Revelation chapter two, 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. 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 in 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. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. As we begin here today, I want you to think of a time where someone has surprised you. Now, I don't merely have in mind here when kids are enjoying scaring their brother or sister, but in particular, when someone has surprised you unexpectedly, they came into the room or something like that, and they've caught you doing something, and you're embarrassed by that. Now maybe you're just singing your favorite song and it's rather embarrassing because you can't sing on key or something, but maybe you're committing some kind of sinful action and that person comes in and sees you and you're embarrassed. With this in mind, we come here to this message from Jesus, the one who sees everything. Well, we have now, thus far, looked at the message of Jesus initially to the believers in Ephesus. And there, we see that Jesus is pleased with their orthodoxy, but there were some, or at least in some ways, people who were outwardly obeying, but it wasn't from the heart. Secondly, we've seen Jesus' message to the believers in Smyrna. And here, he encourages them in their suffering. and their suffering, of course, was unto death for some. And he indicates to them that their rewards will be eternal if they were to persevere to the end. These awards weight the true believers and so press on in the midst of our hardships. And then most recently, we've seen Jesus' message to the believers in Pergamos. Some believers were standing faithfully, even in the face of opposition, and Jesus is pleased with them. But some of the believers in Pergamos were not standing faithfully. Instead, they were compromising in the face of this opposition in order to avoid suffering. Jesus is displeased. And whatever justifications we may use to escape suffering, they do not escape Jesus' scrutiny. And so Jesus calls us to repent, to listen, to obey, to conquer in the battle for holiness. And if we do, then he gives us some more heavenly blessings here as he did in the first two messages. So today we begin now Jesus' message to the believers in Thyatira. And so let's begin then in verse 18 with the first part. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, Alright, let's take a moment now and talk about some of the historical context, and as I've said, the better we understand some of these things, the better we'll understand why Jesus says what he does here. And so if you look at your map here, either the one that I've provided for you or possibly one in your Bibles, notice again we're going in order geographically. We start with Ephesus, go northward to Smyrna, and then further northward to Pergamos. And now we're heading south and east from there to Thyatira on the way to Sardis. You see the road connecting things and so forth. All right. Now, notice this, of course, is inland, not along the coast, like the first two cities. Let me read here a moment from, this is from Robert Mounts and his description of this. He says, following the overland route from Pergamos to Sardis, travelers would head eastward along the south bank of the Caicos River, turn southward over a low-lying range of hills, and descend into the broad, fertile valley of the Lycus. Their journey of about 40 miles would take them just across the Messian border to the city of Thyatira, situated on the south bank of the Lycus in the long north-south valley that connected the Cacus and Hermus valleys. And you picture this layout. He then says, Scythira was founded by Seleucus I as a military outpost to guard one of the approaches to his empire. Since it possessed no natural fortifications, it would draw heavily upon the spirit of its soldier citizens to make up for its vulnerability. In 190 BC, the city fell to the Romans and became first part of the kingdom of Pergamos and then part of the province of Asia. With the coming of stable conditions under Roman rule, Thyatira was destined for growth and prosperity as a center for manufacturing and marketing. So a brief review of some of those things here for Thyatira. He mentions there about Seleucid I, and you remember Alexander the Great conquered the known world and so forth, and then when he died it was split after there, split in half basically, and so this was part of the Seleucid portion. It didn't have a big high hill like we've seen with Smyrna and Pergamos, and so there was no Acropolis at the top, and so it was vulnerable. It was in this valley, this Lycus River Valley, and typically they housed garrisons to protect any attack from the east. Now, the modern city, Akizar, is now there. It's about 175,000 people, but it's basically right on top of the old city. And so archaeology has not been done as much here. So there are some things we know, but there's, I'm sure, much more that we could learn. Even ancient documents mention Thyatira, but not as much as other places, like the first three we've looked at. We do think it was not very big. In fact, I've seen numbers as small as 8,000 to 20,000 people. Now compare Ephesus with 200,000 to 250,000 people. And the reason why it was small is because of the risk of conquering and there was a major earthquake in the early part of the first century. It is possible that Thyatira was the smallest of the seven cities here. And so therefore, it is possible, maybe even probable, that there were less than 10 individual churches here in Thyatira. Remember the ratio that we've used from the city of Laodicea all the way along, and maybe there was as few as two or three? We don't know. But again, the indications that we do have is that it was relatively small. Now because of its vulnerability, it was ruled by a variety of people and so forth, but once the Romans took over and especially the Pax Romana went into effect, the peace of Rome, they could then travel freely and trade then flourished. And so Thyatira took on a number of things. It was, some of them were associated with the military, but then you had others that grew in the time of peace. And so there was trade in wool and linen, garments and dyes, leather. There were tanners, potters, bakers. You know, verse 27 with the reference to pottery. There were bronze workers. Notice what we'll see here in a moment in verse 18. And of course, unfortunately, there was the slave trade. If you turn a moment to Acts chapter 16, The only other reference to Thyatira in the New Testament here is here. Acts chapter 16, remember Paul is beginning his second missionary journey. He revisits the churches in Galatia and wants to head to Ephesus, but the Spirit directs him further north, and he comes to Troas, you see there in verse 11 of chapter 16. He picks Timothy up along the way, and here, note the pronoun, we ran a straight course, so now Luke has joined with Paul and the rest. Look at verse 13 then, they head up to Philippi. And on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And of course she's baptized with her household and so on. And so we see this reference here to Lydia and the making of dyes. You might remember when we studied on the tabernacle about some of the dyes that were used for the priestly garments. Well, they used what was called the madder root. So M-A-D-D-E-R, this root, is how they made the purple dice. And obviously we see Lydia was part of that. It says that she was a God-fearer, which indicates to us that she must have been exposed to Judaism at some point and came to believe in the God of the Bible, and now she hears from Paul and she becomes a Christian. So what we see here then is all of these trades in Thyatira. And so therefore, as we've seen, especially with Smyrna and Pergamos, the trade guilds were there too. Today, again, we'd probably call them a union or something like that. Let me read here also then briefly from, this is Grant Osborne, and he explains it like this. Most cities in the Greco-Roman world centered on the guilds, but in Thyatira they were especially prominent. Most often mentioned in inscriptions were the shoemakers, the makers and sellers of dyed cloth, and the bronze smiths. And he goes on to explain that that's because of the military presence. So they needed bronze for their military, the weapons and so forth. They needed shoes, obviously, and the dyes. Certainly, this would affect the colors of the uniforms and so on. All right, now, for those of you who've been here and heard what I've been talking about, you know what's next. As we come here to Thyatira, You have trade guilds, like we've seen with the other two cities in particular. But it's even more the situation here in Thyatira. So therefore, the temptation to compromise was even stronger here in Thyatira than even Pergamos that we just talked about. As I've explained to you, in order to do business, basically you had to join one of these guilds. Now, from what we understand, it wasn't a legal requirement. But if you did not join one, it was very difficult to buy and sell anything. And if you did join one, then you had to participate in their idolatry. These guilds, every one of them had their own god or goddess, and sometimes multiple ones, and you had to participate in that if you joined with them. And so their feasts, their fertility cult activities, and these things were done typically monthly. And so if he did not join, then there would be economic hardship and there would be social ostracism. Some Christians joined them. They compromised. And they justified it, likely using Paul and certainly a misunderstanding of Paul. So it's very similar to what we talked about with Pergamos, but again, now to an even greater degree. Now, some of the key idols in Thyatira were Apollo in particular, who was the son of Zeus. He is also given the name Tyrimnos. He was considered, you know, it changes over the centuries, but he was considered probably at this time the sun god, maybe the war god. They have a depiction of him sitting on a horse with a battle axe. But some of the other gods were Propolis, Propater, Helios, which is another sun god, and there is a shrine to Sibyl that was found. And then every one of these trade guilds had their own patron deity. So we don't know how many there were. Maybe there were a dozen or two dozen guilds, but you have more idols here for the people in Thyatira. Now, we don't have trade guilds in our country. You don't go to work and necessarily see a little figurine that you bow down and worship. The temptations to compromise in our culture are quite similar to what the people of Thyatira had to face. Now, as we talked about with Pergamos, not only was the temptation with the trade guilds, but also there was the demand to worship the emperor. And so people were put to death if they didn't do it, if they didn't say Caesar is Lord. We saw that also with Smyrna. Remember, we made reference to Polycarp and so forth. Well, here in Thyatira, there must have been some of that. I mean, Jesus quotes Psalm 2, of all things. So there must have been some kind of the civil authority creating problems for Christians. But again, the predominant issue here is the temptation to compromise because of these trade guilds. Also, there does not appear to have been a large Jewish population. Again, if the city is as small as we think, that's not all that unexpected. But remember in Smyrna, it was a huge population of Jews there, the synagogue of Satan and so on. So again, the threat that the believers faced in Thyatira probably included civil. things that probably included the Jews, but primarily these trade guilds. Now, you remember what I've mentioned before, that by the time you come to the end of the first century, when John writes these things, the legal status of Christians was in flux. For most of the first century, the Romans considered Christians as a subset of Judaism. And since Judaism was a permitted religion, Christians were protected by the law. But that was changing. Obviously, you see that with Nero, and we see it here now with Domitian, and so on. By the time you get into the second century, especially with Trajan and beyond, it then became a legal policy that Christians were not Jews, and they were not a protected religion. So this is likely why we see some of the civil component with Smyrna and Pergamos, but not in Thyatira, because it's not a across-the-board policy yet, but it's getting there. But what we're facing here is chapter 17 and following. So not as much the beast of the sea and the beast of the land, chapter 13, but Babylon and the harlot. That is what's governing Thyatira, basically, at the time. All right, now one more thing here to mention by way of introduction. Notice how long this message is. It is the longest of the seven. It's 12 verses. In Ephesus, there, right, just seven verses. Smyrna, just four. Pergamos was six. After this, Sardis is six. Philadelphia, seven verses. And Laodicea, nine verses. So this is the longest of the seven. And notice, it's the center one. Now yes, geographically it fits and so forth, it's along the mail route and so on, but it seems to be put in the middle here as well to highlight the significance of this message. Not that the others are unimportant by no means. But not every generation and church faces persecution in the same way as the people of Smyrna or Philadelphia. Not every church becomes lukewarm or dead, like Laodicea or Sardis. And not every church is Orthodox, like the Ephesian church. But most churches, at some point in their history, most Christians, in fact, I think we can say all of us, at some point in our Christian walk, compromised with the world. compromise with sin and do things like that to avoid the hardships of life. And so the length of this and the centrality of this message seems to highlight that this is something that we all need to deal with. It wasn't just the believers in Thyatira. And so the threat of compromise is important for us to learn from this and to think carefully about it. Now, we've done some of it already, especially just here with Pergamos, but now here in an even greater way. Many of us have a refrigerator that is full, a pantry that has all the shells filled, Well, that's certainly not true for everybody. And though we may not struggle to have food on a day-to-day basis, probably most of us in here, if we lost our job, we might not go another month without having big, big troubles. Most of us here live month to month. And so the desire to compromise so that we have security in these ways, food, shelter, and clothing in particular, this is a concern that we all face throughout history. So anyway, I do think this is largely why it's put right here in the middle and why it's so long. So anyway, we now have some of this foundation, some of this background, and now hopefully we can better understand what Jesus is telling us. So, let's look again at the first part here of verse 18. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write. All right, we come, remember, to the seven C's. Here's the first one. John is commissioned to write, just like he'd done with the previous three. And so John here is obeying this command. And notice he is to write to this angel. Now, as I have explained to you a few different times now, I think it is likely that we should understand this as a symbolic reference. A symbol of our heavenly existence. Back in chapter one, Jesus is walking among the lampstands. He's not here on earth. He's in heaven. And so he is walking among the heavenly existence of the churches. Angels are there, of course, assisting Jesus to help believers and so on. But the emphasis fits with what Paul teaches us in Ephesians 2, for example, that we are already seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Because of our union with Christ, you're not just sitting there in the pews. But we're already seated in heaven. And so as we are facing our struggles, as we are facing even the joys of this life, remember they're just temporary. And within a matter of years, they're gonna be gone. But our heavenly existence is eternal. And so keep this in mind, especially when you're tempted to compromise. Keep in mind, where we really ultimately exist, have a heavenly view. And so may this encourage you in the face of your sufferings, but may it also challenge you to be godly and not to compromise. All right, now the next part here says, these things says the son of God. Now you recall the beginning of this, we've seen in the previous three messages, these things says, and then there's some description of Christ. And you recall that this is the exact language of the Old Testament where we see in the prophets, thus saith the Lord, or something like that. Same language, okay, but when you go from Hebrew to Greek and so forth, and now in English, it sounds a little bit different, but it's exactly the same. And so in this case, John is the prophet, like Jeremiah or Malachi, and Jesus is Yahweh. He is the one speaking. This message has divine authority. This message is specific for the believers in Thyatira, but it's also designed for all the church, all believers at all times and places. And so we, again, have been seeking to apply these teachings to ourselves here 2,000 years later. Alright, now, let's talk a little bit about the character of Christ, right? The second C here is Christ's character. And first of all, we are told that He is the Son of God. Now, somewhat surprisingly, this is the only time this name is used of Jesus in the book. You'd expect it more than that in light of all the global issues and so on and so forth that are described here. But here it is. We've already talked about the Son of Man name back in chapter 1, verse 13. And there, this is when John sees the vision of Christ in verse 13, in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man. And you recall there that we went back to Daniel chapter 7. And so they are the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man. And so we see his authority and his power. He is ruler. Jesus uses the name Son of Man repeatedly in the Gospels. And that also includes the idea of suffering as the suffering servant. But here, for Son of God, it is likely that Jesus uses this name for two primary reasons. The first one is because in verse 27, he quotes from Psalm 2. That's verses eight and nine. But in verse seven, as we just read a little bit ago together, this descendant of David, the Messiah, is the Son of God. and God is his father, so it is likely that the name is used here because of the connection to Psalm 2. The second reason why it is likely used is for a polemical purpose. And you recall, polemics mean, hey, you've heard this. You've heard these ideas are true. Well, those are not true. This is what is true. And so in Thyatira, Apollo, their principal deity, was called the son of Zeus, the son of God. And even Caesar was called the son of God or the son of Jupiter or Zeus. And so the polemic is simply this. You've heard all these things. You've grown up hearing about Apollo being the son of God. That's not true. Jesus is the son of God. He is the true son of the true God. Jesus isn't just a God among many. Jesus didn't become God. He is the eternal son of God, eternally begotten, one with the Father and the Spirit. And he always works to honor the Father. Let's just take a moment here and turn in our hymnals to the Confession again, page 853. It's been several months since we read this chapter now, but let me highlight a couple parts. In chapter 8 on page 853 here regarding Christ, the first paragraph begins and says, It pleased God in his eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten son, to be the mediator between God and man, the prophet, priest, and king, the head and savior of his church, the heir of all things, and judge of the world." Now note all those descriptors of Jesus. The one that is probably most pertinent for us in this message of Thyatira is obviously he's the only begotten son, but then also he is head and Savior of the Church. We'll say a bit more about that when we get to His blazing eyes. But Jesus is the Head of the Church. Yes, He's the Head of all things, all kings, and He's King of kings and Lord of lords, but He's Head of the Church here. In the second paragraph, the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature with all the essential properties, and it continues, and so on here. Obviously, we could spend a lot of time talking about the person of Christ. We are told here that He is the Son of God. He's not created. He wasn't born in the sense that a child is born, but he's eternally begotten. He's always existed and always existed in this relationship with the Father. And so they are equal, and yet there's this difference in role and so forth. So we don't believe in subordinationism, that Jesus is always inferior to the Father. Alright, well, that's to stay there. But the point is simply this. Jesus is the Son of God. He is the one speaking. He is sovereign over all things, including the church. Let's turn also now a moment to Daniel chapter 3. Daniel chapter 3. Now, you might remember that we turned to Daniel chapter 1. with the believers in Pergamos and you have Daniel and his three friends, right? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as we know them, but their actual names, right? Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. They're Hebrew names. Well, here in chapter 3, remember Nebuchadnezzar built this golden statue and wanted everybody to bow down and worship him, basically, and Mishael, and Hanani, and Azariah said, nope, we're not going to do it. And so Nebuchadnezzar gets very upset. And of course, we know the story. He throws him into the fiery furnace. Look at verse 24 here in Daniel chapter 3. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished. He rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said to the king, true, O king. Look, he answered, I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt. And from the form of the fourth is like the son of God. And so even Nebuchadnezzar is acknowledging this angel of the Lord. And of course, the angel of the Lord is ultimately referring to Christ. And so we see this connection here with Daniel. We have already seen one with chapter 1 and Daniel 7 with the Son of Man. And we're going to turn back to Daniel 10 here in just a few seconds. The connection with Daniel is very intentional. And the connection here with Daniel seems to highlight the fact that as Israel suffered at the hands of a foreign power, And remember, Daniel and his friends were tempted to compromise with eating food and so forth. You see how it fits. Here now, Christians are being persecuted for their faith, and a lot of it is centered around this issue of eating food. But it's the Son of God who rules over all, even over the greatest kings like Nebuchadnezzar. So as we come back here then to Revelation chapter two, the Son of God is sovereign. And notice the description of his eyes. Who has eyes like a flame of fire. If you turn back to chapter one, you remember this was the description for us given that John saw. Okay, verse 14 it says, his head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, right, so Daniel 7, right, the Ancient of Days connection, and his eyes like a flame of fire. Now here's our connection again to Daniel, this time chapter 10, and you recall this vision that Daniel had of this glorious man. And we see this description of him, which, of course, is a reference to Christ. And so, in Daniel chapter 10, verse 6, And so, once again, our attention is drawn back to Daniel. Learn from Daniel. Learn from these three men. Learn from these visions. John is connecting us. And of course, ultimately, Jesus is connecting us here. Well, the point of blazing eyes is simply this. Jesus sees everything. If you look at verse 23 here back in our passage, notice he says, I will kill her children with death, 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 works. And so Jesus sees everything. We can't escape that. You may compromise and justify it with many passages of scripture. You may partake in sinful behaviors or thoughts or words that nobody else knows about, but Jesus knows. Jesus sees all that is done. He sees all the motives of the heart. Every one of us here has done something that we'd be very embarrassed about if other people knew. And we become quite adept at hiding these things, don't we? But Jesus knows. There's no escaping. May this truth motivate you to holy living, to live in such a way that you're not surprised if somebody walks in the room unexpectedly. May it motivate you to live in such a way that you're not embarrassed, and that you will stand before Jesus not with shame, but with thanksgiving for his grace and his goodness. As the saying goes, we are who we truly are when nobody else is around. How we live is always before somebody, because Jesus sees everything. All of us also have justified our sinful behaviors and words. We may find a good biblical argument for it, but our motivations are still selfish and sinful. But we're only fooling ourselves and maybe others, but we're certainly not fooling Christ. Jesus knows. And so may the fact that Jesus sees everything, including the motivations of our hearts, may that motivate you to use his word rightly and righteously and not manipulate it to justify your sin. Now it is likely that this descriptor is also a polemic. Apollo, as I said, was considered the sun god who had blazing eyes. But no, it is Jesus who sees through all lies, compromise, and seemingly godly behavior and ideas. Now we'll spell out some of these principles as we go through the next verses, but note these ideas here. Alright, now lastly, we see then that his feet are like fine brass. Now, your translation may say burnished bronze. Hey, if you go back to chapter 1 again, this was part of the initial vision. This time, verse 15, his feet were like fine brass as if refined in a furnace. And then, of course, we read from Daniel 10, verse 6, which also described his arms and his legs this way. Now, there's actually some debate on whether it's fine brass or burnished bronze. And an alloy of copper and zinc will give you brass. An alloy of copper and tin will give you bronze. So there's some debate on which it was exactly. But the point is, remember, in Thyatira, bronze works were very important. And so again, this is a polemic. You've heard about all this bronze, what it does for the military or, you know, whatever. But it's Jesus who has feet of bronze. It is Jesus who is the symbol of authority and power. Not Caesar, not the military, not anybody else, but Jesus. And his feet also will bring about judgment. He breaks the grip of oppressors, stomps on them, puts his feet on their neck. And so whether it's the oppressor in the trade guild or the oppressor sitting in the halls of power, Jesus is sovereign over all of that. Now one commentator brought out this point too and said that notice that there's no description of any footwear. And apparently this too is a polemic because ancient rulers are sometimes depicted without shoes on their feet or sandals or whatever. And the indication here is that this ruler is so powerful that they need nothing for their feet. They can stomp on all their enemies without any protection. It also would suggest that this leader was divine in some way. And so again, you've heard this. That's not true. Jesus is the one who has nothing on his feet. They are bronze. They are powerful. He is more powerful than any human ruler or trade guild or social pressure or whatever. And so notice this opening description of Jesus. He is the son of God who sees all things and has power over all. Do not forget this truth when you're tempted to compromise. May it motivate you unto holiness and obedience. And when you do fall, because we all do, the Son of God is also the Son of Man who came to die for us and to restore us unto the Father. And so here's some opening thoughts for this message to the believers in Thyatira and by extension to us. And so Lord willing, next time we will continue looking at the next parts. Let's pray together. Our Father in God, we thank you again for your word. We thank you for making yourself known to these people here 2,000 years ago. And certainly the message given to them is most relevant for us too. As we live in this land of ease, it is very easy for us to compromise. Lord, we pray that you would give us insight into ourselves. And here today, especially, we pray that you would help us to keep this vision of Christ before us. This vision of Christ with his blazing eyes and his bronze feet. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to come before you as God, as the Son of God. May this humble us. May it motivate us under righteousness and away from sin. We pray, Lord, that we would learn these truths and that you would work in us, growing us in grace, that we might persevere to the end and receive those eternal blessings promised for the true believer. And we pray all these things then in Jesus' name, amen.