07-09-26 Study of Revelation Chapter 2:18-20 Thyatira: The Church That Tolerates Sin Part 1

➡ This Bible study focuses on the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation, particularly the letter to the church in Thyatira. The study highlights the progression of the church from its pure beginnings to its eventual compromise with worldly systems and sin, symbolized by the church in Thyatira. The church in Thyatira is criticized for tolerating sin and immorality, and the study emphasizes the importance of maintaining purity and holiness in the church. The study concludes with a call for self-assessment and intolerance of sin in our lives.
➡ The text emphasizes the importance of confronting and dealing with sin within the church, as per the first instruction given in Matthew 18. It highlights the need for purity within the church, abstaining from idolatry and sexual sin. The text also stresses the responsibility of individuals to confront sin and maintain the purity of the church. It ends by criticizing the church at Thyatira for tolerating spiritual and physical adultery, which goes against the teachings of the Bible.
➡ The text discusses a series of letters to different churches, focusing on the church in Thyatira. This church, unlike others, had succumbed to evil influences and immoral practices, largely due to the influence of a woman likened to Jezebel from the Old Testament. Despite some positive aspects, the church had fallen into deep corruption, tolerating sin and false teachings. The author, identified as Christ, warns of impending judgement, emphasizing his ability to see through deception and punish sin.
➡ The text discusses the divine power and judgment of the Son of God, who sees all and cannot tolerate sin. He is described as having a piercing vision that uncovers everything, even the hidden things of the soul and the church. The text also describes the city of Thyatira, which was often destroyed and rebuilt due to its location on a trade route. Despite its history of destruction, the city flourished under Roman rule, becoming a commercial center for wool and dyeing cloth.
➡ Lydia, a woman from Thyatara who sold purple fabrics, heard Paul’s teachings and became a Christian. She possibly started a church in her hometown, which was known for its textile industry and its guilds, each having a god they worshipped. However, the church faced internal issues as Christians began to compromise their faith to fit in with the guilds’ activities. This led to the church’s downfall by the end of the second century, highlighting the importance of maintaining a strong relationship with Jesus Christ instead of conforming to worldly practices.
➡ The text discusses a spiritual belief that actions in the physical world don’t affect one’s spiritual standing with God. This belief led some Christians to engage in immoral activities, thinking it wouldn’t harm their spiritual relationship with God. However, the text warns against this belief, emphasizing that God is aware of all actions, both physical and spiritual. It also highlights the importance of love, faith, service, and perseverance in a Christian’s life.
➡ The church, despite its love, faithfulness, and endurance, is criticized for tolerating false teachings and sin. The Bible’s teachings on living godly, pure, holy lives and dealing with sin are ignored, leading to a lack of commitment to sound doctrine and holy living. The church is warned that love without holiness can lead to immorality. The ideal balance is a combination of love and holiness, and the church is urged to confront sin and uphold sound doctrine.
➡ We’re asking for comfort for those who’ve lost loved ones recently, and for peace in knowing they’re not alone. We’re also seeking guidance in a changing world, trusting that a higher power is in control. We express gratitude for sacrifices made, which provide us a path to return home. All these requests are made in the name of a revered figure.

Foreign. Welcome back. This is our Thursday night Bible study. We’re in the book of Revelation, we’re studying the letters to the seven churches. And we’re studying this in relationship to what we have already learned in the book study of our, the book of Ephesians where we have looked at the plan of God in creation and the application to humanity in order to apply his plan to our daily lives. So we, we, we looked at it from an individual at the side. Now we’re looking at as collective as the church. And if you recall when we were also studying Acts, when you recall in starting out the book of Acts, Satan could not prevent Christ from being born.

He knew he was going to die, but he did not know he was going to be resurrected. And Lucifer did not know he was going to lose the end time control based upon that process. And, and so when he lost that, when he lost that focus beginning in Genesis, because that’s where it started and it went all the way through the Old Testament until Christ actually rose from the dead. Lucifer was in charge and he was in charge and he was trying to battle God in, in assuring that Christ bloodline would be corrupted. And when he did not do that and Christ rose, the shift occurred.

Lucifer no longer could actually control the vehicle of redemption. He had to go to what was created by that redemption, which was the Church. Now we’ve looked at Ephesus, we’ve looked at SM out, we’ve looked at Pergamus and you see a progression of the Church. Ephes, the model church Smyrna was, was the Church that basically was beginning to transition back into the world. Pergamos accepted that and married the world. And it was at that point that Lucifer was able to instill in the world his system to control the Church. It’s Thyro Tyra where the system is exposed.

The Church at Thyro Tyra is where the system is completely exposed to all of us. Now why is that important? Because you’re the Church and you follow this progression in your life. So you went from, let’s say a new Christian Ephesus into settling into your routine, Smyrna, then seeing that which you like to do, Pergamus now into a system where you’re, you are moving into embracing the world system. Okay, you follow the Church. All of these letters are about you. So it’s Thyrotara that basically not only completes the marriage that we set up and when we talked last time about part of us, the marriage to the world system, Tharatara basically shares in all of its Anniversaries.

It is bringing in the world system into your life on a daily basis. So the letter to the church in the city of Sara is. Is a letter that we’re not going to get through in one night. Okay, I’ve divided this up into two. We’re going to do half of it. We’re going to set the stage tonight, and then we’re going to bring it to conclusion next week. It is one. It is the longest letter of all the seven letters. Interesting enough. Why? Well, there’s a lot to talk about in this. It’s written, however, to the smallest city of the seven.

And it will take us these two weeks to unfold all of what this letter has to tell us. Now, it follows very, very closely because it is the installation of Lucifer’s system through the Church to control you as established at Pergamos. Now, as we studied last time, now it’s a letter about a church that had many good points, but also was engaged in compromising with error. Remember we talked last time. You don’t, you shouldn’t compromise on anything. It’s either gray or, or white. It’s either black or white. There is no compromising when it relates to your salvation.

You don’t compromise with this world at all. Because the church at Thyatira compromised with sin like the church at Pergamos. But what was beginning to happen in Pergamos had come to full blown implementation in Tharata. If the church married to the world in Pergamos, Tharatara, they were celebrating all of its feast, festivals and anniversaries. You began to engulf it into your life. If compromise which did began in Pergamos, it had taken over in Tharar. There was no ability to compromise anymore. It was your system. You accepted it. There was no compromise. So the letter shows the the depth of sin that compromise ultimately leads to full scale idolatry, full scale immorality, and worst of all, tolerance of both.

Not only do you embrace it, not only do you accept it, you tolerate it and promote it. This is the church that has been infiltrated by the world. This is the church that tolerated sin, the church that absorbed sin, absorbed error, and lived happily ever after with it your life. This is the kind of church that is common today. We’re in the church age of the church of Laodicea, which is full blown apostasy which started right here. And this is the kind of church that has been through all of the centuries, but completely inconsistent with the demands of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the head of the Church they you completely separated from what? Obedience.

Now, looking at the letter, it begins in Revelation 2, verse 18, and it says, and to the angel of the church in Thyatar, right, the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet are like burnished bronze, says this I know your deeds and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. But I have this against you that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bond service servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality, eat things sacrificed to idols.

And I gave her time to repent. And she does not want to repent of her immorality. Therefore, behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness. Now you’re going to notice that that is italicized. And those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of her deeds, I’ll kill her children and pestilence. And all the churches will know that I am he who search, searches the minds and the hearts. And I will give to each one of you, according to your deeds, fruits. But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatara, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan as they call them, I place no other burden on you.

Nevertheless, what you have, hold fast until I come. And he who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces. And I also have received authority from my Father. I will give him the morning star. The overcomer. I’m going to give the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear where the Spirit says to the churches. The As I said, this is the longest of the seven letters, even though it was written to the smallest of the seven churches.

It is in some ways the most complex of the seven letters and demands that level of tension be given to a number of issues. Guys, Self assessment all the way through this. Let’s start with the first and pervasive thought that comes at least to my mind. As we read the letter. It’s obvious that this church had tolerated sin. Obedience, guys. Asking forgiveness of sin. Self assessment. It had tolerated acts of immorality and certain involvement with idols, as verse 20 indicated to us. And not only had it tolerated it, but it had allowed the woman specifically named Jezebel, a worshiper of Estar.

To allow her to teach them and to have reached a point of prominence where she was articulating her goddess behavior and leading Christians astray, as well as collecting around her some false believers. Now, remember, we just got through the mystery, the return of the gods, that we’re here now in that same process. This process is no different than what was going on at the church of Saratara. And the Lord promises that he’s going to judge and he’s going to judge that church severely. Yeah. Sparing only those, According to verse 24, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the depths, the deep things of Satan as they call them.

Now, here’s a church that has been infiltrated by error and sin. A church that has done nothing about it. You. It then deals primarily with the church that tolerates sin. You. I bet if you go down your self assessment list, you’re going to find that there’s certain things on there that are sinful that you just gloss over. Oh, that’s not the guilt. It takes us back to a very basic understanding that we have to have in regard to the church, and that is that the Lord wants his church holy, pure, as established in Ephesians 4. He wants his church in every sense intolerant of sin.

You’re to love what God loves and hate what he hates. Sin he hates. This goes all the way back to the first instruction we have about the church. The first instruction we got in Matthew chapter 18. The church is mentioned in chapter 16, but the Lord saying he’ll build his church. Church. But here in chapter 18 of Matthew, for the first time, we have instruction regarding the church. And the very first instruction ever given specifically to the church is that you, if your brother sins, go and reprove him. In private, you’re to confront sin. If that is not an if statement, that is not in certain conditions, you go to it.

That is a command to you to confront sin. If it’s a command to you, then it needs to be observed by obedience, the act of not being obedient. To do that is sinfulness. In your life, you disregard the holiness of Jesus Christ. If he listens to you, you’ve won your brother over to repent. If he doesn’t listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. Here you go with this Trinity. Here’s three, right? You’re called, you respond to the call, and a third party confirms your calling.

Threes in threes. In threes. If he refuses to Listen to the collective whole. Tell it to the Church. You’re to expose sin. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and as a tax gatherer. In other words, the very first instruction ever given to the Church is to deal confrontedly with sin. And that instruction is given to individuals in the Church, not to some elite core of people who are set out to be the spies of the Church. But if your brother sins, you go and you approve him.

The Lord wants his Church to be pure. And therefore the first instruction he gave had to do with the purity of the Church. He wants it to be intolerant of sin. Now, as we studied in Acts 15, when the council met in Jerusalem, the Church had spread out of Jerusalem and it captured some Gentiles, of course, for Christ. And the Church was established in Antioch. We’re studying that now. And we’re studying Paul’s journey associated with all of his discipleship activities. And there was a concern about these Gentiles coming to Christ. If you recall, there was concern about the evangelization effort that was going on through the Apostle Paul and his friends.

And so the Council at Jerusalem pinned a letter, really to be sent to all of these other Christians and all these other churches, telling them how they to live their lives so that they could be most effective in their witness. And in verse 29 of Acts 15, we find that the last little paragraph in the Council’s decision says this. You are to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual sin. If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. And they close that letter by farewell. Now, two out of the four, you are to stay away from idle feasts.

Now, we’re going to get into some of that, because I bet you will have some eyes open as to what your idle feasts are. You’re to stay away from engaging yourself in eating that which is offered to idols and that which was always a part of the idol feast that made up pagan religion. And you are to stay away from sexual sin, which existed in itself and also as part of the pagan religion. And again, the first instruction that comes from the Council of Jerusalem to the Church that is beginning to grow and the Gospel beginning to spread around the Gentile world is to stay away from idle activity and stay away from sexual sin.

In First Corinthians, chapter 5, we find the very same emphasis is made. This is Paul’s letter to the church of Corinth. Paul writes to the Corinthians and he says it’s actually reported. There is an immorality among you. An immorality of such kind as doesn’t exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. Now, here was a church in which there was a case of incest. That was the first part. And you have become arrogant about it. Instead of humble and contrite and broken and repentant. You haven’t mourned at all. Acceptance, toleration, promotion. And he says, in order that the one who has done this deed might be removed from your midst.

You haven’t done anything about it. You have somebody in your church who has committed incest, and you’ve done nothing about this. And then he goes on to say, you better do something about it. It’s like leaven that leavens the lump. You better deal with this issue and deal with it immediately. In the name of the Lord, when you’re assembled together, and I with you in spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, deliver that one to Satan for destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Get the leaven out before you corrupt the church.

Now, let’s stop here. I want to get pretty specific in some things. Let’s just look at your compromise. Scripture says you’re to be bold. You’re to confront evil. You’re to confront sin. You’re to make known sin in a much loving way. Private first. And then you escalate it when you can’t get their attention. But it’s your responsibility not only to confront it, but to escalate it. You’re not to have any activities in this world that pertain to idle activity. Isn’t that interesting? What’s idle activity? Planned Parenthood, lbgtq, homosexuals, transgender, in. In sports and bathrooms. Whatever. Your idleness is a conspiracy to commit.

You’re just as guilty as the perpetrator. Those of you set on the couch or don’t get involved in your community and allow this to go on. Your community. Guess what? You’re commanded to confront it by not doing it. It’s sin for you, And it corrupts the church. Corrupts what? Yeah, it corrupts you. In Second Corinthians, chapter 11, you have another interesting statement by the apostle Paul that speaks to God’s desire to have a pure church. He says, I’m a jealous. I am jealous for you. 2nd Corinthians 11. 2. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband that to Christ, I might present you as a pure virgin.

Again, the Lord wants his church pure, and the Lord obviously is the bridegroom. We get that in Scripture. We’ve studied that, we’ve talked about it on our Tuesday night discussion many, many times. He’s the bridegroom, the church is the bride. And he expects not an adulterous bride, not an adulterous wife, but at a chesty virgin. Neither adulterous in the sense of engaging in idolatry, nor adulterous in the sense of engaging in sexual sin. When we started out on this journey together in studying the Scripture, a lot of conversation went into a topic of discussion that we did probably over, I don’t know, 16 or 18 session called courtship, marriage and divorce.

There was much a conversation about, well, I’ve been married and I’m divorced and why can’t I have pleasure in sexual experience? Because it tells you right here you can’t do it. Ephesians, chapter 5. The same concept is repeated where it says, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with a word, in order that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless.

Men, you have the responsibility to sanctify your wife impurity. And women who are not married, well, let’s go first. Women who are married, who don’t look to their husbands to do that, that’s sin. And women who are not married, who don’t look to Christ for that, that’s also. See, he wants a blameless church. He wants a holy church. He wants a chasty virgin. He wants sin dealt with in the church. He wants you to take responsibility. Now, with that background, it isn’t difficult to come to this particular part of the text in Revelation and understand that the church at Thyatira was in direct conflict with the will of the Lord of the church.

This church was tolerating sin in in very two forms that it was forbidden. It was tolerating, if you can just imagine this spiritual fornication, spiritual adultery, espousing to another deity. Oh, self assessment, guys, go look at your list. What do you worship? You know, worshiping a separate deity is a definition of fornication. And it was tolerating physical adultery, sexual sin. The kind of thing the Lord does not want in his church was going on at Thara and not being dealt with. That is going on in churches all across this country today. It was going on to such a degree then that it was pervasive.

Well, it’s more than pervasive. It’s apostate. Today it’s in your face. So as we come to this letter, we need to take hold of this letter as a very serious letter because it is defining your life in a system of idolatry. Now put it in its context a little bit more. Charles Erdman has a helpful perspective on a place of this. This letter among the seven. Listen to what he says. This letter to the church in Thyroid begins the second group of letters to the churches of Asia Minor. In the first group, the church of Ephesus was characterized by a loyalty to Christ which was lacking in love.

In the church of Smyrna, loyalty was tested by fire. In the church of Pergamos, loyalty was lacking in moral passion. Yet all three churches were true to the faith and had not yielded to the assaults of evil. Just getting warmed up. The fire was burning and the pan was getting hot. Now, in other words, they were still fighting against evil. They hadn’t lost their total way yet. They hadn’t compromised to society. And he goes on and says, in the case of the church at Thyatira, as of all the churches of Sardis and. And Laodicea, the situation was far more serious here.

Not merely a small minority was indifferent, but large numbers had actually yielded to the demoralization influence of false teaching sin. So when we started this journey of revelations, I told you on the very outset in our overview that this process of studying these letters is a progressing worsening of the character of these churches, you, as they become more and more influenced by evil until finally it takes over. That’s our. That’s our history. That’s humanitarian, humanitarian history. That is your history, and it’s also your life. Into this church. The evils of idolatry and immorality had pressed and penetrated deeply.

Funny enough, lack of better word, it always came through a woman. Why? Because that’s Lucifer’s first use. Not men, women. A woman who here is called by the name of Jezebel, which probably wasn’t her real name, by the way. No one names their child Jezebel, not if they’re, you know, thinking correctly. But this woman had influenced the church in a. In such a way that was not unlike Jezebel, having influenced the people of God in the Old Testament. And so she was branded with this symbolic name, Jezebel, because it was Jezebel, if you remember, who led Israel into Idolatry and immorality.

And so here is a woman doing the same thing in Thyatara. And, and she deserves the same name. She had ex succeeded in corrupting the church. Ishtar has succeeded in corrupting it. Now we need to take notice of the depth of corruption which is indicated in verse 24 by the phrase the deep things of Satan. It shows how the plunge had reached the depths. If you remember Smyrna, the church at Smyrna was being assaulted by a synagogue of Satan. But it was coming from the outside against them. Pergamus was being confronted by the throne of Satan.

See the progression here. Outside Satan takes control, pushes it through the very capital city as it were of satanic religion. Smyrna was being assaulted by a synagogue of Satan. That was Jewish, okay, Legalists, that was the Jews who rejected the gospel. Pergamos was being assaulted by the throne of Satan. That was gentile religion. But Thyatira had plummeted into the deep things of Satan. And this was not something that was attacking them from the outside, but it was the behavior that was going on inside here. So you can see the flow in these three needy churches. Ephesus, Pergamus, Star was not having a need as we remember from the scripture.

There they were a church that weren’t condemned for really anything. Ephesus had left its first love. Pergamus was engaged in compromise. And here’s thy tower. Went all the way to tolerating sin. And sin that could be defined as the deep things of Satan. This world. Now it’s amazing that a church could tolerate that. But they did. And I’m going to add that there can be much that is good, much that on the surface is effective. There can even be a numerical growth in the church. There can even be a certain warmth in the fellowship. And at the same time evil can have established itself in a very deep things of Satan into the life of the church deception.

And we’re going to see how these things coexisted and how the Lord dealt with them in the church of thy retire. Well now let’s look at the correspondent itself. We flow through the text with basically the same outline every time in these letters because they’re laid out the same way. And it don’t just it, the letter just unfolds itself to us. The correspondent is always identified at the beginning. We recall in history that’s how it was done in ancient times. Instead of waiting to the end where you sign the letter, I’m. This is Jim Pugh writing you this letter.

I would Disclose myself at the beginning of the letter so that you know who was writing that letter to you. So this was done at the beginning. To the angel or the messenger that is the one sent by the church in Tharata to go to John, who is now taking this letter back to the church at Thyroid. Now, you, you recall the seven letters from seven churches to seven churches. Each of these churches had a messenger there, Angelus. And it’s a. Translate. It’s translated into angel. It’s best described as a messenger. These messengers were going to take back the letters to these seven churches that had been literally authorized and authored by Christ and penned by John.

And as they moved along through the seven churches, the man who delivered his letter would stay and the group would diminish from 7 to 6 to 5 to 4. So one of these messengers, probably one of the elders or pastors from the church at Thyatara, is the one who gets the letter to the angel of the church entirety. Right. And here is the author identifying himself. Christ this time identifies himself as the Son of God who has ours like a flame of fire, and his feet are like burnished bronze, says this so that the real author is identified there as the Son of God, first of all, secondly, as the one who has the eyes like a frame of fire, and thirdly, the one who has feet like burnished bronze.

So we know Christ is the author. He is introduced as the author in that part of his character, that part of his nature which best describes his relationship to the church is noted here or emphasized. Now, you got to remember the descriptive terminology that is used in these seven letters is drawn for the most part from the picture of. Of Christ in chapter one. All of these, all of these identifications or titles of Christ, all seven of them are in chapter one. If you go back to chapter one, verse 11 and following, you’re going to see the vision of Christ.

And there are a number of things that describe Christ there. And when these seven letters are written, he picks out that description, that, that part of the description which best fits his to a specific church. You. Here he chooses to describe himself with the imagery as the Son of God, with eyes like a flame of fire and feet like brownish bronze. These two last two indications, eyes like flaming fire and feet like burnished bronze, speak of penetrating judgment. He says, I’m not going to judge the world by water ever again, but I am going to do it by fire.

His eyes are like fire. They are like a divine laser. They can see through to the fatal flaws in the church. There’s no good veiling it in a lot of activity. There’s no good veiling in a lot of superficiality because he’s penetrate. His penetrating eyes can see right through it. You can’t hide anything. You can’t gloss over that which is a problem in your life. And then his feet, like blazing bronze, are ready to trample. He said he’s going to kill him. Trample in judgment, to stomp out the sinner and the sin better think. You’ll first notice he is identified as the Son of God.

That’s his messianic title. That means that he is deity. He’s the one with God. In essence, he is the Son of God. Go back to chapter one. And you must note that in chapter one he’s not described in in that way. In verse 13, he’s described as the Son of God or the Son of Man. And here John chooses to deviate a bit as the Lord’s dictating to him, and the Lord chooses to deviate and dictates. It’s such to jump from that title Son of Man in the image in chapter one or the vision, he chooses the Son of God.

Deity. Son of man is not a deity. Son of God is Son of man is the name of his humiliation. Think of it this way. Son of man is Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Son of God is Ephesians 1, 2 and 3. So Son of Man emphasizes his sympathetic identification with believers as he walks among the churches. Now, if you recall the vision in chapter one, he moves among the churches, trimming the lamps, right? He holds the pastors or the leaders in his hand, ministering, serving the people. And when he introduces himself as the Son of Man, it introduces him in his humiliation.

And when and when he introduces himself as the Son of Man, he introduces himself in his humiliation, is in sympathy as a merciful, faithful high priest. It emphasizes his comfort, his encouragement to the persecuted Christians. He’s there tending to them lovingly, sensitively, sympathetically, because he too was a man and understands, right? Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Whenever he is designated as Son of Man, he is emphasizing his humanness. And that makes him so able to be the sympathizer, to know the trials of his church, the needs of his church, the temptations of his church. But John very specifically identifies him as he wants to be identified, not as the Son of Man, but in verse 18, as the Son of God.

Because he’s not emphasizing him in his humility any longer. He’s emphasizing him in his divine power. He’s emphasizing him as the deity. His sympathy is over. Remember, he says enough’s enough, and he’s going to judge. That’s what he’s doing here. When it comes to this particular church and what is going on, he is not coming as the sympathizer. He’s coming as the judge your life. He’s not coming as the man who understands, yet he does understand. He’s coming as the God who does not tolerate it. He’s coming in severe judgment, by the way, just as a reference point.

It is the only place Son of God is used in the book of Revelation. He’s coming as a son of God. He’s coming in angry deity, if we might say so. In fact, to see his anger, you need only to look at verse 23 where he says this. I will kill her children with pestilence. You. Verse 27, he speaks about ruling with a rod of iron, and the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces with a crushing kind of authority. And so he comes as the Son of God. And it speaks to us of the severity of his action against this church.

You. Then he goes on, who has the eyes like a flame of fire? Now, we went into that in the study of division in chapter one. Suffice it to say that it means he is as piercing vision like a laser as I said. Everything yields to his vision. Everything melts before his his gaze. Nothing is hidden to him. He penetrates it all. You can’t hide anything. You cannot disguise it. You cannot cover it up. Again in chapter 19, when you see the Lord Jesus in his second coming glory, in verse 12 it says, his eyes are a flame of fire.

This is the penetrating vision of all things. And after having penetrated, he consumes all opposition, sweeping down all obstructions, pressing its way with invincible power. I think this as a reminder, it reminded John of Daniel, chapter 10, where it says of God that his eyes are like torches of fire. And in speaking of God, in the fierceness of his judgment, such are the eyes of the Son of God. They look through everything. They pierce all mass, they pierce all coverings. They search the remotest recesses. You can’t hide anything anywhere. They behold the hidden things of the soul and of the church.

The church may have had a good reputation. It may have had a community reputation. It may have had something of notoriety among other churches. Think about you. You might have good standing in your community, do great things in your community, be seen as some somebody of a level of importance. But those people may not have known everything that was going on. Though it is sure as we’ll get to later that they knew some of the things going on. But certainly whatever the people around them or other churches knew or didn’t know, the large penetrating eyes uncovered everything.

Then along with that, his feet are described as like burnished bronze polished to the hilt with light flashing off of them. The picture of pure metal reflecting brilliance, trampling out impurity. It should remind us again of Revelation 19, the vision of Christ. In verse 15 he treads the winepress of the fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God. So here he comes in trampling judgment. This is a frightening thing to see, to see Jesus Christ coming towards his church in this way. That’s how he’s introduced by John. He’s introduced with his judgment character. It’s a threatening picture.

It should be, it’s frankly a terror terrifying picture. And can you imagine what happened in the church at thyroid when the letter was delivered and read on the next Sabbath day? Oh, how would you like to get a letter in the mail and you open says hey David, let me tell you something. Now this is a real city. This, this is a real church and a real letter that was read to the people. And the book of Hebrews says that God comes in judgment with a furry of a fire which will consume the adversaries. This is the church that the Lord comes to judge.

Why? Because this is the church that allowed the world to impregnate it. And God is no petty tyrant. God is no sentimental ruler either. He has the power to do devastating judgment and he has the holiness to not tolerate sin. And if something doesn’t change in Thyrotara, they’re going to be caught in severe judgment. That verse alone having been read in the congregation on the next Sabbath day must have brought shock waves before the rest of the letter was ever even pinned. Let’s look at the city of Staritara. Now this is on a trade route, on a mail route.

Think of that. Okay, one church to the next, to the next, to the next. So basically it’s a route halfway between Pergamos and Sardis, about 30 to 40 miles each way. And we’re moving from Ephesus on up, circling around that area of the western northwestern part of Asia Minor. Where’s Asia Minor today? Turkey. This had become a Roman occupied city since about 190bc and as for nearly three centuries now it is then under Roman rule. The city was in a very long valley, a valley swept all the way down to Pergamus and it was not well fortified city.

In fact it had no natural defensive systems at all. And so its history, if you look into it, was this long history even before the Romans got there and even afterwards, up until fairly modern times of conquerings and destructions and rebuildings. Every enemy that came into Asia Minor came down through that valley, swept through it and devastated the small city of Thyrotara. Over and over and over again. It was infiltrated by every army that came along. Think about this melting pot of our country that we have. And even since the first century, the time of Christ, that continued to be its history.

Destruction, rebuilding, destruction, rebuilding. There was always seemingly to be in danger of whatever marching armies were coming through. Well, that states the United States pretty much in detail right there. What gave it its significance was simply that it was a gateway to Pergamos. Thyatara was the gateway to Pergamos. In order to get to Pergamos down that Cachius Valley, you had to go through Thyatara. So all it was good for was to put up a fight so that the troops in Pergamos could get their act together and be ready when the enemy arrived. They were like bait.

They got eaten. It was originally populated by soldiers of Alexander the Great as about a 30 to 40 mile buffer line of defense so that the troops in Pergamos, which was the greater city and the more desirable one, could defend themselves. Bottom time. Yeah, David, bottom time. It was a little more than a military garrison to guard Pergamos. It provided nothing but delaying action. So it was destined to go through a history of destruction and rebuilding many, many times. But when the Romans took over in 190 BC and they brought in what’s called the Pax Romana or Roman peace, they ruled the world.

There was a certain amount of peace. And it was during that time this little city of Thyatira sort of flourished. They weren’t being destructed and it turned from a military place to becoming a commercial city. In fact, it became the center of wool and dyeing of cloth. I want you to think about that. I want you to embrace that concept of that business, wool and dying cloth that that denotes. Textile. Historians tell us it became the center of ghouls trade goals which would be much like unions today. Idols, wordy worship. It’s coming to you. There were people who had the same trade who banded together.

Think of your, think of your life. Those of you, school teacher, you have school teachers union. Those of you who are plumbers, you had plumbers union, those, electrician, electricity union, those of textiles, textile unions, those are truck, truck Unions, everything is tied to an idol. And in more trade goals in this city than any other cities. In these seven letters, one of the very prominent things there was the dying of cloth. And there’s a very interesting note to make at this point if you go back into Acts Chapter 16 about a lady that we’ve already studied named Lydia.

If you recall, there was no synagogue in in the city that Paul went to. And Lydia had a group of women that were praying at the river. And that’s where Paul started that church. It tells us in Acts 16:14, a certain woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatara, a seller purple fabrics, a worshiper of God was listening. And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. At the time she was in Philippi, probably own business, but her home was in Tharatara. She was a seller of purple. She was in the textile industry.

Acts 16 tells us that she heard the apostle Paul and was converted. It also tells us that some of her household were converted. And it’s not impossible that she listened to me, being the first convert in Europe, went back with those of her household who were saved and were responsible for starting the church in thy retirement. When I told by scripture he started the church. But we have got all of the inference to to indicate that that church was started from Paul’s teaching to Lydia. And she took it back and started the church. She dealt with a cell of purple.

The purple dye was used there was world famous. It came from two sources, as you recall. One was the matter root which grew around Tharatara. From that root they could extract purple dye. The other was a little shell seashell fish called murex. And from the throat of that tiny little sea animal came one drop of precious purple dye. And so they would catch these little fish and extract from them this die. Because it was difficult to get it out of the matter root and even more difficult to get it out of these little mirrors. It was very costly.

And so this little city flourished as a commercial center for purple dye and for garments that would go along with that. Now, today, Thara is a Little City, about 25,000 people living in it. And you might be interested to know that the main means of life today as weaving oriental rugs. So they’re still in the textile business. One of the curiosities of this town was the ghouls. You think about you, the people banded together for various trades that they were engaged in. But more interesting is that each ghoul had a God. So does each union today have A God each ghoul had come to define, a guardian guide that particularly gave himself to taking care of them.

What does the union do? Think? And they worshiped that God. Oh my gosh. I could tell you stories about my dad and his union. And how many strikes he went on. Just because the union said go strike. And there was no, there was no issue here in the local town, but the family suffered for it. They worshiped that God. If you were associated with a ghoul, you were a religious group and there was a God over that group that you had to worship. Associated with that worship was immorality, as in almost all pagan systems. And so there would be idols, idol feasts and celebrations, immoral orgies.

And that could be very difficult for a Christian. It should be a difficult for a Christian. But the majority of Christians don’t pay attention to it. Because now if you were in a ghoul, let’s say you were a weaver of cloth and you were involved in the wool industry and you were working with sheep, or you were someone who processed purple dye, you would belong to a golden. In order to have good standing in the goal, you would need to engage yourself in the Gould activities. That’s worship. If you did not engage yourself in the goal activities, you could easily be dis.

Possessed. Here is a Christian. The goal has a God. The God. The goal has a routine activities involving sacrifices to that guy, not children sacrifice, your time, your money. All of the things going to that entity is your God worship. Along with at that point in time and in many cases even today, immoral orgies. You’re a Christian, you say, I can’t do any of that. Well, if you did, even in today, you could lose your job. What’s it going to be? Conform to this world or be a responsible steward of what God gave you? By the way, that’s not unlike a lot of unions today.

I could tell you stories about my dad and I could tell you many other things. And my, my first response with the union as a boy when I had to go to work and I needed to have some degree of protection. The union was there to protect the job I had received. And it was a stressful condition. Trying to understand why I needed to pledge allegiance to the union when my Bible was telling me I don’t pledge to anybody other than God himself. So religiously, this, this little town wasn’t really the center of anything. The chief God there was Apollo.

But religiously it wasn’t the center of any notable worship. Perhaps in history, the most famous religious Thing that came out of there was a strange sort of Zibaline priestess which would be like a medium or a witch by the name of Sambetha, a female oracle that people would go to. And she was demon possessed and she was spout out demon stuff. But they had many false gods. So that’s something about the town of thy retire. All of the same conditions exist today here. Now what about the church? Let’s look at the church. More importantly, the church is you, right? As I said, perhaps Lydia was the key to this church.

She had come to Philippi in Macedonia on a business and heard Paul and was saved. Luke tells us, as I noted in Acts 16:15, the others of her family were also saved. And perhaps she was instrumental in the starting of this church. But again I remind you of Acts 19:10 as I have in each case, where it says the word of the Lord spread throughout all of Asia Minor from the ministry of Paul in Ephesus. So it could have just been the extension of the work of Ephesus going back to Thyatar. Or it could be literally Lydia could have been a part of that.

But we have no way to know that because Scripture does not detail that for us. We just know a church existed. Now this letter was written towards the end of the first century. By the end of the second century there was no, no church entirety. It was gone, out of existence. The problem that faced this little church was not persecution. That isn’t the thing. Christ talks about the problem as tough it might have been with the goals all wrapped up with false religion to maintain your job as a Christian. That wasn’t the big issue either. It wasn’t what was on the outside pressuring the church.

It was what was happening inside the church. The transformation of the people in the church by accepting the world instead of Christ. That’s your life today. The real problem here was not that they were being attacked. The real problem here was that they had fallen on the inside. You’ve accepted the world instead of maintain your relationship with Jesus Christ. They weren’t grievous wolves from outside. They were perverse people from the inside. Self assessment. Now there was a woman and this woman had come along and had successfully gotten Christians to compromise with the world. Totally Ishtar. The scene may have run something like this.

You people are in the goals. If you don’t participate in what they do, you’re going to lose your job. She may have said to them, now listen to me. You need your job because you need to live and you need to Support the work of the church and the work of evangelism. So when they have an idle feast, you need to go to it. And when they have one of those immoral things, it’s okay to participate. You can do that. She may have reasoned like that. After all, we’re not under law, we’re under grace. It’s possible she could even have reasoned like that.

But here’s another way. She probably said something like this. After all, it’s the spirit that concerns God, not the flesh. Oh, that is your rationalization of you. And followed that path of sort of historic philosopher. Dualism, law of duality. She uses scripture in order to move you in the direction that Satan wants to move you in that it doesn’t really matter what you do with the material body, because the material body is wicked anyway. We were having a discussion today on Sovereign Radio with Rob and I and Scotty on our fourth episode. And today’s session is very scriptural based.

As it is in heaven, it. It shall be on this earth. Just remember that structural process. It’s not as on this earth, it shall be in heaven. As it is in heaven, it shall be on this earth. You’re a spiritual being living a physical life experience, not the other way around. So whatever is outwardly doing in your life is coming from an inward spiritual path. So after all, it’s the spirit that concerns God, not the flesh. It can only matters what you do. It only matters what you do with the spiritual, not the physical. So she may have said, fine, go do whatever you want to do.

Oh, you want it when you want it, how you want it in the condition you want, on and on and on. You can engage yourself in that process. You can even plunge it so deep of the things of Satan that you lose track of order, even become from. That’s only physical. That cannot affect your spiritual dimension. Why not join? Partake pleasure yourself. You can go to the communal meals. You can go and sacrifice the things that are offered to idols. You can go and enjoy the sexual activity, the drunkenness, the immorality. That’s just your flesh. Your spirit is what God is concerned about.

What’s your fruit? What’s your fruit? She had. She must have reasoned something like that, because there would have to have been some justification to get people to buy into it. What’s your buying point? How much can you be bought for? You can’t just walk in a church and say, all right, everybody, you’re all free to worship idols and commit sexual sin. You’ve got to give them some theological rationale for that and the old, old age philosophical duel is it may have been it after all. It really doesn’t matter what you do with your body. God isn’t concerned about that.

Philosophical dualism said the body is material, the body is dirt, the body is earthen, the body is flesh and the body is sinful. And that’s not going to change. And that’s not how it is. And the Spirit is good and holy and righteous. And as long as your spirit is committed to Christ and you’re here worshiping him in spirit, what do you do in your body? Doesn’t matter. So you can do whatever you want to do. That’s you. That’s your rationalization. And I can tell you that seduction works. That’s how they program your children, by the way, and she led them completely astray.

And in verse 20, she led bond servants astray. She led actual Christians astray, you might say. How could Christians buy into that? Well, I’m gonna tell you, it’s amazing what Christians buy into. You dangle a carrot in front of them, they’re gonna move. See, they bought into that kind of foolishness, by the way. They’re still buying into it today. It never ceases to amaze me how many Christians today will use or don’t use philosophical dualism. And they still use it in some places. They’ll use the law of grace thing and say it really doesn’t matter what you do in the flesh.

After all, you’re under grace. Whatever you want to do, just keep doing it and just keep asking forgiveness and God will forgive you. Don’t worry about it. I, I happened to go to one conference many, many years ago, and there was this prominent preacher. I real. What I thought was reason why I went and was, he’s a real Bible teacher, but he came to advocate sexual pro promiscuity and sexual immorality because he said, it doesn’t matter. You are two people. And what the flesh is, is only the flesh. You can’t change it, you can’t control it.

So don’t worry about what it does. So this woman, whatever her name is, influenced by Ishtar, must have reasoned something like what we just discussed. So here’s a little church caught in a very difficult trap, having to make a difficult choice between here’s some Christians who would lose their job if they didn’t participate in what the guild wanted. And they get grabbed by the nap of the neck and thrown on the street and told to get a job somewhere else if they don’t participate. And so there is this compromising woman who comes in who appeals to their basic need for work and employment and comes up with some philosophy that seems to work.

What does scripture say about following philosophers run. So pills to the basic need of work comes up with this philosophy. They buy it. Well, you might say, what do they buy? And why do they allow it? And why do the leaders tolerate it? Well, because probably they were caught in the same thing. They’re all into compromise. Remember, you’re not to compromise anything. And so they show up on the Lord’s day and they do their whole worship thing. And then during the week, whatever their job requires, they do it. And so we meet the church and something of the pressure it was facing.

Now let’s look at the accommodation of this church. Now, to me, this is really amazing. Verse 19, Chris says, I know your deeds. And he uses the word erga, which means works. I know your work works. I know your efforts. I know what you do. You know, I just stop at that point sometimes because I need to remind myself and you that if the Lord Jesus Christ wrote a letter to you, He might start it with identifying himself. And I really not sure I would get past these flaming eyes and burning bronze feet. I don’t know how he would identify himself in a letter to me, but I know one thing he would say, because in each case this is true.

He would say, I know your works. Why? Because I know you. You can’t hide anything. I know everything you do. I’m fully apprised of it presently. And then he breaks them into four categories. I know your works, your deeds. Four categories. Love, faith, service and perseverance. I know what you’re going to do. First of all, he says there’s love there. Why does he say that? Because there are acts of love going on. You’re caring for each other, he says. You’re loving each other. This is really wonderful. Love was in action. Apparently, if it was. Love divorced from sound doctrine, however, but love was there.

They were doing good things, one to another. People cared about each other. That’s possible. It’s possible with you. There are people who care about each other in the rankest liberal churches today. You can go down into ghettos of cities of the world and find people who care about each other, who demonstrate love to each other, who meet needs. The milk of human kindness will do that. And the church was a caring group. So he said, I know you have love there. In a sense, what was waning at Ephesus was still strong here. That’s amazing what people say.

I go to a certain church and I know the teaching is really bad, but boy, they really have the love there. They really care. That’s world love. I would then I would not deny that there are places where you can have leadership that is unusually sentimental or tender or compassionate. That may be their nature. And so they can sort of create that kind of aura in which that flourishes them. But go beyond that. That’s where we don’t. We don’t want to minimize that kind of love. He says, I also know about your faith. I would favor again the concept of faithfulness.

And what he said is saying here is, you’re reliable, basically, you’re dependable, you’re fairly consistent. Somebody say to you, I, I know what you’re going to do before you do it because you’re always consistent. You always take the same route to where you go. You always eat the same food every day of this particular day of week. You’re so consistent, you, you read like a book. He says, you hang in there. He identifies the group of true Christians in verse 25, and those who need to hold on to what they have. So he’s encouraging them to continue to be faithful.

But here is the core of this little church. Faith and love. Those two things come together all through the scripture. And it’s amazing at this church. And out of faith and love grew the next two. Service and perseverance. See, love produces service if you love you, sir. And faithfulness produces perseverance. If I’m faithful, I’m going to endure self assessment. I’m going to hang on. So he says, I look at you and I see you loving. And out of your love, you serve each other. And I see you faithful and dependable and reliable. And out of that you, you endure, persevere.

You keep moving along through the difficult times, okay, turning away. You’re just replicating the process over and over and over again. And when people see that they saying you’re good, they don’t dig deeper. You keep moving along through the difficult times. And so in a sense, this is a church with some quality. It’s a caring group, a faithful one, no doubt, to the basics of the gospel. And then the most amazing thing at the end of verse 19, and it says, and your works of late are greater than at first. You’re even doing a better job at this stuff than you did at the beginning.

You’re loving more consistently now and serving out of that love. Your faithfulness continues now at a greater degree. And you endure and it’s increasing. You’re advancing towards the goal. Now, in actuality, that’s accommodation that you probably would think would set this church apart is absolutely without flaw. Your character. Think your character and what you do. Then you notice the first word of verse 20. But I have this against you. You tolerate a false teacher who create, who teaches error, and you tolerate sin. Oh, amazing. A lot of love in this church. You’ve got faithful people enduring through the tough times.

Sympathetic, compassionate, caring. But you’re weak. You’re weak. They had a serious problem. And here the sin is so serious because it involves apparently the majority of the people. One, because he says, the whole church was tolerating this stuff. They weren’t doing anything about it. Love was fine. Serving people was good. Being faithful in the gospel was good. Enduring through tough times were good. That’s all well and good, but don’t ask us to take a strong stand on sin. Your life don’t ask us to take a strong stand on doctrine to understand sin. You define sin as you want to be and not through the doctrine of the Scripture.

See, the Bible says that a woman is not to teach and preach. First rule, don’t make us take a stand on that. The Scripture is very clear that there’s no place in the life of a believer for idolatry. Even the apostle Paul says, when you come to the Lord’s table, don’t you think for one moment that you can come to the table of the Lord from the table of demons. We talked about that in our second communion. Can’t eat from two tables. Can’t have two masters. You can’t eat with one on Sunday and eat with the other on Monday through Saturday.

Doesn’t work. The Scripture is very clear that you are to have to live godly, pure, holy lives, that you are to deal with sin. They weren’t dealing with it at all. They were tolerant, they were weak. Now this is so common in churches today. They don’t want to deal with sin. They don’t want to affirm sound doctrine and say, you can’t teach. You’re not qualified. You can’t teach that. That’s error. You can’t do that. That’s sin. They don’t want to deal with it. Love, faithfulness, service and endurance aren’t enough, guys. All of the things that you think you could do good aren’t good enough.

There’s got to be a commitment not only to sound doctrine, but holy living. Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. See, Ephesus had the doctrine and missed the look thar has a love and missed the sound doctrine. We have both extremes today. We have those moral doctrine narrow minded perfectionists who are loveless and ruthless and offensive. We have those tolerant, sentimental, sort of mushy lover, dewy people who have no regard for holy standards, holy truth and holy living. And both polls opposite in the perspectives are disastrous. The desire of God is a beautiful God intended balance of holiness and love.

Ephesians 4, 5 and 6d had the love but didn’t have the holiness. And love without holiness descends into what? Immorality. Love without holiness descends to immorality in Ephesians, if you recall Ephesians 5, verse 2. Walk in love just as Christ also loved you, verse three but do not let immorality or impurity be named among you. What is he saying here? Don’t let your love descend to immorality. Don’t let your love tolerate sin. You might say, oh, we’re such a loving church, we don’t want to deal with that. We’re such a loving church, we don’t want to make an issue out of it.

We believe correctly. Our theologically is spot on. We are faithful to that. We’re endured through the tough times. We’re held on to our belief. We love people, we serve their needs. We rather not confront them about sin. We really don’t want to address the problem of women preachers. We really would rather not get into a discussion about doctrine. Who certainly don’t want to run around confronting people about their sin. And that’s why the Lord says at the door with flaming eyes and burning feet, I am going to stamp on the church. Well, that gets us sort of into the letter.

So much more for next time as we now get into the details of the letter and more appropriately the details as it relates to your own life, self assessment, comments, questions, Anything at all. Yeah. Jim, I was, while you were talking about that, my family were in the Methodist church which then moved into the Presbyterian and all of a sudden they were letting women come in as preachers. At the time I was quite young and I didn’t realize but I’m pretty sure that’s why my parents left the church because they, they were adamant about it and it, they were loving God fearing parents and I, I think that’s, now that you’re speaking about it, I, I think that’s why as a family we finished up leaving the church which yeah, it’s, Yep.

We have a lot of churches in this area between Greenville and Dallas that are pastored duly by both husband and wife. They actually take turns in preaching and their church is growing because of their philosophy they use, which is an entertainment, the, a socialistic viewpoint of interaction with the world and not fully scripture based. And the young people are just flocking to it. Yeah. Yes. The, There is. I, I forget which stem of the church it is, but they though in might have even been the Catholic Church allowed a, A, a gay person to all of a sudden be.

What are the Catholics call them? Priests or Priests. Priests. There’s also, there’s also a gay bishop and there’s gay cardinals that are going to come out. And if you look at the history of the church in its totality, you’re going to find that pretty much every pope is homosexual. Wow. Can I just say one other thing? And I, I wrote it down because you were talking about ghouls in England. They have the Guild hall and I wonder whether that might be how it sort of came across from there to the Guild Hall. And while you were talking I went in and had a look at the, the Guild hall in London and it’s got all of these emblems so shields with all these various symbols on them, which is exactly what you’re talking about.

Every one of them comes from history and every one of them has a deity of a God that you worship inside the ghoul. Yes. Shane, Where’d you go? The thing that was kind of resonate, I mean I’m, I was dealing with kids as well. So the one thing that just kind of resonated in my soul whenever he was talking about some of this is. Sometimes like whenever people are so concentrated on trying to fit in, they put everything to the side. Whenever I was a young man, it’s always, it was always strange to me why bars were so much more inviting than churches.

And the older I get the churches, it seems like it’s harder to get plugged into them than it is to a bar because you walk in and everybody seems to be so friendly. And then you walk into certain churches, unless you’re in the certain groups, they were never friendly. And as believers I believe that we have to be inviting to conversations, to people, even if we don’t know who they are. And whenever you start looking at people with God’s eyes instead of man’s eyes, you start seeing the people that are hurting and it’s easier that they will see you and then you’re approachable to them.

So that was just my, that’s what was resonating to me whenever you were talking about some of this. So that’s the reason why I had to thank God today, because this guy walked right up to me and just started talking, and he didn’t know me from Adam. And I just walking out of the restaurant to the car to come home. I just. I just made a really short prayer to God and says, you know, thank for. Thank you for allowing my spirit to be engaging, because that. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Yeah. We are to be the lot, and the darkness can see the light, and that’s.

That’s the reason why they’re attracted to it. So thank you. Anything else, guys? All right, well, let’s pray. Father, thank you again for an evening of worship into your word. Thank you for allowing us to explore the churches, not only from an actual church point of view, but from a historical base of our. Our humanity, history and as it applies to our life. Give us the. The willingness and the openness of heart to apply all of these teachings to our individual life as you see fit and appropriate. Give us the. The key of knowledge, the wisdom of understanding, and to listen for you to speak, to reveal yourself to us in a more gracious way.

Father, thank you for the time together. Thank you for the time apart and the. In the healing of spirits and emotions and. And all things. Father, there are people that are sick that need to still be healed. There are people to recovering that needs to have your healing hand as well. Bless those that have lost loved ones this past month so that they may continue to grieve on your timetable, but give them peace in their heart that you’re with them. Father, be with this world as it continues to change. Grant us the opportunity to see you’re in total control.

Thank you for your son. Thank you for the death. Thank you for the resurrection so that we have a way to go home and we ask all these things in your son’s name. It.
[tr:tra].