Seven | Thyatira - Revelation 2:18-29 | September 6

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We have been kind of spending these last couple weeks up until September,

the end of September, going through the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3.

We started in Revelation 1 with the introduction, and now we're going to be

finishing up chapter 2 today with the letter to the church in Thyatira.

And there are going to be some similarities, as you imagine,

between what we've seen and what we've talked about.

And what we're going to see and talk about today. There are some commonalities

that happen within these churches, and perhaps this one is the escalation of

that, as it is also the longest letter of these to the church.

And so Jesus has a lot to say about this particular church, but again,

to all of the churches, as this is not just for one church, it is a letter that

would have been read at all of them.

The entirety of this book would have been one letter read in all of these churches.

And also, as we look at it, keep in mind that these were going to be read out

loud to everyone at the same time.

And so as Jesus is calling out this particular teacher, just imagine that as

if Jesus had written us a letter today,

and one of us read it out loud and,

were to hear maybe some of the things, the knowledge that God has spoken,

perhaps against us, perhaps for us, as he praises and encourages, as he also challenges.

I feel like we've prayed a lot this morning, but I don't know that you can ever pray too much.

So let me just say, Lord, I just pray that you would speak through your word,

that you would challenge us, that you invite us to know you more,

to follow you deeper, to increase in our love and our faith and our perseverance.

For us to hold fast and endure until you come again in that glorious day.

To keep our eyes fixed, our minds fixed on eternity.

And to really inhabit and dwell and live in the truth of the gospel,

which we've sung about, which we're going to hear about, and which we can never graduate past.

So I pray for that for us this morning. If y'all would stand as I read this letter.

To the angel of the church in Thyatira, write, These are the words of the Son

of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance,

and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you.

You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophet.

By her teaching, she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating

of food sacrificed to idols.

I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

So I will cast her on a bed of suffering and I will make those who commit adultery

with her suffer tensely unless they repent of their ways.

I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he

who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching

and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets, I will not impose any other

burden on you except to hold on to what you have until I come.

To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority

over the nations that one will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash

them to pieces like pottery.

Just as I have received authority from my father, I will also give that one,

that morning star, whoever has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit says,

to the churches. This is the word of God for the people of God and all the people said.

How is that like just an accepted response that we all innately know at this point?

I don't remember being taught that. And I don't remember when it was introduced to me.

In this letter, again, we're going to follow sort of the format.

We are introduced to lots of things, but specifically what's going to become

important as we get into Jesus's challenge, his,

exhortation, his discipline, whatever you want to call it.

We're going to be introduced to this character Jezebel, Old Testament character

applied to this woman and her teaching in this church in Thyatira.

But it says that the challenge or the charge against them is that they tolerate

this woman, Jezebel, this prophetess, the person who calls herself a prophet,

which will be important.

So this word tolerance is something that is important.

Last week, we kind of used the word compromise. That word still applies,

but almost it's intensified. And we live in a culture where we use the word

tolerance as if it is a good thing to be prized.

People slap it on bumper stickers with all of the religious symbols that exist on it,

but if I were to tell my wife at night or on the phone when I hung up okay I

tolerate you that would not be a good thing,

and yet we prize it as if it is this higher calling to tolerate.

Things it's interesting I just made this connection as I was saying that but

it's interesting that they are praised, that they are increasing in love,

which is the greater thing that we would love one another,

that not that we would tolerate and put up with one another.

So it's interesting that this is the word that is used. It is captured as a

positive word of our culture, but even more so Jesus is saying,

there are things in this world that you should not tolerate.

There are things in this world that you should not get enraptured with,

that you should not getting wrapped up in.

That will cost you your soul. That will cost you your joy. It will cost you

your relationships. It will cost you far more than it's worth putting into.

So we're going to talk about this, what they're tolerating. But first,

Jesus introduces who he is. And in this case, he introduces himself as the son

of God, who has eyes like fire, who has these burnished bronze feet.

He is, in some ways, confronting directly, as he always does,

the situation in Thyatira specifically,

where they had all of these cultures coming together, and they had created this

amalgamation of Apollo, the god of the sun.

So he's kind of directly attacking Apollo. He's directly attacking the cult of Rome.

But also, he's just reminding. So in all of those things, those are kind of

important details that we could think about. But even if we didn't know any

of that, Jesus starts by reminding us of who he is.

The son of God, the only one who can legitimately hold that title.

The one who sees all things, who knows all things, who has authority over all things.

In this particular letter, he is not painting a soft picture of himself like

we often want to hold on to.

We as Christians justify that.

That the God in the New Testament seems to be different than the God in the

Old Testament. And we prefer the New Testament one.

But in reality, Jesus and God in the New Testament as he is presented is the

same God that is presented in the Old Testament.

Just as in the Old Testament, we skip over the parts where he's full of love and grace.

And we kind of just focus on judgment. I don't remember the statistic off the

top of my head. But the times that it actually talks about God being angry in

the Old Testament is less than a handful.

And yet we, for some reason, believe that that is the most prominent characteristic

and not his patient endurance, not his long suffering, not his love,

not his grace, not his favor and blessing.

And then the God in the New Testament, as we believe he's portrayed the softer

version, the God of love, that's what we hold onto.

We elevate that characteristic. All the while he's still presenting himself

as the God who judges, as the God who is holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord

God Almighty. They don't say, love, love, love is the Lord God Almighty.

So all the while, he's painting a consistent picture of himself.

And no more can we see that more obviously than in this letter to Thyatira,

where he says, I am the one who sees.

I am the one who has authority. As one commentator said, with such eyes,

the Son of God can see into the most distant and darkest places.

And with such feet, he can stamp out all opposition to his rule.

He is the God who sees, the God who knows, and the God who is bringing his judgment

on this church. So even though they are increasing in many things,

have a serious condition that he's going to address.

But first he starts off with the praise. I know.

He always begins his, well, two of the letters don't have praise.

This one still has praise. That your newer works exceed your ladder,

that what you are doing now, that you are growing in love, in faith, in service,

that all of these areas I have observed that you are improving in,

you are increasing in. It reminds us that,

that growth is not an option. It is an expectation within us.

God does not wish that we would remain stagnant in our old selves,

bringing our old things into a new life that he has made for us.

He is desiring that we would grow into his image.

And the things that he is praising in this church, particularly about his image,

is their love, their faith, their service, their patient endurance.

Many of these things speak of external qualities that they are showing to other people,

that they were loving others, that they were serving them well,

that they were growing, that for us to know that as we are expected to grow

and our desire is to grow in Christlikeness, that one thing we are learning from this church is,

that we should look for opportunities for growth, that we should ask God that

he would provide and help us find these opportunities to grow.

One thing that modern psychology has caught up with in the Bible is that they

used to believe that action and behavior followed desire, but now it's kind

of just accepted knowledge that desire follows behavior.

And we see that in the New Testament, we see Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount.

And so it's encouraging and helpful for us to look at these people,

these brothers and sisters of times past.

And to put it upon ourselves and challenge ourselves with a growth mentality,

that we would look for opportunities for our behavior to produce within us the

desire to be more like Jesus.

So I just want to ask you, as we continue through this letter,

to ask yourself, self-evaluation, am I growing?

Am I increasing?

Is my love for other people growing?

Do I find myself more loving towards others, more loving towards outsiders? Is my faith increasing?

Am I believing and trusting in God, especially in those moments when it seems

like the world is against me, that things are against me, that all is lost?

In the difficult times when it's hard to trust, am I growing in my trust?

Am I serving others well?

Am I loving my neighbor by serving them? And who is your neighbor?

Jesus says, whoever you can serve is your neighbor.

Also, am I enduring the difficult seasons of life?

In other words, do I, not just do I believe the right things.

But do I believe the right things?

But am I growing into being more Christ-like?

So Jesus says, I know these works, and this is the goal we talked about last

week and we encounter it today. The goal of our life is that tomorrow we will

be better than we are today.

That we will see a trajectory of growth as we become more and more like Christ.

I realized that as I said that, that tomorrow we might look less like Christ

than we are right now, but the upward trend should be positive that we are growing,

that our latter works are exceeding our current works.

But there is a serious problem in this church, which should also remind us that,

it is not simply enough to be more loving.

And it is not simply enough to have more faith or to grow in service or to endure in bitterness.

That if Christ is missing from our love, our faith, our endurance,

our service, then it is still a serious wrong.

It's not enough to love. And this is an important word for our culture as especially

this current generation loves good works.

They love service, perhaps more than any other generation in our country.

This generation desires goodwill. But if that is absent of Christ,

then it is not simply to be commended because it is good.

That there is a greaterness, a fullness that Christ pours into,

that Jesus pours into our love and our faithfulness.

So there's still a warning for us here. We get to this passage in verse 20.

Where Jesus begins the indictment, nevertheless, I have this against you,

that you tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophet.

And I think it's super important for us to pause on that reality,

that this is someone who has, yes, gained authority in the church,

but it is someone who nevertheless identifies themselves as a prophet,

Especially as you can go and find many people today who call themselves prophets

and who share a message that is not congruent with the scriptures.

Anything that you want to believe, you can find someone who believes it and

who can give you a convincing argument to believe it.

So it's important for us to realize that just because someone calls themselves

something doesn't mean that that's truly what they are.

And just because someone dares to share that they have a deeper understanding

about something, maybe that is difficult to understand, doesn't mean that is

a message worth listening to.

There is the Jesus, the Son of God, who has authority over his church,

as he introduces himself, who comes.

In preparation of this moment to preempt the message that just because she has

wiggled her way into authority and presented this other gospel,

that's not a gospel does not mean that I have sent this message.

And we see this throughout the scriptures and Jeremiah over and over again,

and other of the prophets, God's

charge against Israel is, is not just directed at their people who are unfaithful,

but it's often directed at their prophets and their leaders who prophesy peace,

peace, when there is no peace,

who prophesy wellbeing.

I was just reading in Malachi, not Malachi, Micah. I was reading in Micah like two days ago.

And there's this really funny part I never noticed where Micah is talking about their prophets.

And he's saying how you would love the prophet to come to you and prophesy to

you more beer and more wine. That's the exact kind of prophet that you're looking for.

You can look it up. It's in Micah 2.11.

But too often we find these people, and this is something that I was very concerned

with myself in my own dissatisfaction of years ago of ordaining ourselves.

We find so often in the church that people take it upon themselves to ordain

themselves. They become dissatisfied. I'm not happy with this or that.

So I'm just going to take upon myself the mantle of leadership and I'm just going to do it.

But just because we think something and just because we do something or we can

imagine something doesn't mean that God is approving that thing.

Just because we take upon ourselves this authority or this leadership.

Even if others approve it, Jesus

saying is, I am the one who ultimately approves the who and the what.

So as this, as believers, we are given the instruction all throughout scriptures

to test prophecies, to hold them against the truth of first, the word of God.

Do they measure up? To hold them against the practicality of does it actually come true?

To test scriptures, to be like the Bereans, which everybody loves to bring up

in moments like this, who not just received the word of God excitedly and willfully,

but went home and studied the scriptures to confirm that it was truly the word of God.

Anything that conflicts with God's word, we should reject as a whole,

no matter what, no matter what following it has, no matter what merit other people have given it.

And this is a warning to us as well, not just people in authority or who claim

to be prophets and have a word from God.

But it is so easy for Christians to say, the Lord has told me,

the Lord has spoken this to me.

The Lord has said, this is what I should do.

And when we call with such confidence, that authority over things we believe

that the Lord has spoken to us, we do kind of multiple things.

One thing we do is now essentially tell everybody else in our community that

you no longer have the right to speak into whether or not the Lord has actually

said this because I have got it from the highest authority.

So we immediately cut off what God has given us in the body of Christ to confirm

and to encourage and at times to cut off and close the door.

And also what we're doing is we are following into this same trap when we are

so easily misled by our own desires and our own hearts.

We talked about this last week, how no one of us would normally choose to set

up our home and shop at the gates of where Satan's throne is.

And is that Pergamum? Is that Smyrna? I'm losing track of it. Pergamum.

None of us would willingly choose to do that. And yet these people are commended

for their faithful endurance, even though they live where Satan dwells.

And when God calls us into things, he may call us to live in those places that

we might not normally choose.

So we should be careful of claiming a word of the Lord for himself.

We should test it ourselves.

We should invite others to test it for us.

And we should follow even in the hard when it doesn't make sense.

So this is the warning for us.

It's also a reminder that Jesus cares about his church. He cares about what is taught in his church.

He cares about not just the teaching, but also the contents of that message.

He claims, he criticizes two things in this letter. He criticizes the person themselves, Jezebel.

This character, whatever her name is, actually is.

He criticizes the person, the merit of their character, but he also criticizes

the contents of the message because he is concerned with,

teaching that his word would be taught and he's also concerned of what exactly is taught.

One way of translating this passage is particularly that part about the deep things of Satan.

Some of the translations will disagree with, not disagree, but have different

interpretive leans and vents to what they're trying to say, whether it's that

Jesus is making that accusation against it, or this is just reference to it.

But that term, this idea, deeper things of Satan, what it seems like it's saying

in the communication of literally being knowledge, which is very difficult to know,

is that this woman had come in and amongst what it led to with the idolatry

and the blatant sinfulness in the church was that she was claiming a message from the Lord,

something secret and hidden, a knowledge that was difficult to know.

She was letting them know. She was shedding light, revealing revelation. She was.

Shedding light on to this secret wisdom that she had been given from God.

That she had graduated past the simple building blocks of Christianity.

And now she was unmasking for them these deeper things. And there are a lot of us who crave depth.

We crave knowledge. We crave understanding. We want to, for some reason,

we build it up in our minds that we can go deeper than the gospel.

And maybe we take some words from Paul out of context that he has to keep reminding

them of the basic things. And so we think, oh, well, there's something more than the basics.

But for some reason, we start with the gospel.

And then we've learned the basics. So we think, okay, well, we need to move

into deeper things that we could eventually get into the real deep spiritual stuff.

And we crave that from our teachers. We crave that from our podcasts.

We crave that from whatever we're indulging ourselves in, whatever media we're

consuming, that we want to get to this really deep stuff, this hidden stuff.

But the gospel is not the first thing we learn that then we move and graduate from.

It is the thing we keep coming back to.

It is the deep spiritual revelation that we can always find more of,

that we can always lose ourself more into.

If we read perhaps the best gospel chapter in all of the Bible,

in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul starts that chapter up by saying,

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you.

We have to always go back to the gospel. This thing which you received,

you've already received it.

So why are you acting like there's something more? There's something different.

And on which you have taken your stand.

By this gospel, you are saved. If you hold firmly to this word that I preached to you.

And then he goes on to give us the truth of that gospel. What I received,

I passed on to you of first importance.

Christ died for our sins, according to the scripture. That he was buried,

that he was raised on the third day.

And that according to the scriptures that Cephas and 500 other believers saw

him who are still living.

So he's saying, you could go ask them. What I'm saying is true.

Then he appeared to James. Lastly of all, he appeared to me as one untimely born.

By the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace to me was not without effect.

So even though Paul worked harder than anybody else, he goes back to the grace

that God showed him at first.

He goes back constantly to re-gospel himself. We're going to talk about that

in just a second, that we can't graduate past the gospel, but what we do need

to do is re-gospel ourselves.

So when we come to church, it should never be the case that we hear a teaching,

and we think to ourselves, oh, I've heard that before. I'm not getting anything new today.

We should probably think to ourselves, I've heard that before.

I probably need to hear it again.

I need to be reminded of the truth and the simplicity of what the gospel is

and not try and move past what God has already given me, what I've already received

and what I've already stood on.

I think that's probably the best truth we need to remember is this is something

you've already received and you're not trying to earn it. You can't move past into effort.

Anytime we move past the gospel, we end up in two things. We either end up like

these people in Thyatira where we have now adopted some other gospel that is

incongruent with the scriptures.

Where we move past the gospel, where we end up is now trying to earn the thing

we've already been given freely.

These are the things that happen to us as we move past the gospel.

So do you know facts about Jesus or do you actually know Jesus?

You can know a lot of things about people without knowing the person.

You can know where they were born. You can know their family.

You can know their favorite foods. You can know their stories about them.

You can know so much about a person without actually having a relationship and

true knowledge of who they are.

So do you know facts about Jesus? Do you enjoy the culture of Christianity?

Or are you living in the reality of the resurrection in your body?

Paul tells us in Galatians, not only that, if you are receiving a gospel other

than the one I brought to you, then it is no gospel at all.

And even if an angel, which it's not their job to preach the gospel,

came to you and gave you another one, then that is no gospel at all.

But he also reminds us in that chapter that the old has passed away,

the new has come, that we've been given newness of life in this gospel and freedom.

So let us not return to that which is old and dead, But let us live as we re-gospel

ourselves are sort of the last two points I feel like we can get from this letter to Thyatira.

The first is that God is patient and his desire is that all of us would come home.

That he really does leave the 99 for the one and we are all the one.

That we need to be reminded and remind ourselves of the truth of the gospel,

which includes that you have really been forgiven of your sins.

Not you will be someday and not as long as you're good enough,

but he has already dealt with it that you have already received and it is which you already stand.

Jesus says in this letter that he has given this woman time to repent and she has refused.

Even in the context of his church, where he is jealous for his bride and he

cares of the contents of the messages that are being brought and the truth of our faith in him.

Even in that context where someone is bringing a false gospel and leading his

people astray, his message is that he has provided her time to repent of that.

And we don't know how many times and we don't know in what ways it has come,

but we know that the gracious God of the universe has even provided time for

those who are tearing apart his children, his bride,

to come into knowledge of who he is and to receive the same thing,

the same love, the same faithfulness, the same father.

Sometimes the paths of life that we take, which seem to lead us farthest away

from God, God is trying to use to bring us home.

As we've seen in this testimony, perhaps some of you share that testimony.

God's desire. He says it over and over again. He demonstrates it over and over again.

It's not no matter how long it's taken, he's just glad to have his child back home.

No matter how long the coin has been lost or the sheep has been lost or whatever

parable or metaphor we want to choose from the New Testament,

however long it has taken, he's still going to gather his family and his friends.

Angel's going to throw a party in heaven and celebration is going to ensue,

the likes of which none of us have ever seen or heard. Over each and every one of you,

That is the beauty of the gospel, which Amir brought it up. The last,

as he writes, to those who remain, to those who have not been tricked or led

astray, he says to us and to them, hold on to what you have.

Hold on to what you've been given. Hold on to what you have received.

He doesn't say, now that you've increased in love, you've increased in faith,

you've increased in endurance and service, now keep doing more things.

All of those external behavioral patterns are evidence for and not proof of.

I think that makes sense. They are evidence for the outpouring of the heart

that has been captured by Jesus, of holding on to the gospel.

And they are not the things by which we earn his love and approval.

We didn't sing the verses to that song, Jireh, mainly because they're really

hard to sing and they're kind of weird sometimes.

But one of the things the first verse says is that we're not holding him up so we can't let him down.

And the other thing it says is that it doesn't take a trophy for him to be proud

of us. We don't have to earn a trophy. We don't have to earn merit.

We don't have to demonstrate to our loving father why he should love us.

He loves us because that's who he is and he has chosen to do so.

So the solution is not more activity, but it's to hold on, to hold on to what

you have, to hold on to the gospel, to hold on to Jesus, to hold on until he comes.

He says that to those who endure, they will receive the bright and morning star.

And we could talk about what that means and debate it.

But later on in Revelation, Jesus will identify himself as the bright and morning star.

So at the very least, if not at the very most, what he's saying is to those

who hold on, you'll make it.

You'll find me. You'll be in my presence. I will give you myself and we will

be together. I will be your God and you will be my people.

So hold on. Hold on.

Look forward to that moment and make every effort, make every decision,

make every bit of your life about showing up and receiving that prize that he asked for us.

Keep your eyes on eternity.

So Jesus is speaking to a church that had many things right.

They loved, they had faith, they served, they persevered, they were growing.

But in the face of great temptation to compromise, to tolerate.

This sin and false teaching that had most obviously affected the leadership

of this church, he tells to those who are still there who are faithful,

don't go chasing something deeper than the gospel.

Hold on to what you have received. Don't abandon what it is that you have received. Hold on to it.

Hold on to it until I come. Don't abandon gathering together.

These people weren't instructed to go find somewhere else more gospel-centered. He said, hold on.

Don't abandon it. Hold on until I come.

Don't confuse your activity with growth, but hold on until I come.

Don't confuse Christian culture with knowing God. God, hold on until I come. Hold on.

Because Jesus, the bright and morning star is coming.

And when he comes, the night will be over and the wonderful day will dawn.

This is the picture of the morning star as it is through all of scripture,

the end of darkness, the dawning of light, not just in the world,

but in our hearts and in our lives.

That light would dawn, that night would be no more, that we would receive Jesus in all his fullness.

God, I pray that you would set your gospel so deep in our hearts that it would

shape and change completely everything about us.

It would shape and change the way we love and the way we have faith and the

way that we endure and the services that we practice.

That would shape completely our relationships with our family,

with our friends, our relationships with this church body, our brothers and

sisters, those who don't know you.

Those who are still lost, and you

are actively working and providing opportunities for them to come home.

All of this life, all of these stories are bound together by that idea of exile,

that we are not where we should be,

And therefore, we are not experiencing the fullness of life that we should be experiencing.

The fullness of love, the fullness of joy. Yes, the fullness of suffering,

which only makes those other things better.

But all the good things are better in you.

Hide that word so deeply in our hearts that we cannot separate ourselves and our identity from it.

That we can't go searching to make a name for ourselves apart from our parents

or the church or this or that because we just want to be known for who we are,

that our identity would be so wrapped into being a child of God.

Lord, that every day we would be reminded of the truth of the good news of Jesus,

the Son of God who alone has authority, who alone.