Revelations 2:18-29
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
Jesus appears as the glorified and ascended savior. John is doing is best to describe in words what he is experiencing in reality. The Lord’s eyes burn like blazing fire are to prepare the listener for the rebuke to come. The burnished bronze of his feet communicate a quality of endurance and strength witnessed in the metal bronze and the character of Jesus.
Bronze is a mental that does not rust and has an enduring quality of beauty to it. Such are the feet of Jesus, beautiful, strong and enduring. Bronze is a mixed mental generally 80 percent copper and 5 to 20 percent tin. It is a mixture that makes it’s the quality of the copper and tin into something more useful. Jesus knows the difference between mixture and compromise. It is compromise that he judges when he addresses the Jezebel question below.
20 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. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 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. 23 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.
The first thing that I want you to notice about the women Jezebel is that she is part of the church establishment. She calls herself a prophet and is tolerated as a prophet. Not accepted, not ordained but tolerated. A good definition of tolerate in this case is to; “withstand the unpleasant effects of something.” Even Jesus tolerated her for a short period of time, he says, “I have given her time to repent”
Idolatry and sexual immorality are serious sins in the eyes of the Lord. The Church at Thyatira was enduring the unpleasantness of the idolatry and sexual immorality this woman was promoting. However, Jesus knows that the wages of sin are death and therefore she is severely punished. Her punishment was weakness and the death of the fruit of her womb. She had grown strong through deception and she had perverted the gift of sex. The severity of her sin is based on her being part of the church not based on her being part of the world. She taught in the church not the temple of Zeus.
24 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, 25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.’
Her deception of the church builds around so called “revelation” or “deep secrets”, beware my friends of truth that has been hidden. God has made him his word plane enough. Jesus is talking to a church, about a women, he is not talking about an age or about a spirit in this passage. Yes, we can make application to ours and past generation through this passage and yes we can witness the work of a malevolent spirit through this woman, but don’t confuse application with theology. When you do so you miss both the application and the theology!
There is great damage done to the church when we fall into such traps. The damage done the Church at Thyatira was so great that Jesus gave no further assignment to them. He simple said “hold on until I come.” He did not say evangelize, advance, go into the uttermost parts of the earth, no he said just hold on. The position of this church was made totally defensive. Yet, even in a defensive position the Lord grants them the possibility great and eternal rewards.
26 To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations, 27 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. 28 I will also give that one the morning star. 29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
Jesus appears as the glorified and ascended savior. John is doing is best to describe in words what he is experiencing in reality. The Lord’s eyes burn like blazing fire are to prepare the listener for the rebuke to come. The burnished bronze of his feet communicate a quality of endurance and strength witnessed in the metal bronze and the character of Jesus.
Bronze is a mental that does not rust and has an enduring quality of beauty to it. Such are the feet of Jesus, beautiful, strong and enduring. Bronze is a mixed mental generally 80 percent copper and 5 to 20 percent tin. It is a mixture that makes it’s the quality of the copper and tin into something more useful. Jesus knows the difference between mixture and compromise. It is compromise that he judges when he addresses the Jezebel question below.
20 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. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 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. 23 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.
The first thing that I want you to notice about the women Jezebel is that she is part of the church establishment. She calls herself a prophet and is tolerated as a prophet. Not accepted, not ordained but tolerated. A good definition of tolerate in this case is to; “withstand the unpleasant effects of something.” Even Jesus tolerated her for a short period of time, he says, “I have given her time to repent”
Idolatry and sexual immorality are serious sins in the eyes of the Lord. The Church at Thyatira was enduring the unpleasantness of the idolatry and sexual immorality this woman was promoting. However, Jesus knows that the wages of sin are death and therefore she is severely punished. Her punishment was weakness and the death of the fruit of her womb. She had grown strong through deception and she had perverted the gift of sex. The severity of her sin is based on her being part of the church not based on her being part of the world. She taught in the church not the temple of Zeus.
24 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, 25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.’
Her deception of the church builds around so called “revelation” or “deep secrets”, beware my friends of truth that has been hidden. God has made him his word plane enough. Jesus is talking to a church, about a women, he is not talking about an age or about a spirit in this passage. Yes, we can make application to ours and past generation through this passage and yes we can witness the work of a malevolent spirit through this woman, but don’t confuse application with theology. When you do so you miss both the application and the theology!
There is great damage done to the church when we fall into such traps. The damage done the Church at Thyatira was so great that Jesus gave no further assignment to them. He simple said “hold on until I come.” He did not say evangelize, advance, go into the uttermost parts of the earth, no he said just hold on. The position of this church was made totally defensive. Yet, even in a defensive position the Lord grants them the possibility great and eternal rewards.
26 To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations, 27 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. 28 I will also give that one the morning star. 29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
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