Rev2:18And 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. 19I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20But 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. 21I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22Behold, 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,23and 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.24But 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. 25Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations,27and 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. 28And I will give him the morning star. 29He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" ESV
Pay attention here to they way the Lord presents himself..."The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze." The Lord presents himself in each of the letters to signify the special issue each of the churches has. Here, he speaks as the diety He is. Why? Well, some think that Rome thinks of Jesus as the Son of Mary. There are still persons who would rather go to Mary than to Jesus or God. Jesus is bring the point home that HE is the Son of God, there is no other or subitute.
On to the eyes, the flame of fire speaks to the righteousness and holiness of Jesus. The eyes mean two things: one; the anger he has against sin, and two; the flame's ability to burn off and penetrate the outer disguises, to see into the inner most emotions and the heart and of man.
The brazen feet are significant to the immovable power of the Risen Christ.
Verse 19 then goes to give credit for the work Rome has done. From the 7th centruy on, The church of Rome as done a great deal of good works.
Verse 20 starts the real Thyatira issue, the woman Jezebel and her ways. The authorized Version calls this woman "that woman Jezebel". The Moffat translation, "that Jezebel of a woman". The Greek translation uses the word gunaika which not only means woman but wife, this turns the meaning to your wife Jezebel. There are no true identifiers for the woman other than knowing she is refered to as Jezebel; her true name is not given. But, we can know what kind of person she was.
She claimed to be a prophetess, and a true, great one at that. The Old and the New Testaments are full of prophetesses, think of Miriam in Exodus, Deborah in Juges, Huldah in 2 Kings, Anna in Luke, and the four virgin daughters of Philip in Acts, to name a few. So, it was not unheard of for the women to be prophets.
We need to go back to the original Jezebel to find what character this one had. Refer 1 Kings 16, we find that Jezebel was the daughter of Ethball, kind of Sidon and wife of Ahab. When she came from Sidon, she brought her own gods and ended up influencing Ahab and the people to worship Baal. She was not against Jehovah, she wanted both. She was influential, chrismatic and had a place to speak where she could be heard. She made an attempt at mixing religions to unite all religions into the one religion of Rome! This is a form of Romanism- it is a mixture of Heathenism, Christinaity and Judaism. It originated from heathenism in a weak attempt to convert pagans. In the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, the church was very comprimising to this line of thought * For the practice of idolatry of the Old Testament Jezebel, God gave her room to repent and she didn't. This practice was fully acceptable of New Testament Jezebel by the Church of Rome. Remember, the churches of Ephesus and Pergamos were at an end, Syrna at an end about 312 AD. However, Thyatira begins in the 7th century and goes to the Great Tribulation as do the remaining three chruches yet to be spoken of; Thyatira is the basis for the Church of Rome.
Now back to this Revelation Jezebel, she taught two things: eating meat offered to idols was okay as was committing fornication. (see verse 20 & 21) God is againt this, but is giving the Church of Rome time to repent.
To this day many Prostentant leaders continue to push for a great united church and would like a union with Rome. Scripture shows clearly that this will yet take place. In the 16th century Rome failed again to repent adding to her blasphemies by the declaration of the Virgin Mary as sinless, lifting her to a position of a female god, and crowning her queen of heaven. Further, at the Council of the Vatican (less than 75 years ago) the Church of Rome declared the infallibility of her Popes. At that point many of the churches Bishops said it was going to far. And here we are, God still waiting for Rome to repent.
Verse 22 states that He will place this church into the Great Tribulation. There is a true point here: anyone coming into that church for the first time would have loved going there, would have belived it to be full of life and fruit producing in every good work. Those who prospered in business because of the compromise with the world were generous and lavish in their liberality and generous with their monies. They must have looked like real Christians, no doubt Jezebel did a fine job. Is there a parallel that you see in the Church today? The true measue is that the Risen Christ can see through the disguise, he will know if the repentance is real or not.
And there will be judgement.
For those who are faithful, there are two promises:
1. authority over nations- Straight forward, we will rule with a rod of iron "you shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." "Them" is in reference to the heathen. (see Psalms2:8 &9).
2. The promise of the morning star.- In Revelation 22:16 Jesus is called "the bright morning star". The promise is of Christ himself! Praise the Lord! To never lose Christ any more! What a glorious day!!
Next blog, starts the fifth church....hope to see you there.
Blessings on all,
Calabash
* There is a challenge in my study to go to your church, and find in the Bible where whe sermon is from and study it. Did the sermon match with the Word from the Bible? If not, you will need to ask your self and your church why!
Books used for Reference: Prophecy Study Bible, Tim LaHaye ; Lectures on the Revealtion, Ironside; The Revlation of John, Vol 1&2 ,Wm Barclay; The Majority Text Greek New Testament Interlinear,
The Greatest Book on "Dispensational Truth" in the World, Clarence Larkin, and of coarse, The Bible KJV and ESV (several authors!)
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