JRNT 506 03/30/2025 The Tolerating Church Revelation 2:18-29 Jesse Randolph One of the more fascinating, albeit abstract studies that a person can engage in, is the study of how we as humans have thought about certain issues over time. How did we start to think about certain issues and the way that those thoughts are so prevalent today. How have our thoughts on certain subjects, whether political thought, or economic thought, or social thought, or religious thought developed and morphed over the years? The study of the development of thought at least for me is a fascinating one. Well, one of those areas of thoughts that we’ve seen develop and change, over the past many decades, has been in the area of sex. Sexual freedom. Sexual expression. Some will say it all traces back to the summer of ’69. You know, the Haight-Asbury in San Francisco, the summer of love. But that’s really not doing justice to the historical record. No. The historical roots of what we see happening all around us today in terms of how people as they would say it are expressing themselves sexually, goes back more than just 50 years. The roots go back to men like Jean-Jacque Rousseau in the 1700s, and the Romantic philosophers in the 1800s, who were big into pushing the idea of “expressive individualism,” which is the idea that ultimate fulfillment is found in the pursuit of personal happiness. And anything that gets in the way of one’s personal happiness is by definition repressive and oppressive. Then you get to the 1800s and the 1900s and you run into men like Sigmund Freud, who took that idea of the primacy of the pursuit of personal happiness, and channeled those ideas in the direction of sexual expression. With Freud specifically arguing that our sexual desires and the physical expression or satisfaction of those desires is the most basic thing about us. Freud’s thoughts were then carried over to men like Alfred Kinsey, whose thoughts and writings on the subject of sexual diversity and sexual freedom, are largely credited with being the bridge that carried over to the actual sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Then came that sexual revolution during the era of Woodstock and Hendrix and Janis Joplin, which ran parallel to the burgeoning of the second and third waves of feminism. And then came the groundswell of homosexual practice and approval. And then came transgenderism and ideas of gender fluidity. And now here we are, living in a world where God’s design for human sexuality is regularly mocked. And man’s inventiveness in turning God’s design on its head is regularly celebrated. I bring all this up because these historical developments in the area of human sexuality have taken place not only out there in the world. Rather, these notions of sexual advance, which really is sexual confusion and sexual chaos and sexual deviance, have infiltrated the church. Divorce, I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics by now, is a plague upon the church. Pornography usage among men and women alike, lay people and ministers alike, is off the chart. You don’t have to drive very far in this town to find a church whose marquee is draped in a rainbow flag, or find a church that has a transgender flag in its foyer. There are even a couple of websites which market the ability for so-called-Christian couples to swing. To find other ostensible Christian couples from ostensible “Christian marriages” to have sexual relations with. The question then is no longer whether we are living in modern-day Sodom. The question, rather, has become how much of Sodom has entered the church. Now obviously developments like these did not happen overnight. At its founding in 1866, First Plymouth Church here in Lincoln would not, as it does today, have a ministry called the “Plymouth Pride Fellowship.” When they were founded just a couple years later, First Baptist Church in Lincoln and First Lutheran Church in Lincoln were not pastored by women as they are today. No. Those sinful ideas and those rebellious practices reared their ugly heads many, many years ago. And they did so when a leader of those churches, or leaders in those churches, caught wind of someone’s crazy idea which promoted the idea of openly rebelling against God’s design. And though there undoubtedly would have been an initial reluctance at that time to openly embrace rebellion, the leaders of those churches, whether it was in the 60s, or the 70s, or the 80s, or the 90s, felt the pressure. They felt the pressure to “get with the program.” They felt uneasy with the word that everyone is afraid of being tagged with these day, “intolerant.” And they felt the desire to be well-thought-of and forward thinking and courageous. And that was it. The ship of sanity had sailed. The fight for biblical fidelity was over and churches like those ultimately careened off a cliff. Now, the doors of those churches and churches like those are still open. No one’s denying that. There is always some level of appetite in this world for religious gatherings which pander to the most base, carnal cravings of the people who attend them. But eventually those churches will die. And eventually each of those members of those churches, their ears having been tickled, and their lustful desires having been stoked, and their ignorance having been celebrated, will regret ever having attended them. As they realize that their membership in those churches brought them no closer to knowing Christ. And who’s to blame for all of that? I mean, we could go a number of different directions with that question. Who’s to blame? We could blame Adam, right? For causing sin to enter into this world in the first place. We could blame Satan for blinding the eyes of unbelievers, even churched unbelievers. But on a more immediate level, a more human level, a more local level, I’d say that the blame ultimately lies with the first generation of the leaders in churches like those. That first line of defense, who after they caught that first whiff of error that was starting to blow through their doors, instead of taking a stand, instead of doing something about it, instead of putting a stop to it, they looked the other way. They covered their eyes. They covered their ears. They covered their mouths. They tolerated the evil that was now infiltrating their churches. That brings us to our text for this evening where we’re going to see the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ addressing a church which was tolerating evil in its midst. Turn with me in your Bibles, please, to Revelation 2. We are going to finish Revelation 2 tonight as we go through 18-29, the fourth of the letters to the churches. Revelation 2:18. It says, “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: This is what the Son of God, the One who has eyes like a flame of fire and His feet are like burnished bronze, says: ‘I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your last deeds are greater than at first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives My slaves so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent, and she does not wish to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not have this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them, I place no other burden on you. Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come. And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also 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.’” So far in our study of Revelation chapter 2, we’ve looked at these three churches to whom Christ sent a letter. And as we’ve seen, only one of those churches received a truly high mark. An “A” grade you could say, and that was the church at Smyrna, the suffering church. We’ve seen that the church at Ephesus was this church that had lost its first love. Last Sunday night, we looked at the church at Pergamum, which was a church that was starting to compromise. And now tonight, we look at this church at Thyatira. Which, like Ephesus and like Pergamum, Christ will commend in certain ways, but He’s going to critique them and criticize them in others. And, as we’re about to see, this was the tolerating church. Whereas Pergamum’s chief flaw was that they were compromised, in that they let falsehood in, the chief flaw of the church at Thyatira was that they tolerated that falsehood and let it stay and they let it linger in their midst and they refused to put it out. As with the other letters to the churches that we’ve gone through so far, it’s important that we get some of the context here and get some of the background of the city and the culture that this church was set in. For starters, the city of Thyatira was the smallest of the cities on Jesus’ mailing list. But interestingly it receives the most words. It’s the longest of the seven letters. It sat on the same postal route that we’ve looked at over the past few Sunday evenings. It was an inland city. It was about 40 miles southeast of Pergamum. And unlike the cities that we’ve looked at so far where they had decorated museums and libraires and such, Thyatira didn’t have all that much going on for it. Pliny the historian, described Thyatira as an “unimportant town.” It was sort of this little dusty, frontier town. It was known as a small armed garrison, and its main purpose actually was to guard and protect the larger more prestigious city, Pergamum, that sat 40 miles beyond its borders. And this small city of Thyatira, it did paid a price for its role as protector. It did get involved in many different battles over the years. And this city Thyatira was conquered and destroyed and rebuilt over and over. Now in terms of the religious landscape of the city, unlike the first 3 cities we’ve looked at, Thyatira actually didn’t have any major religious force. There was no dominant religion that we can point to happening in the town. They did have a couple of local idols that aren’t even worth mentioning here by name. But they didn’t have a dominant thrust in terms of its religious makeup. They were not as nearly as religious, I guess you could say, a community as Ephesus or Smyrna or Pergamum. Now in terms of the commercial life in Thyatira, it was like your classic Rust Belt town. It was like a Cleveland or a Buffalo or a Pittsburgh. It was an industrial town, where men were involved in many different trades, clothing and tanning and dying and pottery and bronze working. We know a bit about the industrious nature of this town from Acts 16, where Thyatira is described as that city where Lydia was from, the one who dealt in purple fabrics. Another thing we know about Thyatira though is that they had these trade guilds that were very prevalent in this city. These were like our equivalent of modern day, labor unions. If you worked in Thyatira at this time in one of these trades, you would have had to be in a trade guild that matched your trade. Tanners joined the tanners’ guild, blacksmiths joined the blacksmiths guild, and so on. And why I bring that up, and we’ll get to this later in the message, is that every one of those guilds in Thyatira had a patron deity, a little case “g” god. And that was the extent of their religious tradition there. And that patron deity of each of those guilds was supposed to make the careers of those in those industries flourish. But Thyatira was this hard working town. The people there earned their living the old-fashioned way. These were folks who had dirt under their fingernails. And it was into this town that at some point the Lord brought and established a church. We don’t know the exact date. We don’t know which evangelist or preacher first brought the gospel to Thyatira, but we do know what the book of Acts teaches us in Acts 19:10, that “all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.” That all of Asia would include Thyatira. So with that we get into our text, verse 18, where we see this early church in Thyatira was first addressed by Christ to its messenger, to its angel. Verse 18, “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write.” As I’ve mentioned now and you could probably preach this part of the sermon already for me, but the angel there is that word “angelo,” which is a transliteration of the word “angelo,” which doesn’t mean angel like we think of the word “angel,” but rather means messenger. And in the context of these letters, the messenger of this church at Thyatira would have been the pastor of the church. So we could even say it this way, “to the pastor of the church at Thyatira write.” And then note who it is who is writing to this church. Look at how He identifies Himself as He addresses this pastor here in Thyatira. It says, “the Son of God.” “This is what the Son of God, the One who has eyes like a flame of fire and His feet are like burnished bronze, says.” There’s something unique and interesting happening already here at the beginning of this letter as Christ here in His glory addresses this letter to Thyatira by introducing himself as the Son of God. Now interestingly, this is the only place in the book of Revelation where Jesus Himself refers to Himself as the Son of God. And what’s the significance of that? Well, Son of God we know is a title that highlights His deity. And so it seems He wants the people at Thyatira through their pastor to know that the One who is writing this letter to them is God. You know, we live in a day and a time where a lot of different churches and a lot of different pastors will say, “I’m receiving a word from the Lord.” This church actually did, directly from God, a word from God. That referring to Himself here as the Son of God, Jesus is stressing His deity, His transcendence, His holiness, His coming judgment. This heretofore sympathetic Savior is revealing Himself here as the just Judge of all the earth. Next we see some familiar descriptors of the Son of God as He prepares to give His evaluation of the church at Thyatira. First, we see that His “eyes are like a flame of fire,” it says. That’s a reference back to Revelation 1:14, where in his vision you recall of the ascended and glorified Christ, John notes, that “His eyes were like a flame of fire.” And that reference to Christ’s fiery eyes are a reference to His divine omniscience. His eyes are like penetrating laser beams. They cut through darkness that’s brought about by sin and disobedience. And they are able to reveal what’s behind the thickest masks of hypocrisy. Those eyes can search the remotest recesses of the corners of every sinful and rebellious human heart. There truly isn’t anything, Hebrews 4:13, that is “hidden from His sight.” That’s a more important point, that there is nothing hidden from these fiery eyes. Whether it was in Thyatira in 95 A.D. or there abouts, or Lincoln in 2025 A.D., to know there’s nothing that the risen and ascended God/Man does not know about His churches. There’s nothing that He doesn’t know about any individual in His churches. He knows those things that are good that are happening in His churches and He knows those things that are bad. He knows the good fruit and He knows the rotten fruit. He knows every single one of us. Right now He looks upon each of our hearts and He knows where our true affections lie. He knows what our weeks were like over the past seven days. He knows where we’ve stumbled. He knows where we’ve sinned. He’s able to spot those hearts that are truly turned to Him. At the same time, He is able to spot those who are faking it, all the way through. He’s a consuming fire, “our God is a consuming fire,” Hebrews 12:29 says and Jesus’ eyes here are described as being ablaze with fire. Nothing escapes His gaze. With that, His focus shifts from the head to the feet. Look at the end of verse 18, where it says, “His feet are like burnished bronze.” Bronze, we know, is an alloy. It’s a composition of copper and zinc, and that alloy material makes it both pure and strong. So what’s being pictured here with those burnished bronze feet is Christ’s commitment to the church’s purity and its holiness. But not only that, it’s what’s being symbolized here or described, is that He has the strength that’s needed to refine His church toward greater and greater purity. With those same feet we know that Christ will one day trample down in judgment all the sin that occurs in this world. Revelation 19:15 says, He will “tread[] the wine press of the wrath of the rage of God.” But for now, as 1 Peter 4:17 says, judgment begins with the household of God. And so, in the current Church Age the Lord stands ready to trample out any sin in His church. Now right away, with those descriptors that are being used here, the “Son of God,” the “eyes like a flame of fire,” the “feet like burnished bronze,” this church at Thyatira reading the first few words of this letter would have known that the tone of this letter in the end was not overall going to be positive, that there would be some words of correction and rebuke coming. Right here in these opening verses there’s words being used and symbolism being used that judgement is about to come on this church for its waywardness and its sinful ways. So verse 18 represents the opening address from Christ to the church. And then verse 19 marks the formal beginning of His letter to this church at Thyatira. And as He does so with the churches at Ephesus and Smyrna, and Pergamum, Christ begins this letter to the church at Thyatira with these words of commendation. Words of affirmation. Words of encouragement. Look at verse 19. He says “I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your last deeds are greater than at first.” Now a few things to point out here. First, there’s that Greek verb that we’ve noted before, “know.” That’s the word “oida” which means perfect, comprehensive knowledge of any given subject. Meaning Christ here has absolute, total knowledge of the situation at Thyatira. As the omniscient Creator God, He knew everything about this church and everything happening in this church. Meaning there were no skeletons in the closet, no shadowy dark corners of the sanctuary. No, it was all in the light, it was all exposed, it was all being done in His sight. Second, this church is given this commendation, this multipart commendation by Christ. They’re commended for their love, it says, their faith, their service, their perseverance. Now note how carefully each of those traits that He’s commending them for, compared to one of the previous churches that we’ve looked at. This church at Thyatira had perseverance, “hupomene.” They were able to “bear up under.” They were remaining steadfast. They were remaining faithful under pressure. They were not giving up. Who else did we see who had perseverance? The church at Ephesus. The church at Thyatira it says also had faith. Who else had faith as demonstrated by their commitment to sound doctrine? The church at Ephesus. The church at Thyatira also it says, verse 19, had service, “diakonia,” the word from which we get our word “deacon.” Carries the idea of being a servant or servant oriented. Who else demonstrated servanthood? The church at Ephesus. But do you remember what the church at Ephesus was lacking? Love. They had lost their first love, their first love for Jesus Christ. Not Thyatira. Thyatira had all of the positive attributes of that otherwise strong church at Ephesus. But it had even more going for it than Ephesus. It had the very thing Ephesus lacked -- love. It’s listed right here in verse 19, “I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance.” They had love. It’s “agape” there, that self-sacrificial love that was most perfectly demonstrated by Jesus Christ dying for our sins. So Thyatira had a lot going on. They had a lot going on for them. This is a good church. It’s a solid church. Not only is it a solid church, it’s a thriving church. The Lord was blessing this church. You see that there at the end of verse 19, “your last deeds are greater than at first.” Or the NASB has it as “your latest deeds are greater than at first.” Again, that’s distinguishing Thyatira from Ephesus. The Lord at Ephesus told them they needed to “repent and do the deeds they did at first.” Not Thyatira, they were doing those deeds. They were firing on all cylinders. They were doing more and more for Christ and they were doing it with the right heart for Christ and they were doing so “all the more as they saw that day,” Hebrews 10:25, “drawing near.” This church was an A+ church. This church was a gold star church. Or so it seemed. As we’re about to see, this letter starts with these words of encouragement, these words of promise. But now it’s all downhill. It’s all downhill from here because Christ’s assessment of this church is about to quickly go from being fully positive to negative. He’s about to give them words of affirmation to words of condemnation. There were some real problems in this church. Look at verse 20. He says, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives My slaves so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.” Now when the Lord here says, “but I have this against you,” we’re still in the immediate context of the Lord addressing an angelo, a messenger, the pastor of this church at Thyatira. He’s speaking to one of those stars, Revelation 1:20, the Lord says He holds in His right hand. So, at a high level it’s the chief leader, it’s the angel, the angelo, the pastor of the church who’s being rebuked here by the Lord of the church, Jesus. And note what He says, “I have this against you [pastor], that you tolerate the woman Jezebel.” That’s our key word for this message. Tolerate. The word Christ uses here for “tolerate” is actually a word that the Greek word “forgive” relates to. But in context here, the word means to permit, to allow, to look the other way. What Jesus here was saying to this church at Thyatira and specifically to the pastor of this church at Thyatira, was that you, pastor, are responsible for “shepherd[ing] the flock of God among you,” 1 Peter 5:2. And you, pastor are responsible for dealing with the sin that’s in your midst, 1 Corinthians 5:13, to remove the wicked man from among you. And you, pastor are, Titus 1:9, responsible not only for exhorting in sound doctrine, but refuting those who contradict. And yet you, pastor at Thyatira, are tolerating these things. You’re permitting these things. You’re allowing these things. You, pastor, are asleep at the wheel. But the Lord isn’t asleep. The Lord never slumbers or sleeps. And He wasn’t about to let this church and its pastor off the hook in terms of being accountable for their lack of care and lack of concern. And what was it? What was the issue here? What was it that this church, what was it that this pastor had allowed to creep into the midst of the church at Thyatira? Better said, who was it that this pastor and this church allowed to creep into their midst? The answer is right there in verse 20, “the woman Jezebel.” Jezebel was the one who had crept in. Who was Jezebel? Now right away I should mention that I don’t believe this was a woman with the actual name “Jezebel.” And I make that point very simply from the standpoint of at this point in history, I believe parents had long ceased naming their daughters Jezebel. Just like in our day we just don’t see Adolfs anymore. Instead, what I think is happening here, is what we saw back with the letter to Pergamum where an Old Testament reference is being pulled in to make a spiritual point. Back at the letter to Pergamum, Balaam was the Old Testament reference. Here the letter to Thyatira, Jezebel is the Old Testament reference. I think the big idea here is showing how hundreds of years later, God’s people now in the church are allowing the same errors to be repeated that were repeated by their forefathers back in Israel. So, though the name Jezebel wouldn’t have appeared on this woman’s birth certificate, I do believe the Lord here is intentionally linking her to the Old Testament figure Jezebel, to make a point about the woman who was now wreaking spiritual havoc in Thyatira. Now to understand how the Lord is bringing this reference in and how that reference applies to the church now in this town, we do need to spend some time reviewing who the Old Testament figure Jezebel was. To put it very simply, Jezebel was an awful woman. What Judas was in the New Testament, Jezebel was in the Old. She was married to Ahab. Ahab was one of many wicked kings in the north during the period of Israel’s divided kingdom. And while Ahab was quite wicked in his own right, you know he was this king who supported the false worship of false gods in the northern territory, the Northern Kingdom. Things only got worse for him when he married Jezebel. Jezebel was the daughter of a pagan king of Sidon. And his name was EthBa’al. And she worshiped Ba’al, she worshipped the Ashterah, who are the major male and female deities of the day. Jezebel was a practitioner of witchcraft. She personally supported hundreds of false prophets of God. She opposed God’s chosen prophet, Elijah. She stood for all that was wicked in this land. She opposed all that was good. She was truly an awful woman. One of the more memorable incidents recorded in Old Testament about the life of Jezebel is when she came across her husband, I’m sure you remember this story, King Ahab. And King Ahab is throwing a tantrum, an absolute tantrum, weeping all over his bed because he can’t have this man’s vineyard, this man Naboth, and he wants his vineyard. In fact, it’s worth going through the account. Turn with me over to 1 Kings 21. We’re going to encounter the original Jezebel and see why she was so wicked, or one of the instances of her wickedness. 1 Kings 21 says, “Now it happened after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, ‘Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden because it is close beside my house, and I will give you a better vineyard than it in its place; if it is good in your sight, I will give you the price of it in money.’ But Naboth said to Ahab, ‘Yahweh forbid me that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.’ So Ahab came into his house sullen and enraged because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he said, ‘I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.’ And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and ate no food. But Jezebel,” verse 5, “his wife came to him and said to him, ‘How is it that your spirit is so sullen that you are not eating food?’ So he said to her, ‘Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, “Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it pleases you, I will give you a vineyard in its place.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’” I’m sorry to have to say this, but what a wimp! I mean talk about a guy that never experienced the rod on his backside. He’s just whining. Well, the account continues and we see that His wife Jezebel has to fight his battles for him and she sees her husband there moping in this puddle of anger. And she takes action, verse 7. It says, “And Jezebel his wife said to him, ‘Do you not exercise kingship over Israel?” (That’s her way of saying, “Get up, wimp.”) “Arise, eat bread, and let your heart be merry; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.’” So not only did Ahab not have his vineyard at this point, he doesn’t even have the respect of his wife. You can feel the scorn and the embarrassment in her words. And then, because she apparently wore the pants in the family, she takes action. Look at verse 8, “So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal, and sent letters to the elders and to the nobles who were living with Naboth in his city. And she wrote in the letters, saying, ‘Call for a fast and seat Naboth at the head of the people; and seat two vile men before him, and let them testify against him, saying, “You cursed God and the king.” Then take him out and stone him so that he will die.’ So the men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them, just as it was written in the letters which she had sent them. They called for a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the people. Then the two vile men came in and sat before him; and the vile men testified before him, against Naboth, before the people, saying, ‘Naboth cursed God and the king.’ So they took him outside the city and stoned him with stones and he died.” So through Jezebel’s treachery, her wickedness, her lying, Naboth was murdered. Look at now verses 14 16. “Then they sent word to Jezebel, saying, ‘Naboth has been stoned and is dead.’ Now it happened that when Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, ‘Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.’ Now it happened that when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab arose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.” So, because his wife had done the dirty work for him, Ahab got his vineyard. And what Jezebel got, we learn later, was a curse. We learn in 1 Kings 21:23 that it was prophesied of her that she would one day be eaten by dogs in Jezreel and that’s exactly what happens in 2 Kings 9:33-37. So if there ever were a wicked woman profiled in Scripture, it was Jezebel. She was a woman who brought sin and corruption to God’s people. She was a woman who brought idolatry and immorality to God’s people. And she was a woman who God eventually dealt with by removing her from His people and ultimately from the planet as dogs ate her. So now back to Revelation and the letter to this church at Thyatira, written to by the Lord. Jesus now brings this image of evil Jezebel in as he addresses the church. Verse 20. This woman in Thyatira, Jezebel, it says, “calls herself a prophetess.” In other words, she was calling herself a spokeswoman for God. However, the things that she was saying as this so-called spokeswoman didn’t line up with what God said. She wasn’t teaching the truth. Her lessons weren’t in keeping with God’s Word. Rather, the text tells us that like the Nicolaitans and the Balaamites over in Pergamum, and like the false prophets that we see in books like 2 Peter and Jude and 1 John, this woman was leading people astray. And we see in verse 20, the next part of verse 20, that her teaching had real consequences. Her teaching it says, was leading people to “commit sexual immorality and to eat things sacrificed to idols.” So those who were under the sway of this woman Jezebel in Thyatira, were being led astray into these two specific areas of idolatry and sexual immorality. They were being drawn into this pit, sucked into this trap of two particular sins that have plagued God’s people now for centuries. Let’s start with idolatry. Idolatry, to elevate anything, something or someone, above God and attempt to dethrone Him from His place of superiority. And then immorality which in a broad sense applies to anything that deviates from God’s holy standards. But here as you see, it refers to something very specific. It has a sexual connotation. The word here is “porneuo.” So it’s rightly been translated in the LSB as not just immorality, but “sexual immorality.” Meaning, the Jezebel of Thyatira wasn’t just teaching a broadly immoral message, it was a sexually immoral message. Much like the sexually immoral messaging we’re seeing seeping into churches today. Well, how was this happening? How was Jezebel’s messaging seeping back into this church and how was it sexually immoralness? How can we tie this all together? Well, to do that we need to go back to the guilds that I mentioned awhile back. Recall that being a member of a guild in Thyatira at this time was mandatory. And as I mentioned, every single one of those guilds in Thyatira had a patron deity. And in the case of some of these guilds, worshiping that guild’s patron deity would have involved the person doing the worship in some form of idolatry. Including eating things sacrificed to idols and some of these patron deities required some form of sexually immoral behavior as an act of worship of that deity. So, let’s say you were a blacksmith in the city of Thyatira at this time. And suddenly you’ve gotten saved. You’ve put your faith in Jesus Christ. You’ve publicly professed that Jesus Christ is Lord and the Savior of your life. And so know you are thinking and saying, “I can’t worship this patron deity of my old blacksmith guild, and I can’t engage in these practices of immorality or idolatry that are associated with worshiping the patron deity of my blacksmith guild.” You’re in a bind. Right? Because if you’re not in a guild, you don’t have a job. If you’re not actively involved in that guild, you lose your job. If you’re not actively involved in the worship of the deities that go along with that guild, you’re out of work. That’s where Jezebel came in. Because what she was doing in this church context in Thyatira, was teaching people that they could stay in their trade guilds, and they could continue to worship the false gods associated with their trade guilds, and they could return to their former bondage to their old pagan practices, their old immoral, sexually immoral, idolatrous ways and they could still call themselves a Christian. Now we know going all the way back to the Ten Commandments of Moses and Exodus chapter 20, that God has always called the worship of false gods a sin and a sin that requires repentance. To turn from that sin and worship the one true and living God. And as with any sin, as long as a person is breathing, there is always an opportunity to repent of that sin. And Jesus mentions that here in verse 21, as He’s addressing the church in Thyatira. He says, “and I gave her time to repent.” He’s talking about Jezebel there. “I was merciful toward her. I was patient toward her. I was slow to anger toward her.” But then look at what comes next. “And she does not wish to repent of her sexual immorality.” Big picture concept here. A Christian by definition is a repentant person. A Christian is one who admits their sin and confesses their sin. A Christian is one who falls on their sword as they commit to fleeing from whatever sin once entrapped them. If you call yourself a Christian and you commit a sin, you say you’ve repented, and you go on engaging in that very sin though you say you have repented, you’re not living according to the way of Christ. You’re living according to the way of Jezebel. That’s what’s happening here. The Jezebel of Thyatira did not want to adopt and submit to Christ’s will. She wanted to do things her way, not the Lord’s way. This was a hard-hearted woman who ultimately didn’t care whether what she was doing was right or wrong. She wasn’t seeking to serve the Lord. This was a self-centered woman, a self-loving woman, a self-deceived woman. Now, as we turn to verse 22, we see this rather shocking statement in light of her lack of repentance. Look what Jesus says. “Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness.” The Lord here is saying, “She wanted a bed of sexual immorality? Well, she got her bed. I’m now throwing her on a bed of sickness.” There have been a number of figures mentioned in the Bible, whose sin ultimately brings about death. Korah. Lot’s wife. Aaron. Moses. Ananias and Sapphira who lied to the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 5. King Herod, who was eaten by worms when he fails to give God the glory. Those in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 11, who were irreverent in how they approached the Lord’s Table. Now that doesn’t mean that the next time you get sick, that necessarily means you’re in sin. We can’t paint with such broad strokes. But it can happen. That can be the case. And it did happen here with Jezebel in Thyatira, where the Lord was now, in her lack of repentance and her sin, was going to throw on a bed of sickness. It’s not just Jezebel though who is going to be impacted by this. It was going to be her associates as well. They would be impacted, too. Look at the end of verse 22. There were “those who [were] committing adultery with her.” Meaning she had followers. Jezebel was an influencer. There were people that were following her example there in the church as they engaged in similar acts of spiritual immorality and adultery. And now what the Lord was saying to them is that unless they turned their backs on their evil deeds of idolatry and sexual immorality that Jezebel had sucked them into, and now turned their face in repentance to God, they would face this “great tribulation” that Jezebel did. They would face their own experience of severe judgment and suffering. So like Jezebel, her followers needed to repent. Or else they would be thrown on that “bed of sickness.” Then look at verse 23. It says, “and I will kill her children with pestilence.” Note who was going to receive the brunt of God’s punishment because of Jezebel’s wicked teachings there in Thyatira. It wouldn’t ultimately be the pastor. I mean, he was called out by Jesus here, but he gets no further words addressed to him. It wasn’t Jezebel. She just got sick. It wasn’t her accomplices. All they got was “great tribulation” meaning in this context, sickness of their own. It was the next generations! To them, God says, “I will kill you.” Specifically with “pestilence.” The word here for pestilence is the word “death.” The literally rendering here is “I will kill her children with death.” It’s a terrifying scene. It’s a harrowing scene that’s being portrayed here. I’m just going to zoom out for a minute and get into our shoes and our context for a moment. I mean, all of what is happening here in Thyatira should have led to some serious soul-searching in this context of this church that was tolerating evil in its midst. Whenever we read one of these letters, though they have their historical context, we always have to bring the spotlight back on ourselves as a church, and ask some hard questions of ourselves as a church. And ask things like what are the things that we tolerate in our midst? That was the main problem here in Thyatira. So what are those areas of tolerance or toleration that we see happening in our midst? Is it young adults engaging in sexual immorality? Is it allowing believers to date unbelievers? Is it sort of looking the other way at upside down homes where the wife rules the roost? Is it adopting the world’s definition of permissible grounds for divorce, and allowing those to override what the Scriptures actually teach? Is it unbiblical views of manhood and womanhood? Is it being okay with drunkenness? Okay with lying and dishonesty? Looking the other way about the sin of anger or the sin of pride? Embracing gossip, backbiting, spreading of strife? Is it wrong views of the priority of the church in one’s life? Or the lack thereof? Is it disobedience to parents? Is it defiling and coarse speech? Is it the seven things the Lord hates laid out in Proverbs 6:16? “Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,… hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked thoughts, feet that hasten to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies,… one who spreads strife among brothers.” Is it the deeds of the flesh in Galatians 5:19? “Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing.” Where are the areas of compromise? Where’s that levee of sin about to break? As we each seek to love and serve one another, as we each seek to minister God’s word to one another out of love, we have to be willing to help our fellow brothers and sisters in this endeavor. We have to be unwilling to compromise on truth. We have to be unwilling to be tolerant of sin. We have to be unwilling to look the other way when it comes to sin. What Jesus’ letter to church of Thyatira is telling us, is that there is someone here who knows about your sin. Who knows about your double-mindedness. Who knows about your hard-heartedness. Who knows about your sinfully, slanderous speech. Who knows about your wandering eye. And is tolerating it. They aren’t loving you. Rather what they are doing is harboring you as you coddle your pet sin. And that’s not love. And both of you, you who are in this sin and the one who is looking the other way at your sin, and now all of us, we all run the risk now of falling into that very trap that Jezebel and her followers were falling into. It's a serious passage, isn’t it? It forces every one of us to wrestle with the question, am I ultimately all about serving God or serving men? Is my interest ultimately in God’s will being done or my will being done? Is my interest in seeing God’s pleasures and His purposes accomplished or maintaining my own sense of comfort? Is my interest in purging the sin that’s still clinging, or holding on to it and petting it and harboring it? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, as we work through these letters, but the Lord doesn’t mess around when it comes to His church. To His bride. And why would the Lord do what he’s described doing in this letter? Why would He bring down this divine hammer of judgment on Thyatira? Why the talk of sickbeds and death and killing children? The Lord tells us, in this second part of verse 23. It says, “and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” What the Lord would do in Thyatira to Jezebel and her followers, and what He will do to churches like Thyatira today who have that spirit of Jezebel, is bring judgment. He’s the One who searches, He says, minds and hearts. The omniscient, omnipotent, resurrected, ascended Messiah and Savior, will “give to each one of us,” He says, “according to your deeds.” Those are words of judgment. A judgment that’s going to be swift and furious. And what this is ultimately is a call to repentance for churches corporately that are wayward, and for individuals within churches that are wayward. But note, there’s still another group in this church. He addresses them, the Lord does, in verses 24-25. He says, “But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not have this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them, I place no other burden on you. Nevertheless, what you have, hold fast until I come.” What He’s saying there is if you are a Christian there in Thyatira -- I know there’s just one church there at this point in history -- and I know there’s only one church that you can go to -- and I know that you’re being faithful and you’re not being swayed by Jezebel’s teachings. In other words, there was a faithful remnant in Thyatira. Those who were not falling for the influence or Jezebel’s false dangerous teaching. They weren’t falling for what Christ here calls “the deep things of Satan.” Now in context, those words, “the deep things of Satan,” would be the teaching that God is indifferent to your disobedience. He’s indifferent to your sin. He’s tolerant of your immorality. He’s okay with you clinging to the vestiges of your old, pagan way of life. Now you can be okay with God, but yet live however you want. You see churches around the world going down through the annals of church history, or even today, even in this town, have been penetrated by that very false teaching, infected with theological liberalism and that are eating up this idea of “the deep things of Satan.” That you can be a Christian, call yourself a Christian, but live just like the world. It’s prevalent today. But here in Thyatira, there was this group, the rest, it says, who are in Thyatira, who do not have, or hold to, this teaching. There was still a group that realized that her teachings, Jezebel’s teachings, were wrong, they were in error. And that faithful group, that remnant didn’t take the bait. So to that group, in verse 24 He says, end of the verse, “I place no other burden on you.” And why would He? They were getting it, they understood what it truly means to follow Christ. And then He says to that faithful group, verse 25, “Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come.” He’s saying, “Continue. Continue, as you have done. Continue to resist this demonic teaching, the deep things of Satan, and persevere, hold fast, be faithful to the end.” And for those who do hold fast, for those who overcomes, as it says in verse 26, meaning those who conquer… those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God… 1 John 5:5, for he who, it says, “keeps My deeds until the end,” recognizing that good works are the fruit of our salvation, not the root of our salvation, Ephesians 2:10, “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” For such people there that were persevering, that were overcoming, that were keeping His deeds until the end, verse 26. For those people in Thyatira and for those who are part of the global church throughout the centuries. Look at what the Lord promises them in the second half of verse 26 all the way into verse 27. He says, “to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from my Father.” And that is just as it sounds. That is a promise to those who endure, to those who persevere, to those who refuse to buy into the Jezebelian lies. That we will one day inherit a kingdom. We will one day, in Christ’s future kingdom here on earth, rule over the nations with our Savior, with the King, Jesus Christ. As Christ has been given authority by the Father, so will Christ share that authority with us as He rules over the nations. This is a Psalm 2:9 reference, with His “rod of iron.” Then He says He will give something else to those who overcome. Verse 28, He says, “and I will give him the morning star.” Turn with me to Revelation 22:16 to get the basis of that reference. Revelation 22:16. One of the final verses of the Bible. The Lord there says “I, Jesus, sent My angel to bear witness to you of these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” So there we have it. Jesus, going back to Revelation 2:28, is the “morning star.” So, as is true of all the other letters, even the three that we’ve looked at so far, here in Revelation 2:28, to the saints at Thyatira, Jesus is promising those believers Himself. We will not only get to rule in the kingdom with Him, we will get the King of that Kingdom Himself. That’s what He is saying here. And then a final word, verse 29, and it’s common to all these letters. He says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” “He who has an ear” is another way of saying, “Listen up, pay attention, don’t tune this part out.” And what needs to be heard is what this letter teaches not only to the ancient church at Thyatira, but to all churches, all over the world, for all centuries. Which is that you can be a church which has historically been marked by love and faith and service and perseverance and good deeds, and yet you can still have your wick snuffed out, because you invited the world into your church. Because you let Sodom into your sanctuary. And not only that, you looked the other way. You looked the other way as the wicked wisdom of the world choked out all the good that it otherwise had been happening in your church. Those are sobering, yet needed words to close on. As we remember that most apostate churches today, which are being championed for their tolerance and their inclusivity, most apostate church didn’t start that way. Most weren’t born apostate. Rather, most apostate churches today were once faithful churches, gospel-rooted churches, Bible-teaching churches. But when Satan wedged his foot in the door of those churches, however many years ago, each of those churches had a choice. They could slam the door on his foot and crush his toes and keep him out. Or they could, as a means of being tolerant, give his wicked ideologies a forum, as they sought to win the approval of the world. I’m reminded of a classic book by the evangelist and preacher, Leonard Ravenhill. And the title of the book is “Sodom Had No Bible.” Think about that just for a minute. “Sodom Had No Bible.” What’s he saying there? We do. That is a rebuke. That title alone is a rebuke. It’s a rebuke to the unfaithful church which has the Bible, yet casts it aside for the sake of being tolerant. May we always be a church which avoids the pit that Thyatira fell in to. May we be a church which, we not only have the Bible, but we stand on the Bible, no matter how intolerant it may make us seem, no matter the cost. Let’s pray. Father, we thank You for the clarity of Your Word. We thank You for the power of Your Word. We thank You for the timelessness of Your Word. We do thank You for these letters to the churches that our Lord Jesus sent. All these years ago across the seas to these seemingly remote places that are so far from us in terms of time and distance. But ultimately we see ourselves in these diagnosis of these churches. We see the perils and the risks and the dangers of getting off center, of drifting from what Your Word reveals. God, everything that’s been said tonight, it is ultimately not a statement of judgment on those that have gone astray, but ultimately a statement of protection for this church. May we be a church who stands firm. May we be a church who is uncompromising. May we be a church that is intolerant. Intolerant of ungodly ideologies. Intolerant of unbiblical ideas. Help us to be faithful, God. We want to honor our Lord. We want to honor Jesus Christ in all we do. We want to give You praise and glory and not have those simply be throw-away words at the end of a prayer. We want to honor what the Word says. Every jot and tittle. Even genealogies like this morning. We want to read those and appreciate those and see You working through those as we seek to apply the truth of Your Word to our lives. God, help us to be a faithful church. I praise You, God, for what You have done in this church over the past many centuries. But help us to be faithful going forward. Help us to honor You as we stand on truth for Your glory. In Christ’s name. Amen.