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Well, we're going to be spending
a second week in Revelation 2, 18 through 29, the letter to
the church of Thyatira. It's on page 17, if you want
to follow in the version we're reading from, or you can use
your own Bible to follow along. But hear the word of God. And
to the messenger of the church in Thyatira write, These things
says the Son of God, he who has the eyes like a flame of fire
and the feet like fine brass. I know your works, the love,
the faith, the service, and your endurance. In fact, your last
works are greater than the first. Nevertheless, I have against
you that you tolerate your wife Jezebel, who calls herself a
prophetess and teaches and deceives my slaves to fornicate and to
eat things offered to idols. I even gave her time so that
she might repent, but she does not want to repent of her fornication. So I am throwing her into a sickbed,
and those adulterating with her into great affliction, unless
they repent of her works. And I will execute her children,
and all the churches will know that I am the one who searches
minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according
to your works. Now to the rest of you who are
in Thyatira, I say, to as many as do not hold this teaching,
those who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say,
I am not putting any other burden on you. Just hold fast what you
have until I come. And as for the one who overcomes
and keeps my works until the end, I will give him authority
over the nations, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron.
They will be smashed like clay pots, just as I have received
from my father, and I will give him the morning star. He who
has an ear, let him hear what the spirit is saying to the churches. Amen. Let's pray. Father God,
We thank you for your word, and as we continue to dig into it,
I pray that your anointing would rest upon me as I preach, that
I would faithfully preach your word, and that your spirit would
quicken it to our hearts, that your spirit would enable us to
be not just hearers, but doers of your word. We love you, we
continue to worship you during this time of preaching. In Jesus'
name, amen. You may be seated. Well last week we looked at this
very perplexing stronghold of the Jezebel spirit and we saw
that this Jezebel stronghold is actually controlled by religious
spirits that are very comfortable operating within a godly environment
such as you see in verse 19. This was not a horrible church. In some ways it was better than
Ephesus. We saw last week that Ephesus
was pursuing after holiness, was very doctrinally pure, but
that they lacked love, whereas the church of Thyatira had love
in spades. and had a vibrant ministry, and
had faith to expect great things from God, and had patience, and
had a lot of good works. In fact, verse 19 says their
good works or their ministries that they were exercising right
now were greater than they had exercised earlier. So in many
ways, it was a phenomenal church, and yet it tolerated the the
Jezebel woman that was in their midst and we saw why. Initially
it is extremely hard, demonic presence to pin down, to expose
and to get rid of. And even when you can expose
what is happening, the backlash that you get from Jezebel and
from her devoted followers makes a lot of people just want to
leave her alone. That's what the word tolerate
in verse 20 means. It's not like that pastor liked
what his wife was doing. No, he tolerated it. He endured
it. The backlash he had no doubt
experienced from his wife when he confronted her over her sins
made it just not worthwhile confronting her again. And we saw that the
Greek word for tolerate has another nuance in it. The word aphiemi
means to leave it up to somebody else. He was hoping somebody
else would deal with Jezebel, but he sure was not going to
step up to the plate himself. And so there was a passivity
in his leadership that shows an Ahab-like quality. And so we looked a little bit
at the stronghold of Ahab. Ahab and Jezebel feed each other. They reinforce each other. And it often replaces true ministry
and the power of the Spirit with an outward ministry that can
be accomplished by the flesh alone. And I'll have to admit
that there was much of my ministry in the early years of my ministry
that was done in the power of the flesh. I didn't realize it
at the time. But I was not operating in terms
of the supernatural power that flows from Christ's throne. I
was doing God's ministry. I was using his too. I was using
the scriptures. It's not like I was in any way
doctrinally deviant on that. But I was doing it in my own
strength. And I'll explain a little bit
later on what exactly that means. But first of all, let me quickly
outline for you the characteristics that we looked at in depth. And
you don't need to write these down because they're all laid
out for you in last week's outline. But first of all, we saw that
this is a woman who usually feels driven to control her environment
and those who are around her. And then secondly, when she cannot
do that, she undermines or goes on the attack. Third, she has
a veil of self-deception that is so strong that even the most
convincing arguments do not seem to faze her. Even the most gifted
counselors out there, we saw in the case studies, are not
able to help her. Nothing but the supernatural
can break through this stronghold, and that's why it's called a
stronghold. Okay, it's a demonic presence around her that requires
the supernatural to break through. The fourth characteristic is
an amazing ability to rationalize error and sin. The fifth characteristic
is an amazing ability to win an argument, even though she
is wrong. The sixth, usually though not always, it is a woman
that this spirit, this demonic presence works through. There
are cases where men have this spirit manifested in them. Seventh,
it is usually a woman who has been deeply wounded in her childhood
through abuse and through other things and she just cannot seem
to shake those scars. We saw that it started off many
times as inappropriate responses, coping mechanisms, so to speak,
that are dealing with and trying to hide some of the hurts and
the woundedness that she has experienced. And then the demonic
takes advantage of those. Eighth, she's a natural leader.
Ninth, she often exhibits an irrational jealousy that really
does not make any sense. Tenth, she knows God's will for
you. Now sometimes it is clairvoyant,
occult even, but sometimes it's just manipulative. 11th, she
needs Ahabs to affirm her gifts. Anywhere you find Jezebels, you're
going to find Ahabs that are present. And usually the Jezebel
and the Ahab will team up against an Elijah. Even if the Ahab doesn't
feel comfortable doing so, sometimes resists that, they will team
up in going after an Elijah. 12, it is a religious spirit
that is quite comfortable working within a church. 13, she is narcissistic. The whole world revolves around
her. 14, she plays the victim card, even though she is victimizing
others. At the very time she's victimizing
others, she is the victim. 15, she inverts the family order,
and in doing so, she ends up producing more Jezebels, just
like Jezebel produced her daughter Athaliah, who was just almost
like a clone for her. So of the 30 or so characteristics
that counselors talk about, those 15 are the strongest ones that
just jump out of the text of 1st and 2nd Kings. And we saw
that Revelation 2 reiterated some of those Old Testament characteristics,
but it adds a few. Well, actually, what it's doing
is it's making more clear some of the things that we already
see in 1st and 2nd Kings. We saw that Ahab's are intimidated
by her. And we saw that Elijah's are
frustrated. by her, and she is frustrated
by the Elijahs in their life. Furthermore, Jezebels use creative
ways to disciple, mentor, or lead men through their teaching. I do want to clarify something
that I said last week. I think I just threw it out that
she was inverting the order by teaching men, but it's a specific
kind of teaching. Somebody asked me afterwards,
well, does that mean that women can't share information with
their husbands and with others? And I said, oh no, there's all
kinds of examples of women sharing information. In fact, if you've
got a healthy relationship, there's going to be a rich interchange
of ideas between husband and wife and between women and other
men within the church. The word that's used here is
a word that means to disciple. It's a much stronger word than
sharing of information. And so it indicates that the
way she's teaching is she's leading the men through the teaching.
She's mentoring them. She's discipling the men through
the teaching, and that's not appropriate. Men should disciple
men. Women should be discipling women.
Verse 20 shows that Jezebel deceives or gives misdirection. She also
goes after Christ's servants, has antinomian tendencies, blurs
the lines between godliness and idolatry. Verse 21 shows that
she cannot see herself as wrong, almost can never be persuaded
she's wrong. And verse 24, it's a demonic
stronghold. She had experienced more of the
depths of Satan, about as much of the depths of Satan as a believer
could experience. So you can see why some counselors
have advocated just giving up on such a woman. They say, don't
even bother counseling her. There is nothing you're going
to be able to do to change her. And yet what they are advocating
in effect is to just tolerate her. There's nothing you're going
to be able to do to change her. Just tolerate her, which is exactly
what the leadership in Thyatira had been doing. That's what they're
being rebuked for. is an ungodly toleration. That's
not biblical. So here's the question. If it
seems as hopeless as the many, many case studies that I have
read, if it seems as hopeless as these counselors say that
it is to bring Jezebel to repentance, what can be done? And there are
just two points in today's sermon. This is a historic moment in
time. Only two points in my sermon.
And the first point is that we need to be convinced that Jesus
is capable and he is motivated to deal with the Jezebels and
the Ahabs that come into our lives. And the second point,
is, well, first of all, he is not helpless and we need to be
operating in terms of our union with Christ by the power of the
Holy Spirit. What we're gonna be doing, we're gonna constantly
be jumping back and forth between points one and two. They cannot
be separated. But the second point is we must
be convinced that we can be equipped to be Elijah's rather than Ahab's. And I do want you to notice that
I didn't say you're gonna be able to solve all of Jezebel's
problems. You might have wished that I could come up with some
magic bullet. Did Elijah solve all of Jezebel's problems? No,
he did not. I have seen cases of churches
operating in the power and the giftings of the Holy Spirit who
have brought, by God's grace, have brought Jezebels to repentance.
And it's been a joyful moment. And the Jezebels, when they have
their eyes open, cannot believe the way in which Satan had used
them. So that's joyful. And the point that I want to make
is you can still be victorious. You can still be walking in the
power of Elijah, even when that does not happen. But it's so
important to realize Elijah did not use carnal methods, carnal
tools to deal with this problem. He was using weapons that were
mighty in God for pulling down strongholds and tearing down
every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God.
And he was victorious even though he received a great deal of backlash.
Well, with that as a background, let's take a look first of all
at Christ's provision. Commentators point out that the
reference to the Son of God in verse 18 comes from Psalm 2,
and that verses 26 through 27 contain an extended quote and application of Psalm 2. And so Psalm 2 is very much in
the background of what Jesus is saying to the church of Thyatira. And you'll remember from our
introductory sermons, anytime that the book of Revelation quotes
or alludes to the Old Testament, we need to understand the Old
Testament background or we're going to misinterpret the passage.
So that's what we're going to do right now. If you turn to
Psalm 2, I'm going to give a little bit of background there. And
Psalm 2 starts by mentioning the demonic conspiracies to overthrow
Christ's law and His word. Now for a very interesting take
on Psalm 2, very interesting exposition, I would encourage
you to read Gary North's book, Conspiracy, a Biblical View. Very interesting. book on that
that talks about the demonic presence behind the conspiracies
that have happened down through history. That is the ultimate
Jezebel spirit at work in politics and really it's a joint work
of Jezebels and Ahabs working together. So Psalm 2 starts with
the enormous damage that a political Jezebel can produce in a nation.
But is God frustrated? No way. In fact, the attempts
of man to overturn Christ's rule are so pitiful, God laughs at
them. It's almost like it's puzzling,
it's ridiculous that these people would have the audacity to try
to dethrone God and dethrone the Lord Jesus Christ, wrest
control from his hands. Verse 2. He who sits in the heavens
shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in
his deep displeasure. So just as the Jezebel in our
passage is going to face Christ's wrath, the manipulative people
in Psalm 2 will face God's displeasure, whether they are Jezebels or
Ahabs. The Psalm goes on. Yet I have set my king on my
holy hill of Zion. This is Jesus. He's king, he's
ruling, he has all authority in heaven and on earth. And so
Jezebel's who tried to seize authority illegitimately, they're
no match for him. That much is clear. Verse seven,
I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to me, you
are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask
of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance
and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break
them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces
like a potter's vessel." Now, we're not going to turn to Revelation
right now, but it's very interesting when Jesus quotes that verse
and he applies it to the Jezebel problem, he's going to be applying
it to the church. Why would he do that? This is
a political context here, and Revelation 2 is a church context. Why would he apply a political
passage to a church context? Well, the reason is that the
Jezebel spirit is at work in both places. These demons undermine
and they control every institution of God from the family to the
state. And if Christ has the power to overturn the work of
Jezebels and Ahabs in the state, he certainly has the power to
overturn their work in the family and in the church. And so Revelation
2 is not engaging in a misapplication of this passage. Far from it,
the same principle is at work in both governments. And I'll
also mention that when we get to Revelation 2, there is something
that is even stranger. In Psalm 2 here, who's being
addressed? It's the Lord Jesus Christ who
is being addressed by these words. And yet when you get to Revelation
chapter 2, Jesus applies the exact same words to overcomers. In other words, to those who
are willing to live by faith, believers who see and understand
their position with Christ in the heavenly places. So don't
expect Christ to use his rod of iron if we're not willing
to use it. He has chosen many times to use
that rod of iron through us. So here's the point. The power
is there. Christ's authority is there. The only question is,
are we going to walk by faith? Are we going to step into that
power? Now, in any case, We are called
to use and smite the demons with that rod of iron, and it's the
demons who are behind the flesh and blood people. But as long
as the church fails to use it, we have untold power that lies
unused. And we're gonna get to that verse
in a little bit. I'm just trying to give you the Old Testament
background. Psalm 2 goes on to say, verse 10, Now therefore
be wise, O kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve
the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. So he's calling
them to repentance just as he called Jezebel to repentance.
This is a shepherding function of Jesus. And in Revelation,
we as overcomers are going to be called to have the same shepherding
function, shepherding the nations. He's going to give us the authority
to do that. But this Psalm says those are the only two options
that are available. You're either shepherding them
toward repentance and restoration or they are being smashed with
the rod of iron. Verse 12, kiss the son lest he
be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled
but a little. Blessed are all those who put
their trust in Him. Blessed are all those who put
their trust in him. If you choose this morning to
be an Elijah who walks by faith, you're going to be incredibly
blessed. If you choose this morning to
be an Elijah who walks by faith, you're gonna have far more authority
and power and resources than a Jezebel who illegitimately
tries to gain those same things. So this psalm is quite clear
that those who seek power independently of Christ and illegitimately
will find it to be a curse, while those who lose their lives, they're
not seeking anything for themselves, they're seeking first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, have all of these things added
to them, including true authority. So is Jesus able to handle Jezebel? Yes, the references to Psalm
2 make that clear. Let's turn back to Revelation
2, and let's look at some other hints that Jesus is fully capable
of handling Jezebel. Verse 18, right in the middle
of the verse there it says, these things says the Son of God who
has the eyes like a flame of fire and the feet like fine brass. Now when we looked at that exact
phrase in chapter one, we saw that it was a reference to Daniel.
Daniel describes this divine being, like a man, who has these
burning eyes that can see right through everything. And this
is the answer to our inabilities. You may not be able to uncover
the lies that caused Jezebel to create havoc in the church.
You may be frustrated that there was such a stronghold around
her. You cannot see through her defenses. You can't disarm her.
You can't get to the bottom of things in your counseling. When
trying to expose a Jezebel, you are up against one frustrating
diversion after another that makes her extremely frustrating. And you want to just throw up
your hands and give up like the leadership of Thyatira did. Well,
that's exactly what the demonic spirit of Jezebel wants you to
do. He wants you to act like an Ahab who gives a pretense
of leading, and Jezebel gave a pretense of submitting, but
they were both involved in overturning God's social order. So rather
than giving up, look by faith to the one who has the burning
eyes who can see right through all of the shields and the strongholds
and the high things that Jezebel has erected to hide her innermost
insecurities. Remember we saw last week that
that the whole reason she even started erecting these coping
mechanisms was to deal and cope with those insecurities. And
then the demons have taken them to such a high degree that she
can't see straight and the counselors can't see straight. But do we
have access to one who can? Yes. We have access to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and if we're walking in union with Him by the power
of the Spirit, He will give those insights to His servants. Well,
the same divine man and Daniel had feet like fine brass. Now,
feet were the image of dominion. Anywhere in the Bible you have
those symbols of feet, it's dominion, it's leadership. And unlike the
counterfeit image in Daniel that, remember at the feet, it was
made up of clay and iron. Well, clay and iron don't fit
together very well and they can break apart. So unlike that,
Jesus has feet of fine brass, which means that his dominion
is unbreakable. His dominion is unshakable. In other words, when you get
to the end of your rope in maintaining leadership, start depending on
the Christ, whose leadership you're supposed to be reflecting
right from the beginning anyway, right? You're supposed to be
operating in His authority, not your own. And too many pastors
and business leaders and politicians depend upon their own strength
and gifts. And when Jezebels come around
too strong for them to handle, they resort to Ahab's attempts
to put out fires and to develop coalitions and to pit one person
against another person and to manipulate behind the scenes.
and to take advantage of factions and insecurities and things like
this, and do anything that he can to try to desperately stay
in control. And some other men, instead of
doing that, they lash out in anger because they are not leading
in the authority of Christ. They're leading through the same
demonic spirit of control and power. And when that control
and power is undermined, they lash out. Well, that's not going
to, it's going to be counterproductive. It's not going to be helpful.
True authority does not force. True Christianity is not a power
religion. It stands in the authority of
Christ. It operates in a chain of command
from Christ. It can speak authoritatively
and leave the results in God's hand for God to change. And True
authority is confident in Christ's truth to convince, Christ's power
to change, and Christ's spiritual weapons to overcome. True authority
does not get petty and manipulative and frustrated when people disobey. It just patiently, confidently,
perseveringly continues to speak in Christ's authority, trusting
His grace to make the change. So the moment you get really,
really angry when people disobey your authority, Or the moment
you begin to mope and sulk like Ahab did, you know that you are
operating in terms of fleshly control rather than in terms
of Christ's spiritual authority. The two approaches to leadership
are worlds apart. And the point is that when we
are united to the one whose eyes see through the defenses of Jezebel,
God gives wisdom and insight and words of knowledge and words
of wisdom. and the spirit of counsel to be able to pierce
through the defenses as well. And when I have depended upon
God's supernatural resources, God has broken through impervious
walls that would otherwise be impossible to break through.
See, the biggest mistake I made in my early ministry was to think
that I could take on strongholds, any strongholds, through truth
alone. I was very confident in God's
truth. I still am. Okay, I love the
truth of God's word, but I would get frustrated with people when
I would bring clearly laid out truth and it wouldn't faze them. And so I would strengthen my
arguments and strengthen the scriptures and write bigger and
longer papers. And they still were impervious
to the truth that I was bringing. And you see what was happening
is I was using God's tools. I was depending on the truth
of the scripture, but I was not wrestling in spiritual warfare
the way God wanted me to wrestle. The truth must be wielded by
the Holy Spirit and we must minister by the Holy Spirit who alone
can take the things of Christ and work them through us. And
we can only do that by faith. So I think you can see I'm jumping
back and forth between points one and two. So in one sense,
they're just one point, right? Can I claim to have only a one
point sermon this morning? Back to point one. Is Christ
capable and motivated to deal with Jezebels? Yes, everything
in the Daniel passage that we looked at in chapter one shows
he is capable of exercising true authority and dominion. The question is, are we overcomers
who are willing to walk in that victory by faith? Now let me
quickly pull out a few other threads in the passage that shows
Christ's ability to deal with the problems in Thyatira. Verse
21. This verse shows Jesus giving
opportunities for repentance to Jezebel. Now we aren't told
whether Jezebel actually repented after the disciplines were inflicted
upon her, but the text seems to very clearly indicate this
was Christ's goal. And if Jesus has repentance as
a goal, we should not exclude it as a possibility. The moment
we throw up our hands and say, I'm not even going to mess with
it, this is hopeless, we're not walking by faith. We're saying,
you know, I and myself cannot do it. Well, yeah, that's a good
place to come to. But to throw up our hands is to fail to live
by faith. What we cannot do, Jesus can
do. Now we don't know whether in
His sovereignty He will do it or will not do it. That's immaterial.
He can. And in this case, that seems
to be his goal. Verse 21, I even gave her time so that she might
repent, but she does not want to repent of her fornication.
And then in verse 22, he speaks of affliction that he will bring
upon Jezebel and her devotees, quote, unless they repent of
her works. So if repentance is a goal, it
is obviously achievable should Christ grant the grace of repentance. Verse 22 shows Jesus using sickness
to get her attention. And once again, bring her to
repentance. Same verse shows Jesus bringing sickness and the
tribulation of persecution in order to bring Jezebel's supporters
to their knees and hopefully bring them to repentance. And
I want us to just think about that sickness, tribulation, and
death. If there is not repentance and
if there is continued rebellion, these are godly options to ask
for. Paul asked the Corinthians, What
do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod
or in love and a spirit of gentleness? So Paul was implying that he
was going to wield Christ's rod of iron against the church if
they did not repent. He was not going to engage in
ungodly tolerance. He was going to see this spiritual
warfare through one way or the other, through repentance and
restoration or through smashing. And did the people in Corinth
experience some of the smashing of Christ's rod? Yes, they did.
Paul told them in 1 Corinthians 11, if we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. But they refused to judge themselves.
And because Paul had already said that he had been engaging
in spiritual warfare, Christ's rod of iron had brought sickness
and affliction and even death. Paul said, for this reason, many
are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. And they hadn't
even been excommunicated yet, okay? This was just spiritual
warfare. Now, speaking of excommunication, it's very common for people to
just think, ah, that's such a ridiculous thing to engage in anymore. People
do not take that seriously at all. They don't think it's powerful.
And yet Paul says that church discipline is mighty in God for
pulling down strongholds. Mighty in God. The very next
phrase in that same sentence in 2 Corinthians 10, 5 through
6, which is a very popular phrase, almost always they take out the
last phrase of that sentence, which deals with church discipline.
Church discipline is mighty in God. I think there's a reason
why the modern church has been unable to deal with Jezebels
is because they've been unwilling to use the spiritual tools that
God has given to the church One of which is church discipline.
They're using carnal tools and that could be easily demonstrated
Now what Paul and John are doing may not seem nice and it's certainly
not part of the precious moments Christianity that is out there
But it is biblical to engage in church Discipline as a tool
to bring people out of their strongholds and the goal of even
excommunication It's not to get rid of people The goal of excommunication
is to bring repentance and restoration. And sometimes God even uses Satan
to do the dirty work for him. In 1 Corinthians 5, verse 5,
Paul says, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction
of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord Jesus. We Christians tend to be so focused
on hoped for change that we end up with the ungodly tolerance
of Thyatira. We keep hoping and waiting and
hoping and waiting, and in the meantime, there's a lot of collateral
damage that's unnecessarily happening. Now, I wanna comment just a bit
more on Christ bringing affliction, sickness, and death. If this
is Christ's modus operandi, we should not be shy about asking
God to turn heaven and earth upside down to bring Jezebels
to repentance. When was the last time you heard
a pastor pray Lord, I want you to bless these people who are
destroying this church. I want you to bless them with
sickness, bless them with disaster, bless them with financial ruin,
bless them with any discipline that will bring them to repentance
because I want their spiritual security. I want their spiritual
prosperity. I want them to be close to you,
so Lord, bless them with disaster. When was the last time you heard
a pastor pray like that? Paul did. I think it's a very
biblical prayer. And I again will confess, and
the elders will probably tell you, I'm just too nice. And I
think I have not had the mind of Christ because I have thought
this is just not biblical to pray against somebody within
the church of Jesus Christ. I've not had the mind of Christ.
And yet, as I've studied this passage, it's just opened up
to me. I see these kinds of things happening all through the Old
and New Testaments. And I have repented, and I have
said to the Lord, Lord, from now on, I am committed, when
I'm dealing with Ahab's and Jezebel's, if they, I wanna shepherd them
with your rod, but if they are continually going to be in rebellion
and unrepentant, I will pray exactly what you have called
me to pray. And as we move through this and
we see how we're to wield the rod of iron in exactly the way
that Christ does, wow, it makes such a difference in how you
think about, shepherding the flock. Now, I'm gonna do it out
of love for their souls, but I've come to realize this is
so important. There can be no peace treaty
between Jesus and Satan, and certainly when there is a stronghold
that is present. Those who are overcomers must
be committed to joining with Jesus in spiritual warfare against
stronghold. Now, what are some of the other
disasters that Jesus will bring rather than let a Jezebel continue
to ruin a church with her stronghold activities. We'll take a look
at verse 23. And I will execute her children, and all the churches
will know that I am the one who searches minds and hearts, and
I will give to each one of you according to your works. Wow. This is Jesus, meek and mild? I mean, I don't think you want
to cross swords with this Jesus, okay? This isn't the kind of
precious moments Jesus that Jezebels and Ahabs like to portray him
as, but this is the real Jesus who does not put up with the
overthrow of his realm or of his chain of command. And we'll
see more of his work in the next verses, but I want us to jump
quickly to our role. We must be convinced that we
can be equipped to be Elijah's rather than Ahab's. And I want
you to notice that Jesus doesn't tell the leaders and the rest
of the churches here, the rest of the people in the church,
to try harder. They've been working their tails off. That'd be very
discouraging. Say, man, you need to try harder.
What's wrong with you? You need to work harder. No,
he is not going to put any greater burden on them to work harder. Instead he points them in the
opposite direction, laying hold of Christ's work and His provision. Look at verse 24. Now to the
rest of you who are in Thyatira I say, to as many as do not hold
this teaching, those who have not known the depths of Satan,
as they say, I am not putting any other burden on you. Notice
he says, I'm not putting any other burden on you. Indeed,
in verses 26 through 27, he's going to point out, you can't
do it in your own strength anyway. This is all about Jesus. It's
all about faith, laying hold of what he is doing. This is
about sitting with Christ in the heavenlies. So what are the
steps to the spiritual warfare? Verse 25 says, just hold fast
what you have until I come. Now, I do not like that translation,
and I'm going to go through it word by word in the Greek and
give you my translation of this. The word translated just is the
Greek word plain, plain, and means in contrast. It is an incredibly
strong contrast. This is the only place it actually
occurs, but if you look it up in a dictionary, it is an incredibly
strong contrast. It has nothing to do with the
meaning of just. It's in contrast to what I've just sang, where
I'm gonna put no greater burden upon you, and then people translate
it as if, oh, here's another burden I'm gonna place upon you.
I think that many translations completely miss the strength
of that Greek word plain. The next two words in the Greek
are what you own or what you possess. The next Greek word
is krateo, which means to seize or to grab or to lay hold of
or to possess something that's not currently under your possession
or under your control. And I believe it's possessing
our possessions, it's taking from Christ what he has already
given to us. So putting the words together
so far, Jesus is calling upon us to possess our possessions,
and then the last phrase says, until whenever I shall come.
So you could translate the two clauses this way. I'm not putting
any other burden on you. In contrast, lay hold of whatever
your possessions are until I come. And what are our possessions?
Well, Ephesians 1 verse 4 says, we've been blessed with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We got
a vast bank account up there. And he says, I don't want you
scraping by here on earth in your own fleshly resources. I've
given you incredible resources in Christ. I want you to possess
your possessions. See, we're not only blessed with
every spiritual blessing in Christ, we're seated with Christ in the
heavenlies. And so we need to keep writing
checks on that bank account and say, Lord, for today, I need
healing. For today, I need these finances. For today, I need wisdom. And I thank you that you have
said in your word that anytime we need wisdom you will grant
it. And so I'm signing this check
on this bank account in Jesus name. And he's good for his name. Anytime that's in Jesus name,
it's consistent with his name, he'll give it. On his bank account,
he's good for his name. So we have authority in Jesus.
We have resources in Jesus. We have everything we need in
Jesus. Well, with that more literal translation, there is a smooth
transition into verses 26 through 27. I'm not putting any other
burden on you. In contrast, lay hold of whatever
your possessions are until I come. And as for the one who overcomes
and keeps my works until the end, I will give him authority
over the nations, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron.
They will be smashed like clay pots just as I received from
my father, and I will give him the morning star." Now, this
is really astounding when you think about it. And I'm going
to tease it apart a little bit here. We've already seen in a
previous sermon that overcomers are those who live by faith.
Okay, whatever, 1 John, this same apostle says, for whatever
is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory
that has overcome the world, our faith. So he's already defined
overcomers as those who live by faith, not by sight. You cannot be an overcomer without
faith. But Hebrews 11 says that those
who live by faith have the astounding ability to face persecution with
joy and with victory, to face death with victory and confidence. And if God wills to be like those
in verses 33 through 34 of Hebrews 11, of whom it says, who by faith
subdued kingdoms. worked righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were
made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens, et cetera. See, faith never looks at ourselves. Faith is always looking to God's
provision through Christ. And so the next phrase in verse
26 says, and keeps my works until the end. Keeps means to keep
in custody But it's not something that's ours. It's Christ's works. Christ has chosen to work through
his people, through his overcomers. And by the way, not all believers
are overcomers. We overcome sometimes, sometimes
we don't overcome. It's when we're living by faith
that we are overcomers. So Christ is working through
those who possess their possessions and who keep in custody Christ's
activities. So what should the members of
the church or elders do when they see a Jezebel creating fires? Or what should Christian politicians
do? Let me just make a side comment here that many Christian politicians
play the same game that the pagans do. They're either Ahab's or
they are Jezebel's. And they are selling out their
position in Christ, the authority that they have in Christ. They
are not living as one who is in a chain of command from Christ
when they're in politics. They secularize everything. You
think Christ is going to honor that? No way, no way. They're
operating in their own authority. Instead of acting that way, here's
what should happen. First of all, they should offer
up a quick prayer that Christ would give them the wisdom needed. And James says, if you ask in
faith, He'll give it. Every time, He'll give it. And
then ask Jesus to keep you from responding like an Ahab and being
part of the problem. Then ask for His angelic protection
from the demons who are at work in this stronghold. And then
by faith, ask him to use the scriptures that you're going
to speak, not in your own strength, but to use them supernaturally
to pierce through the defenses that are keeping them from the
knowledge of Christ and to bring repentance. Then stand up to
Ahab and Jezebel in the authority of Christ, like Ahab did, using
the scriptures. Make sure you do not sympathize
with Jezebel or enable her or in any way tolerate her undermining
of the chain of authority. That is to undermine Christ. But by faith, take your position
as one who is seated with Christ in the heavenlies and begin to
pray against the demonic in faith. That's coming into agreement
with Christ's authority. Smash the demonic that is at
work. Now, initially the church will
shepherd with the rod of Christ rather than smashing with the
rod of Christ, but eventually smashing is a part of it. So,
back to verses 26 through 27. Jesus quotes from Psalm 2, the
passage that says, Jesus will shepherd the nations, will smash
those that are rebellious with his rod of iron. But what is
astounding about the quote is that Jesus applies the entirety
of that passage to ordinary members of the church who are overcomers.
In other words, those who are living by faith. It is the overcomer
who is given authority over the nations just as Jesus received
that authority from the Father. That's astounding. It is the
overcomer who shepherds the nations or who smashes them to death
just as Jesus received from the Father. That's astounding. And
when does this expansion of a believer's authority over the demonic strongholds
begin? Not in some future millennium.
You know, Satan won't even be around then. He'll be bound in
the pit. Instead, the terminus is the
end. of what the various churches
had already several times been said to be enduring right now.
Okay, the end of the Great Tribulation. You'll remember that the Great
Tribulation went from 62 to June of 66 A.D. when Nero died, and
that is quite different from the Great Wrath, which went from
66 to 73 A.D. That was against unbelieving
Israel. The Great Tribulation was against
believers. So, they've been undergoing fiery tribulation, and He said,
those who endure, this is a testing ground, those who endure through
this great tribulation, He's going to make them, enable them
to use this rod of iron successfully against the nations. Wow! This
is an incredible promise. Did that happen? Yes, God answered
those prayers spectacularly in the first century. As a result
of those prayers, Nero died in June of 68. The empire fell apart
into three parts with wars, famine, and conflict destroying millions
in nations all over the world. The nations were being smashed
with the rod of iron. The church's chief persecutor,
Israel, was also brought under judgment. But the interesting
thing about the breaking of these clay pots around the world is
that they were redemptive judgments. The rod was still a tool of shepherding
the nations. It either shepherded to repentance
or brought to destruction, and those two happened simultaneously.
Now, were there any Christians who were shepherded into salvation?
Yes, there were. Malta became 100% Christian within
just a few years, I think less than a decade of when this epistle
was written. There were various tribes that
were becoming Christian, some of which became almost entirely
Christian shortly after 70 AD. You look at Armenia that became
a Christian nation. Yes, there was persecution and
martyrdoms that led up to that. By the time of Constantine's
conversion. Prior to Constantine's conversion,
upwards, secular historians think, upwards of 50% of the empire
had become Christian. This is astounding as you see
these first century saints who had the faith to handle this
rod of iron that Christ had given to them. They were moving forward
the kingdom as overcomers living and dying victoriously and victoriously
advancing either repentance or judgment. And really this authority
makes perfect sense because we are so united to Jesus The scripture
says quite clearly that when Jesus died, we are said to have
died. When Jesus was buried, we were
said to have been buried. When Jesus rose from the dead,
we were said to have triumphed over death. When Jesus ascended
upwards in the sky, victoriously over every principality and power,
we were said to have ascended with Him in triumph over every
principality and power. When Jesus sat at the right hand
of the Father and was given all authority over all of the nations,
What does Ephesians say? It says, we're seated together
with Jesus Christ in the heavenly places. I mean, when you begin
to meditate upon the incredible privilege that we have, it is
breathtaking. It is absolutely breathtaking. There is no need to be frustrated
with Jezebel because when we walk in our union with Jesus,
demons are no match for him. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians
10, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in
God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every
high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and
being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
walking in light of his union with Jesus enabled Paul to live
above the conflicts in the church. Not ignoring them, but living
above them. It enabled him to deal with them
even though it meant backlash. It enabled him to discipline
even if he was criticized for it. For the motive for Paul was
not success or peace or affirmation by others. His motive was the
Father's glory, the advancement of Christ's kingdom, and God's
well done. And if he had that, he was victorious.
This is why he says in 2 Corinthians 2 14. Now thanks be to God who
always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us diffuses
the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. Now there's one
little piece of this puzzle that still is puzzling for some people.
It seems so contrary to the actual experience of Elijah. Elijah
was in the crosshairs of Jezebel and his ministry was dashed to
the ground and he ended up depressed and discouraged. We call this
leadership backlash. Initially Elijah failed. God
rebuked him and restored him to his victory but initially
he ran And he wanted to die. Lord, kill me. I'm done with
this. He just wanted to give up. What he was doing there was
operating in the flesh and taking a victim mentality. That is a
fleshly response. It's not a response that honors
Christ. The other fleshly response is to get so angry you go on
the attack. and you try to defend your rights and you try to fight
for your reputation, but Christ's response through us is to submit
to the Father, whatever His providences might be, and realize God's authority,
Christ's authority, and victory that He is producing for you,
in you, and through you into the lives of others. It's really
not about us, it's about His Kingdom. In fact, Jesus said,
whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for My sake will find it, Matthew 16, 25. And sometimes
losing your life means losing your dreams. losing your pride,
losing your reputation if Christ will reign supreme. That should
be our goal. And I think it's so important
to realize that victory for Jesus does not always mean the kind
of victory that you might hope for. Jezebel sometimes appeared
to win over Elijah's And from the world's perspective, it may
have looked like, you know, Elijah, let me give you some advice.
Just do what Ahab does and you'll get along just fine. It might
have looked like that would be the better thing for him to do.
We might rather that Jezebel repent. And by God's grace, that
sometimes happens. Praise the Lord. We might rather,
if she doesn't repent, that she gets exposed and her influence
is no longer there. And by God's sovereign power
and grace, that sometimes does happen. but victory might take
other routes. God may intend victory to be
manifested in the leadership's own heart and in their own growth. For example, leadership backlash
often produces an integrity check that causes the leader to be
tested on whether he will live by faith or whether he's going
to live by sight. Or it might be a word check to
test whether the leader is really going to be following through
on what he knows God's word says he should do, or whether he's
going to follow his own desires. And there's many other testings
of character that these people, Ahab's and Jezebel's, can produce
in our lives. And we come out victoriously,
even though they seem like they're unscathed. Why? Because we have
submitted to God's disciplines in our own life. We're growing.
And so there is inward victory that the Lord can achieve, but
victory often does indeed take exactly the pathway that this
verse speaks to, that the rebels are either shepherded into repentance
or smashed. And the fact that Jesus uses
a political verse to apply to the church shows me that the
Jezebel spirit is at work in politics just as surely as it
is at work in the church. Christ's servants should get
used to looking at life as Christ sees it. And when nations, let's
apply this to nations, when nations refuse to repent, they maintain
their independence from Him. They throw off the bonds of Christ.
It is blasphemy to say, God bless America. It is blasphemy. Why would we pray God's blessing
upon those who hate Christ? No. What we should say is, Lord,
scatter, shatter this clay pot, make it flinders, so that every
stronghold, every idol in this nation that has exalted itself
against the knowledge of you is broken down and your grace
and your knowledge reigns supreme in this nation. We need to look
at life as Christ looks at life. And I think too many Christians,
when they're involved in politics, all they care about is some politician
getting in there who's going to make them a little bit more
comfortable. A little bit less of big government, a little bit
less of that. No, follow God's Word. Part of following God's
Word may mean that we are going to receive discomfort and God's
smashing rod is going to come down and we may receive persecution
and things may start falling totally apart in this nation.
So be it if Christ is exalted. So be it. But shepherding may mean leading
civic officers to Christ and teaching them the ropes of God's
Word just like the church of the first three centuries did.
I'm just blown away when I read some of these early church fathers
like Athanasius who had incredible faith, incredible faith to take
on the demonic strongholds of their time. It's totally different
than the approach that you see with modern people. You begin
to realize that they were totally sold out to Christ, to using
his, not carnal weapons, but his spiritual weapons, and they
saw incredible results, including Rome itself crumbling to the
gospel. But you know, long before that, Elijah-like Christians
were operating in every level of business, science, military,
federal office, local civic office, every other area of life. This
is before Constantine even became Christian. This was under the
heat of incredible persecution. Athanasius said, wherever the
gospel goes in faith, demons tremble, strongholds are falling. He said, the gospel is always
going forth victoriously. Read Athanasius sometime. Unbelievable. Unbelievable faith that they
had. If the church would have an ounce of the faith that Athanasius
had, I think America would be turned upside down within a decade.
Anyway. He realized that the kingdom
was still in the dawn of its existence, but he still had that
kind of a faith. The promise in verse 28, I will
give him the morning star, is a symbol of the dark times just
before the dawn breaks. Before you see any rays of the
sun, you see the morning star in the darkness signaling that
dawn is about to happen. So it's still pitch black. You
see that morning star, you say, okay, dawn's about to happen.
The church had been going through the darkness of the Great Tribulation
from 62 through 68 A.D. This was written in 66 A.D.,
but 70 A.D. was a major turning point. So
everything prior to that, prior to 70 A.D. would be the darkest
time when the morning star shone, and everything after 70 A.D.
would be the beginning light as dawn begins to break. And
as history progresses, the light of his kingdom keeps growing.
and shining brighter. Now the last admonition Jesus
gives is in verse 29. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To listen to Jesus'
words is the same thing as listening to the Spirit's words. To walk
in Christ's power is the same thing as to walk in the Spirit's
power. And really, it's a Trinitarian walk our whole lives. God calls
us to be overcomers, and we do that as we pray to the Father
in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. We do that
as we live to the Father's glory by the indwelling Christ through
the gifts and anointings of the Spirit. But this letter to Thyatira
is simply another reminder that the whole Christian life is a
call to live in the supernatural. Sermon on the Mount calls us
to do such impossible things. Only God can get the glory when
we're able to do them. So last week we looked at the
problem, today we looked at the solution. And the solution is
a God-centered, a God-resourced, and a God-empowered walk. May each of us sit in the authority
that we have as those who are bound with Jesus, seated with
Jesus in the heavenlies. Amen. Father God, When we look
at scriptures like this, we see how far short we frequently fall
of that. I confess my sins, says a pastor,
failing to always walk in the anointing and in the authority
that flows from your throne. but help us to grow our whole
lives so that we are people of the book, people of faith, people
who show forth our sonship, our union with You, people who show
forth the anointing of Your Holy Spirit. We long for Your Holy
Spirit to come upon us, O Lord. and to come upon the church of
Jesus Christ and to bring revival. And so, Father, we pray that
you would smash any demonic strongholds in our lives that we maybe don't
even recognize. Smash the demonic off from us
and enable us, Father, to minister with clear minds, clear hearts,
who depend upon you and who walk in your spirit. We pray, Father,
that you would smash the Jezebel and the Ahab spirit in churches
all across this nation. Father, it is such a pervasive
spirit and stronghold in this nation, not just in the churches,
but in families, in the homeschool movement. We see it in politics. And we pray, Father, that Christians
would have the eyes of their understanding opened up so that
they would not succumb and do the same things that the world
does. Please, Father, open up the heart and the minds of the
church of Jesus Christ so that we can once again be a church
militant walking in Your Spirit to Your glory. And it is Your
glory that we want to see lifted up. It is Your Son's kingdom
that we want to see exalted and advanced. It's not about us,
Lord. We realize that. It's about you and your kingdom.
So help us to pursue first your kingdom and your righteousness
so that all of these things can be added to us. And we pray it
in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Ungodly Tolerance, Part 2
Series Revelation
Last week's sermon dealt with the problem of the Jezebel spirit. This one deals with the solution.
| Sermon ID | 99324161826410 |
| Duration | 1:00:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Revelation 2:18-29 |
| Language | English |
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