The sermon 'Thyatira and the Toleration of Jezebel' by Paul Carrington examines the message to the church of Thyatira from the book of Revelation. Thyatira, a city known for its guilds, presented unique challenges for Christians who were pressured to participate in idolatrous and immoral activities associated with the guilds. The church is commended for its works, love, service, faith, and patience, yet criticized for tolerating the false prophetess Jezebel, who led believers into sexual immorality and idolatry. Jezebel represents a spiritual threat akin to her Old Testament counterpart, encouraging compromise and sin under the guise of religious experience. The Lord urges repentance, warning of severe consequences for continued sin but also offering promises of power over nations and the gift of the morning star to those who overcome. The sermon emphasizes the balance between love and doctrinal truth, the dangers of cultural compromise, and the hope of redemption through repentance and faith in Christ.

Please follow along as I start in verse 18. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass. I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience. And as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the minds and the hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works. Now to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. But hold fast what you have till I come, and he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations.

He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels, as I also have received 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." Please pray with me. Our Father, we thank you for the truth of your word, the everlasting truth that is the same yesterday, today, and forever, for the grace that you extend towards those who believe and even your long-suffering towards those who have yet to repent. Lord, we ask that today we would not despise the hearing of your word or the opportunity to sit and learn, but to recall and to remember that it is through the hearing and the understanding of your word that we who are saved have been forgiven and brought near to you.

We pray the same for those that are still far from you, Lord, that today as they hear, today as the word is preached, that you would save. Father, we ask that you would be with our brother Paul as he comes. We know Lord that you delight in the preaching of your word and so we ask that you would uphold him and give him strength and clarity of mind and speech and Lord help us in our understanding and our learning and the application of your word. In Christ's name we pray, amen. You may be seated.

Well, again, this morning we find ourselves in the in the book of Revelation looking at our Lord's counsel to the various churches that he had had planted in the in the area of Asia Minor. And so far we've been we've been following the courier north. He started off in the great metropolis of Ephesus, and then he went on to Smyrna, and then he went on from there to the capital of Asia Minor, the city of Pergamos. And what we found is we found in Ephesus a church that was very doctrinally sound but unfortunately had become cold and complacent in their regard of the Lord Jesus Christ. We looked at a church by the name of the Church of Smyrna who was commended for its faithfulness.

In the eyes of Christ, though they were suffering outward poverty and all sorts of problems, they were deemed by Him to be rich. And then we looked at the church of Pergamos, which was threatened by the perils of compromise and in some ways were succumbing to all of the temptations of the adversary. Well, now we looped southward from Pergamos, and we come to the fourth church of the seven, which is a church in the city of a town called Thyatira. And while the first three cities, we found them to be really marvels of the ancient world. They all had amazing things to offer by way of architecture and reputation.

Thyatira is not quite like that. It's probably the most insignificant of the seven, the least well-known, the least important geopolitically. It's only a town or city of a population of about 20, 000, so compare that with 250, 000 in Ephesus or 200, 000 in Smyrna or 120, 000 in Pergamus. It's quite a way down, and yet what we do find is that this small church receives really the longest letter of all of the seven churches. It's a it's a letter or it's an epistle from our Lord and Savior that spans 12 verses, just more than again anyone else.

And I think there's something you'll find today that is of central importance to all of his churches for all ages. As we spoke about in all of our teachings on this, is that these are actual, physical, real churches, but the Lord is really giving these accounts so that all churches throughout all ages would be able to learn and be be upbraided corrected encouraged all of these different things and so I just want to give a bit of a background to start us off as we look at the city of Tayataya. This one, probably more than some of the other ones, will be extremely helpful just because of the way that this city was known. And really what marked their identity more than anything else is that it was a city of guilds. And what a guild is, it's an association of craftsmen, right, often having considerable power and what you would have is guilds of bakers.

So if you were a baker you wouldn't just go and set up and sell your own bread but you would be a part of a guild and have to sell through the guild. And so they would set the price, they would make sure of the quality, all of these different types of things. There was the Potter's Guild, the Tanner's Guild, the Coppersmith's Guild, you name it. There was a guild for absolutely everything in the city of Tayatayra. And it was so prominent in Tyatira that it would be difficult to engage in any commerce if you didn't belong to a guild.

That was almost impossible for you to actually have any means or source of income. Well sadly it wasn't only commerce that these guilds were involved in, but every guild had its own patron god or goddess. And what would happen every so often was that they would have these, what you would call kind of trade guild banquets, and it would be a combination of feasting and you would eat and gather together it would be almost like a drunken revelry you know you would eat meat that was sacrificed to idols and drink wine and then as the evening wore on it would devolve into all sorts of sexual immorality with prostitution and all these other types of things. And this would be classified as part of worship. And you couldn't simply decide to opt out of the guild and say, well, I'm just not going to participate in that.

Part of your membership was really hung on your worship and participation in every aspect of guild life. And so you had all of these different guilds, and one of the most prominent guilds was one that as we go through it, you're going to be familiar with. It was the guild of the dyeing of fabrics. Well, one of the most well-known products that Thyatira was involved in producing was a dye from this rooted plant that grows there really, really well called the matter root, and it was a purple dye. Today, it's called Turkish red, but if you've read the book of Acts, what you'll find is that there was a woman that you probably met from the city of Thyatira.

Her name was Lydia, and she was an exporter, most likely, and she ends up finding herself not in Thyatira, but in Europe, over in Greece, in a city called Philippi. And she was likely just doing trade over there when the Apostle Paul stumbles upon her and meets her on the Sabbath day And she really becomes his first convert in all of Europe and this is what the book of Acts says It says that she was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshipped God. She was a God-fearer She didn't know Christ, but she she had an understanding of of God The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul, and when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. So she persuaded us. And so here was this woman that came to know Christ on the banks of a river outside of the city of Philippi 2, 000 years ago.

And what a lot of commentators think but there's no actual evidence is that over the course of time she might have gone back home to Thyatira and had some part to play in the establishment of the church that we're actually reading about it but of course this is the only mention other than what we're reading in Revelation of this city Thyatira in the Bible at least and so we come to verse 18 and we get an understanding of what is the Lord's approach as he looks at this city or this church in this city and it says in verse 18 and to the angel of the church in Thyatira write these things says the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass. And what's helpful for us to remember just as each church receives a an introduction that's specific to the content of the letter, specific to the need. So too we find that here in this epistle. You'll remember in the letter or the epistle to the church in Ephesus, the Lord described himself as the one who walks among the lampstands, which are the seven churches, right?

And then at the end of the letter, his threat to them is that I will remove your lampstand. Do you remember that? Or when you look at the church in Smyrna, he says that I'm the first and the last. He that was dead and is alive again. Well, he was preparing them, if you go back to the end of the letter, to be faithful unto death and you won't perish eternally.

Or to the church in Pergamos, the thing that he presents himself as representing is having the two-edged sword. He presents himself as a man of war. And then what happens is toward the end of the epistle, he's warning the Nicolaitan element that he's gonna fight against them with the sword of his mouth. And so all of these letters contain an introduction that's relevant to what he's about to say to these churches and he starts off with this declaration of him being the Son of God. In chapter 1 Christ is described as the Son of Man, you know, it represents when you hear the word the Son of Man it represents his intercession, his humanity, but here he takes his highest name in his highest title.

He introduces himself as the very Son of God. The Savior becomes the judge in a sense and declares himself to be possessed with absolute authority. And really the emphasis that's going to characterize him in all of this is on his deity, it's on his holiness, it's on his judgment as well. And it really kind of breathes the language of righteousness that's going to characterize this letter. So keeping in mind, he presents himself as the Son of God.

But he goes a little bit further. And then he says, I have eyes like a flame of fire. This is that piercing, laser-like vision. Nothing can be concealed or masked. You might be able to withdraw yourself from the presence of men at certain times, but the Lord is wanting you to know that you're yet within my presence, and that's what really matters.

These eyes as a flame of fire, it declares the idea that I understand the whole picture, and therefore I am perfectly qualified to evaluate this congregation circumstance. I don't have the full picture of what's going on in your life and your heart, but the Lord, he has the absolute perfect clear picture of it and he rules over his church not only with infinite wisdom, but also with vigilant zeal. It's this picture of eyes that are being able to penetrate absolutely everything with perfect insight. And then it also says that he has feet like fine brass. This is the idea of the subjugation of sin and of Satan and all of his enemies.

In chapter 19, verse 15 of the book of Revelation, it says this, that he himself treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. This is how he goes to task at the end of the book of Revelation and that word for tread it means to kind of trample underfoot or to crush. And so it's helpful for us to even understand he's introducing himself to this church in this way. And when we think of him kind of walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, the feet that are carrying him are these feet of fine brass that bring judgment against sin and does not want to tolerate sin growing and expanding. And so he's coming with all of these titles, the Son of God, he comes with eyes like a flame of fire, and he's also coming with feet like fine brass.

It's this idea you better buckle up because he's coming for with a vitally serious message for this church to understand. It's with good reason because this church is in a very very bad place and and what happens when we go through this hopefully you'll see that this church in Thyatira it's in a bad place but it also represents a very commonplace for churches all the way down historically through the ages, even up until this present day. And so there's going to be hopefully a lot that we'll be able to glean from this today. Well we come to verse 19 and we start off with commendation. This is what the Lord's assessment is in terms of the good things that they're doing here in this church.

He says, I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience. And as for your works, the last are more than the first and he starts off in his his description of their works with the very beautiful word love and we never want to come to a place where we despise this word love or think low of it or diminish it right when the Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church he calls love the more excellent way I mean it's a beautiful thing you know the very first when Paul describes the the fruit of the spirit the very first aspect of that fruit is what? It's love. And so this church had a heart of love. It comes first in this list, probably more than other churches that we've seen so far.

And then not only that, but it also had, It was probably coming out of that love. It was a church that was really prominent in terms of service as well And what a what a blessing it is for saints to be busy laboring in the cause of God even sometimes in some of the most obscure ways My bet is that there are people here, even in our church here at Hope, that are are laboring and doing things that other people may not know and they might be overlooked. It might be like when you look in the book of Ezra, the Nephilim, the people who simply got water to bring it to the temple and to take care of the kind of the external things but maybe don't get the applause that we're doing things to honor God Jesus himself says that if you give a cup of cold water to a little one in my name you've done it unto me it's that kind of idea of this church really kind of being on fire to serve and to do what they could to meet the needs tangibly of the people around them and not only that but they had faith and and faith of course that's the subject of one of our favorite chapters Hebrews chapter 11 and they get commended for possessing faith and not only that but it would have been difficult to live in thayatira under any circumstances and so He also commends them for their patience most likely it was under duress and Difficulty that they just continued plodding along in their Christian walk.

And then he says something just really outstanding. He says, as for your works, the last are more than the first. And so faith and love, ministry, these things weren't their problem. This was not only a church that was living off the fumes of a bygone era, things that they used to do, things that they were known for 20, 30 years ago, but they were growing in fruitfulness. And hopefully this is all of our ambition is that we're growing in fruitfulness.

We're not resting on what we did for the Lord. I have a neighbor that lives in our subdivision and he says he doesn't go to church anymore because he did his time. You know, he paid his dues. He did what he had to do and now he's retired from God. Well, that doesn't quite cut it.

Here there's a church that is saying or that the Lord is saying that your works are more than the first. Well, what could the Lord possibly have against a church known for love and known for service for faith for patience and is increasing incline in works after all of these common commendations you still see that there's something missing and you notice something that one of our brothers brought up on Monday is that there's no doctrinal reference whatsoever here, is there? There's no testing of things like there was in the Church of Ephesus. And so where Ephesus seemed to make doctrinal soundness everything, Thyatira seemed to make religious experience everything, but what we find is that both are desperately needed. We don't want to become just like Ephesus, and we don't want to become just like Thyatira.

No, that's not what we're looking for. But what was happening most likely, it appears that in this church, love and kindness was even being extended to false teachers and soul-destroying error. That's what was happening in this church and you could you could imagine that this church was ever and always speaking on the subject of love. Maybe that was the beginning, the middle, and the ending of every sermon. Love, love, love.

But there was little to no warning or serious admonition around sin or worldliness. And so this is always a danger, right? What happens it seems is that Tyatira had lost sight of the holiness of God because of a preoccupation with mercy and love. And it's a question that we want to ask ourselves, Have we done the same? You know, you can almost truncate.

We're going through the attributes of God, and you can pick the attribute that you most like and most resonates with you. But God is simple in the sense that He's whole. He's one being. God is merciful, but He is also just. And we don't want to pit one against the other and it seems that that was what was happening here and so I think this is the lesson that the Lord wants us to take away he doesn't want us to choose between Ephesus and Thyatira but to avoid both there's There's such a thing as having love and vigilance, truth and grace, discipline and tenderness, right?

That's how we want to always be, not falling into one ditch or into the other ditch on the other side. When we come to verse 20, and here we find we go past the commendation and we come to really the central theme and the central point of the entire letter right here. It's a condemnation of this church and this is what it reads. Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. The very first words of verse 20 are the words never the less.

That word is like not withstanding. It means no matter what I have just said, nothing is going forward until we actually deal with what I'm about to say. Never the less. It's as though, you know, we gather afterwards and have our fellowship meal, and there's this 800 pound gorilla, so to speak, sitting at your table. You're not going to be worried and thinking about your food, or who prepared what.

You're going to be with an eye, most likely, or you're going to be calling for help. This is what the Lord is saying, there's a big, big problem that you're not simply going to be able to miss and get over until it's addressed. It's like the elephant in the room. It could be like a massive hole that's in the hole, and we're taking on water, but you're on the deck making sure that everyone is comfortable. We need to deal with the actual problem that's before us right here.

And so what was happening is that the glowing positive remarks of grace are being overshadowed and negated by what is being tolerated right here in this church. And it can't be overlooked. You think of it like that 800 pound gorilla in the room and all of a sudden all eyes switch to what he's about to address right here. The terrific labor, the love, it could not and it would not camouflage the dark unholiness that's being harbored here in this church. And he starts off when he says, I have a few things against you, with this really peculiar statement.

He says, you allow. You allow. Well, that word means you let be. You permit. You simply leave alone.

You don't actually address it. And this is a letter, remember, it's written to the angel of the church in Thyatira, and the angel, as we've said all along, is not some angelic being, but it's the pastor or pastors of that particular church, the messenger is all that word means. And so he's writing, the Lord is dictating this letter to John to be delivered to the elder or elders at this church. Well, you would ask the question, Well, where were the elders in the face of this threat? Were they shepherds who preferred simply not to say anything?

To live and to let live became their ministry philosophy. And maybe they were more concerned with uncertain peace and not rocking the boat. That could have been their approach to the way that they were looking at things. You know turning over stones is a messy business. If you're a child and you ever go to the backyard and you turn over a stone, you're gonna find all sorts of horrors.

If you're a boy, you'll probably enjoy that, but you'll find all sorts of insects and everything like that. It's much easier just to let the stones lie in their place and not look and see what's actually there. And you could take the philosophy of well besides with enough grace maybe things will fix themselves over the course of time. Just let things be. Well, the lack of proper government is what the Lord's dealing with here, to deal severely with sin, and it seems like they had lost sight of the glory of the Lord.

They had lost sight of their God-ordained task. As a result, we see what's happening, what Paul says to Titus when he's writing to him in his epistle about the Cretans, the people that lived on the island of Crete, how whole households were being subverted to this false teaching. And so what we find here is this perfect storm. It's really a perfect storm. And what do I mean by that?

Well there was already this encroaching culture that was pressuring Christians, pressuring every single person that lived in Thyatira to become a part of the guild. You have to live. You have to sustain your family. You have to do these things. But on top of that, that's one problem.

That is a big and significant problem. But when all of a sudden that pressure is applied to the church and it finds the church without walls, without any defenses, much like how Nehemiah found Jerusalem when he paid his first visit there, it makes for a terrible, terrible discovery. And so this is what happens is we have this woman Jezebel, and we'll probably spend the bulk of our time here today discussing this particular doctrine or this woman Jezebel. Now what I think here, you know, when you look at this is that you allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat things, sacrifice to idols. I don't think that this is an actual woman named Jezebel.

Just like when we we looked at the church of Pergamos, it wasn't Balaam himself that was there in the church of Pergamos, but it was almost like a personification that he used to describe the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. And here he's saying that this woman, and it's most likely again not a woman named Jezebel, but a woman, an individual person, most likely a woman, is Jezebel-like in her doctrine that she's bringing to the church. And there is a reason why false teachers like Jezebel here or like the Nicolaitans in Pergamos were able to attract such a following. And the reason is, is that it's much easier, it's much less costly. This was their doctrine.

It's less confrontational to be a Christian if you go about it our way. See they were still pretending. She calls herself a prophetess as though she speaks for God. And she's saying, I've kind of found a new way that you can live for God without the actual confrontation, without the difficulty. It's much easier the cost and the tolls aren't so high and all is well.

You can still lay hold of the promises and the identity, but you just have to do a few of the things that I'm also adding in. And we'll get to some of that doctrine. Well she calls herself this prophetess doesn't she? And she and what she's saying is that I'm a mouthpiece for God. What a boldness.

Like that's staggering. It's not only that she's there in the church, but she's actually saying, I speak for God. Follow me. And somehow, I don't know how it happened, but you can look around even in our culture today, but this woman had risen to prominence right within this church, and somehow she was able to be a dominant voice speaking. Well, let's consider Jezebel a little bit, spend some time with her and what she's done.

You know, among the female villains in the Bible, you could look at Potiphar's wife, and she was bad. You could look at Delilah, and she was terrible. But when you look at Jezebel and her career, it was the absolute worst. In fact, her name is a synonym for wickedness. This is what Merriam-Webster has to say.

Merriam-Webster says this, that the name Jezebel often isn't even capitalized. It simply refers to an impudent, shameless, or morally unrestrained woman. Even today, you're not going to find it to be an overly popular name. Are you like, how many people do you know named Adolf? Probably not very many.

Or how many people do you know named Nero? Probably not a whole lot. You probably don't know, I don't know someone named Jezebel. It's interesting though, it's kind of making a comeback and probably not to be surprising in our nation. In 1980, only two little baby girls were named Jezebel in 2017 there were 27 don't ask me how it's making an increase, but it's probably a sign of the times But this is the the name of the woman who is again the most wicked woman in the entirety of Scripture.

Well, let's take a look and get a flavor of her career going back to 1 Kings and chapter 16. We find that there was a political alliance being made between the northern kingdom Israel and its neighbor Sidon. And so it says in 1st Kings 16, and it came to pass in verse 31, as though it had been a trivial, listen to this, as though it had been a trivial thing for him that he took as wife, Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbol, king of the Sidonians. And that word trivial, all of us should know what that means it means small he took it as a small matter as a trifling matter that's how the book of kings describes Ahab's decision to marry this woman. And the very first act that she did as queen is that she persuaded her husband Ahab to introduce Baal worship into Israel.

Well what is Baal worship? Baal is a false god. He's the god or the false god of fertility in agriculture. And you'd say well how is this able to happen? You know you look down through the course even a woman like for example Ruth when she was a Moabite woman she came into the nation of Israel and she adopted Naomi's God.

Remember that if you look in the book of Ruth? But what happens is that Jezebel doesn't go that route. She actually influences Ahab to tolerate bail. And as you read through Ahab's kinship you get a sense of who's really in charge, who actually wears the pants in this in this rain. It's actually a terrible picture.

And what the description is of Ahab is that she influenced her husband to do more evil in God's sight quote than all who were before him That was his legacy and like the modern-day Folks that we have in our culture today screaming and bellowing for tolerance She wasn't looking for parody or equality at all. She she was driven to eliminate the worship of God In Israel That was her mandate that was her desire. It says in chapter 18 of 1 Kings, verse 4, for so it was while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord. She massacred, she gathered them, she went on a hunt, and she gathered and killed all of the prophets of the Lord, except for one who we're going to talk about in a second. And so what I want us to understand is here, very important for us, is the Lord is referencing Jezebel, because what she did physically in Israel, this Jezebel is doing spiritually in Thyatira.

It's so important that we understand this point. And you'll remember the contest. Most of the prophets are now dead, but there's one that's not dead, and there was a contest that took place on Mount Carmel where the prophet Elijah found himself in confrontation. Now think about where toleration of evil and sin had led. Listen to this statement here.

This is what Elijah cries out before he massacres and kills the prophets of Baal. He says, how long, and he's speaking to the entire nation who had come and gathered. He says, how long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal, follow Him.

He understood you can't do both. If God is God, follow Him. If Baal is Baal, follow Him. But what is the response of the people but the people answered him not a word no conviction no what waking out of their stupor They're gonna see what happens. Let's wait and see.

See, so polluted had become the nation that the people didn't quite know what to believe. Confusion had settled in. So pervasive was the doctrine that she spread that right after this he says this, Elijah laments that he is the only one left, the only prophet of the Lord that is left among the people. Well as I mentioned Elijah ends up prevailing upon these prophets. They were cutting themselves doing all this stuff, you know the story, And then he has each and every one of them executed 450 of the prophets of Baal.

These were her priests, Jezebel's priests that were massacred. Well, Elijah who was the boldest prophet in the Old Testament, when he gets news that Jezebel is on the hunt, even this boldest of the prophets flees into the wilderness and hides himself. It's this woman who was a fearful woman. She says woe be unto me if I don't do to you what you did to those men. I'm going to come after you and hunt you down.

And that's what happened. And so he goes out into the wilderness. Well over the course of time Ahab, he dies in battle, but listen to the epitaph that's on his gravestone for all eternity. But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord because Jezebel his wife stirred him up. Well she goes on to live another ten years and her son Joram becomes king in his place and of course what happens is now we have Elisha the prophet, not Elijah, but Elisha the prophet on the scene and he ends up anointing a man by the name of Jehu to reign over the northern kingdom.

Well what happens is that Joram and Jehu they meet on the field of battle and they're gonna have a war here and this is what happens Joram cries out across the field on the other side and he says, Is it peace, Jehu? So Jehu answered, What peace, so long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many? That word harlotries is fornication and whoredom. Well what happens in that battle is that Joram actually ends up dying. He gets killed and now what's happening is that the window is now closing on Jezebel.

The writing is kind of on the wall. Things are coming to an end. And rather than suing for peace, rather than falling on her face before Jehu, what does this woman do? She gets dressed in her finest. She puts on her makeup and as Jehu comes up to the palace, she gups up to the window.

She looks down on Jehu and begins to mock. It's a terrible state when you're going in a downward course like the thief on the cross, and instead of repenting, you're railing. Well, that's what this woman is doing. She rails down on Jehu. Well what happens is the two eunuchs in the window with her end up throwing her down and she ends up falling to her death, dies on the floor on the ground.

And what happens is, Jehu, after the victory, things now seem like they're calm. He goes into the palace and he eats a meal and then it occurs to him, you know what, maybe we should have her buried. Well, he goes out to have her buried, and what does he find? What Elijah had prophesied years before, that she would be eaten by dogs, is exactly what happened. And so, they went to bury her, but they found no more than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hand.

Even the dogs wouldn't touch the palms of her hands for all the wicked works that she had done. Well what is the relevance to Thyatira after looking at this career of Jezebel? Well here was a again an influential woman that was masquerading as a teacher that was sent from God and she found these people in weakness, right? Family income was threatened and even lost due to the fact that Christians couldn't be a part of the guild and still follow Christ and it dominated every aspect of life in Thyatira. Well she comes to the rescue with a message.

She becomes what you would call the minimizer of sin. She might have said something like this, you don't need to be so uptight. You're so straight-laced and legalistic. Be sensible. A man must live.

You have a wife and children, no? Think about them. Besides, we're on the cusp of a new century. We're moving on from all those things that the Jerusalem Council dictated earlier. We are saved by grace.

Anyhow, how do you expect to win all these pagan guild members to Christ if you're gonna be all standoffish with your attitude? It was this kind of idea of There's no harm in separating Sunday from Monday. The idea that you can live with a sacred and secular distinction in your life and all will be well. You can kind of neatly divide. Well, what was her teaching?

At the end, her teaching was to seduce my servants, to commit sexual immorality, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And we dare not gloss over this. We've talked about this among the elders. And when it comes to what we're going to be talking about today, Silence simply isn't an option. We don't want to go the same route as the elders in Thyatira.

And we get no pleasure, there's no glee in discussing what was happening here. But as I said last week, our heart desires to shepherd toward righteousness and to truth, to declare the things that are right, to lead us toward the light, because we all need it. We're all but men and women. Well that sexual immorality is, the word for that is pornea, and It covers a wide span of sexual sins, and it's alive and well this doctrine of Jezebel, isn't it, today. And Christ wants us to know his thoughts.

Because what was happening is that instead of being servants of his will and his commands, They were being enslaved by another. And so I want to suggest this morning three ways to address it. And really the end goal of all of what I'm going to share with us now is restoration through repentance, not destruction. But hear what Ignatius said, it is impossible for a man to be freed from the habit of sin before he hates it. You will not be free from your habit of sin until you're brought to actually hate it.

And so I want us to see the evil, see the commands, and then see the promises. Now what the danger is and what might be the danger if you're struggling, if you're facing this challenge, this sin, is, you know, you want to rush to the one side to be healed lightly. That's a danger for sure and on the other side there's another danger to leave us hopeless to leave in total and utter shame. There's there's dangers on both sides but but with a spirit of grace and compassion We want to take a look at these things but also with a spirit of truth. So we start off with with seeing the evil.

And I want to look at the target audience. Who is it? He's saying that the target audience of Jezebel in this church are my servants. They're my servants. They're people that have been blood bought.

And she's going after them just like she did in the nation of northern Israel those many years before. And what is her mission? It's to dim the eye. It's to convince them that what is holy and pure isn't to be valued. But it's that which is dark and evil that brings the greatest and the most pleasure.

This is what Spurgeon says. He says, if the heart is foul the eye will be dim. How can those men see a holy God who love unholy things? And so her wager, her bet is this, she understands something that probably, unfortunately, many in Christendom and at least American Christianity don't understand and that is you cannot serve God and poor Neah. You cannot.

You will hate the one and cleave to the other. This was the focal point of Baal worship. It was a demonic perversion of God's gift of sexuality. This is always the thing that is so terrible is that God gives a good thing and what does Satan do? He twists it and distorts it and makes it so detestable and sinful.

It was an abomination to God. And you'll remember a few months ago, for those of you that were here, we traced some of the origins of the moral revolution. We talked about things like divorce and the sexual freedom of the 1960s and birth control, abortion, the growth of the LGBT movement, but perhaps the most lucrative aspect of the moral revolution is pornography. This is the second biggest threat to the church. So powerful because it appeals what?

It appeals to the most basic, powerful, physical drive in men. This is so important. It renders men who are created in God's image to take dominion and to conquer in His name, quibbling addicts who can't barely lift their eyes to look you in the eye because of this thing going on inside of them. It's what some call the new narcotic. It has addictive power that you need to be set free from.

And it renders people just a shell over the course of time, gutted, empty, as they stand upon their feet. Well, how bad could it be, really, in our culture? Well, consider the tightness of her grip, even now, in our society. It used to be that baseball was America's pastime, but no longer the case. America's pastime is really pornography.

And what I mean by that is the pornography industry brings in more revenue than Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL altogether. That gives you a sense of what things are like. And you know, it used to be that you could counsel your family and you know say, hey let's put a computer to defend against this in a central area within the house. And that way It helps just make sure that no one's going on things because it's in a central area where everyone can see. Well now 70% of all pornography is being consumed through a mobile device.

And this is the challenge when we look not at the church but at the culture is that 80% of porn users, 80% feel zero guilt when using porn. What is this evidence of? It's evidence of the normalization of it, and it's evidence of the deadening effects on the conscience, this hardening that gives way to searing and loss of any sensibility. This is what's happening in the broader culture, but are we so foolish to think it's not happening here? I looked at many statistics on what's going on in the church and I said I'm not going to bring those in today just because they are glaring.

There's many statistics. You can go look them up yourself. But let me say this, that Baal worship is more prominent today in the spiritual Israel. Spiritually speaking than it was back then. Let's leave it at that for now.

Millions of men presenting themselves as religious while harboring virtual mental libraries of millions of pornographic images in their minds. This is a spiritual disease and what's so bad about it is that it's a silent epidemic that is more destructive than black plague in the church. Well I said it's the second biggest problem, right? What's worse than pornography? What's worse than the scourge of pornography is the lackadaisical attitude that so many Christians have towards it.

This is the greatest threat. I was reading one pastor who deals with this regularly, and this is what he said. He says, many who quote unquote struggle really just want to be assured of God's love for them as they enjoy a love-hate relationship with pornography. And this is the problem, it was the toleration of the teaching of Jezebel that the Lord Jesus was coming against. Not so much her teaching only, but the toleration.

You allow this woman Jezebel to continue in this way. Thomas Watson on the indulgence of sin said it like this, he says, many deal with their sins as Moses mother dealt with her son now look this man is amazing he says she hid him in the Ark of bulrushes as if she had left him quite but her eye was still upon him and in conclusion she became his nurse so many may seem to leave their sins but they only hide them and at last they nurse and give breast to their sins don't deal with your sin like this could it be that you were minimizing the evil and that's why you haven't been brought to hate it and that's why you haven't been brought to repentance? You kind of live in an uneasy coexistence? Well, how does pornography harm you? Let me say very clearly that it wrecks your walk with the Lord.

It actually, you know what it's actually doing is it's actually rewiring your brain. This is not just me saying this is scientific. It's rewiring your brain to love darkness. Like this is not some little thing you can just get over, you know. It devastates marriages, both current and if you're a young man, your future marriage as well.

It opens the door for fornication and adultery. Don't just think it ends, but it opens the door like nothing else. It destroys your view of the opposite sex that are created in God's image. It obliterates self-control and that cascades into all other areas of your life. Instead of being a conqueror, again you become a quibbling addict.

Well what we need to see is this, that we're not participating in something even more severe and that is outright infidelity. And you develop, this is what happens, you can develop an emotional distance from others and you become more reclusive. All these things can happen, maybe, maybe not. If you're married, again it's unfaithfulness to your wife, but here's also something I want you to consider, that you've been united to Christ. Here, consider this.

You've been united to Christ, the bridegroom, but you just kind of take your ring off every now and then to go about your own escapades. That cannot be. Praise be to God that we have such a husband as Christ that goes to chase us down just like he's doing in the in the church of Tyatira. Because if you don't see things in the light that I'm describing them, Every attempt to be free is going to fall flat. Well, the Lord not only wants us to see the evil, but He gives us commands.

And you can go through this because while Jezebel is on a mission, so is the Lord. And his mission is the recovery of His saints, my servants. That's what he wants to do. And this is what it says in 1st Thessalonians, in 1st chapter 4. He says, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexually immoral or pornea, that you, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God and Then he says something to the church not to the ungodly Because the Lord is the avenger or punisher of all such as we also forewarned you and testified.

For God did not call us to uncleanness, but to holiness. Is it shocking to you that God would in the church punish those who persist in this sin? If you look at the Sermon on the Mount, and we can't go through all the Scriptures, there's so many of them, but the Lord sees lust as so destructive that he suggests amputation, a plucking out of the eye, a cutting off of the hand, so to speak, figuratively speaking. But what he's saying is you need to go to extreme measures that you might not have ever considered and it may disable you in some way. But go to those measures because your soul is at stake.

He understood this. Go to any length to be free. Well there's not only commands to put off, to cut off, to abstain, to pluck out, but there's so many beautiful commands in Scripture, I can't go through all of them, but often what you find especially with Paul's writing is he says on the one side put off, but as you're putting off I also want you to put on. See this is the I think a good way to fight because all you do is put off you leave yourself oftentimes with a vacancy but he's saying fill that vacancy with good things this is what he says after 11 chapters in Romans of telling them the doctrine doctrine upon doctrine He now tells him in chapter 13 how I want you to live. And he says, and do this, do this, knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the day, Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy, but he says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. And so there's so many commands.

He wants you to see the evil. He wants us also to see the commands that he's given for us to be able to conquer these things. And you go to verse 21 and what do we find? We read these startling words, and I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality and she did not repent. Some translations render it, she did not want to repent.

Amazing. It's astounding. And this is what I want you to understand here. If this is your sin that we're talking about this morning, understand this is that if he extends mercy and calls the very source Jezebel to repentance, can he not give you and grant you repentance? That's exactly what he's doing.

Now if he saved a man like Manasseh, the most wicked of all the kings, can he not save you? See the fountain for sin and uncleanness is still open for those who come to Christ. Notice that it's not just repent, but he says specifically, repent of her sexual immorality. And this is the idea of true repentance. It carries with it the idea of forsaking actual sins that you're guilty of, not just this broad, vague generality.

Well, it seems like there were probably some attempts to deal. He gave her some time to repent, but she refused, she rebuffed them. She says, I don't want it, thank you very much, I'll continue on my own way. But all this did would be to aggravate her guilt before the Lord. And there are some today, even in our midst today, whom the Lord has given time to repent.

Are you repenting? Are you going to respond to this little space? There's an expiration date on the call to repentance. See, what the Lord says in Isaiah 55, He says this, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near.

Then he goes on to say, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and what? He will have mercy on him. To what extent? And to our God, and he will abundantly pardon.

You see, but there's an expiration date on the call. What will you do when the Lord says repent? Whether you're currently on the fringes, dabbling in all sorts of this type of evil and naming the name of Christ, or whether you've never bowed the knee, there's an expiration date on the call to repentance. And my counsel is today if you will hear his voice. Please don't harden your heart.

Well, we go on and he says this, Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation unless they repent of their deeds. Notice this, that there are consequences to delayed repentance or delaying it and not turning. There's consequences to dismissing the day of the Lord's visitation to you. Don't let it pass, is what he's saying. Don't let the window close.

Just like the Lord destroyed her in the days of Elisha, He's going to do the same thing to her here. And this is the irony. She wants a bed. She's propagating all sorts of evil things within the church. I'll give her a bed, but it won't be with any pleasure or pain.

And this is the lot of those who reject the kindness of the Lord. All they do is inherit things that they wish they had never inherited. Oh how I had listened to the voice of my teachers, says the writer of Proverbs. Well verse 23 says, and I will kill her children with death. Is this the Lord Jesus Christ?

And all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the mind and the hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works. And this is so dangerous, again, going back to just over emphasizing certain aspects of Christ, so that when you read something like this it seems utterly foreign. But maybe have a full picture of a God of love but also a God of justice, a God of holiness, and a God of mercy. He says I will kill, I think, I can't think of stronger words in the entire Bible. And he says I'm going to kill her children.

Now we're not talking about little babies and toddlers here. What he's saying spiritually speaking is her offspring, her disciples, those that are following in her way. That's who I'm going to wreak vengeance against. And then he says not only will I kill her children but with death. It's as though he's saying I will kill her children with the second death, the lake of fire.

They will be in an unrecoverable position for all of eternity unless they repent. And he's doing this. Why is he taking such drastic action? He tells us right there he wants all the churches to know what? That I am he who searches the minds and the hearts.

None of us, believer or unbeliever, are outside the gaze of Christ with those eyes like a flame of fire. And what he's saying is really I want the church. I'm saying all these things to the end that the church would once again get serious about holiness and dealing with sin versus tolerance of it. It's as though he's building up a monument for all time, a lot's wife that turned into a pillar of salt so that everyone would know do not go this way, don't look back, Follow hard after me. This is basically what he's saying.

But here's the beauty of it in this church, like all churches. In verses 24 and 25, we read these words. It says, Now to you I say and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden, but hold fast what you have till I come." You see, Not everyone was involved in this church. Everyone was subjected to this letter, weren't they? The one that we just were going through.

This is the way that the Lord deals with his people. Everyone is subject to the letter, but not everyone is actually enslaved in this bondage. It turns out it's not all darkness. Just like in the days of Elijah, the Lord comforts him. He says, hey, I still have seven thousand that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, and every mouth has not kissed him.

That's what it says in 1 Kings 19. He makes reference to the depths of Satan as they say. And my thought on this, you know, is that it's unlikely that the the followers, the offenders, call their designs the depths of Satan. That's normally not how this works. Normally you get heretical sex and false teachers that they mask their designs like what it says in 2nd Corinthians, the devil masks himself or masquerades as an angel of light.

Most likely what's happening is that they call their teachings the deep things. What I mean by that is mysteries, new truths, new revelations, new ways to please and get to God. What happens is Christ seems to be enlarging on that and he calls them, as he sees them, the deep things of Satan. Just like he said into the church in Smyrna, the synagogue of Satan. They were a synagogue but he attaches what he sees them to actually be.

And he says, I will put on you no other burden. I thought this was so beautiful. After such difficulty He comes with tenderness to those who haven't yet involved themselves in these things and he's telling them to do what? Hold fast, keep carefully what I've been telling you, continue in them, be warned of them. And I think there's a danger here, especially when you look at the tone of a letter like this, it's a danger to resort to legalism or to what Ephesus was guilty of, right?

To build walls around the walls or to put laws around the laws to kind of, you know, adopt a Phariseeism, but the Lord is saying don't do that. I'm gonna put on you no other burden, abide in what I've already taught you. I want you to just live as Christians, continue to love and serve and do those things, live as my people in the world. Well, what have we seen that to combat the doctrine of Jezebel I said we have to foresee the evil, come face to face with it. We also have to see the commands of God as well.

But how about the promises, the promises to him who overcomes. And this is so beautiful because what a thing it is you've offended God you've been brought into correction by God but what a thing it is to have your hopes rekindled by Christ himself especially when you've been brought low and so what's interesting in this letter is that it's the longest letter it receives the most lengthy correction and condemnation but guess what it also receives the most lengthy promises It's amazing how the Lord deals with us. And it says this, And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessel, as I also gave, as I also received from my father, and I will give him the morning star." Well what happens is he introduces them once again to who they are in Christ.

They're not those quibbling addicts. Because he has overcome, my servants will overcome. It's this language that he's taking from Psalm chapter 2 it's this continuing theme of the feet like fine brass It's this idea of the Son of God. If you read in Psalm chapter 2, it elaborates on the actual reign of the Lord and God and His Son working together where it says in verse 7, yet, yet, even though everything is looks like it's falling apart the nations are raising up and saying all these different things yet I will set my king on my holy hill you see what he's doing is he's pointing to something so much greater than the kingdom of darkness that maybe some of us are enslaved to. Something so much more noble, something so much more sure, something that's eternal that he is going to bring to pass.

That's what he wants his people to know. Stop leaning on the arms of Jezebel compared to the fragile shards of pleasure that she offers. Look what I offer. If God be God, serve Him. You're more than conquerors in Christ.

Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. He's given you all things that pertain to life and to godliness. All enemies are going to be put under those feet of brass. Just, he's telling them be be strong in the fight. You see the evil, you see the commands, but I also want you to lay hold of those promises.

Because this is what all of us need to know, is that there is power in the gospel. Not only for pardon, but also for deliverance. See, there's power in Christ. Get acquainted again if you haven't been. And he says I'm going to give you something even better.

Just like he says to the church in Pergamos, he talks about the hidden manna and the white stone. He says I will give you the morning star. And this is himself. He's saying, I'm going to give you myself. I am your husband.

I am the reward. This is so beautiful. He says, this morning star is like a picture. I'm the harbinger of a new day, of a new age that's coming, that's already dawning. This is really what the whole book of Revelation is about, that there is a new day in Christ, and that we're no longer be slaves in the kingdom of darkness, what we've been saved from, but there's coming a day in the future that this corruption will put on in corruption, this mortal will put on immortality.

Conduct yourselves in such a way. I will give you the morning star. And so that's my hope for you today, is that you will rekindle your hopes on what is truly beautiful. What is truly beautiful, Christ himself, his promises, his creation, everything that he's given us so richly to enjoy. You should do things if you've got, if you're fighting this.

Get software, get an accountability partner, obey the commands, do those things, but above all set your heart on what is truly beautiful. That is the key to victory. So what will you say to these things? What will I say to these things today? If you find yourself in the bondage of this, if you are one of the my servants, enslaved in the sin of pornea in one form or another, if you maybe never even bowed the knee to Christ.

What the Lord wants you to know is this, whereas Jezebel has come to slit your throat as it were and walk over your body, your carcass as the life blood flows out, He wants you to know that I have come, that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly. How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. Follow Him. But if Baal, keep going.

Follow Him. But be done. Hear Christ, what He's saying. You cannot serve God and idols. You cannot.

And I want you to just reflect on the promises reflect on the commands please the last thing I would just say don't be like the people don't be like the people in Elijah's day but the people answered him not a word don't be like that Turn to the Lord if He's giving you time to repent as He did even to Jezebel. Don't be like her, but run to Him. He ends with these words, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Amen. Father, we pray today that you would give us all ears to hear.

Father, my prayer is that you would banish my words, anything I said that doesn't reflect exactly what you would have said, and that you would, through your spirit, reason with your people. Oh Lord, that you would rekindle hope. Oh Lord, that you would allow us to see the horror of the evil and that we would no longer tolerate it Lord. But oh Father, set the captive free. That's what you came to do, not only to open the prison doors, but Lord to go in and to loose the fetters and to bring us out into new life.

May you do that today. Oh Lord, do that. Look upon us, we ask you. We kindle our hope in you and our love for you and change us Lord and we will be changed in Jesus name we pray amen