We're in Revelation chapter 2 this morning and we'll be picking up at verse 18 concerning the message to the church at Thyatira. And the title of the message this morning is Standing Against Apostasy. Now the word apostasy simply means to turn away from the faith. And we find that sometimes churches do that. That is, they turn away from the truth of the gospel. They abandon what has been given to them as the true doctrines of Christ. And this particular church here in Thyatira, it wasn't completely guilty of this, but there was a segment in the church that was guilty of abandoning the faith of Christ. And they were involved in other things. And so as churches, we always have to guard against apostasy, because it can creep in from outside. And that's what happened, it appears, to this church in Thyatira. There was a false teacher among them that was having a great deal of influence over the church and began to take the church in the wrong direction, especially some of them to the point where the Lord would have to not only rebuke them, would have to bring great chastisement upon that group of people and the church that had fallen away from the truth. Well, let's begin by reading, first of all, chapter 2, verse 18, through the end of the chapter. And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write, These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass. I know thy works, and charity, or love, and service and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and the last to 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 seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. 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 searches the reins and hearts, and I will give unto 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 will 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. Let us pray. Loving Father, we do thank you for the reading of the Word of God this morning and pray you will bless it to our hearts and give us understanding concerning these things, concerning this church. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, as I have said before, we're looking at these seven churches in Asia Minor. And one of the things I think that is important for us to realize that these are actual churches. And though John is receiving this vision on the Isle of Patmos, we find that the Holy Spirit, God himself, through Jesus Christ and giving this vision, this revelation of Jesus Christ unto the churches is bringing to attention these various sins, if you will, in some of these churches that we might be realizing are prevalent in all society, not just in Asia Minor, but unto the world as well, even as we know that the church age continues and this message of the Book of Revelation is just as important for us now as it was in the first century. And so, the church at Thyatira was a real church. In fact, you may remember Lydia, who was of the city of Thyatira. And Lydia was, of course, saved, if you will. The Lord opened her heart, and it is recorded in the Book of Acts. and she was a seller of purple. That is the dyeing of the woolen products, the linen products that they made was necessary to commerce and we find that Lydia was involved in in selling this purple cloth as it were but probably she also was involved in perhaps dyeing the cloth and making it suitable to merchandise but she was saved and she was saved in the city of Thyatira. Well, that's an interesting notation that comes out of the Book of Acts, but Thyatira was 40 miles southeast of Pergamon. So we have Ephesus on the seacoast, then we have Smyrna on the seacoast, those are seaports, then Pergamon was a little bit further inland. and then this Thyratira is like 40 miles southeast of Pergamon, Pergamos. And it was a much smaller city, but it was situated in an area where there was abundant crops and probably they had a lot of sheep industry, that is, growing wool and so forth. And they had this purple dye, which was important to, I suppose, many of the people who wanted to buy fabrics. But we find here that the Lord Jesus Christ brings this church to attention because of one particular sin. which was in the church, and that was that there was a notable woman, she is called Jezebel, though perhaps that is not really her name, but because she was of an idolatrous person, and that she was leading others astray unto idolatry, and unto sacrificing to idols, as well as committing immoralities, and we find that she is a model of the Old Testament woman called Jezebel, who was married to King Ahab. and she was like that as well. In fact she was so notorious in the Old Testament that even Elijah was fearful of her and ran away as it were and hid under a juniper bush because he was somewhat fearful that something was going to happen to him. And that was after his great experience on top of Mount Carmel wherein he was in competition against the prophets of Baal. But we find that this woman is a notorious person by type or character and she is in the church at Thyatira. But let us begin here with the beginning of this of this passage in chapter 2 in verse 18 and unto the angel of the church in Thyatira well we notice that each one of these begin pretty much the same unto the angel of the church in Ephesus or Smyrna or Pergamos and now it's Thyatira And of course each one of these churches were to be given this segment of a letter that was more pertinent to them, that is, that spoke of their particular church and of the promise or commendations as well as the various condemnations concerning the church. And it says, unto the angel or messenger, and I've mentioned that to you before, that the word angel, although it is the word angelos and can mean a heavenly person, it is probably referring to one who is receiving a message to be given to the congregation at the church, maybe the pastor, whoever is delivering this message to the church. A messenger unto the angel of the church in Thyatira right and of course John is receiving this message and he is recording it just as the Lord has instructed him to record and he says these things sayeth the Son of God the Son of God Now previously Jesus was referred to as the Son of Man, but here he is referred to as the Son of God. And so the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is being stressed here, that is the Godhood of Christ. Jesus is God, Remember, he is the incarnate God. He is the one who was born of the Virgin Mary. And no, Mary was not immaculate. Simply, Mary was favoured of God. And why was she favoured? Because we find that her husband to be, her espoused husband, was of the lineage of the Christ. for the Christ to come and so Mary was espoused unto Joseph Joseph did not bring the conception upon Mary but rather the Holy Spirit of God did and like as I just mentioned to you an angel and heavenly being in this particular case but that heavenly being also brought a message So we get the sense of a heavenly being bringing a message in that particular case. And so we find that Jesus is being brought forth here as the Son of God. Remember that Jesus is speaking to John. And so this revelation of Jesus Christ, in this particular case, these things, saith the Son of God, who hath eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass. Now perhaps the Lord decided to bring this emphasis of the deity of God to the church at Thyatira simply because, well, there was some doctrinal impurity. There was some apostasy. In other words, there was a turning away from the true doctrine of Christ in this church through this woman Jezebel. And so Jesus is being named here as the son of God and not only so, he is being named as the one who has the right to judge. He is the right to judge. And so we find that he judges the churches. He can speak with power and authority against those who would be in sin in the church. and we would say that in a sense that Jesus is bringing a word of chastisement upon this church through his revelation of himself as not only the son of God but as the one who is able to look into the hearts and lives of people Now, on the surface, we see people just as they are, you know, we're dressed in our clothing and we comb our hair as best we can, we put on a little whatever, and we look, you know, we do the best we can with what we've got, right? But the Lord looks at the inside of the individual. And so, you know, maybe this woman Jezebel, you know, on the outside, maybe she was dressed fairly nicely, Maybe those who were followers of her looked like just about every other person in the congregation. In other words, the sin is often hidden from the eyes of man. But not from God, remember, who has eyes like a flame of fire. Jesus can see, God the Holy Spirit can see inside of us and he knows what is really behind the exterior and so he is able to judge. And so he is the one who judges the church in Thyatira. And he is given this description here. He says, I know thy works and charity and service and faith. So we find what does the Lord do? He's gracious. God is gracious and he's merciful. And so what does he do? He begins with a commendation. He begins by saying something good about the church in Thyatira. Well, you know, there is always something good to be said about a church. We would hope so, right? We would hope there were some good things to say. And so he does. He says, I know thy works and love, or charity, and service, and faith. So love, and good works, and faith. Well, that's something good. And Jesus says, I know these things. And you have those things in your church. And we should always emulate those kinds of things, shouldn't we? We should seek to love one another. We should seek to love others. We should seek to do good works unto others. We should seek to have faith toward God. Faith that truly demonstrates that we love God and want to serve God. These things are good. And so the Lord begins by saying that and John is writing these things down. They are true. They are true of the church as I retire. they are true of the people of that segment of the people that were faithful and he says and thy patience and thy works and the last to be more than the first and so there was some sense that the church was actually growing in these things it wasn't stagnated it was doing better and better in these things well we I think as churches we always want to try to do the best that we can, don't we? Don't we always want to try to do a little bit more if possible? When we take on missionaries and support them, we usually aren't satisfied with just one missionary. We want to support two missionaries if we can. And as the church grows a little bit more, we want to support three missionaries if we can. We want to do good works unto other ministries. Many churches have various kinds of para-church, ministries, that is ministries that go along with the church in various kinds of good deeds. And those are good, those are good, you know some work very hard to feed the poor, others work very hard to provide some kind of service and support for those who are elderly or those who are shut-ins at home and various kinds of dare-to-care ministries and we have a dare-to-care ministry here as well and try to encourage people and so forth and so he says all of these things he says I know that this church is working hard to do even more to do even more and that's good and remember this is a commendation this is a commendation and it's good to bring out those things to encourage people in the work of the ministry, and I would encourage you to. I would say to you, do whatever you can. You know, even though somebody else isn't starting to do something, you do it. If you can do it, you do it. Because God will bless you with it if you put your heart into it and really want to serve Him. When we move on to verse 20, we find the tone begins to change. There is in some sense a rebuke now. He commends them in one area, but he rebukes them in another area. And in verse 20 he says, notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee. because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel which calleth herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols and so in this there is a big rebuke that there is this woman Jezebel among them and she is leading people astray But not only that, he is saying you are allowing it. The church was allowing it to happen. Now that certainly isn't something to be commended, is it? If there was some group in the church that was teaching false teaching or doing things that was immoral or teaching some doctrine which was against the doctrines of Christ, we wouldn't want it to continue, would we? No. But this church in Thyatira, it was allowing it to continue. And of course, you might say, well, how can that happen? Well, sometimes ministries that don't agree with the church try to operate kind of behind the scenes somewhere or in the shadows. They don't come out publicly and do it. Well, if somebody is going to commit some kind of immorality, would they go do it in public or would they do it in private somehow? If they're going to go to a temple and sacrifice to something in a temple, they probably wouldn't want anybody else to know about it, would they? You see, that's the kind of thing that might have been going on. I mean, we don't know that for sure, but in what sense? Now, remember that this particular church, how public was it as a church? Was it just a house ministry? Did it have a building of its own? We aren't told these kinds of things. It isn't said to us here that the church in Thyatira was meeting in such and such a person's house. We aren't told that. We aren't told all the details, but we are told enough to know that this church in some things was serving God and living out the true faith and love of Christ, but in other things, such as this woman who was teaching false teaching and leading people astray, it was happening in the shadows. I'll give you a little illustration. You know, the state of Maine has made it legal to grow marijuana and to sell marijuana publicly. And I'm sure you know that other states have followed in this. Now, marijuana is, you might say, well, it's kind of one of those drugs that, you know, isn't too bad. But at the same time, The federal government still says it's a controlled substance and they still arrest people for trafficking in marijuana. But how do these businesses operate? Well, they operate in the shadows. They don't put out a sign, we grow marijuana here. No, they operate in the shadows. And you may know in some, there's some towns around here you may know and they grow marijuana in some of those towns. I know where there's several of them. And they're growing marijuana and they're selling marijuana. They're selling this illegal drug. And the state of Maine is okay with it. Along with Colorado or Oregon or other places and they're doing the same thing. But they're operating in the shadows, you see. There's no sign out front. But my point is this, you know this church in Thyatira, this woman, I'm sure she didn't have a sign and she was holding up a sign saying, I'm teaching these people to fornicate. I'm teaching these people to go to the temple and to give sacrifices at the temple and to eat meat sacrifice. I'm sure she didn't hold up a sign. She was probably operating in the shadows. You know, behind scenes as much as she could. It's something about sin. It wants to thrive in the dark. Not in the light. It wants to thrive in the dark. And that's what we're seeing with some of these businesses, you know, like these drug businesses. They operate in the shadows. They're not right out in public. and this woman was I think was doing the same thing notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest this woman Jezebel she's called Jezebel because the Old Testament woman Jezebel she was a notorious woman she led King Ahab astray from Israel he was not a good king he was a bad king and he because of Jezebel he allowed Baal worship and the sacrifice to Baal probably human sacrifice and this was Jezebel and this was a king in Israel and Israel was supposed to be the worshipper of one true and living God they were supposed to worship at the temple they were supposed to be true to God and here is King Ahab and he's just cowering in the corner like a whip dog and Jezebel was beating him over the head and telling him what to do and she was causing all these horrendous things to go on in the nation of Israel and this woman Jezebel was causing some terrible things to go on in a church of Jesus Christ in a church that was supposed to be honoring God and loving God and serving God and so anytime that we see something happening in the church that is not true to the doctrines of Christ we need to shed some light on it we don't want it to operate in the shadows we want to shed the light of God's word on it and so this woman and these followers of Jezebel were being rebuked And she called herself a prophetess. She gave herself a good name, you know. She says, I'm a prophet. And you know, a prophet is supposed to speak for God. Oh, you remember last week we talked about Balaam. Well, Balaam called himself a prophet as well. But he didn't always speak for God. Only when God told him, you speak for me or else. Then he spoke for God. that he snuck around behind and he caused a stumbling block for the nation of Israel and he caused the children of Israel to commit immorality by marrying outside of the nation of Israel. Now see there again operating in the shadows you see behind closed doors and Jezebel was like this, he says, to teach and seduce my people, my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Now remember in Pergamos there were all kinds of idolatry going on, all kinds of temples going on. And of course, well, they're not that far apart, right? You don't have to go far to find some idolatry or some sin. But is it, you know, You go to Las Vegas, Nevada and they call it Sin City. Well, I guess it earned its name, perhaps. Well, you don't have to go far to find sin. You just go over a few towns. Well, we find that Thyatira wasn't that far away from Pergamos. And idolatries, of course, were prevalent in that day. Even temples raised to it. Verse 21, And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. She repented not. You know, God is merciful. God is merciful. If there is some sin, God says, repent, repent. I've told you what it is, now repent. You see, Jesus, the Son of God, verse 18, He's revealed that He has the right to judge. He's revealed that. And He's identified the sin. He said, this woman Jezebel is causing others to sin against Me. And He says, I gave her space to repent. And she repented not. She did not repent. What does that mean? Well, God is going to judge her. God is going to judge that kind of sin. You know, even though something operates in the shadows, even though a church decides to just overlook it and don't say anything, that doesn't mean that God is going to overlook it and not say something. Does it? No. No, God doesn't overlook it. God will judge it. Eventually it will come to the light and God is going to judge it. And that's what he says. 22. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, that bed of immorality that she is creating, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And of course it mentions here great tribulation, well we know if we know anything about the book of revelation we know that eventually we get there to that part of the revelation that talks about great tribulation but also the fact that wherever there is sin God is going to judge it and because he will judge it we know that there will be tribulation come upon those who will not repent of their sin if they will not repent God will bring of judgment upon them. In verse 23, and what is the judgment? And I will kill her children with death. You see this Jezebel had her followers and they were going to suffer because of her false teaching and of their willingness to follow her. and so we always must be on guard against those who would teach falsely verse 23 and all the churches notice plural all the churches shall know that I am he which searches the reins and hearts and I will give unto every one of you according to your works and so in other words this church would be picked out as one to be an example, if you will, to the other churches. And I think that's important for us to take note of too, because if we see another church over here doing something they shouldn't be doing, we shouldn't just put blinders on and not take note of it. We should remember that God may use those churches or that church which is involved in something as an example that we might not follow in that way. We always have to guard our own testimony for Christ. We always have to be willing to look at ourselves and to make sure that we are walking in the light the way that God wants us to walk and present the ministry the way God wants us to present the ministry. We have to look at ourselves. We take note if there is another church which has fallen. And you shouldn't say, oh, that could never be me. That could never be our church. We shouldn't say that. Because we're all subject to like passions as all men are. We're all subject to these things. And we should keep our guard up and remember that our hearts must be truly loyal to Christ. He says, I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. So this kind of goes back to verse 18. You know, where God is the righteous judge. The Son of God is the righteous judge, and He's going to judge. He's going to. And He knows the reins and hearts of individuals. He knows what moves us. He knows our desires. He knows what's hidden within our hearts, and how we can be so easily drawn astray. He knows all these things. He says, I know your works. and every one of you according to your works. He knows every one of us according to our works. He knows who we really are, you see. I know this is sometimes hard to take, isn't it? The Lord does examine us that closely, but He does. And of course the key factor is this. Will we repent? Do we have a true heart of repentance? Verse 21. You see, Jezebel and her followers did not have the heart of repentance. But if we do, at any time that there is anything, when we come to the Lord and confess that to the Lord and turn away from it, the Lord will show mercy unto us. verse 24, but unto you I say, unto the rest in Thyatira, now verse 24 indicates that there is a remnant people in the church, a remnant people in the church at Thyatira, a remnant is a people, they are a smaller group but they're not the whole, they're a smaller group, and they are a purer people. They really want to serve the Lord. Well, he talks about that at the beginning, doesn't he? When he commends them. He says, I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and the last to be more than the first. This is the remnant people that he talks about in verse 24. There's a remnant people in Thyatira. who really do love the Lord. The church isn't completely gone, but there's an apostate group in it. But unto you I say, unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, the doctrine of this woman Jezebel. And notice that doctrine, you know, sometimes people say, oh, I don't like doctrine. I don't like doctrine. But that's what holds us all together in Christ. is the doctrine. The doctrine is really the teachings of Christ. Do you believe in the death, the burial, and the resurrection of the Lord? That's doctrine. Those are the teachings of Christ, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and He rose again on the third day, and that He resurrected and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Those are doctrinal teachings. That is to teach the doctrines of Christ. Now there is much more but those are doctrines doctrines is what the church stands on to prove itself to be faithful to the Lord you see and we find here that those who who were teaching against the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, they had impure, impure doctrines. But I say unto you, and the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, this doctrine of Jezebel, and which have not known the depths of Satan, now remember, Pergamos, that their church was in Satan's seat. In Pergamos, it was called Satan's seat. because of all of those idolatrous temples all around the church in Pergamos. But here he says, the depths of Satan. In other words, wherever sin has rooted into a church or among a people is called the depths of Satan simply because it's not of God. If it isn't of God, then it's of Satan. As simple as that. and so we find that the depths of Satan was there Jezebel and idolatry and eating meat sacrifice unto idols and immorality that was the depths of Satan you see not of God that's of Satan and I will put upon you none of the burden he says I will put upon you none of the burden and so it is that that the Lord was going to favor the remnant few. God would favor the remnant few. But those who needed to be chastised, those who needed to be rebuked, he would not hold back. He would bring full rebuke against them. Verse 25, but that which ye have already, hold fast. So again, he's speaking to the remnant people. He says, hold fast to what you know. Hold fast. If you have something good that you know the Lord is pleased with, hold fast to it. Hold fast to it. The doctrines of Christ, hold fast to those things. Your love for the Lord, hold fast to that. Your good works for Christ which are truly honoring to God. Hold fast to that. Your faith which says, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. Hold fast to that. You see, hold fast to those things that you know to be true and good. But that which you have already, he says, hold fast till I come. Till I come. The Lord just wants us to be faithful. That's all. Just hold fast to what we know to be true. We don't have to be great theologians. You don't have to know everything about the Bible. You don't have to say, I can quote chapter and verse in every book in the Bible. You don't have to know that all. As long as you've got a Bible, you can look it up. I mean, if you can remember some of these verses, that's great. In fact, you probably will say, oh, that's good, I'll remember that one. I've wondered where that verse was. Well, that's good, that's good. You don't have to know them all. But hold fast what you know to be true in Christ. Hold fast. Verse 26, And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. Now, verse 26 is really looking at the millennial kingdom. You know, just like verse 1 is setting Jesus Christ or the Son of God out as the final judge, right? In verse 26, he's saying, because I'm the final judge, I'm going to be ruling and reigning and you're going to be with me when I rule and reign over the nations. You know, It's good that as believers we have something more than the present moment to look to. I mean, the present moment is good, but there are some things that we can look to that are yet future. Jesus is coming again. God will establish his kingdom in righteousness and truth, and he will judge the nations, and we will be a part of that. You see, there's something to look forward to. Now, we don't know what that all means. I mean, you know, you may say, well, does that mean I'm going to be a judge, like sitting at a bench somewhere and making judgments? I don't know what God has in mind. I just know that God means for us to serve Him in some capacity in that kingdom that He's going to be establishing. Just what that's going to be, we're going to have to trust Him for that. Verse 27, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my father. Well, this goes back to verse 26 in the judgment. In other words, God is going to judge in righteousness, and yes, he will judge as a true judge, and will not let sin take over. Nor will he allow any to upset his kingdom. And God is going to have true rule of righteousness and holiness in his kingdom. None of this stuff that we see today in a world that is full of sin and unrighteousness. Verse 28, And I will give him the morning star Now, the morning star is a pretty bright star out there. And Jesus is sometimes referred to as that bright and morning star. Well, isn't that good that we will rule and reign with Christ? Christ being that morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And so that brings us to the end of that chapter, but the kind of the punchline is this. Are you listening to the Spirit of God this morning? Do you want what the Spirit of God has in store for you? Do you want to be a part of that remnant people of God that is serving God faithfully right now and looking yet to the future for those blessings that will be unfolded? Listen to the Spirit of God. You know, there are other spirits to listen to, but they are not of God. This woman Jezebel was one of them. And she was leading them in the wrong direction. And God was going to judge her and kill her children. That is, they would be judged and destroyed. Sin has a way of bringing full and final destruction upon people. and she was going to receive it, and so were those followers of her. But the rest, there were eternal glories yet to be known, and God wanted them to continue faithfully, and he wants us to as well. Shall we pray? Loving Father, we do thank you for your word to us. Pray you will bless your word to our hearts. Pray you will encourage us in our service and works and labor of love and patience of hope in Christ that we might be glorifying you. And Lord, that we would be sure to look out for any doctrinal error and that we should not become a part of it, but rather that we should cling fast to our Savior and to the two true teachings of Christ. Lord, we ask your blessing now In Jesus' name, amen.