Well, good evening, everybody.
And before I begin, I want to again remind us all to pray for
those who are struggling with this virus right now. And remember
Gary Holbeck. He's in the hospital. And and
remember Jerry Hansen. Still, she's, I believe, still
in the hospital. She's supposed to be coming home
sometime this week. But she'll be dealing with some
of the after effects of this. of this disease for a little
while, so keep her in prayer, and there are others that are
dealing with it right now, and so let's remember one another,
and thank the Lord for his blessings, and pray for his comfort and
strength for those that are sick. I'm in Revelation 2.18 this evening. Revelation 2.18, we'll begin
the letter to the church at Thyatira, that'll
be the title of the message, the church at Thyatira, and in
verse 18 it says, and unto the angel of the church, and remember
that's just the messenger of the church, that's the pastor.
In Thyatira write, these things saith the son of God, who hath
eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass. And I think we'll just take this
a verse at a time. Thyatira is mentioned elsewhere
in scripture. You might remember that Lydia,
whose heart the Lord opened as Paul preached the gospel to her
and her friends in Acts chapter 16, was from Thyatira. And so
she likely went back to Thyatira. She was on a trip in Acts 16,
it says. And she may well have been a
member of this church that the Lord wrote this letter to. I
know this, whether she was or not, that everybody in the church,
the true church at Thyatira, was a group of people whose heart
the Lord opened. I know that. Because we can't
receive anything except He opened our hearts to receive the word
and give faith in Christ. So she may well have been one
of them. But it's important to remember,
and this letter sort of highlights this as we go through it, you'll
kind of see this, that the Lord is speaking to a church here,
not individuals. individuals can be specifically
sort of diagnosed as the problems that they have. When he's speaking
of a church, this church has problems, but that doesn't mean
everybody in the church had that particular problem. He's warning
everybody because whatever our individual particular problems
are, we're susceptible to all of these. This is a lesson to
all of us. And so that's why I have to keep reminding myself
of that. This is to a whole church. And
there were people that were doing this and that, and there were
people, I'm sure, that didn't have, that the Lord was including
in the commendable parts of the letter, that didn't include some,
and then when he's warning, he's warning everybody, though, because
all of us, while we're in this flesh, there's no sin we can't
commit. There's no problem we can't have.
So that's what I just wanted to say about that. There were
false professors of religion among the people of this church,
and we'll see that as we go along. But he speaks also of the works
in love and commends them, but these false professors are mentioned,
these Jezebels. He calls it Jezebel, it could
have possibly been one person, but I feel like it was a group
of people, he's just calling Jezebel, and we'll talk about
that. In a minute, not everybody though, just as the commendations
in the letter I'm sure didn't apply to everybody there. There's
the church, and then there's kind of people that come to church,
and then there's things like that. So we understand that.
He's writing this to a church, and it's important to remember
that. The Lord knew and knows each individual. case in every
church perfectly. We know that, and he deals with
each individual perfectly. He speaks to hearts from his
word individually. So he doesn't just speak to churches,
but this is a letter to a church. So understand that these encouragements
and warnings and rebukes are for each of us, no matter our
individual case, because we're all flesh. All of us are flesh,
as well as spirit. And so, when there are commendable
things in us, it's His Spirit that dwelleth in us. Paul said,
not I, but Christ. But when it's that which needs
to be rebuked and warned of, that's our flesh. But we all
need the encouraging words that our Savior gives to His churches,
as well as the warnings. So let's look at it that way.
Thyatira was a very idolatrous city. as I suppose all cities
are to one degree or another, but this place was a place where
great pressure to compromise was put upon people. to compromise
with the idolatrous and the traditions, the evil fleshly traditions of
their religion there in that city. If you were going to work
and prosper, think about it. Those who are in power, if they're
that way and they pressure people to compromise, what are you going
to do? Just quit your job? You don't have a living? Or are
you going to compromise? Are you going to go along with
the evil and the idolatrous religion? And this was a problem for this
church. And I know of individual experiences now, right now, in
my experience with people that I know of believers like this,
where they're pressured to compromise with things and to to do things
they don't want to do because of the pressure that this world,
and how evil and religiously evil this world is, and the pressure
that our whole world is becoming, more and more insistent that
we tolerate its evil. I'm sure some of you have noticed
that. That's not going to get any better in this country. People
aren't happy just being evil, they want you to condone it.
and they'll force you to condone it. And that was some pressure
that was happening here in this church. Now remember also that
these letters are written first to the angels or messengers of
the churches, the pastor, because it's the business of the pastor,
particularly to watch over and to guard to preach the truth
of Christ, to be consistent and faithful, to preach the truth
of Christ, which is the only way to protect the church against
error. You don't protect against error by pointing out error.
We may do that, but you protect against error by proclaiming
the truth. If you got a crooked stick and
you're like, is that stick crooked? Put a straight one down there
next to it and you'll know if it's crooked or not. And that's
how we defend against the error God's spokesmen are compared
in the scriptures to watchmen on a wall. on the wall of a castle,
keeping watch out for dangers constantly. The dangers are false
Christs being preached and false teachings, perversions of the
gospel and anything contrary to the truth of God, which the
Lord has taught us. We cannot and must not tolerate
anybody who teaches anything false. or openly opposes that
which is God's truth. Now listen to me. There may be
people that come in here that don't believe what we believe.
If they're willing to sit down and listen to the gospel, welcome.
Come on in. But if somebody comes in here
proudly and boldly and openly opposing the gospel, it's my
job primarily to watch over the church, but I want all of you
involved in not tolerating that. They need to be as unwelcome
as possible. That's just not, we can't tolerate
it. Again, they may come in with
all kinds of false ideas about God. They might be total heretic. Sit down and hear the gospel
and you're welcome here. But we can't tolerate open rebellion
and opposition to God's truth, to the gospel of Christ. And
that's all of us now. Anybody who teaches anything,
listen, Paul said, but though we are an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached.
And it's on record, isn't it? We know what he preached. Let
him be accursed. And so that's what we need to
understand here. And I'm getting a little bit
ahead of myself. I understand that, but I want to kind of introduce
this letter thoroughly, and then we'll kind of see what I mean
by this tolerating of the evil as we go through this. We watch
over God's church also by faithfully proclaiming the word. We're not
going to tolerate anybody that comes in and causes division
and that perverts the gospel openly and proudly. but also
by just simply, as I said, proclaiming the truth of God concerning His
sovereign power and love and salvation by Christ. People need
to know how sinners are saved, and there's no compromise on
that. It's by grace through faith in the Son of God. who is our
righteousness and our sin offering. All of the gospel, as Paul said
in Acts 20, 27, listen, here's what we've got to, here's how
you stand on the wall and watch and be faithful in that. He said,
I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. That's how you protect against
error right there, too. The whole counsel of God concerns
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and how that sinners are saved
by Him. By Him being their righteousness. He doesn't just provide righteousness.
He is our righteousness. And by Him being our effectual
sin offering. Not His blood being an offer
to men, but an offering unto God for the sins of His people.
Now that's our gospel and we don't shun to declare all of
it by God's grace. So the Lord identifies himself
in this letter as the son of God, whose eyes are as a flame
of fire and his feet are like fine brass. Now this identifies
him as the one not to be trifled with. If somebody's eyes are
flames of fire and their feet are fine brass, don't play around
with them. Don't travel with them. Listen
to Paul's description of the Savior in Romans 1.3, concerning
his Son, he's just talking about the gospel in Romans 1 and 2,
concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the
Son of God with power. not just declared to be the Son
of God, but declared to be the Son of God with power. That name,
the Son of God, it brings to me, He's God in human flesh. He's a man that does as He pleases.
He's a man that runs this universe. Christ here is declaring His
majesty and exerting His infinite authority when He says, this
is the Son of God speaking to you. He's reminding us that He's
to be had in reverence. by all those that are about him.
But also, this is comforting to God's sheep. This is the Son
of God writing a letter to you saying, here's what I see in
you. I see good works in you. But
here's some warnings. He's guiding them. He don't write
letters to his enemy. He don't write letters to people
he's going to put in hell. This is comforting. We fear him,
but we're not afraid of him. If you're a believer, that makes
sense to you. That's not a contradiction. We fear him, but we're not scared
of him. We understand that now, but what also a comfort, we serve
the son of God. We serve God's son. As we angels
of the churches are watching over his flock, he's watching
over all of us. He's the son of God. And that's
a comfort, isn't it? He's the one who asked those
Roman soldiers in the garden, This is the one that loves you
with an everlasting love and watches over you. Think about
this. This is the one, when those soldiers came in the Garden of
Gethsemane to arrest him, he asked him, who are you looking
for? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am. And they all fell over backward.
These strongest and most capable of men among men, these soldiers,
fell over backward just at the voice of his power. He's the
one that watches over us. He's the one that said to them,
if you seek me, you let these go their way. Isn't that a comfort? His eyes like a flame of fire,
they see and know everything. It says his eyelids try the sons
of men. That's a grave thing, isn't it?
And they are a devouring fire to his enemies, but again, to
his people, a flame of warmth and light and protection for
his sheep. His feet like fine brass, having
walked through refined brass. That means it's been through
the fire. He walked through the fires of God's law, first of
all, and God's wrath against his law. Whereas we, we couldn't
do that. Our feet aren't brass. We couldn't
walk through that. We couldn't walk according to
God's law, nor could we suffer his wrath and fulfill the law
and put away sin like he did. Our feet are not refined in that
fire and strong. His are. We would fall and be
consumed, but that he had any sin of his own to be consumed
in that refining fire, forget about that. It's not that. It's
not that his feet needed to be refined because he had any sin
of his own, but listen to this, by taking our sin upon himself,
it is purged by his precious blood and so his feet are pure
white. They say super refined brass
is white, it's silver white. And that's what his feet looked
like. Strong to trample his enemies now underfoot, but a shining
reminder of what he has borne and accomplished for us. Verse
19, he said again, I know, again, he knows. He says that to these
churches, I know. Let's remember that, he knows. I know thy works and charity
and service and faith and thy patience and thy works and the
last to be more than the first. Think about this for a minute.
Remember when David said in Psalm 139, 23, search me, O God, and
know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts.
He does. That's what he's saying here.
He does. He does do that. He knows our
heart and our thoughts too. But if he is our righteousness
before God, We need not despair over that. It might seem like
a scary thing that, oh, he knows my every thought. My thoughts
are so sinful. He knows my heart. My heart is
still, I still have that heart of flesh, black and proud and
selfish and evil. But if he's my righteousness
before God, listen to the next verse there by David. He said,
try me, Lord, search me, know my heart, know my thought. And
then he said this, and see if there be any wicked way in me
and lead me. Leave me away from that. Leave
me out of that. Leave me out of myself. Leave
me in the way everlasting. So we want Him to cause us to
grow in His grace. We want to confess our sins before
Him and say, Lord, help me. And we want Him to show
us our error that we don't even know. and our foolishness and
teach us and make us more like him. We don't hide our sin or
deny it anymore, like Adam in the garden, because he's our
righteousness. Our sin is something we're ashamed
of and we want to do better. We want to be more like him.
Neither our failings, our evil, nor our doing better has anything
to do with our righteousness before God. We stand in Christ.
And so we want to go and sin no more. But even as we sin,
and we know we will, we can't be in this flesh ever sinless.
We can grow in His grace, but we stand in Christ perfect and
spotless in the sight of God. And so we're not afraid to confess
our sins before Him or to have Him show us and teach us and
say, go and sin no more. He's our righteousness. When
the Lord says here, I know your works, He's talking in this verse
about the good things. And we want to be like Tabitha
described in Acts 9 36. Listen to this. It says, now
there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which
by interpretation is called Dorcas. And this woman was full of good
works and alms deeds, which she did. I want to be like that. I want to be full of good works,
but I don't want to trust them. And we're so prone to that. I
don't ever want to think that they contribute at all in any
way to my righteousness before God. Christ is all of my righteousness
and my only righteousness before God. We just want to honor Him,
though. We want to honor Him. Ephesians
2.10, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained. that we should walk
in them. And then he said, I know your
love. God knows the heart. We can know love by action. You
can know whether somebody loves you or somebody else or not by
action. But God knows the heart. God's love is defined by what
he did for us though. It's defined by action. First
Corinthians 13, it's what it does, what it doesn't do. And
ours will be defined by action too. When thinking of good works,
always remember this, too. He said, when you've done it
to one of the least of these, my brother, you've done it to
me. You brought me a glass of cold water when I was thirsty.
You visited me when I was in prison. You gave me something
to eat when I was hungry. You visited me when I was sick.
I've heard some stories here lately that warm my heart. Our
love for him is because of his love for us. And even our love
for him is connected to our love for one another. Remember he
said to Simon, do you love me? Think about that. He said, do
you love me? Feed my sheep. He didn't say
if you love me, do something for me. He is saying that. But
how do you do something for him? Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. He knows our service. He said,
I know your service. Service has to do with ministry.
That's the word. They're ministering to one another,
especially the gospel, but in all things, in different needs
and things like that. Remember what Paul said in 1
Corinthians 16, 15. I beseech you, brethren. He said,
you know the house of Stephanus, that it is the first fruits of
Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of
the saints. They addicted themselves to the
ministry. And again, that's primarily now the gospel ministry to support
and to further the ministry of the gospel in this world. What
the saints need is to hear from God, to minister to the needs
of people, your primary needs to hear from God. And so we minister
in the gospel, but servants of one another in whatever needs
we have. Think of all the various areas
of service in the ministry of Christ. There are preachers and
teachers. There are those who work the
nursery. That's a ministry. Cleaning the
church. Just making money and giving.
That's a ministry. All of these things. Some people
just have the ministry of just being an encouragement to people
and being thoughtful of people and things like that. All these
different ways in the ministry. He said, I know your service. And then he said, I know your
faith. Faith is also shown. You remember James said, you
show me your faith without your works, I'll show you my faith
by my works. Faith without works is dead.
And so faith is shown, faith is seen in action. And why does
the Lord say again, I know thy works? He says it twice in that
one verse. I know thy works again. Well,
it has to do with the last line of this verse. that the last
is greater than the first. He said, I know thy works. He's
not just repeating himself here. He knows their works and their
works. And he said, the last is greater
than the first. That's a good thing. These are commendations
now. They had grown in grace. They had increased in grace. And an increase in grace and
an increase in faith is an increase in works. It's just that simple. It manifested itself. The grace
of God manifests itself in people through works of faith and true
service and love for one another, indeed. And there were more of
them in the latter than at the beginning. And he said, I see
that, I see that. May that be true of us. But as
in most of these letters now, there's a warning too in verse
20. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because
thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which called herself a prophetess,
to teach and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to
eat things sacrificed unto idols." Now, this is almost certainly
not an individual in that church named Jezebel. The Lord called
Simon Satan once. Remember that. That doesn't mean
that he was the individual we know as Satan. He's calling him
Satan because of what he said, because of what was in his heart
at the time. And that's the case here. This may have been more
than one individual. It doesn't just have to have
been one person. It could have been a group of people. It could
have been men and women. It doesn't have to be a woman. It's the
spirit of Jezebel that we're talking about. It was in this
church and it was tolerated, allowed to operate and allowed
to disrupt. And Jezebel, we won't have time
to do a history or a study of her as a person in the scripture,
but she was an evil queen. And if you do this, do study
her later, you'll see all of this. This was what characterized
her. She worshiped Baal. She hated and pursued Elijah
to the death. She tried to kill God's prophet.
She was deceptive and manipulative. She did deceptive things to get
her way and to fulfill her desires. If you read her story, it's in,
I believe, 1 Kings chapter 16 through 21, and it mentions her
in 2 Kings too. But you'll see how she plotted
and deceived and manipulated people to get what she wanted
for her own gain and her own glory. She undermined, in doing
that, she undermined the real authority, the king, with her
scheming deception and she hated the true God and his authority,
Elijah. That's the perfect description
of a false preacher. They hate God. They worship idols. They're selfish, deceptive, manipulative
for the purpose of gain and glory for the flesh. That's what it
is, a false preacher. That's who Jezebel represents
here. And this is what our Lord's warning is about. All in the church of God must
deny self. We don't do what we do for selfish
motives. Now, of course, we still have
the flesh in us, but that's not what this is about. The Lord's
people take up their cross and they live to honor and glorify
Christ. There's only one reverend in
this church and it ain't me. Some churches like that quaint
saying, you know, you can't spell church without you, but God can.
He does. In fact, if there's any somebodies
in this church, they like this saying too, everybody is a church
where everybody's somebody. God's church is where everybody's
a nobody. And I'll tell you this, furthermore,
God says if there's a somebody in your church, don't tolerate
them. That's Jezebel. That's somebody out for themselves.
That's somebody here to get glory for themselves. That's not a
church. That's not worship. It's all
about His honor and glory and worship. That's what it means
to be a servant of Christ, to do His bidding, to do His will,
to want His promotion and glory. Now, I'm not sure how this church
tolerated Jezebel. It's not specific about what
exactly how that happened, but I know this, there are a lot
of subtle ways to do that. There are a lot of subtle ways
to do that. Jezebel here, whether a person or a group, may well
have been somebody or a group of people that people in the
church loved. It might have been somebody's
family. It might have been somebody that everybody liked and thought
highly of. It very well could have been,
and that's why it was so easy to tolerate. But Jezebel cannot
be tolerated. We are to leave such for God
to deal with and not tolerate them, and that's exactly what
God did here. He said, I'm gonna deal with
her. You're not to tolerate her, I'll deal with her. Verse 21. He said, I gave her space to
repent of her fornication and she didn't do it. She repented
not. Now listen, God gives warnings
and he gives space. And I looked that word up. It
just means time. He gave time to repent. God is long suffering with sinners.
Look how he dealt with Pharaoh. Now, how many times did God say
to Pharaoh, let my people go before he wiped everybody out
in the Red Sea? How many times did Pharaoh thumb
his nose at God and say, who do you think you are? We know
that God's purpose all along was to bring Pharaoh down. There's
no question about that. But when Pharaoh went to hell,
he couldn't blame God for it. He busted hell wide open. Hell
was crying out to swallow him up. What a wretch he was. Remember what God said to Cain
in Genesis 4, 6? The Lord said unto Cain, why
are you wroth? Now this was after he killed
his brother. Of course, he was angry with
his brother because God accepted his brother and he killed his
brother in anger. But this is after that. This is after God
had passed judgment on Cain for doing that. Now he's mad at God.
And God said, why are you wroth? Why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? I don't want
to put words in God's mouth, but that's kind of like saying,
whose fault is this? And if thou doest not well, sin
lieth at the door. It's your fault. It's your sin. Your sin is your problem, your
pride, your rebellion. That's true of every sinner.
It's not God's fault. And then in verse 22, he said,
behold, I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery
with her in the great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill her children with death, and all the churches
shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts,
and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."
I just want to make one comment about that. If you despise and
rebel against God and His Christ, He will destroy you and he will
get glory out of it. Just like he said there. I'm
gonna destroy you, I'm gonna kill her and her children with
death, and I'm gonna torture you before I do it. You're gonna
go through tribulation. And here's what's gonna be the
result. All the churches will know that I am he. Everybody's
gonna know who God is, and it ain't you. So if you rebel against
God, he'll wipe you out and he'll get glory out of it. verse 24. And we'll kind of cover the rest
of this together and just make a brief comment or two. But unto
you I say and unto the rest in Thyatira as many as have not
this doctrine, this false doctrine, in which have not known the depths
of Satan. Think about that. What does God
call man's religion and man's pride and rebellion, the depths
of Satan. As they speak, and they do speak,
don't they? I will put upon you none other
burden. Those of you who are not involved in this and if you're
not tolerating this and you won't tolerate it, I'm not going to
put any other burden on you. than what's true already, that
you're having to deal, one of the burdens that they had was
having to deal with these, with such pressure of false religion
and opposition against the truth and the great pressure that was
put upon them to compromise. That's one of the burdens. He
said, if you stand true, though, I won't put any other burden
upon you. But that which you, verse 25,
but that which you already hold fast, have already hold fast
till I come, be faithful in trial. They had some burdens and some
trials, but he said, you be faithful in that until I come. And I'll tell you this, I'm not
the only one that's been thinking this lately. I talked to somebody
just the other day about this. I've been saying, even so, Lord,
come quickly. And we talked about old John
on the Isle of Patmos. Can you imagine being banished
to an island by yourself and not having any contact with any
other human being for who knows how long? I don't know how long,
but it wouldn't take long, would it? And you can almost hear that
in his plea with God at the end of this book of Revelation. He said, even so, Come quickly,
Lord Jesus. And I pray that too. I pray that
too. And unto him, listen, and he
that overcometh and keepeth my works. Now think about that.
Not doeth good works, although we do. We're ordained, he's before
ordained that we should walk in good work. But he said those
that keep my works. That's key there, not trust their,
not trust your works, but believe on him and his works. Trust what
he does, what he did, what he's doing, what he will do. Unto the end, to him will I give
power over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of
iron as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers,
even as I received of my father. Now power over the nations, people
talk about how God's gonna set us up as princes, like literal
governors and princes and kings and rulers over people in the
new earth. That's not what this is talking
about. Look, we're gonna reign with Christ. Those that suffer
with him, he said, you're gonna reign with me. And these were
suffering. And he said, look, I'm gonna give you power. Right
now, they had all this pressure. People had power over them to
exert upon them, to try to force them to compromise. He said,
look, I'm in charge, and you're gonna reign with me. That's what
this is. We're not gonna reign with Christ
as rivals. You can't have two kings in this
world, and I don't suppose you can in heaven either. There's
one king. We're gonna reign with him, not as rivals, but just
being one with Him and being glad that He's on the throne.
Verse 28, and I will give Him the morning star. Wow. You know now. You know. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ,
you know what the one thing needful, the one thing most precious in
all of God's universe is. What a gift. The morning star. The morning star. You know, Christ
said, I'm the bright and morning star. We know that, don't we?
He gave himself for us. And here he said, I'm going to
give myself to you. It don't get Literally, people
use that word wrong sometimes. They say it's something literally
and they don't mean it literally. Literally, it don't get better
than that. He gave himself for us and he
said, I'm gonna give myself to you. His presence, his glory. Remember what he said in John
17, Lord, I will that those that you've given me be with me where
I am. that they may behold my glory. If you have Christ, you have
everything. And he said, I'll give you the
morning star. And then listen to what he said
last here in closing. He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith. unto the churches. The Spirit
speaks the very words of Christ through a man, through John,
through a messenger, through the angel of the church. In the
hearing ear and the seeing eye, the scripture says even the Lord
hath made both of them. So if you have a hearing ear,
he that hath an ear to hear, if we do have one, he gave it
to us. He made it and he gave me one
of them. gave me an ear to hear, and may
he give all of us ears to hear what he saith to us, what he
saith. He that hath an ear to hear,
hear what I say to you. He hath the words of eternal
life, and he himself is that life. Amen, God bless you.