Our scripture reading, before we read the words of our text in Revelation chapter 2, is found in 1 Kings chapter 16. 1 Kings chapter 16, reading verses 29 through 34, just a brief section of that chapter, a section that mentions Jezebel. idol-worshipping wife of Ahab, the king of Israel, who led him and led Israel into the sin of idolatry, specifically the worship of Baal and great immorality. 1 Kings 16, 29 through 34. And in the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, began Ahab, the son of Omri, to reign over Israel. And Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel and Samaria 20 and two years. And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And they have made a grove, and they have did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him. In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho. He laid the foundation thereof in Abiram, his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Joshua, the son of Nun. Now let's turn to our text in Revelation chapter two. We'll read that now, Revelation chapter 2, verses 18 through 29. 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. 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. 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. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Hold I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. 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. 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 but that which ye have already. Hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shrivers, even as I received of my father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. You will notice, beloved, and you perhaps already noticed this as we read this passage, that there are some similarities between what is said concerning the church in Thyatira and what we considered last time concerning the church in Pergamos. The church in Pergamos, as we learned, was an inconsistent church. A church that confessed the truth, a church that faithfully confessed the truth of the Word of God, but lived in ungodliness. And the same appears to be the case here. In fact, you even notice that the same sins characterize both churches. You have that in verse 14 concerning Pergamos, at the end of that verse. They were guilty of eating things sacrificed unto idols and committing fornication. And you have the same in verse 20 concerning Thyatira. They committed fornication and ate things sacrificed unto idols. And it might seem that we have before us another case of a church that was inconsistent. But even though there are some similarities between these churches, each church in the book of Revelation is unique. Each church has its own candlestick, and each church is different in some respects from the others, which is true of churches still today, too. Every church is unique. Every church has unique strengths as well as unique weaknesses and sins. And so what threatened Thyatira's existence was something that was different from what threatened the existence of Pergamos. And as we consider that together tonight, then we learn something different and something new concerning what Christ expects His church and His bride to be here in this world. Consider then the church adrift from Scripture. That's our theme as we look at the church's condition, Christ's evaluation of her, and finally His word to the faithful. The city of Thyatira, in which this church was located, is a city that was famous at that time for producing quality cloth and fabric. This morning we read Acts chapter 16. A mention is made there of Lydia, the seller of purple, And even in verse 14 of Acts chapter 16 that she originally came from Thyatira. That was what Thyatira was especially known for. The trouble was in the city of Thyatira that the businesses were run by guilds. Basically these were trade unions. and they were very powerful trade unions too. They controlled the political and the economic condition of the city, and they also controlled the religious life of the city of Thyatira. Each of these guilds or each of these trade unions had the certain idol gods that it worshipped. They held feasts that the workers were required to participate in and to attend, and those feasts in the worship of these idols were feasts which included gross immorality, sexual immorality, that was connected to the worship of their idols. Certainly very difficult for the church and for her members to live in that city. In order to obtain a good income, they had to join a guild, and joining a guild or labor union meant being part of the idolatry and the immorality that characterized that. That was the city itself, and that forms the background, part of the background to the serious sin that was present in that church. But first of all this, verse 19, there were some good qualities in the church. Christ said, I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, the last to be more than the first. The church in Thyatira had some attractive and commendable and even enviable strengths. This was a church concerning which you might say, as you read of those strengths described there in verse 19, concerning which you might say, that's where I would want to be a member of that kind of church. A church characterized by works and charity and service and faith and patience. She was commended. And what is mentioned first is her charity, her love. This church had what the church in Ephesus lacked. Ephesus, you recall, had lost her first love. In Ephesus, the religious life was all in their heads, but not from their hearts. Here in Thyatira, however, there was love. They loved God, and their love for God was the controlling motive for everything, the controlling motive for their worship of God, and their controlling motive, especially as that's spelled out in verse 19, their love for each other in the church. In love, they served one another, the text says in verse 19. Their service, they ministered to the needs of their fellow believers. They visited the sick, they visited the widows, the poor, and the suffering, the communion of saints was Strong in Thyatira, each sought the advantage and welfare of others in the church through the gifts and abilities, talents, and time that God had given them. In love, it is mentioned that they had faith. In love for God, they had faith in God. They confessed that God was their God and that God was their savior. They confessed that they were saved by his sovereign grace. That was part of their demonstration of their love for God. And then in love, they were patient, the text says. patient with each other, they bore with each other's weaknesses, they bore with the specific characters or characteristics of others, characteristics that perhaps irked them at times, as does happen in the church. And it's not easy to bear patiently with others when that's the case. A temptation when we are irked by others in the church is to be short with them, to ignore them, even to shun them, and even to speak negatively about them to others. The church in Thyatira didn't do that. And notice, too, at the end of verse 19, as regards all of these things, the last, the last of their works of service and faith and patience and love to be more than the first. So it wasn't simply that these things characterized them, but there was, by the grace of God, improvement in these things. They were not declining as regards their works of love, their service and their faith and their patience. They were not standing still as regard to those things, but they were going from good to better. There was growth in these things. Christ commends them. In this respect, the church was as a church ought to be. spiritually vibrant and alive, and it is Christ who commends this church, Christ himself does. And he did that, and he does that still, because in giving a commendation to a church, Christ is recognizing that he himself, and is reminding us too, that he himself is the source of the good that is found in his church. Any good in the church is not because of us, but because of Christ. And so we too should take notice in order then to praise and thank God and praise and thank Christ for the strengths and the commendable characteristics of the church. We ought not simply and only to dwell on a church's weaknesses and a church's sin and brush the good aside and ignore it, but rather recognize the church's strength not in order to praise the church for those strengths, and not in order to praise ourselves for those strengths, but in order to be thankful to God, and recognize the work of Christ by his spirit in the church, and praise Christ for that work. But then there is 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. This was a serious fault, a serious sin in the church. The church had in its midst, and allowed to continue to exist in her midst, Jezebel, and that resulted in unholiness of life, that resulted in immorality, outright immorality. Jezebel was an actual person, an actual woman in the church there, although Jezebel was not her real name. Christ calls her Jezebel, not because that was her real name, but because he calls them to be mindful of, and he refers to her as Jezebel to remind them of the Old Testament Jezebel. Ahab's evil, idolatrous, Baal-worshiping wife, a woman who dominated her husband, and who dominated the nation of Israel, A woman who persuaded Ahab to worship Baal, and to that end, to kill all the prophets of God, to build an altar and to build a temple to Baal, and to lead the nation of Israel into the worship of Baal. And Ahab gave in. He was a weakling, he was a wimp. He gave in to all her ideas and to her wishes and her desires, with the result that Jezebel turned Ahab and turned Israel to the worship of Baal. And Baal was the god of fertility, and as part of the worship of Baal, they practiced sexual immorality. connected to the idea of fertility that was very much a part of the worship of Baal. There was a woman in the church in Thyatira like that, with that kind of influence, and she was deceptive. Under the pretense of being a prophetess, Claiming to be speaking the Word of God, she spoke words that led the church, or many in the church, into idolatry and immorality. And verse 24 indicates what was her approach, really what you could say was her motto. The motto was this, come and know the depths of Satan. You need to know the depths of Satan, is what she said. That was her message, and she claimed that that message was from God. And they suffered her, the text says. They gave her the opportunity to speak. And they allowed her to have influence in the church. And so you can imagine she gave her pious sounding testimony and used that pious sounding testimony to the congregation, to the church and her members, in order to lead them into idolatry and sexual immorality. And her message was along these lines. She would have said to them, most likely, I am saved by grace, I know that. I confess that, and that is a marvelous thing. The undeserved salvation that I have because of the grace of God. but I have discovered that there is a special way in which to experience the wonder of the grace of God, and this is the special way, knowing the depths of Satan, that is, knowing the depths of sin, knowing and experiencing idol worship and eating things offered to idols, knowing and experiencing fornication, And what she claimed as she promoted her ideas was, these sins are helpful for my spiritual life. Then, having known the depths of Satan, having experienced sin in its depth, then I experience all the more, in a greater way, the greatness of the grace of God toward me. and how marvelous and how wonderful the grace of God is to forgive a sinner so terrible as I am. That gives me a wonderful experience of the grace of God. Obviously, she was being influential. There were those who were caving in to her ideas. And if we stop to consider our sinful natures, then we're not overly surprised by that either. The sinner desires to enjoy the pleasures of sin. The sinner is therefore easily persuaded by the ideas of Jezebel Because then one can be a member of the church and live a lifestyle that is self-satisfying. And then one can also avoid the mockery of the ungodly. And then one can still, as it was the case in Thyatira, be a member of the guilds and benefit. with a very healthy income. And in the end, following the reasoning of this Jezebel, one can have a richer experience of the grace of God. This was, or this is, one of the ways in which Satan attacks the holiness of the church and of the people of God, and still does so today. The question is, what does Christ see as the underlying sin? What exactly was wrong in this church? And verse 25 points us to that, where Christ says, but that which ye have already, hold fast till I come. That verse points to the fundamental weakness and sin in the church and what was characterizing her now as she allowed this Jezebel to exist in her midst and was allowing herself to be influenced by this Jezebel, and that was that Some in the church, Jezebel leading the way, had let go of the Scriptures. They had not held on to that which they had already received. They were not holding on to the Word of God. They had drifted away from the Scriptures. The church was a church that was mystical, a church that was interested not in the Word of God, but interested in experience. They based what they believed and they based how they lived as Christians, how they lived as the members of the Church of Christ, not on what scripture instructed them concerning Christian and godly living, but they based it on people's experience and feelings. They were mystical. Mysticism, you understand, is the notion that God reveals truth through feelings, and then making those feelings and whatever God reveals to you through those feelings, making that the standard in place of the Word of God. Mysticism is when one is not interested in the objective truth of God's Word. but rather in a subjective inner light that one supposedly has received from God. That was thy attire. The church had drifted away from the Scriptures and had replaced it with experience. And having done so, they could very easily, many of them in the church, could very easily accept Jezebel's teaching. They found nothing wrong with it because they had drifted away from the Word of God, which would have immediately identified the wrong of it. But many were fine with Jezebel's teaching, that is, many were fine with the antinomian idea, the antinomian notion that a deep experience of sin is necessary for one to appreciate the wonder of the grace of God. What we have here as I already indicated, is really the opposite extreme of what we had in Ephesus. Ephesus was doctrinally sound, a church that was well grounded in the truth, that knew and that confessed faithfully the doctrines of Scripture. But Ephesus had no love. The love of God. That is to say, they had religion without an inner spiritual life. Theirs was a cold and a formal religious life, and therefore they were characterized by dead orthodoxy. Their religion was simply in their heads, but wasn't in their hearts. In Thyatira, we have the very opposite of that. Everything, according to them, that was necessary for them as the people of God was in their hearts, but their hearts were not being informed by knowledge. Their hearts were not being informed and guided by the Scriptures. They had drifted away from the Word of God, they were not anchored and founded in God's Word, and therefore, having abandoned the Word of God, they were caught up in mysticism, a spiritual life that is divorced from the Word of God. Not informed by Scripture, not guided by Scripture, and not grounded in Scripture. emotions, feelings, and all separated from God's Word. The fact of the matter is that the spiritual and the emotional life of the believer must always be anchored in the Word of God. True spirituality doesn't come from experience and feelings and emotions. True spirituality in the life of a believer arises from hearing the Word of God and meditating upon the gospel, hearing the gospel of Christ, and hearing the gospel of the undeserved gracious, unfathomable love of God for us in Christ. It's the wonders of the grace of God as we meditate on them that ought to touch our souls, that ought to direct our emotions and our spiritual life. The gospel, as applied by the Spirit, produces genuine spirituality, a life that is spiritually vibrant, spiritually vibrant in the worship of God, and spiritually vibrant in a life of thankful obedience to God, grounded in the gospel. But what happened in Thyatira, you understand, can happen in churches today, too. And it does. Churches abandon the preaching of the word, and they find all kinds of other ways to stir up the members spiritually. It's the cry of the members and many leaders in the church give in to that cry. And so music is used because that's more exciting. One claims he is more spiritually and emotionally uplifted through music than through the preaching of the gospel. And testimonials, well, they're more interesting, more interesting than hearing a man preach on a verse of Scripture. So let's have testimonials. And they're more beneficial to my Christian life if I can hear about what others have faced, what others are doing. And the same with movies and drama and dancing, and you name it. There are churches trying those things and what usually follows is immorality because as they drift further and further away from scripture on account of focusing on their feelings and focusing on emotions, focusing on the things that will stir up their feelings and their emotions, then they're no longer guided and guarded by the Word of God. And in the pursuit of a deeper spiritual and emotional experience, because that's on the forefront, feelings, emotions, they explore what Jezebel promoted. They explore the depths of Satan, the depths of sin, so that they might experience in a richer way, they think, the wonders of God's grace. The book of Revelation is a book concerning the end times. There is a warning to us in that connection. Matthew 24 says concerning the end times and tells us that these are some of the signs of the nearness of the end, that there will be a rejection of the Word. There will be apostasy, departure from the truth and from the Word of God. people no longer anchored in scripture. And then, in close connection with that, wickedness will abound. And not only will wickedness abound out there in the world, although there, first of all, and very prominently, but wickedness can also abound among those who call themselves the church and Christians. It's a warning. And it's a warning because there is a real danger on account of the society that we live in, which is all focused upon pleasure, pleasure. You have to be happy, you have to enjoy life to the full. You have to satisfy yourself, you have a right to enjoy pleasure. That appeals to our sinful flesh. And then we can be drawn to the idea of being happy and enjoying life and having the pleasures that are offered and tempted to satisfy ourselves through practicing immorality, and then to justify it with a wicked Jezebel argument that the end result will be that we experience and appreciate all the more the wonder of God's grace to us. Christ warns his church and warns us then concerning this. We know that Christ writes these letters to his church. He did then, and he still does today, out of a love for his church, which is his bride. And so he speaks a word here in this letter for the church is good, and he speaks that word to us and speaks that word, you recall, and remember effectively to keep the church faithful. And the word that he has to say, first of all, is this, a warning, the warning that we just mentioned. And he strengthens that warning by mentioning in this passage the judgment that he would send upon this sin, upon Jezebel and upon her children, that is, her spiritual children. He would cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent. He would kill her children with death. judgment was going to come upon the wicked, severe punishment upon the impenitent woman in that church who did not repent, though she was given a space of time to repent and called to repent, and judgment upon those who remained impenitent with her, also her children, that is, her spiritual children, who followed her and who lived as she lived. Heavy judgments of God. Comparable, as you recall Old Testament history, to the judgments that Jehu brought upon the Old Testament Jezebel and upon her children too. gruesome, severe. Those judgments of God are always a warning to the faithful. If we are walking in, guilty of walking in these kinds of sins, then Christ calls us to repent of them, to seek the Lord while He may be found and to call upon Him. while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." A call to repentance, a call to Christ. a call to experience the marvelous forgiveness of God. But also, secondly, an admonition, that which ye have already, hold fast till I come. What do we have already? We have the word of God, we have the scriptures, By God's grace, we have been given the gift of His Word as well as the gift of faith to know and to believe the Word of God and to love His truth. And Christ says, cling to that. Cling to that because that is the sole standard for everything in the church and everything in your lives as members of the church, the standard not only for worship of God and for obedience, but also the standard for your inner spiritual life. The standard for your inner spiritual life is not your feelings and emotions, but is the Word of God. Hold fast to God's Word. Never drift from it. In the way of Christ by His Spirit holding us fast to His Word, giving us the desire and the ability to hold fast to His Word, then we will be preserved as His church and preserved as His people, preserved from the sin that characterized some in Thyatira, namely that they gave credence to their feelings, they drifted away from the word of God, and they entered into the depths of Satan. Christ preserves in the way of our holding fast to that which we have already. His Word. And to that end, Christ also gives a word of encouragement. In verses 26 through 28, He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, 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, and I will give him the morning star. Christ promises to his people, as he by his grace and power preserves us, that first of all, we will live and reign with him forever in his kingdom. We will share in the glory of Christ, and we will share in his power and in his rule. But he promises also this, that he will give us the morning star. The morning star is the brightest star in the morning. It is the star that signals the dawn of a new day. that signals a new beginning. Christ is that bright morning star. He tells us that himself in Revelation 22, verse 16. I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David and the bright and morning star. Christ encourages us to be faithful and encourages us through His work of keeping us faithful by the promise of the bright morning star being given to us. That is, Christ giving Himself to us, giving us more of His brightness and more of His glory. more of His righteousness, more of His holiness, and ultimately in the end giving us to be glorified with Him in the glories of heaven, when we will have Christ in all His fullness, and we will shine with Him in the Father's eternal kingdom forever and forever. That's the new beginning, the new morning star in all its fullness that we will receive in the day of Christ. That's his promise, and that's his encouragement to us. Let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Hear what? That we must never separate our spiritual life from the Word of God, to be guided instead by experience or feeling. instead of being guided by the truth and by the gospel. And positively, as Christ himself calls to us here, hold fast to what you have. Hold fast to my word until I return. That's the blessed way, that's the way eternal blessedness by my grace and blessing upon you. So may we hold fast and be faithful unto the end. Amen. Father in heaven, instruct and guide and lead us by Thy Word, and through having heard Christ, may His voice Direct us in the way of godliness and of holding fast to Thy Word so that it is a lamp to our feet and a guide to our pathway in life and a guide to our internal spiritual life as well. As we hear the gospel, meditate upon the wonders of grace and are overwhelmed with gratitude and live and show our souls to be truly spiritual in thankfulness unto Thee. We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen.