Rebuke for Tolerance

Transcript

GR 1989
01/22/2017
Rebuke for Tolerance
Revelation 2:18-20
Gil Rugh


We're studying the book of Revelation together, Revelation 2. We're looking at the letters to the seven churches that encompass chapters 2 and 3 of the book of Revelation. And it shows something of the concern and the seriousness of Christ's evaluation of each of these churches. I was reflecting again this week in working through material on this, we come to the closing revelation that God has to give to His people. The book of Revelation is the conclusion, and it is addressed to individual, local churches. The church has been in existence, as we have noted, for about 60 years, we're about 95 A.D. So it has been about 60 years since the church was established following the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Acts 2 records that. Now we see something of the evaluation given of the condition of seven of the local churches in the region of Asia Minor, what would be modern day Turkey. A lot of things have happened. All the other apostles have died one way or another, John is the last surviving one. The Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, they have been dead now for about 27 years, they died around 68 A.D. with the persecutions toward the end of Nero's infamous reign. So you think of how much time has gone by, the letters that have had a chance to circulate, people have been led to the Lord, opportunities to grow. We get some picture of the condition of the church.

It is important for us again to remind ourselves, in the Old Testament God chose the nation Israel to be His people and His work of salvation in the world focused in the nation Israel. And they have special and unique promises given to them. Now Israel was primarily comprised of a physical people, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then the 12 sons of Jacob out of which come the 12 tribes of Israel. With Israel's rejection of Christ, Israel is put under the judgment of God. They are no longer the focus of God's work in salvation in the world. God is not done with Israel. In fact much of the book of Revelation will show how He faithfully accomplishes His purpose in bringing Israel as a nation to salvation by faith in Christ and establishes the kingdom for them. When God establishes the church He is beginning a new work that had not been in existence before. The work of salvation had been going on, but now instead of focusing in a physical nation, God was going to call people from all nations to salvation in Jesus Christ. But important that we note, God still had a purpose that they be joined together in a physical entity.

Sometimes I think we miss the point. We are not Israel—Israel is Israel, the church is the church. But the church is manifest in the world in physical, local churches. By physical I mean people joined together forming local churches. Sometimes you get the idea that now we are living in a day where each individual believer is a believer priest, which is true, and we have our individual, personal relationship with God and can go to Him personally. We do not need a layer of priests and so on. That is all true, but we may tend to minimize the importance of the local church in the plan and purpose of God.

So here, as God closes His revelation, what He has revealed about His plan in establishing churches, even their organization and what is required of them, this last letter is addressed to seven local churches. We saw that in Revelation 1. Come over to Revelation 22 just as a reminder. Verse 16, “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches.” Now the book of Revelation is God's closing word to His churches, plural. We may think it is just the church universal comprised of all believers from Acts 2 until the Rapture of the church. That is a definition of the church, but the manifestation of the church in the world is local churches. And if we don't appreciate that, then our view of the local church is almost like a club. You join or you don't join, you are part of it or you are not. Well, I go but it is just more of an informal, casual thing. In the purpose and plan of God it is not.

In fact what we are seeing, as you come back to Revelation 2, Jesus Christ evaluates each local church as a body, as a group, and they come under His evaluation and His judgment. And there will come a day when Indian Hills Community Church will be judged as a church for their faithfulness to Christ and obedience to Him. That does not mean we won't individually be judged, which we certainly will. No one, believer or unbeliever, will escape the individual judgment. But we need to understand that Jesus Christ is exercising judgment over each individual local church. And He does not hold one of these churches responsible for another church. He doesn't compare one of these churches with another church. Each individual church, that body of believers and sometimes mixed unbelievers in, are under His evaluation. So important we take these letters seriously and to heart. God intends us, requires us as His people, to function in a way that is pleasing to Him, under the authority of His Son who is exercising judgment.

So we saw the resurrected Christ in Revelation 1. Now He addresses a letter personally to each of these individual churches. They were historical churches at that point in time in history. But what was said to them was said for the benefit of each and every local church that would exist down to the present day. That's why at the end of each of these letters there is the exhortation—“he who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says” to the churches, each individual local church. We must take these matters seriously.

The church at Thyatira is what takes our attention, beginning in verse 18. So far we have looked at the church at Ephesus, followed by the church at Smyrna, followed by the church at Pergamum, and now we come to the fourth—the church at Thyatira. And remember these seven churches are in an irregular circle in the region of Asia Minor, basically modern day Turkey. We started with Ephesus and we move up north, then we are going to make a turn and with Thyatira we are going to start down now, on the other side of that circle. Thyatira. We travel about 40 miles from Pergamum. It is the smallest and the least well known of these seven cities. But do you know what? The church at Thyatira gets the longest letter, so this is the longest of the seven letters that are written.

Thyatira is not a city with the commercial importance that we saw with the coastal cities like Ephesus, Smyrna or even Pergamum with the coastal routes and so on. In fact its location made it somewhat of a protection city for Pergamum. In other words they slowed up the enemy and by the time the enemy overran them, Pergamum would have had a better chance to get ready. It didn't have the good defenses just by its geographical setting that some of the others would have. But it's an important city. It is primarily known for its trade guilds. Trade guilds are something like modern day unions, so you will see electrical contractors belong to the electrical union, often called the brotherhood of electrical workers or something like that. When I worked at U.S. Steel I was a member of the Steelworkers' Union; when I worked at a grocery store I was a member of the Retail Clerks' Union. In some places it is hard to work in a place unless you are a member of the union. And we have had those debates in our country.

But the trade guilds were the dominant influence in the city of Thyatira. And here some of the guilds that existed at that time were guilds or unions for wool workers, linen workers, makers of outer garments, dyers (for dying clothes, not dying like funeral directors but dyers). In fact we know one very important lady who represented one of these groups. In Acts 16 the first convert in Europe at Philppi was Lydia, a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira. So she evidently was over in Greece and selling, representing the garments that would be dyed. For hers it was purple, very expensive and for the more well to do, dye used for certain garments. Leatherworkers, tanners, potters, bakers, slave dealers, bronze smiths. In fact if you were going to be working in Thyatira, you needed to be part of the unions, the guilds.

Now that is going to put pressure on believers because to be a member of a guild, each guild had its own god. And so when they would have a meeting, like unions today have a meeting in the union hall or whatever, there would be a meal. But first the meal would be presented to the deity of that guild, then it would be served to the people. So when you joined that guild, you were identifying yourself with the god of that guild. And when you went to your meeting and the meal for those who were part of it, you were acknowledging that that god had provided this food for you. Now you can see the difficulty for Christians living in this environment. You are a leatherworker and you live in Thyatira and now I need to work. Well, you need to be a member of a union.

It has been many years since I was a member of a union, but when I was, the union called a strike. I didn't agree with why the strike was called, so I crossed the picket line. Then you get calls in the middle of the night—don't go to your car after dark. And the phone rings and hangs up. You are a scab and scabs don't have much of a future and all this. I'm not discrediting unions but even in our day we've seen in past history and so on. Now, what do I do?

So that's the pressure that is there and that may have some of the influence we are going to see in the division that existed in the church at Corinth. Your ability to provide just the needs of your family and to work in a business or a job is inseparably intertwined with idol worship and then these things as can happen, often were accompanied by immortality and other things that were contrary for Christian conduct.

So the letter to the people at Thyatira. “To the angel of the church in Thyatira,” Revelation 2:18, “you write this.” To this church and this messenger representing the church, “the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, His feet are like burnished bronze, says this.” Right away we are struck again with the awesome picture, like we noted at the church at Pergamum in verse 12, the one writing is the one who has the sharp, two-edged sword. Again this is Christ's last word. It has been some 60 years since His crucifixion. His apostles have written much of the New Testament and it has been circulated and copies have been made. But now He appears and this is My closing word. We know what the book of Revelation is about, it is about judgment. In Revelation 6-19 it is relentless judgment like the world has never seen. But we never want to lose sight as we are going through Revelation, it is written to the churches. And we are going to start with judgment in the churches because judgment begins at the house of God and if it begins with us, what is going to happen to those. And we'll see that as we move through Revelation.

So He is the Son of God. Interestingly this is the only time this title is used for Christ in the book of Revelation, “the Son of God.” Now it is implied in maybe five other passages where God is referred to as His Father. And if God is His Father, He is the Son of God. But this is the only time this official title is used in the book of Revelation. The Son of God. It is a messianic title like the Son of Man. Son of Man is messianic, it was used back in Revelation 1:13, “In the middle of the lampstands I saw One like a Son of Man.” And we noted that is a messianic title for Christ, used in Daniel 7:13. It connects Christ and identifies Him with humanity. He is man. But Son of God is also a messianic title and it identifies Him as deity. So He is both man and God and He is the One to whom all judgment has been committed, as we have seen in John 5. But Son of God is a messianic title and that's important because as Messiah each of these letters concludes with a promise related to the kingdom that Christ is going to establish on the earth, when we get to Revelation 20, 21 and 22, closing out the book

Come back to Luke 4, just one example where Son of God is recognized as a messianic title, a title for the Messiah. In Luke 4:41, this is during Christ's earthly ministry, “Demons were coming out of many, shouting, you are the Son of God.” There is our title. “But rebuking them He would not allow them to speak because they knew Him to be the Christ.” The Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah. That's who the Messiah is—the Christ, the Anointed One. So you see they address Him as the Son of God, knowing He is the Messiah, the Christ. And in Matthew 16:16 when Peter is asked who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Again for them that connection and identification, here the demons even recognize and know who He is. But He will not allow them to give testimony for Him.

So when you come back to Revelation, the Son of God, he is addressing Him as the One who will rule over all creation by the time we get to the end of the book of Revelation. “Is the One who has eyes like a flame of fire and His feet are like burnished bronze.” The title for Christ, Son of God, goes back to Psalm 2:7, “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” And you, ”take your seat until I make your enemies a footstool.” We will be back there when we get to the end of this letter because that Psalm will be quoted in verses 26-27. We won't make it today but we will next week.

The eyes like a flame of fire, the feet like burnished bronze. These are pictures of judgment. Again you might think, it has been over 60 years since Christ has walked the earth, when He was resurrected, transported to glory. Now here the other apostles have experienced martyrdom, death. John is the survivor and he is on the Island of Patmos as a political prisoner for his testimony. Christ is going to come and address the churches for the final time. You might think it would be, as we have noted, more with comfort, warmth—I know you are going through difficulty, I just want you to know I'm here for you. I feel your pain. There is warmth in these letters, but these are stern letters. If we got a letter from Christ that starts out, “the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, His feet are like burnished bronze,” you don't get the feeling this is just a big hug for your folks. This is something far more serious. I am concerned that the church does not take seriously the way Christ takes seriously the church.

He appears to them as a judge to be feared, not feared in the wrong sense but reverenced. We are to be in awe of Him, our conduct is being evaluated by Him and it won't just be a superficial overlooking because you have done a lot of good things and that offsets any failures you have had. He has eyes like a flame of fire. This came from Revelation 1:14, “His eyes were like a flame of fire.” That will be so when He comes at Armageddon in Revelation 19, to pour out judgment on an unbelieving world. He is the righteous judge, His judgment is in righteousness, in purity, in holiness for His people as well as for those who are His enemies.

And now the results of our judgments differ greatly. We are not being judged on whether we will spend eternity in heaven or hell, but this church is being judged. There are some teaching in this church who are going to come under the judgment to hell. That will come out before the letter is done. But the whole church is being evaluated with these eyes like a flame of fire. He has thorough and complete knowledge. He'll say down in verse 23, “I am He who searches the minds and will give to each one according to his works.” So these eyes like flame of fire, He has complete and thorough knowledge. What does the fire do? It purifies, it refines.

Since I'm talking about my ancient history, when I worked at the steel mill, when the steel had been poured and come in for the refining process, put in the furnace to prepare it and also you have to burn off the dross, like in metals committed to the fire so you get more pure gold. They had scarfers that would follow up on the work. If there were any impurities left, they would come personally and burn them.

That's the picture here, there is an evaluation. 1 Corinthians 3, when the church is judged by Christ, the wood, hay and stubble is burned away. Harry Ironside says about that judgment in his commentary, that's the blessing, that it is consumed and lost, but we are left to be rewarded on what is left. So here He is evaluating His church, seeing it as is.

“His feet are like burnished bronze.” Again we saw this in Revelation 1:15. These pictures, eyes like fire, feet like burnished bronze come from the book of Daniel 10. Let's just go back and look at Daniel 10. I want you to appreciate, we can't do this all the time because remember the book of Revelation has hundreds of allusions to the Old Testament. And this is one of them. Look in Daniel 10:5, “I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold there was a certain man dressed in linen, his waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. His body was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his feet like the gleam of polished bronze.” You see the connection back to the revelation given in those days, in the days of Daniel, 500 years before Christ. Now we are 100 years after. You see in the description certain things about His person, His character remain the same.

The feet like burnished bronze pictures judgment. We talked about this figure in Revelation 1, like the brazen altar in the Old Testament, where sin is judged and so on. The feet, at least one commentator noted, He is moving among His churches as He evaluates them. And He comes in judgment, feet like burnished bronze. And those feet, we'll see this when we get to Revelation 19, drawn from Isaiah 63 where He will trample in the winepress of His wrath His enemies like grapes and their blood splashes out. The feet picturing the destructive judgment He brings on them, which we will see on the unbeliever in Revelation 19. But here He comes.

So He is evaluating the church and it says to judge, the evaluator of the church. That's an awesome thing. You wonder what kind of letter would come to the church at Indian Hills, what kind of evaluation given. When it comes from One like this, you better sit up and take notice, you better listen carefully.

Then he starts out, like he starts out every letter, “I know,” I know. He is the One as we saw in verse 23, “who searches the minds and hearts and judges the works.” Every judgment in Scripture is based on works, but no one in Scripture is ever saved by works. That confusion continues to plague people down to today. And even we as believers can sometimes negate the place of our works because we want to be sure there is no confusion. He is going to emphasize that here in a moment.

Note what he says, “I know your deeds.” Deeds are works, it's just the word for works, translated here “deeds.” I know your works. He is evaluating what they do, how they function. But sometimes, and this is going to become a problem we are going to see at the church at Thyatira, we emphasize it is not so much what you do, it's the condition of your heart, it's your motive. And there is an element of truth to that. The problem is, it's not the complete picture. For example we'll be judged by our words. Well, sometimes I say things I shouldn't but that's not what I mean in my heart. Christ says out of your heart you speak, it's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. So God doesn't make the same separation that we might make. No one is ever saved by works because only God can do the work in the heart. But when He changes the heart, He changes the whole life. That's what is going on. “I know your deeds,” this is the evaluation, your works. Is He going to check the minds and the heart? Yes. And your works must manifest that. That doesn't mean any of us are perfectly consistent, but we better not become lax in accepting less than that desire and goal.

“I know your deeds,” your works. He is going to mention four things that are good. And this church is a maturing church. Remember the church at Ephesus? They had to consider from where they had fallen and do again the first works. Here is a church that is growing. Look what he says at the end of the verse, before we look at the four. “Your deeds,” your works, “of late are greater than at first.” You've progressed. So in that sense in this area they are doing better than the church at Ephesus did that had declined. But here they are growing. The four areas? “Your love, your faith, service, perseverance.” And this is just not love that exists in your heart because He is evaluating the works, the deeds, what you do. So He is not judging the feeling of the heart. But “by this shall all men know that you are My disciples,” Jesus said before His crucifixion, “if you have love toward one another.” And He is evaluating that and how we deal with one another.

Your love, this is the agape love, that self-sacrificing love that God exemplified for us. “For God so loved the world.” It is a love that does not depend upon response because God loved us. There was nothing in it, if I can speak that way, for Him. He didn't love us because He was going to get something out of loving us. He loved us in our wretched, hopeless, miserable, worthless condition. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” So he is talking about your love, your faith, their faith in Christ and that gave them a commitment.

Your service. The word service, we get the word deacon from it. It will be different when he will talk about his slaves down in verse 20. We have that hyphenated word bond-servants in the middle of verse 20. It is simply the Greek word, doulos, slave. The word for a servant is a diakenos so we get the word deacon from the word for service. They have translated the word for slave, a bond-servant; they could have just translated it slave. But here he is talking about your service, and it is service in serving others. That's the way this word is used, it is used of somebody serving tables. They are doing it for those who are going to eat, they are doing it for them.

Your perseverance, steadfastness, staying faithful under pressure. And some would connect it, that their love would manifest it in their service; their faith manifested it in their perseverance. There is an element of truth to that. You love someone, you commit yourself to doing what is best for them, you serve them.

An example, we are now here. Earlier I met with some of our workers who are now taking care of babies in the nursery, ministering to children in children's church. Those kinds of things. Why are they doing that? They might like to be in the service with other adults and share in that, and the music. But they serve. And like many of you do, some of you come in and clean, you do that because others will benefit from it. And that's the way we exercise our gifts, for the benefit of others.

So we have here our love manifested in our serving, how we care for one another. We overlook one another's faults, we undertake to do for others. That's love. Evidenced in service. This is the church and these works are greater than they started with. They didn't just start out with that new Christian zeal. Here they are progressing on. And their faith. Faith is just not something personal and individual, although there is an element of truth in that. But what's being judged here? Faith manifested in perseverance. They stay at it, they have endured. Many of you are a testimony of that. Over the years you persevered, you endured. Why? We believe what God says, we believe and implement it, we stay with it through thick and thin, through good and bad. So in that sense we manifest our faith. We haven't seen the outcome but we believe God, we believe what the rest of the book of Revelation tells us. We are like the gospel song says, “it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.” That kind of thinking. We believe what He has said, we trust Him, this is His will for us.

“Your deeds of late are greater than at first.” Simple things when you look at them—love, faith, service, perseverance. These are things that ought to characterize every church. They are continuing to improve, to grow. These things become more evident. That is good, that's great, it's commendable. But, that word that we almost shake, something is not right and it is seriously not right. Some of these things, it's like the church at Pergamum. They had accepted the fact that some there were teaching the same kind of teaching Balaam taught Israel. What we are going to see here in both these churches, takes them back to the Old Testament. The way the devil worked to corrupt God's people then is the same way working in these churches now. And these letters are written to the churches, do you know why? Because he works the same way down to today.

What is the example? “But I have this against you, you tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess. She teaches and leads my bond-servants astray so they commit acts of immorality, they eat things sacrificed to idols.” You tolerate them, you permit it, you allow it. So you see the church is responsible for what goes on. You tolerate, they are not dealing with it. The church is called into judgment for this. It is something that they are accountable for not dealing with.

“The woman Jezebel.” Now Jezebel has become a name that is proverbial for wickedness. If you said about someone, that woman is a Jezebel. She must be a very nice person. It is not a compliment. It's one of those names that almost became so identified with this person that it continues to carry on today. And that's what it is. Doesn't mean that this woman's name was Jezebel, because like he did with Balaam in the letter to the church at Pergamum, he is using a situation in the Old Testament to show that hundreds of years later God's people in the church are allowing the same error to be repeated. There was no excuse for it then, there is even less excuse for it now as he writes this letter. And 2000 years later we have our own Bibles.

As I mentioned to you with Balaam, I'm impressed. Asia Minor was a Gentile region, there probably were some Jews in these churches that had been converted, but these are Gentile cities. And remember they didn't all have a copy of the Bible. And some of these Gentiles had been saved, they had to learn the history of Israel in the Old Testament. Christ mentions Balaam in the church of Pergamum like, of course you will know what I am talking about when I tell you some there hold the teaching of Balaam. Now he says you tolerate the woman Jezebel. Who is Jezebel? Well Jezebel and her husband Ahab are the most wicked ruling couple recorded in Scripture. And Jezebel is more infamous even than Ahab because Ahab her husband is a weaker person, but just as wicked. He didn't have the courage of his wickedness but Jezebel was there to push him, not to where he didn't want to go but to where he wanted to go but wasn't courageous enough on his own to go.

We're going to look at just a couple of highlights on Jezebel in 1 Kings. We're having the history of Israel and we are in what we call the Divided Kingdom. We had Saul, then David, then Solomon, then under Solomon's son, Rehoboam, the kingdom divides—northern ten tribes, southern two tribes. Judah and Benjamin in the south comprise the southern kingdom, that's where Jerusalem is. Ahab is the son of Omri. 1 Kings 16:29, “Now Ahab the son of Omri became king,” because so his father dies. So he succeeds him as king of the northern ten tribes. Now Ahab's father, Omri, was a wicked man, Ahab is a wicked man. It is easy to remember, there were no good, godly kings over the northern kingdom, there is a mixture in the southern kingdom. But the northern kingdom didn't even have one good king in its history.

So Ahab becomes king. Verse 30 tells you, “Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.” There is a progression here, each one is getting worse. “It came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat.” Now when the kingdom split under Solomon's son, Rehoboam, Jeroboam became king over the northern ten tribes. But he realized something, the center of worship for the nation when it was united was at Jerusalem in the temple that Solomon had built, the priestly system there. He was afraid if the people from the northern ten tribes go down to Jerusalem to worship, they'll get attracted back to the southern kingdom and pretty soon recognize the king of the southern tribe and he'll lose his kingdom. So he established a worship center in the north, set up its own god, its own priests. So that's what it means, he walked in that worshiping the pagan god of the northern kingdom.

But that wasn't all he did. He married Jezebel, the daughter of Eth-Baal, king of the Sidonians. And he went to serve Baal and worshiped him. He'll join in the worship of all the pagan gods. Jezebel was a king's daughter, her father was king of the Sidonians. You can see his name, Eth-Baal, and he went to serve Baal. The Sidonians, we often talk about Tyre and Sidon. They are two coastal cities on the Mediterranean, they are up north of Galilee on the coast. You have Tyre and then north of Tyre you have Sidon. So he was king of Sidon, the Sidonian people. That's where she comes from. So she comes there, he marries her, she brings her worship system with her.

So he erected, verse 32, “an altar for Baal in the house of Ball which he built in Samaria. And he had also made the Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.” You see here behind this, and it doesn't excuse him in any way, because it is what he wants to do. He was already one committed to worship at the worship center that had been established by Jeroboam as a pagan center. So he is fine, Jezebel come, fine; we'll built a temple for her and establish an idol for him in Samaria.

Come over to 1 Kings 18. These are the days of Elijah and Elisha who will follow Elijah. So Elijah, such a great prophet. So he is in conflict with Ahab and Ahab's wife, Jezebel. And then when Elijah will be succeeded by Elisha. You do remember that any time you are reading the Old Testament and you come across one of God's prophets, that is always an indication of spiritual decay and decadence in the nation Israel. God sent His prophets to deal with the spiritual decay that had overtaken His people. So we have Elijah, this great prophet, but he comes because it is a time of terrible spiritual decadence in Israel, a time of the rule of Ahab and Jezebel.

Jezebel comes to be the queen in the northern ten tribes, her goal is to get rid of all the God of Israel's prophets. So verse 4, talking about here there was a faithful man who tried to protect some of God's prophets. But we'll pick up 1 Kings 18:4, “For when Jezebel destroyed the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave, provided them with bread and water.” When Jezebel had this crusade on to annihilate all of God's prophets in the northern kingdom, this faithful man Obadiah took a hundred of them and hid them in caves and then provided food and water for them during this time. That just tells you what Jezebel is doing. Then Elisha becomes God's spokesman, not an easy task in these days. He confronts Ahab in the context of a drought that God had brought upon Israel.

But note what Elijah tells Ahab to do in verse 19, “Now send and gather to me all Israel at Mt. Carmel.” So summon Israel and their leaders to Mt. Carmel. “And also with the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table.” Here we have 850 pagan prophets. So you see Jezebel's attempt to wipe out all of God's prophets and continue to import and support the pagan prophets. They ate at Jezebel's table. That doesn't mean they came for dinner every night, it simply means this queen provided all of their sustenance. So from her resources she provided all the food and so on for the false prophets in the northern kingdom. Shows you how committed she is to them. So she is their great supporter, if you will.

Come over to 2 Kings 9, so you see we have a long history going on here. Fascinating, if you haven't read it recently, you might want to do that just to remind yourself of what all is going on in this context. In 2 Kings 9 God is about to bring in another king. We have had some change, Ahab has died in battle, but now there is a man going to come on the scene who is going to bring judgment on the house of Ahab for their sins. And so he'll end up by murdering the opponents, taking over the throne of the northern kingdom—Jehu is his name. When he is appointed as a prophet, now we are in the days of Elisha, in 2 Kings 2 Elijah the prophet was taken to heaven in a whirlwind, remember that account. And the mantle as now the lead prophet in Israel comes on Elisha. So it is Elisha as chapter 9 opens up, Elisha here is now functioning. And he is going to announce that Jehu is going to be the new king over the northern kingdom. And he is going to exercise judgment in cutting off the line of Ahab and Jezebel.

And the prophecy goes in verse 10, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel and none shall bury her.” So you come down to verse 21 and you have some kings meeting together, and we don't have time for all the details. So you have the meeting of these kings with Jehu and Jehu ends up killing the two other kings. Now he takes off and he is going to go and have a confrontation with Jezebel. We were told that the dogs would eat Jezebel, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel.” So when he comes into town where Jezebel is, she looks out the window and she has prettied herself up. Verse 30, “When she heard that Jehu was coming to Jezreel, she painted her eyes, adorned her head, looked out the window.” So maybe she thinks he is going to be taken in by her beauty, she is a bold woman. “Is it well, Zimri, you master's murderer?” I mean, she shows him no deference. You killed your master, how are you doing? Well he says, Who is on my side? There are three eunuchs up there, look out the window. He says, throw her down. There is no talk about bring her down, but throw her down. So she is in an upper window, out the window she goes. And then he is in his chariot with his horses so he just dances the horses around on her body. We sometimes think that we live in cruel days, these were difficult days.

And that made him hungry. So verse 34 says then after trampling her with his horses he goes in and has dinner. Then he says, this cursed woman, she was the daughter of a king so we ought to bury her. They go out to bury her and they can't find her. All that is left is the skull, the feet and the palms of her hands. They said, “This is the word of the Lord which He spoke by His servant Elijah the Tishbite,” who was succeeded by Elisha who repeated it. “In the property of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel.”

You know you need to take God at face value, literally, when He tells you something is going to happen. Some people say, I don't believe God would send people to a literal hell. Read the account of Jezebel, the dogs will eat her. And we're not done. Do you know what else he said? “The corpse of Jezebel will be as dung on the face of the field in the property of Jezreel so they cannot say this is Jezebel.” There is no body. All Jezebel is, is a pile of dog dirt. That's the point—“the corpse of Jezebel will be as dung on the face of the field.” Why? The dogs ate her, she has been turned into excrement. Wow, that's not nice. This tells you how seriously God took this.

Now you come back to Thyatira, and we are going to have to end here and we'll pick up in the middle of the account, but in Revelation 2 he says, “You tolerate the woman Jezebel in your midst. She is leading my slaves astray” so they get involved in immorality and idol worship. So you have the devil moving his servant Jezebel to influence Christ's slaves and they end up getting involved. And this is then where you have confusion in the church. Because now you have some of his slaves, he calls them, bond-servants in verse 20 doing the things that this false Jezebel is teaching them to do. How do you get such confusion like that in a church that some of it is doing it right. And it gets tied into explanations we have seen previously, we'll see again.

But it is serious business. We sometimes take too lightly what can happen to the church, the influence the devil can have. And Christ put it here, for the churches. And remember when he has done the book of Revelation what we read, you better listen to the letter and the messages that have been sent to the churches, as he closes his final remarks to his local churches. There is no excuse for the church at Thyatira repeating the error like Jezebel brought to Israel. What excuse would we have to tolerate these kinds of things in the church today when we have the whole Bible? We can go back and check it and see. Christ is not going to overlook it, it must be deal with. And He is going to deal with two elements in the church—the believers who have not dealt with it as they should and the unbelievers who must bear the ultimate destruction for the havoc they have brought in the churches.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for Your message to the churches. Lord, easy for us to read these as historical documents. We look back to the history of Israel and we see the wickedness of Jezebel, the corruption she brought among Your people. And Lord it is almost beyond belief that we read about Your church at Thyatira and there was a similar woman bringing such destructive teaching into the church at Thyatira. Lord, yet we realize You gave these letters for us to benefit from because our adversary the devil continues to work in the same way to lead Your slaves astray and bring corruption among Your people. May we take these matters to heart. In Christ's name, amen.