And so let us hear then God's word from Revelation 2 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 onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill their 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. He 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 this morning, I want you to think of the times where you've been out gazing at the stars. Now, yeah, around here that can be rather challenging with the amount of cloud cover we have. And depending on where you live, you may have a fair amount of light pollution and so forth. But surely all of us at some point have been out looking at the stars and gazing and seeing the Northern Star and the Big Dipper and things like that. So let me ask this question then. Have you seen the morning star? Do you know what it is? Well, with this briefly in mind, we come here now to the final words of Jesus in this message to the Thyatira and believers and we have gradually made our way through Jesus messages in general to the churches, but this one in particular here now. And, of course, as I've said, this is the longest of the seven, and it's also in the middle, and so it seems to be placed here to highlight this, and this sin of compromise being such a problem for God's people throughout history. And so we have seen that compromise with sin is something that we all do, but once it becomes a regular thing, and a justified action, and we face severe judgment from our king. Plus, those who permit compromise, not just ourselves permitting it and justifying it, but if parents or leaders in the church or other leaders permit compromise with sin, then they too are going to face Jesus' displeasure. Yet, those who believe in Christ and strive to obey him and avoid compromise are going to receive blessing. A compromise may lead to acceptance and some benefits and ease and prosperity, but all that is momentary, even if it is for our whole lives. But faithfulness, though it may mean hardships now, leads to many eternal blessings. And the one that is emphasized here, of course, as we saw last time, is this power over evil. That power we have now, and we can execute that to some degree now, but the emphasis, of course, is that we will rule with Christ forever. Well, there's another promise that we have not yet discussed, and that is what is here in verse 28, this promise of blessing to the overcomers. And so it says, verse 28, and I will give him the morning star. All right, first of all, notice this is Jesus who is giving this blessing. So as I've mentioned before, right, Jesus is doing this. He's not delegating it to somebody else. It's not Peter at the pearly gates. It's not an angel, not anybody else. Jesus himself is going to give this blessing. And so therefore the blessing to the overcomers is sure. It is certain. It's not going to be forgotten. It's not going to be changed. Hey, Jesus is not going to be talked out of it or talked into it even. It's going to be done justly. Jesus will not give blessing to those who ultimately do not deserve it, and He will give a blessing to those who do. And so notice this encouragement. Notice also that it's going to be given to Him. Note the individual emphasis here. And so as we talked about last time, right, He who overcomes. Each individual who overcomes will receive these blessings. And so Jesus doesn't just give a blanket blessing to everyone here. We can't rely on other people to be godly for us. Jesus sees and he knows all things. He knows what each of us are thinking and saying and doing even if other people do not. He knows that when we serve him, even if it's done privately, He also knows when we serve publicly, but we're doing it selfishly. And so for those who overcome, Jesus will give the reward justly and to each one of us individually. And so note the encouragement, note also the challenge here. All right, so here it says he's going to give the morning star. Now, what in the world does that mean? Well, in the immediate context here of this message, It's not clear. Now, I think once we get to our understanding, we'll see why it's here. But on the surface, you're like, well, what does this have to do with anything? What is the Morning Star? Well, obviously, when we have questions about what the scripture is teaching, we need to look at other scriptures to help us to understand. So let's start here with what we see in Revelation. So let's turn to chapter 22 first. Chapter 22, and notice verse 16. 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 interesting, the first part of the verse connects us to chapters two and three, right? The angel here and the message to the churches, and then you see this bright and morning star. So you see, first of all, that the morning star is Jesus. The reward we receive for faithfulness is Christ himself. Now, we've talked about crowns, we've talked about the tree of life, we've talked about these other things that are, if you will, outside of us, but we're going to receive Christ himself. Now, I mentioned this last time and in other times as well, the promises like this, we already have. We already have Christ. You can talk to him, you can pray to him, you can have a relationship with him right now if you're a true believer. But obviously it's limited. We can't see him. He's not here with us physically. His spirit is, of course. But someday we will actually be in his presence, see him face to face. And so recognize there's an already component to this, but there's the not yet component of these promises. And so here then, not only are we going to receive power, right, verses 26 and 27, but we will receive Christ. Not only will we be soldiers in his army, not only will he be a king leading us, but we'll have a relationship with our king, a close relationship. There's an intimacy here. Obviously, in other contexts, we see that Jesus is our husband. We also see that Jesus is our brother. He is the son of God. We are sons and daughters of God. But again, you see this close relationship that is emphasized. And so if you persevere, if you overcome sin, if you do not compromise and turn away from the Lord, then you will receive Christ as a reward for that. And so notice this point and this emphasis, and in many ways, what's better than that? All right, well, that certainly leads us in an important direction, but there is more for us to see and understand here. Let's come back now to Revelation chapter 1, and at the end of the chapter, All right, now this, you've got to think carefully here. Notice verse 20. It says, the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands, which you saw, are the seven churches. All right, it's very easy for us to see the idea that we are lampstands. We are the church, right? We shine light. We are the light of the world, this kind of idea. But notice also this language of stars. Stars and angels, even. Now, you recall what I have said before. In each one of these messages, it says, right, this message is to the angel of the church of whatever, right? Here it's Thyatira. And as I've talked about, The word for angel can mean a messenger, so it could refer to a human messenger. And so you might think of the pastor of the church or something like that. The challenge to this view is that every other time in the book the word angel is used, it refers to a regular heavenly angel. And it's not just a few times, it's dozens and dozens of times. which makes it challenging for us to see this angel here as a human messenger. So, okay, some people say, well, then the angel of the church is referring to a heavenly being, is referring to a guardian angel or something for each one of the churches. And I think there's biblical truth for that idea, but is that the point here? Well, I don't think so because the angels are rebuked for sin. Now you can say that for fallen angels, but not for good angels. So it leads people to say, this isn't primarily a message to the human messenger or to an angelic being, but we should take this term angel symbolically. And notice that the angels are symbolized by stars. And you remember what we've talked about, how the symbolic message of the angel here is referring to our heavenly existence as the church. Jesus is walking among us as lampstands, but also as holding these stars in his hand. We are here on earth, we are Christians here, right? And sitting on these pews, you see one another, you can see outside the windows, right? Obviously we're here on earth, but we are already existing in heaven. Think of Ephesians 2, verse 7. We are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Through our union with Christ, we're already there. Not in its fullness, but we are already there. All right, now, put all that together then. If the stars are referring to believers and their heavenly existence, Do you see then that the promise that Jesus is making for those who overcome is that we will become like the stars in the heavens? And so this is part of our point here, and we'll return and we'll see some other passages that speak to this. All right, so this is some of what we see in Revelation. So let's look now elsewhere. Now let's go to the Old Testament. Let's turn first to Isaiah chapter 14. In Isaiah 14, in the context of judgment and words in regard to the king of Babylon, in verse 12, we also have these words. Isaiah 14, verse 12, how you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. Now, Lucifer, some translate it as day star, some translate it as morning star. And so it continues, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations, for you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high. Yet, you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. All right, this connection here with Lucifer, which again can be translated as Morning Star, and your translations may have a footnote that says that or something. Some people say that this is our primary connection. I don't agree. I don't think it's the primary connection, but it does seem to be a connection, because you remember what we talked about here just recently about the depths of Satan, right? These followers of Jezebel need to know the deep things of Satan. And so this connection here to Lucifer probably is intended as a polemic. Those who are compromising with the world are going to know the deep things of Satan, but those who don't are actually going to have power over Satan. So, all right, I think there's some connections here, but I don't think this is getting to the ultimate point. I think the ultimate point is found in numbers. So let's turn there. Numbers 24, and of course we read here this passage earlier. And in particular, verses 17 to 19. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob. A scepter shall rise out of Israel and batter the brow of Moab and destroy all the sons of Tumult. And Edom shall be a possession. Seir also his enemies shall be a possession while Israel does valiantly. Out of Jacob, one shall have dominion and destroy the remains of the city. Even in Israel, they saw this as a messianic reference and obviously it is. This is referring to Christ. Christ is the morning star. He's the one coming out of Jacob. And notice the emphasis on rule, power, authority. Hey, Moab, Edom. He's going to have power over them, this one out of Jacob. So you see the two thoughts here then. The star here is pointing us to Christ. We've already seen how this is pointing to Christ, Revelation 22, 16. And notice the emphasis on power and authority. We just saw that in Isaiah. Satan has power and authority, or at least tries to, but ultimately it's the Messiah who has power and authority. So note the connection of star here in this way. Isn't this rather ironic? In the last message to the church in Pergamos, they were to avoid the teachings of Balaam. And of course, chapter 25, here are numbers and so forth, right? But here, the teaching of Balaam, in this way, is pointing to the Messiah. And he is our morning star. All right, but you see how this fits then with what we saw last time in Revelation with the connection with Psalm 2. The Son of God, Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, God is establishing on his throne in Zion and he is ruling over the nations. And so the idea of rule for Christ and then by extension the rule, the power that we receive And now here this connection with the morning star, which is also emphasizing rule and authority. All right, let's turn then to Matthew chapter two. We have this very familiar passage to most all of us, for sure. Matthew two, obviously we see here the description of the wise men coming. And notice verse two, they came to Jerusalem, they say, where is he who has been born king of the Jews for we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. And so note the connection with the star of the Messiah and the idea of being a king and ruler. Verse six, but you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not the least among the rulers of Judah for out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Now that's from Micah. But you see, the language is very similar to Numbers 24 that we just read. And so here, again, the emphasis on ruling. Let's turn to 2 Peter 1. We also have this verse that is part of this conversation and trying to understand what this means. in 2 Peter chapter 1. Notice verse 19, 2 Peter 1, 19. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Well, what in the world is all this? Well, let's start with the easy part, right? We have the prophetic word, okay? Here it is. You're holding it in your hand, okay? This is the prophetic word. It's been confirmed to us through Christ, through his transfiguration that Peter refers to just before this, and obviously his death and resurrection, coming of the spirit, right? The word of God is confirmed, okay? And we are to heed it as a light in a dark place, okay? It's very bright this morning. Sun's out and so forth. But we live in a dark world, a world of sin, a world of rebellion. And the light, of course, is Jesus, yes, but He's not here right now. This is the light, His word. This is the light that shines in a dark place. So we do well to heed it, not to compromise with the dark world, but to heed the truth, to obey it, and so forth. And we're to do it, notice, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. All right, now this has led to a number of questions and different viewpoints, but it sounds like it's pointing to the return of Christ, right? That we are to hold on to the word as the light in this dark world until Jesus comes back, okay? Until the dawn comes. And the morning star rises. Now I lean in the direction to say that the morning star here is referring to Christ. He is the one who will come. And he will usher in the new heavens and the new earth. There's some different views, lots of questions and so on, but I lean in that direction. All right, so we have this passage. You see, we keep having our attention drawn to Christ. And here we have the tension drawn to his word and truth, and we've had the ideas of ruling. Let's now step outside the scriptures a moment and talk about some of our historical context. Let me go back, excuse me, to my opening question. What is the morning star? Anybody know? It's Venus. It's Venus. And if you are up very early, in the morning, before the sun rises, you will see it rise. It rises approximately two hours before the sun, and it anticipates the rising of the sun. It's very bright, you can't miss it, as it rises in the east. And it rises into this dark sky, especially if there's no moon, it's just very obvious, right? And it's leading then to the rising of the sun. It is a kind of ruler. holding a scepter, leading the light to conquer the dark. It's a symbol of rule. It's a symbol of victory. In fact, the Caesars, Joe made reference, I think it was, here to the kings and so forth, taking on divinity. Well, the Caesars here in the first century said that they came from the goddess Venus. And their temples built Venus. And even on the Roman banners that they used in battle, they had the star of Venus, because it had this meaning of rule, of conquering. So as we try to put all these pieces together, the primary point seems to be this, as you come back to Revelation 2. If you persevere in righteousness, if you do not compromise with sin in the world, then God will reward us by giving us himself. Jesus is our reward. And he is our king. He is the one who rules over all things. And as we combine that with verses 26 and 27, we're going to rule with Him. And so we will rule with Him in the heavens, shining the light of Christ. Now, I mentioned this last time, in a sense, we already do this. We have power now to conquer sin, but the fullness of it, of course, will happen when He returns. And so in the meantime, we are to display this power by shining our lights. If we are now stars like Christ, we are to exercise this power we have by, right, upholding the prophetic word and proclaiming it to others and living accordingly and so forth. We are to witness. We are to take captive all things. We are to teach the word of God to our children in here at church. Now again, ultimately the point is, in the end, we will ride in on the white horses with Christ, Revelation 19, we will conquer all evil and we will exist in the new heavens and the new earth. And so again, there's this already and this not yet. Let me have us turn to two other passages just briefly. Let's turn to Daniel chapter 12. Some of you may have been wondering, are we gonna turn to Daniel here today to try to help us understand? Well, not quite as directly as sometimes, but it does seem to be a connection here. In Daniel chapter 12, beginning in verse one, at that time, Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that time. And at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book, and many of those who sleep in the dust of death shall wake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt." Now, let me pause there. That kind of sounds like the very end, doesn't it? Okay, so verse three, those who are wise shall shine. like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. So we are to be light, we are to be stars by witnessing, but if we do that, if we are wise, we shall shine forever like stars in the heavens. All right, let's turn then to Philippians chapter two. Philippians chapter 2, and hear these words of Paul. Verse 14, Philippians 2 verse 14. Do all things without complaining and disputing. that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, or you might say a dark world, right? Among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ and have not run in vain or labored in vain. Now, Paul uses some different language here, but you see how he's talking about some of the same exact things. The word for light there in verse 14, in Greek, the word for light is a particular word. The word for star is a different word. This word actually puts them together. And so here it is, shine as light, shine as stars. You see the connection with Daniel 12. So, do you see where we're coming here to this understanding? that we are to be lights now, but when Jesus returns as the morning star and he ushers in the new heavens and the new earth, we will receive him and then we will shine and we will have power and authority. And so we rule with Christ if we overcome and do not succumb to the sin of the world. We're not a nameless soldier in the army. We are known intimately by Christ, our king, our husband. All right, we've had to spend a fair amount of time here, if you will, doing just technical things, just trying to understand this. But let us sink in. And in particular, think of it in this way. When compromise and the temptation to compromise comes our way, whether it's from within or from outside of us, when that comes, remember, we are kings under Christ. We have power and authority. We cannot say, I just can't help it. Sin is too powerful for me. Not for the true believer. You can control your tongue. You can control your eyes. You can control what you think. We have power and authority now, and of course, ultimately in heaven. When you're oppressed by earthly powers, remember the whole point of the compromise here was to make life easier, to avoid hardship, And so when your boss is giving it to you, maybe because you're a Christian, hey, when you're oppressed, maybe by a family member or the political beasts or the bullies on the playground or some controlling or manipulative person in your life, remember the power you already have as a Christian. And remember, And whatever they do to us now is only temporary. We will ride in on white horses. We will rule with Christ and all evil will be vanquished when Christ returns. This is our encouragement. This is our challenge. Keep this in mind, especially when the temptation to compromise in sin comes. All right, well, let's look now at verse 29. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. All right, first of all, this is identical to what we have seen in verses 7, 11, and 17. The only difference now is the order. The challenge to overcome and now the call to hear are switched in order here in this message and then for the next three. The switching, as I suggested to you in verse 26, is probably because of the centrality of this message. It just again is highlighting the importance of not compromising. But our point here then is simply this. We must listen. This is a command here. And you recall, especially in verse seven, we looked at all the different passages where we see the same kind of language used, and it's almost always used in the context of rebellion. And so we must heed these words. We must listen, not just with, you know, our eardrums, but we must respond, we must obey. Now, obviously, for those who are compromising, even though they profess to be Christians, they must heed these words of Christ. Verse 23, he searches our hearts, he searches our minds. He will judge us according to what we say, think, and do. But do not take these words and say, well, that just applies to those nominal Christians over there. We all must heed this command to listen. You might remember me saying, I don't remember if it was the last message or the one before, but somebody came up to me one time when I had just preached about this warning that all of us, even true believers, must heed the warning that was given. I don't remember what passage it was and so on. And this person tried to say, well, this doesn't apply to its true believer. We don't need these warnings. And I'm like, why not? That same person, within a short period of time, fell into sin, lost their job, had to move, life was a mess because they didn't heed the warning. Even true believers, right? We've been talking about David in the evening. We must heed the warnings. Why? Well, we might be doing pretty well right now. It is so easy for us to fall prey to compromise, to temptation, and to sin. It's easy for us to grow apathetic, to think, hey, I'm doing pretty well, and we let our guard down. It's easy for us to dishonor Christ in this way. So listen, keep listening, continue to overcome, continue to persevere to the end. Notice how these words are from Christ, but now we are told they're also from the Spirit. The Trinity is giving us these messages. This isn't just coming from Jesus. And notice that it is a message to the churches. Remember, this probably is referring to the multiple house churches in Thyatira, but it's a message for all of the seven churches in Asia Minor. This message of compromise is really applicable for all churches throughout history. And so let's listen, let's heed it. Let me end here by having us read from Matthew 7. The final words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Obviously, we live in America with temptations all around us, and far more now, now that there is the internet and smartphones and so on and so forth. And so notice what Jesus says, verse 24 of Matthew 7. Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock, And the rain descended, floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. And he had ears that listened. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And rain descended, floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall. How are you building? Obviously, this is a very significant message here to the Church of Thyatira, and God wants us to listen carefully and to respond accordingly. So, as always, we could say more, but here are the main thoughts from these couple verses today. Let's pray together. Our Father, our God, we thank you for your word to us. And though sometimes it is hard for us to know what is intended, we are thankful that you give us other passages to help us to understand. Lord, we are thankful that you are our ruler, the star out of Jacob, the morning star, the conquering one, the one who has defeated all of our enemies. And we are thankful, Lord, that you aren't just our king that we know from a distance, but we know personally and intimately. We praise you for this. And we are thankful, Lord, that due to the work of Christ, we too are stars, we are lights, we too are rulers and kings under Christ. And we can conquer sin and evil and we don't have to compromise. We are thankful for this, Lord, and so help us, Lord. Give us ears that are wide open to hear this truth. Help us, Lord. Strengthen us, Lord, to live lives that are worthy of the gospel, that overcome, that persevere, that conquer, that we might be honoring and glorifying to you in all these things. We are thankful, Lord, for this, and just again ask for your help in this way by your spirit. And so we pray all these things then in Jesus' name. Amen.