By Michael Julian
Pastor, Macedonia Baptist Church, Kenton
Focal Passage: Revelation 2:18-29
If you have ever tasted water from a clear, crisp, and cool mountain stream, then you can testify to the refreshing nature of that experience. If you have tasted water from a muddy creek meandering through a cow pasture because you were that thirsty, then you can testify to the somewhat repulsive nature of that experience. Purity makes a difference. And so it is with the church of the living God.
Revelation 2:18-19
Though Thyatira is the least of these seven cities, it receives the longest letter from the Savior. This city had Apollo, the sun god, as its chief deity. He is the son of Zeus, the chief god in Greek mythology. The reason for the reference to Christ as the Son of God is readily apparent.
This city also featured multiple trade guilds which focused their religious life around the worship of these false gods. Christians needed to work. These working guilds required worship of the false gods. Can you see the dilemma brewing?
Despite these challenges, the church of Thyatira needed to continue progressing in their walk with Christ. If we want to exhibit purity in our devotion to Christ, we will face obvious dilemmas in our world and society. Jesus our strong and powerful Savior knows our works and commends those things pleasing to His fiery eyes. Will we be a church strong in purity?
Revelation 2:20-23
The church of today and the people of today would do well to pay attention to Christ’s sincerity in this portion of the letter. He clearly is not mincing words regarding sexual immorality in the church, and neither should we. There are echoes here to the words addressed to Pergamum, and yet there are some louder reverberations to the church at Thyatira.
Notice the emphasis of Jesus. This isn’t a blanket indictment over following the teaching, but of tolerating the teaching of Jezebel. Many today are in the boat of tolerance sailing happily along, all the while heading for a raging waterfall. Being woke by today’s definition actually means we are hopelessly asleep according to God’s truth.
The Lord has called for this false prophetess to repent, but she has stubbornly refused. Isn’t it ironic that she will be cast upon a sickbed when she has committed her sin upon a bed?
I had a teacher in high school that would quip the following statement after asking a question to which there was not an answer, “The silence is deafening.” Here, too, the silence is deafening. The church tolerates this sexual immorality and refuses to take a strong, definitive stance on purity. God forgive us, too!
Revelation 2:24-29
The fiery eyed and bronze footed Jesus now speaks words of encouragement and reward. Many were not swept away in Jezebel’s deceit, or the so-called deep things of Satan. That simply refers to the essence of her teaching.
Instead, these believers need to hold on to what they have, and what they have is endurance because of Christ’s return and reign upon the earth, in which they shall share. Jesus, the true morning star, will be their reward. And those of us that endure, because of God’s protection, shall also know His reward. Maranatha! Come quickly. B&R