Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Scripture | Revelation 2:18-29 (NIV)
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira (thai · uh · tee · ruh) write: These are the words of the Son of God, Whose eyes are like blazing fire and Whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19 I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. 20 Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am He Who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. 24 Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, 25 except to hold on to what you have until I come.’ 26 To the one who is victorious and does My will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— 27 that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from My Father. 28 I will also give that one the morning star. 29 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
We’re continuing on in our sermon series looking at the book of Revelation. We’re exploring the seven letters Jesus writes to seven churches in the ancient world. Through these letters, we’re discovering what these ancient words of Christ have to teach the Church today and how they can help us revive our souls and our churches.
Last week, we listened to the words of the letter to the Christians in Pergamum, who were surrounded by the temptations of false saviors and bad loyalties. We discovered that giving our loyalty to Christ means getting something in return. Giving our loyalties to anything else takes away from our lives, but being loyal to Christ means receiving life in return.
This week, we read Christ’s letter to the Christians living in Thyatira. This letter can be a hard one for modern audiences to hear, especially because it focuses on punishment and hurt – especially of a woman. With how much hurt the world has experienced in its history, and with our modern sensibilities against violence, it seems difficult to understand this seemingly barbaric letter as it describes the terrible agony which is in store for this Jezebel. Let’s journey together as we seek to understand it better.
Jesus starts by praising the love, faith, service, and perseverance that the Christians of Thyatira have kept. It is interesting to note that Jesus praises them for having the things which the other three churches have not had up to this point. So these Christians have what Jesus is looking for in all those departments: love, perseverance, loyalty – but they’re messing up in one big area and it’s going to cause them to have problems in the future. Jesus says that there is a woman, a Jezebel, who is teaching in their community, but is passing lies off as God-given truths. She is leading people to do two big things which is leading them away from God: they’re eating things they shouldn’t and engaging in sexual relationships that they shouldn’t. Because she has not repented of these teachings and for misguiding people, even when she has been given ample time to do so, there is a punishment waiting for her.
Jesus says, “So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23 I will strike her children[1] dead. Then all the churches will know that I am He Who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.” Then Jesus ends the letter by giving instructions to those who have not, “learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets.” He says for them to do nothing except for to hold on to what they already have until Christ comes again.
There is something fascinating which stands out in this letter and reveals much about what is happening in Thyatira. But first, what did you find interesting about how Jesus describes this woman’s teaching? It is interesting to point out that she is called a Jezebel either because its her name or because she is like the Jezebel in the Old Testament which tempts the people of Israel with the same problems and sins. But more interesting to me is how Jesus describes her teachings – “Satan’s so-called deep secrets.” This incredibly brief descriptor of her teachings tells us a world of information about what she is doing.
This woman is falling into a trap which many Christians – and people in general – have fallen into throughout history. It is the trap of believing that there is secret knowledge about the universe and about God which only the select few can access. In the first century, this idea came in the form of the Gnostics. Gnosticism was a big problem for the early Christians because it handled a lot of the problems that people had with the Christian faith and so it was really popular.
For example, it handled the seeming differences between the God of the Old and New Testaments by teaching that the God of the Old Testament and the Supreme God of the Universe were two separate people. That Yahweh was a lesser deity who made the universe but was cruel and malevolent, while God, Who Jesus calls Father, was the true God Who is loving and just and Who came to the world in Jesus.
This understanding also changed the way Gnostics viewed Jesus. Gnostics believed that Jesus’ divinity could never be dirtied by humanity. Therefore, Christ was never actually human but appeared in human form. This all meant that for people to really know God, they had to ascend to a secret knowledge which would allow them to know the real God of the Universe and not the lesser one most people knew about. Gnosticism is centered around the idea that the only way to know God is by knowing secrets not available to everyone – that’s where their name comes from. The Greek word for knowledge is Gnosis, so their name means the people who know something.
But here lies the problem. It’s fun and often attractive to believe that there is a secret knowledge out there that only the select few can find. That’s why so many people join religions founded upon that belief system – because they then can be on the inside. Despite their situation in life, they can join the VIP section if you will. This is the idea that faiths like the Wiccan, Mormon, Zoroastrian, and Jehovah’s Witness faiths of today use. And it is what the faiths of the ancient pagan world used too.
Here’s the thing. This way of thinking is the total opposite of what Jesus taught. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus outlines much of what He taught to be the core of the Christian faith. Throughout it, He taught about sexual purity, how to practice true faith, and what it means to know God. He says,
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
Notice what Jesus says: EVERYONE who asks receives; if you seek, you find; if you knock, the door will be opened. To put it as plainly as I can, Jesus Himself says there are no secrets to faith and there are no secrets to God. There is no secret knowledge to attain, no secret handshake you need to know. Everything you want to know can be known – no matter who you are. Everyone is welcome in the “VIP” section.
This leads to the question, then, of knowledge. If we can find whatever we seek, then how is it that we cannot understand things like human suffering or the way that God works. Doesn’t this actually prove the Gnostic point? Our reality as humans is that we can only understand so much. We are limited in our ability to know and to understand. Our minds are not big enough to truly know everything that we seek. While we are promised to find what we seek, we are not promised that we will always understand it – and that’s where many people get hung up.
For example, we look to the suffering of people around us, we look to the Bible and find God calling for the death of hundreds of people, and we even see in our letter today the promise of punishment and ask, how can a loving God permit this all? In some ways, we can understand how this can be. For example, there are natural punishments for sin because sin is the act of moving away or separating yourself from God. God is the source of all life and love and all that is good, so by separating yourself from Him, then we are also separating ourselves from those very things. The nature consequence for drinking poison is death and the natural consequence for removing yourself from life is death.
But how do we understand the suffering of the innocent? How do we understand the immensities of Who God is? How do we understand the meaning of life and know how we should live well? The reality is that we cannot do it. We cannot understand that which is beyond us – and when we try, we lead ourselves to places where God isn’t.
Instead, our call is to turn to God and trust in His understanding. Proverbs calls to us saying,
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. 9 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first-fruits of all your crops; 10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. 11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent His rebuke, 12 because the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Proverbs 3:5-12).
We are called to trust not primarily in our own understanding but in God’s. We are called not to understand God’s actions, but to trust in them. This is the fundamental, underlying reality which allows for us to handle that which we cannot understand. There will always be things that humans cannot understand. Revelation is a perfect example! It tries to describe the indescribable which makes for reading and understanding the book a difficult task. Yet, we can accept that which we do not understand when we accept that we do not have to understand it. When we trust in God, we call hold on to what we have sought out, and know that while we might not understand it, that we follow the God Who understands all.
This is exactly what Jesus is calling His faithful followers to. He says to hold on to what you have. Our call, as Christians, is to live in a space of wisdom and mystery. Christ’s call for the Christians in Thyatira was to let go of the idea of a secret faith for the select few, and to hold on to the faith which has been opened to all people of all nations and places. Our call is to do the same. To know that whatever we seek, we will find. To know that we may not understand everything our eyes may see or our ears may hear but that we can trust in God and lean on His understanding.
There are natural consequences for depending on our own understanding, as both the letter in Revelation and proverbs teaches us. But there are also natural blessings in trusting in God’s understanding. Jesus’ promise is, “To the one who is victorious and does My will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from My Father. I will also give that one the morning star. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” God will use those who trust in His understanding to end misunderstanding, who trust in His ways to open the way to true life to all people, and those who rely on Him to make the world a place of justice, of love, and of peace. That is truly Good News – Good News that we get to be a part of. And for that, thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] A quick note, the children mentioned here by Jesus are the metaphorical children of her teaching and not her physical children.