I said 2hb after the first sermon I preached last night came down and I said well HB I feel like I left a few people on base but you can bat them in and then after he preached this afternoon and now I'm leaving to get on a plane I said you didn't leave anybody on base for me so I have to bat myself all the way around I did have in in my old church I had a friend actually she was very good friends with my wife and we were friends with their family and she had the habit of when I was shaking hands at the door she sort of give me her instant reaction to the sermon and sometimes say sometimes that was a home run other times that was I was a solid ground rule double pastor or it's a walk but you're on base hit by a pitch you leaned into one whatever it takes it just is not mad not every every sermon as a home run but hopefully every sermon is to be faithful to God's Word I have for my text now out of order back in chapter 2 beginning at verse 18 and then even though this is the last exposition for today if this is your home church or you're looking for a church to worship tomorrow morning you can hear the rest of the story now you just have to know what happens to the other two churches well you'll get them to different sermons at two different services tomorrow morning here this afternoon for a final session the church and how shall we say it diet era Thyatira theater ah something well we'll go with Thyatira 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 I know your works your love and faith and service and patient endurance and that your latter work succeed the first but I have this against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and his teaching and seducing My servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols I gave her time to repent but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality behold I will throw her onto a sick bed and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works and I will strike her children dead and all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart and I will give to each of you according to your works but to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold this teaching who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan to you I say I do not lay on you any other burden you only hold fast what you have until I come the one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end to him I will give authority over the nation's and he will rule them with a rod of iron as when earthen pots are broken in pieces even as I myself have received authority 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 you may have noticed toward the beginning of this letter a word that may jump off the page is particularly relevant in our 21st century context it's there in verse 20 tolerance tolerance has been a buzzword in our culture for at least the last couple of decades certainly not a bad word on the face of it I'm all for legal tolerance and in many cases social tolerance I don't want people who disagree with me to be discriminated against to be made outcasts I believe in a free society where people have freedom to believe and practice their faith without interference I don't believe that simply as an American I believe that first of all because of what we believe from scripture about the conscience and the importance of the conscience to follow our own dictates as informed by Scripture there's a good kind of tolerance in other words but I think all of us understand that there is another kind of tolerance and this is just an aside here but we have you ever considered that for all that our culture says about tolerance and Christians should be tolerant we are called as Christians to so much more than tolerance that's one of the response to give to your neighbors tolerance that's all you want is tolerance Jesus tells us to love our enemies to pray for those who persecute us not merely to tolerate them tolerance sets the bar too low but of course this passage here is talking about a different sort of tolerance and overlooking of what is evil a a countenancing what is false a patience that we should not have with immorality the bottom line is that Christians cannot be tolerant of all things because God is not tolerance of all things now I can respect the differing opinions I can try to understand them we ought to give the best possible construct on the motives of other people but we cannot give unqualified unconditional affirmation to every belief and behavior surely a parent would understand this you are not a good parent if you give unconditional unqualified affirmation to every behavior you see in your child you see them playing in the middle of a very busy street do you say Who am I to judge the child says mommy daddy I'm gonna take a bath good with a toaster well to each his own I want you to grow up and learn to think for yourself I understand that is not a loving tolerance and as Christians we must love what God loves and yes we must hate what God hates we must love what God loves that's where Ephesus failed but we must also hate what God hates and that's where Pergamum and Thyatira failed and make no mistake about it for all that our culture may speak about tolerance we actually live in an incredibly and increasingly intolerant age if you want to see rank in tolerance of all kind I can introduce you to it quickly it's called Twitter you want to see judgment without mercy let's see where every mistake you've ever made can be brought up against you with no hope of ever receiving forgiveness it's called the digital world our culture just tends to change which things that will be tolerant of or intolerant of and it's not always bad our society is certainly much less tolerant on the main of racism and we can say that that's a good thing there are certain swear words that will get you in trouble and some that won't not talking about with your parents or in the church but in the broader world if you were to find that your politician or your cities or your universities basketball coach if somebody ran a front-page story your University's basketball coach someone snuck into practice and he was dropping f-bombs now as Christians we'd say he shouldn't do that and that's quite wrong and I doubt very much his job would be in jeopardy if however someone came in to practice and he was using any number of ethnic or racial or homeless sexual slurs he might be fired immediately I'm not arguing that those are appropriate either I'm simply saying at any given moment in a culture there are certain things that a culture tolerates and those that it will not and over time some of them switch I read recently someone made the observation that whereas 50 or 60 years ago in America we used to be very laissez-faire about food and have many strict mores about sex we've now reversed the two we're rather laissez-faire about sex and we have very many strict rules about food it's true all the labels that you have to read in all the ways that you have to see it it's non-gmo and it's not this and the chicken was read poetry and all of the things you have to make sure before you can eat this it's hardly an exaggeration in some mom's groups you would receive more nasty looks for feeding their children Fruity Pebbles than you would for announcing that you were leaving your husband to have an affair tell us more about that fruity what I grew up on Lucky Charms fruity pebbles Captain Crunch with crunch berries sometimes even just berries that wonderful so they're so making it well now I'm getting the amens I would go to these sleepovers within my my friends and I would get up in the next morning and they'd have granola nights say don't your parents love you that's not in the text here we are in SIA Tyra and they are chided for their over tolerance surely there is much here for us to learn of the seven cities in Revelation Thyatira is the least well-known the least impressive the least importance not speaking of the church but of the city in the ancient world and yet the letter here is the longest of the seven so there was a lot going on here some bad some good we'll start with the good verse 19 I know your works your love and faith and service and patient endurance your latter works even exceed the first Ephesus was praised for their good deeds and strong work ethic Thyatira is even better it seems they have the deeds that Ephesus had and noticed they also have the love that Ephesus lacked so they have love they have faith they have hard work you imagine this to be a vibrant church a tight-knit bunch they love they serve they endure maybe the kind of church you walk into and immediately you feel like you belong great to meet you glad to have you here let me introduce you to my friends I'll show you how to get plugged in here's the ministry for you we're so glad that you're here kind of church that we enjoy friendly caring serving one another probably out serving in the community a church full of love that's the good part but then very quickly there's a bad part their love was undiscerning and blindly affirming the big problem at Thyatira was tolerance they tolerated false teaching and immoral behavior to things God is fiercely intolerant of and Jesus did not Pat them on the back and say I applaud you for being open-minded I applaud you for being welcoming and affirming rather he says you have many things going for you it's not all or nothing here you love you serve you're warm you're vibrant yes but you're blind and you're undiscerning your tolerance actually is not love it is unfaithfulness where have we appropriated this cultural misunderstanding that love equals unconditional affirmation it does not if Ephesus was to just put a stereotype on it an unloving fundamentalist church and Smyrna was like a 1040 window persecuted church in Pergamum perhaps an undiscerning Church filled with eager college students then Thyatira is your over tolerant liberal congregation a church I imagine with social programs a concern for social justice a desire to be inclusive perhaps but somewhere along the line there warm-heartedness overtook clear mindedness most Christians or churches go in a liberal direction for one of two reasons either they are disillusioned conservatives who saw nothing but angry fundamentalists or they are passionate social activists who in their desire to love everyone end up rejecting nothing I read this on a church website a number of years ago see what you think about it it says when we baptize you into our community we promise that we will never take it back no matter what you discover about yourself or what others discover about you along life's journey we believe that baptism places each of us into the body of Christ and that lasts forever some are baptized as infants others as adults some are sprinkled others are immersed some reclaim their baptism from a previous church life for each of us however baptism is big enough strong enough and cleansing enough to last forever we believe that every one old young straights lesbian gay bisexual transgendered physically or emotionally challenged rich or poor sure or unsure lost or found Democrat or Republican has a place in the body of Christ baptism is like a badge that says you're a full member of the church and no one can take that away from you now you don't have to think too hard to imagine many people reading a paragraph like that and saying yeah yes it's big enough and it's strong enough until you begin to really pull apart what's in that paragraph and compare it to what the Bible actually teaches lost or found there's yes and there's nothing you can do what we do believe in the perseverance of the saints but we also believe that those who are truly Saints do in fact persevere and are preserved and perhaps most essentially missing from a paragraph like that is what is missing in our modern gospel and it's the word that you heard HB mentioned so many times in his last sermon that word repentance when Jesus preached the gospel when John the Baptist preached the gospel when the Apostles in the early church preached the gospel they did not herald the news that God likes you just the way you are they heralded the news that God sent his son to die for sinners like you and he can make you into just like Jesus is that's the message do you remember this Christina Aguilera song I'm sure you do you are beautiful no matter what they say words can't bring you down you are beautiful in every single way yes words can't bring you down so don't bring me down today I submit to you that that passes for the gospel and to many churches and people can get whipped up into a great big frenzy and there are books and ministries and churches and movements that are essentially telling people nothing more than that just a message of feel-good pablum that they could get by turning on the radio you're beautiful no matter what they say don't let words bring you down everything about you is beautiful of course I'm sure Christina Aguilera doesn't think that if you disagree with certain agendas in life that that is actually beautiful I'm sure she too has a set of standards to which she wants the world to conform and in too many churches we have left out that essential message of the gospel which is believe and repent repent and believe and I wonder if this website I just read has any notion that it was the baptism for the remission of sins sins that must be repented of to quote that other great theologian of our day Lady gaga she had that song born this way no baby you're just you're just born this way you're just born this way and you realize there's an there's an element of theirs it's a half-truth there's a half-truth what what resonates so often in our culture are the half-truths that get so overcome with half falsehoods that they become entire lies see we believe as Christians that same reality you can only be who you truly are we we that's right you have an identity but whereas our world says you are born this way the message of Jesus Christ says you were born one way and you need to be born again another way and you're right you only can be who you truly are and that's either in death in Adam or in life in Christ so that the message the ethical message of the New Testament is essentially be who you are in Jesus and so there is no call in the New Testament to ever be tolerant of the things that Jesus is intolerant of let's be honest it is very rare to find warm-hearted loving tender churches that at the same time have principles and rock-solid convictions it is hard to find that in the same person hardheads too often come with hard hearts and soft hearts too often come with soft heads we need God to get a hold of us that's why it's a mark of spirit given maturity when we can pray tender prayers with the sick and they're hurting and we can also champion truth in the church pray for the spirit to work in you like that to work in your pastor like that to work in your church like that Jonathan Edwards has a magnificent sermon describing Jesus Christ in all of his diverse excellencies great phrase he's a lion and a lamb human and divine meekness and Majesty and so our churches reflecting the character of God must shine forth in those diverse excellencies oh that's a church that will help you when you're struggling that's the church that absolutely will not budge on the truth of the gospel and they do both of those things at the same time the specific sin in Thyatira was that they tolerated Jezebel this wasn't the woman's real name but this false prophetess was acting like a Jezebel and that she was we don't know the details but leading people into some sort of adultery or perhaps adultery as a metaphor for spiritual idolatry or perhaps one in the same we don't know if her influence was formal if she was given opportunities to teach and deceive people in that way or if it was informal taking place in conversations in word-of-mouth however it was happening this woman in Thyatira was a danger like her Old Testament namesake you remember Jezebel was the daughter of earth by I'll king of the sidonians she worshipped the BeOS and the a shiraz and she led her husband a hab to do the same she is the one who plotted to kill nebith for his vineyard she was called in second Kings 9:30 for that cursed woman as a punishment for her wickedness she was eventually pushed out a window trampled by horses eaten up by dogs she was a bad lady and she led Israel down a bad path and Jesus says now it society rrah you are allowing someone like that to have sway over your people why do you tolerate her do not affirm her do not dialogue with her do not wait to see what happens get rid of her it doesn't mean that expecting them to take up literal swords but put her outside the church warn your people against it do not allow for her sort of influence or behavior to go unchecked it's for if it goes unchecked jesus' eventually i will check its apparently by some means we don't know how the lord had already warned her to repent verse 21 i gave her time but she refuses to repent and so now the lord jesus promises to throw her onto a sickbed make her followers suffer until they repent finally i will strike your spiritual children dead so jesus is not messing around please please please understand never in the New Testament is sexual sin considered a thing indifferent it is never a tiara there are some seven or eight vise lists in the New Testament one from Jesus from Paul just rattle off different vice works of the flesh or corruptions from the heart in every single one of those vice lists sexual immorality is mentioned and more often than not it is mentioned at the very head of the list and sometimes mentioned in more than one way it was considered to be one of the chief sins of the pagans and such a serious sin here in Thyatira that it was considered worthy of death not at the hands of the state's not at the hands of the church but Jesus himself taking action have you ever stopped to think about how frightening that language is in 1st Corinthians 11 they're they're partaking of the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner and Paul says that's why some of you are sick some of you have died now it scrambles the brain a bit and we can get off-track real quickly if we start thinking as I why I'm sick did I do something people with the tender conscience go where they should not go and yet do we ever stop to consider that that happens today that God still looks upon his church and is still actively refining war judging bringing us to a place here again repent repent repent this was a serious sin that this Jezebel was leading them in not only a serious sin it was an entrenched sin now these look like very obvious sins to us but you have to remember that they were just part and parcel of how things works in the first century it mentions sexual immorality and it also mentions food sacrificed to idols and you know your Bibles you understand that's a complicated issue and there's different occasions where you eat food sacrifice if you buy it in the marketplace and those other occasions where you're not supposed to do it if it's part of pagan revelry well as best as we can figure it might happen like this you would be at dinner with friends maybe with a guild some sort of trade union there were lots of these in Thyatira and you would sit down for a special meal a celebration with the b80 the bricklayers Association of Thyatira and you'd sit around the table or recline on the floor and you'd be ready to partake of this great celebratory feasts with your friends and colleagues and the host might stand up and say we're so glad that you could make it what a happy occasion for the b8e we have quite a feast prepared for you but before we partake we want to recognize the great god Zeus who watches over the bricklayers and has made this dinner possible and there's a statue of zeus in the corner and this food before you partake of it is going to be offered in a ritual sacrifice to zeus that we might worship and honor him may all the people say Amen something like that now what do you do tell yourself I'd doesn't mean anything to me and in some occasions Paul in Corinthians seems to give that sort of answer but here it's envisioning that by the very eating of the sacrifice you are participating and the sacrificial ritual and in the idolatry that you go and you put your meat there and you say your little prayer and you give Zeus a little worship and you can say in your heart as a Christian well I don't really mean it so easy do you stay do you go this is your job these are your friends see they didn't have to go searching for idolatry it was right there just like you don't have to go searching for sexuality in our culture it's there it comes to you on your phone it comes to you on Billboard's it comes to you on commercials the question is what will you do when it comes to you to participate in these rituals was obvious to not participate would have been a great faux pas these feasts with their idolatry often with her sexual revelry were a part of life in the greco-roman world to remove yourself from them was often socially economically disastrous it's just the way things were it's the way everyone was it's lying there's always stuck with me from David Wells who I had in seminary and I have read many of maybe all of his books worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness looks strange worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange you know you know how sexual sins or other sins infiltrate a culture or a people it's not because there's one great book that makes such a rational linear argument in some one breathe you say oh I'm convinced of that you know what happens it's just there on TV it's just there on the commercials it's just there when walking through the mall it's just there in the cultural air you breathe and sin looks normal and righteousness looks strange lighting a candle in the darkness is conspicuous which is why false teachers like this Jezebel in Thyatira or the Nicolaitans whoever they were in Pergamum gains such a hearing they made being a Christian much easier less costly less countercultural and Jesus could not tolerate it he was going to make an example of Thyatira to show all the churches that Jesus has eyes like fire you see that in verse 18 there's a there's there's a method to this madness here why Jesus is presented as the one who has eyes like flames of fire and feet like burnished bronze here before the church in Thyatira because his eyes are too pure to look on evil his feet of burnished bronze are too holy to walk among wickedness and he wanted all the churches to know that he was the searcher of hearts and minds and would repay evil for unrepentant evil it was a serious sin it was an entrenched sin and it was a subtle sin the people had probably been told that these deep secrets wouldn't harm them you see in verse 24 this language who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan again we don't know for sure what this refers to but what was going on was probably some kind of false teaching that devalued the material world this Jezebel may have been saying something like this once you really know the secrets of the universe once you really know the deep things and you're not like the unenlightened masses you'll understand that your physical body is just a shell it's maybe just a prison house for the Soul and matter is is of lesser baser material and your physical body is nothing it's your it's your spirit it's your soul that matters and when you know these deep things and when you know this secret then can you connect the dots if your physical matter does not matter then what you do with your physical body does not matter now that that is not the exact same teaching we have in our culture but you can see connecting some of the same dots if you have your physical stuff of life being the product ultimately of chance and time and when you die it disintegrates into the earth like anything else then it's just a body providing sensations for pleasure or for pain so this jessabelle is teaching them about these deep things about the physical world look if you're really spiritual if your relationship with God is strong enough then you can participate in these things you can handle it maybe you'll even understand more and be enlightened whatever it was exactly they were hearing it was a lie leading people into sin bad doctrine leads to bad lives that's not a one-to-one correspondence everyone who's bad has all the bad doctrine everyone with the good doctrine is leaving living a good life but it is the case here in Thyatira that their ethical errors were stemming from doctrinal confusion I hope in this audience you know the importance of sound doctrine that that's doesn't sound like a bad word and doctrine divides and mission unites and we just need to do away with all of these sophisticated dogmas and just learn to love each other Kumbaya doctrine matters because ideas have consequences what we think about the sovereignty of God affects how we pray it affects how we comfort whether we believe man to be basically evil or basically good affects how we share the gospel it affects how we view social issues it affects how we view politics what we think about the material world affects what we think about sex or food or the arts we all out of a cluster of ideas and values we believe to be true we don't simply live by our experiences we live by the constant interpretation of our experiences your your interpreting what you're feeling you're interpreting this suffering you're interpreting this pain this pleasure ideas have consequences doctrine matters because unity is found in truth we don't want a content less Christianity where people have a unity which amounts to nothing more than the word Jesus wants a unity that is experiencial and relational but is first of all grounded in truth doctrine matters because it mattered in the New Testament Galatians 1:8 but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you let him be anathema don't care who you have coming in here how many books he's sold how many degrees he has I don't care if it's an angel himself if he's not preaching the gospel let him be condemned Titus 1:9 an elder must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it 2nd John 9 and 10 anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God whoever continues in the teaching has both the father and the son Christianity is certainly much more than doctrinal proposition but it can never be reduced to less than that doctrine matters because the more truth about God the more we know about God just like a kiddie pool is okay for kids but as adults a bigger pool is more fun I hope you're taking advantage of the bookstore I hope you're reading good books we have such an embarrassment of riches in this culture so many resources I really believe that what one of the the signs often at least an illiterate culture of people being gripped by the gospel and by the Word of God as they begin to read good books I've seen this in people before I think of a deacon years and years ago he's a deacon in the church and he I don't even know if he was converted but he was certainly awakened and in some way and and revitalized in his faith if not born again and he said when that happened and I was was hearing the preaching in a new way he said and he was a college graduate and he said I picked up a book and yes I graduated from college and I had never read through a book entirely in my whole life I'll tell you what college he went to but not a bad one and there was something in growing up there in the Lord that he wanted to read he wanted to think when you're a kid and you you get out on a hot summer day and you get one of those cheap little plastic pools and there's this much water if you're three years old you go and you splash and you have fun that's not fun when you're six foot three and so I hope with your Christian life you're you're moving beyond the kiddie pool that's fun God has more for you read something over your head that you don't understand sometimes the only way to swim in the deep end is to just be tossed in and flail around for a little bit the more truth the more doctrine the more you know about God don't you want to know more about God the Christian life is like someone described it this way once you know you you see this this mountain Vista and you can imagine this because you have hills and mountains in the distance and you go and you see and you look and it's you know it's it's 3,000 feet and if you're at sea level and I know you're not here but you look and you think oh that's impressive and you get there and then you see once you crest that peak there's one that's 6,000 then you crest that and you see there's snow captain above the tree line and there's 12,000 then you have 14 and then you you hear about something called the Himalayas and more and more it's so often in our Christian life do not be content living in just the hills where there's mountains and there's vistas and there's new things to learn and see about God the little kid with his beachball may enjoy the ocean but how much more might the biologist with his test tubes be able to know and understand and see and delight in so why Jesus calls us to have childlike faith and wonder but the book of Hebrews chides us for having childlike understanding keep the awe lose the ignorance don't just marvel at the surface of the water get some scuba gear go under the water see the particularities of the ocean doctrine matters truth matters because only a faith with definition will sustain a people over the long haul J Gresham machen said indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith he's right people do not die for undefined squishy beliefs they go to the hard places of the world not to proclaim a generally uplifting message but the particularities of Christ and him crucified the truth matters which is why Jesus tells the faithful ones that Fiat IRA hold fast to what you have some hold to the teaching of Jezebel but some do not hold to that teaching but they hold to the truth of God's Word do not be seduced and they are promised two things and we are promised two things if we overcome the temptation to over tolerance first verse 26 the one who conquers and who will and who keeps my works until the end to him I will give authority over the nation's we are promised to rule over the nations verse 27 there and following quotes from Psalm 2 a messianic Psalm anticipating the reign of the Messiah over the nation's so the authority is not inherent to us but it is a shared authority as we reign with Christ it means that though we are cultural outcasts now though you may be ridiculed by your neighbors and by the nation's now if we stand with Jesus we will in the end be the victors wearing the crown crushing the enemies of Christ under our feet now some of us are perhaps uncomfortable with that language in verse 27 earthen pots broken in pieces we think well I don't want to - the nation's to pieces like pottery we don't want to rule with an iron scepter but could it be that our discomfort with this language of triumph is due to the fact that we are not particularly trampled Ryan was just we were just talking about this in one of the breaks and he was making the point that you see how different books of the Bible come at Jesus in different ways or rather Jesus shows himself to us in different ways so to a people like at Corinth who are very impressed with the impressive things of the world and think that they need to make a good claim to their impressive credentials there he wants to emphasize the shame of the Cross because all they can think of as glory but here to the churches in Revelation facing opposition cultural estrangement and marginalization and even persecution here it's no coincidence that Christ is presented with great glory and grandeur and the one who will give to them the scepter Terrain might it be that the main reason that we are not interested in any final decisive vindication is because we live such neutered Christian lives that there is nothing countercultural about us and therefore we do not stick out in any way therefore we not are we are not opposed in any way and therefore we do not feel the need to be vindicated in any way there's a final promise that we will receive verse 28 the morning star and what is that we have already seen a reference to Balaam in these letters the mention of the morning star is likely another illusion to the Balaam story in the fourth article Balaam prophesied about a conqueror who would come out of Israel numbers 24 I see him but not now I behold him but not near a star a star will come out of Jacob a scepter will rise out of Israel he will crush the foreheads of Moab the skulls of all the sons of chef's so wasn't it interesting that the first promise to rule over the nations and a reference to Psalm 2 there has to do with a scepter and then here this reference likely to numbers 24 and the Oracle of Balaam also has a language of scepter but now this language of the star those two those two items this scepter and the star are related and they're both promised to Thyatira you see Balaam foresaw a messianic deliverer that would be like a star coming out of Jacob and a scepter out of Israel in revelation 22:16 we read I Jesus have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches I'm the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star and so the ultimate gift here is none other than Christ himself if you overcome you will get me Jesus says do you see why this is this is so much a fight of faith you may not get the New York Times you may not get the Washington Post you may not get tenure you may not get a raise you may not get a promotion you may not get a degree you may not get a fair treatment or a fair trial you may not get your kids you may not get your parents you may not get all manner of things that in a just world would be coming to you but Jesus says I tell you this for certain you will get me we may not get lauded by the world we may not get the health in this life that we want we may not have influence and prestige but we will get Jesus and if that's all we have the good news is he's more than enough let's pray our gracious Heavenly Father in Christ alone our hope is found and so we turned to him we look to him we might find in him our all-in-all would you protect us from all of the ways that the world looks so normal in all of the ways that righteousness feels so strange we are strangers and aliens that we don't be afraid to live as such in your name we pray amen you
