To Thyatira: Repent of Your Corruption

This is our fourth sermon in the series that we've been doing on the churches of Revelation 2 and 3. Each church that we've been looking at has a different message, and I've been stressing how there's a prophetic message here that we'll cover at the end. But what I want to look at is what it meant to the actual people who got it. Each of these congregations had developed differently, totally differently than each other. They were all the churches of God, two of them are commended, and the rest received some condemnation from Jesus Christ, who's the head of the church.

So the messages are for every church to look at. The messages apply to every one of us because people have these different attitudes. Our congregations can form these attitudes, create these attitudes, or have these attitudes inside their congregation. Now, we talked about Ephesus, an amazing church. We went through some of the history of Ephesus, but it was a church that was formed, was a larger church, was strong, stood up to the people who taught false doctrine.

That's what was amazing about them. They stood up to the teachers who taught false doctrine, and we went through and showed how in the book of Acts it talks about that, 1 Timothy talks about that, and in Revelation, John says, you stood up to those who said they were apostles of work. They have the doctrine right. They are also told that they are a church that isn't just out sinning. Some of the other churches are promoting sin, and they're told they don't do that.

But Christ is upset with them because they've lost their love. So it's possible to have the right doctrines. It's possible to not have sin rampant in the church. We know there's all sin. We all sin, but just rampant habitual sin going on and still not be meeting the standards that God wants. Because He said, you've lost your love.

That would be their love towards God, their love towards each other in the church, their love of the truth. And showed how part of the problem there was they'd been around a long time. That church at this point was in its fourth generation. So people did it, but there was something inside that wasn't the same, their commitment, their love. We went through Smyrna, and here was a church that was known for its poverty, literal poverty. They were destitute, as the Greek word says, and because they were persecuted. And yet, in the end, Christ said, this church is a church that follows Me.

They have their love. They don't have false doctrine. I mean, it's an amazing little story about a group of people who dealt with persecution all the time. And that's why when we went through that, we went through how did Paul deal with persecution, and how he dealt with persecution in different ways. God sometimes saved him from very precarious situations. In the end, Paul, of course, was killed because of his belief in God and following of Jesus Christ.

We went through Pergamos, and showed how they had gone through some persecution, and they had stood up against that persecution. But they had the doctrine of Balaam and of the Nicolaiites. And so we talked about how both of those doctrines would have been. They were a compromising church. Always finding a way to compromise. Now we get to the church of Thyatira. Thyatira is not on the coast.

It's inland. It's different than the other churches. It's not famous for its culture. It's not famous for its extravagant riches. It's not even really famous for its religion, for the most part. I mean, there's just nothing about it. It's a commerce center. Yes, all these were quite successful commerce centers, all these cities. But the only thing it's really known for is they manufactured dyes and wool, which would go together. You know, if you have wool, you raise sheep, you have wool, you turn it into clothing, right? And you create the dyes that color that clothing. So they were known for dye making, and they were known for making wool.

Now what's interesting is we know that just from extra-biblical historical sources. But let's go to Acts 16, just as a side note here.

Acts 16.

And let's go to verse 13. And this is about Paul. He's on one of his missionary journeys, and he goes to Philippi. Philippi was a city north of Asia Minor, and it was in part of Greece. Okay, so this is Philippi, Greece. And he says, or it says in verse 13, Luke writes, And on the Sabbath day we went out to the city to the riverside, or out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made. We sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And so she persuaded us. Some have wondered if maybe Lydia somehow went back to Thyatira, and it was her family that founded the church there. Because we don't know how the church of Thyatira started. But we do have this reference, and notice she works with dyes. So this would be perfectly common for people who came from Thyatira, because that was their main industry. So here we have a family, an entire family. This woman follows God. Her family responds. They're baptized. And once again, we don't know. She's in Philippi at the time. We don't know if she ever went back to Thyatira. We don't know if she was there on a business trip. All we know is she was there, but we know where she came from, and we know we have a church there that John writes to 40 years later. So let's go to Revelation 2. Revelation 2 Verse 18, And to the angel of the church of Thyatira write, These things say the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass. And so this begins with, of course, once again, Jesus Christ. He says these words. He describes Himself in different ways through these churches, but He's letting them know who He is as the resurrected Christ. And He is the head of each church. And at the end of every message, He tells them He's coming to them and He's bringing a judgment. Remember, this is for the church, not for the world. He says, I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience, and ask for your works the last or more than the first. Now, I really want to look at this, what they're commended for, because what He says next about them doesn't make sense unless you realize what their real problem was. And the problem with Thyatira is very important for us to understand as Christians today, because it's easy for us to have the same problem they had. Notice what they have. They have works. These are good works. We get an idea of the works because they have love and service and faith. These people were a loving group of people. It was wonderful to go to the church at Thyatira. If you went there, the people loved each other. I mean, they're commended for this. I want to really stress this. Remember, the people at Ephesus were condemned for not having love. They have love. They have service. They're known. Christ Himself says, you are a serving group of people. You are a group of people who do all kinds of works. They were probably—and we're going to draw a couple inferences here as we go on—they were probably well known in the community for people who did acts of service.

They serve people a lot, and what they're doing is good. They even have faith. Now, what we're going to read here a little bit, the fact that He commends them for faith doesn't seem to connect. We'll look at a possible explanation of that, because it doesn't tell us why, but there is a possible explanation. It doesn't seem to connect with what He says next.

He goes on, He says, nevertheless, I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants, to commit sexual immorality and eat things, sacrifice the idols. Now, it's hard to imagine here—wait a minute—we have a church that's known for love and service and faith, and we have a church that's also known for rampant sexual immorality and participation in paganism. How can that be?

How can you have both of those? And yet they did, because He says they did. How can you have both of those? It's interesting. He talks about Jezebel. I mean, Jezebel, that may have been the woman's name. There's somebody in this church who claims to be a prophetess. That means what she's teaching—she's actually teaching people, and she's telling them. What she's teaching them is considered divine revelations from God. She's speaking with the power of the Holy Spirit. At least, that's what she's telling people. Okay, that's not what she's doing, but that's what she's telling people. And people are believing her. This woman has a great sway in this congregation. Great power in this congregation. And she's teaching them things that causes people to participate in sexual immorality and paganism. And yet, these people are famous for their love and their giving spirit and their acts of service. This is what they're famous for. Now, we don't know if her name was Jezebel or if this is sarcasm. There is a difference there is a Jezebel in the Old Testament. Queen Jezebel in the Old Testament was the most evil queen of ancient Israel. And that's why there are some who think this is sarcasm. This Jezebel, this woman who says she's a prophetess. I mean, the Jezebel in the Old Testament did things like wanting to give her husband a gift of property he likes, so what murdered the man, and then stole it and gave it to her husband. She worshiped Baal. She actually killed a large number of the prophets of God, had them killed. She even says at one point she practiced witchcraft. Okay, so that's the Jezebel in the Old Testament. If this is sarcasm, if Christ is using sarcasm here, he really is saying this is a very wicked woman. If not, the woman had a really bad name because the other name of the Bible is also a woman who's condemned by God. But what we have here is a person, obviously not the pastor of the church, but a prophet, prophetess or a person who claims to be one who has enormous influence on what's happening in the church and what she's teaching them. Now, in order, I think, to understand how this could happen, there's something we need to know that's going to come into play here. And it has to do with another thing that Thyatira is famous for.

During this time in Roman history, in major cities, you would have guilds for them, basically trade unions. In other words, if you were a carpenter and a good carpenter, and you wanted to expand your business, how would you expand your business? Well, what you would do is you'd go buy some slaves and teach them how to be carpenters. And now you have a company. You might hire other carpenters, but if you're another carpenter, you want to run your own business. So, you know, you might have two or three slaves working for you, and they have two or three slaves. And, you know, remember, they would get slave scraped from all over the empire. So you might get some slaves that were good carpenters where they came from, whether it be France, what's now France, or what's now Germany, or North Africa, or the Middle East, wherever you got these slaves from, or Spain, you would take these people. And, okay, now I got... Well, what happened? You're competing with each other. So the way to stop competition, if you're getting too much competition, you would form a trade union. So to be a carpenter with maybe employees or slaves, you had to join the trade union, or you were pushed out of work.

So these trade unions formed these guilds, and Thyatira, for some reason, is famous for the sheer number of guilds that they had. In fact, one historical source says that what they did was what an archaeological dig actually dug up an inscription that listed the guilds they had. Now remember, these guilds would be strong enough to keep other businesses down. They would go to a price war. Well, if there's eight of you here, and you have a price war against one, you're going to win. They would do things to keep control of the business. And they know that there were guilds of workers of wool, leather, linen, bronze, clothing manufacturers, potters, bakers, and slave dealers. So if you wanted to become a baker with Thyatira and you didn't join the trade guild, you would get forced out.

There's something else about guilds at that time that are real important. We're going to have to look at if we're going to try to understand why paganism was part of this church. Why? So what I want to do is go through a number of traits of motivations that creates a corrupt church that we can figure out here from Thyatira. And this is a corrupt church. We know Pergamos was a compromising church, right? Smerto was a persecuted church. Ephesus was the church that lost its love. We have a church here that's corrupt, and yet you would have liked to be in here.

Tell you, we're the greatest people. And I tell you what, if you were sick, they were the first people to show up with food. They're commended for that. In other words, that's something they should do. But understand that wasn't enough for God. Just like Ephesus, who didn't have love but had the right doctrines, that wasn't enough either. What God wants in his church is a great package of what he wants us to be as his children. Let's look at a first thing here. Traits of a corrupt church. Christians are corrupt. Now, we're just talking about Thyatira here. I mean, we can probably make a real long list, but just looking at them. Christians are corrupted, where their desires to be wealthy and successful become more important than their dedication to God. Now, why do I say that? They were accused of eating things sacrificed to idols. Now, remember in Corinth, God told the Corinthians that, or Paul, I'm sorry, told the Corinthians that, look, if you go to the meat market, you don't know what's been sacrificed to an idol or not.

Don't worry about it. Just buy it. But he does condemn them for something else in Corinth. In fact, we're going to find that Corinth and Thyatira have certain things that are in common here. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 10. In fact, I think I can come up with a sermon with any spiritual problem or congregation can have, and I will find a passage in 1 or 2 Corinthians that deals with it. That church had every problem you can imagine. 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 14.

Now, it's right after this he talks about, okay, in the marketplace it's different, but what about in the temples themselves or in certain ceremonies? Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry, I speak as to wise men, judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ. Now, he's talking about the Passover here because you see the Passover and the days of the love of bread mentioned a number of times in 1 Corinthians. He says, the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ. For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of that one bread. He says, look, we all take, we go to this service, and this is a very special service. It's holy because it's commanded by God. Christ gave us the example, and we are in communion. This is where you get what Protestants call communion. We are in actual relationship through this with Christ because we're taking symbols of His body and of His blood. And that also brings us in communion with each other. We all become one church because of this ceremony. Observe Israel after the flesh. Are not those who eat of the sacrifices were takers of the altar? Sometimes the priests ate. Some sacrifices were just burned up. Some of them, the priests ate. Some of them, the people who brought the sacrifice ate it with the priests. It just depended on the type of sacrifice. So what he's saying here, people brought the sacrifice and the people who ate it. The sacrifice was the holy thing sacrificed to God. And then there was a fellowship of people who ate the sacrifice. What am I saying then? That an idol is anything or that it was just offered to idols anything? He says, what am I saying? Is it just a piece of stone or something made out of wood? Is this meat? Is it somehow made evil? Is it poisonous? No. He says, that's not the point I'm trying to make. In other words, he's moving them away from superstition. It'd be like, we would say today, were the molecules of the meat made evil? No. Does that actual idol have power? No. He said, don't get superstition on me, is what Paul's saying here. He says rather, verse 20, that the things which the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. Now, boy, that's a punch in the face. He says, paganism is an actual worship of demonic beings.

So there's a real problem here. We have to be careful. We have to, and we're going to talk about this in a minute. We need to think about this in the world that we live in. He says, they are demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and of the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than him? Are you going to try to get into an argument with God here as you participate in something that's demonic worship? Why would the people, now the people in Thyatira would have had Paul's writings? We guessed they would, because much of what by the time Revelation is written, the New Testament is there. It's not necessarily all put together, but some people had all of it. They would have known that was wrong. Why are they doing it? There is an interesting theory about this. I think it makes a good point, because this seems to be the attitude of Thyatira.

In order to be in business, you have to participate in the guilds.

You know, today in Catholicism, if you're going to have a tooth pulled, there is a saint to go to and pray to. There's a saint of dentists. There's a saint for house builders. There's a saint for people to fix your car. If you are a devout Catholic, you go, sometimes you put money in, you light a candle, it's a type of sacrifice, and you pray to that saint, so that saint will help the dentist pull your tooth. You'd be surprised how many saints there are. There are thousands. That's why there's All Saints Day, which is Halloween, which becomes Halloween. All Saints Day is, just in case you miss the saint, this day is to honor all the saints.

Now, the guild system will not go far from that. Do you know why? There was a god for bankers.

Just like there's a saint for bakers. There was a god for people who worked with wool, just like there's a saint today in Catholicism for people who work with wool. There were gods for these things. And to be part of the guild, you would have had ceremonies that you did to please the god of the bakers. Now, let's put it on a modern turn. You work at a place where they require all employees to go to the office Christmas party.

Where you go, you exchange gifts, they play Christmas music, there's caroling, everybody kisses under the mistletoe, right? People drink the spiked eggnog and they get drunk, right? But it's okay, because it's business. I know this isn't true. I know this doesn't honor Jesus Christ, but it's okay. Huh. I know that there is no god of the bakers. But if I go, if I'm part of the guild, it's the only way I can make business. If I'm not part of the guild, I'm going to have to go sell myself out as a day laborer, which is literally what they many times had to do.

And I don't even all feed my family next week. So, but I'm a good baker. So what I can do is the religious ceremonies, but I know they're not true. But I can participate. And that theory makes a lot of sense here. How does the church become corrupt in worshiping idols, except that it is so common they can convince themselves, it doesn't really affect me. It doesn't affect me.

I'm just doing this because business. I'm just doing this because my family doesn't. I just do it because, you know, it's how you get along. It's how society works. And in the pagan world, it is how society worked. I know I mentioned this before, but there are cases they had, they have record of, where Christians were told, look, by judges, all you have to do is go sacrifice to the emperor. We don't care if you believe in the emperor or not. Because what happened was it was a crime against society not to participate in public paganism. You know what happened when the Christians finally got control of the Roman Empire?

They made it a crime not to participate in public Catholicism. Everybody has to participate. Why? Because that's what they were used to. I mean, Constantine, he made Christianity or Catholicism the main religion. And they actually have a letter that was sent to Constantine, or a record of it, where they said, look, the whole town has converted. So we demand tax breaks. See, they become Christian. That didn't mean they'd given up all their other idols and stuff. You might have a little idol, your family idols in your house. So you're still half pagan. But by everybody saying, okay, we're Christian, having a priest come in and baptize everybody, we can get tax breaks.

See how it's all tied? Business, social life, everything's tied together. These were huge events. That's why it's hard to find doctrines among the ancient paganism of this time. They didn't really have doctrines like we think of doctrines. That shall not steal. Well, that's a secular law. Our law is, no, you go to the ceremony and you pay the priest, and they do this ceremony, they do a sacrifice, throw some incense on this burning thing, and you make an offering.

And if you say the words just right, the God that you're praying to is required to give you something. It's all about, I got to get something from the gods. So, okay, who cares if I don't believe in it? It's how society works. And it's hard for us to understand how much paganism was at the core of Roman society. That it was part of the social fabric. It may be the people of Thyatira weren't just pure pagans. They just found out a way to be a Christian and sort of a pretend pagan, which made them a pagan. You understand? They lived in both worlds, and somehow it's okay if we live in both worlds.

And the reason I say that's a plausible idea, because it says they're commended for faith. How can you be commended for faith and worship exus at the same time? Let's again, it's a theory. There are historians who say it's possible. I understand where they're coming from. If they had faith, why are they pagans? Because they're pagans to get along. Ah, pagans to get along, which really makes you a pagan. You know, you are. They have absorbed into their society so much that, you know, if a Christian lived next to you, he was a good guy.

In fact, he would come participate in your worship service with you for the good of your family. You know, when you had your house blessed by the priest or priestess of whatever goddess you were praying to or god you were praying to, he'd come over and participate in your house blessing. He might even invite you over on his Sabbath.

Everybody just sort of got along. I always say, I think Thyatira was the first New Age church or Christian church. We can sort of believe everything and nothing at the same time. The point is, they still had the appearance not only of a church of God. They did remarkable acts of service and love. But underneath, it's all rotted out. And this is what's scary about this, because it would look to be, that's got to be a church that Christ is pleased with. And He's not. They're corrupted here because they simply have compromised so much with paganism in order to get along, in order to be part, that they had become pagans.

And we have to be careful about that. We don't even think about that. Have you ever said, that's karma? Somebody does something bad, something bad happens. Well, that's just karma. Welcome to Hinduism. Welcome to Hinduism. That's a Hindu concept. Karma is not an English word.

So we don't even realize we're doing it in our world. Sometimes we're just sort of accepted. Now that doesn't mean, I mean, I've heard someone say, you can't use a fork, because pagans used forks. No, that's not what we're talking about. No, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about religious ceremonies. Okay. We're talking about concepts.

So in order to be successful, they compromised with paganism. That makes sense. That makes sense. Two, and it ties hand in hand here, they became corrupted in their desire to fit into the culture. That's the thing about Thyatira. You can't, they just fit right in. Thyatira had no major religion. Remember we talked about how we went through Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamus, and we showed how there was major religions there, centers of different religions, different pagan religions. Thyatira was just everybody. You can, yeah, just everybody get along. Everybody just get along, you know, worship whoever you want, which was pretty much the way paganism was in the Roman Empire. It was remarkably tolerant, incredibly tolerant. And the reason Christians were persecuted, one of the reasons is they were intolerant. Christians were persecuted for being intolerant, unloving people, crazy people. Just get along, folks. Just get along.

You and I are entering into, we've been going through the evolution of culture in the United States since the 1960s, and it has created a new culture that is similar to the one Thyatira lived in. Those people lived in. Where, in fact, it's called, by the way, cultural Christianity. I didn't make up the term. It's a term you will find used by sociologists and religious people. Cultural Christianity. Because the whole point is that there's a new, good Christianity that's formed. This new, good Christianity is cultural. Where Christians used to be pulled back from the rest of society, and their influence, if they did have influence, was to force everybody else to be like them, right? That's why, within the lifetime of most people here, homosexuality went from being a mental illness where you were putting into a mental institution to being not only something that's good, but something that should be imitated. And there are Christians who believe that. What caused that? Why do Christians buy into that? Cultural Christianity is a concept based on. We understand the core principle of Christianity, and nothing else, everything else, is superfluous. We don't care if you go to church on Saturday, as long as you have the basic core. We don't care if you worship Mary, or you think idols are bad. As long as you have this basic core, nothing, all doctrines don't matter, they're all the same, just understand the basic core. And the basic core is this. Love God by loving your neighbor.

Period. And loving your neighbor means you accept everything that your neighbor does. You judge nothing. That's the core of Cultural Christianity. Nothing else, no other Christian teaching, is really all that important, because as long as you have the first core, the first Christian core, all the rest of it, God doesn't care about. Or like Joel Hulstein said one time, I heard him say it, and he's sort of in this culture of Christianity when he said, people ask me, they say, Joel, why is it you have people in your church that have all different doctrines? He said, because that's the way it is in heaven. You see, God doesn't care as long as you love. Now remember, love is a basic core virtue of Christianity. That's true. Okay. Thyatira is actually praised for their love and praised for their or condemned for their sin. The only way that can make sense is they use this virtue of God to conclude love means you accept everybody just the way they are. How many times have you heard, if you come from an old main line Christian church, Jesus loves you just the way you are.

Jesus loves you just the way you are. Well, that may be true, but he doesn't accept you just the way you are. Okay. There's the difference. He doesn't say to the murderer, I love you. Oh, that's not kill somebody else. It's okay. You see what I mean? If you take the acceptance concept to his father's point, it's bizarre. Oh, I love you Adolf Hitler. Oh, I don't care. Set up the concentration camps because I just love you. You see what I mean? It's bizarre. So they don't think it out. Jesus loves you. So you can't condemn or say anything else is wrong that anybody else does unless it hurts somebody else. Well, that gets very interesting because abortion doesn't hurt anybody else, does it? But there are many mainstream churches now that accept abortion. They accept abortion and it's okay.

You know, let's say we... I'm not going to go there. Cultural Christians feel very good about this acceptance, but they have an enormous, almost physical reaction to someone who is not accepting. It can be violent if you're not accepting because you don't have any love and you need to be punished as a person who doesn't have love.

Which God does punish people when He loves, but you understand this viewpoint. I know I've said this to my wife sometimes. She'll say, Gary, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard of. I've told her, Kim, you don't understand. You don't think that way. You have to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. There is a majority of Christians now who think that way. It's not a small group. It's the majority. It's not overwhelming, but it's a large group of people. And it is what secularists believe, right?

It's what secular people believe. My poor wife. She's so naive. She brings me an article. This is a major magazine. It's online, but she says, and it's written by a person who says that all Christian people need to be punished. I said, yeah. Well, how can they say that? How can they print that? Because tens of millions of people agree with them. That's why. They say, well, no, not in our country. Yes, they do. In Thyatira, how do you avoid that? He'd just be really, really nice, and it's okay.

You see, well, that couldn't happen in the church. Yeah, let's go to 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians 5. Back to Old Corinth. Ever since I gave those Bible studies in Corinth, I know I've been using Corinth as an example for every possible problem. Verse 1. We know what happens here.

Paul finds out about a point where a man is having an affair with his stepmother. And he writes to the church in Corinth, and he's appalled that this is going on. So he says in verse 2, now here's what he says to the people of Corinth, the Christians, not to the man who's committing the sin. And you are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. Whoa! You're talking about an intolerant man. And he says, you know what your problem is? You think this is love. You are, in other words, they're puffed up. They're looking at themselves and saying, you know what? We're a merciful people. We're good people. They're actually making a decision not to deal with a man having an affair with his mother-in-law because they're good. If you read down, he actually ties us into the days of 11 bread. He says, don't you know a little 11 puffed you everything up? Don't you know your approach to this man is destroying your whole relationship with God? Entire they would have understood this entirely. Oh, no. No, no, we don't judge him. You know, it's wrong. We understand it's not good. But we don't judge him. Remember, sexual immorality is rampant. How can it be rampant unless there's people who are just tolerant of it? And so we find the same problem here. In fact, it's very interesting. If you go down to verse 9, Paul says, I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. He says, you shouldn't even be keeping company with them. Okay, you want to sound real intolerant? Okay, let's look at real intolerance here. Well, let me finish this because I'll probably finish this before I say what I'm going to say. Yet I certainly did not mean with these sexually immoral people in this world or with the covetous or the extortioners or the idolaters. He says, yeah, I know. There's all the dishonest people, the sexually immoral people, the pagans in the world. He says, what happened was the people misunderstood and just withdrew from everybody. Well, what happens? He says that you would need to go out of the world. What are you going to do? Just lock yourself in your house. People lock in the door. Go away! You're a sinner. What are you going to do? He says, that's not what I meant. But now I've written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who was sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a vial or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. Wow. Now, once again, our sins in the church, we understand. God shows us mercy. He is forgiving. He wants us to repent. He's talking about people who won't repent. Okay. You know, people who won't repent. Now, does he mean, oh, okay. But if they're not in the church, go party on. Is that what that means? Of course not.

Does that mean, look, my next door neighbor is, and I'm not trying to pick on certain kinds of people. They're just certain things that are obvious. A transgender. And it throws great parties. And he's having a party on Friday night, and there'll be lots of booze there. I mean, they'll be, you know, they'll be smoking weed, but I don't smoke that. You know, I'll just go have a beer with them and spend the evening with them and talk to them and be a good example. Now, that sounds ridiculous. Not if you lived in Thyatira. I'm not a transgender, and I'm not going to get drunk. First, I'll stumble home just from breathing the smoke, but you know, that's not my fault.

See, they walk, they cross this line so much. But they're the most loving, caring group of people, and that's where our emotions. We go back to what was mentioned in the sermon. The emotion of love is so overwhelming that we can allow the emotion of love to not deal with sin.

You know, you don't want, you know, as a parent, I've had parents say to me, I couldn't correct my child over that. They won't like me. I love them, but I need something too. You know what's amazing about God? And this is going to sound strange, but this is very good for us. He doesn't need anything from us. His actions are entirely out of love towards us. So if he says, wow, that's going to destroy you, I'm going to have to punish you. He doesn't say, oh, I hope you still like me afterwards. He doesn't want to be a child. He doesn't need us to like him. What he needs us to be is to be his child, and that's what it takes for you to be my child so you can live for eternity. That's what God says. You'll be happy. I'll teach you happiness. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to punish you to teach you happiness.

As a parent, sometimes we can't even do that. We'll let our children be unhappy because, oh, I don't want to hurt their feelings. I mean, they won't like me. I'm so glad God doesn't need me to like him. Okay? Because I know God's going to sometimes say, hey, son, you know, it's going to hurt. I wish there was an easier way to do this, but man, this is going to hurt you, you know, because you've got to learn it. And he's not going to come down with a hammer. Wow. I'm glad God's not going to hit with me with a hammer. I guess I really need it. Then it's the hammer's coming. Otherwise, it's going to be, you know, just enough to get me to change course. He doesn't need anything back from me. He's just happy when I get it. He's just happy when I get the benefit. Man, I'm glad God's that way because he's waiting for me to feel love for me because I'm such a good guy. Boy, his disappointment would just be enormous. He'd be very, God would be miserable if he needed affirmation from us when he, we need affirmation from him. He doesn't need it from us. Man, that's love. Everything he does, everything he suffers is just for our good because he suffers because of us all the time. God suffers because of us all the time. So emotionally he suffers. Why doesn't he act like we do when we suffer? Ah, we're back to control over emotions. Why does he have control over his emotions? In this case, he doesn't need us to affirm him. He's God. He just wants us to be good, to be happy, to be complete. That's what he wants us to be.

And as I said, be thankful. That's the God of the creation.

Can you imagine if he needed something from us to feel good about himself?

The constant way each one of us would be manipulated by God so he could feel good? Wow. That would be miserable.

Thyatira, the people there wanted to get along. I really think that's the issue here. They had a cultural Christianity where they had faith in God, but they participated in this stuff too because it's social. It's what we do. You know, that's not what's wrong with it. It's just society. It's just our culture.

But, you know, that's not how God saw it. Let's go to Revelation 2 now and look at some of the rest of this message. Just read up on social or cultural Christianity. There's actually a psychological term for cultural Christianity, and I can't remember what it is. It's like de-athistic, yeah, that's it. Moralistic, therapeutic deism. In other words, God is my psychologist. And God's purpose is to make me be happy. What a way to be miserable. Now, God wants us to be happy, but we have to learn it. We have to participate. It's not like God's there to give me a puppy all the time. That's not God's purpose. He gives you a puppy. What is good for you to have a puppy? You know, there's been times when our kids wanted puppies, and my wife said, no, you're not having a puppy. You wouldn't even know how to take care of a puppy. I'd be taking care of the puppy. So until you are mature enough, it could prove to me you could take care of a puppy. You can't have one.

I was glad she was saying it. Because I didn't want to take care of the puppy, okay? And eventually we got a puppy, okay?

Because eventually somebody else could take care of it. So all the kids left the house, and the puppy had grown into a full-grown dog, and my wife ended up taking care of it. But it is not God's purpose. It is God's purpose to teach us to grow up, not to keep us little children. Little children are wonderful. But you know, you don't want your seven-year-old to stay seven-year-olds, seven-year-old their whole life. I love being around my seven-year-old. I love being around my nine-year-old. And I feel bad that they're growing up so old. I look at the 14-year-old and think, how is she getting so old so quick? But I don't want her to stay. Right? It was hard to let your children go, but you know, I wanted them to go at some point. I wish they would have stayed around, but I also knew they had to go. They were adults now. They needed to go. They needed to become real people. And you can't live in my house and be a real person because, as an adult, because Dad's there with his thumb on you. And I had to give them up. Especially hard with daughters, right? If you're a father. But you do it because it's good for them. There's a time you let them go. See, God knows that. If you had more realistic theory of cultural Christianity, you could do that. God is there just to constantly make you have you happy. And there's sometimes God says, I can't make you happy. You have a bad attitude. Only you could make you happy. And sometimes, come on. Now, there's other times He does come into our lives and give us happiness. There's times He comes and gives us peace. He does do that. It's one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, joy. There's other times He says, it's not my fault you're unhappy. You have to deal with it. You have to deal with it. You have to deal with it. You have to deal with it. You have to deal with it. There's other times He says, it's not my fault you're unhappy. You have to deal with it. He's making us grow up. He makes us grow up.

I really do believe Thyatira never grew up as a church. They were so giving and so caring that they just accepted the sin of the world around them.

Let me just a few. I started to think through this. What are some of the major differences between cultural Christianity and biblical Christianity? I just wrote down three. I could have come up with a bigger list, but I started to think about it. I thought, you know what? One thing about cultural Christianity, people always talk about my faith, my love. It's always about my faith. I love others, and I accept others, and it's my love. Biblical Christianity has said it all the love of God because we realize without the love of God, we have nothing. Then we become what? Imitators of the love of God. We reciprocate to Him, and as you reciprocate His love, you have to love your neighbor because He says to. I don't care who my neighbor is. This is what I was going to mention before. I said I was going to wait until I got through some things. My neighbor might be… I didn't even know one time he was a gang member.

I'd always say hi to him when he's working on his motorcycle.

Talk to him. One day he was out there, told me about how his gang went out, and he didn't go with him that day. They got to fight with another gang, and a couple of guys he knew got killed. He was on a hard day, and we talked. We talked through it.

I never thought much about it, but when we moved, I went up to him one day and said, hey, we're moving. He was a gang member, and he was a boxer. He was a professional boxer.

I said, hey, we're moving. I just want to come over and say thanks for being a neighbor. He stood there, and he has tears in his eyes. I'm thinking, this is strange. He said, you're the only man in the neighborhood who treated me like a man.

Don't you talk to me. I'm not sure. At the time, he says, you walk by here the first time I'm here, I'm out here working on my bike with my colors on. You walk up and poke out your hand, and shake my hand. He says, you weren't even afraid of me.

I said, well, I guess if you were going to do something to me, you were going to do it. I'm sort of old, right? I can't even run. Okay, so what am I going to do?

He said, no, you treated me like a person, like a man. He says, you don't know what that meant to me.

But you know, if he would have invited me over for a party, I wasn't going. You see what I mean? There's a line you don't cross. If you would have said, come ride with me and the boys this week, no way.

Okay. Of course, he was going to. You know why? He understood who I was to. He figured that out real quick. You know, and so he always treated me very respectful.

But it shows we have to interact. We can't be this cantakerous people. We're always judging everybody. Hi. Oh, I bet you're a gang member, aren't you? Okay. That's not how you live life. That's not how we're supposed to treat people. I bet you take likes of drugs, don't you? Do you have a gun? I mean, okay. That's not how you treat your neighbor, which I'm sure he did have a gun. You know what I mean? That's how you treat your neighbor.

But at the same time, I'm not going to go hang out with that neighbor either. There's a line you can't cross. At Thyatira, they cross that line so much. Nobody can tell them the difference between them and anybody else.

And seeped into their congregation until sexual immorality was just common. And like in Corinth, but no, okay, but we don't want to judge them. You know, we don't want to judge them. So you walk up and say, you know, you shouldn't be living with your girlfriend. This is the third girlfriend you've lived with in the last three years. You have three kids by three different women. You shouldn't be doing that. Are you coming to the social tonight?

You see? That's Thyatira?

Interesting church here. Interesting church. Let's go back now. Well, I started to go to Revelation. I stopped. Let's go to Revelation.

Let's finish what He says to them.

He says, now remember, this is Jesus Christ, okay? These are the words of Jesus Christ here. He's not just through an angel. Christ came and told this to John Himself. He says in verse 21, and I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Now we're going to see what this has a prophetic meaning to, but let's look at these people right there. The church in Thyatira was given messages. Maybe God sent prophets there. Maybe God, God's, we don't see any major apostles going there, but a pastor there. People went there and said, you have to repent, but they would not repent. Indeed, I will cast her into a sickbed with those who commit adultery and with her into great tribulation, and lest they repent of their deeds, I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to your works. That's Jesus Christ saying, I will kill that church, understand the gravity of this, and yet He says, but you're a loving group of people. I wish Ephesus had your love, but I will kill you for this. That's Christ!

Boy, let's just talk about the message of Philadelphia, right? That's the message we usually read when we go through here. We just skip the rest of them. Well, that already happened in the past. Well, remember, we're to read all these because this can be an attitude that we can have today, too. He says, now to you I say, and to the rest of Thyatira. He's speaking there to Jezebel and her children, so we'll have to look at that at some time prophetically. Now to you I say, and to the rest of Thyatira, as many as you who do not have this doctrine, this doctrine of paganism and doctrine of sexual immorality, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say. That's interesting. Once again, it seems like sarcasm. You don't know the depths of Satan, as they say. There's these secret teachings that are there. It's another interesting point.

When you are a non-biblical Christian, what you do is you have to have secret knowledge that makes you better. The secret knowledge is what you have. It's okay what I do because I have secret knowledge. I understand something that nobody else understands. God has given me some understanding.

He says, I will put on you no other burden. So he looks at people with Thyatira and says, look, some of you are barely surviving, but you're trying, you're not doing all this other stuff, you're trying to live a decent life, you're not getting into all this paganism. He says, you, I'm still going to take care of, even though you're in this church. But hold fast what you have till I come. Hold on to it, he tells him. And he who overcomes and keeps my works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. So once again, those in Thyatira who survived their own church, he tells them, you are going to be blessed. He's always the same focal point. When Christ comes back, the people of the churches throughout history are changed or resurrected and changed or changed because they're there, and they are given their reward. You shall rule with them with a rod of iron, and they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's nest. So in other words, he takes a Messianic prophecy and says, you know, I'm the Messiah, right? Christ says, and you be with me, those who endure and survive even in Thyatira. But there's another group he says he's going to kill.

That's the Jesus people don't know about. Oh, Jesus loves. Or as one article I read recently, I used on a Beyond Today program, this man said, I've read the Bible and realized Jesus acts in a very un-Jesus way.

So here's Jesus acting very un-Jesus-like, okay? He's not acting like Jesus here. Well, what was he acting like? I also have received from my father, and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, okay? Not the one church, but all the churches. This church has the message. This church has a meaning and a message for us, just like all of them do. And that is you and I can't become cultural Christians. Where we slide into being just like the world, just enough to get along, and we love everybody, everybody loves us, and everybody's okay. And we learn to accept sin so much that sin becomes part of our congregation, and we accept it among ourselves. We can't even accept the sin in our lives, right? Every Passover, you and I go through a period where we feel like, boy, I need to grow. And God's saying, yeah, you do. That's why we do the Passover once a year, to keep you focused on that, okay? See, God isn't mad, upset. God's saying, yeah, I know. That's why I'm working with you. This is a very positive message to those who are in the right direction. But this idea that love means compromise, that love means acceptance of all things is a dangerous, dangerous message, or a dangerous path to go down. It's a dangerous path, and it is the great warning that God gives to the church of Thyatira.