Revelation 2:18: And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this: (19) I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. (20) But I have against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. (21) And I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. (22) Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. (23) And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. (24) But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them – I place no other burden on you. (25) Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come. (26) And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him i will give authority over the nations; (27) and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; (28) and I will give him the morning star. (29) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

In this letter, we see the same, very stylized, form of writing as in the other letters. All of them say "to the angel of the church in ( )" and then the "from" uses a different part of the imagery in John's vision of Jesus in chapter 1.

Jesus tells John: to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: The Son of God,…This is the only time in the book of Revelation "The Son of God" title is used and it is very clear who he is: The Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this: This imagery comes directly out of the vision in Daniel 7 of the Ancient of Days, which no one doubts is describing God. Jesus is saying here that the Son of God is God. This is very clear. Even so, Jehovah’s Witnesses will not understand this if you try to show them this passage. They will find some way to argue the point, but to an open mind it is very clear that the Son of God is the Ancient of Days is Jehovah is the Lord Almighty is Jesus Christ. (19) I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first. This was a real compliment for the church. Jesus told the church at Ephesus they had lost their first love, but this is just the opposite. Remember, the Ephesians got caught up in legalism. They made sure that people were doing things according to Scripture, but instead of doing it with love, they were doing it harshly and judgmentally.

The church at Thyatira is complimented, but then the hammer falls. (20) But I have against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, Who was Jezebel? In the Old Testament, Jezebel was the archenemy of the prophet Elijah, who we read about toward the end of 1 Kings. She was the wife of Ahab, who was king of Israel. She promoted Baal worship and great idolatry and she was herself a conniving, wicked woman. She counseled her husband to kill Naboth. King Ahab wanted the vineyard of Naboth so Jezebel told Ahab to just kill him and take the vineyard, which is what he did. …Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, Jezebel was guilty of being a "false prophet". We don't "call" ourselves as a prophet, rather God appoints prophets. A prophet in the Old Testament sense was one who was called specifically by God. He received a vision of God (as Isaiah in Isaiah, chapter 6). He received a specific word from God to speak to a particular people. He was ordained or given a specific task by God Himself. A prophet in the New Testament sense is one who explains the Scriptures, and in so doing "speaks forth" God's words. You and I are prophets in the New Testament sense. Every time a pastor stands up and teaches or explains the Scriptures, he is prophesying, or speaking prophetically. No one today has been given the Old Testament kind of authority by God.

Jezebel obviously was presenting herself as an authoritative Old Testament prophetess. In addition, she was teaching error: she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. Remember some of the other churches also had problems with temple worship and fornication. They were compromising with the culture: worshiping their idols and adopting their customs.

All of these cities are on a trade route and the peculiar thing is that they all had very strong trade unions. The unions in the time of Revelation were far worse than the unions of today, especially when it comes to forcing a closed shop. You did not become a silversmith, woodworker, tanner, tentmaker or any other kind of tradesman unless you belonged to that union. And part of the duties of belonging to that union was to worship that union's god. It was required to go to the temple and participate in the sacrifice and sacrificial meal. And part of the ceremony was fornication with the temple prostitutes, male and female. That was how you worshiped.

So if you were a Christian who wanted to be a silversmith, but you said you worshiped the one, true God, and Him only, this would mean you would not be allowed to be a silversmith. You could not sell, trade or do anything in that particular town. This would obviously affect your ability to buy food, housing, and clothing. This was real persecution. When someone stood up and said that they were a Christian, it really meant something. They stood out. That's why some of them did not stand up for Christianity. The person or persons represented by "Jezebel" were saying, "it's okay to go to the temples, even if you're a Christian." She was saying that there is no idol (remember idol means vanity or nothing). If you believe there is no other god than the Christian God, what harm is there if you go in and participate in the temple ceremonies? It's all rather meaningless. We hear this today, also. "It's okay to go to a Mormon worship service. Let's build bridges, right?"

Jezebel was saying the same thing. She said, "It's okay to eat meat sacrificed to animals. It's okay to fornicate with the temple prostitutes, you can be a witness to God in other ways. After all, you don't really have a choice. Doesn't the Bible say to take care of your family? Do you want them to starve? ‘He who does not take care of his family is worse than an infidel.’ " Her message must have been very powerful and very tempting.

(21) And I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. She was not an official of the church. Some commentators also think she was like the prophetess of a pagan religion. This is unlikely because she would not have been in the church at Thyatira, and she was very clearly in the church. Remember Jesus said you tolerate the woman Jezebel, She was proclaiming to be a Christian, but was promoting compromise.

(22) Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness, (the Greek refers to a particular kind of bed. Not the kind you sleep in, or a couch, but a bed for a sick person.) …and those who commit adultery with her… By this, Jesus is referring to those who follow her and believe that what she is doing and teaching is okay. So often in the Bible adultery is not the man/woman kind of thing that first comes to our minds. It's primarily spiritual. God condemns Israel for having an adulterous affair when they worship another god. It is spiritual adultery. The church is the bride of Christ. Christ is our husband. He is the one to whom we are committed. He is the one we fear. He is the one we serve. When we practice compromise, when we go and serve other gods and don't fear God or obey Him, we are committing adultery. We play that kind of game in our minds all the time. We know God doesn't really want us to do something, but we go ahead and figure we'll repent later. At that point, we commit adultery according to Scripture.

[I will cast them] into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. (23) And I will kill her children with pestilence; (In the Greek, the word pestilence is simply "death." This is a Hebraism. To "kill with death" meant to kill ultimately. Her children will not go to heaven.) and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; God is going to kill these ungodly people so that His glory will be paramount. So that people will know that He is the one that searches the minds and hearts. He knows whether they're really Christian or not.

(24) But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, (there were some who did not compromise) who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them (You can recognize evil if you know the truth. Some people say, "How can you condemn adultery unless you've been involved in it?" We can condemn what God says is wrong because what God says is wrong. What was going on in John's day is the same kind of thing going on today. People are saying, "You cannot condemn something unless you have personal knowledge of that something." This concept comes from a Greek word gnosis, to know. There was a group in John's time that were called Gnostics. They were saying that you can't know what is evil unless you participate in the evil.

A good example of this would be how bank tellers are trained to recognize counterfeit bills. They are only shown the real thing, which they get to know so well that if they touch or see the false bill, they know it immediately. They know it instinctively. That's the way that God's word should be to us so that when we listen to the radio and hear something that sounds a little off, we should recognize it. That's the best example we have. We have to meditate and know the truth so well that the counterfeit is apparent to us immediately. If we study the standard, if we know what God's word is and truly hide it in our hearts, the moment we hear something that is counterfeit, we'll know it's wrong. That's how to combat Gnosticism. True knowledge is not learning all about Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Judaism. True knowledge is studying God's word, so that you'll know instantly when you come across a counterfeit.

Jesus says, (26) And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him i will give authority over the nations; In every letter, there is the phrase 'he who overcomes.' The ones who overcome are the ones who worship God in truth. They are called by him and are willing to stand up and say, "No, I'm not going to do that. I'm a Christian, I'm going to follow God's standard, no matter the consequences." It's overcoming by not compromising. Do you see the pattern? He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds As Jesus said so clearly, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments." (John 14:15) Obedience is the true fruit of loving God, because if you are obeying God, you are loving God.