Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Arizona Conference 2004, The Church at Thyatira. Part 1.
Friday, January 21, 2005 AM
Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Arizona Conference
Friday AM, January 21, 2005
The Book of Revelation is the textbook of world history from the time of John A.D. 96 to the end of time.
The Church, on earth and in heaven, Rev 1-5.
The Tribulation period, Rev 6-18.
The Second Advent, Rev 19.
The Millennial reign, Rev 20.
The Eternal State, Rev 21-22.
Rev 2 – 3 = letters written for the dispensation of the Church-age, located between the two greatest prophecies in history, the First and Second Advents of Christ.
From AD 96 until the resurrection of the Church we have the dispensation of the Church – the dispensation of historical trends; there is no prophecy to be fulfilled in the Church-age.
Then comes the Rapture of the Church, the next eschatological event to be fulfilled.
Rev 4 – 5 = the church in heaven.
Rev 6 – 18 = three views of the Tribulation.
Rev 19 = the Second Advent of Christ.
Rev 20 = the Millennium.
Chapter 19 – the coronation of Christ after the Second Advent, and the incarceration of Satan, the capture of all fallen angels, demons, the triumphal procession after the coronation, the wedding supper of the Lamb, and the beginning of perfect environment on the earth for one thousand years.
Rev 20 – at the end of that one thousand years, Satan is released, there is a revolution, and then the one who created the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ, destroys it.
Some teach that the seven churches portray seven historical stages the church would go through.
Others teach that it refers to the seven different types of churches or individual believers that live in every generation.
REV 2:2-3 – as a church or individual believers those at Ephesus had good deeds, produced divine good works and persevered and had not grown weary.
The church of Smyrna, REV 2:9, went through tremendous tribulation and poverty.
The church or individual believers in Pergamum,
REV 2:14, were warned about the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel and committed acts of immorality.
REV 2:18-20 – as a church or individual believers, Thyatira tolerated false doctrine and false teaching, even though in
REV 2:19, they had deeds, and love and faith and service and perseverance.
The Thyatira type of believers are those who tolerate false doctrine and false teaching even though they have love and faith and service and perseverance.
REV 2:18 “And to the messenger [or the future pastor-teachers] of the church in Thyatira [or to the future pastor-teachers of the Thyatira type believers in the Church-age] –
– write or communicate: The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this:
Thyatira was the world’s center for the worship of the sun-god Apollo and was also famous for its labor unions and for the phallic cult, based upon the promotion of all kinds of sexual activity, 2CO 12:21; EPH 4:19; EPH 5:5;EPH 3:5; REV 2:14, 20-23.
In Thyatira, the unions (representing your business, job or occupation), or the cults (representing idol worship or putting something before God,) destroyed the spiritual life of the believers there.
REV 2:19 “I know your deeds [your accomplishments, Christian production, your works] namely the virtue-love [the functional virtue of impersonal love], –
– and the faith [the operation of the three stages of the faith-rest drill] and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first.â€
TLJC still gives them a warning concerning falling away from God through idol worship or through an inordinate attachment or extreme devotion to something.
REV 2:20 “But I have this against you, namely, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess, she both teaches and seduces, and leads astray my servants to fornicate and to eat food sacrificed to idols.”
REV 2:21 “And so I gave her time in order that she might change her mind but she does not want to repent of her immorality.”
REV 2:22 “Now hear this, I will cast her into a bed of punishment, also those who commit adultery with her into great disaster [pressure and affliction] unless they shall change their minds, [priestly function of the rebound technique] about her actions,
REV 2:23 Furthermore, I will execute her followers, [the sin unto death], by means of death, and so all the churches will know that I am He who investigates, the emotions, and the hearts, and I will administer punishment to each one of you, according to your activities.
God will not stand by while members of the Royal Family sink into degeneracy.
Because God is a God of love, He will not stand by while members of His Royal Family sink into degeneracy.
Therefore, He takes stern measures to alert them to their critical situation and to encourage them to rebound and reenter the PPOG.
Jezebel had time, because Jezebel of Thyatira was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and one of the provisions of logistical grace is time to rebound and recover and to make things right.
Verse 24 – post positive conjunctive particle de – deV = sets up a contrast between carnal believers living in the cosmic system, verses 20-23, and believers living in the PPOG.
Divine judgments and defense mechanisms, verse 18.
The Jezebel’s of life and demonic activity.
The doctrine of Deception.
Weak women controlling stronger men.
Sex and fornication.
Idolatry – all in verse 20.
Immorality.
Repentance.
Divine discipline, verse 21.
Sickness and tribulations, REV 2:22.
God killing His children with pestilence, verse 23.
To say – pres-act-ind – lego – levgw = to say, to lay forth a truth, to describe.
Aoristic present tense – sets forth an event as now occurring.
Active voice, Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb through His messenger, the apostle John, who is the non-resident pastor of the local church in Thyatira.
Which is the most advantageous, to have face to face teaching, or non-face to face teaching?
Whatever is available.
For those in Thyatira there was no pastor teaching doctrine, and therefore they received doctrinal teaching through the apostle John.
The issue is not, which is the most advantageous, but what form of Bible teaching is available to match your positive volition.
Positive volition demands Bible teaching, therefore believers with positive volition must be particular.
You – dative pronoun of indirect object humin – u&mi’n = the ones in whose interest the communication of doctrine is given; a dative of advantage, whether face to face, or non-face to face.
Here is a congregation with a non-resident pastor, and yet it is to their advantage to have a non-resident pastor, because the non-resident pastor is the apostle John, and he is orthodox and biblically accurate.
These are the believers who live in the PPOG, the advancing ones, and those who have already arrived at maturity and have constructed the edification complex of the soul.
In Pergamum, REV 2:12-13, believers were advancing to maturity right under the nose of Satan, where Satan’s headquarters were.
In Thyatira, believers are advancing to maturity in spite of the distraction of the Phallic Cult.
The advance of maturity in areas of special pressure and distraction, is because of the grace provision of the PPOG and believers to respond to God’s plan.
1. God provides the means of dealing with any situation before He applies the pressure or allows the pressure to be provided by others.
2. Only by his own bad decisions can the believer create more suffering for himself than he can bear.
3. Only the believer himself can decide to live outside of the PPOG and refuse to learn Bible doctrine so that he has no spiritual resources to draw upon.
4. When pressure crushes a believer, the cause of defeat is always his own volition, never the sovereignty of God.
5. The promise that “no temptation has overtaken you beyond what you are able” to bear, 1CO 10:13a, describes testing, not divine discipline.
6. Testing is designed to exercise and strengthen the believer’s spiritual muscles, but discipline must be severe enough to shock the believer, to get his attention.
7. The believer under testing is using the assets of the PPOG which constitute “the way of escape that he may be able to endure it,” 1CO 10:13b.
You can advance to maturity as easily in a pressure context as you can in a quiet, pleasant, country area.
Without the PPOG and its wall of fire, such normal Christian living in abnormal circumstances would be absolutely impossible.
Satan’s headquarters were in Pergamum, through the Gnostic cult emphasizing intellectuality, and in Thyatira, through the Phallic cult, emphasizing immorality.
Those who put pleasure first, have the least amount of pleasure in this life.
It replaces it with a variety of things, pleasure, sex, social life, success, adulation, promotion, family, friends, loved ones, entertainment, etc. and other categories, which may be very harmless in themselves, but are sometimes used by Satan and the kingdom of darkness to lure the believer away from the PPOG.
The person who puts doctrine first is not denied any pleasure, he just enjoys his pleasure.
After those few moments of pleasure comes the frustration, the unhappiness, the misery, the depression, the discouragement for making bad decisions; HEB 11:25 calls it “the passing pleasures of sin.”
“The deep things of Satan” = the alleged deep secrets of Satan.
They were just simply a part of the mysteries in the phallic cult category.
Believers who remain positive toward doctrine, despite all the distractions from Satan and the cosmic system, have the ability to cope and they understand the solution, even though they are unknown to history.
The people who make the greatest impact on history, either pro or con, are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who do not adhere to this false doctrine, are the mature believers who in eternity are going wear the uniform of translucent light over the resurrection body, because they have not soiled their clothes.
Believers who are positive toward doctrine do not need a lot of negative mandates, they are functioning in the positive mandates related to residence and function in the PPOG.
1. The old sin nature test.
2. Cosmic #1 test.
3. Cosmic #2 test.
4. Disaster testing.
5. People testing.
6. System testing.
7. Thought testing.
8. Prosperity testing.
Hold fast – aor-act-imp – kratesate – krathvsate
= to hold fast or to hang on.
The rapture is imminent, but no one knows the day or the hour.
MAT 6:34 “Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. {Each} day has enough trouble of its own.”
MAT 6:33–Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
MAT 6:34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.”