00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Beloved congregation of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, the One who has eyes like flames
of fire and feet like fine brass, He is the Son of God. This is the only place in Revelation
in terms of the letters that the title Son of God is used. And why is it? Now we've been
talking a little bit about these cities and that there's something
about the cities and the way that Jesus writes to them that
makes sense to them. So if you would go to Thyatira
back then, it wasn't a very important city, it wasn't a very great
city, in fact it didn't last all that long, and this church
really did not exceed in power or importance. It was a city
that was out in the middle of a plain, it was easily conquered,
it was very easily overthrown and overtaken. It was filled
with guilds, with all kinds of craft, metalwork, ironwork, clothwork,
wickerwork, woodwork, and you can go on and on. But there was
all guilds there, we'll call them sort of trade unions of
that, and each one of them had a pagan god associated with them. But the main temple there was
for Apollos, or Tiramis. And he was the son of Zeus. So in the city where the son
of Zeus is worshipped, God says, I have placed my beloved son,
Psalm 2. the Son of God. God is speaking,
the Son of God is speaking, Zeus is quiet, and Apollos can do
nothing about it. This is your God, this is your
Savior. And do you see Him? He's dazzling, He's majestic,
He's offensive, He's intimidating. He's not the Jesus that the world
wants, soft and cuddly, kind and effeminate. No, He is the
one who judges the living and the dead. He is our anointed
King, as Psalm 2 says. He is our priest who gave Himself
up for us, who died so that He would take the judgment. Who
will judge us? Well, Jesus will judge us. Who will condemn us?
The one who took our condemnation upon himself. In all things we
are more than conquerors. We will fear nothing, for the
Lord God is with us. Of whom shall we be afraid? Jesus comes to the church in
Thyatira and says, this is who I am. This is who you need to
be in me. I am the Son of God. I am the Lord of Lords and King
of Kings. And in me you are more than conquerors. I have praise for you. But I
also have a calling and commendation and condemnation for you. And so let us hear what the Spirit
says to the churches this morning under the theme Christ calls
the church in Thyatira to hold fast until He comes. First the
commendation, and then the calling, and then the comfort that He
brings. I am the Son of God. I am the one whose eyes are like
a flame of fire. I can see into your hearts. I
can see right and I can see wrong. My feet are like fine brass.
I stand among you in glory. I know you. I am the great and
glorious Lord of lords, a king of kings, and beloved in Thyatira. I know you. And you know how
I know you? Remember that song we used to sing when we were
kids? They will know we are Christians by our love. And isn't that what
Jesus says? I know your works, your love,
your service, your faith. and your patience. Just the opposite,
right, of Ephesus. You've lost your first love.
And then we talked about that vertical love. Had they lost
the thrill, the excitement, the great deep love of God who had
saved them from sin and death and hell, either from the depths
of paganism and heathenism, or from the depths of Judaism without
Christ, making one new man, and now they had lost, because of
losing love for God, their love for one another. They weren't
burning in that, and Thyatira is just the opposite. They are
a church that is burning with love for God, and that's overflowing
with a desire to serve one another. I know your works. Remember what
James said, show me your faith, I'll show you my works. For faith
without works is dead. Jesus said, I am the vine, you
are the branches. If you abide in me and I abide
in you, then you will bear fruit. But if you do not, my father
will prune you out, as we're going to see. But when I look
at you, I see the works of righteousness. I see the works of faithfulness
and of love. And then when you add to that,
he says, I see your service, then that word there could better
be translated ministry. I see your ministry of the church. Now in my pastor life, I got
to deal once with someone who died out of a trade union. And
I was actually quite astounded and amazed. The care that that
trade union took care of the man's family who died. Now, it
didn't have a Christ-centered, there was no prayer, there was
really no comfort they could build, but anything you need,
we'll be there. We'll make sure that the funeral arrangements
are taken care of. I actually had to meet with the union leader
and the family together to put together the services. And I
thought, oh, there is something here And it's the way the world
works. And there's something good about
it, okay? But the ministry here is different. It's when the church
does something rooted in faith, rooted in worship, they're in
that place where Apollos and Zeus and Hermes and all these
other gods are worshipped. There is the people of God in
the beauty and the marvel of their worship. They're glowing.
Jesus says, I see you in the way that you take care of one
another. that we minister, serve one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, that we gather together
as we read in Hebrews, and let us consider how we may spur one
another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up the meeting
together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one
another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. See, they were not going to be
able, as good Christians, to abide very long in the guilds
unless they made some changes, as we're going to see. But if
they held fast and held true, then they were going to lose
their jobs. They were going to lose their income. To become
a child of God and pray, give us this day our daily bread,
might mean you might not get your daily bread the way you're
used to getting it. And that's a burden, that's an oppression,
that's a persecution. But no matter, because if I go
to the people of God, I'll be taken care of. I'll be loved. I will be served. What a beautiful
thing. That is a power. The communion
of the saints is so important for the church of Jesus Christ.
If we are the frozen chosen, if this is just the tombstone
over the grave of the dead, then what does it mean? But we are
called to be alive. And beloved, I think Jesus in
many ways would say that to you in Zion. We see that together
when a sister has a baby and the meals come. We see that together,
how you gather together during a time of a funeral, and the
kitchen is busy, and the fellowship hall is busy, and the people
who come to bring their comfort and to bring their words of peace,
and in a Christian way. When we have a funeral and we're
all together. When the deacons, always by God's
grace, have enough to take care of those who have need. When
the ministry of the church can continue. When we see that this
is a place where men love women, properly, generally speaking.
And women understand who men are generally, properly speaking. It doesn't mean we need to grow
in these things. Of course we do. We need to get better at them.
We need to understand these things. And we're going to talk about
those relationships But I think we would be able to say with
some confidence that some of the things that we need to be
doing by God's grace, always to Him be the glory, through
the power of the Spirit, always a recognition of His work in
Him, because of the saving work of Jesus Christ, we are more
and more becoming a loving community. I don't know always about the
patience part that Jesus saw in them. Are we always patient
with one another? We are strong in our faith. We
can be reformed. We can be very much like the
Ephesus church. This is wrong and this is right.
But we need to be patient with each other. I think we could
grow in that. But we need to continue to grow in that in part
because of the world that needs your work, your service, your
love, your faithfulness. That's why God has the church. That's why he has put Jesus Christ
in Thyatira, and in Sheffield, and in Dundas, and in Cambridge,
and all around Canada. The communities have a place
to go to be cared for, to be loved. It starts with us. Whatever
you do, so to the least of these, my brothers, you do to me. We
learn that together, and then we grow in that beauty and that
marvel. Hear what the Spirit says to
the churches. Love one another, that your joy
may be full. Let them know that Jesus reigns
here, that He is great and that He is glorious. And patiently
endure in a world that ridicules us, that doesn't understand us,
that doesn't love us, that wants sometimes the money we give but
not the hope and the faith and the courage and the scripture
that we give. Because fundamental to all of those works is their
faith in Jesus. They see His service, His work,
His love, His faith, and the patience of Jesus. To walk on
this earth, to be ridiculed, laughed at, scorned, So misunderstood. How could He be so forgiving?
How could He be so kind to us? Even just this morning, how many
sins did we not commit? And yet He says, I love you.
And He says, I love you so much I gave you a baptism this morning
that you could remember all of this. I have you baptized. Remember,
I've washed you clean. Now don't get dirty again. I've
washed you clean so that you can be good and right and true
and innocent. Let them know you're baptized. Let them know you are Christians
by your love. I commend you, church in Thyatira. And I hope and I think that Jesus
would say on some level the same to us. I commend you. Nevertheless, verse 20, there's
that big word again, nevertheless, I have a calling for you. 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 to eat things sacrificed to idols. So behind this we hear the Decision
made from Acts 15 some call that the first synod some call that
the first General Assembly if you're a Presbyterian But remember
that the churches came together because Paul and Barnabas came
back and said look we are baptizing Gentiles and then there was that
discussion. Well, shouldn't the Gentile men
be circumcised and after much prayer and discussion? They decided
no the men do not need to be circumcised They need to integrate
into the grace and the beauty of the marvel of Jesus Christ
baptism is enough which we have just seen, but for this time
we say, stay away from meat that's been offered to idols and still
has blood in it, and to abstain, to keep away from sexual immorality.
So this is now being affirmed by Jesus. This is what we decided
as churches, you need to stay away from it. Now what's also
interesting is that the first level of Jesus' unhappiness with
the church is not Jezebel first of all, but he says, I have a
few things against you because you allow that woman. Notice that. Ephesus was commended
because when you see heresy, you get rid of it. Jesus is saying,
I gave you the keys of the kingdom. I've given you the key of preaching,
but you're allowing this woman who preaches falsehood. So now
we have two levels of problem, right? In that age, in the apostolic
age, some women were given the gift of prophecy. Remember Philip's
four daughters? There's nothing wrong with that.
But she continues to preach. She's been given authority. Paul
had written, I permit no woman to have authority in the church.
She may not be preaching, but you're letting her preach. But
not only are you letting her preach, you're letting her preach
this false doctrine. So what really is this false
doctrine? It's you can be in the guild and you can be in the
church too. There's so much grace. That grace
will abound. There is enough grace that if
you need to make a living, and from time to time you need to
go to the pagan celebration and hang out at their barbecues and
then be involved with the orgies and the horrible stuff that happens
afterwards, no worry. Christ's blood is strong enough. It's deep enough. You can have
both. But the word of the Lord had
already come through the apostles, through Jesus Christ to the churches.
You may not do that. No, you may do it. And by the
way, notice it's not to the elders, first of all, it's to the church,
beloved. All of us need to stand on guard
for heresy, certainly to the elders. The keys of the kingdom
have been given to the elders, but for the sake of the church,
it's been given to you too. It's not okay when you see something
wrong to sit silently by, or to simply go to church and go,
oh, she's preaching again. Oh, well, we can just keep going. And it's interesting for us,
right? There's all of this love, and all of this activity, and
quite often that's what happens with a loving, active church.
They get tired of doctrine. Because doctrine makes it harder
to love people, and it makes it harder to get along with people.
But you need both. Loving goodness without a moral
heart is useless. We need to love people, but we
need to bring them the truth. We need to bring them the good
message. Because what you're doing when you eat the food sacrificed
to idols, is you're acknowledging these idols. You're telling everybody
else, well, I ate with you, so really what you're doing isn't
so bad. You don't need the Son of God.
It's okay to have Apollos, the son of Zeus. And you may not
do that. It destroys, but it also destroys
us. We stop being brilliant light. We stop being razor sharp for
the things of the truth. And slowly but surely, we always
go away. Why did he use Jezebel? It's
interesting so far, right? We've had the Nicolaitans, we've
had Balaam, and now we have Jezebel. And I think I've said that before,
I think between Ahab and Jezebel, those are two names that I don't
think any Christian would ever name their children. Especially
Jezebel. Jezebel has connotations. She
is the daughter of Ethbael. Ephael and Amorai get together
to make a treaty and bring Ahab and Jezebel together. So they
marry the kingdoms together and Jezebel comes with 400 prophets
of Asherah and 450 prophets of Baal. We always remember
the 450 of Baal, but we forget the 400 of Asherah. Supposedly
Baal would sleep together with Asherah in the great Greek, or
sorry, pagan Otherworld, and then that would make the ground
pregnant. And so how would we get them
aroused? Well, then we do those terrible and wild and horrible
sexual things, and that gets them aroused and they want to
be together. This is the kind of religion Jezebel brought to
Israel. And remember on the day that
she died, when Jehu came, do you remember what she did? She
made herself up like a prostitute, trying to win Jehu to seduce
him so that he won't kill her. Now do you understand? And again,
what we talked about, right? That if you don't understand
the Old Testament, it's really hard to understand the book of
Revelation. But now we bring it from 1 Kings 21, then 25 through
26, and then 29, and we think of the horrible ordeal of how
she had innocent Naboth killed, and in that we have a picture
of how the innocent Jesus is killed, not by the wicked of
the world, but by the leadership of the Church. So now this woman
has decided that she is, by the way, she's a self-appointed prophet.
This is anarchy. We've just kicked God out of
the church. We've just said to Jesus Christ, yeah, you're the
son of God, Lord of lords and king of kings, but we're gonna
let her appoint herself against your word, against the normal
order of things. And it's bad enough what she's
preaching, but you're allowing it. And Jesus says, I see her,
and I know her, and I told her, you have time to repent. We think
of Ezekiel 33. It is not the will of the Lord
God that any should perish, even this woman. And by the way, some
people think that the way that it says that woman, it's actually
a idiomatic way of saying wife. Some people wonder if she's the
wife of the angel of the minister to whom the letter is written,
or a pastor's wife. I don't know, we don't know for
sure. What we know is that she's illegitimate, and that what she's
preaching is absolutely illegitimate. And the church is allowing it.
Now, a couple of things. We've talked about the danger
of idolatry and eating food offered to idols, and how that pulls
us away from God. But in two of the churches at
least, and one more it's alluded to, that sin of sexual immorality
keeps coming up, doesn't it? Why is that, beloved? I'm not
going to tell you what the sexual immorality is. We have a bit
already. And there's prostitution and all these things. But what's
the big deal about that sin? Because you live in a world that
always says, well, what's the big deal? We're two consenting adults.
What does it really matter how I think about myself sexually
or what I do with my body? But what does Jesus say to the
churches through Paul? Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit lives within
you. Flee immorality. You were bought with a price. Why is Jesus so concerned about
proper sexuality? Because, beloved, it kills our
relationships. It kills marriage. Whether you're
active before marriage and then you get married, you bring sinful
things into the marriage. And what is it about sexual immorality? It's always about me and my pleasure
and my lust and me getting what I want from somebody else. You
exist to make me happy. even beyond that kind of sexuality. It moves us towards narcissism.
It moves us towards paganism, hedonism, shame, disgustingness,
and then people are left at the end of it. It's because that's
the lie of Satan. It's fun. It's a good time. Nobody
gets hurt. And what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians
7? That when you join yourself to
the prostitute, you've joined your soul to her soul. And if
you're married, you join your wife's soul to her soul. The
whole beauty, the marvel of what God has given to us in sexuality
is the joining of souls, beloved. One man, one woman who love each
other so much, I have no other way to say I love you than to
join my soul to you. I have no other way to say I
love you than to join my body to you. I love you, not what
you give me. And when marriage gets destroyed,
then families get destroyed. And when families get destroyed,
young men get destroyed. Why do you think pornography
is such a problem in the Church of Jesus Christ? Because, young
men, Satan wants your soul. I just read this week an article
that said that part of the reason that young men in the Church
of Jesus Christ are not going into ministry and not going into
missions is because they feel such horrible shame about that
sin. By the way, Jesus says, I can
forgive Jezebel. By the way, Jesus says, I can
forgive all of you who are in that sin, just don't do it anymore.
And even if you stumble and fall, come to me. That's what baptism
teaches us. I am a forgiving God. Christ
died on the cross for this sin too. And in that grace, you will
find a new start. In that grace, you can start
again. In that grace, you get your soul back. And you find
a good Christian woman. And women, we know that you're
starting to struggle with this sin as well. And other weird
things about sexuality. Or there's such an unhappiness
because the men aren't doing it properly and your duty is
now taken away that you think you don't have to love your husband
anymore. And Satan laughs as our marriages become without
affection. It's so sad. It's demonic. Protect yourselves, beloved.
You need to hear this today. It's not just okay, and we cannot
not just talk about it anymore in this world of darkness, because
people are going to be coming from the outside with aberrant
views of sexuality, and God has placed you here on this earth
underneath the Son of God, with the Son of God in you, with the
Son of God before you and behind you, and He's going to use you
to teach Him what love is. How to join souls together. What
a happy marriage can be. Why this is so important. And
I'm uncomfortable preaching this a little bit, and I hope you're
a little bit uncomfortable hearing it, but we will get more comfortable
with it. Because we need to stop talking
all about the bad thing. Let's talk about the beauty that
marriage can be. The marvel of what love really can be between
a man and a woman. What dating can be. And then
we can really understand what singlehood can be. Then we can
actually reach out to a widow and a widower because they who
really love somebody who lost them. What that really can be. Don't forget. Hear what the Spirit
says to the churches. Because Jesus says, Jezebel,
if you don't repent, it's kind of interesting, if you're not
going to hop out of bed, I'm going to put you in a sick bed.
That's literally what it's saying. And all of you who hop in bed
with her, you're going to be in that sick bed too. And I will
kill you. This is Jesus. I will kill you,
wherefore do the nations rage? Why do people plot in vain? Therefore, kings, be wise, be
warned. Rulers of the earth, give ear.
Come with awe and serve the Lord. Mingle joy with trembling fear.
Kiss the sun, his anger turn, lest you perish in the way. For
his wrath will quickly burn all who trust and bless to it. I'm
always amazed when the church sings Psalm 2 and you sing verse
4 with such gusto. Let them perish in the way or
his wrath will quickly burn. So what kind of church do you
guys go to? It's pretty brutal. No, it's the truth. We're not
singing this because we like it. We sing it because we love
the one who says it. We're singing it to you. We're
singing it to each other and we're singing it out into the
world. Jesus Christ is going to come again to judge the living
and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. There will
be sheep and there will be goats and There is an eternal glory
for one, an eternal shame and horror for the other. We need
to warn him. Isn't there a graciousness in
Jesus? He could have just left the church in Thyatira and walked
on by. No, he says, I stand there with my burning eyes and I see
it. Jezebel, stop it. Thyatira, boot
her out. Tell her to stop preaching that
way. When she repents, receive her back in. All of you who have
Followed her and jumped in bed with her Get out of the bed get
healthy Get well, this is my calling for you and then he finishes
up and He says now I say to you and the rest of Thyatira as many
as do not have this doctrine Who do not know the depths of
Satan as they say so basically what Jezebel was saying is I
know the deep things of God These are the truths that you can know.
And Jesus is saying, deep things of God, these are the deep things
of Satan. Don't listen to her. And those of you who haven't
listened to her nonsense, hold fast to what you have till I
come, and he who overcomes and keeps my works, notice there's
the works again, so they're related, 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 vessel.
As also I receive from my Father, I will give him the morning star."
Revelation 22, 16. I am the morning star. I will
give you myself. I am the Son of God. I rule Thyatira
and I rule over everything. All authority in heaven and earth
has been given to me. Hold fast to me. Hold fast to
the truth. Don't give in to Jezebel. Don't
give in to the guilds. Don't give in to the oppression
and the seduction. And I will give you my power. Yesterday we did pre-marriage
class together, or Friday, and we were talking about Genesis
1. One of the things that always intrigues me, when God says to
Adam and Eve, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and
subdue it, I have given you dominion over all of the earth. How would
we have done that all together? If we just took Zion, and all
of you were visiting here this morning, and we were going to
rule the earth together, how long would that last? Go to one
congregational meeting and see how long that would last. We
just can't get it together. But if we were perfect in Christ,
and we thought after Christ, we would be joined to Christ,
he would rule through us, we would rule with him, he says.
So 1 Corinthians 15 says Jesus will rule until he has defeated
the last enemy, death, and he gives the kingdom to God, he
receives it back, and now he says, you'll rule with me. And
part of the interesting thing is the language there is you
are already ruling with him. If you walk with him, The gates
of Hades can't prevail against you. We are part of the light
of the world. We are the ones who rule with
Jesus Christ. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who mourn,
they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, they will
inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. That's
what Jesus is saying to you. Yours is the kingdom of God.
Yours is the kingdom of heaven. You will be filled. You will
be righteous. I know you're not eating bread, he says to Thyatira,
perhaps to your fill because you're not hanging out with the
guild. But I will take care of you. I am with you. I will give
you myself. You will live with me in glory.
You will live with me in the new heavens and the new earth
forever. And all of us, millions of us,
thousands upon thousands of us, will rule together in beauty
and perfect harmony. That which we strive for in marriage,
which immoral sexuality tends to break, we will have without
the need for marriage because we will be so intimately, beautifully,
harmoniously one in Jesus. One in the Spirit, one in the
Lord, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Hold on to my works,
Jesus, as I died on the cross for you. I laid in the grave
for you. I was forsaken for you. I rose again from the dead for
you. I ascended into heaven for you and I am coming to get you
and I will come again to judge the living and the dead and my
kingdom will have no end. Yes, he shall rule them with
a rod of iron. They shall be dashed like pieces, like the
potter's vessel. You will receive blessings upon
the works of the works of Christ in you. But, as we have said,
he who searches the minds and the hearts will give to each
one of you according to your work. So we can stand before
God on the great day of judgment, on the day that you die, with
your works hanging around your own neck, and your neck will
break, and you will die, and Jesus's eye will kill you. Or
he says, I died for you. You can come with your works
and your sinful works upon my neck. Give me your burden. Give me your load. And I will
take it and I will give you rest. I will give you authority. I
will give you power. I will give you the bright and
the morning star. I will give you myself, one in
the spirit, one in the Lord, and they will know we are Christians
by our love. Amen.
Letter to Thyatira
Series Revelation
Christ Calls the Church in Thyatira to Hold Fast Until He Comes:
- Commendation
- Calling
- Comfort
| Sermon ID | 41425139296441 |
| Duration | 30:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Revelation 2:18-29 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.