INTOLERABLE TOLERATION

Revelation 2:18-29

If Jesus were to write seven letters to seven churches in America, we might be a little surprised at His choice of destinations. We might expect such letters to go to the churches at Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles and New York. But we might be surprised to find that there was also a letter addressed to Flatbush, Indiana.

Thyatira was that kind of town. It was the smallest of all of the seven cities mentioned in Revelation 2-3. It was a small place, off the beaten track. When Paula and I were taking a tour of the seven churches, this was the one that was skipped. It was out of the way. It would have meant a long and toilsome detour to go there.

Thyatira started out as a sentinel city. It has a small military outpost designed to slow down an invading army. Such an outpost was not designed to actually stop an invasion. It was designed only to slow down the enemy.

Rome was now in power and there was peace throughout the land. There was no need for sentinel cities. There was now only a small garrison at Thyatira.

The fact that Jesus sends a message to the church of Thyatira is a reminder to us that God isn’t interested only in the large and the powerful. He is also interested in the small and the weak and He writes to encourage those who are in small places.

This is the city from which Lydia came. You remember Lydia. She met Paul in Philippi. She was the first Christian convert in that city. She wasn’t from Philippi. She was from Thyatira. What was she doing so far from home? She was a businesswoman. She was a seller of purple. There was a purple flower that grew in the area. This flower would be taken and crushed to produce a relatively inexpensive dye.

The city was located on a small hill in the inland plains of Asia Minor. Unlike Sardis and Pergamum, it had no high acropolis from which to defend its inhabitants.

There was a trade route that ran though Thyatira on the way to Sardis and Pergamum. Because of this trade route, a number of trade guilds had opened up their shops here. These trade guilds lay at the root of the problem for the church at Thyatira. Membership in the guilds often involved attending guild dinners that were marked by pagan rituals and immoral conduct. To disassociate yourself from the guilds might mean losing your business, your job and your social standing in the community.

Jesus is called the Son of God. This is the only place in all the book of Revelation where He is called this. He is the Son of God. Not Apollo. Not Caesar. Jesus.

Notice how he is described. There are two aspects to this description:

1. He has eyes like a flame of fire.

2. His feet are like burnished bronze.

Jesus starts with words of commendation. He says, "I know you." He is the One who knows all things. He is the One with eyes of flames of fire. He sees everything. He knows your situation. He has not lost you in the shuffle.

There were some things about this church that were worthy of commendation. They had faith and love and service and perseverance. What is even more impressive is that their deeds were greater than when they had begun.

Jesus says they are better than they used to be. That is what sanctification is all about. You cannot rest on yesterday’s victories and you cannot be content with yesterday’s growth. Life involves movement and you are always moving either toward God or away from God.

The problem at Thyatira was one of toleration. That is a buzzword today. Everyone calls for toleration in our society. The only socially intolerable sin today it the sin of intoleration.

There were those within the church at Thyatira who would have fit right in. They were tolerant of false doctrine. Perhaps they did not want to go through the pain of confrontation. It is not a pleasant process. It is usually quite uncomfortable. There is always a temptation to overlook areas demanding confrontation. This leads to the toleration of false teaching.

Some of the Christians at Thyatira had been avoiding confrontation. They had fallen into a spiritual détente. They had called for a cease-fire in the midst of the spiritual battle. They had made peace with the enemy.

That enemy is described as Jezebel.

Who is this woman? I do not know for certain, but it is entirely possible that she was a literal woman who was a member of the church at Thyatira. She might have set herself up as a prophetess.

On the other hand, her name was probably not Jezebel. Instead, she is playing the part of Jezebel.

Jezebel is a character from the Old Testament. She was a Phoenician princess who married Ahab, the king of Israel. Together they were the Bonnie and Clyde of the Old Testament.

Jezebel decided that the religion of Israel needed to be updated, so she began to bring in all of the false gods of the Phoenicians. This included the worship of Baal. The Israelites already had a problem with idolatry, but she made it much worse. She led Israel astray. She led the nation into sexual immorality.

There was a modern-day Jezebel in the church at Thyatira. She was playing the role of a prophetess. She was teaching that it was okay to participate in the guild dinners and with the accompanying pagan worship and the meats that were offered to idols and in the sexual customs of the day. She taught that, as long as you did not actually deny Christ, it was okay to be involved in all of these other functions.

There is a principle here fore us today. I have not been invited to attend any dinners to honor a pagan deity, but a modern principle still applies. There are certain public functions I should not attend. When I am invited to a party that will involve drinking and intoxication and possible sexual misconduct, I should not attend. Sometimes such a function will be job-related. This was the case in Thyatira. That is no excuse to associate myself with influences that do not honor God.

In the case at Thyatira, Jesus says: I gave her time to repent; and she does not want to repent of her immorality. She has been warned. She has been given time to repent. But no repentance has been forthcoming. Therefore a series of escalating judgments are pronounced.

This is a picture of church discipline. Before it gets to this point, the church is called to exercise a form of self-discipline to deal with sin within the church. Jesus gave some very specific instructions as to how it was to be carried out.

This is the formula for discipline in the church. If you see that a believer is involved in a certain sin, you are to go to him and lovingly reprove him. If he listens to you and repents of that sin, then both of you are able to rejoice over that restoration.

If he does not listen, then take along one or two other Christians who can hear the matter and judge it. After all, it might be you who are mistaken and need to be corrected.

If the sinning believer is still rebellious toward the reproof that has now been offered by these two or three Christians, then the matter is to be taken before the leadership of the church.

If the sinning believer will not listen to the church, then it is to be assumed that he is really not a believer and he is to be treated as such. He no longer belongs to the body of Christ and he is to be delivered over to Satan.

That sounds very harsh, but in reality it is the grace of God at work. The sinning believer is given every chance to repent before he is finally removed from the church. It is only after warning after repeated warning that he is finally removed. Always in view is his desired restoration. The Lord does not wish to kick him out of the church. The Lord wants to restore him and to bring him back.

The church at Thyatira had not followed these principles of church discipline. They thought they could overlook sin in their midst. In this, they were the exact opposite of the church at Ephesus.

Both of these are grievous errors. Both need to be resolved. Both can lead to the death of the church.

Jesus promises a coming judgment against this church: Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds (2:22). This church is warned that it would suffer a period of "great tribulation." It would be a time of punishment for allowing false teachers to continue in the church. The result of this tribulation would be that the church would be purified and God would be glorified.

And all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. (Revelation 2:23).

God knows your heart. If your heart is for God, then He knows it. You cannot hide anything from Him. If there is sin going on in the church, then He is able to remove some members so that the rest will remain pure. If the church will not keep itself pure through discipline, then Christ says that He will come and purify the church by removing those parts that are infected with sin.

Sin is very much like a cancer. Every body contains cancer cells. Usually your body’s immune system will be enough to fight off the cancer cells in your body. Sometimes that immune system breaks down. Sometimes the only thing you can do with a cancer is to cut it out. Christ is the Great Physician. He warns the He might have to perform a spiritual surgery to cut out the cancer of sin that is eating away at His church.

There were those at Thyatira who had not fallen under the sway of the teachings of Jezebel. They had not been enticed by these teachings that were supposed to be the deep things of God but which were really the deep things of Satan.

To them, Jesus says, "Hold fast." They are the small stronghold within the church that is to hold fast against the incursion of apostasy. From all outward appearances, it looks as though they are going to be overwhelmed. Help is on the way. The cavalry is coming to the rescue. Jesus doesn’t say, "Hold fast and long as you can and then get overwhelmed." He says, "Hold fast until I come." There is a promise here. It is that, no matter how hopeless things may seem, He is coming.

Just as Thyatira was a sentinel city, designed to hold for a time against an invading army, so the church is to be a sentinel, holding fast until reinforcements can be brought up.

It reminds me of the old television westerns. The settlers would be surrounded by the Indians and were about to be overwhelmed when, in the very nick of time, the cavalry would arrive. The book of Revelation presents a glorious promise of the coming cavalry.

This is the message of the book of Revelation. No matter how hopeless things seem to be, the heavenly cavalry is going to arrive in the nick of time. The enemy will finally and ultimately be overthrown and Jesus will win.

The promise that is given to those who overcome and who keep the Lord’s deeds covers two areas"

_____________________________