As we have traveled to the first three churches in our study of Revelation chapter two, the Lord has delivered axioms for Christian behavior essential to the witness of the churches. His message to Ephesus said that love in and of the Church is primary and essential to the work of the Church. His message to Smyrna reminds us that the sacrificial suffering and death of the Lord, followed by the resurrection life of the Lord, is typical of the experience of His faithful Church. His words to Pergamum warned that the warrior in the battle of the great commission, fights and wins only with the Word, the sword of the Spirit, avoiding compromise with or aggression against the world.
Now, having learned the place of love, suffering and the Word, we move to the fourth church, the church in Thyatira. Here we are introduced to a church practicing some essentials of His Spirit, but suffering an identity crisis, led by the world's values. Here, through the failure of Thyatira, the Lord calls our attention to the moral discernment and resolve inherent in the life of the Son and required of adopted sons.
As with the other churches, the opening picture of the Lord to Thyatira focuses their attention on a truth about the Son which corrects and/or encourages the saints. Relationship to God, moral discernment and consequential actions are immediately in view.
The one who speaks is "... the Son of God ..." (2:18)[1]. The Son of Man who speaks to them is the Son of God. In this phrase, they are reminded of the deity of their Lord, and their own new relationship as adopted sons of God. Their relationship to God, their fundamental identity as sons, has powerful implications for all else in their lives. Sons ought to look like their Father. Sons ought to be fed at their Father's table. Sons ought to be learning to see things Dad's way and mimic His actions. Sons should delight in the company of their Father and enjoy being taught by their Father.
The Son has eyes like a flame of fire, vision which burns through the chaff of the world and sees the truth. His point of reference for what He sees is the glory of God (Jn. 17:1-4). The Thyatirans ought to have Son's eyes. As sons of God they have been called out of the world (II Cor. 6:14-18) and equipped to glorify God. They have the Spirit of God. They have the mind of Christ[2].
The Son has feet like burnished bronze. The feet, portraying movement and moral stand, are strong, sure and beautiful (Rom. 10:15). The Son's feet are consistent with the Son's eyes. The feet move in accordance to the eyes' discernment. The Thyatirans, as adopted sons of God (Gal. 3:26; 4:1 ff.), ought also to have beautiful feet. As bond-servants of God they should be faithful to Him, standing and moving in response to His will and their new identity.
Holy relationship ("Son of God") should result in holy vision; holy vision ("eyes like a flame of fire") should result in holy activity ("feet like burnished bronze"). The Son of God who became the son of man, reminds these sons of men what it means to be the adopted sons of God.
The Thyatirans have an impressive list of spiritual fruit. Love leads the list. They were not like those Ephesians who had left their first love. And their love operated with faith in serving with perseverance. The Lord even comments that there is growth in this fruit since they first believed.
"But ...!" The Lord says, "you're exhibiting spiritual fruit, but ...!" No amount of love, faith, service or perseverance has given them a license to sin. The Lamb who had died so that Thyatirans could be called sons and serve God, sees that these bond-servants are admiring and following an age-old enemy of God. They had been "... created in Christ Jesus for good works ..." that they should "... walk in them ..." (Eph. 2:10). "But" these sons, confused about their proper identity, have strayed to another authority.
The sons in Thyatira ought to be exhibiting sonship, but an improper relationship is apparent instead. They are improperly identified with "Jezebel," a graphic personification of the immoral world[3]. In the time of Elijah, Israel knew Jezebel as the Sidonian idol-worshipper married to the wicked king Ahab. Functioning like a prophetess, she had taught idolatry to Israel while murdering the prophets of God and inspiring her husband to evil. The striking contrast introduced by the phrase, "Son of God," and the name Jezebel[4], points to the depth of the crisis in Thyatira. The sons of God are seeing and acting like servants of Jezebel. They tolerate the world's values, being taught and led by them to such an extent that they have become prostituted[5] to them. With their natural senses influenced by Jezebel's values, they are unable to discern proper moral behavior. The authority of sonship has capitulated to the authority of the world.
The Lord, "not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9), has given even Jezebel time to repent, but she wants to continue in her prostitution. This harlot (Rev. 17) believes that she is secure while she seeks her own glory (Rev. 18:7).
Jezebel and her followers will suffer. Her comfortable bed of immorality will become a bed of suffering and death when the world is cast into "great tribulation" (Rev. 2:22, cf. Rev. 18:4). Bond-servants of Jesus who refuse to get out of Jezebel's bed, will share her bed in suffering. The Lord is preparing a graphic lesson to teach that He is actively aware and responding appropriately to the inner motivations and deeds of each life[6]. The Thyatirans should remember the apostle Paul's lesson of sowing and reaping, "... for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap ..." (Gal. 6:7).
As the Lord speaks to those who are not improperly united with "Jezebel," He characterizes the teaching that links His bond-servants to the world as "the depth of Satan" (Rev. 2:24)[7]. Here He uses a phrase that the Thyatirans had heard before, easily familiar to all bond-servants as a designation of sin at its darkest point. The brethren in Thyatira had apparently heard some obviously sinful conduct referred to as "the depth of Satan,"[8] but had failed completely to recognize the sinful nature of their own illicit relationship with the world as such. So, the Lord links this familiar means of describing sin to their own conduct[9]. The faithful of Thyatira who had not yet joined in following the world's authority needed to see such conduct for exactly what it is in the eyes of the Lord, "the depth of Satan."
Some of the saints in Thyatira are not following the world system. The Lord will not add to the burden these saints experience while living in the midst of compromised brethren. Their sole responsibility is to hold fast until He comes. The heart anchored to the coming Lord, endures the present storm.
Overcoming, here equated with keeping the deeds of the Son, will result in authority over the nations of the world. Those who walk as sons will reign with the authority of the Son. Here again we notice the paradox inherent in Christianity. We see the stark contrast between those caught in the deeds of Jezebel and those keeping the deeds of the Son. To those who follow what seems to be authority, seeking the authority of the world, there will be suffering and humiliation. To those who submit themselves to the deeds of the Son, the humiliating life of the cross, there results authority.
While the faithful saints walk according to the cross in the dark world, the Son promises that in overcoming they will be given "the morning star." The Lord here makes reference to the bright star[10] that appears in the morning sky. The light of this star is characteristic of the greater light in the new day[11]. The greater light of the new day "govern(s) the day"[12]. Thus, to be given the morning star is a promise to inherit the governing-light characteristic of the sun (the Son). Identifying with the Son, having the vision of the Son, results in governing like the Son. Authority is inherent in morality.
Comparing the problems of Thyatira with Ephesus suggests that strength in one Spiritual fruit should caution saints to possible weakness in another. Ephesus tests and rejects false apostles, but is failing to love. Thyatira is commended for love, but is following Jezebel. Love must not lose sight of God's glory; moral discernment can only be effective through love.
The message to the church in Thyatira is a message to the rank-and-file evangelical church in America. While our mouths sing and say, "Jesus is Lord," our eyes and our feet say, "Jezebel is Lord." A split personality has resulted from a monumental identity crisis. Having failed to comprehend our new identity as sons of God, we have adopted the viewpoint of Jezebel, and prostituted ourselves to her leadership.
To the Thyatirans the Lord defines success, "overcoming," as keeping His deeds to the end (v. 26). The deeds of Jesus were deeds that led to the cross. To the world, He was a fool and a loser who should have used His power to stay off the cross and out of trouble. To the world, according to every measure of success, He was a failure.
Didn't He realize that you can "get out the message" of sacrifice without sacrificing yourself? Didn't He believe that given enough time the world would discover its problems and get right? Didn't He recognize that real power is at the point of a sword or in the weight of our gold? Didn't He see the power of accumulated wealth to "do lots of good" in the hands of the right people? Didn't He understand the power of education, the lessons from the sciences, to deliver mankind from sin? Didn't He understand the power of pleasure to persuade to a right point of view?
No! With all these "powerful" tools easily within reach, Jesus chose the power of sacrifice to succeed. He didn't teach Peter how to make a larger profit through fishing, He told him to "follow Me and die" (Jn. 21:19). He didn't teach Paul how to plan for retirement, He taught him how to get along with humble means (Phil. 4:12) so that he "could accomplish all things through Christ" while chained in prison. To accomplish the deeds He was given to do (Jn. 17:4), Jesus fixed His eyes on the glory of the Father and His feet on the road to the cross.
But something else is going on in His churches today. Is success equivalent with "overcoming," keeping the deeds of Jesus? Just as Samuel asked King Saul to explain the "bleating of the sheep and lowing of the oxen" (I Sam. 15:14) when all the spoils of battle should have been burned and left behind, so the evangelical church today is faced with explaining the engines of the motorhomes warming-up while the great commissioners are parked in front of the television, listening to Jezebel telling jokes.
Our identity crisis as sons is nowhere more apparent than in our inability to identify and obey our marching orders. We know that "all the nations" are the target. We know we are to "make disciples" who follow the Lord Jesus. We are just having trouble recognizing and executing the orders that tell us how we fight the battle.
Somewhere along the way, two marching orders at the heart of the battle plans were lost. The Lord Jesus and the early Church repeatedly taught and obeyed these marching orders that are now nearly unknown to the Church today. Lost to us today (except in "Bible studies") is (1) the necessity and power of the sacrificed life of the believer and (2) the necessity to turn away from the world and its false power. The apostle Paul emphasizes these two points (Rom. 12:1-2) as necessary outgrowths of our redemption in Christ (Rom. 1-11). We are "to present (our) bodies a living and holy sacrifice" and "not be conformed to this world." By retaining the power-tools of the world to accomplish great commission objectives, we are marching to the drum-beat of sanctified compromise.
The Lord Jesus calls us to die and follow Him. To follow Jesus means that we choose to give up our lives and everything that attends life. To be His disciples means dying to the things by which our lives are defined: (1) career, (2) family, (3) possessions, (4) residence and (5) physical safety/security. We see each of these specifically on the line as the Lord Jesus calls disciples and defines discipleship[13].
The Lord expects us to work so that we can eat (II Thess. 3:6-12), but we are called to the career of the great commission (Matt. 28:18-20). A career is a life course, "a profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling"[14]. The job for which we train and in which we engage must serve the career of the great commission. To avoid sanctified compromise, where we pursue worldly careers/success liberally sprinkled with church attendance and Bible studies, we must apply the litmus test of sacrifice. "Teaching them to observe all that (Jesus) commanded" (Matt. 28:20) means that the teachers will be living sacrificed lives like their Master who taught sacrifice and was sacrificed.
How then do we exhibit the sacrificed life and avoid being conformed to the world?
Sacrifice targets a potential beneficiary; life is given for needy sinners. When Israel brought animals to the altar, the animals were sacrificed to benefit guilty Israel. When the Lord Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice, He was "offered ... to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9:28). The apostle Paul, referring to his own sacrificed life, says to the Corinthians, "But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation ..." (II Cor. 1:6). And, to the Colossians he writes, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body (which is the Church) ..." (Col. 1:24). The apostle clearly offered his life for specific targets.
Sacrifice is humiliating. The animal to be sacrificed was singled out from the rest of the flock, examined closely for imperfections and then executed. The Lord Jesus was stripped naked and crucified. The innocent Deity was treated like guilty humanity. The apostle Paul, who had been an important public official in Israel, became a criminal who was insulted (Acts 26:24), imprisoned, stoned, beaten with rods and finally executed (II Cor. 11:23-27). Christians are called to the humiliated life of a bond-servant, a foot-washer.
Sacrifice is very public and noticeable. The animals in Old Testament sacrifice had their throats cut according to specific rules in a very public way. The Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, was publicly crucified. Jesus instructed His disciples, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). The early Church was a public spectacle of sacrifice. The apostle Paul, alluding to the public parade of triumph typical of a conquering general, could write to the Corinthians, "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place" (II Cor. 2:14). The public nature of sacrifice apparent in the Lord Jesus was apparent in His Church.
Sacrifice is costly. The animals offered for sacrifice had to be the unflawed ones, the animals valued by their owners. The first-fruits of the land, the first return-on-investment of the farmer's labor, went to God, before any needs of the farmer were met. The Lamb of God, the most valuable of the Father, was given for our redemption. Following Jesus cost the early Church members the security of position, careers, possessions and family relationships. The disciples could say to Jesus, "we have left everything and followed you" (Matt. 19:27).
Thus, when we apply the litmus test of the sacrificed life to our experience, the results should be positive for certain definable elements. It should be apparent that we are living sacrifices turned away from the world. Our attention is focused on someone needing the Lamb. The assets placed in our control are being expended in a way which is consistent with our focus. We are shining the light. We are experiencing the humiliation that comes with being foot-washers of those with dirty feet.
But, something is publicly alive in the members of American evangelical churches today, and it is NOT sacrifice. Yes, we talk about and preach the sacrifice of Jesus in a very public way but do so while cruising the Mediterranean in the exalted company of Rev. Spiritual Preacher on the S. S. Jezebel, sipping punch instead of champagne! This is sanctified compromise. Our eyes and feet simply do not match our mouth. We are straining the booze and swallowing the cruise ship! We are talking Jesus to death instead of following Him to death.
Dare we claim that we have "left everything and followed" Jesus? Isn't it true that we are making arrangements for our security first and then "following Jesus?" In the name of "working to eat" and "providing for our families," holy water is sprinkled week by week on the compromises of Christians caught up in the parade behind Jezebel. The message that emerges from the American evangelical church is comfort not cost, capital investment not the cross. Our emphasis on belief rather than following, and doctrine rather than direction, suggests that salvation is the ability to pass a written examination, rather than the work of the Spirit impressing the image of the Lamb on living beings. In the words of my pastor, "The world is tired of information about Christ from the Church, the world wants and needs to see the incarnation of Christ in His Church." To the disciples who said to Jesus, "we have left everything and followed you," the Christians of today would say, "that is totally unnecessary, even irresponsible; haven't you heard, you can keep everything and follow Jesus." To the Lord of the churches and the needy world, it is obvious that "the living sacrifices" have crawled off the altar and are lost in the mall.
If King Saul is famous for anything, it is for making excuses. When confronted for disobedience to God, he could never make a clean break with his sin. Instead, he had a good "reason" why he didn't obey. He is the Old Testament example of sanctified compromise. When Samuel asked Saul why he kept sheep and oxen from the battle, he claimed they were kept "for sacrifice." All he thought was, "If I cloak my actions in holy terms, my disobedience won't be disobedience!" Right? Wrong! God listened to the voices from the sheep and oxen, which spoke louder than Saul's excuse. Saul feared God, but his desire for sheep and oxen was greater than his fear of God.
We, like Saul, sanctify our pursuit of education, wealth, position and security with "for sacrifice" or "work-to-eat" reasoning, while, in reality, we are denying the necessity and power of the sacrificed life of the believer. Somewhere along the way we have lost sight of the fact that the gospel of the sacrificed Son must be delivered by sacrificed sons. To justify our use of the world's methods to accomplish great commission objectives, we point to statistics about "decisions for Christ." But we are sadly lacking "lives like Christ" exhibiting the Spirit of Christ.
We, the evangelical churches in America, are living in Thyatira. Do we understand who we are as redeemed, adopted sons of the Living God? Do we see with His eyes, stand and move with His feet? Do we understand and exhibit to the world the cost of the cross? Is our brand of Christianity informational or incarnational? Are we struggling to keep up with the pace of Jezebel's parade, dumb to the inevitable tribulation of her bed? Or, is Christ leading us in His triumph, preparing for us the morning star of His authority?
Let us, the sons of God, search for the overcoming answers in the deeds of Jesus.
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Rev. 2:29).
- Steve Amy
Lamb Light and Lamb Light Short Studies are produced by a team of Christians from the Christ Evangelical Church, Orem, UT. We are accountable for our conduct to the members and leaders of that local church. The Lamb Light team leader is Stephen Amy. The Pastor of the church is Scott McKinney, (801) 225-3038.
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Copyright © 1996, Lamb Light Ministry All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and permission notice are preserved. . Neither this document nor its contents may be sold. Unless noted, all Scriptures and Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New American Standard Version. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Lamb Light Ministries
c/o Christ Evangelical Church
280 S. 400 E.
Orem, UT 84058
Phone: 801 225-3038