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In this message we shall cover two further stages of the church, the stages signified by the church in Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29) and the church in Sardis (3:1-6).
The church in Thyatira is the church in apostasy. “Thyatira” in Greek means “sacrifice of perfume” or “unceasing sacrifice.” As a sign, the church in Thyatira prefigures the Roman Catholic Church, which was fully formed as the apostate church by the establishment of the universal papal system in the latter part of the sixth century. This apostate church is full of sacrifices, as demonstrated in her unceasing mass. This apostate church will remain until the Lord’s coming back.
In 2:19 the Lord says, “I know your works and love and faith and service and your endurance, and that your last works are more than the first.” The apostate Catholic Church has many works and services. Her works in the last days are more than in the past.
The church in Thyatira is a continuation of the worldly church, pre-symbolized by the church in Pergamos. The church in Pergamos had the teaching of the Gentile prophet Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans, that is, the teaching of a clerical system. The Catholic Church continues these teachings, the teaching of Balaam to bring people into idol worship and fornication and the teaching of the Nicolaitans to build up the hierarchy. In the Catholic Church today there is a strong teaching concerning the building up of a religious organization with its hierarchy.
One of the crucial points in the epistle to the church in Thyatira concerns the woman Jezebel. The Lord refers to her in verse 20. “I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My slaves astray to commit fornication and to eat idol sacrifices.” This is the very woman prophesied by the Lord in Matthew 13:33, the woman who added leaven (signifying evil, heretical, and pagan things) into the fine flour (signifying Christ as the meal offering for the satisfaction of God and man). This woman is also the great prostitute of Revelation 17, who mixes abominations with the divine things. The pagan wife of Ahab, Jezebel, was a type of this apostate church.
In verse 20 the Lord indicates that the apostate church is a self-appointed prophetess. A prophet is one who speaks for God with His authorization. The apostate Catholic Church presumes to be authorized by God to speak for Him. She demands that people listen to her rather than to God. Her adherents are all drugged by her heretical, religious teaching, not caring for Christ as their life and life supply, as indicated by the tree of life and the hidden manna promised by the Lord to the churches in Ephesus and Pergamos (2:7, 17).
Matthew 13:33 says, “Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” Sound teachers of the Bible recognize that the Jezebel in Revelation 2:20 is the same woman prophesied by the Lord in Matthew 13:33. The great harlot in Revelation 17 is also the same woman. Thus, the woman in Matthew 13 is the Jezebel in Revelation 2, and Jezebel becomes the great harlot who is called the great Babylon in Revelation 17. The Jezebel in the Old Testament (1 Kings 16:31) was a prefigure of “the woman Jezebel” in Revelation 2:20. When the Lord spoke to the church in Thyatira, He said that there was a present-day Jezebel. According to history, this present-day Jezebel undoubtedly is the apostate church, the Roman Catholic Church. In using the name Jezebel, the Lord was reminding us of what Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, did. She came from a heathen background and brought pagan things into the worship of God by His people. This is the crucial and most central point in the epistle to Thyatira. The principle of the deeds of the apostate church is to mix the heathen, pagan things with the worship of God by His people. She helps God’s people to worship Him, but she does not do so in God’s way; rather, she does it in her own heathen, pagan way.
The Roman Catholic Church has leavened everything related to Christ. This is indicated by the words “the whole was leavened” in Matthew 13:33. The Roman Catholic Church does have Christ, the meal, but it has put leaven into the meal.
In Revelation 2:26 and 27 we have the Lord’s promise to the overcomers of this stage. In verse 26 He says, “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.” To overcome here means to overcome Catholicism. The overcomers, the rest in Thyatira, do not have Jezebel’s teaching (v. 24), have not known the deep things of Satan, hold fast the Lord’s testimony until He comes (v. 25), and keep the Lord’s works until the end. “My works” in verse 26 refers to the things the Lord has accomplished and is doing, such as His crucifixion, resurrection, and intercession, in contrast to the works of the apostate church under the influence of Satan.
In verse 26 the Lord says that to the one who overcomes He will give authority over the nations. This is a prize to the overcomers of reigning with Christ over the nations in the millennial kingdom (20:4, 6). This promise of the Lord strongly implies that those who do not answer His call to overcome the apostate church will not participate in the reign of the millennial kingdom.
In verse 27 the Lord, speaking of the overcomer, goes on to say, “And he will shepherd them with an iron rod, as vessels of pottery are broken in pieces, as I also have received from My Father.” In the millennial kingdom the ruler will be a shepherd. In Psalm 2:9 God gave Christ authority to rule over the nations. Here Christ gives the same authority to His overcomers.
In 2:28 we have another aspect of the Lord’s promise to the overcomer in this stage. He says, “I will give him the morning star.” The morning star here refers to the coming Christ. At Christ’s first coming, the wise men, not the Jewish religionists, saw His star (Matt. 2:2, 9-10). At His second coming, He will be the morning star to His overcomers, who watch for His coming. To all the others, He will appear only as the sun (Mal. 4:2). Only the hidden overcomers, those who enjoy Christ as the hidden manna, will see the hidden Christ appearing as the morning star to those who love Him.
“Sardis” in Greek means “the remains,” “the remainder,” or “the restoration.” As a sign, the church in Sardis prefigures the Protestant Church from the time of the Reformation to the second coming of Christ. The Reformation was God’s reaction to the apostate Roman Catholic Church, signified by the degraded church in Thyatira. The Reformation was accomplished by a minority of the believers, the remainder. Hence, it was the restoration by the remainder.
To the messenger of the church in Sardis the Lord says, “I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and you are dead” (Rev. 3:1). The reformed Protestant Church has been considered by many to be living, but the Lord says that she is dead. Hence, in her dead condition, she needs the seven living Spirits and the shining stars. In name the Protestant denominations are living and are better than the Catholic Church. Actually, the Protestant denominations are dead.
In verse 2 the Lord says to “establish the things which remain, which were about to die.” “The things which remain” are the things lost and restored by the Reformation, such as justification by faith and the open Bible. Although these things were restored, they “were about to die.” Hence, the Protestant Church needs revivals to keep things alive.
In verse 2 the Lord also says, “I have not found your works completed before My God.” Nothing begun in the Reformation has been completed by the Protestant churches. Therefore, the church in Philadelphia (3:7-13), signifying the church in recovery, is needed for the completion. In the eyes of God, there are no completed works in the so-called reformed churches.
In 3:5 we have the Lord’s promise to the overcomers of this stage. To overcome here means to overcome the deadness of the Protestant churches, that is, to overcome dead Protestantism. The whole of verse 5 is the Lord’s promise to the overcomers. It will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom after He comes back.
In 3:4 the Lord says, “But you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.” Garments in the Bible signify what we are in our walk and living. To defile the garments means particularly to stain them with deadness. Death is more defiling before God than sin (Lev. 11:24-25; Num. 6:6, 7, 9). In this verse the defilement denotes anything of the death nature. The defilement in Sardis was not the defilement of sin but the defilement of death.
Speaking of those who have not defiled their garments, the Lord says, “They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.” White not only signifies purity but also approvedness. White garments here signify the walk and living which are unspotted by death and which will be approved by the Lord. It is a qualification for walking with the Lord, especially in the coming kingdom.
If you read the context of Revelation 2 and 3, you will see that every time the Lord makes a promise in these seven epistles, it, strictly speaking, refers to the coming kingdom. It never refers to our eternal destiny but to our future in the coming kingdom. This is the basic and governing principle in understanding all the promises in these seven epistles. In 3:4 the Lord promises that the living ones, those who have not defiled their garments, will walk with Him in white. This will be during the millennium. To walk with the Lord in white means to walk with Him during those thousand years.
In 3:5a the Lord says, “He who overcomes, he shall be clothed in white garments.” This will be a prize to the overcomers in the millennial kingdom. In what they have been walking in this age will be a prize to them in the coming age.
Being clothed in white garments involves our experience of Christ as the second of the two garments needed by every Christian. The first garment is the garment of salvation, signifying Christ as our righteousness objectively. In Luke 15, when the prodigal son returned home, the father had the best robe prepared for him. The first thing the father did was to have this robe placed upon his returned son. Wearing that robe, the prodigal son was justified in the presence of the father. This means that he was justified in Christ and that Christ had become his justifying covering. He was covered by Christ as His righteousness. Thus, the garment of justification, the first garment, is for salvation. However, in addition to this, we need another garment to make us approved and well-pleasing to the Lord. The “fine linen, bright and pure” in Revelation 19:8 denotes this second garment. This garment is not a matter of Christ as our objective righteousness but of experiencing Christ as our subjective righteousness. This garment is for the reward. The white garments mentioned in 3:5 refer to the second garment.
Concerning the overcomer in this stage of the church, the Lord says in 3:5b, “I will by no means erase his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” The book of life is a divine record of the names of those who partake of the blessings God has prepared for them. These blessings are in three stages: the church, the millennial kingdom, and eternity. All the believers will share in the blessings of the first and third stages, but only the overcomers will share in the blessings of the second stage, that is, the blessings in the millennial kingdom. Those who cooperate with God’s supplying grace and mature in life in the church age will be given the prize of the entrance into the millennial kingdom and the participation in the divine blessings in that stage. This means that their names will not be erased out of the book of life during the millennium. The names of all the genuine believers have been written in the book of life. However, during the millennium, the names of some, the defeated ones, will be deleted, whereas the names of the overcomers will remain in the book of life during the coming age of the millennial kingdom.
