Revelation chapter 2, and I'm going to begin reading in verse 18. 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 are like fine brass. 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. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And 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 searcheth 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, and he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Thank you, you may be seated. been looking at this theme of recognizing our need for revival. And in looking at this theme, we have considered two churches already here in the book of Revelation. Our text brings us to the third church in our search for what these churches needed. and how we can look at these churches and from their example recognize perhaps a need for revival in our own congregation or in our own heart, in our own walk with the Lord. And this morning I want to preach on this thought. We need revival when our loyalty to Christ is being challenged. When our loyalty to Christ is being challenged. These writings are about the presence of the Lord in His congregations. If He is present, then it begs the question, what does He find? That should make some of us tremble. When He's here in our midst, when we come together as we have this morning, what does He see? What does He behold? What does He find? And we really should ask the question this morning, what does the Lord find in our church when we meet together? See, we have a record of what He found at the church in Thyatira. We're reading it this morning. And that should be a reminder to all of us that God is still watching. and he's still keeping records. You ever thought about that? He's keeping records. He's a good record keeper. Nothing ever misses his ear or his watchful eye. Now in five of the churches in Asia, the Lord had correction for them. He had a commandment for them. He had some counsel for them, and He had some comfort for them. And in the comfort, if they were to obey and observe and overcome, He would not remove their candlestick. He would not close their doors. He would allow them the privilege of continued service. And in all five of these churches, as we've seen in the first two and as we will see this morning, there was nothing in any of these churches so wrong that real revival wouldn't fix. And in looking at these churches, something becomes apparent. I don't know if it's become apparent to you yet, but it's become apparent to me, and that is this truth. We need revival most when we think we need it the least. You have a church that says, oh, we're doing pretty good, preacher. We don't really need revival. Yeah, you're at the top of the list. Whenever I look at myself and I think, you know, my walk with the Lord's pretty good. I'm doing all right, Lord. Oh, I'm at the top of the list. I've allowed my pride to blind me, and pride cometh before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a great fall." See, Ephesus had left their first love. Love for Christ had grown cold in their hearts, and He rebukes them and tells them to repent, and if they will, that He would restore them. The church at Pergamos had allowed false doctrine to creep into their services and there were three different churches really in that one congregation. Three different groups. One holding to the doctrine of Christ. One group holding to the doctrine of Balaam. And another group holding to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Listening to Christ had become competitive in that church and it was all about trying to gain people and pull them into their circle away from Christ. Well here at the church of Thyatira, their loyalty to Christ was being challenged by this woman prophetess named Jezebel. And they were being seduced to leave the doctrine of Christ and to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to compromise the faith once delivered And as a result, their loyalty to Christ was being challenged. Now I just want to say this from the outset, nothing that you don't know, nothing that you're not already aware of, but Jesus Christ is Lord. He's not going to be Lord. He IS Lord. He's not running for the office. It's not a close race. There's not another candidate being considered. He alone is Lord, and His Lordship is unaffected by our recognition of it. But let me say this, we ARE affected by our recognition of His Lordship. We are affected by our association to His Lordship. He is Lord. He already is. Say, well, how do I know if I have submitted myself? How do I know if I am recognizing His Lordship in my life? Well, let me ask you this. Are you obeying His commandments? Are you obeying His Word? Is there any place in Scripture that you come to and your heart is checked by the Word of God and in resistance you hold your hand up? You say, well, that was a different culture, that was a different time. I don't know that I agree with that. Eh, you better watch out. He's Lord. He hasn't changed. His Word hasn't changed. And it fits every culture and every time throughout all history. You don't have to rewrite the Bible. You just submit to it and obey it. Are you obeying it? And Jesus said it this way, If you love me, keep my commandments. And in the Bible, the Bible tells us His commandments are not grievous. They're not grievous to the child of God. We love the word of God. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel said, I delight in thy law, O Lord. there's no way a person can delight in the law of god that condemns us and shows us how wrong we are unless they've been born from above been indwelt by the spirit and that law has been written upon their heart and now they can say I delight to do thy will oh lord and thy law is not grievous in my heart or in my sight so he's lord That was the problem at the church of Thyatira. They didn't want to recognize his lordship. They were willing to follow this Jezebel. Now, there's a couple of things I want to say, and then I'm going to give you three points. That's a sneaky way of saying I've got a five-point message. But I want to just mention a couple of things from the outset. When we read about this church by the name of Thyatira, it shouldn't be new to us. If you've read your Bible and you've just read it in the order in which it has been collected in the 66 books of the Holy Bible, you've read about Thyatira before, you've got to Revelation. now there's two women associated with Thyatira one mentioned here Jezebel there's another unmentioned woman in this text I want to give you a little bit about the positive first turn with me if you will over to Acts chapter sixteen and beginning in verse six is where Paul desires to go to asia and of course the lord does not allow that he has different plans for the apostle paul let me give you these and as i think about act sixteen six i want to tell you something about walking with the lord i think this will help all of us so i'm gonna run a rabbit real quick but i'll try to shoot it quick and get back on course okay Verse 6, the Bible says, now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden, I've got that word underlined in my Bible, forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the Word in Asia. After they were come to Maasia, they essayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Masia came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. I want you to notice about walking with the Lord and the will of God for one's life. Look at verse number six when it says, And were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. The Bible tells us Paul wanted to go there and God forbade him. That word forbid, it means to try it and be stopped in your tracks. It means to be closed in to the point that you have no ability to move. It's a very strong word, to forbid something. What was the Lord telling Paul? He said, Try it and I'll stop you. When God checks us, we'd better listen. That's what the Holy Spirit's doing to the Apostle Paul in verse 6. He's checking him. Some of you don't know that word. That's an old horse-riding term. When you check a horse, you're letting that horse know he's not allowed to go that direction. And if he tries it, you're going to stop him. Have you ever been checked? In your heart, you've been thinking about something, maybe you've been planning to do something, maybe God, you felt like was speaking to your heart about something, and all of a sudden you get checked real hard. The Lord just speaks firmly and directly to your heart, letting you know, this is not my will, you had better not do it. God forbid him to go, and he listened. So he thought, well then, we'll go to my Asia. But the Spirit suffered him not. Now that phrase, suffered not, means you can do it, but I'm not going with you. If you want to do it bad enough, you can do it, but I'm not going to be with you in this endeavor. That's the worst place you can ever be is outside the will of God and the Lord letting you do something without His presence. So the Apostle Paul and those that were with him decided to obey. He forbid me to go there. He said I can go here, but he's not going with me. And Paul knew enough about the need of the work and the person of the Holy Spirit in his ministry that he wasn't about to take a step outside the will of God, and so he continued to wait upon the Lord And in the midnight hour, a vision of those in Macedonia saying, come and help us. I'm simply just giving you this this morning. This is free. I'll charge you nothing for it. But when you're considering the will of God for your life, you better listen to the leadership and the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And if he ever checks your heart, you better stop in your tracks and consider what He has to say. If He ever ceases to be with you in something and He is suffering you not, you better not go ahead and do it. You better wait on God and do what God's called you to do and be where God wants you to be. And you'll be glad that you were. And you know who else will be glad that you did that? People around you. There's a woman by the name of Lydia that's really thankful the Apostle Paul listened to the Holy Ghost. Because as a result of what we call the Macedonian call, they went on down into Macedonia and they landed, they came to a place called Philippi, which was the chief city of Macedonia. And immediately were introduced to a woman by the name of Lydia in verse 14. And a certain woman named Lydia. They're by the river. And they want to pray and worship the Lord. You know what I think is interesting about this verse? It wasn't just Lydia, but it says a certain woman named Lydia, seller of purple of the city of Thyatira. There's our city. See, I'm bringing this together. I'm not way out in left field. which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide here. And she constrained us. Now before that in verse 13 it tells us that on the Sabbath they went out of the city by a riverside where a prayer was wont to be made and we sat down and spake unto the people, to the women. Sometimes truly spiritual women have a better heart and a better sense for God than men do. I know that's not popular perhaps, but some. I'm going to tell you right now, it's been a lot of faithful old sainted ladies of God that's kept a lot of church house doors open over the years. It's been a lot of prayers of sainted old ladies of God who have been answered in bringing their grandchildren to faith in Christ because they've prayed and they've prayed and they've prayed. Dr. B.H. Carroll, he's one of the older brothers of J.M. Carroll, the writer of The Trail of Blood. B.H. Carroll said, When a woman is a godly woman, she's better than a man. But when a woman is bad, she's far worse than a man. Now ladies, I didn't say it. B.H. Carroll said it. If you don't like it, take it up with B.H. Carroll. I'm just quoting a man. You might like the first half and disagree with the second half. There are women here praying, not men, women. And out of these women, one named Lydia, a seller of purple, who was just down visiting on business, I believe. I think she's a businesswoman. She's a seller of purple. She was based out of Thyatira. She's down in Philippi doing her business, and she goes down to the water, all of it orchestrated by the providence of God, and the Lord opened her heart. I think it's interesting how the writer of Acts, Dr. Luke, uses this term, a certain woman. Luke is pretty well known for using specific terms. You know, he was a physician. And if you're going to have a physician, you want one that's accurate. Not one that guesses. And so he says, a certain woman. He's being specific that this woman stood out from the rest whose heart the Lord opened and she was from a city of Thyatira, Lydia. She was a salesperson, seller of purple. She was a successful person. Because evidently she had a business house in Philippi that she stayed in when she was there on business and invites Paul and his entourage to come back to her house if they found her faithful. But this woman also became a spiritual person. Marvelous work took place here. And when the Lord opens a heart, There's automatic results, isn't there? There's a result in the heart of that individual and there'll be a result in the home of that individual as they have opened their heart to the Lord and began to serve Him. Here she is serving the servants of the Lord, those who represented the Lord. She had a servant's heart. And we notice a big change here in her life as she began to minister unto them. So she is from Thyatira. She's a godly lady. She is a successful lady and she is being a blessing to God's men and God's ministry in Philippi and no doubt she went back home to Thyatira and began to tell them all the wonderful things that the Lord had done in her heart and in her family's life and they began to witness and I wonder if maybe they weren't charter members of the church of Thyatira. Lydia is a product of biblical evangelism, and it really ought to stir us up to share the gospel with as many as God has given us influence over. Coming back to the book of Revelation, that's one of the ladies, Lydia. But then we're introduced to another one by the name of Jezebel. Now some have argued, was her name actually Jezebel, or did she just have the spirit of Jezebel? We all are very well aware that if it IS her name, she's sharing the name with a woman from the Old Testament by that name who was a godless, evil, vile, wicked woman who influenced Ahab to sin against God. That spineless man who wouldn't stand up for the Lord and Jezebel ran the country into the ground. Now I'm not going to argue whether or not this is a reference to her spirit or her name. I believe it is her name, which tells me her mom and dad had some major lack of discernment. Listen, if you ever have a daughter or a granddaughter, please don't name them Jezebel. There's a lot of other much better names you could name your daughter. She was evil. She was ungodly. And yet we find here this Jezebel is the same. She's the personification of wickedness. She's introducing pagan religion into the Lord's Church. Jezebel. One man called Jezebel the Lady Macbeth of the Bible. That's how wicked she was. She was brilliant in mind, daring in spirit, evil in heart. And she led Israel to the brink of ruin, and here this Jezebel is the exact same. Brilliant in mind, daring in spirit, evil in heart, and she's leading this church to the brink of God's judgment. She's a cursed woman. Jezebel in the Old Testament was a cursed woman. This woman's been cursed of the Lord. He's given her space to repent. She hasn't. He said, I'm going to put her into a bed and I'm going to destroy her and all that committed adultery with her. So we have this woman who has risen into leadership at the Church of Thyatira, and she is leading them astray. Let me give you my three points, and we'll be done this morning. First of all, I want you to notice the preliminary statements that are made in this about this church, verse 18, the angel of the church, if thou retire right these things saying, the Son of God who hath his eyes like in the flame of fire and his feet are like fine brass let me just say this is a reference to the judgment of God, eyes of flame of fire the idea that God sees through us, he sees where others can't see and feet of brass. Brass speaks of judgment and whenever it's a reference to feet, it's the idea of Him putting us under His feet, under judgment. And so this church is right now under judgment. God is judging them. He is looking at them. He is taking an account of them. And in doing so, He has some positive things to say. They were a laboring church. He said, I know your work. The idea of the word work there is service. You're a serving church. A laboring church. He says, I know your charity. Speaks of love. They had a love, an agape love, where they were hospitable and kind and charitable. He said, I know your patience. They were long-suffering. He says, I even know your faith. YOU ARE A LEGITIMATE CHURCH! YOU'RE HOLDING TO THE FAITH! AND THEN AGAIN HE MAKES REFERENCE TO WORK! HE SAYS THE LAST TO BE MORE THAN THE FIRST! THIS IS A CHURCH, AS ONE MAN SAID, A CHURCH ON THE MOVE! THEY'RE PROGRESSIVE! WE'RE LIVING IN A DAY AND AGE WHERE EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE PROGRESSIVE! WE NEED TO CATCH UP WITH THE TIMES AND BE MORE PROGRESSIVE! Well, in this case, progressive was not a good thing. And the Bible tells us that they were still loving Him and loving more. They were still listening to Him and listening more, but their LOYALTY was being CHALLENGED. He says, Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee. So we see the preliminary statement, but then we see the permissive stance that this church took. They had a permissive stance. They allowed things to happen that shouldn't have been going on. That word sufferance, it means to passively allow. Not to actively fight or stand against something, but just say, ah, it's alright, go right ahead, we can do that. In other words, they didn't have a backbone to take a stand where they NEEDED to take a stand on the THINGS that were important. Now listen, there's some things it ain't worth standing on, but there's some hills worth dying on. Anybody familiar with the word tolerance? Well, that's a pretty popular word in this day and age. It's being thrown around a lot. Listen, I'm, and you may disagree with me on this, but I'm the kind of preacher and I guess kind of the influences I've had. I can't regulate what people do at their home and I'm not going to try. The Lord's not called me to lord over his heritage, but to be an under shepherd. But we can regulate how people live and act at church. That's part of being a church, church membership, church authority. and church discipline, and discipline is not always a negative term. Discipline has to do with teaching that which is right, positive things, but then correcting that which is wrong when necessary. Now, I want to be careful in saying this. Sin is not and it IS the same. What I mean by that is some people say, Well, God just sees all sin the same. Understand, all sin, generally speaking, it is an affront to God and His character. But God doesn't deal with all sin the same. He never burned down a city with hellfire and brimstone because there were people lying in that city. He did do it for the sake of sodomy. God deals with sin differently, and let me say this, I believe there's different degrees of punishment in the lake of fire. I think those who have had a lot of light in this world from the Word of God, your punishment if you die lost in your sin is going to be greater in hell than people that had no knowledge. To whom much is given, much is what? Required. God judges sin, all sin. Some, he judges, more quickly than others. And they were allowing this woman to teach and to do these things that were ungodly in the sight of the Lord. I think it's interesting when you read this She called herself a prophetess. Did you catch that in the text? God didn't call her a prophetess. Jesus didn't call her to preach. She called herself to preach. And that's still true in this day and age. God still calls men to preach, to pastor his churches. That's God's order from creation. That's how Paul argues it in 1 Timothy chapter 2. He doesn't go back to culture. A lot of people want to argue culture. He goes back to creation. Way back, far before culture was ever even seen. He says, this is how it was from the beginning. God created them male and female. That's the order. And it's not demeaning. It's PROMOTIVE. Because women can do things that men CAN'T do in the local church when they look around and they get busy and they're a PART of what God has for them to do. But when it comes to this task of leading the church and preaching the Word, if a woman's doing it, it's because she's a self-acclaimed preacher. God's not called her that. Never has and never will. And this church is about to be judged because they're ALLOWING her to do it. They're SUFFERING her to have this position of LEADERSHIP and AUTHORITY in teaching or preaching the Word of God. And as a result, she's seducing the SERVANTS of God to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. They had a permissive stance. But then we find, thirdly, And lastly, there was the prospect of sustaining or of continuing on. It involved repentance, didn't it? He gave her a space to repent, she didn't. So judgment is coming. The rest who had not held to that doctrine It says in verse 24, As many as have not this doctrine, in which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak, I will put none of the burden, but that which ye have already hold fast till I come. Continued to maintain separation from this ecclesiastical compromise. It says hold fast. It's the idea to retain. Keep hanging on to what you know to be true. Not to give an inch, because if you give an inch, the enemy will take a mile. He said, hold fast, and then he says this, unto the end. Unto the end. He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end. This carries the idea of remaining. So he says, repent, retain and then remain. And the idea again of remaining somewhere is to stay where you've decided to stand. I've marked off the boundaries. I've taken a stand and this is where I'm going to stand for the glory of God. As a church, this is an area in the day and age in which we live with all the progressivism and the tolerance that's around us that we need to remain. We need to stand strong. And as more and more synagogues of Satan compromise in this area, I believe there are some safe folk in a lot of churches out here that are going to abandon those places looking for truth. And by God's grace, may we be a place they can find that truth in. To them that overcome. that are victorious, that prevail, that conquer, to them that overcome, and keepeth, he says, my works." The idea of the word keepeth is a strong word to guard or even to watch against, or to prevail and to watch and to guard until the end. and he promises them if they retain and remain there is a reward for such service and that's what those last three verses describe he shall rule with a rod of iron now I don't understand everything I believe about this I believe it but I don't understand it all I'm just being honest and I don't know many theologians that do I don't know many bible commenters you're going to get a hundred different opinions when you read a commentary about this But I know we're going to come back to earth with Him, and He's going to rule in rain, but He's telling us here that we're going to rule with a rod with Him. And then He says in verse 26, not only are we going to rule, but we're going to receive. He says, I'll give you Him, the morning star. I'll give Him the morning star. Who's the morning star? That's Jesus Christ. That's the day star that shall arise. What a gift. Jesus Christ is mine through all eternity. Yep. It doesn't get any better than that. Ain't that good? I know ain't ain't a word and I shouldn't use it. But it's good preaching. One English teacher used to say ain't ain't a word and you ain't going to use it and you ain't going to use it in my room. But then they added it to the dictionary so I guess you can use it. What a REWARD! We get to RULE with Him! We get to BE with Him, RECEIVE Him! Oh, He says, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. We don't have time this morning, but I think a good study would be on the differences, the contrast between Lydia and Jezebel. Maybe somebody ought to take that on, do a little studying on that. Because again, I hear these arguments, not so much here, but I've heard these arguments, you know, about women preachers. Lydia wasn't a woman preacher. Man alive, she was used of the Lord, wasn't she? I mean, Lydia accomplished a great amount for the glory of God. And she never had to get behind a pulpit to do it. I'm gonna just simply say this and you take it for what it's worth. I think God can use some women in the pew sometimes more mildly than he can the preacher in the pulpit. I try to praise my wife all the time. If our children turn out with anything good in them, it's gonna be all because of her and God's grace and nothing because of me. Everything I've contributed was bad. Sin nature came from me. And she's shaping the minds and the hearts of tomorrow's leaders and workers in the world. There's no greater task that can be had. Greater than accepting a nomination and being in the White House is raising children and shaping their hearts and minds for the glory of God. That's gonna last for eternity. Four years, maybe eight in the office, and then you're gonna have half the country talk bad about you the rest of your life. 18 years cleaning up spills and wiping behinds and taking to school, and those kids are gonna rise up and praise you in this life and for all eternity. Ladies, you are not in some subjected lesser position. God has called you to do a great work. Be mindful of that work. And keep pointing your babies to Jesus and your grandbabies to Jesus. God's given you these opportunities, and I'm saying that's just the tip of the iceberg as to what you can do for the glory of God. I think sometimes we get so focused on the one thing we can't do. There's some things I can't do, but if I get focused on that, I'm not gonna get anything done for the glory of God. I need to focus on what I can do. and do what I can do to the glory of God to the best of my ability. The church at Thyatira's loyalty was being challenged. But there were some that were still holding fast. I hope this morning that's not the case. I hope your loyalty to Christ isn't being challenged. I hope you're not questioning the Word of God. I hope we're not compromising in areas And I don't know where you are, I don't know your heart, I don't know, maybe this doesn't apply to you at all, but I'm sure it applies to some of us. We need to be faithful, we need to be loyal to Christ. He's the Lord of this church, He's the Lord of our hearts, He's the Lord of glory, and we need to follow and obey what He has said. May the Lord help us in this.