The Church of Thyratira: Revelation 2:18-28
- Tim Cain
- Nov 1, 2009
- Series: Revelations
The church of Thyratira finds itself in a very similar position to the church of Pergamum which we discussed last week. Both churches are a mixed group; some have been faithful, some have compromised and taught others to compromise, and some were caught in the middle, not sure who to follow. One of the main differences between these two churches is the nature of their temptation to compromise. In both Smyrna and Pergamum, failure to compromise with the surrounding culture led to persecution, often by the Roman government that included imprisonment and death. In Thyatira, this is not the case. Thyatira did not have near as much emperor worship as these other cities, so they were not persecuted by the government.
Instead, Thyatira was located on a trade route and was known for its trade guilds. Nearly everyone in Thyatira was in a trade guild. These guilds were the center of the economic and social life of the city. As we have said almost every week, one of the central aspects of these guilds was their massive feasts where they worshiped the patron deity over their guild. These feasts included worshiping idols by eating food sacrificed to them and often participating in sexually immoral acts. Participation at such feasts was seen as mandatory, and failure to participate would usually result in the loss of your job and social sphere. So, what we see is that the pressure to compromise in the church of Thyatira was both economic and social. I believe that as we study this church, we will find that their situation is very close to our own. In America, most of us have not been physically threatened for our faith however, I would argue that most of our greatest temptations to compromise stem from either economic or social pressures.
So, I want to tell you a little about who made up the church in Thyatira. On the one hand, there are those who have refused to compromise. Many of them have lost their jobs; all of them have suffered economic and social pressure to various degrees. We have talked a lot about this group of people over the past few weeks so I won’t go into detail describing them.
There is also a woman prophetess that is a part of the church. She speaks words from God and tells them how God doesn’t want them to suffer on earth. She talks about how you can have a relationship with Jesus that is so deep and so personal, it doesn’t really matter what you do with the rest of your life. She tells everyone that it’s ok to still go to the feasts, that the idols they are worshiping at the feast are not really even God’s so it’s ok to worship them as long as you remember that they are not true. She likely quoted Paul when he said, “we know that an idol has no real existence” and used his argument in I Corinthians 8 to say that it’s ok to participate in these feasts. She even says it’s ok to participate in the sexually immoral activities that go on at the feasts because they are just cultural. She always has tons of money and looks so happy. She has gathered many followers around her and they also look really happy and have lots of money and still hang out with all their old friends. In fact some of them are getting more of their friends to follow them since following them doesn’t really require changing their lives at all. So, the church is divided over what it looks like to really be a Christian, but even the people who don’t agree with this woman find it hard to argue with her because it seems that she is being blessed by God. So, even those who are really suffering for their faith have chosen not to confront this woman. Many figure they have lost enough friends already and others may secretly wonder if she might be right and be waiting to find out.
This is the situation of the church that gets together to hear this word from Jesus. The letter has arrived, the room has grown quiet and now this is what the letter says, “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira…”
Jesus begins by calling himself the Son of God. The chief pagan cult in Thyatira happened to be the worship of Apollo, who was the son of Zeus. So Jesus begins his letter by letting them know that he is the true Son of God. He goes on to let them know that he sees everything. He knows their hearts. His eyes are piercing, his feet are like burnished bronze and with them he will trample down all his enemies. He sees and knows everything, before his eyes, “no creature is hidden from his sight but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” He quiets the jovial mood of the compromisers. He says, “Behold, I have been watching declares the Lord.”
He goes on to commend them for all the good that he has seen. I love the fact that even in the worst churches, Jesus finds things to commend. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t it one of the most frustrating things when people complain about how things are not good enough? No matter what, they can always find a problem. You may have bosses who never recognize anything good but are always so quick to criticize. Look at our savior. He is not like that. He is quick to speak well of his church. He sees her good and he brings it to their attention. He does not look past the sacrifices of his people. He knows that this church is a loving church. There are many who have kept the faith, people who live to serve one another and who have patiently endured the loss of work, the loss of friends, and the general struggle to treasure him above all things in a culture that puts itself first. Amazingly, these faithful people have grown in their love for him and in their obedience to him. Notice how for the faithful, the suffering and persecution of the world has not made them lose heart and give up, but it has strengthened them so that their later works are better than their first works.
But he has something against this church. Like Pergamum, she has mistaken love for toleration, and in the name of love she has chosen to tolerate false teachers among her. Specifically there is this woman prophetess which Jesus refers to as Jezebel that the church has tolerated in her midst. Jesus is angry because this church has allowed this woman to speak in his name before them and to prophecy lies. This church has allowed her to lead many people astray with her false teachings. Her real name is not Jezebel, but Jesus calls her Jezebel because in the OT there was a wicked woman named Jezebel that Ahab, the king of Israel, chose to marry. To prosper his kingdom economically and militarily he not only tolerated this idolatrous woman but he married her. I and II Kings tell us how she incited the king to disobey God and lead the entire country into Baal worship. She brought in hundreds of prophets and she shipwrecked the faith of countless families in Israel. In all of Israel during her day only 7,000 people remained pure. That’s it. In a whole country, a country of millions that knew all about God, this woman came and incited all but 7,000 to walk away from him and follow Baal.
That is why Jesus is angry. He has seen what a little compromise can do. He knows that one person can lead an entire nation astray. One person, allowed to live and teach and persuade, can draw a church after themselves. He knows that this is no mere harmless woman they are tolerating; she is a jezebel. He is angry because she claims to speak for God while telling lies. He is so angry because by allowing her to stay in the church and act as a leader, the church is declaring to the world that this woman speaks truth about God, when in reality her life drags Jesus’ name through the mud. It drags him through the mud because it says he is not big enough by himself to inspire the worship of his people. She drags his name through the mud because she says that people can follow Jesus and still live consumed with their own immediate pleasures. He is angry because she is not content to merely live this way herself but she is adamant about seducing others to join her. In the church of Jesus, she calls Christians to come and worship idols by eating food sacrificed to them and freely participate in sexual immorality. This woman throws around sex, that beautiful gift of God intended to be experienced only by a husband and a wife in order to demonstrate to the world the superiority and beauty of Jesus’ relationship to the church. Like we saw last week, Jesus is jealous for his glory and for the good of his people, and both are being trampled on in this church.
Even so, even with how wicked and disgusting and terrible this woman is, this woman that Jesus calls jezebel, Jesus says, “I gave her time to repent.” Don’t pass by that. Don’t let the severity of Jesus’ judgment cause you to miss this absolutely astounding fact. Jesus gave this woman, this woman he named Jezebel because of just how wicked she was, an opportunity to repent. This screams out the Gospel to us. It screams out that even the most perverse, the most steeped in sin, the most hypocritical, the most destructive to the gospel, even the worst people in the world have an opportunity to repent. He offers Jezebel a chance to repent because his blood is able to wash away even her sins if she would just repent. He longs for her to stop and be reconciled to him. Whatever your sin, however shameful, however grievous, however, destructive, Jesus’ blood is bigger. Jesus’ blood is big enough to cleanse the worst of sinners, and that is why he can give even Jezebel a chance to repent. But notice that, given all her sin, what sin is it that at the end of the day results in her judgment? This is so important: at the end of the day the sin that leads to her final judgment is her refusal to repent. Of all her sins, the one that destroys her life is her refusal to repent.
Because of her refusal to repent, Jesus says, I am going to throw her on a sickbed. He goes on to speak of two other groups he is coming to punish. First, there are those who commit adultery with her, that is, those who have begun to follow her teachings. These are members of the church who have given in to her syncretistic teachings and begun to believe that they can worship Jesus and still participate in the idolatries of their culture. The Bible says God will come and discipline these people with a great tribulation unless they repent. This group is different from Jezebel because they have not yet gone as far as she has, Jesus’ patience with them has not been used up, and so this group, like Jezebel, is given the opportunity to repent before he comes to judge her.
The second group, Jezebel’s children, are not her literal children but her disciples. They are those who have totally given themselves over to her teachings. They are those who have, like her, been given an opportunity to repent and have again and again refused. They are those who, given the opportunity to choose between following Jesus and following her, have chosen to follow her. So their fate will be as hers; they will be killed by the judgment of the one who searches the mind and the heart and he will give to them according to their works.
There are two things that we must notice about the judgment of Jesus. First, it is absolutely fair. Notice what the churches learn from Jesus striking people dead. They learn that he will give to each according to their works. Notice there is no uproar over God’s severity, there is no outcry that God needs to relax. No, Jezebel and her children will not be judged harshly; they will be judged justly; they will get what they deserve. They will get justice. They will be judged by Jesus according to their works because that is the way they have chosen to be judged. The Bible says that “The wages of sin is death” and Jezebel and her followers have chosen the way of sin, so they have chosen death. They were given the opportunity to repent, the same verse that says the wages of sin is death continues on and says, “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” They were given the opportunity to repent. If they would have let go of their sin, if they would have returned to God, he would have abundantly pardoned them. It seems so simple, just repent. Just repent and you can have life, you can have the gift of God.
Most of us are thinking, “What morons. Are they crazy? All they had to do was say a little prayer, ask Jesus to forgive them and then they would not be struck dead and lose everything and spend eternity separate from God under his just wrath paying every day the wages of their sin. Why didn’t they just say the prayer? Why?” It is because it was not a prayer that they refused to say that kept them from Jesus; it was a life that they refused to give up. Repentance was not a prayer for them; repentance meant change. It meant giving up the feasts, giving up the sexual immorality, giving up the friends, the money, the jobs and family, it meant letting go of their old way of life and clinging to Jesus instead. It is so important that we understand this: repentance is not a prayer, but rather repentance means declaring to the world that Jesus is enough by letting go of everything else to have him. It means living for him, not ourselves. That is what kept this group from repenting. It was the fact that they loved God’s gifts, the food, the friends, the sex, the security of money, they loved these things more than they loved the God who made them. So they did not repent because they were unwilling to let go of what they had put their hope in. Therefore, God came and judged them according to their works and their works left much to be desired. Their works called out to the world that they loved the created things more than the one who created them. When the creator came and saw their treachery, he judged them as traitors, deserters, enemies, and conquering them he paid them the wages of their sins which was death.
The second thing we notice about his judgment is that it is for the good of his church. What is so amazing about our God is that everything he does, even the difficult, tragic things he does, are always for the good of his people. Everything he does is for the good of those who love him. So, even cleansing the church by removing the compromisers who were probably people’s children in the church, kids’ parents in the church, certainly people’s friends, Jesus judged these people and yet it was for the good of those who loved him. Not only was it for the good of those in the church back then, but it is for our good even today. God judged his people so “that all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each according to their works.” That is the message he wants all the churches, even us today, to know about him. He sees it all, he knows our hearts, he sees every secret motive, every passing thought, every angry, lustful, complaining, frustrated thought that passes through our minds. He sees them all. He sees the ones we let linger and the ones we fight, he sees them all.
That is what makes his plan to judge people according to their works so scary. He sees. We can’t hide anything from him. So his call to the churches is, “Don’t play games with me, I am God. My eyes are like flaming torches, I see everything. Don’t try and make it to heaven by being good enough. Don’t think that I will accept you according to your works. Your works are a joke, I see them all, if I judge you according to your works you will die for the wages of sin is death and you are a sinner.” Your greatest acts of loving sacrifice are but filthy rags in the sight of the God who sees and knows everything.
Jesus has divided the church into two groups. One group has been given an opportunity to repent and they have refused. To them he says I am coming in judgment and I will repay you according to your works. When we refuse to repent, we call upon God to judge us according to our works. We say, “I refuse to repent, I refuse to let go of my sin, I want the joy that it brings me and so I will carry this sin all the way to my death.” That is what we do when we refuse to repent, we cling to our sin. So when we come to stand before God, we will come clinging to our sin. I don’t want you to miss this. Jesus is saying, “If you refuse to repent, if you want to cling to your sin and refuse to give it to me and let me take it away and give you myself, I will judge you according to your works. For all of you who don’t think that is a big deal because you feel pretty good about yourself, don’t forget I see everything. Your mom and dad might think you’re an angel, but I see it all, and the wages of your refusal to repent is death, not just physical death, but the second death, the eternal judgment of God against your sin.”
But there is another group. You see that is why the very next line begins, “But to the rest of you.” To those who are not refusing to repent and clinging to your own selfishness, to the rest of you this is what I call you to. He says, “Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations…” Notice he says hold fast what you have and then he explains what they have. They have his works. He says, “For the rest of you this is my call, cling to me, hold fast to me, I am enough, let go of your own works and cling to mine. Repent of your sin and cling to my righteousness. I know your works, they are good, you are loving and you are serving and you are enduring but don’t cling to those works. Even though they are good they are not sufficient because I see everything and I know your hearts and I know that within each of you lies a deceptive heart of mixed motives that finds itself constantly failing and falling short of my glory. I see your sin. I see it. Let it go so that you might cling to me and to my works for they alone can save you. Cling to my works until the end.”
Jesus is calling this group to live lives of repentance that are constantly letting go of their own sin and clinging to his blood to forgive them and to his works and his perfect righteousness to be their security. He is saying, “Find your joy in me not in the feasts. Find your security in my righteousness, not in your jobs. Find your hope in my return, not in your next pay check. Find pleasure in following me, in gazing at my beauty not in sleeping with a temple prostitute. Find your rest in my love for you and not in a retirement fund. Don’t be like Jezebel, don’t ever refuse to repent. Whatever I come and call you to let go of, let it go; it’s not worth it.” Jesus is pleading with his people, trying to remind them of just how superior he is to everything else. One day they won’t be able to work anymore and if they gave up Jesus to keep their job, they will find themselves altogether disappointed when it ends. We need to listen to our savior. One day our family will move out and if we have spent ourselves worshiping our children, if we have given up God to give them our full and undivided attention to make sure that their every need is met, when they leave home we will find the void that is left is absolutely devastating. Don’t walk away from Jesus for a girl or a guy, they won’t ever be enough. They might satisfy for a time, but know that the moment you walk away from Jesus, you are leaving his righteousness, the protection of his precious blood. To walk away from Jesus is to willingly stand before God alone and to do that is the height of foolishness, for we are all sinners and we desperately need his righteousness. It alone can satisfy us and protect us and give us peace and rest. Jesus is the only companion, the only one who will truly never leave us or forsake us.
So many of us are tempted to compromise for the same reasons the church of Thyatira was. We feel economic or social pressure and we don’t want to give up a relationship or a job, or the security that money gives us. We want to be self sufficient. We want to have enough money so that we can rest in our money and don’t have to totally trust in God. We want to have enough relationships that if we don’t feel close to God one day we are still ok because we have a spouse or a girlfriend or boyfriend or child that we use to fill our voids. All of us are compromisers. All of us have things we turn to when we are hurting, things that we look towards to fill us up. All of us have things in our lives that we don’t want to give up. We struggle so much because we want Jesus but we also want what everyone else has.
The church today is radically tempted to compromise by valuing the same things that the culture around us values. What we value determines how we live. Our values determine how we make decisions and ultimately what our lives look like. We live in a culture that does not value God. We live in a culture that values self-reliance, independence, individual rights, autonomy, financial security, fulfillment via relationship, and control over our own lives. These are some of the things that our culture values. Yet we serve a God who calls us to die to ourselves; to depend upon him; to call him Lord, and to submit to his will in our lives; to give up our rights and consider others more important than ourselves; to live as a community, a body, and not merely as autonomous individuals; to store up treasure in heaven and not worry about tomorrow; and to be willing to hate our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and even our own spouses compared to our commitment to treasure our savior above all things. We serve a God who calls us to consider everything rubbish in order that we might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
We want to hold fast to the righteousness that comes from God through faith, not our own righteousness, but Jesus’ righteousness. That is our one need. We need Jesus, we need his righteousness. Everything else can be considered rubbish compared to knowing him. Do you see how radically different our values are supposed to be from the world? Those of the world consider Jesus rubbish in comparison to how much they love their comfort, pleasure, family, jobs, and retirement. We see that because anytime Jesus comes in the way of any of those things, they always let Jesus go. If Jesus challenges how they are raising their kids, who they are dating, how many hours they are working, how many vacations they go on, or what kind of cars they drive, they are willing to let him go to keep their own idols. That is our world. Jesus is great until he challenges their lifestyle and then he is seen as dispensable. We as Christians are called to be the opposite. Everything is to be rubbish compared to our savior. Even our own righteousness, our own service, our own families, our own passions and desires, all of them bow before our savior who has shed his precious blood for our sin and given us his righteousness.
The question must be, if our value system is so radically different from our culture, why do our lives look so similar? Kierkegaard says, “It does no good for you to say that the world is immersed in evil, and then slip through it easily. If you do this, your life expresses that it is really a very good world… We simply cannot slip through this world comfortably without being an accomplice.” This is what the book of Revelation and the rest of the New Testament shout out to us. If we are truly going to treasure Jesus above all things, we will suffer for it. If we find ourselves slipping easily through this life it is only because we are not fighting our sin as we should, we are not daily dying to ourselves as we are called, we are not considering all things rubbish for the sake of knowing Jesus and being found in him. We cannot serve two masters. We cannot cling to the values of this world and still hold fast to the righteousness of our savior. The two don’t mix. The world has lied to us. Satan has deceived us into thinking that we are, just as we are Christians. We need to take a closer look at our lives. Listen to Jeremiah 17:5-10. Our Revelation passage has alluded to this passage a few times and I want us to read it to see how different the call of the Gospel is on us from that of our culture. This text says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” Our culture tells us to trust in ourselves, to trust in relationships. It tells us we can do all things if we put our minds to it. Trusting in ourselves is empty. It’s like a shrub in the desert, it is empty and lonely and in the end it cannot satisfy. But trusting in the Lord is where we find our hope. It is where we find that even when suffering comes, we can survive because our God is enough. Our hearts are wicked and we cannot trust them. Instead we must look outside of ourselves and place our trust in the one who is better than us.
We need help with this. Just like last week, we need to fall on our faces and say, “God, where am I trusting in myself? Where am I depending upon myself? Where am I finding joy and satisfaction in your creation and not in you?” We need to beg God to show us our sin so that we can repent. One of the chief things God uses to help us in these situations is the community. He uses his people. Hebrews 3:12-13 calls us to be exhorting one another in order to fight against our deceptive hearts. We need each other. Bring your true selves before community and together seek God. Don’t hide things from them. Don’t cling to things that God points out in your lives through them. We can only cling to one thing; we can cling to Jesus’ righteousness or we can cling to our own desires. We can cling to our God or to ourselves. We can value him or we will value our own immediate comfort and pleasure. Our God is for us. We are called to consider everything rubbish compared to him because it is rubbish compared to him. Now, think about how amazing that makes him. There are great things in this world, amazingly fun, pleasurable, comforting, enjoyable things, but none that can compare to our savior. None will truly stand the test of time as he will. None can meet our deepest longings and none that can take away our sin and make us right with God.
So, our call today is to look at our lives. Search our hearts, lay ourselves bare before God and with open hands be willing to let go of anything that he might point out in order to better cling to him. Bring questions to your community. Bring concerns to them. Tell them, “I struggle with compromise in this area. Will you help me? Will you watch my back for me? Will you confront me when I walk away?” When something is pointed out in your life, even though it hurts to give it up, let go of it. Repent of it. Let go of it and know that Jesus is better. He is so much more beautiful, he will never leave you or forsake you. In his love you can find comfort; in his right hand you will find pleasure; in his presence is all the joy you have ever sought. He loves us. While we were yet sinners, enemies, compromisers, haters of God, he left heaven and came down and gave his life on the cross to cleanse us from our sin and give us his perfect righteousness. He lived a perfect life, sacrificing everything to give us his righteousness, don’t drop it for something stupid. Don’t let go of his righteousness for a job, a spouse, a friend, or earthly security. Don’t, for your own soul, for your own joy, Jesus is better. One day you will stand before him. You will stand before him with his righteousness, or you will stand before him with your own. It will all depend on who your Lord was, who you gave your heart to, what you clung to. Did you cling to your own desires? Did you give your heart to your own passions? Did you cling to your way, or did you die to yourself? Did you repent of your deceptive heart? Did you cling to your precious savior who is worthy of everything? If you are still breathing, it means that your savior is giving you time to repent. Let go of your sin, let go of your past life, let go of your compromise and cling to him. If you do, he will give you the morning star. Revelation 22:16 says, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright and morning star.” Jesus offers us himself. He is the morning star. His promises are bigger than all the empty promises of this world. And he will make good on them all. The one who did not spare his own son but freely offered him up for you has already done more for you than anyone in this world could ever do, and he says, “Follow me for all eternity. I will watch over you with the love that I have shown you on the cross.” Jesus is amazing, he is good, he stands ready to forgive, ready to give you his righteousness. Take it, please. It doesn’t matter how happy you think you are right now, how good you feel, if your savior finds you without his righteousness, nothing else will matter and you will be eternally undone. Together, for the glory of God and for our own good, let us give ourselves to knowing, loving and clinging to Jesus and let us fight to cut off everything that might distract us from gazing upon his beauty.
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