The Seven Lost Churches of Revelation
10/31/2004 - The Cost of Compromise
Compromise can be a dangerous thing, especially moral compromise. Last week, we looked at a church that caved in to a compromised lifestyle that included idolatry and immorality and Jesus wasn't real happy with them. In their minds, they had good reason to compromise because it was getting pretty risky in their town to be a Christ follower. One of their church members had been roasted alive for his faith and when that happens you start to count the cost of following Jesus. You start to think that maybe it's time to go underground. Maybe it's better to do what everyone else is doing and just blend in with the crowd. But compromise costs something too. And in the end the cost of moral compromise is always greater than the cost of obedience to Christ.
There's an Old Russian parable about a man who went hunting one day. And when he came out of the woods into a clearing he found himself face to face with a big old bear! The hunter raised his rifle to shoot, but the bear said, "No. Wait a minute. Don't shoot. What is it you want?" The hunter replied, "I want a fur coat." The bear said, "That's reasonable. I want a full stomach. I think we can work something out. Let's sit down and talk about it." So they sat down on a log and after a while the bear walked away ... alone. He had his full stomach and the hunter had his fur coat. And what's the moral of the story? Beware of talking bears. No. The moral of the story is beware of the cost of compromise. The hunter got his fur coat, but it cost him his life.
This morning we continue our series called The Seven Lost Churches of Revelation with a look at a church that was caving in to compromise. It's the church in Thyatira. Thyatira is the fourth of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 2-3. All of these churches were in Asia Minor or the country we call Turkey today.
We started the series by looking at the church in Ephesus. It was a busy, active church, built on the strong foundation of the teaching of the apostle Paul. He had started the church about forty years earlier. But over the years it had substituted duty for devotion until it lost it's love for Jesus. And that's a serious problem for any Christ follower, because the most important thing we can do is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. So we talked about the spiritual disciplines that keep our hearts soft and alive with love towards God and one another.
Next we traveled up the Aegean coast about 35 miles and visited the church at Smyrna. Smyrna was not an easy place to live for the Lord. The church there was about to enter a season of savage testing and persecution. And to them Jesus said be faithful, even to the point of death. And so we asked God to help us to be faithful, especially when life gets real hard.
Then last week we climbed a thousand foot hill to the city of Pergamum, the place where Satan lives. We entered the town at our own risk, because being a Christian in Pergamum then was like being an American in Baghdad today. Christians were getting killed for their faith, so the church was tempted to compromise its lifestyle to blend in with the crowd. And to that Jesus said, "No. Don't cave in. Stand strong and I'll reward you with an even closer sense of my presence represented by hidden manna, a white stone, and a new name known only to you."
Now today we travel about 35 miles southeast of Pergamum to visit the church in Thyatira. If you have a Bible turn to Revelation 2:18-29 and follow along as I read, "To the angel of the church in Thyatira 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.23 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 Only hold on to what you have until I come. 26 To those who overcome and do my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations - 27 'They will rule them with an iron scepter; they will dash them to pieces like pottery' - just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give them the morning star. 29 Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
The letter to the church in Thyatira is the longest of the seven letters written to the church in the least important of the seven cities. But this church's problems were far from unimportant.
Thyatira was situated on a trade route that ran through the Hermes Valley. It was a manufacturing center, an industrial town, known for it's woolen industry and its dyeing industry. "Made in Thyatira" was a mark of quality known throughout all of Asia Minor. And as a result, the economy there was robust and jobs were plentiful.
A woman named Lydia, who was Paul's first convert to Christ in Europe, was from Thyatira. She was a sales rep for a purple cloth company on a business trip in Philippi when Paul led her to Christ. And after she returned home to Thyatira she no doubt helped start the church there.
There was no threat of persecution in Thyatira. It was not a center of emperor worship like Pergamum nor was it known for it's pagan temples like Ephesus or Smyrna. The authorities weren't going to arrest you if you claimed to be a Christian. And if you visited the church in Thyatira you'd be impressed. Jesus says, I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. This is a church that's active and growing. It's on a roll. The people there love each other and serve each other. It's a happening place to be. You'd want to connect with this community of believers.
But there's a problem that's growing like a cancer underneath the surface of this church. You wouldn't notice it at first. In fact, you might not notice it for a while. But Jesus, who's described as the Son of God with eyes like blazing fire, he can see it. And now it's time to expose it to the church and to us as well.
Look at verse 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.
You tolerate that woman Jezebel . We hear a lot about tolerance in our culture today. In fact, it's become one of the highest virtues in America. Tolerance is what allows us to live in freedom with those with whom we might disagree. And for the most part tolerance is a wonderful thing, but not always. The church in Thyatira was tolerant to a fault. They were tolerating something very evil that was threatening to destroy the church.
Apparently, there was a woman in leadership who called herself a prophet and was teaching believers that it was okay to engage in sexual immorality and it was okay to eat food sacrificed to idols. Jesus calls her "Jezebel" and she was big trouble.
Jezebel was probably not her real name. Instead, it was the name that fit her character. She was behaving like Queen Jezebel in the Old Testament, corrupting the church the way Jezebel corrupted the nation of Israel.
Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, the seventh king of Israel. Her exploits are described in the book of 1 Kings. The name Jezebel sent shivers down the spine of even a mighty man of God like Elijah, because she had no moral compass and used deceit, slander, and even murder to get whatever she wanted. She was bad news.
And some how this woman in Thyatira had flown right under the radar into this church and had risen to a position of power and influence. Chances are good that she had a dynamic personality and was even well liked. But now she was abusing her authority by calling herself a prophet and teaching things contrary to the Word of God. And the church didn't have the guts to confront her or her teaching.
But Jesus does with these chilling words in verse 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.
Whoa. That's strong stuff! Time had run out on this woman. She was about to suffer the consequences of her compromise. She was about to be eaten by the bear and put on the fur coat. And those who embraced her teaching were not far behind. It was going to get ugly as a warning to the rest of us who call ourselves Christ followers. The cost of compromise is always greater than the cost of obedience.
What specifically was this Jezebel teaching? To understand that we have to see how business was conducted in Thyatira. As I've already said Thyatira was a commercial city. And history tells us that in order to do business there you needed to be a member of a trade guild. These guilds were like unions today. Each trade had a guild where they would work together and socialize with others in their industry. There were guilds for those in the wool industry and for those who worked with leather and linen and bronze and copper.
The economy revolved around these guilds. In fact, it was very difficult to make a living in Thyatira if you weren't in a trade guild. It was a union town. But this is where the problem started. Guild members were required to attend meetings and banquets that were often held in pagan temples where idols were worshiped and where food was served that had been offered to idols. The meetings would often open with a toast to the god or goddess of that industry and then close with a wild party where members were expected to participate in all kinds of sexual immorality worse than a strip club.
And that was a real problem for those who were serious about their faith in Christ. They were faced with a choice, "How far can I go?" Can I be a member of a guild? Can I go to the guild meetings? Can I eat the food offered to idols? Can I participate in the parties and the drunkenness and the sexual escapades?" Many in the early church thought that no Christian should belong to a guild because of the immorality that went along with them.
But Jezebel, this respected church leader, was saying, "Sure you can. There's nothing wrong with these things. After all, you have to make a living. You have to hold a job. And in order to make a living in Thyatira you need to be in a guild and in order to be in a guild you need to eat food offered to idols and loosen up sexually. It's okay. It's better to compromise a little than to go flat broke."
This issue of eating food sacrificed to idols was a big deal in the early church. In that culture, there were pagan gods for everything and people would take animals to these pagan temples and sacrifice them to the gods. And sometimes they would eat a portion of the sacrifice believing that the spirit of that god would indwell their body if they ate the food sacrificed to the idol. Or sometimes the priest would take the meat from the sacrifice and sell it to the local butcher who then turned around and sold it in the marketplace.
But Christians were not to eat food sacrificed to idols. Not because the food was contaminated. It was often top choice, the best meat in town. And not because the idols were real, they weren't, but because of the association with paganism. Christians were to make a clean break with that lifestyle. To participate in it would appear to be condoning it. Last week we saw that the Jerusalem Council warned Gentile Christians against these things with these words in Acts 15:29.
You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
The apostle Paul addressed this same issue at length in 1 Corinthians 10:19-21 when he wrote, Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's Table and the table of demons.
Eating food offered to an idol and participating in the sexual immorality that went with pagan worship was off limits for a believer in Jesus. It was part of the old, dead life, not the new, abundant life that Christ offers.
"You can't participate in these guild meetings, " Jesus is saying, "and be a Christ follower. You just can't." But Jezebel was saying, "Oh, yes you can. Sure you can. You have to if you're going to make a living in this town."
Sometimes following Christ is not easy. Sometimes the stakes get real high and we're faced with tough choices. In this case, it was an economic choice that hit these believers right in the wallet. "Am I going to listen to Jezebel and compromise my faith and keep my job in the union or am I going to listen to Jesus and live out my faith and risk being kicked out of the union and lose my livelihood? Do I really believe that Jesus will take care of me if I obey him?"
After all it was Jesus who said, Don't worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:25, 33) .
And fortunately some were. Not everyone was caving in to Jezebel's teaching. Look at verse 23, 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 Only hold on to what you have until I come. 26 To those who overcome and do my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations - 27 'They will rule them with an iron scepter; they will dash them to pieces like pottery' - just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give them the morning star. 29 Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
Once again, rewards are promised to those who refuse to compromise their lifestyle and do God's will to the end. To the overcomers Jesus offers the right to rule with him in his coming kingdom. John quotes from Psalm 2:9 which is a reference to Christ's rule in his future kingdom, but here Jesus extends that privilege to those who overcome. The rewards are indescribable to those who resist compromise.
He also promises them the morning star. That's a term that Jesus uses of himself in Revelation 22:16 where he says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star. Like last week that may mean a greater intimacy with Jesus both now and on into eternity.
So what can Valley View learn from the church in Thyatira? First, we can learn that as believers in Christ we must always balance truth with tolerance. That means not becoming legalists on the one hand or grace abusers on the other. Legalism reduces our walk with Jesus to rule keeping. It was the sin of the Pharisees. Legalism leads to pride and arrogance and makes for angry preachers and angry churches.
On the other hand grace abusers say, "It doesn't matter how you live. There are no standards to follow. Anything goes." Grace abusers hesitate to call anything a sin and overlook a lot of things that break the heart of God. We can water down our witness to the world so much that there is really no difference, no impact, no light. We're called to be in the world, but not to be of the world.
Engaging with people who do not know Jesus is a high value here at Valley View. We encourage it. But we must engage with people in ways that do not disobey the Lord.
Second, we learn that the church needs the courage to confront false teaching. No one, no matter how gifted a communicator or how dynamic a personality, is above the truth. We need to check what any teacher says against the truth of the Word of God, whether it's here at Valley View or on the radio or on television or in the books we read. Compromised teaching leads to compromised living and that will take a church down faster than anything else.
And third, we need to guard against compromise in little ways. Compromised living doesn't come all at once. It happens gradually. It starts slow and subtle, but in the end it can cost us everything. They say that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water it will jump out right away to save it's life. But if you put a frog in a pot that's filled with cool water and gradually heat the pot until it starts boiling, the frog won't jump out. It will sit there until it dies. Beware of the cost of compromise. You may get the fur coat, but it could cost you your life.