Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Over 200 years ago in a manufacturing town of Scotland, a young lady applied to the superintendent of a Sunday School for a class.

At his suggestion she gathered a class of poor boys.

The superintendent told them to come to his house during the week, and he would get them each a new suit of clothes.

They came and were nicely outfitted.

The worst and most unpromising boy in the class was Bob.

After two or three Sundays he went missing, and the teacher went hunting for him.

She found him and his new clothes torn and dirty, but she invited him back to the school, and he came back.

The superintendent gave him a second new suit, but, after attending once or twice, Robert again was absent.

Once more she sought him out, only to find that the second suit had the fate of the first.

"I am utterly discouraged about Bob," she said, when she reported back to the superintendent, "and must give him up."

"Please don't do that," the superintendent answered; "I cannot but hope there is something good in Bob.

Try him once more.

I'll give him a third suit if he'll promise to attend regularly."

Bob did promise and received his third new suit.

He attended regularly after that, and got interested in the school.

He became an earnest and persevering seeker after Jesus.

He found Jesus.

He joined the church.

He was made a teacher.

And he studied for the ministry.

The end of this story is that this discouraged boy—that forlorn, ragged, runaway Bob—became the Rev. Robert Morrison, the great missionary to China; the same Robert Morrison who translated the Bible into the Chinese language, and by so doing opened the true faith to the millions of that large country.

—Church of Scotland's Children's Review.

Perseverance is the key

Transition:

We’ve covered significant ground already in chapter 2:

Ephesus, you might recall was busy working for the Lord, sincere devotion while trading in sincere love for Him.

Programs in the church without passion.

This is the church with the truest doctrines, but it is also the church where business and busyness took them away from heartfelt devotion to Christ.

Next was Smyrna.

This church had no apparent rebuke from the Lord, but danger is still warned.

This was a very poor and suffering church amid a wealthy town.

It would have been easy for them to compromise, become rich, and escape persecution.

How discouraged they might have been because they were not as “rich” as the Laodicean church.

Then last week, Pergamum.

This church had members who held the false doctrine that it was easy to profess Christ while living in sin at the same time.

Jesus called their teachings doctrines of Balaam & Balak due to the compromise of YHWH’s Word tolerated.

Jesus also said some of these church members were of the Nicolaitan variety—meaning more compromise.

Today, the church of Thyatira to conclude chapter 2:

Scripture Reading:

Thyatira was an ancient center for manufacturing.

The somewhat smaller city had many trade guilds for commerce such as cloth making, cloth dyeing, leatherworking, bronzeworking, and pottery making.

You might recall that Lydia, Paul’s first convert in Philippi, was a "seller of purple goods” from Thyatira (Acts 16:14).

But now, the eyes of fire and feet of brass has come to see and to judge the church here, but this wicked church will not repent despite a patient judge.

The church had works, service, and even patience of their own, but it was filled with sin.

And it is here that we have the mention of Jezebel, the only woman mentioned in the seven letters, as referring to the wicked Queen Jezebel, the wife of Ahab.

The Jezebel from the O.T. was a now infamous heathen woman, daughter of a priest of Baal; and she promoted Baal worship in Israel.

She was guilty of whoredom and witchcraft (2 Kings 9:22) as well as idolatry, murder, deceit, and as some call it - priestcraft.

And the church was following after her example and leadership!

Transition:

Like with previous weeks, we will start by look first at the cure, Christ!

I.

The Proficiency of Christ (vv.18-19)

Again, just the description of Christ cues us to the answer for this church.

The city was not important as a center for any temples to particular gods, although Apollo was worshiped as a guardian of the city.

Much like Pergamum, this was combined with the required worship of the emperor, considered an incarnation of Apollo and thus a son of Zeus himself.

And beside Apollo, each guild had its own patron deity with its own related festivals.

“Son of God”

Christ’s description of himself as the speaker to this church is that He is the Son of God.

This sets him against Apollo and the emperor, who were said to be sons of the chief god, Zeus.

This title “Son of God” is used nowhere else in Revelation.

This Son of God has eyes like flames of fire and feet like polished bronze (see 1:14–15; see also Daniel 10:6).

The blazing eyes indicate the penetrating power of his vision; the feet of bronze indicate strength for executing judgment.

The believers in Thyatira were commended for their good deeds.

Christ sees all good deeds.

He knew of the believers’ love for one another, their faithfulness to Him, their service, and their patient endurance.

Christ was pleased in all these good things that this congregation had right.

Transition:

Before we look and dwell on the problems of this church, or even our own church, we ought to recognize first that there are things that this church did that pleased God; yet there were things this church did that brought Jesus’ condemnation.

II.

The Problem at Church (vv.20-23)

There was this one women, you know, in that church...

In this case, the problem was a woman from among the believers, who claimed to have the gift of prophecy.

She may indeed have had impressive unusual gifts, but she was using her influence, her manipulation, to teach what was wrong, misleading the believers.

She was a con-artist.

Like Balaam, she was leading the people into worship of idols and sexual sin, probably by teaching that immorality was not a serious matter for believers.

Her name may have actually been Jezebel, or Jesus may have used the name Jezebel to symbolize the same evil she was promoting.

Jezebel, a pagan Philistine queen of Israel, was considered the most evil woman who ever lived.

She had led Israel’s king, Ahab, into Baal worship and eventually had spread that idolatry throughout all of Israel.

“Jezebel” was being tolerated in the Thyatiran church—perhaps her manner was so manipulative and persuasive that many did not notice, or perhaps no one realized the severe danger into which she was placing the entire church.

Thyatira’s church had the opposite problem that Ephesus had.

Whereas the Ephesian church had been good at dealing with false teachers but had lacked love, the church in Thyatira had lots of love but had become tolerant of false teachers.

And, as was with Pergamum, the church in Thyatira was tolerating false teaching that was attempting to compromise with the pagan society.

She gave them a license to sin.

Most of the people in the city belonged to various guilds.

These guilds (such as potters, tentmakers, etc.) each had an area in the city and a guild hall, which functioned as a center for the guild’s religious and civic activities.

Usually the guild would hold a banquet at the hall once a week, and these banquets would often be centered on idolatry—featuring meat sacrificed to idols and, most likely, some form of sexual activity.

Jezebel was probably encouraging the working believers, themselves, to continue to take part in their guilds’ activities as their civic duty.

A refusal to join the guilds and take part in their activities could mean a loss of a job.

Jezebel suggested a way of compromise.

Christ was not pleased with this woman’s teaching or with the fact that the church tolerated her.

I feel that this could speak to those today that call themselves Christian but let their jobs crowd out church.

“I would go to church, but I work on Sundays” or “Sunday is my only day off, God wants me to rest right?”

Maybe no fornication is taking place but there is certainly compromise and a loss of discernment.

The tragedy is that she would not repent, even though God gave her the opportunity.

When we allow false teaching, we are playing with fire.

As in the case of the Corinthian congregation, where those claiming superspirituality were causing much of the trouble, false teaching within the church often comes from those who are attracted to a secretive, deeper kind of religious experience.

This passage presents an opportunity to warn people about the widespread influence of false teaching in today’s religious environment and to caution them against trusting in anything other than Jesus Christ and his gospel.

Jesus assures us that we will be able to recognize false teachers by the fruit (or works) of their lives (Matt.

7:15–20).

In the strongest possible terms, he also pronounces judgment on Jezebel and her dedicated followers who refuse to repent.