Thyatira: The Corrupt Church

Revelation chapter 2, verse 18 through 29.

And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write the words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality.

And to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold I will throw her unto a sick bed and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works.

And I will strike her children dead and all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira who did not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say I do not lay on you any other burden.

Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.

And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. One of the first mentions of the church in the New Testament comes from Matthew chapter 18, where there Jesus gives his first message to the church.

You'd think that that first message might cover a number of different topics. Maybe it would cover something to do with evangelistic strategies.

Maybe it would cover something to do with social injustices or world missions. But his primary concern then, just as it has been for the seven churches he addresses in Revelation, is purity.

Purity within his church. Matthew 18 deals with sin in the church. Jesus wants his people to know how to confront and how to deal with sin in his church.

And so Matthew 18, 15 through 17 says, If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. So this idea of seeking purity in the church, of confronting sin, is actually counterintuitive to the way that many churches operate today.

They seek to be cool. They seek to be modern. Confronting sin is uncomfortable. That would make things too uncomfortable.

But too uncomfortable for who? Unbelievers, ultimately. They might say something like this, and you've probably heard it before, or maybe even thought it yourself.

They might say something like, who am I to tell someone else how they should live their life? Why would we want to expose people's sin or ask anyone to leave the church? They may say something like, shouldn't we just love them and let the Spirit take care of all that other stuff?

They avoid confrontation, thinking that doing so builds unity and love in the church, but the unity and love that is being built is not the kind of unity and love that the Bible speaks of.

Ignoring sin and practicing tolerance has become the norm for many churches. In fact, it's been employed as a strategy by many for growth. They make things comfortable for people, so they can come and go under the radar, incognito.

I can come in. The lights are turned down. And so I don't have to look at anybody, really. They don't have to look at me. I don't have to introduce myself to anybody.

They don't have to introduce themselves to me. And then I can get what I want and leave. And nobody really even knows that I was there. And a lot of people want that, and a lot of churches give that to them.

But I don't think that that's the way that a church is supposed to be. Again, is this the way that you would think God intends for His church to operate?

That people just come and go, and nobody knows their name, and nobody really knows their life or what's going on in their life. Nobody cares to try to disciple them or help them to mature in the faith.

I don't think that that is at all what God has intended for His church to be. And again, the Apostle Paul would say the same. He was particularly harsh in his rebuke of the Corinthian church for ignoring and tolerating sin in their church.

If you remember, there was a man in that church who was involved in a relationship with his father's wife. And they didn't hide it. They didn't try to hide it. Everybody pretty much knew what was happening.

This was very scandalous back then. It was scandalous even back then compared to the other pagan religions that were out there that such a thing was happening. I want to read to you Paul's rebuke there in 1 Corinthians 5, 1-6.

He says, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans. For a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant.

Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? So not only did this have a negative effect on the testimony of the church, but their tolerance of that sin was poisoning the entire congregation.

And so here's the main idea for our study tonight. Though sin spreads like leaven, purity and holiness do not. Many in the church believe that their view of unrighteousness and corruption is as casual as the Lord's.

However, believers must defend the purity of the church above all other concerns, regardless of how it might offend others. I'll read that last sentence again.

However, believers must defend the purity of the church above all other concerns, regardless of how it might offend others. Paul describes the Lord's love for his church and his concern for the purity of his church in Ephesians 5, verse 25 through 27.

There he says, Our priorities for the church need to reflect the Lord's.

We need to prize the purity of his church just as he does. Think about what happens if we don't. The church is supposed to be heaven's representative here in the world, right?

We are called to be ambassadors for Christ. And you know what an ambassador does when he goes to a foreign land? He's the representative of his home country to that foreign nation.

And so are we. The church is supposed to be the place where Christ is most honored. This is the place where Christ is to be most glorified in all the world. A place where sin is rebuked and righteousness is encouraged.

But if we tolerate sin, then our light will diminish and our people will never mature past drinking milk. We'll never be able to tolerate anything else.

Colossians 1, 28 through 29. Again, the Apostle Paul writes there, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we might present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me. So how ridiculous would it be if you invited me and my family out to lunch after church on Sunday and, you know, everybody has their menus and ordering food.

And I'm like, no, I'm good. And I pull out my baby bottle and, you know, and I drink the whole thing the whole time. I think that's really strange. Maybe this man shouldn't be our pastor.

We're to mature, right? We get to a point where our stomach, our bodies are able to handle more, digest different foods.

We're able to handle and digest big juicy steaks. Praise the Lord. So like that, Christians are to mature.

We're to be growing. From the moment of our conversion, we are to be growing and maturing, growing up in Christ, all the way into the point where he calls us home to be with him.

Despite Scripture's clear instructions, many churches that declare sound doctrine fail to declare and protect holiness in their church. Christ's letter to the church at Thyatira illustrates the deadly consequences of failing to guard the purity of God's church.

So some information about Thyatira. Thyatira was the smallest of the cities mentioned in Revelations 2 and 3. It was located about 40 miles southeast of Pergamum.

It was originally founded as a military garrison on the main road to Pergamum. The plan was that as enemies, invaders, were heading towards Pergamum, which was the capital, that hopefully Thyatira would serve as a way to slow them down so that word could get to Pergamum and they could buy some time and be prepared to defend their city.

So Thyatira, because of this, was frequently destroyed and it was frequently having to be rebuilt. But things changed for Thyatira after the Roman Empire came into control.

The relative peace that they brought spared the city from constant attack and destruction. Its location then along this major trade route that connected Pergamum with Laodicea and Smyrna turned Thyatira into a boom town.

The city specialized in dyed fabrics, particularly purple dye, which was developed from a combination of shellfish and roots.

And Thyatira is still a city in Asia Minor today. It has a different name. Akishar? Akisar? Do you know how to say it, Tom? Okay.

A-K-I-H-I-S-A-R. Good luck. Akisar. Unlike the other cities of Asia Minor, Thyatira never developed into a religious center.

They didn't have a temple to the gods, which was different from these other cities, though they still adhered to that religion. That was their faith. It wasn't, though, a major feature of their everyday life as it was in other cities, because they were primarily dominated by trade guilds, which were similar to modern-day labor unions.

There were guilds for dyers, for tanners, for bronze smiths, for bakers, and for every other trade that took place in the city. And so finding a job was virtually impossible unless you were a member of one of those guilds.

Each guild then also had a patron deity, and they would have feasts, and they would have rituals that included food, sacrifice to idols, and also would involve their being involved with sexual immoral practices.

So, of course, if you're a Christian living in Thyatira, you would have a real dilemma, because you couldn't get work unless you belonged to those guilds, typically.

And if you belonged to one of those guilds, it meant that you would be involved with all these other things, all these other practices, which are clearly against the Lord's will and His word for us.

Scripture doesn't say how the church was founded. It could have been during Paul's ministry in Ephesus. It also could have been planted sometime after his ministry in Philippi.

In the book of Acts, Luke tells us in Acts 16.14, a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to things spoken by Paul.

Lydia and her family were the first believers in Europe and helped establish the Philippian church, so it's possible that she or some of her relatives returned to their home city of Thyatira and established or helped to establish a church there.

No matter how the church started, it's apparent that they did not remain faithful to the truth or to Christ's instructions to guard the purity of His church, and as a result, the congregation was inviting God's wrath and judgment through their corrupt behavior.

So the first aspect of Christ's message here, we see in verse 18, is that Christ saw everything that was happening in the church at Thyatira.

So again, he begins this message by saying, And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, the words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire.

And so as we've noticed in each letter, Christ borrows imagery from John's initial vision of Him that ties to the nature of the message that He's about to give to these different churches.

To Ephesus, remember, He emphasized His authority and care for the church. To Smyrna, He reminded them of His eternal nature, His sacrifice for them, and the glory that awaited them in heaven.

In bringing rebuke to Pergamum, He identified the power of His word and the consequences to come if they failed to repent. His self-description to Thyatira similarly foreshadows His message to the church.

Here He is characterized by His eyes like a flame of fire, which signified His perfect omniscience. He knows everything.

He sees everything. There was nothing that escapes His notice. There was nothing that had happened at Thyatira or that was happening at Thyatira that He was not fully aware of.

And that's a really bad thing for this church. It also should be a reminder to us, Hebrews 4.13, there is no creature hidden from His sight, but it says there, all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him whom we have to do.

All that we do is open and seeable by the Lord. There are no closed doors that He cannot see behind.

All the words we speak, all the thoughts that we have, are all seen and known by Him. Second here, we see in Christ's message that He says that He will judge His church if they don't repent.

The rest of verse 18, He again reminds them of this vision that John has and points to His feet and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

His feet symbolized His authority and judgment over His church. The imagery here also later is written about in Revelations 19.15 where there John describes the Lord's wrath poured out against the unrepentant world and it says there, He treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty.

So remember, feet. A king would be up on a platform when you entered into His throne room symbolizing that you were under His feet. You could see, basically, a lot of times your eye level with His feet.

And you think about as a kid, you play King of the Mountain or you wrestle around and you get your opponent on the ground and you put your foot on them and ah! Okay? So Jesus is reminding them that He is in authority over them.

He's in authority over His church. They are under His feet. I want to share a note with you here from John MacArthur what he has to say about this. He says, there is one notable difference from the wording of John's original vision.

John writes that he saw one like the Son of Man in chapter 1, verse 13, emphasizing not only Christ's humanity but also His compassion and care for His people.

It reflects His intercessory work on our behalf and His understanding of our weaknesses, failures, and struggles. But in Revelation 2, verse 18, Christ instead refers to Himself as the Son of God.

Not the Son of Man, as the Son of God. This is an affirmation of His deity and with it His transcendence, holiness, and judgment. The Savior has become the judge.

The intercessor becomes the executioner. Divine wrath is about to be unleashed against the idolatrous, immoral congregation. This is not comforting or sympathetic.

This is threatening and fearful. This is a letter no church wants to receive. Then third, we see that Christ gives assurance to the true believers.

He says, I know your works, in verse 19, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.

Much like some of the other churches, Thyatira had a mixture in their congregation of true believers and false believers. However, they were different in that the false believers outnumbered the true believers in this church.

To those faithful few, the Lord provides assurance that He has seen their labors for the sake of the gospel and He commends them for them. And so it's comforting to know that even in the midst of immorality, God sees us and our efforts to let our light shine in darkness.

He sees it and He approves of it. So think of, you know, even I think in your workplace where you feel like you're certainly outnumbered. I don't feel that way in my workplace, which is good.

But hopefully that's, but in your workplace. And sometimes I think you always feel like, I feel like I'm just pushing a boulder up a hill and I'm never making any ground, you know. But rest assured that the Lord sees you and what you're doing and He approves of what you're doing.

Don't stop. Number four, Christ rebukes the church at Thyatyrus and now He turns His attention to those false believers. In verse 20, He says, but I have this against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is leading or is teaching, I should say, and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Despite the efforts from the world to encourage and force the church to be tolerant, there is nothing, nothing in Scripture that commands us to ever be tolerant of sin.

Nothing. In fact, the case could be made, better made, that God calls His church to be intolerant. He demands a church that won't tolerate false teachings.

He demands a church that won't tolerate immorality. And He demands, as already mentioned, that His church not tolerate sin. So, who is this Jezebel that the Lord refers to in verse 20?

Well, apparently, this church had succumbed to some sort of first century feminism and abdicated some level of influence over their church to a woman which was in contradiction of 1 Timothy 2.12.

The fact that she called herself a prophetess indicates that whatever she was teaching was heretical. Whoever this woman was, she was given the unenviable comparison by our Lord to Jezebel.

And it's doubtful, I think, that that was her name because you could imagine that if ever you would want to discourage a mother and father from naming their daughter something, you would say, please don't name your daughter Jezebel.

Right? And for good reason. The original Jezebel from the Old Testament was the wife of King Ahab. She was so evil and destructive that Scripture points to their marriage as the pinnacle of Ahab's wickedness.

He had done bad things. The worst thing and the most wicked thing that he ever did was marry this woman. 1 Kings 16.30-31.

Ahab, the son of Omri, it says, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. It came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshipped him.

Baal, or Baal, was a Canaanite god. He was associated with rainstorms and fertility. The rituals of his worship often involved self-mutilation, often involved all kinds of sexually immoral acts.

And as you recall from reading the Old Testament, Israel constantly had a struggle with wanting to go the way of the world and worshipping Baal.

But, under Jezebel and Ahab, it became an officially sanctioned religion. As a result, Jezebel's name became synonymous with the worst evils of false religion as well as the corruption of God's people.

And I know back in the day, they don't really do that anymore, but you would use Jezebel. Oh, she's a real Jezebel. And people knew what you meant. And I don't know that they still do, so maybe we'll have some daughters named Jezebel, but let's hope not.

We need only consider the gruesome details surrounding her death to get a sense of how God's wrath burned against this very vile and wretched woman.

Let me read it to you, 2 Kings 9, 30-37. It's lengthy, but it serves our purposes. When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of the window.

And as Jehu entered the gate, she says, Is it peace? You, Zimri, murderer of your master? And he lifted up his face to the window and said, Who is on my side?

Who? Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. He said, Throw her down. So they threw her down. And some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled on her.

Then he went in and ate and drank, and he said, See now to this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter. But when they went out to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands.

When they came back and told him, he said, This is the word of the Lord which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite. In the territory of Jezreel, the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel, and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, This is Jezebel.

That's pretty. A severe and harsh rebuke of a woman who brought God's wrath upon herself because of just how wicked she was.

Like the Jezebel of the Old Testament, this prophetess in Thyatira was likewise leading God's people into idolatry. Through her blasphemous false teaching, this woman was leading bond slaves of Christ back into their bondage to paganism.

And God didn't take it lightly at all. In fact, when a false teacher leads his children into morality and heresy, Matthew 18, 6-7 says, But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Woe to the world for temptations to sin, for it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptations come. It's not certain what this Jezebel was teaching, but it could have been an early form of Gnosticism, which was a problem that was affecting many churches and was tempting to lead many Christians away from the Lord, away from the truth.

Gnosticism comes from the Greek word for knowledge, which is gnosis. They taught that the physical universe was inherently evil while the spiritual was good.

And that salvation was simply about attaining a kind of mysterious spiritual knowledge. And Gnosticism comes in many different forms still today.

I think of like Scientology is very Gnostic in their beliefs. Again, so while it hasn't survived as it did in the same form that it used to take, the false notion that salvation is simply a function of mental assent still plagues many of our churches today.

Another quote from John MacArthur. He says, Gnostic teaching allowed for a radical disjunction between what people say they believe and how they live their lives. That same inconsistency is pandemic in the church today.

Countless people in supposedly evangelical churches believe that they are saved simply because they walked an aisle and prayed a prayer to receive Christ. They are assured of their salvation regardless of how or whether their supposed salvation manifests itself in their lives.

Proponents of such easy believism make the same fundamental error as the Gnostic. If you say you believe the right thing, it doesn't matter how you live. The result is a false assurance of salvation that tragically leads many people to hell.

And then we continue on with Christ's message in verse 21. There he says, I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

So this woman knew the error of her ways, but she continued to poison the church anyway, and the Lord would deal with her and the heretical teaching that she propagated.

So here we see fifthly in verse 23 that Christ promises a swift and terrible response to the corruption in his church.

Promises a swift and terrible response to the corruption in his church. Verses 22 and 23 again, Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works and I will strike her children dead.

And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart and I will give to each of you according to your works. So as we've talked about in Hosea and we see throughout Scripture that adultery is often used as a reference to spiritual infidelity and the term is fitting throughout Scripture and it also here in this case is literally applicable.

Many pagan religions encouraged fornication as a part of their religious practices. In Corinth for example there were more brothels than there were temples.

Prostitutes served as priestesses of various cults. The fact that Christ calls this Thyatiran woman Jezebel indicates that she and her false teaching had fostered a tolerance of immorality and sexual immorality within the church.

The idea that this woman was guilty of actual adultery is reinforced by Christ warning that he would throw her onto a sickbed. The words sickbed or in your translation it might say sickness do not appear in the original Greek text.

They were added by the translators. The sense is that she and all those who partook with her in this iniquity would be cast together into hell.

This is the word that the Lord is giving to this church. And he continues by saying and I will strike her children dead. Literally translated that would say I will kill her children with death.

This is most likely not in reference to any biological children that she might have had. Rather this Jezebel had wielded influence in the church long enough to have a second generation of followers who followed her teaching.

And so in order to purify his church the Lord threatens to kill her disciples as well. Now you might think this sounds awfully harsh but is it incompatible with scripture?

Remember in Acts chapter 5 verses 1 through 11 with Ananias and Sapphira and they lie to the Holy Spirit and they die instantly as a result of that.

They were struck down. Also as we covered a little bit when we took communion a couple weeks ago 1 Corinthians 11 28 through 29 the Apostle Paul there warns that people in the church will be struck down because of their abuse at the Lord's supper and how they have mistreated it.

In John 5 16 it says there that there is a sin leading to death a sin so serious the Lord takes the person's life.

If the purity of the church is under threat the Lord will remove that threat from the face of the earth. This is compatible with what scripture says.

Now he may do it when we least expect it. We know that he often exercises great patience the way that he had exercised great patience with this Jezebel but it's not guaranteed that he will continue to be patient or that he will be patient for long.

Again we must not imagine that there is an acceptable amount of sin that is okay for the church right? Like a thermometer up we got this much room left for sin so we're good.

No it doesn't work that way. The Lord doesn't tolerate any of it and neither should we. in his time the Lord will move in decisive judgment against those who are corrupting his church and not just for the sake of that individual church he won't do it just for that church's sake who has that corrupting influence he will do it for his church again Christ says he will pour out his wrath so that all the churches will know that I am he who searches mine in heart and I will give to each of you according to your works put simply the Lord would make an example of Thyatira that the other churches would see and it would be a warning to them as well he will use their failure and destruction to then purify others and to display his holiness to all of his people there is finally though a note of encouragement in his words not for the immoral idolaters that were corrupting his church but for that minority that

I spoke of who had remained faithful against the onslaught of Satan and this false teacher Jezebel just as he sees the deeds of the wicked again he sees his faithful remnant in his church and he doesn't close his letter to them without a word of comfort to those who have held fast to his truth throughout all of this and so sixthly we see that Christ gives comfort to the uncorrupted!

in verses 24 and 29 so we have to understand this this is Thyatira not Bartlesville in Bartlesville there's many churches many many churches and so if there's a problem in one church church you're going to whatever the case may be you or them or whatever there's options right we'll leave and we'll go there and unfortunately too many people do this and make a habit of it but you know what I'm saying there are other options well guess what if you lived in Thyatira there was no other option this was your church first baptist church of Thyatira there was no second baptist church so these people had been faithful to this church the only options they had was either I'm going to go to this church that's really suffering under this corruption or

I'm going to stay home they didn't have any other options to those Christians who held fast to the Lord while this church was failing the Lord had this to say verses 24 and 29 but to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold this teaching who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan to you I say do not I do not lay on you any other burden!

Only hold fast what you have until I come the one who conquers and who keeps my words until the end to him I will give authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron as when earthen pots are broken in pieces even as I myself have received authority from my father and I will give him the morning star he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches the Lord always knows his own always knows his own these people had already been bearing many burdens!

Think about it! They're bearing the burden of being in this church that is being influenced by this false teacher this false teaching and so that would be very grievous if you've ever been in a church before where you were really grieved for the things that you saw to be allowed to be taking place in there it's a burden and so the Lord promises I'm not going to add to your burden but he instructs them to hold fast don't go to another church right but wait wait for me to purify that church there and I'm sure that he used those people as his instruments as well to do that very same thing!

He also here uses language from Psalm 2 7 through 9 there it says I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me you are my son today I have begotten you ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel!

So here this is a reference to Christ's millennial kingdom I believe to those who faithfully overcome who persevere to the end who hold fast to the truth there is a promise from our Lord that he will share with them his holy authority the Lord will rule over the rebellious nation with a rod of iron but he will also shepherd his people that's the role he shares with his overcomers!

in his kingdom and there's more he promises and I will give him the morning star what does that mean? well in Revelation yeah amen somebody gets extra credit Revelation 22 16 John tells us that the morning star is none other than Jesus Christ himself let me read that verse to you I Jesus have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the!

I am the root and descendant of David the bright morning star so on this side of heaven Christians have Christ in part we have his spirit indwelling us we have his word with us this is a promise of our future relationship with him when we will know him fully and intimately and completely eagerly anticipating that great day Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 12 for now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now I know in part then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known and so as we think about Barbara and as we think about others who have died in Christ and I hope that you understand what I'm having to say and what I mean to say I hope you get it's really hard to watch somebody you love suffer and it's really hard when they die because we love them and because we selfishly want to keep them in our lives but the joy that we have in knowing that they are with

Christ and they are seeing not in part but fully and there's joy in that that's one of the reasons why you know in the in the funerals that I've done for believers as difficult as it is they're they're joyous occasions as well done in the right way you know what I'm saying but we're saying hey this this follower of Christ has fought the good fight she's run the race he has run the race whomever and they are with the Lord now and forevermore and there's joy and there's peace in knowing that