Only went through half of it intentionally, so I had planned it because I figured I probably wasn't gonna be able to get through it the first time. So we're just gonna quick review and then we'll jump in where we left off and Lord willing we'll get done a little early so that we can quickly get through our business meeting. That way you all can get on your way home before the roads get a little too slick. Before we do that though, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for all that you have done for us. We recognize that it is because of Christ that we even have life and he is our life and so we thank and praise you for it. Thank you for giving us your word. Thank you for giving us this space to be able to look at it and to read it and to gather truths from it that we can apply to our lives. I just pray today that you would make it clear and that we would be changed people having been exposed to the truth of your word. We ask to be glorified in Jesus' name, amen. Thyatira, I'm gonna actually read, as you already know, chapter one really sets the stage for the entire book. And in chapter one, we see that Christ basically gives his purpose in writing this entire letter. The book of Revelation itself was a letter that was to be distributed amongst all the various congregations. But then, within this letter, there were many little letters that Christ also had with messages for people. for specific churches, actually, and these seven churches are the ones we are looking at. So in chapter one, Christ basically sets the stage for that, and then chapters two through three, he gives his messages to the seven churches, and we already have looked at some of these, but we're gonna jump down and actually begin in Thyatira, in chapter two of Revelation, verse 18. And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things which the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass, I know thy works, and thy charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and the last be more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into 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 the hearts. And I will give every one of you according to your works. But unto you, I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden. but that which ye have already, hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him 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, and I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. These are the seven churches, as you can see on the screen. We've already looked at Ephesus, Myrna, and Pergamum. Each of these churches would have been the natural route from which the letter would have taken, because John is on Patmos. He is exiled there, and so he is sending a letter to these churches, and as you can see, the natural order for him to follow would have been Ephesus, Myrna, Pergamum, and as you can see in our text of scripture, that is the order that he follows. We're looking at Thyatira. And each of the letters has a specific format, this one being no different. It begins with an address, both to who the letter is to, as well as who it is from. And whenever Christ gives who it is from, he gives a very specific description of who he is. And each of those descriptions really is kind of derived from several of the verses of how he describes himself earlier in chapter one. Then he gives them praise. Sometimes the churches, they had been doing wonderful things, and yet there were areas in which Christ is condemning them. And so oftentimes the church has condemnation, the letter has condemnation, an offer of correction, a warning if they do not correct, and then a promise to those who are able to overcome. Thyatira is located in Akisar, Turkey, modern day Turkey, and there is little known of it. There is little as far as excavating, they know little about it. But we know this, that it was likely a small, small, small city. In fact, what's really interesting is that the longest letter Christ gives to each of these seven churches, he gives to the most insignificant, smallest city. So that seems to be quite surprising to us, but to Christ, his values certainly are not our values. We noticed who it was to, it was to the church in Thyatira. We recognize, we've already talked about, for those of you who are new, I apologize, I'm really going through this quickly. but I do want to go through it quickly for those maybe who haven't been to the rest of these. He does mention this letter is written to the angel of the church, and I address, what is this angel? Is it referring to a heavenly being? Well, it is the Greek word that refers to a heavenly being, but this same Greek word is also translated to refer to human messengers, and I reference several references of Scripture where that is actually so. That Greek word is used which would normally translate angel, but in those verses, it's actually used as a human messenger. So I think it's likely that these messengers here are the pastors of the churches. I think that the letter is directed to the pastor of the church in Thyatira. And it's directed from Christ, who is given the title here, the Son of God, and interestingly enough, this is the only instance in the book of Revelation where he is referred to with that title. So it's very interesting that he describes himself as the Son of God here to Thyatira. One of the reasons that it is interesting is that this church in Thyatira was in a city that had several things. First of all, they had many guilds there. They had trading guilds. So if you were someone who wanted to be able to trade, to make money while you were there, then you had to be someone who participated in these guilds. And if you didn't, the likelihood of you actually having success at your labors there in Tyra was next to none. So you already have an obligation if you want to survive there financially to be a part of these guilds. Well these guilds often ended up becoming feasts of meat offered to idols and then given to the people to eat because the idols had blessed them. They often became drunken orgies where sexual immorality was committed. A very wicked place to be for those who claim to be followers of Christ. And this Christ designates his title here to this city, the Son of God. This is a very messianic title as well. He says that he has flaming eyes, and I think that means that Christ sees it all. It's not like somehow these people here in Thyatira, because they're such an insignificant city and an insignificant place, that somehow Christ is just gonna overlook them. No, Christ sees everything. He knows what's happening in this city. He recognizes the persecution that the other churches have experienced, so there's no way that anything will escape Christ's sovereign eye. He's described as having feet of brass, and I think that this represents that Christ will bring swift judgment. There is no one who can escape God's wrath. No one. And God's justice is a theme that this letter definitely has, as we'll note in just a moment. He does offer several things of praise. He says, I know, number one, your works. I recognize the labors of love you have done. I recognize your trust in what I am doing. I recognize your faithful, patient endurance through this. and I recognize that your works have increased from the very beginning more so to where you are now, which to us, that's surprising, because when you think of the Christian life, you think of when you first got saved, you're like, oh, I'm just so excited that I got saved, I wanna share with others the gospel, I wanna share everything that I'm learning from the word, and then kind of as the years go on, the newness, perhaps, has worn off a little bit, and it's not quite like it used to be. Well, here, Christ says, no, you're the exact opposite. Your works have increased ever since you have begun. And so that is a high praise coming from Christ. However, there is still some condemnation. The church tolerated the teachings of a woman prophetess named Jezebel, and we talked, who is this Jezebel? Most of you probably would have thought of Ahab's wife Jezebel, and that's likely what these readers would have thought as well when they think of Jezebel. Some people have said this is simply a euphemism for a person. Some people say it's a euphemism for a group of people. I think this is an actual woman whose name was Jezebel. And so I think that it seems unlikely that the Jewish family would name their daughter Jezebel, but at the same time, I think this person was a real person. She taught the people to participate in idolatrous and moral guilds, and this was the heresy that she was teaching. Whether or not she was a real person, the heresy was this, that you can go ahead and participate in all this sin, and it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter whatsoever. Well, those trading guilds were very wicked, vile places at times, and she was endorsing and encouraging them to do this. At the trading guilds, people ate food offered up to worship, as we already mentioned, and she encouraged these people to be a part of this. That's just incredible that she could have this standing within the congregation to have a voice in what they say about this. She convinced the people that the worship of false deities meant absolutely nothing. And to me, that instantly makes me think of, just kind of backing up here for a second, this makes me think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Remember when Nebuchadnezzar has this gigantic idol that he wants everyone to worship because this really is his magnificent grandeur on display. And, I mean, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're watching everyone else take the knee when the music's going, and they have the opportunity to say, No, this is definitely not right. But they could have perhaps justified in their minds, but you know, it's just a hunk of metal, we could just bow down, it's no big deal. No, they took it very seriously, and here Christ takes seriously these people's offense at this woman who seems to have taken these people's eyes off of Christ and what was important. I think in other words, in essence, Thyatira's problem was that they tolerated sin. They didn't seem to attack it more. They didn't seem to have any problems with the sinful lifestyle and culture that they were around, nor in participating in it. And so we took an excursus at this point, which is why we ended up not finishing the rest of this, is that really we were talking about compromise. And there was a quote there that I won't take the time to look at. but we did look at Romans 6, remember? Shall we sin that grace may abound? Yes, we're under grace. Yes, we have received an incredible grace from God, but does that give us license to sin? Paul's answer was never, no way, God forbid, never should we ever think that it's totally okay for us. to glory in God's grace and making it more magnified when we live in a sinful lifestyle. Because Paul mentions there's two kingdoms. There's the kingdom of sin and self, and there's the kingdom of Christ. And you cannot serve both at the same time. So several truths we took from Romans 6 is that yielding to sin and self leads to death. You cannot hope to be serving God if you're someone who is serving yourself, serving your selfish desires and your sinful flesh. It's not going to lead to life. It's not characteristic of someone who has been changed and passed from death to life. It's not characteristic of a new creature. It's simply a mirror of what you used to be, and perhaps if you're someone who continues to live in sin, claiming to be saved, perhaps where you still are. but also yielding to Christ leads to life. Romans 6 told us that, and so we took several applications. We must daily yield our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Romans chapter 12, we must not conform to this world, but rather be transformed. How? By the renewing of your mind. How do we renew our minds? By thinking upon the word of God, by meditating upon the word of God. And you can see what God says about biblical meditation really succinctly in Psalm chapter one. And then while we are in the world, we are certainly not to be part of it. We're in it, but not to be part of it. We must be separate from it. And Christ himself, the author of this letter to Thyatira, prayed that specifically for his disciples, and for those his disciples would lead back to him. So that's where we left off, really fast. We just, like a jet, just flew right through there. So let's jump in then, continue where we left off. We left off with the condemnation. Christ is condemning this church for all that they've done. And what's really interesting is that in spite of his condemnation, Christ is offering to them an opportunity to repent. He even offered this woman, Jezebel, this opportunity to repent. Look down in verse 21, And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, And yet she repented not. She did not choose to claim and embrace the mercy that was being extended to her by Christ. And so as a result, the judgment came to her that I will cast her into a bed, and that idea of a bed really is a sick bed. In other words, the irony is that she was encouraging people to live immorally, to live in sexual immorality, and here she will be stuck to a bed of sickness. And those who followed her, notice what it says, those who followed her to commit with her adultery, They will be in great tribulation, the idea has great distress, they'll be in angst, they'll go through trials and troubles, they'll go through difficulties, but notice that little phrase at the end, except they repent of their deeds. Christ offers mercy. I was really focusing on that idea when I was looking through Isaiah, and this is just a little excursus. If you have your Bibles open, hold your finger there in Revelation 2 and open to Isaiah chapter 30. I think it's fascinating that God can be both just but also merciful and gracious. And I was reading, I'm taking two classes at Detroit right now, and I'm taking Old Testament prophets and Old Testament poetry. I have a lot of reading I have to do both outside of scripture, but also the text of scripture. And one of the things I found out was that I had to read each of these books within a specified time, both commentaries, course notes, and then the actual book in the Bible. And one I just had recently do this last Friday was the book of Isaiah. So I, by the way, I wasn't very organized when I was actually figuring out how much I had to read. And it wasn't until like a week and a half before Isaiah was due that I realized, oh, I have to read a commentary. and sermon notes, and also the book of Isaiah in a week and a half. So I was screaming through it. But the Lord in his grace and mercy opened up one thing to me that I think really bears upon this discussion. Isaiah chapter 30. There's something really fascinating here about this. Here, God is speaking through Isaiah and saying in verse one, woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, but not of me, and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin, that walk to go down into Egypt and not have asked at my mouth. In other words, they're building this alliance with Egypt, who most of the time, whenever Egypt is being described in an alliance with Israel, Never a good idea. Never a good thing. God does not sanction that. And what's even worse is they weren't asking God. They just went and did it. Reminds me of Jehoshaphat when he did an alliance with Ahab through the marriage of his son to Ahab's daughter. In verse 3, And he goes on and continues to condemn them further down. Look in verse 8. Now go write it before them in a table. Basically put it in writing for them. Isaiah, and note it in a book that it may be for the time to come forever and ever. In other words, if you think about it, God oftentimes spoke through his prophets to the nations verbally. In other words, the prophets spoke verbally to the people, but they didn't have any way of writing that down unless someone happened to have a tablet there at the same time was writing as he's speaking. So for those who heard it, that's the ones who benefited from what the message was verbally. But when the message was written down, They could transcribe that and send it throughout all the land to show it. And God is showing how serious he is about this alliance when he says, write it down so that it can be noted forever. This is a rebellious people, verse 9, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord, which say to the seers, see not, and to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things. Speak unto us smooth things. prophesy deceits, get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Can you imagine saying that? We don't want to hear God. We don't want to hear any of his message. We want even the memory of God to be gone. We don't even want to remember his name. This is what the rebellious people of Judah were doing. And can you imagine the justice with which God will pronounce upon them? He says in verse 12, wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, because he despised this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and stay thereon, therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out on a high wall whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant and he shall break it as the breaking of the potter's vessel that is broken into pieces. But ye said, No! Do you recognize what God is doing here? He's saying, you're trusting in man? Well, you're about to see how futile that is. And in fact, God says, I'm going to destroy you so much so there's not going to be anything left. that one thing he says in verse 14 where he says about breaking the potter's vessel into shards. One of the things I didn't realize, but I learned in one of my classes up there in Detroit, is that sometimes when they had broken pieces of pottery, they, I mean, there was obviously no use in filling the pot whatsoever, so they would take those pieces and almost use it like we would use like a tablet or a sticky note or something. They would write on those broken pieces. Or they'd use those broken pieces to scoop up things like that. While here, God says, I am going to destroy you and smash you so much that not even the smallest piece will be useful anymore. Very strong words, very strong judgment, and certainly deserved by these people who have claimed, we don't even want to remember the name of God. But in the midst of this passage of woes that God is declaring upon these people, in the midst of his condemnation and his judgment upon them, jump down and look at verse 18. And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you. And therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you. For the Lord is a God of judgment. Or another way of saying that, or perhaps your other translation says that God is just. The Lord is just. For the Lord is a God of judgment. Blessed are all they that wait for him. You have in one verse both God's mercy that he desires and longs to extend to these rebellious people, but also his just character, his judgment at the same time. I think we see that happening in Thyatira. Jezebel was offered the opportunity to repent. She was given a space, a time to be able to do that, and she refused. And so God's justice, his mercy changes to his justice, and his justice then is served upon this woman. And he warns to these people who are her followers, my justice will be upon you as well unless you take this opportunity that I've given to you and extended mercy to you to repent. Why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they want to repent? Perhaps they were so blinded by their tolerance and their own sin that they would not. And the text doesn't tell us what happened. But think about us. Have we not experienced that as well? We have experienced both God's justice and his mercy at times. We have experienced God's justice in the sense that Christ took God's wrath. God's wrath didn't just disappear all of a sudden. Christ took it in our place. His justice was satisfied, but his mercy at the same time is extended to you and me to respond to the offer of salvation that Christ has given to us. We have both God's justice and mercy on display before us. And that makes him, as verse 18 says in Isaiah, it makes him exalted. It makes him glorious. And here, he glorifies himself and Thyatira in the same way. All those who have followed her teaching will have time to repent. Otherwise, they will experience great trouble and trial and difficulties. But then notice back in Revelation chapter two as we finish up here, those who did not follow our teaching must hold fast to firm doctrine. Notice what he says in verse 24, but unto you I say and to the rest in Thyatira, as many have not this doctrine in which have not known the depths of Satan, that's how serious Christ views this doctrine, I will put you to none other burden, but that which ye have already, hold fast. Hold fast till I come. Christ hasn't come yet. and we must still hold fast as well. It is a call not just to Thyatira, but to you and me too, because aren't we in a culture that definitely likes to tolerate sin, that likes to hold both my Christian testimony and outward facade of spirituality, but also my secret hidden sins, the two lives I want to live at the same time. We must hold fast to the scriptures and to the right doctrine. Well, Christ gives a promise, as he does in every one of the letters, to the overcomers. They will rule nations in the millennium. We don't have time to look at all of these verses, but each of these verses begins to describe what Christ will do for those who will be with him, reigning and ruling in the millennium. And then he will give them the morning star. Look at them. in verse 27, excuse me, verse 28, and I will give them the morning star. For the most part, most commentators believe, and I believe rightly so, that this is Christ himself. In Revelation chapter 22, verse 16, it says, I, Jesus, have sent mine angels to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright and morning star. Your reward, Christian, is being with Christ. You have Christ, and that is why when you go spend an eternity, when you get to this place called heaven, and when there's a new heaven and a new earth that God has created, you're not gonna be so focused on all that you have done and what you can do when you are in this afterlife. You will be spending time worshiping and praising Christ Jesus because he is our exceeding great reward. And what a wonderful promise Christ gives to this church. If you are overcoming, then I will give you the morning star. I will give you myself. What a joy. Well, in closing, I think we have several applications we can take. First of all, carefully guard against false doctrine. Here is a woman who is teaching things in the church that they were accepting. So much so that Christ has to deal with this. This doesn't mean that somehow they were all saying, wow, what's wrong with this lady? We definitely don't want to follow that. That is not biblical, that's not scriptural, that is not right, that does not honor the Lord. No, clearly this was an issue that the church was being led astray on. So it's vital that we guard against false doctrine. And how do we do it? By comparing what people teach with what the Bible says. The Bible is the ultimate authority for those of us who love Christ and desire to live in ways that honor Him. Specifically with compromise, though. This is a little more touchier for us because we struggle, I think, with this personally. Compromise is easy. This church, compromise. And clearly, sexual immorality is forbidden in Scripture, clearly, and yet, See how easy it was for this church to be caught up in it, simply because some teacher told them, this is right and okay. In spite of it being easy, we must remain faithful to the word of God. God tells them, be faithful to the end, and you will receive the morning star, me. finally hold fast to God till the day approaches, that day being when Christ returns. And I love how John ends his letter, because really it should be the prayer of every single Christian's heart, that the Lord would even so come quickly. Thyatira was a church who struggled with compromise, and we talked about it last time, but just, I think it's important that we be reminded again, the importance of remaining firm, remaining steadfast, grounded upon the word, and praying to our Lord till he comes. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you that you've given us very clear commands in scripture, that you've given us your word to be able to know your mind and your heart. And when there are people who would like to draw us away, Help us to remain faithful and steadfast to you by clinging to your word and holding correctly to the truths within it. Lord, I pray that you would help us as Calvary Baptist Church to be cautious, to be advancing the cause of Christ until you come. And Lord, we echo John's cry, even so, come quickly, Lord. We love you, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.