Jezebel, Jesus, and the future..

Bit of a tricky passage I had to preach on this week - the Letter to the Church at Thyatira. It raises some interesting themes such as Jezebel, judgment, and ruling over the nations, however the main theme of the passage is clear and I trust I kept to that when preaching. In this blog I’ll try to fill in the gaps & give some more detail to things briefly alluded to.

The main theme I explored was ‘The Church and the workplace’, because in Thyatira this is where church members were in danger of wrecking the witness of the church due to a tendency to compromise with workplace culture under the guise of spiritual tolerance. I think that there is an allusion to the Book of Daniel in the opening words of Jesus to this church (v18), and what better role model in this instance than Daniel with his resounding “No!” to cultural compromise. Destinies rest in the answer we give at such moments, and deception lurks in the shadows, ready to beguile, confuse, and ultimately to wreck us.
And that’s what the Jezebel theme is all about. There was someone in the church who encouraged the ‘enlightened’ to fraternize with the workplace culture, going along with their morality in the name of mission, when they, like Daniel, should have said ‘No!”. Jezebel was the one who taught her husband, King Ahab, to compromise, such that .... he did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. ” (1 Kings 16:30–33, ESV)

What about the promise of ruling of nations, rods of iron & things in verse 27? Once again we need to look to the OT to enlighten us, and we find that this is a quotation from Psalm 2, a Messianic psalm, one that points to Jesus: “I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” ” (Psalm 2:7–9).
So what is being said to the believers at Thyatira is that if they remain faithful to Jesus, then they will be co-regents with Christ. And when, I hear you ask, might that be? Time to declare my colours!
I believe that Jesus’ (‘millennial’) reign has already begun, and that this book of Revelation shows us that Jesus is now exalted, glorified, and seated on His throne. Heaven’s perspective is that Jesus is Lord over the nations, Now! and in fact in a few chapters time, we will read of His powerful exercise of power over the nations. King Jesus is in control!
So how do we reign with him? Well, in a measure, we do now, but when we die, in that moment we will be in his presence, co-regents with him, sharing his rule (2Cor 5:8), in what we call the intermediate state, awaiting the ‘Day of the Lord’ when Jesus comes again to make all things new, This will be no halfway house awaiting a further onslaught of evil after another 1000 years. No, when Jesus comes again it will be a great day, an all decisive day when sin and satan are dealt with once and for all, and heaven and earth are restored to what God always intended.

And in closing, faithful believers at Thyatira were also promised the Morning Star. What’s that? Simply, it’s Jesus, he’s the bright, morning star that we live for and whose coming we look for:
““I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. ” (Revelation 22:16–17)


Goff