The Book of Revelation: Revelation 2:18-29

Speaker: David Mitchell

Passage: Revelation 2:18-29

A LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN THYATIRA

Alright, good morning, everybody. So I’ve got to say this: my wife and I, my kids, we’re first service people. And the second service is a lot more rowdy. I have to give you guys credit. It’s like, the first service is the United States of America. This is America, right here. You guys are rowdy. I like it.

Okay, for the record, I prefer America 255 years ago. It was just more civilized back then. Okay. Where was I going? Oh, yeah: Revelation chapter two.

All right, it is like 60 degrees outside. I’m legally obligated to let you go when it hits 65 so we can enjoy the rest of the day.

We have been here at Vintage in Revelation. Right now, we’re in Revelation chapter two, and we’re going to read the letter to a church called Thyatira. Remember, Revelation, this set of letters, is Jesus Himself speaking directly to these churches about different things that He sees in them. Today, we’re talking about Revelation two, verses 18 through 29.

It says, “To the angel of the church in Thyatira: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching, she misleads My servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am He who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’ To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations – that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’ – just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

So these are the words of Jesus to a real church 2000 years ago, in Thyatira. And what we see in this is that Jesus leaves no ambiguity about how He views immorality and sin. I will say it like this: Jesus is serious about sin, because sin is serious about you.

What do I mean by that? Sin is not here to play games with you. It is here to steal and kill and destroy. That is what it does to our lives. And many of those who stepped courageously into that baptism tank this morning know the reality of that well, and said, God, I don’t want that anymore. I want what You have for me.

That is why we cheer, because at the end of that, Jesus speaks to the one who is victorious. What we saw there was victory.

JESUS ILLUMINATES AND ELIMINATES 

A simple framework that I want to use today for Revelation chapter two, these words to Thyatira, is these two words: illuminate and eliminate.

To illuminate is to shine a light on something, to bring light where there is currently darkness, to highlight something, to emphasize something – that’s what illuminate means. Jesus not only illuminates, but He also eliminates.

There are things that He needs to eliminate, to rid out, to get rid of entirely too, and the translation is to leave no trace. And when Jesus walks through this church in Thyatira, He both illuminates and eliminates.

For us this morning, the invitation is to come before Him, both individually and collectively, and ask Jesus these two questions: Jesus, are there things You want to illuminate in my life and other things You want to eliminate? Are there things You want to bring light to, and are there things You want to get rid of?

We see this illumination in the way that He is described at the beginning of these words to Thyatira. It says that “His eyes are like blazing fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze.” This means that wherever He walks, He brings light, and wherever He looks, He brings illumination.

And so we have this King walking through His Kingdom with eyes like blazing fire and feet like burnished bronze. It reminds us of back in Revelation chapter one, where the apostle John hears a voice and turns and sees Jesus. And in Revelation 1, he describes Jesus, and he says, His hair is like wool. His eyes are like blazing fire. He’s holding stars that are glowing. His feet are burnished bronze. His sun shines in all its brilliance. His face is like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

What was said then, and what we see today, is that when Jesus walks in the room, every light in the universe is turned on. And when Jesus walks into this church, where there is great darkness, He brings light. 

And so if you find yourself, either individually or in your family or community, or if we find ourselves as a church, ever at a place where darkness has been allowed to rest, then we have to invite the One in whose feet are like burnished bronze and eyes are like blazing fire to illuminate the places of darkness in our lives.

THE DANGER OF TOLERATING SIN

So Jesus begins, and He illuminates a few things. He says, I have seen some things in you: your love, your faith, your service, your perseverance, and endurance. Think about the letters to the seven churches. You almost get this sort of little picture of like it’s a schoolhouse and the principal’s at the front. He’s calling people individually forward to read their reports to them.

He calls Thyatira forward and says, Hey, your love, your faith, your service, your perseverance… They’re beginning to get puffed up here. This is great! You feel bad for the person in Thyatira who, hearing this letter for the first time, leaves the room after those four things, right? Sounds good. Sounds like we’re doing great, right?

But then Jesus says, Nevertheless. And what I want each of us to do this morning, again, individually and collectively, is to say, God, would You illuminate the places where I’m aligned with Your will, but would my ear be opened to hear Your “nevertheless.” He says to the church in Thyatira, “Nevertheless, I have this against you because you tolerate that woman Jezebel.”

Now, there are places where we, as disciples of Jesus, or we, as Christians, could be accused of being too intolerant of those things. There’s certainly those places. But what I want to be very clear about is that sin in the church is not to be tolerated. Sin in our lives is not to be tolerated. 

The word “tolerate” in Revelation chapter two is this Greek word aphesis, and it means “to pardon or to forgive.” Jesus will say, she has not repented, and yet they forgave her. They pardoned her. They tolerated her.

Leadership author and speaker John Maxwell will say, “Culture is whatever behavior you allow.” Not what you enable. Not what you encourage, but what you allow.

In other words, it wasn’t that this church was necessarily walking around saying, hey, that sexual morality is great. Keep doing it. It’s awesome. Right? That would be encouraging it. Or saying, oh, hey, that sin, that greed, that jealousy, whatever, that’s fine. That’s all good. That would be enabling it. But they were tolerating it; they were allowing it.

And so we have to come before Him this morning and say, God, are there places where I’m tolerating things that You do not tolerate? Are there places where I’ve pardoned things that You have not pardoned? Is there a culture I have allowed that You do not allow? Because our lives belong to Him, not us. And so He gets to move the furniture around however He decides. 

So He says, “You tolerate this woman, Jezebel.” Here’s the reality: we know that Thyatira and the other six churches were each placed within these very idolatrous cities with a lot of sin going on, all this sexual immorality or this idol worship. But the design of the Kingdom of God is that the city would eventually begin to look like the church. Instead, what’s happening is the church is beginning to look like the city.

That, by the way, is one of the challenges of Jezebel: you and I can think that we can bump up against sin and eventually sin will change. And yet we end up finding out that it’s us who change, us who lose our way, and us who then need the illumination of His eyes and the elimination of His sword. 

So it says, “You tolerate that woman Jezebel.” The general consensus about this is that Jesus is speaking to a real church in Thyatira, and there is a real woman who calls herself a prophet, and she’s misleading God’s servants.

THE STORY OF JEZEBEL IN FOUR PARTS

I don’t think her name was actually Jezebel. What I think Jesus is doing is calling her that name to point the listeners and the readers back to a real historical figure called Jezebel. When somebody is a traitor, we might call them a Judas, right? We give them a name that tells us their true identity. In doing this, Jesus is illuminating who she really is and saying we need to eliminate that behavior from our congregation. And so He calls her Jezebel.

We need to learn a few things about Jezebel. First of all, this woman in Thyatira, we don’t necessarily know her real name, but Jesus says of her,  she calls herself a prophet. In other words, she self-identifies. We are not allowed to self-identify around anything. He calls us a real name, and He gives us a true identity.

So what Jesus is doing is giving them an immediate clue. He’s saying, she’s not a prophet; she just calls herself a prophet. And later on in Revelation chapter two, He will say, “There are those who’ve heard her teaching, who have held onto the so-called deep secrets.” A so-called prophet gives so-called deep secrets, right?

And so that’s the first clue that she’s not connected to truth, because God doesn’t call her a prophet. She calls herself a prophet. The same is true today. We have to be very clear about the teaching that we are submitting ourselves under.

So, to go back, Jesus calls this woman in Thyatira “Jezebel”. And what I think He’s doing is giving her that label so their minds would go back to the Old Testament and say, all right, what do we know about Jezebel?

THE MARRIAGE OF JEZEBEL AND AHAB

There are four parts to the Jezebel story that I want to share with you today. The first part of the story shows up in 1 Kings chapter 16. We’re not going to read it together, but I’m going to give you some context. So four parts of the story. Part one: in 1 Kings 16, Jezebel shows up. The backstory is there’s a guy called Ahab, and he has become king of Israel. He has a reign for 22 years. And here’s what it says in 1 Kings chapter 16: “Ahab did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him.”

That’s not a great Yelp review, folks. That would be a low score on the one to five scale. He does more evil in the eyes of God than any of those before him. Remember the eyes in Revelation two are what? Blazing Fire. Okay, so before those eyes, he does more evil.

It says this, “He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel, daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.”

He considered it trivial to commit those sins. Revelation 22 leaves no ambiguity around the seriousness that Jesus deals with sin. And if there are places in your life and my life, and our life as a church, where we have been dealing with sin as if it’s trivial, then this morning, we need to repent. The sin you deem as trivial will destroy your life. Worse than that, it will create collateral damage that will destroy the lives of those around you.

We read in 1 Kings 16, that he not only considered it trivial, what was worse was he married Jezebel. Now you can say, well, hey, he’s the King. Can’t he marry anybody? Here’s the thing: God has set these very clear rules and standards for the people of Israel and who they were allowed to marry. Ahab steps outside of that and marries somebody who worships Baal.

Now, you can imagine the inner conversations around this, right? Well, hey, wait a second, I serve the God of Israel. She worships Baal, but hey, if we get married, she’ll probably end up submitting to me and she’ll end up worshiping the God I serve. It’ll be a great way to expand the Kingdom of God.

Maybe that was his logic, right? Or he was an evil master, and maybe he just wanted what he wanted. But we see this reality that when you co-mingle with idol worship, the church becomes more like the city. And we’re here so that the city would become more like the church.

Okay, the first part of the story is that Jezebel and Ahab were married. The benefit of that to those two people groups is that it created a means of trade and exchange between two peoples. So these two peoples that have separate beliefs, different gods, and no cultural connection now have a trade route, an exchange.

The first part of the story is that Jezebel creates a trade and exchange between truth and a lie. In Romans, Paul will say, you exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship and serve the created being rather than the Creator.

And so the question for us is this: where have you created an exchange or a trade between truth and a lie? Where have you exchanged the truth of God for something deceptive?

THE KILLING OF THE PROPHETS

Just going to give you a warning, it doesn’t get better for Jezebel. Unfortunately, there is not a turnaround here. So part one, she exchanges truth for lies. Part two – fast forward to 1 Kings 18.

The land of Israel is experiencing drought and great famine. Proverbs 11:14 will say that without wise leadership, a nation falls, and in 1 Kings chapter 18, we see the result of unwise leadership. Under the evil leadership of Ahab – more evil in the sight of God than any of the kings – the land is experiencing drought and famine.

God comes to Elijah and says, I want you to go to Ahab, and if you go to Ahab I’ll send rain on the land. But here’s the problem with going to Ahab. Elijah wasn’t afraid of going, but here’s the thing: at that time, Jezebel was killing all the prophets, and Elijah is a prophet. So not only in 1 Kings 16 had Jezebel been about exchanging a truth for a lie, exchanging the worship of God for the worship of Baal, but in 1 Kings 18, she’s killing all the prophets.

If you ever doubt the power of the Word of God, read 1 Kings chapter 18. Why? Jezebel was not killing the warriors, and she was not killing the businessmen. She was killing the prophets. She was systematically ridding the nation of the Word of God because she knew that was the most powerful thing. The prophets did not carry spears, the prophets did not walk around with gold. The prophets carried the Word of God, and she wanted that out of the nation.

For you and I, where have you created an exchange between truth and a lie? Where has the Word of God been ripped out of your life and need to come back in?

THE FEAR OF ELIJAH

So Jezebel’s killing the prophets, and then in part three, she strikes fear into the servant of God by her power and control. So the backstory: in 1 Kings 18, a little later, Elijah courageously goes forward. He’s not afraid, even though Jezebel is killing all the prophets, and he comes in and sets up this challenge with the prophets of Baal. He says, let’s prove once and for all whether the God of Israel is stronger than this Baal god that you worship, and then they have this competition in a sense.

They set up an altar, and the prophets of Baal gather around it. They’re calling out and crying out for Baal to bring down fire from heaven so that they can show the power of Baal. Baal is silent because Baal is dead. It’s hard to make a sound when you’re not alive. And if you do, that’s terrifying.

But then Elijah steps forward, his sacrifice drenched in water, and calls down fire from Heaven, which consumes the sacrifice. It’s this incredible victory. And then Elijah has the prophets of Baal killed because of the evil that they are bringing into the land of Israel.

This is a time of incredible victory, right? This is the moment where he would be more famous than he’d ever been before. People would be just in awe of his strength, in awe of how he hears the voice of God. Here is Elijah at the strongest moment of his life. And yet the very next verse says that Jezebel hears this. In 1 Kings 19, it says, “She sent a messenger to Elijah to say, ‘May the gods deal with me be it ever more severely if, by this time tomorrow, I do not make your life like that of one of them.'”

And you say, well, wait a second…Elijah just called down fire from Heaven. Surely he’s not going to be afraid of Jezebel saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to kill you tomorrow.’ But Elijah runs in fear. And in fact, he gets to a place of great despair, where it says, “He requested for himself that he may die and said, ‘It is enough. Now, Lord, take my life. I am not better than my fathers.'”

This is Elijah we’re talking about. And yet somehow, the words of Jezebel caused him to doubt his identity, his mission, and his very existence. This is the kind of toxic reality that Jesus is dealing with in Revelation chapter two. You see how strong this is?

Now, there’s more to be said about the spirit of Jezebel. In this case, it shows up in this woman of Jezebel in 1 Kings. And then, in Revelation two, it shows up again in another woman who calls herself a prophet. But the spirit of Jezebel is not male or female; it can show up in different cases. But notice that it is going after the head of the leader. It is trying to cut off the head of leadership through fear and control to destroy the work of God.

See, if we don’t understand that context and we see in Revelation two Jesus says, “the so-called prophet” we say, Come on Jesus, relax. Why are You being so harsh? Why are You so serious about all this stuff?

You need to understand that what this so-called prophet is doing is exchanging truth for a lie, ridding out the word of God from the nation, and causing the servants of God to question their identity and their very existence. 

This is serious stuff, Church. We need to be laser-focused on this stuff in our own lives and in the lives of those in this church.

THE STOLEN INHERITANCE

Lastly, the fourth part of the story. If it wasn’t in the Bible, you’d think it was just a ridiculous story, right? But it’s true. In 1 Kings 21, Ahab wakes up one day and goes to this vineyard near his palace. It’s owned by a guy called Naboth. Ahab walks around and says, Wow, this is a lovely vineyard. And I’m the king. Naboth, can I have the vineyard, please? I’d love to turn it into a beautiful garden.

It doesn’t say this in Scripture, but maybe Ahab was a keen gardener. We don’t know. He was a very evil man, but sometimes evil people have strange hobbies that are still very tender. So maybe he loves to grow tomatoes and spinach and all these things.

So he sees this vineyard, and he wants it. Ahab is used to getting what he wants, so Ahab says to Naboth, give me this vineyard. Naboth says no because in Numbers chapter 27, verses 5 through 11, God has made very clear the rules around inheritance. The king cannot take that inheritance because it belongs to Naboth. God is very clear about inheritance and how it gets passed down, and so to that extent, perhaps Ahab is sad.

It says in 1 Kings 21 that he goes home sad. He’s sulking. He refused to eat because his appetite for evil was greater than his appetite for food. He refuses to eat. Jezebel comes to him, and she says, What’s wrong, honey? Okay, I don’t know if she said it like that. But, hey, my guess is better than yours. I think so. She says, What’s wrong, honey?

The king is upset and he says, Well, my love, I saw this vineyard – it’d be beautiful. Oh the tomatoes I could grow in that place. But Naboth won’t give it to me. Jezebel says, Okay. She hatches a plan. You see, Naboth isn’t constrained by the Word of God. She’s rid it out of her life, and she’s trying to rid it out with the nation.

Friends, I would just say very clearly: if your life is not constrained by the Word of God, I would plead with you to make it a governor over your life. To not be a so-called disciple but to be a disciple.

So Jezebel hatches this plan. She gathers a few people together and says, Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to give Naboth an award because he’s been such an incredible guy to this community. We’re going to set him up and bring him in. But it was a setup.

They bring him in before all the people, and she says to two of them, I want you to accuse him in front of everybody of sinning against God. And so she brings in Naboth, and these people accuse him of sinning against God. He’s found guilty, and he’s stoned to death. Jezebel returns to Ahab and says, Honey, I’ve got a surprise for you. That garden you wanted is yours. 

A CALL FOR REPENTANCE IN THE HEART AND THE MIND

So Jezebel does these four things:

1. She creates a trade from truth to a lie
2. She rids the nation of the Word of God
3. She strikes fear into God’s servants
4. She steals your inheritance.

That type of behavior, whether in the form of Jezebel, or the form of anyone, that type of behavior, Jesus says, That’s not welcome here. And it’s my house, so I set the rules. Jesus says this in Revelation 2:21, “I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.”

See, whatever this woman’s name in Revelation 2 was, we don’t know, but the damage that she is doing to God’s Church is akin to the damage that Jezebel in the Old Testament did to God’s people. And Jesus, even in the midst of all that, says, I have given her time to repent, but she is unwilling.

Repentance can be this thing that you and I can resist. It can feel so hard to say, hey, I want to bring the light into my place of darkness. But Church, I want to just be very crystal clear with you that repentance is the only way to freedom. It is the only pathway from darkness into light.

Jesus, again, is very clear in Revelation chapter two. In essence, what He’s saying in this letter, perhaps more than the other six letters, is written more specifically to the leadership. And what it feels like Jesus is saying, Hey, if you don’t deal with this, then I will.

So again, here at the end of February of 2024, you and I can come before God individually and collectively and say, God, is there anything that You’ve called me to eliminate that I’ve refused to eliminate? God, today is the day that I’m prepared to remove it. Would You rid it out with Your eyes like blazing fire?

He says this in Revelation two, verse 23, I’m going to rid this out of the church. Either you do it, or I’ll do it, but this needs to go. Specifically in Revelation 2:23, it says, “That you may know that I am He who searches the hearts and the minds.” 

Now, in the original text, the original language, He says, “You may know that I am He who searches the hearts and the kidneys.” You say, well, that’s a little graphic, right? The front and the back, the inner parts of me is where He searches. He’s not interested in what the outside of the cup looks like, but what’s inside.

For those listening, when they heard, “I am He who searches the hearts and the kidneys,” their minds would have gone back to Leviticus chapter seven when God describes the guilt offering.

What’s the guilt offering? The clue is in the name. It’s the offering you give when you’re guilty, right? And whether you believe it or not, you are guilty, and I am too. And in the guilt offering, as you take this animal, He says, and on that altar I want you to put the heart and the kidney. 

Church, you know this as well as I do: we’re guilty. Your only option is to give Him all of you. The heart and the kidney. The kidney in this culture was the word they use for the innermost mind. That part of me that is at my core. He says, would you give to Me not only your heart, but also your mind?

A GIFT TO THE VICTORIOUS

Lastly, He says this about those who are victorious. Those who have allowed Him to search out the heart and the kidneys with feet like burnished bronze and eyes like blazing fire, bringing light wherever there is darkness. He says, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with Me on My throne just as I was victorious and sat down with My Father on the throne. I will also give that one the morning star.”

What is He giving here? Well, at the end of Revelation, in Revelation chapter 22, He says “I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” See Jesus says, give Me the heart and the kidneys, give Me all of you, and in return you get Me. “That to you who are victorious, I will give the morning star,” what He’s saying is to you who are victorious, you get all of Me.

And so, church, that sounds like a pretty good trade. Right? That sounds like a pretty good trade: to exchange any lies for the truth of God. Let’s stand together and pray.

I’m going to need a couple of you to come to first service next time just rile them up a little bit. 

All right, let’s pray together.

Jesus, in the midst of this letter, we are struck by that word, “I have given her time to repent, but she is unwilling.” And this morning, wherever there is a lack of willingness, we pray that You would break through that. That we would repent, that we would take hold of the bright and morning star, and that we would trade darkness for light, lies for truth. We thank You for Your Word, for the way that Your Word can do what our words cannot. And so we invite Your Word into our lives, God. Would Your Word be a constraint where it needs to be a constraint? For we know that even as Your Word constrains us, it somehow brings us freedom. And so for everyone in this room today, wherever they are at, would they – not because of anything I’ve said or we’ve said – just come before You and say, Jesus, please would your eyes of blazing fire come through all areas of my life. We pray this together in Jesus’s name, amen.