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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.
Overcomers Receive the Morning Star
Series Revelation
| Sermon ID | 42825134157150 |
| Duration | 38:50 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Revelation 2:28-29 |
| Language | English |
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