As we come back to our conclusion on the church of Thyatira, we remember that this was a church that allowed false doctrines to not only come into the church, but became a part of what the church was becoming. It was a lover of itself also known as the church of Jezebel which we will learn more about today into our study into the Book of Revelation, the only book of the Bible that promises a blessing to not only the one who reads the words found within but hears it as well.
Revelation 1:3 ~ "Bless is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near."(NIV).
As we begin in the letter to the church of Thyatira, Jesus warns of a type of church that has allowed false doctrines to permeate the church so it becomes loveless. It is what the church of Ephesus had become, loveless. They had forgotten their first love. Smyrna was a church that was gripped by the fear of persecution if you remember. We looked at the church of Pergamum which had allowed doubt and compromise to enter their church. Now we look once more at the church of Thyatira, their morality, their light, their commitment to Christ, began to wane.
I think we fail to take into consideration how serious this is. If you take a plane from LAX bound for Hawaii and that plane is off by just 1 degree, you will miss the island by miles. If you have a Bible, God's going to hold us accountable for what we know and what we did with what we know. We need to spend more time understanding and reading our Bibles more as the end times draws near. The Book of Revelation is key. Did we take the time to pick it up and study it? That is why we are doing this in depth study into the Book of Revelation, so that you would know what God's will is for you, and your church and your life.
Jesus is comparing the church of Thyatira to the spirit or doctrine of Jezebel from the Old Testament, had crept into the church to its leaders, that had allowed it to become part of this church. This is why it is such a challenge to the leadership of the church. When Jesus examines our confession, we must be diligent to teach the Word of God.
Revelation 2:20 ~ "Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols."
It would benefit you to take the time later to understand how for the last 2000 years the doctrine of Jezebel has managed to creep its way into the modern day church. Remember what the war plan of Satan has been thus far. Against the church of Ephesus, Satan used the fact that the church was so busy, that they managed to lose their first love. Satan used the fear of persecution to the church of Smyrna so much that the would be willing to say that "Caesar is Lord." to save their life. He used the church of Pergamum to embrace heresy, so that they would compromise, remember? Satan's war plan against the church of Thyatira, is so true in our modern age. Build a church. Fill up the parking lot, put a cross on the building, have Bibles and hymnals and do all that stuff. Satan would say that is fantastic. Just begin to bring in some good, old-fashioned traditions, and doctrines that have no business in the church, but they're so old, so rooted and so grounded, among religious people and pretty soon, they will begin to say it's okay. You believe that? That's okay, let's just be one big happy family.
If you have ever been to Europe, everything is one bank, one Euro, one union, one thought, one religion, one direction, one people, everything. It's a oneness, compromise at the expense of including people.
Romans 2:22 ~ "You would say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?"
Every one of us holds to a certain morality. But is that a good thing? The Bible says that humanistic morality leads you away from God. Satan is the one who swallows a camel but strains to swallow an ant. Hypocrisy. This is a dangerous thing, this doctrine of Jezebel. The name Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, but the name now is synonymous with false worship and church sanctioned sexual activity. She ordered the murder of true believers of YHWH God. In New Testament times, the title, "Jezebel" is a freakish hybrid worship system, that hides in the name of Christianity, that allows sexual indulgence without punishment or fear of judgment. She had priests and priestesses, that encouraged an immorality appeased by religion. This demonic representation of Jezebel claimed to be the Oracle = the mouthpiece of God. The doctrine was this, the pagan world around them, adopted the doctrines that when a prophet would speak, they would take that as what we would say is the gospel truth.
Jeremiah 7:15-19 ~ "I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your brothers, the people of Ephraim. So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?"
God indicts a people who has forsaken Him and they have bowed to what Jeremiah calls this worship the doctrine of Jezebel, the worship of the Queen of Heaven. If you have ever done any study on the Queen of Heaven, that whoever the Queen of Heaven is, she has given birth to ALL things, that she has given birth to God, Himself; she sits and rules and reigns over the earth, and all that there is and for 3000 years and this doctrine has taught that you, as a human being, cannot relate to God in Heaven unless, you go through the Queen of Heaven first. This precedes the book of Acts, this precedes the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; this is rooted in ancient Babylonian-ism. It goes back to the times of the Pharoahs.
The church at Thyatira embraced it! It said that when this icon or image or statue speaks, dedicated to the Queen of Heaven, the doctrine of Jezebel, we obey. And when it becomes, when that oracle speaks, on behalf of God, it is doctrine. Did not the Bible say in the last days, God who once spoke to us through his prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. See how this hits home to how many of us have been brought up. The Protestant church is guilty of rarely if ever addressing the honor, due to Mary, the mother of Jesus, the wife of John. When you read what the Bible has to say about Mary, she was a godly woman, she loved the Lord, she gave glory and honor to God. She obeyed God. The Lord chose her, not for her holiness, but she herself said, I rejoice in the Lord my Savior and the God of my Salvation. Protestants should give honor in that way to Mary, and the reason why so many swing away from that and even her cousin Elizabeth who gave birth to John the Baptist, is because there are those who have deified Mary. Isn't it interesting according to the Bible that Mary's last words recorded ever were, "Whatever my son says to do, do it."
In Romanism, there is the worship of what is called the Queen of Heaven and the Old Testament condemns it. Mary is not the Queen of Heaven. She was a wonderful precious sister of ours in Christ who we will see in Heaven and worship Christ with her. She is not the co-redeemer as is taught in Mary worship. These are tremendous things that are directly linked to the Queen of Heaven. If Mary could part a cloud and talk to us today, she would set us straight.
We see as we draw closer to the end times, we see people following bizarre, abhorrent manifestations of people who bow down and worship and dedicating their lives to trees, pots, trinkets and food items that are weeping, all around the world. Aberrations. People want signs and miracle. They want to see something so they can set up a shrine, where spiritual ignorance exists. Why can't they simply open the Bible and read the truth? What in the world is going on? They will believe in aliens and others that will fight Darwinism to death. There are scientists now leaning to intelligent design and dismiss evolution now. What's happened? People will follow anything instead of reading the Bible.
We will spend tons of time reading and doing other things that occupy our time, but spend less than a minute reading our Bible and then wonder why we are lead astray with every wind of doctrine that comes along. Do you realize that most of the people who died when the Titanic hit the iceberg died while they were asleep or partying? There was a warning that went out before it ever hit the iceberg, but no one listened. What were they doing when it hit? Partying and sleeping. It took a long time for it to sink, however, long enough for people to rush back to their rooms to line their pockets with cash and jewelry, gold bricks that they were taking to America and jump overboard. Due to the weight, they went straight to the bottom. It could have been prevented, they were warned. They didn't listen.
When God examines our confession, we must not be like those stuck in religion. Jesus here issues a strong and damning end to such false Christians.
Revelation 2:21-22 ~ "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. "
These very religious people needed to experience conversion = salvation. What they failed to do was repent. Remember when you were a child, and you built a clubhouse, those who wanted to join had to know the password. If you knew the password, you were allowed in. In Christianity, there is a code word or password and that is "In Christ."
1 John 5:11-13 ~ "And this is the testimony: God has give us eternal life, ad this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may not you have eternal life."
1 John 5:20 ~ "We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true - even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life."
If we know Him we will not get led astray from false teachers or confused by man-made religions.
John 10:14 ~" I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me."
John 10:27-28 ~ "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand."
John 10:4-5 ~ "When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice."
When God examines our confession, we must COME OUT from that which is dying.
Revelation 2:23 ~ "I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and mind, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds."
We learned in verses 21-22 of Revelation 2, that Jesus reminds us that "I gave her time to repent."
Revelation 21-22 ~ "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. "
His nature leaves the door open, but Judases refuse the offer. It's like saying, "She made her bed, let her lie in it." This came from this verse. Her bed was awesome. It was warm and inviting. It was a bed that made you say thanks because it felt so good. But after a while those smooth silk sheets began to made you think and feel in other ways as well. Until the bed she made for us, gave us such a feeling that nothing that we did could be wrong, and if by chance it was wrong, she would cover that too.
A sick bed is a bed that leads to hell, in comfort, pleasure and ease. The spirit of Jezebel says that you can live like the world and still be a Christian. What can be better than that?
Jesus warns in Revelation 2:23 ~ "I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and mind, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds."
Please hear me on this, not me, but the Lord Jesus Christ. These are not Christian believers here, these are they that have been lied to, and they want it so.
John 3:6-8 ~ "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it please. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."
John 3:14-21 ~ "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
Revelation 2:23 ~ "Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and mind (kidneys) , and I will repay each of you according to your deeds."
2 Corinthians 6:16-18 ~ "What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
When we face a lack of water in our bodies, the end result is hurting kidneys.
Jesus says that in Revelation 2:24, ~ "Now to those of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have learned Satan's so-called deep secrets ( I will not impose any other burden on you).
Wouldn't you have wanted to be one of those people who did not accept the doctrine of Jezebel? That this was Jesus' message to you.
Revelation 2:25-29 ~ "Only hold on to what you have until I come. To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations - He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery - just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear that the Spirit says to the seven churches."
Jesus warns that the doctrine being taught in those in Thyatira who were marrying the power of Christianity to the power of Rome, had a hope through Constantine to conquer the globe and make Christianity the world religion. Jesus says Oh no! It's not through human efforts, its through Spirit. He is telling them not to believe in that message. Not a marriage through church and state, it will come through My means. God will bring forth His kingdom, not man.
He clearly defines the body of Christ, from those who believe and those that believe in false doctrines in this letter and what the outcome will be for both. Let us not confuse the two. The church in Thyatira believed in the doctrine that said, that God could only be reached through a mediator, and this mediator was the Queen of Heaven. This was the doctrine of Jezebel.
1 Timothy 2:5 ~ "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ."
To pray to a statue, a icon, an image, if you are praying to anyone other than God, it is an abomination to the Lord and spiritual adultery. No one takes Jesus' place. There is no one else. No pastor, favorite spiritual person, no Pope, no institution that can guarantee you access to God, but Jesus Christ!
There will be no Utopia on this earth and no one can bring it here on this earth. Don't let anyone fool you! No one in government will bring perfect peace on earth, no matter what they attempt to do. Just Jesus and one day He will bring that to fulfillment.
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