Sermon Tone Analysis

The Churches of Revelation

The Church That Compromised

Revelation 2:18–29 (ESV)

18 “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.

19 “ ‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.

20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 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.

24 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.

25 Only hold fast what you have until I come.

26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 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.

28 And I will give him the morning star.

29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Introduction

This is the longest of the seven letters and the most difficult.

As Hemer writes, it is also “addressed to the least known, least important, and least remarkable of the cities”[1]

This letter shows the depth of sin

that compromise ultimately leads to … full-scale idolatry, full-scale immorality, and worst of all, tolerance of both.

This is the church that has been infiltrated by the world.

This is the church that tolerated sin,

the church that absorbed sin, absorbed error and lived happily ever after with it.

This is the kind of church that is common today, as it has been through all of the centuries, but completely inconsistent with the demands of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the head of the church.[2]

This was mission drift.

A Church That Tolerates

By all worldly appearances the city was unimportant and its church rather insignificant.

This is not the judgment of Jesus.

Big or small, well-known or hardly known at all, every church is important to Jesus.

Whether you have 10 thousand, one thousand, one hundred, or 10 members makes no difference to Him.

He wants you to be pure where you are planted.

He wants you to honor Him wherever your home is[3]

The church allowed the woman who was teaching that to have reached a point of prominence where she was articulating it and leading Christians astray,

as well as collecting around her some false believers.

The Lord promises that He’s going to judge and He’s going to judge that church severely,

sparing only those, according to verse 24, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them.[4]

He’s going to judge a church that has done nothing about it.

It then deals primarily with the church that tolerates sin.

It takes us back to a very basic understanding that we have to have in regard to the church and that is that the Lord wants His church holy.

He wants His church in every sense intolerant of sin.

[6]

A progressive worsening of the character

Here not merely a small minority was indifferent but large numbers had actually yielded to the demoralizing influence of false teaching.

There is a progressive worsening of the character of these churches as they become more and more influenced by evil until finally it takes over.

Into this church the evils of idolatry and immorality had pressed and penetrated deeply.

There is a woman who here is called by the name of Jezebel, which probably wasn’t her real name, no one names their child Jezebel, not if they’re thinking.

But this woman had influenced the church in a way that was not unlike Jezebel having influenced the people of God in the Old Testament, and so she is branded with the symbolic name Jezebel because it was Jezebel, who led Israel into idolatry and immorality, and so here is a woman doing the same in Thyatira and she deserves the same name, Jezebel.

She had succeeded in corrupting the church.

You remember Smyrna?

The church at Smyrna was being assaulted by a synagogue of Satan.

But it was coming from the outside against them.

Pergamos was being confronted by the throne of Satan, the very … the very capital city as it were of satanic religion.

Smyrna was being assaulted by a synagogue of Satan.

The Words

Revelation 2:18 (ESV)

18 “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.

The author is identified there as the Son of God, first of all

… secondly, as the one who has the eyes like a flame of fire

… and thirdly, the one who has feet like burnished bronze.

Jesus Christ is the author.

He is introduced as the author and that part of His character, that part of His nature which best describes His relationship to this church is emphasized.

[7]

And there are a number of things that describe Christ there.

And when these seven letters are written,

He picks out of that description that part of the description which best fits His approach to the given church.

Here He chooses to describe Himself with the imagery of the Son of God with the eyes like a flame of fire and feet like burnished bronze.

Those last two indications, eyes like flaming fire and feet like burnished bronze, speak of penetrating judgment.

1.

Who has “eyes like a flame of fire”

He has piercing vision, like a laser.

Everything yields to His vision, everything melts before His gaze.

Nothing is hidden to Him.

He penetrates it all.

You cannot disguise it, you cannot cover it.

This is the penetrating vision, penetrating all things.

And after having penetrating, consuming all opposition, sweeping down all obstructions,

pressing its way with invincible power.

This must have reminded John of Daniel 10 where it says of God that He eyes like torches of fire.

And it’s speaking of God in the fierceness of His judgment.

Such are the eyes of the Son of God.

They look through everything.

They pierce all masks.

They pierce all coverings.

They search the remotest recesses.

They behold the hidden things of the soul and of the church.

The church may have had a good reputation.

It may have had a community reputation.

It may even have had something of notoriety among other churches.

They may not have known everything that was going on there, though it is sure, as we’ll note later, that they knew some of the things going on, but certainly whatever the people around them or the other churches knew or didn’t know, the Lord’s penetrating eyes uncovered everything.[8]

2. His feet are like burnished bronze.

His feet are described as like burnished bronze, polished with light flashing off of them … the picture of pure metal reflecting brilliance trampling out impurity.

It reminds us again of Revelation 19 the vision of Christ, verse 15,

“He treads the winepress of the fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God.”

He comes in trampling judgment.

It’s a frightening thing to see Jesus Christ coming toward His church in this way.

This is how He’s introduced.

He’s introduced with His judgment character.

It’s a threatening picture.

It’s frankly a terrifying picture.

Can you imagine what happened in the church at Thyatira when the letter was delivered and read on the next Sunday?

This is a real city.

This is a real church and a real letter that was read to real people.

Hebrews says that God comes in judgment with the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

This is the church that the Lord comes to judge