Tonight, I invite you to turn to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, as we continue our study in the book and are really in the heart here of this section in the seven churches. And tonight we come to chapter 2, verse 18, and we'll complete chapter 2, the church in Thyatira. Beginning at verse 18 of chapter 2, this is the word of the Lord. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, the words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance. And that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual morality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual morality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works. And I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am He who searches the mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold to this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden, only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, As when earth and pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father, and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. May the Lord bless tonight the hearing of His Word. What has been striking for me in the study of these seven churches is simply reflecting on what looks good outwardly to us. What looks outwardly good and outwardly right doesn't always tell the truth of the matter, does it? If we were to open up a phone book and say, I'm going to pick a church, we would have our list of things that we would look for and things that we have determined think make a church that looks alive, right? It would be amazing what you'd get in the phone book. Well, I don't even know if we have phone books anymore, but I still get one dropped off at the Parsons every now and then. And you'd go through and you know, people would look for things like the programs and the message series and all these things that characterize what we think are alive worship. We would try to pinpoint the ad that most captures us to show that it is most alive, those things that create a comfortable atmosphere and all of those things we judge things only on an external level that's not how the lord does at least not primarily today we're we're rather superficial when it comes to the church and what we should think about to what we think defines a faithful church and where we should be and what we should be doing it's very superficial basically today is boiled down now to size isn't it how many people attend your church common question isn't it and i suppose i propose that's a really bad question to ask we should probably get away from asking it all together because it fuels the whole idea that what is popular and what is accepted by people is what makes a good and a faithful church but that's not it that's not it The Lord has always told us, even when the people chose Saul to be their leader, the Lord has always said things, and especially looking at David, who, when they were sent to anoint him, remember what was said by the Lord. The Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. You know, you could say that about the church. Man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart of the church. The Lord looks at what's going on as the church is functioning in the heart of that body. And that's a really important point. It was Jesus that said, what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. You've got something popular, something everyone's running to, Everyone is saying, wow, you probably should stop and say, wait a minute. God said what is highly esteemed among people is not by him. Well, that's important. We've looked at this principle with the seven churches. We think of something like Smyrna that was poor, that was persecuted, that was beat down. And the Lord will look at them and say, I know everyone saying that about you, but the truth of the matter is you're rich. They had no real negative things to say to Smyrna at all. Even though they were facing great persecution, they were standing. But you would have never looked at that church and thought much was happening. I can't help but think of that little poor church out there struggling. The pastor is faithful to preach the gospel, has a few committed members, and next door lies the worship center. The jumpy thing for the kids. All the programs under the sun. A massive youth program. Everything that everyone would say, wow! Here's this pastor every week working hard. Preach the Word in season, out season. Gets criticized. Nobody values it, it seems. And these few saints are edified. Doesn't seem like much is going on there. we wouldn't really think much is going on there. All of this should really challenge us to think a little bit about if this is the real emphasis, which it is tonight, and I'll show you here in a minute, if this is the real emphasis, what does Christ see when he looks at the Ascondido URC? And that is kind of the issue really tonight with the church in Thyatira that the Lord says in verse 16, very plainly, actually it's a little further, I'm just going to quote it. I'm not going to dig for it right now. I am he who searches the minds and the hearts. I see the truth of the matter. It's so important tonight that we think about this a little bit and what the Lord is helping us with with this church in Thyatira. Southeast of Pergamos lied the city of Thyatira. It was the least impressive of all the cities and the most insignificant. And in the intro, Christ gives us some real insight into what was happening in this particular church. You'll notice in verse 18, to the angel of the church in Thyatira, these things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and feet like fine brass. Eyes like a flame of fire, feet are like burnished bronze. It's a powerful statement. What was going on for Christ to have this kind of introduction? And I think the thing that stands out the most here is the words of the Son of God. Well, that should mean something to us from Mark's Gospel. I believe, if I'm right, this is the only time this is found in the book of Revelation that this designation, the Son of God. The Word, these are the things says the Son of God. Why would Jesus have to raise this to the church in Thyatira? I wish I'd have been a little bit more on the ball. I would have printed for you the coins of the day that were handed out. And I said before, they dig these things up all the time over there. And on these coins, it's been proven, and you can look it up tonight. Just go in and type in coins Thyatira and you'll find on the coins of Thyatira, there lies the son of Zeus and Apollos. And on the other side of one of these coins lies the deified son of Domitian. He was the emperor at the time. And on this, this deified son is sitting on a globe holding the stars in his hands. You can find this. You can look it up. You can Google it. Jesus comes along and says to this church, I am the Son of God. I am the one who has the morning star. Come back to that. I have eyes like a flame of fire. Here, over and against he, over and against Caesar, he is the Son of God. Caesar claimed this kind of divinity. All this authority has been given to me, says Jesus. And so immediately, he's reminding them of who their Lord is. Who their Lord is. In fact, you'll notice that really in verse 27 is a direct allusion to Psalm 2. He will rule them with a rod of iron as when earth and pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. We sung out Psalm 2. That's a reason. Jesus is working from this. This is me. This is me. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way. This is all on His mind when He mentions He has eyes like a flame and feet like burnished bronze. These fiery eyes see everything. And these feet are like a fire coming out of a furnace. He is ready to trample. He is king. He's Lord. Well, what in the world is going on here? Why is he giving this kind of introduction? It's remarkable how much good was going on in Thyatira. The Lord always seems to take a moment here. There are a few he doesn't. But he takes a moment here to encourage what is positive in these churches. And we need to hear that, don't we? This is remarkable what we read in verse 19. I know your works, your love. Huh, it starts with love. And faith, and service, and patient endurance. And then he gives a really big encouragement to them. Notice what he says here. That your latter works exceed the first. I mean, that's remarkable if you think about it. That's a huge encouragement to this church. So far, I'm not sure any church has received this level of commendation. And here's what really moves me about it. You have faith and love mentioned together, don't you, as a body. Christians were called, you know, Paul gave this to the church in Corinth, abide in faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. The virtue mentioned here, the thing that's happening here, is this church was flourishing in love. i find that remarkable in the middle of this that jesus is acknowledging and encouraging his church that he sees acts of love he sees when those things are happening his eyes like a flame of fire he sees all your acts of love your service sees it all i was i was really taken this week though by this little phrase that the last works are more than the first. Hmm. This means that this church presently was way farther down the road than when they first started. Ephesus was commended for their labor and patience, but remember what he said? There's no love. That church lacked love. Here we're finding the kind of opposite thing, aren't we? In Ephesus, the leaving of their first love was a church that had gone completely backwards. People didn't serve with love. People weren't active with love. They had lost their zeal. They had forgotten their purpose. The direction of the church was backwards. Going backwards. Did you ever think about that? That a church can go backwards? I don't think we think about this enough. I don't know if we give any reflection to this. It's very similar to a marriage, isn't it? Couple gets up, they're all excited, everything looks beautiful. They look starstruck. They say, I do. At least they should look that way. They say, I do. And from that point on, they're going to go one direction or the other. Ever seen some of these older couples who their love for one another is that much stronger than their wedding day? then you see couples who go completely backwards they don't they really have no relationship even though they they're married backwards backwards well this is a really important point there are right now a whole bunch of churches evangelical churches i i was thinking about this this week what does this look like there are churches who are reforming constantly aren't they I bump into all the time pastors who are learning their history and maybe they're in broadly evangelical churches and they begin to cut their teeth on all this history, on all this doctrine. They're really forward-moving churches. They're really active. They're excited. They're working toward reform. I have a lot of compassion on churches like this. They may not be very far, but you see the direction they're going. They may have been for years ignorant about worship, convictions. They've had no theology of a church. They haven't even had confessions. And now they've discovered this stuff. And you should see the growth in some of these pastors who are getting up there and really preaching the word in these environments. And the people are being pulled along. They're going somewhere. There begins to be structure. There begins to be reverence. They begin to start taking things seriously. all that may have been lacking and and lo and behold what begins to happen when the ministry of the word is flourishing like this in that direction you start seeing action you start seeing love you start seeing fruits in this the direction is a forward movement but then and we have to think about this there are those churches and this is what i really struggle with Who've had the history. Who at one time had all these convictions. Who've willfully departed from it and gone backwards. All trying to be relevant. And in all kinds of blindness now. They can't even see that their churches are dying. They've dumped conviction. They've gone backwards. And look at those churches in terms of serving. You can't get people to do anything. there's no love. Backwards or forwards? Meet Thyatira. Forward. Jesus says, you're growing. I see it. You're growing. You're going somewhere. There's a zeal there, and I see it. I want to challenge us with this. This was always my concern coming into the URC. that when we formed there was a kind of zeal to get back to things. The question that never got talked about much was what would happen when we get there? What would happen when we get it all back? In other words, if you had a people who were used to being disgruntled about church compromises and were used to complaining about the church, complaining, complaining, complaining, what happens when they get what they're really after, right? What would it be? Would they be satisfied? Would they be forward-moving? Would that create a vibrant, healthy church that has a positive ministry? Or would it actually launch the church into a backward spiral of just going back to what makes us comfortable? We're going to be the church of 1950. That's what we know. Well, that's not what we're called to be. I don't even want to be the church of 1550. I want to be the church of 2017. And the things that the Lord says, I want you to be forward-moving in the convictions you have. And that's what Christ commends here. Commends it. He observes the key ingredient. Did you catch it? Love. First thing he says. I see your love. Your works have grown. They're more than the first. You're way down the road. I see it with my eyes of fire. Budding with service and joy in the members because they're receiving these things. They're responding. You know, Paul would always say a church should be forward-moving. We have an upward calling of God in Christ and a church should be forward-moving. Remember that our goal is to make every man perfect in Christ. We have a goal to all this. and striving in that upward calling that god's given us we're increasing as paul told the the thessalonian church how about this is your faith growing applying it more and more and the love of every one of you has for each other is increasing he said that to the thessalonian church i see it it's increasing your love's increasing i've used it before one pastor tells a um of a church who had a really bad reputation in the community history of conflicts fights splits nothing but problems and here's what the pastor described happened many in the church were sick of the strife they responded to the spirit under the preaching of the gospel what it always that's where the response is going to come as a body they began to look and act more like christ gossip died down the gifts of the spirit began to flourish the deacons faithfully sent flowers to the hospitalized and sick in the community. In other words, they're caring. Hot meals were taken to chronically ill persons. A spirit of prayer and intercession began to come into their meetings. Visitors were impressed by a new attentiveness on Sunday worship services. One of them remarked, before when we visited, everyone was reading their bulletins and they just, he said, looked around, no engagement, youth disconnected. But now, they listen like hungry people. The change is so mysterious, it's frightening. This is where we are with Thyatira for the moment. I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving the church right now. What makes this church so challenging for me is, how could you have all of that happening and then simultaneously have one of the greatest failures to read about. It's puzzling to me. It just doesn't seem to go. And maybe that should be the effect of it. Look at verse 20. Nevertheless. But I have this against you. That you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual morality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Wow. Let me put this in really plain language here. You've got a tear in your midst and you're doing nothing. You've got a tear. And it's evident. Paul says to Timothy in explaining something I think that's really helpful in this slide, he said, the sins of some people are conspicuous. In other words, they're plainly evident. you can see it and then he says going before them to judgment but the sins of others appear later so so you have sometimes in the life of the church it's just plainly evident and other times it's hard paul here i mean and and jesus here with the church in thyatira is saying there's something really evident you guys all see here the issue as i was wrestling with it thinking what what What happened here? What happened? Here the issue seemed to be holiness. Here's what was happening in Thyatira. It was a prosperous trading center. Thyatira, we've looked at this before with these churches. It was common at the time. They had all these trade guilds and the guilds later would give away to what we know as trade unions and there were associations of merchants that were formed to protect trading in a city. And at all of these trade guilds, at all of these meetings, There was a dedication to some pagan god. The sons of the gods. And in order to be a part of it, they had to partake of it. They had to belong to it. They were going into these feasts. There was food offered to idols. You had all these problems that we've looked at, and you know what these things could lead to. Well, this must have been shocking. They get this letter from Christ, and he says, there's one issue, one issue I want you to think about that I see that needs to be dealt with. You've got Jezebel there. And she's teaching and she's seducing into sexual immorality. Now remember, Revelation, this is where we see how Revelation works. That Revelation speaks symbolically. This is not the literal name of this woman. It's using the Old Testament. There was certainly a woman in the church doing this. It's using the Old Testament to pull from the Old Testament to understand, help them understand just what this woman was like. And you know what this woman was like when you hear the name Jezebel. Remember her? She was awful. She was wicked King Ahab's wife. She was a Baal worshiper. She was a pagan priestess of the god Estart. And she incited Israel constantly, you remember, to compromise by doing all kinds of things sexual morality with the pagan practices having association with Baal so the very spirit of Jezebel in a sense is right here in this woman in the church they said that she was an early Gnostic and Gnosticism basically said the spirit is all that matters what you do with your body doesn't so you could do the sins of the body it can ultimately hurt your spirit so the Gnostics boasted about delving into the secret things and jesus sees it i know you guys say that you can get into the secret things of satan you see that there the depths of satan you can get into those secrets what jezebel was teaching was something like this we have to experience what satan's doing to be effective. We're not going to be an effective church until we understand these things. It's okay, Christians, to go and experience whatever's going on and do them. You've got to get in there. You've got to live it. Go ahead. Know the depths of Satan. It doesn't hurt your spirit. And people all the time do things to justify sinful behaviors when they want to. Jesus says here, you're letting her do this. I have eyes like a flame of fire. You are so faithful in many things. But let me tell you what's lacking. There's no discipline in your body. And it's affected the holiness of the body. You know, I know discipline is so hard. You know, we call it the third mark of a faithful church. It's so foreign these days, most people don't even know what it even looks like. You know, in our own Heidelberg, it says, how is the kingdom of heaven closed and opened by Christian discipline? According to the command of Christ. This is not an option. If anyone, though, called a Christian, remember, believers make believers, anyone called a Christian, professes unchristian teachings or lives an unchristian life, if after repeated brotherly counsel, refuses to abandon his errors and wickedness. And if after being reported to the church, that is to its officers, he fails to respond to their admonition. I thought Tyra hadn't even done the admonition. Such a one the officers exclude from the Christian fellowship by withholding the sacraments from him. And God himself excludes him from the kingdom of Christ. Such a person, when he promises and demonstrates genuine reformed, is received again as a member of Christ and of his church. And this is essentially what Christ is saying here. He's working from what we call the third mark. This is not happening. There's no discipline. See how much the holiness of the body matters to Jesus? He's looking at all the people being affected by this. And that's not love to let that run rampant. Think of Ephesians 1. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. For what end? That we should be holy and blameless. Christ Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness and purify himself, a people that are his very own, eager to do what's good. This is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. That you should know how to possess your own vessel, your body, in sanctification and honor. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. revelation's great theme for the church and we're going to close with this here revelation's great theme for the church is to say remember you're my people you're called to be separate and the depths of satan are actually working in the church to corrupt it we're going to come to revelation 18 4 and i heard another voice from heaven saying come out of her my people lest you share in her sins lest you receive of her plagues come out be separate i'll receive you You should be my sons. That's the great pressure that we face today. To, in the name of ministry and kindness, to not do anything. To protect the body of Christ from these kind of things. And then we blur all these lines and look no different than the world. And Jesus is saying, you've got to be willing to take a stand. You have to have backbone. Backbone. Notice here, what does the Lord say? I gave her time to repent. Notice this is the Lord of the church. This is Psalm 2. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual morality, so here's what I'm going to do. Behold, I'm going to throw her into a sickbed. And those who are getting caught up in all this stuff, I'm going to throw in great tribulation unless they repent. Very fascinating. And I'm going to strike her children dead. You want the Lord to intervene to do that? That's what discipline is trying to stop. It's trying to stop the path of sin in the body so it doesn't bring great destruction in that kind of way that is deserved. But the Lord says, I gave time to repent. So this is Christ's letter to them. So encouraging in so many respects and yet so convicting to say, remember who you are as a people, set apart and holy. And the Lord encourages them at the end of this saying, to the rest, verse 24 in Thyatira, who do not hold to this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan. To you I say, I'm not going to lay upon you any other burden. He's careful to not add burdens or add rules to try to stop all this. That's what we tend to do in moments like this. We're going to close it down, man. We're going to close it down. And then we build a fence around the law and legalism just prevails. He says, no, no, no, no, no. We're not going to do that. Hold fast to what you have until I come. The one who conquers and keeps my works until the end I will give him authority over the nations. He will rule them with a rod of iron as when the earth pots are broken in pieces even as I myself have received authority from my Father. Hold on. Sometimes the best way to be a forward-moving church is simply to hold on to what you have. I know that sounds contradictory, but it's not. When you are holding on to what you have with meaning and believe it, the fruits of love and service will abound. And then you're going to care to protect that body. Hold on to it. Don't let it go. To him who overcomes two promises, I'm going to give him power over the nations. You're going to share with me in Psalm 2. You're going to share in that reign and that rule and that judgment. You're going to judge and I will give him the morning star. What's that? Well, Peter told us. We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Christ is pledging Himself to you. He's pledging Himself to you. That what He holds out for you, that one day you're going to sit with Him in glory and you reign and enjoy Him now. Until then, remember, who we are as a church remember the call to holiness remembering that he he saved us for this great purpose that we might hold high his standard as hard as it may be delighting ourselves in his word and the separate status that he's given us not an embarrassment of it but but delighting ourselves in who we are as a people set apart to him and remembering how wonderful he's encouraged this church that they are a forward-moving church may we be a forward-moving church in this way and yet one that protects the body as leaders from all these things that would corrupt and harm her this is how jesus ends this he says as he does here for these churches he who has an ear do you have an ear he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit this is the spirit saying this what the spirit is saying to the churches let's pray together heavenly father Father, thank You for encouraging us in Your Word, but also challenging us. There is a warfare going on. There are things that are happening. And because of tears that do spring up, because these things happen, they seek to destroy the body of Christ, wreck the intention of its purity and its holiness. And You call us, Lord, to sometimes do the very difficult task when sins are very evident. of discipline but we have to understand that that is the greatest act of love isn't it father you've told us that for you've demonstrated to us tonight that the lord jesus christ loves to protect the sheep because he loves them and this is a the biggest way of love may that be so in this place may we be a humble people and remember who we are and a forward-moving people thank you father for hearing us tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.