So we're going to look at Revelation chapter 2 and the letter that's written to the church in Thyatira. So that's going to take us from verse 18 down to the end of the chapter. But before I read that, and I just want to read the whole letter and then we'll come back and, you know, parse it out and talk about it. But let me pray. Our Father and our God, we pause before I read this section of scripture to ask your blessing upon it. Lord, you promised to meet us at the point of the preaching of your word. And Lord, we are confident that you're here with us. But Lord, we are a dull and weak people, and we need your enablement. Lord, we pray you give us ears to hear, minds that can focus and understand, Lord, hearts that can receive the implanted Word, that it might grow up within us, Lord, to cause us to walk in righteous paths. And Lord, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, Amen. So this is Revelation chapter 2, beginning in verse 18. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass. I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience. And as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts and I will give to each one of you according to your works. Now to you, I say, and to the rest of Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden, but hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels. As I also have received 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. Well, I'm going to follow the same basic pattern because these letters all follow the same basic pattern. Now, before we get to the content of the scripture, I want to talk a little bit about the city of Thyatira. I spent quite a bit of time this week and yesterday looking into the city of Thyatira. Honestly, we don't know a lot about it. It's probably the most, if I could use maybe the word vague, or vague understanding of Thyatira, what it was like. I told you some people hold a position that these letters to the churches are actually written in mind by the Holy Spirit to different church ages. And those that hold to that would say, well, this letter in particular is the Roman-ish age, where the popes crop up, and there's hierarchy in the church from like 590 to the year 1000, the dark ages, some would say. But I particularly like just to look at the city and figure, this is a letter that was written to this city on that day, and there's a lot here that we can learn about God and about ourselves from studying it. Where is it? It's located about 35 miles southeast of Pergamum. And I told you we're starting out in Ephesus and moving up the coast, the Aegean Sea. And now we moved inland. And we're going farther inland, and we're starting to head south. So it's a circuit. If you look in your Bible or you pull up a map of the letters to the churches in Revelation, you'll see that. It's a bit of a circuit. And we're moving south and further inland. The geography of this city is near a river, Hermas. And it was along, if you look this up, it's interesting, but it's along one of the chief Roman roads in that day. So everybody would trek on through going from city to city. There's a road that would go from Pergamos to Sardis. And you can find that map as well. And you'll see that it runs right through Thyatira. So it was heavily traveled. It's interesting, too, as far as history goes. Historically, it was a small city. Somebody wrote, it's the longest letter to the churches, probably so written to the smallest of the churches, the smallest of the cities. And it was a military stronghold because more important cities to capture and to really have control over that region, this was a primary spot. They would have to get through the city to get to the other cities. And so it became a military garrison over the centuries. So we know that much about it. We also know that there was a lot of craftsmen, a lot of trade guilds here. And a lot of what we know about the city is because they found the coinage. And if you see what's inscribed on the coins, you can find out a little bit about the city. Because what was important to the city would be on those inscriptions on the people or the gods that they would put on their coins. And that's how we know what little we do know about the city. One thing, maybe you didn't think of this, maybe you did, but if you remember in the book of Acts, a godly lady named Lydia is from Thyatira. What did they say about Lydia? She was a businesswoman. She was a seller of purple. Remember that? She met up with Paul and the Bible says that God opened her heart to receive the things that Paul spoke and opened her heart to the gospel. She became a Christian. She was from Thyatira, which ties into the fact that this was a heavily, one writer said, probably where they first came up with not only guilds, but unions. Because these were like working unions. One of the things about the guilds in that day though, if you were a member, if you were a metal worker, and you were a part of a metal working guild, you were expected to go to whatever god they worshipped, their pagan god, and go to that temple and partake of whatever they did in that temple. as part of your membership in the guild. And to become a Christian and turn your back on that, put a lot of pressure on Christians. And that's kind of what's going on in what Jesus has to say to this particular church. So they had multiple pagan gods on their coins, we know that. But their primary deity was Apollo. Apollo, who if you know your Greek mythology and whatnot, the son of Zeus. So Apollo was the primary god. W.M. Ramsey, who I introduced you to when reading a lot of his book, The Letters to the Seven Churches, when he writes about Thyatira, this is what he writes. He says, the history of Thyatira is a blank. Its fate in many centuries of fighting between Arabs first, and then Turks, and then Christians, must have been a sad one. It is one of those cities whose situation exposes them to destruction by every conqueror, and yet compels their restoration after every siege and every sack. It lies right in the track of invasion. It blocks the way and must be captured by the invader. It guards the passage to a rich district, and hence it must be defended to the last, and so provoke the barbarity of the assailant. But it could never be made a really strong fortress in ancient warfare, so as to resist successfully. Yet, the successful assailant must in turn re-fortify the city if he wants to hold the country. He must make it the guardian of his gate. He must make it a garrison city. Its situation defines its history, but the history has not been recorded. But in the long peace of the Roman Empire, Thyatira ceased to be a mere military city. The city grew large and wealthy. It was a center of communication. Vast numbers passed through it. It commanded a rich and fertile vale. Many of the conditions of the great trading city were united there. This period of great prosperity and increase was only beginning when the seven letters were written. So this particular city, Thyatira, was in the valley. Usually the stronghold cities were up on the hill where it was difficult to attack, was easy to defend. Not so in Thyatira. And that's what led Ramsey to say what he said about the city. So hopefully it helps us a little bit as we start to unpack the scripture to get familiar with where this church was. One last word on that. If you're a history buff and you like looking for the ruins, there's not much there. They found it. They have the ancient city of Thyatira, but it's not much. It's basically a pile of rocks. But it's there if you want to get on the internet and do a little search for it. It's not quite as spectacular as Ephesus and some of these other cities. So we begin the same pattern as we did in the other letters, and it begins with Jesus being described, right? His self-disclosure. It says, to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire in his feet, are like fine brass. And we talked about this when we were in chapter 1. Eyes of fire, omniscience. Jesus sees it all. He sees the good, he sees the bad, he sees the ugly. Jesus knows infinitely what the church is doing. One writer wrote, his eyes of fire penetrate to the core of reality and the truth of everything that exists. Jesus knows. You'll see that in verse 23 where it talks about Jesus who searches the minds and the hearts. In the original language that's searches the kidneys and the hearts, which is a common phrase. It just means your innermost being, who you are. Jesus knows you thoroughly, even better than we know ourselves. He has feet of brass, which is representative of judgment, power, right? This is mighty Jesus. When you go to Revelation 19, and I'm going to jump forward in the book a little bit, at Jesus' return and judgment, it says in verse 11, Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself." This is mighty Jesus, right? He sees everything. He's all-powerful. He comes in judgment, and he's going to come in judgment over this church because of what they were allowing to take place. Keismaker says, "...into Jesus's holy presence nothing sinful can enter or be hidden. With his eyes of flaming fire, he dispels the darkness and burns away all impurities." That's our Jesus, right? He also not only describes himself here as the one with eyes of fire and feet of brass, but significantly he discloses himself to this church as the son of God. You and your city, they worship Apollo, the son of Zeus. Well, I'm the son of God Almighty, the one and only true and living God. That's who I am. That's who Jesus discloses himself to be. And to the Jewish mind, remember in the Gospels that they equated Jesus saying that he was the unique son of God to making himself equal with God. That's how the Jewish mind thought. And Jesus was actually declaring, I'm God, I'm the Son of God. In Matthew 5.22, Jesus says, For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Right? He who does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him. Those would be audacious words that Jesus spoke that were not true, right? That we're to honor the son as we honor the father, right? Jesus said, and I and my father are one, right? John 10 30. So Jesus's discernment, right? He's described in his discernment what he knows. And it's a nice list of what he knows. These are great things. He says he knows their works. He knows their love, and that's the word in Greek for agape love, divine love, a love that's been poured into their hearts and now it's reflected back to God and to their neighbor. So they're a loving congregation. He knows their service. They're serving neighbor. They're serving those in the community. They're serving those in the church. He knows of their faith. And two of these are internal qualities, right? Faith, love. But they reveal themselves in external duties, service, and works. J. Vernon McGee says, faith is the mainspring that turns the hands of work and love. That's the root of it all. Otherwise, we're just on a hamster wheel, running around trying to do works without having internal faith and God-given love. So it's important. James 2.26, for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. So we need all of this. He commends them for their patience. In the Greek, that word that's translated in my Bible to patience, it has to do with endurance. The first word in the Greek would be translated to remain, to stay. And the second word is the word for under. And the idea is that to be in a difficult circumstance and to remain there, to hold up, to endure while these difficult circumstances are going on. And all of these traits are a work of the Holy Spirit in the individual, in the church. We stay, sometimes, in difficult relationships, difficult marriages, because we've been given God's grace to endure the difficult times, and stay in difficult family situations, stay in difficult churches at times, when things aren't going as swimmingly as we wish they were. But we hold up and we endure, we remain, and we're under that pressure. Yet, with God's help, we endure through it. And then lastly, their growth, right? The last of your works even more than the first. They're growing. And if this was the end of the letter, wouldn't we come away thinking, what a great church. Thyatira, man, they've got it made. I mean, what else could you possibly look for in a church, right? If we ended it here, but it doesn't end there. And so we get Jesus' displeasure. Verse 20, he says, nevertheless, Even though all those things are true of you, and I see it and I commend you for it, nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I personally don't think this was a woman whose actual name was Jezebel. I think it's symbolic. And to see what Jesus is talking about here, we need to refresh our memory a little bit about the Old Testament character named Jezebel. You remember Ahab's wife. And I want to read you a little bit of 1 Kings chapter 16, beginning in verse 29, just to refresh your memory. I'm sure you know this, but it reads like this. In the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ahab, the son of Omri, became king over Israel, the northern kingdom. And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years. Now Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ephbaal, king of the Sidonians. And he went and served Baal, and worshipped him. Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him." When you go to 1 Kings 21 and verse 25, it says, But there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up. He married a pagan princess who turned his heart to Baal, and he worshiped false gods, hideous gods. So this woman in the church, maybe her name really was Jezebel, I don't think so, but she personified the character of Jezebel from the Old Testament. Somebody wrote the name Jezebel equates to shamelessness, a morally unrestrained woman, right? We've been, probably 50 years ago, every once in a while you hear somebody use that name in our own vernacular, right? Oh, that woman, she's just a Jezebel. You don't really hear people say that, at least I don't. But when I was a kid, I remember you'd see that on TV and stuff. Yeah, you Jezebel. It meant it was some woman who was morally unrestrained and was maybe after her husband. That's the idea that they carried with the name. So how would you like to have a name where you are so wicked that your name is enthroned, so to speak, of moral lapse and sin for all of time? And I think it's by the Spirit of God that she has been, if you want to call that, memorialized in that horrible, horrible way. She led Old Testament Israel through her husband to worship Baal and Asherah. Baal was the god of fertility and his counterpart was the female goddess Asherah, the goddess of fertility. And all kinds of horrible things would be done because they were worshiping these false pagan deities. In the church, and I try to emphasize it just reading the scripture, but what Jesus has a problem with is not only that there's a woman who's doing these things, but that she calls herself a prophetess, she's no prophet of God, but because they allow her to teach. That's the problem. All those wonderful attributes, all those commendable things that Jesus has to say to the church, and then he says, but this woman in your church is teaching error and you let her do it. Nobody's stepping in to take care of this and say, you're not to teach like this anymore. Do you remember when Paul left Timothy in Ephesus? In 1st Timothy, he said, I left you there that you would tell certain men not to teach any longer. He was to silence some people that were teaching wrong, heretical things. And it had to be dealt with. That's part of the church's mission and job. She was a sinful influencer. That's a term in our age, isn't it? I remember when the Democratic Party had their convention and they brought what they called influencers in and gave them a front row seat because they wanted to report back to those people they were influencing through TikTok and all these social media streams that what they saw and try to influence the United States to vote in a certain way. Well, she was also, in time of antiquity, she was an influencer. And the church should have recognized that and said, hey, she's leading people down morally corrupt pathways, and you're letting her do it. Nobody's stepping in and saying, what's this lady doing? You kick her out of the church, right? In that day, they were forced to make this choice between Being a part of that guild, maybe they were people who may die, maybe sold clothing, metal workers in that day, to be loyal to their guild, that things would go well with them financially, or to choose Christ. And in our day, I haven't really been asked to make that kind of choice. It can come in our country, to where we finally have to make a difficult choice and say, you know what, I choose Christ, and lose our jobs, or whatever it might be. But they were told to basically do that, because they had to be loyal to the guild, and go to the guild's god, and the pagan activities, and all that went on there. And potentially, maybe what she was doing was saying, hey, look, you can have Christ in your hearts, And it's okay. You're not really worshipping these false gods. You're doing this just so you can feed your kids. Maybe she was leading them down that path, but when they were getting into this temple worship, and partaking of the temple worship, and eating the food that was sacrificed to demons, and also probably committing sexual fornication at these temples, she was saying, hey, look, it's okay. Your sins are forgiven you. You know, you have Christ down in your heart where it counts. Keep your religion to yourself. And you hear that today in certain circles. You allow this teaching to go unchallenged. That's Jesus' issue with them. Now Jesus' discipline, in verse 21, he says, And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. And then he says, indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works. I remember years ago hearing Dr. R.C. Sproul tell the story of his conversion, and I always liked his conversion story. This isn't in my notes, it just came to my mind. He was witness to, in a bar, Because I think he forgot his pack of cigarettes. And he went back in to get his cigarette. And his testimony was, I didn't go in that bar looking for Jesus. I went in there to get cigarettes. But somebody gave me the gospel. And he didn't fall to his knees in the bar. He went back to his dorm. He was in college. And he began to read a Bible he had. And he couldn't put it down. And God was dealing with him, right? And I told you before, he was converted out of a passage out of the book of Ecclesiastes. He always said, I'm probably the only person that's ever been converted by reading the book of Ecclesiastes. But the one thing I remember him saying about his conversion, and I thought the same thing when I was converted, was at some point Sproul said, I was reading this book, and I thought, this god plays for keeps. In other words, God's not messing around with this. You can't just dance around and say, well, I got Jesus on Sunday, and the rest of the week I live like the devil. It's all or nothing with this God. And it's plain in Scripture that that's what the Lord says. And that's what Jesus is saying to this church. I don't think you know the Jesus that you worship, the Son of God, who has feet like brass, or like bronze, and eyes like flames, who sees everything penetratingly, and will judge. I mean, the Bible says that judgment begins in the house of God. Jesus deals with us in grace that we won't be destroyed with the world. He doesn't let us get away with anything. He's going to deal with His people. That's what He's saying here. And look at the graciousness of God. As horrific as I've painted this situation in the church with Jezebel and what she was doing and leading other people to do, He says, I gave her time. And the idea behind that is that somehow Jesus was sending her people to warn her. Maybe even the apostle John at one time had warned her, like, hey, that's a dangerous path you're on. So Jesus says, I'm giving her time to repent. But she didn't repent. The gracious patience of our God. How gracious He is to you and me to give us time to repent. In Exodus 34.6, it says, the Lord passed before him, meaning Moses, and proclaimed, and this is a self-disclosure of God, so God's going to proclaim himself. He says, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. That's our God, right? In 2 Peter, Three, nine, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise. The promise for what? What's Peter talking about? About Jesus coming with his angels in judgment on the earth. He says, "...the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." That's the grace of our God, giving us time. The fact that Jesus hasn't come yet today for his final second coming, is because God is being gracious, waiting to see if somebody else will receive the gospel and bow their knee to Jesus Christ and avoid eternal hell. The grievous error of abusing God's grace, right? God's gracious. Ecclesiastes 8.11 reads, because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, Because God doesn't immediately judge sin, right? That's what he's saying. Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. In other words, they abuse God's patient grace and continue steadfastly in doing evil. And that's exactly what Jesus is warning this church. I gave her time to repent. He gave the church time to deal with it. The church didn't deal with it. And just like we looked at last time, Jesus is going to deal with it himself, right? He says that he's going to deal with her casting her into a sickbed. In other words, there's no more time for repentance for Jezebel. Judgment was imminent. Jesus was going to deal with her. Now, if you go back and look at the Old Testament story of Ahaz and Jezebel in the Old Testament, Jezebel has a gruesome end to her life after Ahab's dead and a prophecy is made about Jezebel. And Jezebel is in the upper room, and the king's men come, and they look up, and he says, anybody on our side up there? And a couple eunuchs, who were servants of Jezebel, look out the window, and they are. And he says, throw her out. You ever read your Old Testament? It's an amazing book. And they throw her out. And he says, you know what? She dies. And he says, well, go get the body. This isn't right that we don't bury her. She was the wife of the king. We should bury her. And they go to get her, and the dogs had eaten her. All that was left was like the palms of her hands. She was gone. And it was exactly what was prophesied about her. She died a horrible death. Her son became king. and he was as evil and wicked as his dad. And if you read the Old Testament story of the son, the Bible says that he fell through the lattice. He didn't get tossed out a window, he fell out of his window and he was wounded tremendously. It doesn't go into detail, but he was deeply wounded by the fall. And so he sends men. He sends a captain and 50 men to go after the prophet, the prophet of Baal, to see if he would survive or not. And while he's on his way, Elijah goes to them, and he consumes them. God consumes them with fire. And that happens twice. The third time they respect Elijah some, and they say, oh man of God, spare our lives. And the angel of the Lord tells Elijah, it's okay, just go with them and go to this wicked king. And he goes, and because that king wouldn't repent of his Baal worship, he says, you're not going to survive this, you're going to die. And he died in that bed. Now, I say that little bit of a story, and you have to go read it to read a word for word. That's my telling of it from memory. But I say that because if you know that story, when it says that he's going to judge this woman and indeed will cast her into a sickbed, students of the Old Testament would have said, ah, this is the outcome of Jezebel, who was tossed out the window, her son, who ended up dying in a sickbed. And this is the judgment that's going to come upon her. Three groups are being addressed here by the Lord. Jezebel's time is up. She's non-repentant. She's going to suffer. Robertson writes, and she is not willing, is really the reading of the text in the original, and she is not willing. Blunt and final, like you read in Matthew 23, 37, where Jesus says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I would have gathered you like a mother hen would gather her chicks, but you were not willing. You're not willing. You're steadfastly positioned in an unwilling position, unwilling to repent. So judgment was coming upon Jezebel. But look at God's grace. Then he mentions those who are committing adultery with her. spiritual adultery, going to that pagan temple, physical adultery, maybe sleeping with the temple prostitutes. But they're being called upon once again to repent. He says, unless you repent, and Jesus gives them time. Well, they see this woman being judged. Maybe it'll stir them to finally put away this wickedness and repent, and Jesus would forgive them. But if they don't, He says he's going to give them tribulation. And in the original Greek, it's two words sandwiched together. It's tribulation, but the first word is mega. Mega tribulation, right? It wasn't going to go good for them. And thirdly, it mentions her children, and they're going to die. And it kind of reads oddly, doesn't it? In the New King James, I will kill her children with death. Probably a better translation there is, I will kill her children with disease or with plague. And some of your Bibles will translate it that way. That's the idea. They're going to get diseases. They're going to be diseased. Maybe even a disease from what they're doing. But they're going to be diseased. So these are people that are steadfastly in the same position as Jezebel. Her children. Not her physical children. These are those who have basically said, that's my leader. This lady knows what she's talking about. And we are resolute in our allegiance to Jezebel. And he says, well, they're your children. They're your followers. They are going to die a death of disease and plague. So it's not pretty. It's not a pretty scene. You'll see similar language if I can read a little section of a letter to the Corinthians. And it's why I take the Lord's Supper so serious, why I talk about it every time we come to the table, that it's not time for us to be running around talking to each other and laughing and carrying on. It's time for us to focus on the cross, on Jesus, on what he did to atone for our sins. It's a serious matter. Because Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11 and says, For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. He's talking about people had died because of the way they were carrying out their worship to God. God's not a God that plays around, right? He expects us to have a serious, reverent attitude towards him. So this judgment is a warning to all the churches. And it's a warning to our church too, right? That this God plays for keeps. He says in verse 23, And all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works. The Reformers used to write and say and preach that there were marks that distinguished a true church from a false church. And it wasn't how many people attended. The three marks of a true church, according to the Reformers, and I think they were right, is the right expounding of God's Word. That church is going to make the Word of God preeminent, and that's going to be the focus of the church is the Word of God and the proper preaching of the Word. The second mark of the church was the correct handling and administration of the sacraments, baptism, and the Lord's Table. That was the second mark. And the third mark, the third, I guess you could say, leg of the stool of a true church, according to the Reformers, was church discipline. That the church did not let false teaching go on, dealt with sin in a gracious way, but we don't just allow it to continue. That it has to be dealt with, spoken to. And personally, in my experience, if you are doing the first two, preaching the Word of God accurately and fully, and the right administration of the sacraments, typically the third is taken care of. Because the Word of God is going to drive people out of the church that are living in sin lifestyles. Either that or they're going to repent and give it up. Who living in sin or false converts come into the church and hear the preaching of God's Word? Just some sick individual perhaps? I don't know. But those are the three marks. And that's what Jesus is dealing with here. Church discipline. You've got all the works, you've got the service, you've got love, it's wonderful. You don't have church discipline. And Jesus is dealing with the church because of that lack. We see in the example of the New Testament story of Ananias and Sapphira, who lie about how much money they received from the selling of land. And they could have kept the money if they wanted to. The Bible says that. Hey, we didn't tell you how to do this, but the problem we have is that you lied to the church, and in essence, you've lied to the Holy Spirit. It's saying that you're donating every penny you got from the sale of this land. And they were judged by God through death. They both died. And the outcome of that, is what I want to read to you, is what happens when God deals with sin in the church. One, reverence towards God. I'm in chapter 5 of Acts. It says in verse 11, So great fear came upon all the church, and upon all who heard these things. Reverence. It was restored. Reverence. Secondly, a reduction of false converts. It says in verse 13 of chapter 5, "...yet none of the rest dared to join them." Somebody might say, why don't you just go ahead and join them? It's something to do on a Sunday. They said, no, people died in that place because of judgment. I'm not going into that place. So false converts were reduced. Third is respect to the church from the community outside. It says in verse 13, Yet none of the rest dared to join them, but the people esteemed them highly. They were respected by the community. And fourth, a rise. in true converts, because it says in verse 14, "...and believers were increasingly added to the Lord multitudes of both men and women." Because sin was dealt with in the church, right? And that's what Jesus is doing here. Jesus' declaration, he says, now I say to you, verse 24, And to the rest of Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known, quote, the depths of Satan, as they say, I'll put on you no other burden, but hold fast to what you have till the end. And until I come, is what he says, actually. Until I come. So Christ's faithful followers within that congregation, where all this is going on, he says, I know there's those there that have not partaken in this, who have remained steadfast and true and loyal to me, Jesus says. And to them, I'm not going to burden you with any other requirements. Just keep on keeping on. The old truckers motto from the 70s. Just keep on keeping on. Hold fast to the faith that you already have. And he mentions that these false teachings quote the depths of Satan. And this has something to do with how this woman was luring people to go prod into these deeper things. You really want to reach the plateau, the heights of spirituality. You've got to get out from under the preaching of that pastor and get out here where the real action is. As a matter of fact, if you read the book of Colossians, much of that book is dealing with that exact same issue. There were people that thought they would reach spiritual heights by going somewhere other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And the Bible says, no, you just keep plumbing the depths of Jesus in the Word of God. That's where you're going to grow. And Jesus describes gifts again, right? He says in verse 26, And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, so him I will give power over the nations. And then he quotes Psalm 2, which is an interesting fact. He says that he received this from his father. It's a messianic psalm, right? Go back and read Psalm 2 today. But I'm reading straight out of the psalm, verses 8 and 9. In that messianic psalm, the point of the psalm is the father is saying to the son, the Messiah, and says, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and you shall dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. It's Jesus in His atoning work, ascends, is coronated, takes a seat at the right hand of the Father, and it's as if the psalm is looking forward to that ascension and coronation. And the Father says to the Son, ask of me. and I'll give you the nations." And they send forth the Holy Spirit to awaken dead souls to the truth of the gospel. And Jesus, in that psalm, it speaks of His future rule and reign over the nations. And what He's telling the church is, those who hold fast and steadfast to the end will rule and reign with Me. The second gift is interesting. So we partake in His reign and rule. And the second gift is the Morning Star. What's the Morning Star? Well, first, wouldn't you be asking yourself, how on earth am I going to rule and reign over the nations with the Lord Jesus Christ? It's because of the second gift. What's the Morning Star? is Jesus. The second gift is Jesus himself, right? And again, looking forward to chapter 22 of Revelation, verse 16, he says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star. It's Jesus himself. So we reign and rule with our Lord and He is ours. He is ours. Jesus had said, as long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. And we have that light forever. Forever. I'll close with that. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your word. And Lord, very instructive. And here today, we have a strong warning that a church that's a true church must deal with sin. And so Lord, we pray that if there's anything that's displeasing in us, that you'd expose that, that we might repent of it, that we might walk in close fellowship with you. And Lord, we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Go in the peace of Christ Jesus to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.