have this against you: You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat meat sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Look, I will throw her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great affliction. Unless they repent of her works, 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who examines minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works. 24 I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who haven’t known “the so-called secrets of Satan”—as they say—I am not putting any other burden on you. 25 Only hold on to what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works to the end: I will give him authority over the nations— 27 and he will rule them with an iron scepter; he will shatter them like pottery— 28 just as I have received this from my Father. I will also give him the morning star. 29 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.
PRAYER (Rio Church in Old Town, Bryne Palmer)
I have a confession to make: I have a gigantic mouth. No, I don’t mean that if you tell me something, then I’ll tell a bunch of other people. I mean that my mouth is abnormally cavernous. It’s so large, in fact, that it looked as if I wouldn’t have to have my wisdom teeth removed when I was younger. I just let them grow in. And this would not have been a problem if it were not for the fact that my bottom two came in crooked. They were “impacted,” meaning that they came in leaning forward, and they ran into the teeth they were supposed to be next to. Once that was clear, my dentist told me that I should have them all removed. “Meh,” I thought, “I’ll be fine.” And I was almost right.
My right wisdom tooth ran into the tooth in front of it, and then as it came in, it straightened out. My left one, on the other hand, stayed leaning forward somewhat. And in that leaning forward, it created a space where food could get trapped and that was hard for me brush. No biggie. I just used a toothpick whenever I noticed something stuck in there. I could handle that. But then that lack of care produced a cavity… which I also ignored. Sure, it bugged me sometimes, but it wasn’t anything that I couldn’t tolerate. I don’t know how long it was that I just had that cavity in there. Years. Maybe even a decade.
But tolerating that cavity was also perhaps not the best move. On March 2, 2014, I bit down on a piece of gum that I was chewing (yes, just gum), and I actually heard the tooth crack. I felt around with my tongue, and felt the sharp edge all down the side of the tooth. OK, so my tooth was cracked. I could deal with that. It’s not like it hurt. I just had to keep my tongue away from there because it was sharp. The next day, a piece of the tooth actually broke off, leaving me with a hole in the side of my tooth… A nice little gap that hurt when I drank something hot, or something cold, or ate basically anything. On March 19, that tooth was removed. Just for fun, here’s a picture of me post-surgery. But after that, because I was so old when I had the tooth removed, my healing response wasn’t what it was when I was young, so it took too long to heal up, and I got a dry socket, which hurt terribly. I wouldn’t wish that pain on my worst enemy. That even hurt when I took a breath through my mouth.
The problem with the tooth started small: it was crooked. Healthy, but crooked. I should have taken care of it then, and had the problem removed from my mouth altogether. But I didn’t. I knew it was there. I just let it be, and over time it became a much bigger problem that it was originally.
This is sometimes what happens in the church. A little worldly thinking infiltrates the church and is left unchecked and allowed to remain, to fester, and to grow. And sooner or later, allowing the problem is just how things in the church operate. Then, the worldly attitude is actually accepted and perpetuated from within, because “that’s just the way it is.” In the end, the problem is much larger than it should have been, because it was allowed to impact others in the church as well. And so a small thing eventually because the kind of thing that can seriously damage the witness of a church.
So we find the message to the church at Thyatira: What I am calling The Worldly Church.
Thyatira wasn’t nearly as prestigious as Pergamum. It wasn’t nearly as important for the Imperial cult, like Smyrna. It wasn’t as important for trade as Ephesus. The modern town of Akhisar, Turkey, sits on the site, so we have very little archaeological evidence. What we do have about Thyatira’s history is mostly in the form of inscriptions, and many of those tell of the importance of the city’s trade guilds in the first century. Thyatira was known for its diversity in this area, boasting guilds for dyers, wool merchants, linen workers, cloth cleaners, metal workers, potters, tanners, leatherworkers, and bakers. It is mentioned as the home of Lydia, likely a major benefactor of the church in Philippi, who was a dealer in purple cloth according to Acts 16:14.
While worship of the emperor as a god does not seem to have been as prevalent in Thyatira, their worship instead seems to have centered primarily on Apollo (the sun god) and Diana (the goddess of the hunt), as there were apparently temples to these two false gods in the city.
It is to what was probably a small group of Christians the Lord addresses His message. We will follow the same outline as the previous letters.
1: Christ (v 18)
1: Christ (v 18)
Each church’s message begins with Jesus identifying Himself using some other image from Scripture, and up to this point, from the first chapter of the book of Revelation.
18 “Write to the angel of the church in Thyatira: Thus says the Son of God, the one whose eyes are like a fiery flame and whose feet are like fine bronze:
Before we look at the biblical cross-references, notice that Jesus introduces Himself to the church at Thyatira with the designation “the Son of God.” This is the only use of this phrase in the book of Revelation. Likely, this was done because of the importance of the Temple of Apollo in Thyatira. Apollo was the god of the sun, and he was the son of Zeus. Worship of Apollo was prominent with the Thyatirans, but here Jesus declares that there is only one Son of God, and He is it. Apollo wasn’t worthy of worship in any way—only Jesus is.
The imagery of the fiery eyes and the bronze feet come first from Revelation chapter 1.
14 The hair of his head was white as wool—white as snow—and his eyes like a fiery flame. 15 His feet were like fine bronze as it is fired in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of cascading waters.
Jesus’ eyes being like a fiery flame are an indicator of His omniscience. He sees everything and He knows everything. Nothing at all is hidden from His gaze. We cannot sneak some sin into our lives without Him noticing, because His eyes see the truth, even the things that we try to keep hidden from Him.
The fine bronze feet are a symbol of Jesus’ power. He stands ready to move into action, specifically to tread upon sin by bringing correction and punishment. Jesus is not to be trifled with, and He will act with justice. As with the first three letters we have looked at, He begins with a commendation to the church:
2: Commendation (v 19)
2: Commendation (v 19)
The initial commendation to the Thyatirans is a description that I think any church should strive to have said of it, because it is a very positive statement about the state of the church:
19 I know your works—your love, faithfulness, service, and endurance. I know that your last works are greater than the first.
As with the other messages, the Lord knows. The One who walks among the lampstands of the churches (Rev 1:20) knows all about each church’s situation, strengths, and weaknesses. In the case of Thyatira, He knows their works—love, faith, service, and endurance.
The church at Thyatira had God’s kind of love—love that seeks the best for others, not for itself. They also had that trusting faith in Christ that prompted them to growth and service for the long haul. The Thyatiran church had the right motivations for serving others, and they had continued to do so in the midst of difficulties.
I pray that this kind of thing could be said of Eastern Hills: that our love, faith, service, and endurance would be the characteristics that define us. But ultimately, these characteristics are important for each of us if they are going to define all of us. Each of us is a part of this church, so each of us are called to exhibit these qualities if we are going to be this kind of church.
Since it’s Father’s Day, I’ll pose this to the dads in the room: would your life be characterized by these four things? Do we love our families well, laying down our lives for their blessing and benefit, prompting them to deeper and deeper faith in Jesus by our own faithful example? Do we trust Jesus’ provision for ourselves and our families, living our that faith in the watching eyes of the people around us? Do we see serving our wives, children, and others as something that we get to do, instead of something that we have to do? Are we using our giftedness for the blessing of others, as Peter instructed in 1 Peter 4:10:
10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve others, as good stewards of the varied grace of God.
And finally, are we willing to keep going in these things, to endure, even when the going is difficult?
As I said, these are qualities that we should each long to have displayed in us, church. And not only should these qualities be evident, they should be growing as they were in Thyatira.
Remember the message to the church at Ephesus? They were commended for their labor and their endurance as well. They took the faith seriously, but they had fallen away from the love that they had started with.
4 But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.
In contrast, the Thyatiran church had grown in these things, including love. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have their problems. The Ephesians had truth that lacked love. As we are going to see as we move into verse 20, the church in Thyatira had love that lacked a commitment to the truth. Paul said that we should have both together:
15 But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head—Christ.
And it is their lack of adherence to the truth that brought about their condemnation.
3: Condemnation (v 20-21)
3: Condemnation (v 20-21)
The church in Thyatira was growing in the right things, but along the way, she had allowed something to rise up within her that was definitely not of God, and did not honor Christ.
20 But I have this against you: You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
Jezebel is almost certainly not the name of the woman who Jesus is referring to in this message, but is a code name given because of the things that she was doing within the church. She was named this after the pagan queen of the sinful King Ahab of Israel, who led the king even further astray, thus leading the nation astray in 1 Kings:
31 Then, as if following the sin of Jeroboam son of Nebat were not enough, he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and then proceeded to serve Baal and bow in worship to him.
25 Still, there was no one like Ahab, who devoted himself to do what was evil in the Lord’s sight, because his wife Jezebel incited him.
The original Jezebel worshiped false gods, along with all of the practices that went with them, which were often sensual and sexual, and she inspired her husband to do the same. Not the kind of nickname any of you ladies would like to have attached to you, I’m sure.
What was happening in Thyatira was likely related to the Nicolaitan cult that has been examined in more detail in the previous messages in this series. However, this Jezebel was very likely a real person who, claiming to speak for God Himself as a prophetess, was the leader of that cult within the church. As we saw in the church of Pergamum two weeks ago, the church there was distracted. This false teaching had risen up among them, but they hadn’t realized at the time that it was false, and started to follow it in error.
But the key word for the sin of the church at Thyatira is that they “tolerate” Jezebel.
Greek in this context means to permit or allow. This is the next level of what the church at Pergamum was criticized for. While the Pergamenes had been distracted, not really noticing the sin that had crept into their midst, the church in Thyatira knew about Jezebel, they knew what she was teaching, and they knew what was happening as a result. And they had done nothing about it. They permitted this cancerous heresy to remain in the church.
We have to wonder why. The message to each church is directed to their particular context. Their problem must have been related to the situation at Thyatira, with the importance and influence of the pagan trade guilds.
The trade guilds controlled most of the economy of Thyatira, and so for most people in that city, working for a guild was critical to their survival. This doesn’t strike our modern minds as much of a problem. However, keep in mind that ancient Rome was a radically pagan society. Trade guilds were no different. They would have demanded attendance at guild feasts, which would have included sacrifice to a pagan god, followed by the eating of the sacrifice. Often these feasts would degrade into other forms of idol worship, including debauchery and sinful sexual expression. Jezebel’s message was likely one of accommodation: going along to get along.
Why would the church tolerate this within her midst? Because they had shifted into a worldly mindset. They had done nothing because it was expedient not to. Jezebel’s teaching made civic life easier for the church in Thyatira—they could continue to worship Jesus together when they gathered, but then throughout the rest of life, they could follow Jezebel’s teaching and participate in the guild worship feasts without feeling bad about it. They could maintain their Christian fellowship while maintaining a relationship with the world. They were unaware that you can’t have it both ways, according to James:
4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. 5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?
The path to worldliness in the church is through our individual worldliness as the members of the church. So we have to ask ourselves: What are we permitting in our lives that shouldn’t be there? What are we toying with that we should be avoiding? We will look at this in more detail in the next section (the cure), but for now, consider the areas in your life where you “dabble” in worldliness… the places that you tolerate the gray that shouldn’t be there; the places that you know better, but make excuses for; the places where you do what’s easiest, because doing what is godly would be difficult.
Jezebel was doing more than teaching what was false. She was actually manipulating and deceiving the believers into participating in her sinful practices. But the patience of God had been evident in her life, as she had apparently been warned to repent of her sinfulness and false teaching, but she had refused to respond to that prompting.
21 I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to repent of her sexual immorality.
This is evidence of God’s grace, pure and simple. She was informed that judgment was coming if she didn’t change course. I suppose that this could have been through the loving act of church discipline, as perhaps those who didn’t follow her teachings had called her to task on her apostasy, but I would probably lean more toward the fact that the Holy Spirit had revealed the fact to her. But ultimately, she refused to repent, and as a result, the cure would come from Christ Himself.
4: Cure (v 22-25)
4: Cure (v 22-25)
The cures for Ephesus and Pergamum were both calls for them to respond in repentance (remember that Smyrna was not condemned, and therefore, had no cure). However, in the case of Thyatira, the command that the Lord gives is to “look.” In other words, the cure for Jezebel and her followers is coming no matter what at this point. And a terrible cure it will be:
Revelation 2:22–23a (CSB)
22 Look, I will throw her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great affliction. Unless they repent of her works, 23 I will strike her children dead.
Jezebel herself will be thrown onto a bed of suffering. Commentators differ about what this means exactly. Some say that it refers to death and hell, and some say that it refers to the “dining couch” that she might have reclined on at a pagan feast—that she will become ill even while she participates in her idolatry. But I believe that while it could be those, that it’s more likely that it’s just as it reads: that she herself will become very ill and suffer horribly.
She was deceiving the little children of Jesus, leading them into sin. Jesus spoke strongly about this in Luke 17:
1 He said to his disciples, “Offenses will certainly come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
Notice that the problem in Thyatira is not just Jezebel, but that the church hadn’t practiced the last part of what Jesus said in Luke 17: they had not been on their guard. They had tolerated her. They had likely not rebuked her, either, at least not to the point of removing her from the church fellowship. So her disciplinary punishment was coming, and would not be turned aside.
Not only that, but those who have participated in her sinful practices were going to be disciplined as well, by being brought into great difficulty. They had been foolish to follow after this false teacher, and had given themselves over to idolatry and sexual immorality, and so needed to receive the reasonable consequence of those choices in order to be brought back to repentance.
Understand this: just like my tooth, it is the toleration of minor things that lead to major failure. It’s letting the perspective of the world seep in over time that widens the cracks and prepares the way for our spiritual collapse.
Gentlemen: it is tolerating the lustful look at a woman that will lead you to adultery. It is tolerating the bitter spirit of anger that will lead you to hatred. It is tolerating the contemptuous thoughts about your wife that will lead you to divorce. It is tolerating the seeds of self-righteousness that will lead you to spiritual pride, which goes before the fall according to Proverbs 16.18.
Jesus said that we needed to take our holiness, our purity, seriously. So seriously, in fact, that He said in the Sermon on the Mount:
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
We need to take decisive action when worldliness begins to work its way into our thinking. We must repent of our sin, trust the truth of Christ, and reject teaching that doesn’t accord with sound doctrine.
Those who participated in the sins of the Jezebel would receive a similar punishment. However, verse 23 says something different about her “children:” That they would be put to death.
John Wesley is quoted as saying:
“What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.”
—John Wesley (1703-1791)
These are children are Jezebel’s spiritual children, not her physical children. These are those who were never in Christ, but those who were “saved” into the cult instead of into the church. The church had tolerated Jezebel’s teaching, and now people were coming to faith in a lie, embracing a false gospel instead of in the true Gospel of Jesus: They didn’t believe that Jesus died to take the punishment for our sins, and that by faith in Him as Savior and Lord, we are made new, given a new citizenship, and given a new purpose and hope. Salvation is found in no one else and nothing else except Jesus.
The CSB takes that phrase “unless they repent of her works” in verse 22 and applies it to these spiritual offspring. Other translations apply it to the ones who committed this spiritual adultery with her. I think that repentance is the answer for either group, and for us in our sin.
God’s discipline of the church at Thyatira had an additional purpose: so that the other churches (such as the distracted Pergamenes) would know the truth:
Revelation 2:23b (CSB)
23 Then all the churches will know that I am the one who examines minds and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to your works.
This statement points back to Jesus’ self-identification in verse 18: that His eyes of fiery flame see everything correctly, and that His feet of bronze are ready to act. This is essentially a quote from Jeremiah 17:
10 I, the Lord, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve.
This should serve as a dire warning to the church of today. God will discipline His church on the basis of what we do, because our actions betray our motives, and He sees both.
Think about this for a moment. No, we don’t believe in salvation by works. But we do believe that actions have consequences. We see this in the teachings of Jesus. In the parable of the talents, there are logical, reasonable, rational results for the different choices that the servants made. There are reasonable consequences for our choices, church. It makes sense that Jesus would bring discipline on a church that is wayward. It is also reasonable that we should not expect to see His blessings if we do not do what He has called us to. Do we want to see a harvest of people coming to faith in the Gospel? Then we have to plant seeds! Jesus knows what we actually want, not just what we say we want.
However, the entire church hadn’t fallen into the false teaching, and the last part of the cure is for them:
24 I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who haven’t known “the so-called secrets of Satan”—as they say—I am not putting any other burden on you. 25 Only hold on to what you have until I come.
Two options here on the “so-called secrets.” Neither is good. One is that this is along the lines of what Jesus said to the church at Smyrna about the Jews there, and about the pagan practices in Pergamum, which we looked at in verse 9 and 13 of this chapter in previous messages:
9 I know your affliction and poverty, but you are rich. I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
13 I know where you live—where Satan’s throne is. Yet you are holding on to my name and did not deny your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was put to death among you, where Satan lives.
This interpretation of verse 24 would hold that the followers of Jezebel think that they know the “deep secrets” of God, but those secrets are actually satanic in nature, not godly.
The other interpretation would be that part of the errant teaching is that you have to dive into immorality in order to find the limits of Satan’s power and thus be able to overcome it. This is a horrible plan.
Most of Thyatira didn’t hold to the teaching, and were called instead to hold on to their love, faith, service, and endurance until Jesus returned, which is the promise to those who overcome.
5: Challenge (v 26-29)
5: Challenge (v 26-29)
To this point in these messages, Jesus has started the challenge portion with the call to listen. For this message and the ones that follow, the call to listen comes after the challenge to overcome.
26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works to the end: I will give him authority over the nations— 27 and he will rule them with an iron scepter; he will shatter them like pottery— 28 just as I have received this from my Father. I will also give him the morning star. 29 “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.
This reference is a quote from Psalm 2, a messianic psalm that refers to the coming rule of the Son of God:
7 I will declare the Lord’s decree. He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You will break them with an iron scepter; you will shatter them like pottery.”
In this passage in the apocalypse, the church at Thyatira, and all churches who overcome by extension, is promised that instead of having the world (the nations) overcome us, we will have authority over the nations. In fact, we will have the blessing, as co-heirs with Jesus, of being a part of His reign as King of Kings, according to Scripture:
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us;
4 Then I saw thrones, and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and who had not accepted the mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
What this will look like in practice is not something that I can venture a guess at. Jesus certainly will not need our help to reign and rule. However, the one thing that is clear to me about it is that the world—the sinful order that stands against the will of God—will no longer have any authority over us whatsoever. In fact, its power will be completely shattered. We will have authority over it in Jesus’ kingdom. What a blessing to look forward to!
Closing
Closing
Finally, I want to just touch on the promised gift of the morning star. This promise is Jesus giving the overcoming church the best gift He can give: Himself. At the end of the apocalypse, Jesus refers to Himself as the bright morning star:
16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to attest these things to you for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
When we come to Christ, we receive all kinds of blessings: hope, joy, peace, assurance, power, purpose, and life, to name just a few. But the very best gift that we receive is Jesus Himself. It is only in Christ that we will overcome the world. He is our only hope, and He is the only hope that we need.
Have you trusted in Christ?
Are you dabbling with the world?
Prayer
Offering
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (2 Peter 1, starting Job on Wednesday)
No evening activities tonight for Father’s Day
Prayer Meeting
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
2 This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands. 3 For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden, 4 because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith. 5 Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?