If we want to be faithful to Jesus Christ as his servants, we must do like our Master does. We can’t say, “Let’s sit down and talk about this.” We can’t say, “I want to hear your story.” We can’t say, “Let me go back and study the Bible some more.” We can’t say, “We’re going to make a study committee that’s going to go study this for a year.” But we need to stand with feet immovable and with fire in our eyes, yet with love in our hearts, and say, “This sin must be repented of.”

I know most people think sermons need to start with a catchy intro or a relevant story but I promise if you stick with this introduction from the Bible, you will see how painfully relevant Revelation 2:18-28 is for the Christian Reformed Church, and the Church in America. Our text refers to “Jezebel” who “is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Revelation 2:20, ESV). Who is this?

Jezebel was a foreigner who married Ahab, the king of Israel. The Israelites were not supposed to marry foreigners but Ahab did it anyway (1 King 16:29-34). I don’t need to tell you what happened next—Ahab went the way of Jezebel rather than the other way around (1 King 16:31-32). Any time God’s people flirt with idolatry they end up marrying it. The result was not only that Israel gave into idolatry but that Jezebel killed the prophets: “Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord” (1 Kings 18:4). When Elijah responded by killing Jezebel’s prophets of Baal, “Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow’” (1 Kings 19:2).

Jesus says to the church in Thyatira that they have “tolerated” (2:20) this same spirit of Jezebel. This word is important to understand. “Tolerate” (afiemi, ἀφίημι) usually means something like “send away,” or “divorce.”[1] It has nothing to do with “liking,” or “appreciating,” something. Rather, it just means you “put up with” something but you don’t really enjoy it. Of course, the problem in Thyatira is not that they haven’t been receptive enough to Jezebel as if Ahab’s fault was that he didn’t marry her sooner. The problem Jesus has with this church—our church—is that it has not banished Jezebel. To merely tolerate sin is to condone it. Perhaps some Christians in Thyatira said, “I don’t really follow her, Jesus! I just let her teach her thing and I teach mine. We are better together even though we disagree.” But this is to “tolerate” her. Jesus says that is not enough.

Let’s look more closely at what was going on. Jezebel is teaching God’s people “to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Rev 2:20). Let’s look at each of these things. If you’re really familiar with your New Testament, it might be a little strange to hear that eating things sacrificed to idols was a sin because the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8 that eating things sacrificed to idols is in fact not a sin in and of itself. Paul says, “Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real existence,’ and that ‘there is no God but one’” (1 Corinthians 8:4). Skipping down to verse 8 we read, “But food will not commend us to God. We neither lack if we do not eat, nor abound if we do eat.”

Paul is saying, “Listen, these idols are not real. If you eat something sacrificed to an idol, God is not going to look at you and condemn you because you’ve done something sinful. This is all a figment of the idolater’s imagination.” However, look at chapter 10, starting in verse 27. “If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go eat anything that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake, but if anyone says to you, ‘This meat is consecrated to idols,’ do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for conscience’ sake.” So how do we reconcile Paul’s “eat” with “don’t eat”?

Paul is saying, “It’s not a sin to eat food sacrificed to idols, but there are some people who do believe that idols are real even though they’re wrong. They think that eating food sacrificed to an idol is a sin because they think these idols are real. Therefore, even though it’s not a sin in and of itself,” Paul says, “when you’re around them, don’t do it.” Why? Because conscience is so important in Christianity. So when we look at the letter to Thyatira and what Jezebel is doing, we see sexual immorality. We know what that is. We say, “That’s a big deal.” But food sacrificed to idols? If there was anything that wasn’t a big deal, that would be it. It’s not a sin to eat the food. It’s just about other people’s consciences. But look at what he’s saying to Thyatira. He’s saying Jezebel is teaching you to sin. And this sin is eating food sacrificed to idols. So what do we notice about that? We notice that Jesus, as he’s speaking to his church, he has a very high standard.

Jesus does not say, “This is not that big of a deal. It’s not really a sin to eat food sacrificed to idols. That’s their problem over there. They think it’s a sin, but it’s not. So just do whatever you want and they’ll deal with it.” No, what does Jesus say? Essentially He says, “Even though it’s not a sin per se, sin is so important that I want you to avoid even the appearance of it (1 Thess 5:22). And if you don’t, there are consequences.” So we need to ask ourselves, does this approach to sin map with our experience of the church? Do we experience the church this way? Do we approach the church this way? Do we hear preaching that preaches this way, that says sin is serious and we need to avoid it at all costs? Or do we hear, “Well, that’s fine. As long as you think it’s okay, you do that. I’m going to extend some grace. I’m going to turn a blind eye. You’re a sinner, I’m a sinner, just do whatever you need to do.” Does that map with what Jesus, our Lord, says to the church?

Now let’s look at sexual immorality. We’ve already seen that if anything “wasn’t a big deal,” it would be food sacrificed to idols. However, no one in the Bible was giving any leeway to sexuality, least of all Jesus. Sexuality was and is a big deal. Again, 1 Corinthians will help us understand this. Look at 1 Corinthians 6:18. Let’s see if this sin is a big deal. “Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”

The Apostle Paul was a devout Jew, and the pinnacle of Jewish life is the temple. You make pilgrimage to the temple. You pray toward the temple. Your hope was in the temple. When the invading armies came in, they wanted to destroy the temple. God dwelled in the temple. You love the temple. And in Paul’s mind, for a devout Jewish man, going up to the temple with a sledgehammer and damaging it would be absolutely unthinkable. Yet he says this is what sexual immorality is. Our bodies are temples. Sexual sin is just like going up to the glorious temple of God and taking a jackhammer to it followed by spraying it with graffiti. This is a very big deal.

Now, this is not to say that God looks at sexual sin and says, “Well, people who have sexual sins, they’re in this special camp over here, and people who have greediness or covetousness, they’re in a different camp.” All sin is damnable before God. But the Bible says that sexual sin has a heightened potency since it is “against … the body” (1 Cor 6:18). It’s like poison. Greediness has the ability to kill you slowly. It’s a slow burn that gradually steals your contentment, then your joy, then your life. But sexual sin can kill you quickly. It’s a stronger poison. It’s very important.

How does Jezebel tempt Christians toward this sexual immorality? We see in verse 24 that Jezebel, whether she is a literal person or a movement, was teaching something that Jesus calls “the deep things of Satan.” He says, “But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan…” (2:4). What are the deep things of Satan?

Jezebel was teaching what she claimed to be not the deep things of Satan, but the deep things of God. Jesus is saying in effect, “Though Jezebel says, ‘Here’s the deep things of God,’ I say these are actually the deep things of Satan.” We see Him do that exact thing in an earlier letter. He says, “These people say they are Jews, and they are not, but they are a synagogue of Satan” (2:9). Jesus turns around their title and says rather than being a Jews they’re no names who worship in a synagogue of Satan. Jesus does this in His incarnate ministry when speaking to the Jews who rejected Him, “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44).

Jezebel says, “I’m going to teach you the deep things of God.” That’s exactly what Paul calls them in 1 Corinthians 2:10. He says these are “the deep things of God” (NIV). The Gnostic people around this time, they would write books to each other and say, “These are the deep things of God.”[2] That’s a phrase that people would use. But Jesus is saying, though she’s trying to teach you what she claims are the deep things of Me, they’re actually the deep things of my enemy.

Today, the spirit of Jezebel is alive and well teaching similar “deep things of Satan.” We hear many people say that the deep things of God teach us that though the Bible on the surface may claim or seem to claim that homosexuality is a sin, if you go deeper below those texts to the deep things of God, you will discern that God actually says homosexuality is a beautiful thing when done in the right way. This is the argument of a man named Matthew Vines. He wrote a book called God and the Gay Christian. This book describes Matthew Vines as “The founder of the Reformation Project, which is a Bible-based nonprofit organization that seeks to reform the church.” What is his Reformation? Well, the title of the book is “God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.” So what is he doing? He’s saying, “I’m a Reformer. I have the Bible. Let me show you the deep things of Scripture.” What does he say on page 12? He says, “As I became more aware of same-sex relationships, I couldn’t understand why they were supposed to be sinful or why the Bible apparently condemned them. Same-sex relationships were not harmful to anyone. They were characterized by positive motives and traits instead, like faithfulness, commitment, mutual love, and self-sacrifice.”[3]

So what’s he saying here? He’s saying that the Bible might appear to say that these things are sin, but we need to look deeper. What are the deep things of God? The deep things compel us to look at the fruit. Jesus says, “You’ll know them by their fruit” (Matt 7:20). Are they producing fruit? Are these people loving? Are they faithful to one another? Are they joyful? If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then the deep things of God would indicate to us that this is good. That’s the argument.

Look at the 19th verse, “I know your deeds.” The word “deeds” (ergon, ἔργον) could loosely be translated “fruit” since it often means something like, “product,” or “accomplishment.”[4] In the Bible, “fruit” is often a synonym for the product of one’s faith. A less literal translation that nevertheless gets the point across would be: “I know your fruits and your love and faith and service and perseverance and that your last fruits are greater than at first.” This church had the greatest works of any of the churches that John is writing to. This is the full package, right? You remember Ephesus, they were doing pretty good. They had really good doctrine; they were rejecting the heretical Nicolaitans. But they lost their first love. But not so with Thyatira. Thyatira, has love, faith, and service. Not only that, but they persevere in these things. It wasn’t a fit and start; they didn’t do it for a little bit and then quit. But they’re persevering. And then most amazingly of all, not only are they persevering, but “your last deeds are greater than at first.” They’re growing in their fruits. They’ve got it all. Their fruits are not only there, but their fruits are growing. Judge them by their fruits. That should be enough, according to Matthew Vines. Jesus should leave Thyatira alone. They’ve got fruit. But that’s not what Christ does.

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