IV. To THE CHURCH IN THYATIBA (2:18-29)

A. Destination

The fourth letter is addressed to the church in Thyatira, a little city in Asia Minor. The chief industry of this city was fabric dyeing. Fortune-telling was also prevalent, and numerous people would gather for this purpose in a large temple.

B. The Description of Jesus

Jesus was described to the church in Thyatira as having “eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass” (v. 18). He penetrates reality with those eyes and judges the church with those feet.

C. Commendation

The Lord commended the works, love, service, faith and patient endurance of the church in Thyatira (see v.19).

D. Rebuke

In verse 20, however, the Lord also issued a severe rebuke citing the church's tolerance of Jezebel, the false prophetess, Jesus was referring to a woman fortune-teller in Thyatira, who even went into the church to practice her evil, but symbolically He was referring to the Jezebel of the Old Testament. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and Ahab, king of Israel, took her to be his wife (see 1 Kin. 16:29-33). She brought the worship of Baal into Israel and had the altars of the Lord God demolished.

In Seoul, Korea, alone, more than six hundred pseudo-churches practice fortune-telling. What they have received is not the Holy Spirit but the spirit of a mountain god, a demon.

Jesus rebuked the spiritual adultery of this church that followed Jezebel, mixing faith and divination.

E. Exhortation

The Lord gave the church in Thyatira the exhortation that it should not compromise with the shamanistic faith but stand firm on the Word (see vv. 24-25). Our faith also should be based firmly on the Word. Extravagant fondness for prophecy — an obsession with details not revealed in the Bible — might lead your faith astray just as in the case of the church in Thyatira.

F. Promise

Jesus promised He would give power over the nations and the morning star to him who overcomes temptation (see vv. 26-28). The morning star signifies the second coming of Jesus Christ. If we stand firm on the Word with pure faith, we will have the privilege of taking part in the second coming of Christ.

G. Interpretation of the Prophecy (AD. 590-1517)

Thyatira means “continued sacrifice,” which the Catholic mass is all about. In terms of church history, Thyatira signified the Dark Ages of the church from 590 to 1517, when Martin Luther began the Reformation. After Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire, the church grew steadily more worldly. It left the true nature of the faith — the religion of the Word, praise and prayer. Lay people attending services only watched what was going on, the priests offering sacrifices. Consequently, the faith of the laity atrophied into little more than spectating at rituals.

One of the abominable practices adopted by the church was the selling of indulgences to collect contributions from the believers. It was a last unbiblical resort to finance the building of a new church for Saint Peter in Rome. Buying an indulgence was a commercial transaction; it was like buying a ticket to heaven, and it was advertised as such. However grave a person's sin may have been, it was immediately forgiven the moment he bought this indulgence. Even a person who was already dead and whose soul was thought to be in purgatory could get to heaven if his offspring bought indulgences for him. Johann Tetzel, a priest who was commissioned to sell indulgences, beguiled believers, playing on their sympathies for departed relatives and friends whom they might release from their sufferings in purgatory “as soon as the penny tinkles in the box.” Thus, God's spiritual gift of salvation was corrupted into a commodity to be bought like a sack of wheat. In this manner the church of that day, like the church in Thyatira, became depraved.

In verses 21-23 Jesus said He would cast the church that did not repent of fornication into a bed and kill its children. Therefore, which church we choose to attend is a question of spiritual life or death.

Verse 21 reads, “I gave her space to repent.” Several times Jesus gave opportunities for the church to repent in the dark period of the Middle Ages. Various movements arose and challenged the church to repent and reform.

One of the first was the Albigenses, which arose around 1170 in southern France. Rejecting the rites of the church, it put its effort into distributing copies of the New Testament. In those days the church forbade lay believers to read the Bible. Every local church had only one copy, and even that was chained to the pulpit so no one had access to it.

When this reform movement became strong, Pope Innocent III sent crusaders and annihilated the Albigenses. Another opportunity for repentance came with the Waldense movement in 1170. Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyon, France, was their leader. The Waldense disguised themselves as tradesmen and peddled wares, distributing copies of the New Testament and preaching the pure gospel as they travelled. However, this movement also came to a halt through persecution. Yet another opportunity for repentance appeared with the reform movement led by John Wycliffe. An Englishman, he translated the Latin Bible into English and launched a campaign of spreading the Bible throughout the world.

Jan Hus, who was influenced by Wycliffe, became the rector of a university in Bohemia. He cried for reform in

1369, demanding that the church return to pure faith. In 1416 he was excommunicated by the pope and was finally burned to death in France. On the day Hus was executed, the public square was filled with a large crowd. An effigy of a demon was bound to his body, which in turn was bound to a stake by a chain. Wood was heaped around his body up to his chin, then set on fire. Historians note that Hus sang hymns as the fire was ignited and began to burn his body. Numerous people witnessing the scene were moved to tears and became followers of the reform movement.

Another reform leader was Jerome Savonarolabfltaly. He was filled with the Holy Spirit while praying. Whenever he preached in Florence, great crowds thronged the city He also preached the restoration of a pure faith, shaking off the sacrificial rites. But like his predecessors, he was arrested, excommunicated and publicly executed. Because the church refused to repent of her spiritual fornication, she had to be “cast...into a bed” (v. 22). That bed was the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther, which supplanted the Roman church as God's most faithful witness on earth.

Next Part V. To THE CHURCH In SARDIS (3:1-6)