Thyatira was a city, like the others in Revelation, located in Asia Minor, which would be modern day Turkey. This is a city that was politically and culturally marginalized. A city with many trades regarding metal work, cloth making, dyeing, and pottery. It was very much a secular city with little to no focus on any particular religion. And it was very much a society steeped in sexual sin.
The problem with this church, as you will see, is that false teachers had infiltrated it, introducing heretical teaching, and therefore seducing believers into lifestyles God calls sin, and the believers were tolerating this teaching. So my aim this morning is to show you how false teaching, if tolerated, can seduce believers into a lifestyle God sees as sinful. We will focus on Revelation 2:18-20.
We begin this morning by looking at Jesus’ introduction.
Verse 18 states, “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.” Why does Jesus open his letter to this church like this? What is he communicating? There were three things Jesus was commuting with his words here: 1) He was giving them a glimpse of his glory. In the OT visions of the glory of God, such as in Ezekiel 1:27, were always associated with fire. 2) With “eyes like a flame of fire”, Jesus was saying he is the one who searches every mind and every heart. 3) With feet like “burnished bronze”, Jesus was saying he will crush all those who oppose him.
Next, we see Jesus commending the church.
Verse 19 says, “I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.” This is a church that Jesus commended for growing in love and faith as evidenced by their deeds.
Remember, works are not what save us, only faith alone in Christ alone can do that, but works are the evidence of our love for Jesus. In John 14:15, Jesus said, “If you love, you will keep my commandments”. So, we do the good that we do as a result of our love for Christ.
Also, even though works are not what save us, works are the evidence of our faith in Jesus. James, Jesus’ half-brother said in James 2:17 – 18, “faith…if it does not have works, is dead…Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” So, people should be able to see the good that we do and see that the good we do is because of our faith in Christ.
So, Jesus was commending this church because not only were they saved, but they were growing in their salvation. Growing in love and faith, as evidenced by acts of service, are demonstrations of our growing in Christ. And that’s what Jesus was commending this church for.
However, after Jesus commends them, he criticizes them.
Verse 19 says, “But I have this against you…” This means that Jesus has a complaint against them. Although they were growing in love and faith, Jesus has found fault with them. And now Jesus aims at expressing his discontentment with them. The question becomes: What does Jesus have against this church?
Jesus expresses his disapproval that this church is tolerating a self-proclaimed prophetess.
Verse 20 says, “But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess…”
Who is Jezebel? In 1 & 2 Kings she was a pagan queen of Israel, married to King Ahab, who killed many servants of God, restricted the worship of God, and instead misled many to worship the god of Baal. And just so you understand, Jesus is not speaking of the actual Jezebel, the Jezebel Jesus is referring to died many centuries ago.
To whom is Jesus referring to? We believe Jesus is using symbolic speech here. We believe there was a real woman, whose name we do not know, who possessed the spirit of Jezebel, within the congregation of this church who claimed to be a prophetess.
Not only was she calling herself a prophetess, but like the Jezebel of old, this woman was leading the believers of this church astray.
Verse 20 says that this woman was “teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexuall immorality and to eat food sacrified to idols.” In other words, this woman was misleading Jesus’ church by teaching them that sexual immorality was not a serious matter for believers. So, Jesus likened this woman to the ancient queen of Israel – Jezebel, because she was seducing believers to have intimate relationships outside the boundaries of marriage, through false teaching, and was therefore misleading the people away from God. And Jesus found fault with the church, because they were tolerating this woman’s heretical teaching.
The reason I say these believers were tolerating heresy is because any doctrine taught within the church that opposes what the Bible teaches is heresy, including sexual immorality.
The Bible, according to Genesis 2:24, defines sexual communion as a holy, joyful, intimate experience that is designed by God for two people of the opposite gender who have left mother and father, and have entered into a covenant together before God for the purpose of glorifying God.
To the contrary, the Bible refers to sexual immorality often as whoredom, fornication, and even idolatry, and defines sexual immorality as any sexual expression outside the boundaries of the biblical definition of marriage. It can also mean the surrendering of sexual purity.
For example, sexual immorality is premarital sex. When two people engage in sexual communion outside of wed-lock they are abusing what God ordained to be holy. Sexual immorality, according to Jesus in Matthew 5:27, is looking at a woman or a man with lustful thinking. This is also adultery, if you are married. Sexual immorality is pornography; in fact, the Greek word for sexual immorality is porneia, which is where we get the English word pornography from.
And anyone, like this woman with the spirit of Jezebel, who teaches it is okay to engage in sexual immorality while following Jesus is a heretic. And any person who believes it is okay to engage in sexual immorality such as premarital sex or porn, is absolutely wrong.
But it would seem we live in a society today that has grown quite comfortable with sexual immorality, very much like the society of Thyatira then.
Long gone are the days of ‘I Love Lucy’. If you turn on your television today there is a very good chance you will see some form of sexual content. Sexual content doubled between 1995-2005. More recently, research discovered there has been a 75% increase in sexual content on television. Even on social media, sexual content is everywhere. We live in a culture today where sexual content is inescapable.
Not only has our society made peace with sexual immorality, despite what the Bible says about sexual immorality, we are living in a time where the majority of people in the church today, like the church in Thyatira, have made peace with sexual sin.
We live in a time where the pron industry brings in $12 billion dollars annually. To put that in perspective, that is more than the combined annual revenues of ABC, NBC, and CBS. And according to a study that came out in June 2020, 64% of men who identify as Christian, admit to viewing porn at least once a week, and 51% of women admit to watching it occasionally, and do not believe anything is wrong with it. This means 64% of men and 51% of women have made peace with something that God calls sin.
In addition to porn, many people in the church have made peace with pre-marital sex. According to Pew Research, when it comes to activities between unmarried adults who are in a committed relationship, but not married, a majority of Christians (57%) say pre-marital sex between unmarried adults in a committed relationship is sometimes or always acceptable.
If you are a Christian, you must understand sexual sin is not something you should make peace with.
Sexual sin ruins relationships, like friendships and even marriages, and sexual sin is a serious offense against God. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:18, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits it outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” In other words, run from porn, run from your desire to look at someone of the opposite sex with lustful thoughts, run from engaging any kind of sexual activity with whom you are not married to, because your body was given to you by God who is holy, and he calls us to honor him with our bodies. When we engage in sexual immorality of any kind, we dishonor him.
The Bible tells us in Ephesians 5:3, “Sexual immorality…must not even be named among you, as it is improper among the saints.” In other words, sexual immorality has no place among the people of God.
The Bible also says in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.” It is God’s will for you to be holy! Therefore, you must stay away from sexual sin and learn how to control your body. People who engage in sexual sin such as pornography or premarital sex are not living in holiness but living like those who do not know God. In truth, you cannot claim to know God or have a relationship with God, if you are living a life of unholiness by willfully engaging in sexual sin such as premarital sex or porn. It’s impossible.
The Bible says in Hebrews 13:4, “Let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” God will judge those who are engaged in pre-marital sex, those who are engaged in porn, and those who are unfaithful to their spouse.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:9, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolator, nor adulterer, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor theives, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” The Bible is saying those who are actively and intentionally engaged in acts of sexually immorality such as pre-marital sex and porn are unrighteous and will not get into heaven.
That’s why I am pleading with you not to make peace with sexual sin. Jesus found fault with the church in Thyatira because of this. You have to wonder, how did the church today get here? Why do many self-professing Christians today find it okay to engage in sexual sin? (Three Reasons)
First, I believe many Christians have made peace with sexual sin, because the believers do not know their Bible’s.
In 2020, according to a recent study, the average follower of Jesus that reads their Bible daily is 10%. 9% claim to read it once a week. 9% also claim to read it once a month. 8% claim to read the Bible 3 or 4 times a year. You cannot know what God says about sin if you do not know what God says in his Word.
Secondly, I believe it’s because we have preachers in the pulpit who lack boldness to teach and declare what God says in his Word.
We don’t have preachers standing in pulpits anymore urging their congregation to repent. We don’t have preachers in pulpits anymore calling out sin for sin. We don’t have preachers standing in pulpits anymore pleading with their congregation to return to holiness. We don’t have preachers standing in pulpits anymore preaching the Word of God as it is.
We have preachers standing in pulpits today telling more jokes than they are declaring the truth of God’s Word. We have preachers standing in pulpits today that are picking and choosing what they want to preach in order to scratch the itching ears of their congregations.
We have preachers standing in pulpits who have softened the gospel and are avoiding the hard truths of Scripture instead of giving their congregations the whole counsel of God’s word. We have preachers standing in pulpits today scared to declare the truth of Scripture in fear of being criticized. And when preachers lack the boldness to declare the whole truth of God’s word to their people, sin will be present and tolerated.
Thirdly, it’s because the 21st century church, like this first century church, tolerates heresy in the pulpit.
Any person who teaches a doctrine that opposes the Word of God is a heretical false teacher, and you are living in a time where so many false teachers have infiltrated the pulpit. You are living in a time where many stand in pulpits claiming to be a bible teacher, a preacher, a prophet, or a prophetess, when they are nothing but wolves in sheeps clothing, just like this woman in the city of Thyatira. We are living in a time where false teachers stand in the pulpit or on tv twisting the Scriptures and manipulating people to give to their ministry, causing people to believe that if they give they will have wealth and health and prosperity, and these so-called preachers do so only to feed their own greed and a desire to get rich quick; they are heretics. We are living in a time where people are being seduced by so-called preachers into believing its okay to live a homosexual lifestyle and have abortions, these are heretics.
The reason for this is because we are living in a time where many preachers stand behind pulpits and reject the Bible for being the source of absolute truth. When we have preachers standing in churches rejecting the inerrancy of God’s word, heresy will abound. And when heresy abounds in the church, sin will abound.
That’s what was going on in the church in Thyatira – heresy abounded, therefore sin abounded, and Jesus complained against it, and I believe that is what is happening today – there are heretics infiltrating the church of Jesus Christ. I believe that’s why there is so much confusion in the church right now, and therefore, why many believers are being seduced into lifestyles God sees as sinful. And those pastor’s, and those who follow their teachings, will have to give an account for it one day.