Revelation 2:18-29
Thyatira:
When Jesus Christ Threatens a Church
When we leave
Pergamum we get on the highway and head 35 miles southeast to arrive at a city
called Thyatira. Thyatira was not an
important city politically or religiously at the time. However, it was important militarily and
economically. Militarily, Thyatira was
the “buffer” between an enemy army and Pergamum. Thyatira was kind of like the expendable
character in a movie whose life was forfeited in saving the hero. The little city bought time for Pergamum by
putting up some resistance to invading armies who were on their way to attack
Pergamum – the more important city.
Economically the
city’s main industry was the production of wool and dyed goods – especially
purple. In Acts 16 Paul arrives in
Philippi and the first convert is a woman named Lydia, a woman from Thyatira
who sold purple cloth. The city was also
filled with trade guilds. Guilds were like associations of various trade
laborers, kind of like unions today.
There were guilds for workers in wool, dyes, tanning, leather, linens,
potters, bronze smiths, slave traders, and bakers. The people in Thyatira were mostly skilled
laborers who were hard-working, had calloused hands and blue collars. When not punched in most folks socialized
with others from their guild.
This is important
to understand because it is from these trade guilds that the Christians in
Thyatira received the most pressure. To
hold a job or run a business you had to be a member of a guild. Each guild had its own deity and worship of
that deity was a regular part of membership in the guild. Worship involved feasts held in that god’s
honor – which involved meat sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality as
components of the worship. Christians
had to decide whether they were going to compromise their loyalty to Christ for
economic and social safety, or, stay faithful to Him by refusing to participate
in worshipping the guild gods and face economic and social persecution. In other words, a Christian has to decide if
they want to face the threats of the world or the threat of Jesus Christ.
Question: Would Jesus ever threaten one of His
churches? Yes. If there is ongoing sin that is not being
corrected you can bet Jesus will become threatening to one of His churches
(Acts 5; 1 Corinthians 11:27-34; Hebrews 12:4-11; Revelation 3:19). We must always remember that God’s love for
sinners does not diminish His fierce indignation towards sin one bit. Nor does the fact that someone’s sins are
forgiven mean Christ will never grow angry when sin is tolerated inside one of
His Churches.
It seems that
today a lot of people try to paint Jesus as a loving hippie social
revolutionary who could only be angry at religious Pharisees and oppressive
governments. But the real Jesus Christ
is very capable of anger - even towards His Beloved Bride.
For instance,
notice from verse 18 how He presents Himself to Thyatira: “The Son of God”. In many Roman cities you had to worship
Caesar and call him the son of God. Jesus
reminds them He is the real Son of God.
“Blazing eyes”, showing us that everything is seen by the light of His
all-knowing eyes and that He is fiercely indignant over the sin He sees in
Thyatira. Then notice He mentions His
feet, “like burnished bronze”, both bronze
and the feet of our Lord are
associated with Judgment in Scripture.
He is the Authoritative Son of God whose eyes are all-seeing and aflame
with anger at the sin He sees and He stands ready to judge the sin He sees. This is a picture of a threatening Jesus
Christ.
Let us look under 3 headings
#1: What did the Church of Thyatira do Well? (v19)
Before
laying out their sins Jesus acknowledges their good points. What were their good points in Thyatira? Notice verse 19, “I know your deeds, your love and
faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you
did at first.” That is a list of
virtues that every Christian and every Church should aim for. We get the picture here that this church was
active and busy doing good things to help each other. And that is what we should be doing: Ephesians 2:10 says God has prepared in advance good
deeds for us to walk in” and Titus 3:14 says we are to “devote
ourselves to doing what is good”.
But notice the particular way this church stands out: they were doing more today for the Lord than
they were yesterday. Unlike the Ephesian
Church that had quit doing some of the good deeds it did at first, the
believers in Thyatira were doing more than when they first started.
Are we doing more
than we were before? The Scriptures
present that the expected healthy Christian life is one that is progressing in
good deeds. When kids have growth
problems we are concerned. Difficulty in
speech leads to speech therapy.
Underweight leads to special diets.
Cognitive abilities and physical coordination are expected to progress
at a generally normal pace. An 18 year
old in 5th grade means there is a problem. A 12 year old who isn’t potty trained
indicates proper development has not occurred.
Progress should mark our lives.
But do we have
the same expectations for spiritual growth in the Christian life? Don’t be content with standing still and
don’t allow yourself to regress. More
fruit of the Spirit, more glory to God, more obedience to His commands, more
submitted to His will, more knowledgeable of His Word, more apt to help when a
need is seen, more time on our knees, more gracious in our speech and
attitudes. Philippians 3:12-14 speaks of
“pressing on” and “straining toward what is ahead”. This admonishes anyone who would settle in
and grow idle or stagnant or worse yet, backslide. The Christian life should be marked by
ongoing progress. The last thing we want
to say is that we have come no farther in our spiritual walk in the last
several years – and, something we never want to say is that we are now actually
further behind than where we were a while ago.
Now,
however, it must be said: No amount of
good deeds will make Jesus Christ overlook serious sins we allow in other areas
of our lives. Let us not think that if
we are very active that all is automatically right before the Lord. So often a person’s spirituality is measured
by how active they are in the church.
While devotion to the ministry of the church is good and commendable it
is not the sum total of whether a person is spiritually well. It very well could be a cover for other areas
where repentance is desperately needed.
Good deeds, while commendable, do not prevent the Lord’s discipline in
other areas where we let sin reign.
#2: What Sins did the Church in Thyatira Commit? (v20-21, 24)
The
sins the church was guilty of were serious.
I see 3 of them here. The first
two were the same sins that Pergamum was guilty of: eating food sacrificed to idols and sexual
immorality. Eating foods sacrificed to idols indicates that the Christians
weren’t just eating the leftover meat from pagan worship that was sold in
markets, but, that they were participating in the feasts and enjoying
fellowship with pagans through the rituals of pagan worship. Turn to 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 and Read. Sexual immorality is serious because the Lord
is serious about our purity. Turn to 1
Corinthians 6 with me.
Pergamum had the
Balaamites and the Nicolaitians leading them into these sins, but, in Thyatira it
was an individual woman that had risen up and corrupted the church. Jesus calls her “that woman Jezebel who calls
herself a prophetess.” It is
unlikely that this woman was actually named Jezebel. Probably what Jesus is doing is identifying
her by her behavior, which was the same as the historical Jezebel in the OT,
the wickedest woman who ever lived. She
had led the Israelites into the same sins of idolatry and sexual
immorality. This self-proclaimed
prophetess was tolerated in Thyatira and was therefore causing the Church to
commit two great sins that should never mark a Christian Church.
A subtle
difference should be noted here between Pergamum and Thyatira: In Pergamum there was a small population of
believers guilty of these sins. In verse
14 Jesus says, “you have people there…” almost like you get the sense that most
of them were doing well and not guilty, but, they had some guilty ones in their
fellowship.” Contrast this with what
Jesus says to Thyatira in verse 20, “You tolerate that woman Jezebel…she
misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food
sacrificed to idols.” The “You”
there is plural, and it indicts the the whole church for tolerating her and
following her teachings. In Pergamum
only some were being corrupted, in Thyatira the whole church was
corrupted. Isn’t it interesting that this
one woman was having such a sway over the whole church while the Baalamite and
Nicolaitan groups in Pergamum only swayed a few? What does this say? It says that the weaker you get doctrinally
the less resources Satan has to use to sway you.
And that is the 3rd
sin in my view: the believers
“tolerated” this woman. Unlike Ephesus,
Thyatira tolerated false teachers. First
of all a woman should not have authority over men – either officially or
unofficially. First Timothy 2:12 says, “I do
not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man.” In
the second place, she was claiming to be a prophetess speaking for God. You are never in more danger from the wrath
of God than when you claim to speak for God and He never spoke to you or sent
you in the first place. That is a
violation of the 2nd commandment to not use God’s name in vain and
God ordered such people be killed for that sin.
She should have been run out of town or at least shunned by the
believers there in Thyatira.
#3: What Kinds of Threats did Jesus Christ Make
to the Church in Thyatira?
(v22-23)
In
light of these sins Jesus makes some threats.
Notice verses 21-23 with me, “…..”
Of
course, we should ask, “In what way does
Jesus threaten His Church?” Does He
forsake her and cast her away? Does He
rescind His love? Does He take back His
forgiveness and cast Christians back under condemnation? No.
When His Church sins He draws near – not with tender love - but with
tough love. If a church’s sin increases
then He will strikes harder with the rod of discipline. His threats are made to bring correction and
further the training in righteousness (Heb. 12:11). And when He does actually carry out what He
threatens it is to purify His Beloved Church.
Notice 3 things about His threats
First notice His
patience.
However, here we have something to marvel at and worship the Lord
for: we can see the patience of Jesus
Christ in the midst of His holy anger here.
He has given her time to repent.
This must mean that the Lord has somehow rebuked her in the past – maybe
through believers there who challenged her from God’s word. Either way Jesus doesn’t drop the hammer on
her immediately. Second Peter 3:9 says
the Lord is patient not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.” Our Lord wants repentance, not retribution,
and over and over again in Scripture we see that He is willing to suffer for a
while at least and hold out for people to turn from their sin.
Secondly, notice
His promise. When people are threatened they ask, “Is that
a threat?” and the other person replies, “It’s a promise.” A threat is a promise. And just like Jesus promises blessings His
threats are promises of discipline. He
promises to “cast them on a bed of suffering”.
Let us not make the mistake of underestimate Jesus Christ’s willingness
put His Church into the furnace and burn away her impurities. We are not told specifically what this
suffering is, but, we can be certain that it will indeed be a time of intense
suffering for unrepentant Christians.
Thirdly notice
the purpose. We might ask “What will this accomplish?” Read these words slowly in verse 23,
“….” Two things are the purpose: the refining of the Church and reverence for
the Lord’s Name. Perhaps the Christians
there are like us today, thinking that somehow the Lord doesn’t see our
sin. We can keep it from Him. Or maybe people think that God doesn’t judge
sin. This verse here is a warning: He does indeed see sin and He does indeed
judge it, and so we are to walk in the fear of the Lord (2 Cor. 5:11)
He threatens this
Jezebel like woman and when He says “her children” He means all those who
follow her in committing these sins. To
refer to someone as a child of someone else in Scripture often refers to the
teacher/student relationship. Timothy
and Titus were Paul’s children. John
wrote to his “children” in his letters, referring to those believers whom he
had pastored. In Thyatira a lot of
Christians were children of this false prophetess.
#4: What Incentives did the Lord have for them?(v26-29)
Your Homework
Applications:
#1: Push forward to progress in our faith. It is not accidental. It doesn’t happen to us without us realizing
it. Growing in the Christian life takes
effort like anything else in life.
Becoming a good driver, shooting freethrows, learning math, or how to swing
a hammer all take practice and intention.
So does spiritual growth. With
devotion to spiritual things someone will see over time the change in
themselves and be able to say, “I am in a place that is further along than I
was a while ago.”
#2: Realize the Lord cares about us as much as
our holiness, and He cares about our holiness as much as He cares about
us. The problem we may run into is that
when there sin in a Christian’s life or a church one of two mistakes are
made. First, people begin to think that
because Jesus is angry with their sin He must no longer love them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Anger and love are not mutually exclusive. The second mistake is to think that because
Jesus is so loving He would never become angry with our sin. This also could not be further from the
truth. We must realize that the Lord
cares about us and He cares about our holiness.
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