October 8, 2000

Thyatira: The Corrupted Church

Rev. 2:18

For the last three weeks in our study of Revelation, we heard what the Lord had to say to the churches at Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamos. Today we look at Thyatira, and we are going to take a look at the whole situation from a couple other viewpoints also. Something that I mentioned back at the start of this study is that the seven churches in Revelation exhibit progressive characteristics of what the church is like throughout the whole church age, and today is a good time to start to see how that works.

Along with our seven churches there is something else that is really fascinating, over in Matthew 13 Jesus tells seven parables; the sower of seed, the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed, the woman and the leaven, the hidden treasure, the pearl of great price, and the dragnet. Jesus tells us that those parables are the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and when we look at those parables relative to the church age, in some places they mirror what has happened to the church, and in other places they reveal Israel, and also, the world in the last days, and I hope to start weaving all these things together today.

There is a chart in your bulletins, it is not inspired, it has no divine sanction, and there are some Bible scholars that would argue against the theory behind it. But I like it, and I think it fits church history just dandy. I try and keep things simple and practical: if you look at something, and it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it walks like a duck, and lives in the pond, treat it like a duck until somebody convinces you otherwise. This chart's application for understanding church history and God's plan for this present age fits together awfully well, and it's too helpful to ignore, so I'm going to use it until somebody can convince me it's not a duck.

Turn to Matthew 13, probably all of us remember the generalities of the parables that Jesus told in this chapter, the first one was the sower that went out to sow, some seeds fell by the wayside and birds came and ate the seed. Some seeds fell on stony places, sprang up and withered. Some fell among thorns and were choked, some fell on good ground and brought forth a hundredfold, or sixtyfold, or thirtyfold.
When Jesus finished telling that parable, the disciples asked Him why He spoke to the people in parables. He tells them in verse 11; "It is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but not to them. It's a mystery; you get to know, but they don't."

The mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Lets talk about kingdoms for a minute. Bible scholars tells us that there are seven different uses for the term kingdom in the Bible. There are gentile kingdoms, like Babylon or Rome, that is kind of simple, I don't think we need to explain that. There is the kingdom of Israel and Judah, that's kind of self explanitory, and then there is the kingdom of Satan, very simple.
Then there are two that are not so obvious, God's universal kingdom, and His spiritual kingdom, what are those? His spiritual kingdom would be all the saved of all the ages, all that have ever been born again by the Holy Spirit, and His universal kingdom would be His spiritual kingdom plus all the holy angels.
The kingdom of David would be the millennial kingdom, where God keeps His promises to David, and it will be set up at the end of the tribulation, it lasts for a thousand years.

The mystery kingdom is us, the church. All through the Old Testament it was known that God was going to establish His kingdom on earth, but it was never revealed how He was going to do it. In a number of places Paul refers to the church as a mystery, God dwelling among His people, unknown to the Old Testament saints, but revealed by the Gospel. Part of that mystery is how Jesus Christ came to establish that kingdom but was rejected. He will come again to establish God's kingdom and He will succeed.

The mystery of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 13 is the form that the kingdom would take while the King is absent. The parables of Matthew 13 reveal the mystery of what the kingdom would be like while the King is away. If you don't keep that in mind when you read the seven parables of Matthew 13, you won't understand what He is saying, the parables describe what the kingdom of God will be like from Pentecost until the Lord returns.

Now; if Jesus is giving an overview of what the kingdom of God will be like from Pentecost until He comes again, then we ought to see some relationship between the parables and the last 2,000 years of history, right? Something to help us understand it is what Jesus tells us in verse 51; "Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord." They didn't. They were just nodding their heads, they didn't have a clue.

"Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." Is there anything in this chapter that could equate to a house, or a householder, or things new or old? Look close; everything in the Bible is in there for a reason.
Look at verse one of chapter 13; "The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side." And He told four parables. In verse 36 we discover; "Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house" and then He told three other parables. If we assume that Jesus is referring to Himself as the householder in this situation, and if we divide the parables by Him bringing out of His treasure four things, and then three things, and then figure out from the context which are new or old, we find that it all fits together.

What was the first parable? A new thing. The sower, the seed, and the soil, that would be the proclamation of the kingdom, the good news of the Gospel being spread all over the world.
And sure enough, there was and still is good soil, bad soil, birds to eat the seed, thorns to choke it out, and an abundant return. This aspect of the kingdom of heaven has continued from Pentecost even until now.

It was especially descriptive of the church at Ephesus, they labored, they were in at the beginning, on the ground floor so to speak, they started good, had a good crop, but they also had hard thorny ground, and over the years, that particular church was choked out. Something we mentioned before, Bible names mean something, Ephesus means desired or permitted, and that is a good description of that first church, Jesus loved them even when they left their first love, Him, and they did get off to a good start, they were permitted success.

The second church was the church at Smyrna, and the word Smyrna means myrrh, as in Frankincense and myrrh, myrrh is very fragrant, it was used for purification, and it is very bitter. Smyrna was the church that suffered bitter persecution, there was 300 years of Roman emperors that persecuted and tried to destroy the church, starting with Nero, and ending with Diocletian. In His letter to the church at Smyrna, Jesus praises that church, it is a church that was a sweet fragrance to Him, He has no word of rebuke for it, it is a church suffering great tribulation. When we compare Smyrna with Jesus' second parable in Matthew 13, the wheat and the tares, we see once again a new situation relevant to that particular church, and to the church age as a whole. In the parable of the wheat and the tares, a farmer sows good seed in his field, but then an enemy comes along and sows bad seed in it also, and the two crops grow side by side until the end of the age. During the history of the church at Smyrna, Satan began to attack the church, attack the kingdom of heaven, both through worldly powers, and also from those that began to come into the church with false doctrine, and this situation continues up until the end of the church age.

The third church that Jesus sends a letter to is the church at Pergamos, and the name Pergamos means height, or elevation, however several reliable Bible commentators say that it also means "married," and that fits perfectly. The church had been persecuted by the Roman emperors until the time of Constantine, maybe some of you remember that he was the one that saw a vision of the cross up in the sky, and the words; "In this sign, conquer." Constantine made all his soldiers paint crosses on their shields, and he required all his armies to be baptized. Suddenly, the church had become married to the state, and overnight, Christianity became respectable, and not just respectable, it became mandatory. Pagan priests that had been paid by the emperor got baptized so that they could keep their jobs. They turned their pagan temples into churches, and replaced their idols with Christian saints. They even kept the same feast days for the heathen gods, they just changed the description to suit the new Christian climate of the times.
Jesus had warned the church at Pergamos to beware the doctrine of Balaam, avoid intermarriage between believers and unbelievers, and now the church turned out to be throughly married to the world.
How does that fit in with the third parable that Jesus told in Matthew 13, the one about the mustard seed? Turn over there, verse 31:
"Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
:32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."
When Barbara and I went to Israel a couple years ago, we saw a mustard plant that was near the garden tomb where Jesus was buried and rose from the dead. It was tall and spindly, probably about 15 feet high, and a sort of yellowish-green color, but very thin and fragile looking. I remember thinking at the time, "No way a bird could build a nest in that thing, it is too spindly." When the church began, it was the least of all beginnings, then it grew and spread, and then something went wrong. God never intended for the church to be married to the state and grow big and powerful into the unnatural monstrosity that it became.

Birds in scripture almost always symbolize uncleanness, and that is true here. The kingdom of heaven's mustard plant grew to an unnatural strength and power, and unclean things came and built their nests in it.
The enemy started out sowing tares in the field of God's church, and now he has built a nest right in the middle of it, and that situation will continue throughout the church age. There is much that claims the name of Christianity today that is exactly what Jesus warned about to the church at Smyrna and at Pergamos, and exactly as He described in parables in Matthew 13.

Which brings us to the fourth church that the Lord wrote to, Thyatira, so turn to Revelation 2:18.
"And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;
:19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.
:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
:22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
:23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
:24 But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.
:25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I come.
:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.
:28 And I will give him the morning star.
:29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

In His appearance here, we see Jesus not as the Son of Man, the lowly Jesus meek and mild, but we see Him as one that comes to judge and discipline. He refers to Himself as "the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;" and the whole picture here is of holiness, a piercing, burning gaze, a hardness and firmness for a situation that He has come to judge.

Verse 19; "I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first."
In some ways, this church is better than any of the previous churches. They start off with works, and then they are notable for service, they have spiritual growth, He mentions their faith and patience, and then He mentions works again, and the last ones are even better than the first ones.
This church had a lot going for it, they were faithful, reliable, loyal, from what the Lord has to say about it here, it is a going, growing church, it had a lot to recommend it.

But it was like a beautiful person with a cancer inside, and the cancer was immorality. This church is kind of the opposite of the church at Ephesus; Ephesus could not tolerate false apostles, but it was a church without love. This is a church that has a lot of love, but it tolerates evil, a false apostle, in this case a false prophetess referred to as Jezebel.
Verse 20; "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols."
Something I have noticed in my 54 years on this earth, there are two names that you very seldom hear anybody name their children, one of them is Judas, and the other is Jezebel. Sometimes you will hear of women named Isabel, which is uncomfortably close to the Hebrew pronunciation of ishah-baal, the wife of Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility. The wife of Baal was named Astarte, or Ashtaroth, and she was the goddess of war, love, and fertility.

Because of the way that the Lord refers to this woman at Thyatira as Jezebel, something I think is important for us to realize, there is a spirit, a demonic spirit behind this particular influence just as there is any other false god. When you compare idols, gods, goddesses, demons, from one culture to another, one nation to another, there is almost an exact correlation between gods, goddesses, demons, in every culture and nation around the world. That is not a coincidence, it is because any given demon will represent itself the same way no matter what culture it is in. That is part of what Paul is saying when he tells us in Ephesians 6:12; "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." This is a perfect example of that. The same evil spirit that possessed the woman Jezebel during the days of Elijah was at work in Thyatira, working to corrupt that church just as Jezebel was working to corrupt Israel a thousand years earlier. Different woman, same game plan, Jesus names this woman with the name of the same demonic power that controlled the other Jezebel.

What was her game plan? What were her techniques? What sort of characteristics did she have?
Verse 20; she called herself a prophetess, and she taught and seduced Christians to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols, notice how that keeps coming up over and over. Bill asked the question Wednesday night if I didn't think that eating meats sacrificed to idols was only a sin if you stumbled up another Christian, and I used to, but not any more, and in a minute, you'll see why.

Verse 21; "And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not."
Verse 24; But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak."
This woman claimed to see things and have visions from God, and she and her followers claimed to have a deeper knowledge of spiritual things than the average Christian, what Jesus calls the "so-called" deep things of the occult. She taught her followers that their so called "deeper knowledge" of spiritual mysteries and the occult allowed them to do sexual immoralities in the flesh without corrupting themselves piritually, so they thought.

If we were to go back and do a study of Jezebel in the Old Testament, we would notice a number of character and personality traits about her, and I think it would be worth while for us to consider some of those briefly. She was a very ambitious woman, and she was a very manipulative woman, she was able to control her husband King Ahab, with her tongue. She was disrespectful of her husband the king, she was more strong willed than he was, and she would usurp his authority for her own advantage. She was a very mouthy woman, she would yell at men that she disliked, and she would use her sexual attractiveness to attempt to seduce men to her advantage. And finally, she was a woman who never repented, she was strong willed, she would never admit that she was wrong, finally she was thrown from a window to her death as she was running her mouth at Jehu, God's anointed king in Ahab's place.

Needless to say, Jesus has harsh words of judgement for this Jezebel of Thyatira and her followers; verse 22; "Behold, I will cast her into a bed," -that would refer to a bed of affliction or sickness- "and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
:23 And I will kill her children" -her spiritual offspring- " with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works."
Jesus is saying that He will personally work to destroy and root out this cult, and he will be very severe in His judgement of it.

Where does this fit our overview of church history? This is the church as it was from around 800 A.D. up through around 1500 A.D. The name Thyatira means "continual sacrifice", and this was the time when the church developed the doctrine of the Mass, which teaches that the bread and the wine literally becomes the actual flesh and blood of Christ when the priest consecrates it, that in the Mass, Christ is continuously offered over and over, and that Christians are saved by continuously partaking of that offering.

This was the time that saw the growth of the Papacy, the Pope becoming incredibly powerful, and the church leading the way into the Dark Ages of superstition. Jesus refers to Jezebel as one who calls herself a prophetess, one who would speak mysteries from God, and now that particular church teaches that when the Pope speaks Ex Cathedra, he speaks infallibly, without error. There is a tragic contrast here between what happens when the pure Bride of Christ is corrupted into a Jezebel, the bride exchanges her purity for unfaithfulness, she no longer honors her Lord.

This is also the time of the fourth parable that Jesus told in Matthew 13, the parable of the woman and the leaven. In this parable, Jesus tells them; "The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Leaven, or yeast was symbolic throughout the Old Testament for corruption, so it was not used in the Levitical offerings, or the Passover bread. I guess most anybody knows, even if you have a whole lot of dough, it only takes a little tiny bit of yeast to make the bread rise, it will spread itself through out the dough. Some people have tried to say that this parable means that even a little bit of Gospel will eventually work it's way through people and culture, and eventually everybody will hear the gospel, or get saved, but that's not what it means.
The leaven spreading through the meal is similar to the out of control mustard plant, even though things might look sort of normal from the outside, inside things have gone all wrong. As the kingdom grows and swells, it will become all corrupted on the inside, in it's membership, and in it's doctrine and practices.

As we think about the church in the Dark Ages, it seems like the overwhelming impression was of corruption as the church tried to combine Christianity with heathen practices. It was also during this time that the church began to take Mary, the mother of our Lord and exalt her to the level of a female deity through whom intercession and prayers to God were made. This has continued all the way to the present time, and now Mary is referred to as a "co-redemptrix" with Christ, and unless you find favor with her, there is no salvation.

At the same time in history, the church began to introduce idols in the form of religious statues, and the Lord anticipates all of this when He speaks of the spiritual fornication that was going on at Thyatira.
Think about the part where the Lord speaks of how Jezebel taught them to eat things sacrificed to idols, and then compare that to the Mass. What was intended to be the Lord's Supper has been transformed into something where a priest offers a sacrifice of a cup and a wafer to an idol of Jesus on a cross, then they claim that it becomes His actual flesh and blood, and then they eat it and drink it. How is that different than the Israelites offering part of a sacrifice to a golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain, and then sitting down to eat the rest of that sacrifice themselves? That's why I think it is not only wrong to eat something offered in sacrifice to an idol if it is going to stumble up another brother, but if you know that it is sacrificed to an idol then you should not eat it yourself, those Israelites didn't have to wonder about stumbling anybody, it was just plain wrong. And by extension, that would make it wrong for a Christian that understands what is going on in the Mass to partake of that wafer and cup, it is not the Lord's Supper, it is a sacrifice offered to an idol, and then proclaimed to be the genuine flesh and blood sacrifice of Jesus. It makes no difference if the idol looks like we think Jesus looked hanging on a cross, or wether it looks like a golden calf, the principle is the same.

In contrast to thousands of priests offering the supposedly literal body and blood of Christ afresh every week, listen to what the Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:10; "We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
:11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering often times the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
:12 But this man,-Jesus Christ- after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
:13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.
:14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are -present tense- sanctified."
Obviously Hebrews is talking about the Old Testament priestly offering, but the principle is the same.
The weakest and poorest Christian, trusting in the one offering of Jesus Christ on the cross is as perfected forever in the eyes of God as he will ever be, and no other offering is ever needed, or wanted, or accepted.

That is enough negative, how about a little something positive? Something that we need to remember, even in those Dark Ages, there were still true believers in the church, just as there are certainly true believers in a similar church situation today, and Jesus has words of comfort and encouragement for them.
Verse 24; "But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.
:25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I come."
I believe that there are true Christians in that church situation, they are trusting Christ alone for salvation, they are doing the best they know how with what they have to work with, and Jesus has accepted them through faith.
Verse 26; "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:
:27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.
:28 And I will give him the morning star.
:29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

Something that I need to bring out, as we look at these seven different churches in succession, as we go through history, as each new church age begins, it doesn't terminate the preceding one. The spirit of the church at Ephesus will continue right up until Jesus comes again, the spirit of Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira and the others will continue until Jesus comes again. The world is full of churches right now that have the spirit of Ephesus, they are busy, busy, busy, but where is their love for the Lord? They have left their first love. There are churches like Smyrna, under bitter persecution, Christians in China being martyred, Christians in India, Pakistan, Africa, Cambodia, there have been more Christian martyrs in this last century than any other, did you know that? It's true.
Smyrna, the suffering church, is still with us, and the Lord has nothing but praise for them, not a word of rebuke.

How about Pergamos? The church throughly married to the world, big churches, wealthy churches, using the world, and being used by the world, until every foul bird of the air can come and find a place to live in them. And Thyatira. We can readily recognize all these practices that the Lord condemns going on in certain churches all over the world, but look at what He tells that small remnant of true believers that are in it, but not of it:
Verse 25; "What you've got, hold fast until I come." I take that to mean that this church is still going to be here when the Lord returns to take us all away.
Boy are they going to be surprised, because that church doesn't teach a rapture, and suddenly that faithful little remnant is going to be with Jesus when they least expect it. I don't think they'll mind...
Verse 28; "And I will give him the morning star." What is the morning star? Jesus is the Morning Star.
Jesus has His own faithful remnant within even the most Thyatiran of churches, and He will come for them as well as for all true believers, and He will be their reward.

That's about as far as we have time to go today, but there is one more loose end that I need to tie up, and that is the part in Matthew 13 where we said that Jesus gave us a clue when He told us that the house holder would bring out of his treasures things new and old. The four parables that we have looked at today were all the new things of the kingdom of heaven. The sower, the seed and the soils is the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven. The parable of the wheat and the tares is a false growth, an imitation growing alongside of and within the kingdom of heaven. The mustard tree is an overgrown, abnormal extension of the kingdom of heaven, and the leaven in the meal is an insidious corruption of the kingdom of heaven from the inside out. Next Sunday we will learn about the old things that the householder brings out of his treasure; the church at Sardis, how that fits in with the Protestant Reformation, and hopefully some more personal applications as we get closer to the present in our study of the churches.

Something that is really scarey as we go through this study: every church on earth is going to be like one of these seven churches, and every Christian is going to have personal traits like the Christians in one of these seven churches. This is not old history, this is us, but which church are we like? And which believers in these churches do we resemble, which of the Lords words to His churches apply the most to us? We will be making that part of the study more personal over the next several weeks, pray that the Lord will help you, and me, all of us to see which of these admonitions fit us the closest; both as individuals and a church, to be obedient, to be admonished, and to be the opposite of Jezebel; to hear, and repent, and be faithful.