April 20, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
The church is called to accept sinful people, not to
accept sin. What happens when that calling is forgotten or ignored. Today,
on turning Point, Doctor David Jeremiah continues his series in
Revelation Escape the Coming Night and introduces an ancient church
in which immorality was allowed to take root. You'll hear
(00:27):
Christ's stern warning as David shares today's message the adulterist
Church Thiatyra.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And thank you for joining us today. We begin a
new week together as we study the Book of Revelation.
Today we're in the second chapter and we'll be studying
verses eighteen through twenty nine as we look together at
the adulterous Church of Thiatyra. Now you remember, seven letters
were written to seven actual churches that surrounded the Isle
(00:54):
of Patmos. Each letter was significant because it identified something
about the church that was really important. Two churches had
no evil reports given to them, but the rest of
them did. And certainly the church in Thiatyra was worthy
of a very strong reprimand from the Lord. We'll see
(01:15):
that in a few moments and apply it to our
own lives as we study these words together. You can
get a copy of the study guides for this series.
This is volume one. There are four study guides to
take you through the Book of Revelation. By the way,
if you just want outlines for every passage in the
Book of Revelation, that's what these study guides provide. And
then there's a book that we have written called Escape
(01:37):
the Coming Night. That book is available to you during
the month of April for a gift of any size.
Two hundred and ninety pages, a contemporary commentary on the
Book of Revelation. It will help you understand this book
and apply it to your own life. Okay, let's get
ready now for part one. This is Part one of
the Adulterous Church of Thiatyra.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Unlike the cities which we have already studied, the city
of Thiatyra was located in a valley between two cities.
It had no natural fortifications, nor was it beautiful from
the outward view. In fact, it was so vulnerable that
(02:23):
it had to be protected by a Roman garrison. Thiatyra
was located halfway between Pergamus and Sardis, on the Great
Circular Road of the Province of Asia. The journey from
Pergamus to Thiatyra would be about forty miles. Though it
(02:44):
is not considered the most important of the seven cities,
it may have been the busiest of the seven. It
was a bustling trade center boasting numerous trade guilds.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
In fact, historically it.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Is one of the first cities where we learn anything
at all about trade guilds. In the city of Thiatyra,
the bakers, the bronze workers, the clothiers, the cobblers, the weavers,
the tanners, the dyers, and the potters had all organized
trade unions, and they were set up to compete with
one another and to protect their own workers. Thiatyra was
(03:20):
a city of enduring sacrifices and shallow ritualism. To this
church is written the longest letter of the seven, even
though the church seems to be the least important of
the seven. We do not know very much about Thiatyra
from other New Testament literature. But if you will think
(03:41):
back to your study of the Book of Acts, you
will remember that there was a woman by the name
of Lydia, and the sixteenth chapter of Acts records a
little bit about her. She traded in materials from Thiatyra's purple,
and she is described by Luke in Acts sixteen as
a seller of purple goods. That would be very common
(04:05):
and very understandable for somebody from Thiatyra. That was one
of the major exports from the city. They were great
in the dying of fabric, and they were known for
the purity of their purple color, which I found out
wasn't purple at all, but red, but they called it purple.
Lydia apparently had taken a weekend journey to market the
(04:30):
wares that she carried with her, and she probably went
to Philippi in Macedonia, of which Thiatyra was a colony,
And while she was there she heard Paul preach the Gospel,
and in his crusade in Philippi, Lydia heard the message
of Jesus Christ, and she was saved, gave her heart
to the Lord, went on about her business the next day,
(04:53):
and probably went back to Thiatyra, and maybe was the
agent that God.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Used to start the thriat little.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Church that was alive and well in that busy city. Now,
when the Lord writes to the church at thia Tyra,
he designates himself in a very interesting way. Notice the
eighteenth verse, unto the Angel of the Church. In Theia Tyra,
write these things, saith the Son of God, who hath
(05:22):
his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his
feet are like fine brass. Now you remember when we
looked at the vision of Christ in the first chapter
of the Book of Revelation, that I told you that
that vision would continue to reappear in the letters that
were written by John to the churches. If you go
back to the first chapter of the Book of Revelation,
(05:45):
you will find most of the things which here are
referenced concerning Jesus Christ to the Church. There are three
titles that are given to the Lord, as this letter
is addressed to the Church. First of all, he is
referred to in the eighteenth verse as the Son of God.
A little bit later on, we're going to learn about
(06:06):
the famous woman of Diatyra, the reincarnation of the woman Jezebel,
who considered herself to be a prophetess or an oracle
of God. But Jesus writes to the Church and says,
I am the Son of God, and as the Son
of God, I sit in judgment on the professed oracle
(06:29):
of God.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
He designates himself.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Secondly, as he who hath eyes like unto a flame
of fire. I read what Joseph Seiss wrote concerning that statement.
He said, there is nothing more piercing than flaming fire.
Everything yields and melts before it. It penetrates all things,
(06:53):
It consumes every opposition. It sweeps down all obstructions, and
presses its way with invincible power. And of this sort
are the eyes of Jesus. They look through everything, They
pierce through all masks and all coverings. They search the
remotest recesses. They behold the most hidden things of the soul,
(07:16):
and there is no escape from them. As the son
of God, he is omniscient as well as almighty. This
is the most solemn truth about Jesus in all of
the Bible.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
End of quote.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And if you read through the scriptures, you will see
over and over again illustrations of the piercing eyes of Jesus.
Hagar when she was running away, new those piercing eyes,
and she said in Genesis sixteen thirteen, thou God seest me.
Jeremiah the prophet testified of the one who tries the
(07:53):
mind and the heart of all men.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Jeremiah eleven twenty.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
In the New Testament, recognized that the eyes of Jesus
were like a flame of fire, and that they pierced
human hearts and minds.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
And when they.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Prayed, they prayed like this, What a great way to pray,
Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, Acts
one twenty four and Acts fifteen to eight. And in
the authorized version of that text it says this, thou Lord,
which knowest the hearts of all men. And that phrase
(08:29):
is the translation of a single Greek word. It's the
most interesting word, one of the most interesting words in
the Book of Acts. It is the word cardio gnostics.
Cardiosis cardio we know is heart. The word gnosis is
the word for no. Literally, Jesus is referred in the
(08:53):
Book of Acts as.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Jesus Christ, the heart Knower. That's who he is.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
We read of him and John that he knew all men,
that he needed no one to tell him what was
in the heart of men, for he knew all men.
And now as he writes this letter to this church,
which has been infected with Jezebelism, he looks right through
the exterior of it all with his blazing white fire eyes,
(09:19):
and he says.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
I know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
The sin of that church and the sin of that
city was a sin committed behind closed doors, the kind
of sin that people thought they could cover up. But
Jesus is serving notice on them right at the beginning
of the letter, and he's saying to them, you cannot
hide from the all seeing God.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
What you do is never going to be covered from
his eyes. He knows what you were doing.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And then he adds the third description and speaks of
himself not only as the son of God and the
one who has eyes like unto a flame of fire,
but his feet are like fine brass. And we learned
in the first chapter, and we won't take long to
discuss that that brass. In the scripture, and especially feet
(10:11):
of brass, are symbols of judgment. They speak of the
Lord going forth to judge those who have violated him.
The Bible says in Revelation nineteen fifteen, he treadeth the
wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
The feet of judgment. Brass is a metal used in
(10:33):
scripture as a symbol of judgment. It is often referring
to the time in the future when Christ is going
to meet out judgment upon the nations and upon those
who have rejected him. Now we see the Lord Jesus Christ,
presented with eyes that will penetrate the falsehood of Jezebel,
(10:57):
and feet to stamp out in judgment. And notice, if
you will down in verse twenty three, that he adds
this distinguishing and additional truth, I will kill her children
with death, and all the churches shall know. Watch this
now that I am he which searcheth the rains and
the hearts. That's the kind of Christ who is writing
(11:17):
to this church. Before we go on to look at
what the church was involved in and how the Lord
diagnosed the church, we need to just stop for a
moment and recognize that the Christ who is being presented
to all of these churches is the real Christ.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
He is the Christ who is alive today. He is
the Christ with whom you and I have to do.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And he is not simply presented to the Church of
Thiatyra as one whose eyes are as flaming fire and
feet as burnished brass, because that is a special ministry
he has to them. But that is the way he is,
and that is just one part of his nature that
has been set aside to deal with this church.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
But that is who Jesus is.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
He is the Christ who looks into our hearts and
penetrates our minds, and searches our beings and knows what
we are. Mister, you can fool him with the outward
conduct of your life, and you may think you've got
the whole world fulled and deceived. But there is one
in this universe who looks past all of your play acting,
right into the very heart of your hearts, and he knows.
(12:26):
He searches you, and he knows. And it is on
the basis of that knowledge that someday you will be judged.
You sometimes get the impression that Christian people think we
will be judged in the future as we are judged now.
You know the difference between future judgment and present judgment.
Present judgment is based upon what people can find out
(12:49):
about what we are, but it is limited by their
imperfect knowledge. Future judgment will not have any doubt associated
with it.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
It will be the entire truth, all of the facts.
There won't be.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Any controversy, there won't be anybody defending you by some
clever manipulation of legal terms. But you will be judged
on what you are, and you will be known for
what you are by the piercing eyes of Jesus Christ,
who looks right past all of the facade and sees us.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
As we are.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I don't know what that does to you. That makes
me kind of shiver a little bit. And we need
to know something about that kind of God. He is
the God who stands in judgment over Thiotyra. Now watch
carefully what he says about this church. He diagnoses the church,
and he says some good things about the church in
(13:45):
almost every situation when the Lord speaks to the church,
he has this methodology, and it's Christian methodology because Christ
did it. He doesn't walk into Thiotyrant and say, you
got a bunch of Jezebels in your church, but he
softens them up for the truth by telling them the
good things he can think of.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Isn't that a good thing?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
You know? You can always find something good in somebody
unless they're just totally hopeless. And when you've got something
to say to them by way of criticism, it's a
good thing to think of the few good things you
can think of and enumerate them. Now, he says basically
four things about this church before he tears into the
church for what's wrong with it. First of all, he says,
(14:30):
it's a laboring church. Jesus said, I know your works.
And of course the word works is a general term
that is found in all of the letters. But if
you will look down in your bibles, you will see
in verse nineteen, I know thy works. And a little
bit later on, the third word is and thy service.
By the word service, Jesus meant that they were a
(14:52):
church that had ministry. They had love and action toward
those who were in need. They raised the money that
was needed to help folks who needed money. They were ministering.
In fact, the word for service here in the text
is the word that we get our word deacon from.
It's a word that means to serve. It is ministry.
(15:13):
It is used of the collective ministry of the local assembly.
It was not merely the mechanical function of the job
for which they were responsible, but it was rather the tender, loving,
unofficial kindness that was associated with their ministering to one
another and to those outside the body. So Jesus said,
I want to tell you something. You people in thiah
(15:34):
Tyra have something good.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
I want you to know.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You are a laboring church, you're a ministering church. Well,
you already see the second one in verse nineteen. He said, Secondly,
not only are you a laboring church, you are a
loving church. It is simply the love that Christ sees
in the church. It's an interesting thing that Jesus Christ,
the Christ who walks among the churches, says that this
(15:59):
church is a church that has love. With all the
faultiness in this church, which we're going to learn about
in a few moments, there is also much good. And
one of the things that is good is that love
is at the head of the list of virtues in
the church.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
It's interesting that in the church at.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Ephesus, they would not put up with anyone who was false.
They would not put up with the false apostles, and
they wouldn't put up with anybody who was coming down
the road that would intervene and destroy the purity of
the church.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
But you remember what was wrong with Ephesus. They had
left their first love.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
The church of Thiatyra had still had all their love,
but they didn't have any discernment. The one church was
blessed in one way and the other church was blessed
in another way. The church in Ephesus had love that
was waning, and the church in Thiatyra had love that
was gaining. And God notices in both churches the good things.
(16:58):
And remember we said that these churches represent not only
all of the churches today, but they represent individuals within
every individual church. There are Ephesian Christians, there are Smyrnian Christians.
There are Thiotyran Christians. There are Prigamian Christians. Every church
has different people within the church that match up to
the individual churches that we're studying. Just as there are
(17:21):
some people in this church who would never think of
violating doctrine for anything, no matter what, but are the
most unloving, ungiving people you'd ever see in your life.
So there are some people in this church that are
so loving that give you anything that you want, but
they don't know doctrine A from doctrine B, and they
really don't care. And Jesus said they're both wrong. You
(17:43):
need to understand now how he's painting the picture of
the church. It was a laboring church and a loving church,
and thirdly, it was a loyal church. The word used
for faith here is the word pistos, and it means faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Saints were dependable and reliable.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Fickle and faltering Saints are not faithful but occasional and spasmodic.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
And God knows we've got enough of those.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Some Christians run well at the outset of the race,
but after you get started and the pressure's on, they
drop out. But these folks were loyal. Now this is
a pretty good church. They're laboring, they're loving, they're loyal.
Notice the last thing about them in this verse, they're
long suffering. He said, I know if thy patience. And
(18:31):
he's talking here about the capacity to be still when
everything all around us is storm tossed. That's what Christ
is talking about.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
He is saying.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
The word for patients is the word hoopomene, which means
to abide under. It means to be able to stay
when the pressure is on. When you're down under it all,
you don't quit, You don't give up, just like the
Christians in Smyrna would not quit because they were person acted.
The church in Thyatira had that reputation as well. Their
(19:04):
patience is one of the things that Christ approves. But
notice there is a fifth characteristic that doesn't go in
the list of the four, but should be over the
top of all of the four, and it kind of
qualifies all of these four characteristics. It's most interesting. At
the end of verse nineteen, he says, and by works
(19:26):
and the last to be more than the first. In
other words, this was a church that was maturing and
progressing and growing. Jesus said of the church, the things
you're doing now are better than the things you used
to do. You are progressing in the faith. You are
maturing in the faith. You are growing. And obviously he
(19:47):
means by that that they are growing and their loyalty.
They are growing in their love, they are growing in
their long suffering, they are growing in all of the
characteristics that he says about them. Here they are growing
touring church. They had a humble ministry. But on the
other hand, they had a ministry that should not have
(20:08):
made them ashamed. But that's all the good news you're
going to get from now on. From the rest of
the letter, he's going to talk to him about what's wrong.
And there's something seriously wrong in the church. Notice verse twenty, notwithstanding,
have you ever.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Been in a situation like this?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
You're sitting across the table from your boss, and he says, now,
I'd like to talk to you about some things. I
want to tell you some of the things I really
appreciate about you. You're loyal, you're loving, Oh, you're faithful.
But and you knew it was coming, and so you
(20:54):
suck your breath in and you wait. I hope you
never have to hear anything as harsh as this. Listen
to what the Lord says. Nevertheless, I have a few
things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which
callth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants,
to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
(21:18):
In the beautiful body of the Church of Thiatyra, there
was a cancer in the beautiful garden that God had
created in Thiatyra.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Some weeds had started to grow.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Thiatyra, you see, had everything that God wanted it to have,
except one basic thing.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
It did not have holiness.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Christ wanted that church to be holy, and it was loving,
and it was loyal, and it was steadfast, and it
was all the rest. But it allowed sin and evil
and immorality to enter into its ranks. And the Lord,
with his piercing eyes all through all of the other characteristics,
and he went right to the heart of their problem.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Ephesus, you remember, could not bear evil.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Ephesus threw out the apostles who were self styled, but
they had no love. Thotyra had love, but it tolerated
an evil self styled prophetess in her midst.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
And Jesus didn't like it.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Now, if the devil cannot conquer the church by the
application of political pressure, as was tried in Smyrna when
the Romans came in and tried to persecute them away
from their faith, if the devil cannot ruin the church
by propagating intellectual heresy, he will try anything he can,
(22:47):
including the introduction of moral evil into the rank and
file of the church. And this was the dragon's strategy
in Thiatyra, to introduce evil into the church through a
woman who taught in the church that immorality was acceptable.
Under Astoroth, religion was divorced from morality, and sexual immorality
(23:12):
was actually made part of worship, So a priestess in
the worship of Astrooth was a prostitute, and the whole
worship of that God or goddess was wrapped up in
wholesale prostitution. She therefore is the epitome of subtle corruption
(23:35):
and a symbol of immorality and idolatry. When you think
of Jezebel in the Old Testament sense, that's what you
think about. She represented idolatry and immorality.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
And we'll have the rest of this tomorrow here on
turning Point. We didn't have enough time to get it
all in today, and during the rest of this week
we're going to talk about the Dead Church of Sardis
and the Faithful Church in Philadelphia. We have some really
good lessons coming up right now as we study the
Book of Revelation together. Hey, by the way, friends, we
often tell you about our trips and our conference cruises.
(24:11):
The next one coming up for us is in July
the twelfth through the nineteenth. As we get aboard the
Holland America's You're a Damn Ship and sail into Alaska.
We'll visit Puget Sound, Juno, Glacier Bay, We'll go to
Sitka Ketcha Kan and Victoria and have a great time
along the way. I'll be teaching, We'll have great music
(24:33):
and worship, and if this is normal, we'll have a
great crowd of people. Everybody loves Alaska. Don't wait till
the last minute. Make sure there's room for you on
this tour once again. The dates are July twelfth through
the nineteenth. The next conference cruise for a Turning Point
see tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series Escape the Coming Night,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning
Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at
David Jeremiah dot org slash radio. That's David Jeremiah dot
org slash Radio, or call us at eight hundred nine
(25:17):
four seven nineteen ninety three. Ask for your copy of
David's best selling in depth book on revelation, Escape the
Coming Night. This helpful resource is yours for a gift
of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study
Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King
James versions, complete with notes and articles from doctor Jeremiah's
(25:39):
decades of study. Get all the details when you visit
our website. David Jeremiah dot org Slash Radio. This is
David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the
series Escape the Coming Night on Turning Point with Doctor
David Jeremiah
The church is called to accept sinful people, not to
accept sin. What happens when that calling is forgotten or ignored. Today,
on turning Point, Doctor David Jeremiah continues his series in
Revelation Escape the Coming Night and introduces an ancient church
in which immorality was allowed to take root. You'll hear
(00:27):
Christ's stern warning as David shares today's message the adulterist
Church Thiatyra.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And thank you for joining us today. We begin a
new week together as we study the Book of Revelation.
Today we're in the second chapter and we'll be studying
verses eighteen through twenty nine as we look together at
the adulterous Church of Thiatyra. Now you remember, seven letters
were written to seven actual churches that surrounded the Isle
(00:54):
of Patmos. Each letter was significant because it identified something
about the church that was really important. Two churches had
no evil reports given to them, but the rest of
them did. And certainly the church in Thiatyra was worthy
of a very strong reprimand from the Lord. We'll see
(01:15):
that in a few moments and apply it to our
own lives as we study these words together. You can
get a copy of the study guides for this series.
This is volume one. There are four study guides to
take you through the Book of Revelation. By the way,
if you just want outlines for every passage in the
Book of Revelation, that's what these study guides provide. And
then there's a book that we have written called Escape
(01:37):
the Coming Night. That book is available to you during
the month of April for a gift of any size.
Two hundred and ninety pages, a contemporary commentary on the
Book of Revelation. It will help you understand this book
and apply it to your own life. Okay, let's get
ready now for part one. This is Part one of
the Adulterous Church of Thiatyra.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Unlike the cities which we have already studied, the city
of Thiatyra was located in a valley between two cities.
It had no natural fortifications, nor was it beautiful from
the outward view. In fact, it was so vulnerable that
(02:23):
it had to be protected by a Roman garrison. Thiatyra
was located halfway between Pergamus and Sardis, on the Great
Circular Road of the Province of Asia. The journey from
Pergamus to Thiatyra would be about forty miles. Though it
(02:44):
is not considered the most important of the seven cities,
it may have been the busiest of the seven. It
was a bustling trade center boasting numerous trade guilds.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
In fact, historically it.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Is one of the first cities where we learn anything
at all about trade guilds. In the city of Thiatyra,
the bakers, the bronze workers, the clothiers, the cobblers, the weavers,
the tanners, the dyers, and the potters had all organized
trade unions, and they were set up to compete with
one another and to protect their own workers. Thiatyra was
(03:20):
a city of enduring sacrifices and shallow ritualism. To this
church is written the longest letter of the seven, even
though the church seems to be the least important of
the seven. We do not know very much about Thiatyra
from other New Testament literature. But if you will think
(03:41):
back to your study of the Book of Acts, you
will remember that there was a woman by the name
of Lydia, and the sixteenth chapter of Acts records a
little bit about her. She traded in materials from Thiatyra's purple,
and she is described by Luke in Acts sixteen as
a seller of purple goods. That would be very common
(04:05):
and very understandable for somebody from Thiatyra. That was one
of the major exports from the city. They were great
in the dying of fabric, and they were known for
the purity of their purple color, which I found out
wasn't purple at all, but red, but they called it purple.
Lydia apparently had taken a weekend journey to market the
(04:30):
wares that she carried with her, and she probably went
to Philippi in Macedonia, of which Thiatyra was a colony,
And while she was there she heard Paul preach the Gospel,
and in his crusade in Philippi, Lydia heard the message
of Jesus Christ, and she was saved, gave her heart
to the Lord, went on about her business the next day,
(04:53):
and probably went back to Thiatyra, and maybe was the
agent that God.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
Used to start the thriat little.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Church that was alive and well in that busy city. Now,
when the Lord writes to the church at thia Tyra,
he designates himself in a very interesting way. Notice the
eighteenth verse, unto the Angel of the Church. In Theia Tyra,
write these things, saith the Son of God, who hath
(05:22):
his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his
feet are like fine brass. Now you remember when we
looked at the vision of Christ in the first chapter
of the Book of Revelation, that I told you that
that vision would continue to reappear in the letters that
were written by John to the churches. If you go
back to the first chapter of the Book of Revelation,
(05:45):
you will find most of the things which here are
referenced concerning Jesus Christ to the Church. There are three
titles that are given to the Lord, as this letter
is addressed to the Church. First of all, he is
referred to in the eighteenth verse as the Son of God.
A little bit later on, we're going to learn about
(06:06):
the famous woman of Diatyra, the reincarnation of the woman Jezebel,
who considered herself to be a prophetess or an oracle
of God. But Jesus writes to the Church and says,
I am the Son of God, and as the Son
of God, I sit in judgment on the professed oracle
(06:29):
of God.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
He designates himself.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Secondly, as he who hath eyes like unto a flame
of fire. I read what Joseph Seiss wrote concerning that statement.
He said, there is nothing more piercing than flaming fire.
Everything yields and melts before it. It penetrates all things,
(06:53):
It consumes every opposition. It sweeps down all obstructions, and
presses its way with invincible power. And of this sort
are the eyes of Jesus. They look through everything, They
pierce through all masks and all coverings. They search the
remotest recesses. They behold the most hidden things of the soul,
(07:16):
and there is no escape from them. As the son
of God, he is omniscient as well as almighty. This
is the most solemn truth about Jesus in all of
the Bible.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
End of quote.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And if you read through the scriptures, you will see
over and over again illustrations of the piercing eyes of Jesus.
Hagar when she was running away, new those piercing eyes,
and she said in Genesis sixteen thirteen, thou God seest me.
Jeremiah the prophet testified of the one who tries the
(07:53):
mind and the heart of all men.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Jeremiah eleven twenty.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
In the New Testament, recognized that the eyes of Jesus
were like a flame of fire, and that they pierced
human hearts and minds.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
And when they.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Prayed, they prayed like this, What a great way to pray,
Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, Acts
one twenty four and Acts fifteen to eight. And in
the authorized version of that text it says this, thou Lord,
which knowest the hearts of all men. And that phrase
(08:29):
is the translation of a single Greek word. It's the
most interesting word, one of the most interesting words in
the Book of Acts. It is the word cardio gnostics.
Cardiosis cardio we know is heart. The word gnosis is
the word for no. Literally, Jesus is referred in the
(08:53):
Book of Acts as.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Jesus Christ, the heart Knower. That's who he is.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
We read of him and John that he knew all men,
that he needed no one to tell him what was
in the heart of men, for he knew all men.
And now as he writes this letter to this church,
which has been infected with Jezebelism, he looks right through
the exterior of it all with his blazing white fire eyes,
(09:19):
and he says.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
I know what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
The sin of that church and the sin of that
city was a sin committed behind closed doors, the kind
of sin that people thought they could cover up. But
Jesus is serving notice on them right at the beginning
of the letter, and he's saying to them, you cannot
hide from the all seeing God.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
What you do is never going to be covered from
his eyes. He knows what you were doing.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And then he adds the third description and speaks of
himself not only as the son of God and the
one who has eyes like unto a flame of fire,
but his feet are like fine brass. And we learned
in the first chapter, and we won't take long to
discuss that that brass. In the scripture, and especially feet
(10:11):
of brass, are symbols of judgment. They speak of the
Lord going forth to judge those who have violated him.
The Bible says in Revelation nineteen fifteen, he treadeth the
wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
The feet of judgment. Brass is a metal used in
(10:33):
scripture as a symbol of judgment. It is often referring
to the time in the future when Christ is going
to meet out judgment upon the nations and upon those
who have rejected him. Now we see the Lord Jesus Christ,
presented with eyes that will penetrate the falsehood of Jezebel,
(10:57):
and feet to stamp out in judgment. And notice, if
you will down in verse twenty three, that he adds
this distinguishing and additional truth, I will kill her children
with death, and all the churches shall know. Watch this
now that I am he which searcheth the rains and
the hearts. That's the kind of Christ who is writing
(11:17):
to this church. Before we go on to look at
what the church was involved in and how the Lord
diagnosed the church, we need to just stop for a
moment and recognize that the Christ who is being presented
to all of these churches is the real Christ.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
He is the Christ who is alive today. He is
the Christ with whom you and I have to do.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
And he is not simply presented to the Church of
Thiatyra as one whose eyes are as flaming fire and
feet as burnished brass, because that is a special ministry
he has to them. But that is the way he is,
and that is just one part of his nature that
has been set aside to deal with this church.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
But that is who Jesus is.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
He is the Christ who looks into our hearts and
penetrates our minds, and searches our beings and knows what
we are. Mister, you can fool him with the outward
conduct of your life, and you may think you've got
the whole world fulled and deceived. But there is one
in this universe who looks past all of your play acting,
right into the very heart of your hearts, and he knows.
(12:26):
He searches you, and he knows. And it is on
the basis of that knowledge that someday you will be judged.
You sometimes get the impression that Christian people think we
will be judged in the future as we are judged now.
You know the difference between future judgment and present judgment.
Present judgment is based upon what people can find out
(12:49):
about what we are, but it is limited by their
imperfect knowledge. Future judgment will not have any doubt associated
with it.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
It will be the entire truth, all of the facts.
There won't be.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Any controversy, there won't be anybody defending you by some
clever manipulation of legal terms. But you will be judged
on what you are, and you will be known for
what you are by the piercing eyes of Jesus Christ,
who looks right past all of the facade and sees us.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
As we are.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
I don't know what that does to you. That makes
me kind of shiver a little bit. And we need
to know something about that kind of God. He is
the God who stands in judgment over Thiotyra. Now watch
carefully what he says about this church. He diagnoses the church,
and he says some good things about the church in
(13:45):
almost every situation when the Lord speaks to the church,
he has this methodology, and it's Christian methodology because Christ
did it. He doesn't walk into Thiotyrant and say, you
got a bunch of Jezebels in your church, but he
softens them up for the truth by telling them the
good things he can think of.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Isn't that a good thing?
Speaker 3 (14:09):
You know? You can always find something good in somebody
unless they're just totally hopeless. And when you've got something
to say to them by way of criticism, it's a
good thing to think of the few good things you
can think of and enumerate them. Now, he says basically
four things about this church before he tears into the
church for what's wrong with it. First of all, he says,
(14:30):
it's a laboring church. Jesus said, I know your works.
And of course the word works is a general term
that is found in all of the letters. But if
you will look down in your bibles, you will see
in verse nineteen, I know thy works. And a little
bit later on, the third word is and thy service.
By the word service, Jesus meant that they were a
(14:52):
church that had ministry. They had love and action toward
those who were in need. They raised the money that
was needed to help folks who needed money. They were ministering.
In fact, the word for service here in the text
is the word that we get our word deacon from.
It's a word that means to serve. It is ministry.
(15:13):
It is used of the collective ministry of the local assembly.
It was not merely the mechanical function of the job
for which they were responsible, but it was rather the tender, loving,
unofficial kindness that was associated with their ministering to one
another and to those outside the body. So Jesus said,
I want to tell you something. You people in thiah
(15:34):
Tyra have something good.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
I want you to know.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You are a laboring church, you're a ministering church. Well,
you already see the second one in verse nineteen. He said, Secondly,
not only are you a laboring church, you are a
loving church. It is simply the love that Christ sees
in the church. It's an interesting thing that Jesus Christ,
the Christ who walks among the churches, says that this
(15:59):
church is a church that has love. With all the
faultiness in this church, which we're going to learn about
in a few moments, there is also much good. And
one of the things that is good is that love
is at the head of the list of virtues in
the church.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
It's interesting that in the church at.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Ephesus, they would not put up with anyone who was false.
They would not put up with the false apostles, and
they wouldn't put up with anybody who was coming down
the road that would intervene and destroy the purity of
the church.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
But you remember what was wrong with Ephesus. They had
left their first love.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
The church of Thiatyra had still had all their love,
but they didn't have any discernment. The one church was
blessed in one way and the other church was blessed
in another way. The church in Ephesus had love that
was waning, and the church in Thiatyra had love that
was gaining. And God notices in both churches the good things.
(16:58):
And remember we said that these churches represent not only
all of the churches today, but they represent individuals within
every individual church. There are Ephesian Christians, there are Smyrnian Christians.
There are Thiotyran Christians. There are Prigamian Christians. Every church
has different people within the church that match up to
the individual churches that we're studying. Just as there are
(17:21):
some people in this church who would never think of
violating doctrine for anything, no matter what, but are the
most unloving, ungiving people you'd ever see in your life.
So there are some people in this church that are
so loving that give you anything that you want, but
they don't know doctrine A from doctrine B, and they
really don't care. And Jesus said they're both wrong. You
(17:43):
need to understand now how he's painting the picture of
the church. It was a laboring church and a loving church,
and thirdly, it was a loyal church. The word used
for faith here is the word pistos, and it means faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Saints were dependable and reliable.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Fickle and faltering Saints are not faithful but occasional and spasmodic.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
And God knows we've got enough of those.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Some Christians run well at the outset of the race,
but after you get started and the pressure's on, they
drop out. But these folks were loyal. Now this is
a pretty good church. They're laboring, they're loving, they're loyal.
Notice the last thing about them in this verse, they're
long suffering. He said, I know if thy patience. And
(18:31):
he's talking here about the capacity to be still when
everything all around us is storm tossed. That's what Christ
is talking about.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
He is saying.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
The word for patients is the word hoopomene, which means
to abide under. It means to be able to stay
when the pressure is on. When you're down under it all,
you don't quit, You don't give up, just like the
Christians in Smyrna would not quit because they were person acted.
The church in Thyatira had that reputation as well. Their
(19:04):
patience is one of the things that Christ approves. But
notice there is a fifth characteristic that doesn't go in
the list of the four, but should be over the
top of all of the four, and it kind of
qualifies all of these four characteristics. It's most interesting. At
the end of verse nineteen, he says, and by works
(19:26):
and the last to be more than the first. In
other words, this was a church that was maturing and
progressing and growing. Jesus said of the church, the things
you're doing now are better than the things you used
to do. You are progressing in the faith. You are
maturing in the faith. You are growing. And obviously he
(19:47):
means by that that they are growing and their loyalty.
They are growing in their love, they are growing in
their long suffering, they are growing in all of the
characteristics that he says about them. Here they are growing
touring church. They had a humble ministry. But on the
other hand, they had a ministry that should not have
(20:08):
made them ashamed. But that's all the good news you're
going to get from now on. From the rest of
the letter, he's going to talk to him about what's wrong.
And there's something seriously wrong in the church. Notice verse twenty, notwithstanding,
have you ever.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
Been in a situation like this?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
You're sitting across the table from your boss, and he says, now,
I'd like to talk to you about some things. I
want to tell you some of the things I really
appreciate about you. You're loyal, you're loving, Oh, you're faithful.
But and you knew it was coming, and so you
(20:54):
suck your breath in and you wait. I hope you
never have to hear anything as harsh as this. Listen
to what the Lord says. Nevertheless, I have a few
things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which
callth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants,
to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
(21:18):
In the beautiful body of the Church of Thiatyra, there
was a cancer in the beautiful garden that God had
created in Thiatyra.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Some weeds had started to grow.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Thiatyra, you see, had everything that God wanted it to have,
except one basic thing.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
It did not have holiness.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Christ wanted that church to be holy, and it was loving,
and it was loyal, and it was steadfast, and it
was all the rest. But it allowed sin and evil
and immorality to enter into its ranks. And the Lord,
with his piercing eyes all through all of the other characteristics,
and he went right to the heart of their problem.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Ephesus, you remember, could not bear evil.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Ephesus threw out the apostles who were self styled, but
they had no love. Thotyra had love, but it tolerated
an evil self styled prophetess in her midst.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
And Jesus didn't like it.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Now, if the devil cannot conquer the church by the
application of political pressure, as was tried in Smyrna when
the Romans came in and tried to persecute them away
from their faith, if the devil cannot ruin the church
by propagating intellectual heresy, he will try anything he can,
(22:47):
including the introduction of moral evil into the rank and
file of the church. And this was the dragon's strategy
in Thiatyra, to introduce evil into the church through a
woman who taught in the church that immorality was acceptable.
Under Astoroth, religion was divorced from morality, and sexual immorality
(23:12):
was actually made part of worship, So a priestess in
the worship of Astrooth was a prostitute, and the whole
worship of that God or goddess was wrapped up in
wholesale prostitution. She therefore is the epitome of subtle corruption
(23:35):
and a symbol of immorality and idolatry. When you think
of Jezebel in the Old Testament sense, that's what you
think about. She represented idolatry and immorality.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
And we'll have the rest of this tomorrow here on
turning Point. We didn't have enough time to get it
all in today, and during the rest of this week
we're going to talk about the Dead Church of Sardis
and the Faithful Church in Philadelphia. We have some really
good lessons coming up right now as we study the
Book of Revelation together. Hey, by the way, friends, we
often tell you about our trips and our conference cruises.
(24:11):
The next one coming up for us is in July
the twelfth through the nineteenth. As we get aboard the
Holland America's You're a Damn Ship and sail into Alaska.
We'll visit Puget Sound, Juno, Glacier Bay, We'll go to
Sitka Ketcha Kan and Victoria and have a great time
along the way. I'll be teaching, We'll have great music
(24:33):
and worship, and if this is normal, we'll have a
great crowd of people. Everybody loves Alaska. Don't wait till
the last minute. Make sure there's room for you on
this tour once again. The dates are July twelfth through
the nineteenth. The next conference cruise for a Turning Point
see tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
For more information on Doctor Jeremiah series Escape the Coming Night,
please visit our website, where we also offer two free
ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning
Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at
David Jeremiah dot org slash radio. That's David Jeremiah dot
org slash Radio, or call us at eight hundred nine
(25:17):
four seven nineteen ninety three. Ask for your copy of
David's best selling in depth book on revelation, Escape the
Coming Night. This helpful resource is yours for a gift
of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study
Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King
James versions, complete with notes and articles from doctor Jeremiah's
(25:39):
decades of study. Get all the details when you visit
our website. David Jeremiah dot org Slash Radio. This is
David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue the
series Escape the Coming Night on Turning Point with Doctor
David Jeremiah
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