Good morning, Calvary Chapel. Hey, man, Sister, thank you for
the delivery of that very eloquent delivery of the
announcements this morning. Thank you so much.
Praise and worship team. Thank you so much for that very
anointed time of praise and worship.
What a blessing that was between that and the and the prayer.
Wow, it was hard to move. It was a blessing.
I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bibles with me this morning
to the second chapter of the book of Revelations.
And we're going to look at we're going to start at verse 18.
And while you're doing that, I would like to just send out a
warm welcome to those who are watching on the different
platforms, whether it's on Facebook or if you're watching
on Grace FM or any platform that you may be watching on.
We, we want to welcome you. Also, those of you who are with
us this morning from behind prison walls, we want to welcome
you as well. We thank you for your choosing
to worship with us this morning. Why don't we pray that we can go
into the word of Godfather? We thank you for your
Providence. We thank you for Your grace and
Your mercy that You extend to us every single day.
We thank You, Father, that You are so gracious that You give us
Your Word, that You love us that much, that You give us Your word
that we may know You, that we may know Your ways, we may know
Your heart. We asked this morning, Father,
that You would make Your word real for us.
Lord, open up our hearts, open up our minds that we may
understand Your Word and give us that.
Will Lord, give us that desire to want to live out Your word,
that we won't be hearers only, but that we would be doers, nor
will we be forgetful hearers, but that we will be doers of
Your Word. Lord, every day may we endeavor
to be led by your Holy Spirit to do Your will.
I pray this morning, Lord, that someone is set free, that you
would take the shackles off of someone's minds and hearts this
morning, and may someone be set free.
May someone leave here today as a believer in the recipient of
your salvation. Father, we ask all these things
in the name of our Savior and our Lord in Jesus name we pray,
Amen. Well, as we take a short look
back at the the churches that we've already talked about.
Now we're in the in the process of the Book of Revelation.
We're in that portion where we are now looking at the things
that he that are now. The things that are happening
now, this is the church age. And in doing so, he talked to
the Church of Ephesus. He wrote a letter to the Church
of Ephesus. He wrote a letter to the Church
of Smyrna, and of course, the Church of Pergamus.
And now we're going to be looking at the letter that he's
written to the Church of Thyatira.
But what I want to point out initially is that there is a
progression. If you look at the things that
he's saying to these churches in his condemnation, these
churches, or his warnings to these churches, there is a
progression. For example, in the book of the
letter to Ephesus, he warned them about them leaving their
first love. In the book of Smyrna, there was
a persecuted church and there was no warning for them.
It was just a blessing and encouragement for them to
continue even in the midst of their persecution and the
suffering that they were going through.
But in Pergamus there was a warning of their comp, of their
compromising. And here in the Church of
Thyatire, you will see this morning that he's going to warn
them about corruption in the church.
So what I like to do is go ahead and read this whole letter and
then we'll go back. And we want to take a look at
the different parts that the Lord is saying to us that we
should heed. So in the 2nd chapter of
Revelations, beginning at verse 18, the word of God says this.
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 in 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 to
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 sick bed 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. She'll know that I am he who
searches the minds and 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 you, 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. 27 He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
They shall be dashed to pieces like the Potter's vessels.
And 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. Amen.
So what we see here is a city. That's a little.
Bit different than the other three that we've already
studied. This is a.
Smallest city, actually. Actually, it's one of the
smallest of the seven cities that we will be looking at here
in the Book of Revelation. In fact, it's one of the
smallest cities in Asia Minor, but Jesus addresses them and,
and, and they're not a distinguished.
They're not as distinguished as the the Church of Ephesus or the
Church of Smyrna or Pergamus. In fact, they're actually
considered to be pretty much insignificant.
There was a author, Roman author by the name of Elder Plenty and
he stated the this phrase he refers to Thyatira and he says
in one of his writings Thyatira and other unimportant cities.
That's how he refers to Thyr Tyre as an unimportant city.
So it isn't underwhelming. It is underwhelming compared to
the other cities. It's located about 30 to 40
miles South of Pergamus. It's an inland city.
So we, the other was most of the others that we looked at were
coastal cities. And that's where they receive
most of their, their trade or that's where they receive most
of their, their, their, their money, their wealth from the
coast. But this was an inland city.
And it's known for its manufacturing and also for its
trade guilds or guilds. Now this is important, their
trade guilds. We're going to talk a lot about
that and how that impacts the Christians that live in that
area. This trade guilds or like a
union, OK would be like a union today or the you know when you
have a a plumbers union, you may have a carpenters union, you may
have a. A doctor, I don't even know if
doctors have a union I don't know but there's different
trades that we know that have unions and in in in this city
just about every trade had a union the other interesting
thing about this city is that this is where Lydia came from
now most. Of the the the.
Unions that they had were things like wool, Baker's leather.
They had unions for cloth and linen and purple dyes.
And that's where you may remember the name Lydia out of
the book of Acts chapter 16. She, you know, she was the the
the worker of dye, the seller of dyes, and she was actually one
of the first converts. In the city of Thyatira, when,
when Paul was there on one of his missionary journeys, don't
know if whether or not she was the one, It's not clear whether
or not she was the one who helped to start that church, but
we do know that she was one of the first converts that was
there. So this, these guiles, these
guilds rather these, these trade guilds that were there in in
Thyatira, they were very influential.
They had a lot of strength, a lot of.
Pull and if you weren't a part of these guilds, it was very
difficult to make a good living. I didn't rather jobs obviously
their authoritarian. There's other things you could
do, but you wouldn't make as much money doing those things as
you would being a part of the Guild.
They they, they were, they made it so that it was only those
that were part of their group that would truly benefit
financially from the trades. Now these no, no, no.
And you may say, well, why was it difficult for Christians?
And it was it was a very difficult area for Christians to
be a part of because most of the Christians weren't a part of
this Guild. Most of them were not a part of
this Guild now. And you would say, well, wait a
minute, if you want to make money and you concerned about
not making enough money to take care of your family, why
wouldn't you just join the Guild, right?
I mean, you know, couldn't you just do that?
Couldn't they just go ahead and join the Guild?
They they could, but it would be a compromise.
And the reason why is because these guilds were centered
around Pagan worship. They were centered around Pagan
wars. Each Guild had a a warship had a
God that they worshipped and they all had their own gods and
these and then the meetings that they had with these guilds were
all centered around idolatry and sexual immorality.
They may begin the meeting with a a meal and they would eat
meats that were sacrificed to idols.
Afterwards they would throw wine into the into the fire and that
would represent prayers to these Pagan gods.
Then of course, after that they would become drunken from the
excessive intake of alcohol, which then would then
deteriorate. Things would deteriorate into
the worship of these gods, which was sexual immorality and
attendance and participation in these, in these meetings were
required. If you were going to be in these
guilds, you had to attend these meetings.
And if you attended the meetings, obviously you would
want to participate in these festivities that they considered
to be worship. But no true Christian, obviously
no true Christian was going to put themselves in that position
to defile themselves with this idolatry and sexual immorality.
Therefore, it was very difficult for them to have jobs that would
pay enough to take care of their families.
You know many of us. Have had to make that decision,
you know, from time to time a job versus our Christian values.
Making a decision to do something that will compromise
our beliefs. Maybe a job put pressure on you
to embrace LGBTQ, put pressure on you to embrace abortion, put
pressure on you to embrace genderism or transgenderism, put
pressure on you to do things that are that are dishonorable
or things that are or that are less less than honest on a job
in order to keep a job. But they put those kind of.
Pressures on you in order to get you to conform, and that's.
Exactly what was happening here in, in Thyatira, these, these
people were put in this position between making a good living and
keeping their Christian values. So This is why this letter was
written to those who were holding on to their Christian
values. They were persevering.
They were allowing themselves to stay in the path of, of, of, of
representing the Christianity in a way that was true.
They were faithful to Jesus. They were faithful to the Word
of God. But then there were those who
were not. So Jesus sends this letter.
He sends this letter to the church and he acknowledged the
good and the bad of the church. And we should always consider
the source whenever we hear anything concerning the word of
God. You know, I, I, I, I, I always
love when kids and you know, your parents can probably relate
to this, but you know, kids when.
One of their siblings tell them to do something.
The first thing the kid asks is who said you Ever notice that?
You know, it's no. You got to get up.
Who said you got to go wash the dishes?
Who said time to come in? Who said so?
The source is always important. If Mom and Dad said it, yeah,
they'll do it. But if they said it themselves,
then you got to fight. You got to battle.
Well, if you look at verse 18 here, it says, it says to the
Angel of the church in Thyatira, these things says the Son of
God. This is what the Son of God is
saying. He introduces himself as the Son
of God. It's important that they knew
that this letter that they're reading now comes from the one
who have created all things, the one who has the authority over
all things, power over all things, the son of God.
The people in in Thyatira, they worship a false God.
They worship an idol. They worship a God named Apollo,
you know, surname Tyrannus. And, and he was the son of Zeus,
which was the son, which was the son God.
He was an idol. He was an idol figment of their
imagination. But Jesus asserts his deity by
saying I am the Son of God. And that's who's writing this
letter. Now over in Revelations chapter
1 and 13, he refers to himself as the Son of man, and that's in
his, that's in his humanity. He is the Son of man, the Son of
David, but in his deity he is the Son of God with all the
nature of God, with all the qualities of God, with all the
authority of God, with all the power and sovereignty of God,
all the divine attributes dwell in him.
So Jesus has the power of sovereign authority over all
things, and he's greater than the influences of the trade
guilds. He's greater than those
influences. He's.
Greater than the influences of these false prophets and false
gods. He's able and he's more, He has
more authority than all of those things, and he's worthy of our
trust. So he identifies him first as
being the Son of God. Also, he identifies himself as
being or having eyes as a flame of fire.
In Revelations 1 and 14, that's one of the descriptions that was
given that that John had concerning the resurrected Jesus
when he saw him. See, Jesus sees.
Everything with piercing eyes and penetrating judgement.
Everything. Nothing is hidden from his gaze.
Nothing at all. None of our actions, none of our
motives. And he is righteous.
He's a righteous judge. He is the righteous judge.
I'd rather be judged. By Jesus than to be judged by
any man, by any man. He's a righteous judge.
But you know, sometimes we forget that he sees everything
and we tend to sometimes be overly concerned with what we
see in each other. What others see in us.
We, we get to be concerned about what others see.
We, we may watch our behavior if we're around certain people,
certain things we may not do around other people that we may
normally do certain things we may say around other people that
we may normally say because we want to be mindful of what
people say. We're more concerned about their
opinion of us and, and, and, and, and the way that they see
us then we are anything else. But we forget.
We forget that he sees all, regardless of whether they see
it or not, regardless of whether it's done behind closed doors or
not, whether it's said behind closed doors or not, whether
it's thought in secret or in private.
He sees all. And we should live our lives
with that, with that acknowledgement, to know that no
matter where we are, because we are his, he sees us, He sees
everything. And even by even to this, this
small church that was in Thyatira who was considered to
be insignificant, was considered to be unimportant.
But yet Jesus sees him. You know, to us, for a lot of
people, we may be insignificant. We may not be important to some
people, to some organizations, we may not be significant at
all, may not be important. But he sees us, He sees you, He
sees me. He sees not only on that what's
on the outside. But he sees the.
Deepest things on the inside, the deepest things he sees in
US. It also says here that he had
feet like fine brass. Fine brass.
He had that description. That was over in Revelations 1
and 15. Brass is is can be represented
as divine purity, strength, judgement and steadfastness.
And that is the way that the resurrected Christ is.
He's pure, He is almighty and he has he is the one who judges and
he's steadfast. He doesn't change.
He continues to be the same Jesus Christ yesterday, today,
and evermore. In the Old Testament, it was a
bronze order where sins were judged and where sacrifices for
sins were made daily. The bronze order.
So Jesus sees sin, He judges sin, He even punishes sin, but
he also forgives sin. And that's great news for all of
us. Over in verse 19, he says, I
know your works, your love, service, faith, and your
patience. As for your works, the last are
more than the first. So he knows it works.
He sees the things that they do. He sees their love, their love
toward one another, and their love toward the Lord.
He recognizes their service, their kindness, their goodness
toward others. It was kind of well noted that
this particular church intentionally and
compassionately would reach out to the poor and to those who
have need. Psalm 41 would say that blessed
are those who consider the poor. So they were well looked at
because of the fact that they considered the poor.
They were also a faithful church.
They had faith. They showed loyalty, trust, and
fidelity towards Jesus Christ, and they were patient.
Even in the midst of all the things that they were going
through, even in the midst of all the temptation, in the midst
of everything that was happening in Thyatira, they were patient.
They continued to persevere, even join all that temptation.
It's interesting that the church authoritarian possessed 4 of the
fruit of the Spirit. And even in their trial and
temptation, they continue to grow in those things.
As it says here, the last is even more than the first.
So this is a church that continued to progress in
righteousness. They continue to progress in
those qualities that Jesus had also mentioned concerning them.
But then in verse 20 says, 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 to eat things
sacrificed to idols. So despite of all those good
things that this church was doing, in spite of all these
great qualities that they have, Jesus has something against them
because he saw everything. And he said, you have this woman
there named Jezebel. Now, we don't know if that was
her actual name. In fact, many believe that it
wasn't her actual name, but it's more like symbolic because of
her character, because of her ungodliness and the way that she
handled herself. She was like the Jezebel of the
Old Testament. I just want to just remind you
we won't go back and read it, but Jezebel in the Old
Testament. She was called Queen Jezebel.
Actually, she was Ahab's wife and you can read about that over
in First Kings. But, but she was a Pagan
Princess. She was the daughter of a king
of the king of Sidonia, a Sidonian king.
Rather she was the daughter of a Sidonian king.
His name was ETH Baal. So they were worshippers of Baal
even in their homeland. So she grew up in a home that
was worshipping Baal. They even had a temple of Baal
back at the place where she was from.
Now she married Ahab for political reasons and she tried
to mix the worship of Baal with the worship of the God of
Israel. And eventually she tried to wipe
it out all together. So she tried to kill off all the
prophets, all the old prophets that were the prophets of, of
the Lord. She tried to burn them all out,
kill them all so she would get rid of them.
If you remember, Obadiah was the the prophet who ended up hiding
the prophets of the Lord so that Jezebel wouldn't kill them all
because she was on that race. She wanted to get rid of it.
She wanted Belle Worship to be the state religion in Israel.
That's what she wanted. She was trying to take that
over. This woman was just
unsubmissive. She was violent.
She was rebellious. She, I mean, she just exuded
ungodliness in just about every way you possibly could.
And she met with judgement and the judgement she met with was
death. So I don't, I don't think that
there's going to be any other women that would be named
Jezebel. I mean, I don't know anybody
that named their daughter as Jezebel.
I don't even know another Jezebel, to be honest with you.
I don't, I don't even know if that's a name that people would
use anymore. I mean, she, I think she ruined
that name. I would.
I'd be safe to say that she ruined that name for all girls
going forward. I don't know anybody know
anybody named Jezebel? Yeah.
See, I didn't think so. We could probably do this
anywhere and everybody would. It was still had the same
result. And I'm just like for guys, you
know? I mean, I don't know anybody
named Judas. I've never run into another
person named Judas. Never ran into another person
named Jeroboam. Never ran into another person
named Adolf. You know, I mean, those are just
names that people don't name their kids anymore because of
the the connotation. It's a negative connotation.
So no one names your kids those things anymore.
So this woman, Jezebel, apparently with this, whoever
she was, she was apparently very influential and persuasive and,
and she. Called herself a prophet and as
you see here in the scripture, it says that woman Jezebel who
called herself, calls herself a prophetess.
OK, she called herself that means that she was a
self-proclaimed prophetess. She was she wasn't sent by the
Lord. She just went and to do whatever
it is that she wanted to do. A prophet is one who is is a
spokesperson for God, one who brings the message of God.
A prophet speaks truth, not their own, not their own truth,
not their own understanding. It's a mouthpiece for God.
This woman was a false prophet, and she brought in a
destructive, seductive doctrine that seduced the servants of
Jesus to commit idolatry and sexual immorality.
And that's the danger with people who bring in these, these
false ideologies or these these false doctrines, when those
things are allowed to come into the church, it destroys the
church and it leads people into a path of sin, into a life of
sin. And this doctrine was really
dangerous, you know, but Jesus, Jesus did warn all of us about
these these doctrines, these seducted these false prophets
who would come in and bring these ungodly doctrines over.
In Matthew Chapter 7, verses 15 and 16, he says beware of false
prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing.
This is a woman. So they probably thought that
she would be harmless and she was probably a very friendly
woman. But meanwhile she was, she came
in sheep's clothing. But inwardly they are ravenous
wolves. This woman was a wolf.
She was a wolf. She was dangerous.
All she wanted to do was to tear up and to, to, to, you know, to
shred the, the sheep. You will know them by their
fruits. And I wanted to just mention to
you when it says by their fruits, it's not just what they
say, but it's what they teach and what they live.
That's their fruit, what they teach and what they live.
That's how you know a false prophet.
She, this false prophet, she taught to people that it's OK to
participate in these guilds and to attend their meetings and to
participate in all the festivities that go along with
it. It's OK to do it, to engage in
these sins because sins of the body, This is what she was
teaching. The sins of the body has no
impact on the spirit, no impact on the spirit.
It's a, it's a Gnostic theology, you know, you know, you know,
they have so much knowledge that they have reasoned away God's
word of sin. And, and, and it's, you know,
whatever you do with your body has no bearing on your salvation
because it's your spirit or your soul to get saved and not your,
your body. So they, they teach these people
this thing. And so they start to go out and
think that they can sin freely and it has no consequence.
It has no bearing on your salvation.
And if they're convincing enough and they they tap into someone's
lust, so they tap into someone's desires or they tap into what
people want to do, they'll follow it if they're not rooted
and grounded in the word of God. And that's what it and that's
what it comes down to. But the whole thing is that you
know, you know, they'll, they'll, they made it sound like
it's fine to commit these sins in order to get a good paying
job. I mean, everybody got to work,
right? So does it matter if your job
would want you to do something that's ungodly?
Isn't it just important to have a job and take care of your
family? I mean, why would you go against
that and end up losing your income?
Why would you do that? I am so disappointed in some of
the responses that I've heard recently concerning Jalen or
Jaden Ivy. Just to give you a quick
understanding of this, Jaden Ivy is a basketball player,
professional basketball player, plays for NBA.
His mother actually coaches for Notre Dame.
They've always been godly people.
Jalen is always, even when Jalen was in college, he was very,
very aware of his Christianity and his faith and very outspoken
about it. A lot of interviews that he's
done where he ends his interviews with basically giving
the gospel to reporters. Well, recently, Jalen Jaden
decided that he was going to. I think he had an experience
where he had, you know, kind of restored his faith, strengthened
his faith in some way. And he had a a moment where he
did a video where he talked about his faith, but also talked
about the NBA's position on the LGBTQ celebrations.
He talked about that. And he says, yeah, they, they,
you know, they say come celebrate with us celebrating
Pride Week and Pride month or whatever.
And he spoke out about it. He's a Christian.
He's getting a lot more NBA support from other players that
are backing up his assertions with with scripture.
With Scripture. That is very impressive to me
and very encouraging. But there's a lot of other
people who are saying, oh, why don't you just be quiet?
He has an opportunity to make so much money in the NBA now.
He ended up losing his job because he had to open his mouth
and say something about what he believes when what he believes
is against what his employer represents.
So now we have to be quiet as believers and not be able to
share our faith or to stand on our faith because of what
someone else believes. So that was just, I mean, it
just reminded me of this situation.
Look, just be quiet and just go along to get along.
It's OK. You'll get a job out of this.
You'll get more money out of this, but if you don't do it,
you won't get the good job. So in other words, there's a
sacrifice. But Jesus told us at the
beginning of this, I'm the Son of God.
I'm the Son of God. I have power over all these
things. I'm worthy for you to put your
trust in. I'm worthy for you to be loyal
to. I'm worthy for you to be
committed. I can take care of you.
So some of these people obviously followed after this,
this prophet, this false prophet.
And then this is really just a deception from Satan to corrupt
a professing A professing believer.
Anyone who lives a life practicing sin, and this is
important. Anyone that lives a life
practicing sin does not know God.
First, John three and six, he says very clearly, whoever
abides in him does not sin, does not practice sin.
Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.
So we know God, we won't practice sin.
We all sin, we all blow it, and we say this about every week
that we have these. And that's why it's so important
for us to repent, to repent, to come to God and repent when we
blow it, but not to practice sin, to live a life of sin.
If our lives are categorized as sin, then we have the question,
do we know God? Do we know God?
Why is it OK for one person to sin and someone else not to?
It's not. If we're Christians, then we
follow the word of God. We don't follow our lust, our
passions. We follow the word of God.
And then he says, my servants, you know, you, you, you
basically had had had, you know, you seduced my servants.
In other words, what? Gives you the right to come in
with some false doctrine to feed my servants.
These are my servants. These are the sheep of my
pastures. What gives you the right to be
able to come in here and teach something that doesn't come from
me? And we all need to remember that
we can't stand up here and just preach my ideas.
If I ever come up here and say, hey, you know what I wrote?
I just wrote something recently and these are my ideas about and
I just want you to hear it. And this is where we're going to
go. This is the route we're going to
go. Phenology, man, get out and run.
Run, don't walk out of here, run out of here.
We are God's people. We're the sheep of his pastures.
He gives us the food that we feed his flock with and it's his
word. We have no right to feed the
people of God anything other than the word of God.
So he, he, he, he goes on in here and I just want to get down
here to verse. Go down here.
To verse the end of verse 20 here he says that this woman
judgment who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce
my servants to commit sexual immorality and to think and to
eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent.
Listen to the I love this, I love this.
Even with all these things that she did, he says I gave her time
to repent. I didn't just judge her.
I didn't just you know, he was patient with her.
Even though she was leading astray his people.
Whatever sins that she was doing, he was patient with her.
It was not just a knee jerk reaction for him to punish her.
He was patient just like he is with all of us.
He's patient with us. But there is a time when that
door closes on that particular grace, and there does come a
judgment, he says. I gave her time to repent from
her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.
Verse 22 says, indeed, I will cast her into a sick bed, that
very same bed that she looked for for pleasure, that very same
bed that she used to satisfy her own lust.
He said. I'm going to turn that bed into
a bed of pain and affliction and suffering for her.
I'm going to put her in a sick bed and to those who commit
adultery with her means her followers, I'm going to put into
great tribulation. Now this unless they repent of
their deeds. Now this isn't talking about the
great tribulation as in the the great tribulation that will come
at the end times when Jesus Christ, right before Jesus
Christ comes back. You know, this is not that great
tribulation, the one that we poured out upon the earth.
You know, he's not talking about this is tribulation.
This is Philipsis. This is that tribulation that
brings a crushing, A pressing affliction, a distress among the
people. It's that tribulation.
Verse 23 says I will, I will kill her children with death and
all the churches will shall know that I am he.
I'm the one that searches the minds and the hearts I will
bring a you know, when he says I will kill her children with with
death, he's talking. He's not talking about her
natural children. He's talking about her spiritual
children, those children that have been like an offspring to
her because they have followed her doctrine.
They've followed her way of doing things.
They've followed her down this path of sin.
They have walked with her and they have believed what she says
and they have responded to that. Those are the children he's
talking about. So I'll kill him with death.
I'll bring a plague, I'll bring a, a pestilence that will bring
death. And there's been other times in
history where there's been those who have, you know, fallen into
sickness and, and some have even died because of their sins.
You know, Sapphira and Ananias, they were, they were, they were
dealt with with death. And then you have the, the man
by the, the pool of Bethesda who was healed when Jesus told him,
he said, look, now you've been healed, but now you know, don't
go and do this again because you'll have a worse, you know,
there'll be a worse thing come upon you.
Something worse will come upon you.
So there's that threat of sick of, of sin that can bring
sickness. And then of course, even with
the table, you know, you know what Jesus talked about in First
Corinthians Chapter 11, Paul talked about in first
Corinthians Chapter 11 when he said that if you, you know,
those who take the cup of the Lord unworthily say because some
have, some have fallen sick, some have fallen weak, and some
have even slept death. So there can be a severe, deadly
consequence. To sin.
So he said all the churches will know that I am he.
So he's going to make this thing public so that the churches know
that you don't follow along this path because the same thing can
happen to you. The same thing can happen to
you. Using them as an example, using
them as an example. And then he goes on.
He says that I'm the one that searches the minds and the
hearts, and I will give to each one according to their works 24.
24 says, He says that I, you know, now I say to the rest of
Thyro terror. Now he's talking about the
people who did not walk down that aisle with them, who did
not go down to sin with them, who did not stand in a way of
sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful.
He's talking to these people, OK.
And he says here you know to as many of you, and the rest of you
in Thyro terror as many has, do not have this doctrine.
That she was teaching have not known the depths of Satan, this
depths of Satan, because you know, these, these false
prophets were telling the people that it is the depth of Satan
that you can, you know, they're just deep things of God that you
can go in and do all these things.
You know, you know, other people don't understand, you know, we
have a deeper knowledge of God and a deeper knowledge of his
doctrine and we can go and do thing.
We understand that you can do these things even though the
rest of them may teach something different.
We got a deeper, I mean, that's what Gnosticism is really about.
Like they think of they thought they were really deep people.
You know, they were deeper than what the Scriptures even said
and they convinced other people that, you know, it's a deep
thing to be able to, you know, to live this kind of life, to
understand that my body and my soul has nothing to do with when
I can sin with my body, but as long as long as my spirit deep.
But that is nothing. But that's why Jesus said it's
the depths of Satan. You know, there, you know,
there's a scripture that says that we can know the deep things
of God. This is the depths of Satan
because this is a deception. This is a deception to corrupt
the people of God. And he exposed it.
He exposed it as they say. He said I will put on you no
other burden. You know, in other words, you
know, you have already been acknowledged for your love, your
service, your faith, your patience.
You've been acknowledged for that.
I'm not putting anything else on you.
I'm not putting any other burden on you.
I'm, I'm, I'm not slowing down your walk by putting other
things on you and putting more responsibilities on you.
No, that's it. Just keep doing what you're
doing, but hold fast to what you have.
Till I come, How long? Till I come.
And that's what we're waiting for.
We're waiting for his blessed return, and because we're
waiting for his blessed return, we have the hope.
Of his return. Which helps us to stay in his
word, to stay in prayer, helps us to watch out for destructive
things that will cause us to go astray from God's ways and God's
word. And then he says here as we
finish up in here, he says and he who overcomes.
And keeps my works until the end.
Praise and worship, teen, you can come forward.
And keeps my work until the end. To Him I will give power over
the nations. You know, we know that in the
Scriptures. Jesus has said that to those who
endure. If we endure, you know, there's
the scriptures that tell us in the epistles.
In fact, over in Second Timothy, he tells us that those who
endure shall reign with him. If we endure with Him, we shall
reign with him. In Romans chapter 8 tells us
that if we suffer with him, we shall be glorified together with
Him. So we will, we will, we will
reign with Christ. And will reign the nations, as
he says over here in verse. 27 He says he shall rule them with
a rod of iron. They shall be dashed to pieces
like the Potter's vessels, you know, the nations, those who are
against God's Word, His word is going to crush them and they
will be, you know, almost like drawn into pieces, because he'll
rule with a, with a, with a rod of iron.
This rod of iron is a it's a shepherd's.
It's also like a shepherd's rod, but it's a rod of iron against
those who have rejected him, against those who have come up
against him. Psalm 2 tells us about how the
kings of the earth will come together and try to attack or
dethrone God. But it's the you know, but he's
going to overcome them and Jesus Christ is going to sit on the
throne. And when he sits on the throne,
we the. Church.
Will reign with him in the Kingdom.
Glory to God. That's what we have to look
forward to. That's what we have to look
forward to. He says, as I received from my
father, you know, so we know that he received that, that,
that, that the, the right to rule and to judge from his
father. And then he will also share that
with us in the Kingdom. And I will give him the morning
star. The morning star is Jesus.
You know the, the star that we
see, right? It's the last star that we may
see in the sky right before dawn comes, right before the light of
dawn comes, there's a star that shines brighter than any other.
It's called the morning star. And Jesus Christ is the morning
star because he is going to be the star that shines the
brightest. And he will.
When he comes in, He's going to usher in the end of all darkness
and all unrighteousness, and he's going to bring in light.
And righteousness in the new Kingdom, in the new Kingdom.
Then he says here in 29 and we close he who has an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
You know, there's a lot of things that the church has to
deal with and temptation of, of falling into false doctrine is
one of those things. We see a lot of things in the
church today, a lot of things that are not godly.
A lot of very ungodly and people were making decisions all the
time about which direction they're going to take.
It's the word. The only truth is the word of
God. The only truth is the word of
God. And that's why Paul told the
Bereans, listen, don't just stand here and take everything
that I said. Paul is saying this.
Don't just listen to everything that I take as the absolute
truth. Go in your scriptures and study
it out for yourself. The Bereans, he said they were
more honorable than anybody else than the Thessalonians.
The Thessalonians, they were more honorable because they
searched the scriptures daily. They checked on Paul.
So we should do that with each other.
Don't just take everything that I say.
Go back and look at this, study it out.
Make sure what I said was true, it was accurate that it lined
up. And if it didn't?
It's your right to let us know, to let me know It's your right.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the
churches. So the Lord searches our minds
and He searches our hearts, but He gives us the opportunity to
repent, just like He gave this Jezebel the opportunity to
repent. So what is it?
Is there anything in your heart that the Lord is prompting, that
the Lord is letting you know that's there, that's contrary to
who He is, or contrary to His word?
Is there anything that's there that we should repent for?
Is there a pride that keeps us pursuing sin more than we pursue
Jesus? If it's there and it's prompting
you, letting you know that, repent.
He's a loving, gracious God and He wants to forgive us more than
we want to be forgiven. So as we ready for communion,
you know, if I could talk to that church, to people from that
Church of Thyatira, I would ask that church to pray for me.
Pray for us that my heart and that my mind would be able to be
strengthened so that I would not fall into.
The temptation of compromise or corruption.
I pray that for all of you, I pray for myself, that we will
not fall into anything, we will not be tempted to compromise for
anything, but that we would hold on, hold fast to the Word of
God. To the promises of God, I pray
that we can do that and that we encourage each other to stay the
path. Lord Jesus, we thank you for
your word, and we thank you for your sacrifice.
We thank you, Lord, that you gave yourself, that we would
have this salvation, this great salvation, eternal life.
The disciples said to you when you asked if they would turn
away with the others, they said, where will we go?
You have the words of life, and we thank you for that, Lord.
So, Father, on this day, as we remember your sacrifice, we
remember your death, we remember your burial, and we remember
your resurrection. Your sacrifice, Lord, is would
pay the debt for all of our sins.
And it's because of that Lord that we have eternal life.
So on a night in which Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread.
And then when he gave thanks, he broke it.
And he said, take, eat. This is my body which is broken
for you. Eat this in remembrance of me.
Same manner he also took the cup, and after supper he said,
This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Drink this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we do show
the Lord's death till he come. If anybody would like to come up
and come before the Lord in prayer, or you can do it right
where you are, we all have the given the invitation to repent.
Lord bless you.