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Thyatira Church
Before we get started I want to address the shooting that occurred recently in Buffalo, New York.
This was a terrible tragedy.
One that apart from sin would have never occurred.
However, we do live in a world that in soaked in the devastation of sin.
Our politicians have attempted to use many words to describe what happened.
But, I have only heard one person use the proper word for what happened in Buffalo.
The police chief in Buffalo described what happened as evil.
There are no other words that properly express the events that occurred on that fateful day.
Unfortunately, because we live in a sin soaked world most have actually decided to use words that are often times inappropriate to describe the actions that took place that day.
For instance, this young man was not a terrorist.
He had no political end in sight for the murders that he committed.
He was a cold blooded killer who was affected by sin to the point that we would call his heart evil.
This and this alone is the proper word to use in describing this young mans actions.
This is the affect of sin in our society.
And Satan is working overtime to use these evil actions to further divide Gods creation against itself.
This Satans goal.
It is the destruction of the image of God.
We, humanity, are the only thing within creation that bears the image of God.
When we look upon each other we may see a deeply marred image.
But we are looking upon the image of God no matter what.
This young man bears that image as well.
I do believe that there is more to this story that we will never know.
I believe that for someone to get to the point that they believe taking the life of another in the callous, cold, and calculated manner in which this young man did is beyond the human capacity.
I believe that this man allowed his sin to run so rampant that it opened him up to attacks by demonic powers that overcame this young man.
And we now see the results.
The only hope we have.
The only hope this world has.
Is the swift return of Jesus.
Amen.
This is the reason the book of Revelation is so relevant to our lives today.
So let's take a look at the letter that Jesus gave to the Church at Thyatira.
We are going to again see a church that is being impacted by the culture around it.
But this time it appears that the culture is winning.
We need to guard against what we see in Thyatira in our own lives because it is the only way that we can protect the church from these influences in the end.
So, let's read through our passage and then take a closer look.
So, just a little background first to the city of Thyatira.
In importance it was probably the least of the seven churches addressed in these letters.
It was neither a religious or political center of power.
Thyatira was primarily know for its economic impact on the area.
It was well noted for some of its finer goods that were established within what we discussed briefly last week as the trade guilds.
We are blessed to actually have a number of significant writings from this time period that address these guilds.
And one of them in particular was one that dealt specifically in purple cloth.
The color purple during the time was very difficult and time consuming to produce.
It is believed that Lydia an influential individual that we read about in the book of Acts we know was a trader in purple cloth.
So she would have most likely been required to be a member of this specific trade guild.
It would have been nearly impossible for someone to trade with the public without being a member of the appropriate guild.
This might sound to us a bit crazy.
But it really isn’t all that far fetched.
Several years ago and still in some areas you will find significant pushes within communities to only by union made products if at all possible.
My family saw this while living in Michigan first hand.
The struggle for Christians in the city of Thyatira was that most of the guilds were also associated with some god that they saw as essentially blessing the guild.
And so whenever the guild would meet and attendance would have been expected.
There were offerings that were made to this god or goddess.
The real problem came toward the end of the festivities after everyone had had their fill.
Particularly their fill of drink and well inappropriate sexual relations were the norm at the end of these festivities.
We have already seen this problem popping up among this group of churches.
We have seen where Ephesus stood strong against these pagan practices.
Well, in Thyatira we see a slightly different response.
Our passage here like the others begins first with a specific picture of Jesus.
So let’s look at the picture that Jesus gives concerning himself.
We read in Revelation 2:18
This is the only time that we will see Jesus referred to as the Son of God in the book of Revelation.
We will find God referenced as the Father of Jesus.
But this is the only time Jesus receives the title Son of God.
The title is given here I believe in anticipation of the quote from Psalm 2 that is coming in verse 27 and we will get there and understand better this reference that is being made.
Jesus is also described as who who has eyes like fire and feet like brass.
This is an allusion to verse fourteen where we read of Jesus eyes as flashing with anger and who is prepared to tread under foot the enemies of the Christian faith.
But he is not addressing unbelievers here.
This is a stern picture of Jesus towards his Church.
He is not happy.
The letter continues in verse 19 and we read.
Jesus says that he knows there works.
The next part I would probably personally translate as your love and faith and your service and patient endurance.
This is why I say this.
It is our love for others that produces our service towards one another.
Right.
And it is our faith in Jesus that produces a patient endurance when face with the struggles of this world.
So unlike Ephesus who it was said had lost their first love.
This church’s love for Jesus pushes them to do for those around them.
And their works exceed the first he says.
This is a testimony to their continuing growth as disciples of Christ.
It is a testimony to their maturing faith in Christ Jesus.
This should be the hope for any church.
That as we grow in our love for Jesus we see the world around us through eyes tainted by the blood of the cross and we seek to serve this world in Love just as Jesus did when he went to the cross.
However, not everything is going so great.
In verse 20 we read.
First off I do not believe there was any single individual in the church in Thyatira who was named Jezebel.
Instead Jesus is referencing King Ahab’s wife Jezebel.
Jezebel never acted like a prophetess, but instead she brought several hundred pagan prophets with here into Israel when she married Ahab and became queen.
Queen Jezebel brings pagan concepts and practices into the nation of Israel and leads the people astray from the true worship of the one true God.
Yahweh.
And so what Jesus is doing is basically saying that there is someone among you that is just like Jezebel.
Now, prophets in the early church were highly regarded and very influential.
They are mentioned twice in relation to the apostles.
Prophecy is listed among the gifts of the Spirit in Romans 12 verse 6.
But what is a prophet.
The office of prophet was not primarily the foretelling of the future.
In fact that was actually quite rare.
Instead the primary biblical function of a prophet was to encourage the people to right living in their relationship with God.
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