Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina.
Church in Thyatira. We're going to actually pray and just start dealing with these verses. John, did you put all the verses on?
Okay. Well, we'll go ahead and read them. I told John I felt so bad. I said, I hate, you know, Brother John's good about making our PowerPoints, and sometimes I send him just what's going to be on the PowerPoint, and I forgot to erase all the verses, and he put all those on PowerPoint too, bless his heart. And it's a lot of typing, a lot of things, but since he did, we'll go ahead and we'll read it.
I was trying to save him that and ended up ruined it anyway. But let's read what was written to the Church of Thyatira, and then we'll jump right into it. Verse 18 of Revelation chapter 2.
And under the angel of the church in Thyatira write, these things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass. I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works, and the last be more than the first. Notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death, and all the churches, all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the rains and hearts. And I will give unto every one of you according to your works. But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden. But that which ye have already, hold fast till I come. And he that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I have received of my Father.
And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Man, a lot. To this church, God wrote the longest letter.
This is the longest letter to any seven of these churches. So much here that, let me tell you this, we're going to cover it today. But it would not be what I would call an exhaustive study of this passage because, really, it would probably take about three sermons to just kind of really dig into every area that I wish I could. And it's nothing but good stuff. But let's pray, ask God to bless His word today.
Just thank you for being here, a good crowd, again this morning. Lord, I love you. My object here is not to impress man.
I would fall miserably short of that. Lord, my objective and my purpose is to glorify You and Your word. So Lord, I pray that You would use that word to work in hearts. I can't work in hearts.
That's Your area. All I can do is preach Your word. Lord, help me to rightfully divide it, dear God. Lord, I pray that You would apply it to hearts today. Thank You for a good spirit, good music, and Lord, and a good crowd. But Lord, we all came to hear from You. And so I pray that our hearts will focus on that at this time. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. As I mentioned, in all seven churches, Jesus always begins with giving a description of Himself. And I'm going to be honest with you, a great sermon, as you notice, now here we are at the church of Thyatira. If you just take the descriptions that He gives to the churches, put all those together in one sermon. What a sermon. I don't know if you've noticed every time the way Jesus presents Himself to the church. What a picture of who He is.
But we got, He starts every letter that way. Obviously there is the description that He gives Himself. There is a commendation, which means what they've done right, obviously.
Then there is the accusation of what they've done wrong. If that is the case, then there is the recommendation of what you need to do and the motivation of why you should be motivated to do what I have recommended for you to do. It's a pattern that goes through all seven of these churches. So let's notice first the description for today.
Wow. Notice verse 18. Under the angel of the church, which would be the pastor in Thyatira, write, these things saith, and here comes the description, the Son of God, who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass.
So what does all this mean? Very simply, first He says, I'm the one who saves. I'm the Son of God. The Bible says the Son came to seek and to save that which was lost.
He's identifying Himself, this is Jesus, but He gives Himself the title here so that they know, I'm the Son of God. I'm the one that came. I'm the one that died. I'm the one that was buried. I'm the one that was resurrected. I'm the one that has given the Holy Spirit into your life, who is literally helping you, convicting you, changing you, all these things. I'm the Son of God.
I'm the one who saves. Notice secondly, I'm the one who sees. It says here, eyes like unto a flame of fire. This is a reminder to the church of Thyatira and a reminder to you and I today that God sees everything. The description here are eyes of fire. He came as one who sees all.
Eyes of fire look past what is there, and eyes of fire see past the obvious and they see the real you. May I say something today and we all show up at church and we all hopefully look good, half of us smell good, and all those different things, you know. But can I tell you something? We're all a bunch of sinners who have been saved by the grace of God and none of us better than others.
And if half the time everybody knew what was in our brain, half the time we'd be half embarrassed. Hello? Hello? Anybody think you're on a higher level than anyone else?
You probably ought to go find another church because we're all just a bunch of failures, including the pastor, that we've just been saved by the grace of God and we're thankful and we try to present our best at church and all that. Can I tell you something? You and I serve the God who sees through all that. What do eyes of fire, as a flame of fire, what is that? They burn away all the things that are trying to hide the real you.
Can I say something today? God sees you, the real you. God knows. He's the God who saves. He's the God who sees.
But can I show you last? He's the God who is sovereign. The Bible said His feet are like fine brass.
Brass or bronze in the Bible is symbolic of judgment. Jesus not only comes as the one who can see all and save all, but He's also the one who will one day judge all. You see, the same God who saves is the same God who will send those who have rejected Him to hell. Now, a lot of churches aren't going to sit here and tell you that.
A lot of churches aren't going to go into that side of things. You know, they want you to feel good. They want you to just see all the flowers and all the things. And oh, listen, God is love, and God is love, and all that. But can I tell you something? God is also holy, and He is the God who saves. That's His love, but He's also the God who judges. His feet are like fine brass, because He is not just the God who loves. He's the God who is holy, the God who is sovereign. He's the one in charge.
I don't know about you, but so far, this is my favorite description that He's given. He's the God who saves, the God who sees, but He's the God who is sovereign, just so you know who's talking. Notice, secondly here, we see the commendation. He says in verse 19, I know thy works and charity and service and faith and thy patience and thy works and the last to be more than the first.
Now, you would read through these churches, and you would say, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I know thy works. I know thy whatever. You know, what does it say?
No, it goes a little bit deeper than that. First, I want you to see this. He commends their ministering. They're ministering. We say, what do you mean? Well, notice first, they were busy. He says, I know thy works. Works, here the word is deeds.
It means that they didn't just say something, they actually did it. They were working. They were busy. They were an active church, just like we are here at Kerwin. But notice, secondly, they weren't just busy, they were burdened.
Why? He says, I know thy works, but I know thy service. You see, this word service is the word for ministering. Literally, the word in the Greek here means to kick up dust.
What does that mean? It means that they were so busy serving others that they kicked up dust. Their feet were moving so fast, helping, serving, finding an area to help that literally the description here is that they were kicking up dust. They were serving so intently. So God says, listen, I commend you for your ministry.
The fact that not just are you busy, but you're burdened. You're not just doing things to do it, but you actually are trying to help and serve and minister to people. And by the way, let's not forget at Kerwin Baptist Church, that is our purpose. I don't think I have everybody here this morning, and I know it's a Sunday morning, but I'm going to say it. Look at me.
What has happened in 2023, we've gotten to the point that people in church think that everything's about them. The temperature better be what you want. The sound better be what you want. The everything better be what you want.
The seat ought to be what you want and different things. And let me just say this. I'm just preaching the truth here.
Now I'm preaching to the church that is the opposite of that. You guys have been so long suffering. This is all an act of continuous change in this building. We're doing our best. The sound system is going to get tweaked.
It's going to take a few weeks, but already you can hear better. We're building, already started building. All of our sound panels are going to go across this entire, you know, and once those sound panels go up, that changes everything about reverb and all this stuff. We have, listen, we have new lighting, complete new lighting that's coming in here.
It's not going to be these lights like normal, but if you jump too soon, you'll judge too quick. Just give us time to get everything done and get the money and get the things, but you ought to be glad you got a church that's trying to make things better. We're trying to do our best to please, but let's not get lost in the fact that we start making church about us. We are not here to be ministered to, but the Bible said Jesus didn't come to be ministered to, but to minister. He says, listen, I commend you for your ministering, but notice secondly here He commends them for their motives.
I don't know if you know this, but in the Bible, as far as Christ is concerned, your motives are even more important than your methods because you can have all the right methods, but if it comes from the wrong motive, God is not impressed. Now you hear me say about it, listen, I am what I am and we are what we are because we are that by conviction here at this church, but there are churches that are somewhat associated with the kind of church that we are and there's thousands of different kinds. We're a Baptist church, okay? We baptize and we're not ashamed of that. We're proud of that. We have Baptistic doctrine, but listen, there's all kinds of different kinds of Baptist churches, but over the years there have been some different than others, and over the years there have been some that have majored on the methods and not the motives. We've said you've got to look this way, act this way, dress this way, and we have created robots, but the motive was never out of love for God.
The motive was fear of man. Are you all with me? Say amen. And I'm saying this, what you do, you ought to do because you love the Lord. And if I've got to make you do it for you to do it, that's not even the right motive to start with.
So I've just chosen I'm not going to make you do anything. If you're going to do it, you need to do it out of a heart of love for God. Notice what the verse says. He says I know thy works and charity. He commends them, listen, that you're busy, but you're doing it because of love.
You've got the right motive here. Listen, it's one thing to have works, but a church that God is pleased with is a church that has works because it's out of a heart of love. Not obligation, not duty, but because we love people. And Kerwin, we are not a good church if we can't love people outside of this room. And let's be honest, most churches are still struggling with trying to love the people inside the room.
Half of them are struggling to love the people inside their own house. I'm sure about the ship that was going by found an island. There's this guy on the island by himself all stranded, and there was two buildings. And they said, well, is one of these your house? He says, no.
He says, I put a brush over here, and I've been sleeping here for years. He said, so what's that one building? He said, that's where I go to church. He said, I've set up and worshiped. He said, what's the other building? He said, that's where I used to go to church.
Just couldn't get along with people there. It was just him, folks. That's the joke, okay?
It was just him. Hey, I don't even agree with myself half the time. If you sat here and say, hey, Daniel, do you agree with everything you did last year? No. No, I don't. Do I agree with everything I did last week?
No, I don't. But listen, we are to do what we do. There ought to be works, but the works should be from a heart of love. He said, not only are you ministering, but you've done it for the right motives. Notice they were motivated by love, and this word is agape, by the way. This word charity is agape, unconditional, unceasing love. And notice, secondly, they were motivated by faith.
Look what he says. He says, I know thy works and charity, and so the works were out of love, and thy service, which was ministering to people. Notice the motivation here, and faith. So literally, the works were done out of love. The ministering was done out of faith. What do you mean, preacher? It means this, that it's literally the word faithfulness. These folks were committed to get the job done, but because they loved God, they loved the people, and because they wanted to be faithful to the Lord, they were faithful to the cause. Let me say this. You and I have got to get way over this fact where we just decide we're going to be committed to a church.
That is not going to last. You commit to a church within 10 seconds, somebody from the church is going to come up and say something absolutely ridiculous to you. You ever had somebody from church come up and say, hey, you look like you're putting on a little weight. Yeah, why don't I shoot you in the eye? You commit to a church, one of you ladies, one of somebody's coming up to you like, hey, are you pregnant?
No. You commit to a church for long, you're going to get a post from somebody on your Facebook that's going to, you know is a jab, you know it's a criticism, but they mask it and something else. Can I tell you something? You commit to a church, you're going to drop that church fast. You've got to commit to Him. The good thing is He'll never call you pregnant if you're not. That's my God.
That's a new T-shirt. That's my God. God will never say, hey, listen, getting a little chubby. He won't say that. He gives you a wife that'll say that to you. That's how it works.
At least that's what I've found. Don't throw your shoe. Don't you do… This is a Sunday morning crowd that worked on Sunday night.
Don't throw it on Sunday morning. That's right, Terry. Thank you. Listen, He commends them for their ministering, but even more, He commends them for their motives.
I'm glad you're working, but I'm more glad that you're doing it out of love. I'm glad that you're serving and ministering, but I'm really thankful you're doing it out of faith in me and not faith in them. Notice, if you would, thirdly, we see the confrontation. Verse 20, don't you love this transition, notwithstanding, always a bad sign. When you get a compliment and the person says, notwithstanding, that's a bad sign. That means you might want to sit down.
This is going to take a while. I told you, my beloved predecessor, Brother Joe, Brother Joe was so meek and humble and everything, I'm not. But Brother Joe, I'd sit down with Brother Joe and you'd talk to him and he'd say some positive things that you're working hard, doing a good, you know, you're kind of feeling really good about yourself. And then about two hours into the meeting, you would realize he's chewing me out. He is letting me have it.
I mean, he just slowly transitioned, notwithstanding, and he was always right. What is God saying here? Notwithstanding. Listen, it's not that you're not doing some good things, but look at me, folks. God is not just impressed with our works. This is God's house, not our house.
And as much as it goes against the grain, if you're an individual who says, listen, I just think everybody ought to, we don't want to confront anybody. We want everybody just to feel loved and welcomed and all that. Listen, I'm 100 percent, I think everybody ought to feel loved and welcomed to the house of God. But this is God's house, not my house. Now, when you come to my house, I'm not going to judge you one bit.
All right? Feel free. You be yourself. I'm going to be myself.
You might not like it, but I'm going to be myself, okay? But this is not my house. This is God's house. So everyone is loved, everyone's welcomed, everyone's appreciated, but we preach God's Word, and God loves you too much than to let us stay like we are.
Everybody got that? It doesn't really, listen, if I go to a doctor that I don't really, if I got something wrong, I go to a doctor, I don't want my doctor to say, well, listen, you know, I don't want to hurt your feelings. You're fine. Just, you know, just go ahead. Go on through life. It's okay. That's not going to help me. If you go to a doctor, you want to know, is there something wrong?
Tell me what I need to fix it. So this is God's house, not our house. And so there are certain things that just have to be in God's house that don't have to be at my house.
But I'm not caretaker of my house, I'm caretaker of God's house here. So here's what God says, notwithstanding, I have a few things against thee. Oh, what do you mean against? Oh my goodness, I thought God is love.
No, no, God has the right. He says I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel. Now let me get this out of the way. It is not because it's a woman. It's because it's what this woman was teaching. Now I will, you know, the whole woman preacher thing, that's another whole discussion. I'm just saying that the problem here wasn't just, well, you got some woman that's saying something.
No, it's not about her being a woman, it's about what she was saying. Okay? Now I want you to get this. Look what he says. Notice number one, Jezebel was seducing. She was seducing people. That woman Jezebel, he says, which calleth herself a prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Now for sake of time, we don't have a lot of time, it's 11 o'clock and I don't have much to go after. We're going to get right to it, but I need to give you context just for a minute about this woman Jezebel.
Okay? She is called by the same name of one of the most infamous women in the entire Bible. Let me give you a little bit background about Jezebel. Jezebel was the wife of a wicked king named Ahab, 1 Kings chapter 16.
Her name means chaste, but she was far from that. She was the wicked daughter of a Gentile king and she was a devoted worshiper of the god Baal. And she had some 850 prophets under her that taught the doctrine of Baal. And the doctrine of Baal was a very sensual, immoral doctrine. Now Baal was a fertility god and his prophets and priests were just basically temple prostitutes. That's what went on in the worship of Baal. Baal was worshipped through vile sexual acts, gross wickedness. That's how they worshipped the god Baal. You might not know that from reading the Bible and all we see Baal worship and everything. Well, that's what went on in Baal worship. When Jezebel came to Israel, she brought that perverted religion with her and she left her weak-kneed husband to follow her gods and then she influenced Israel in 1 Kings chapter 21 to seek Baal instead of Jehovah.
You say, well, why would anybody be dumb enough? Well, because she literally drew them in because what's not to like about this sexual perversion? Do what you want. Live like you want. You could have all this pleasure or you could go over here and serve Jehovah where there's some rules. Why do you think so many young people leave church nowadays?
Because what is there, if you're all about pleasure, what is there to compare? Oh, you come to church, learn to be godly, or go into the world and have fun. You see, the world has a religion too. Now, she did her best to kill every man of God that she could.
I mean kill them. And Jezebel was known for that. She even threatened Elijah one time and Elijah ran away in fear. That's how feared she was. She arranged the murder of Naboth, if you remember, so that her husband could get that vineyard, that whole thing with David and all that.
You remember that? And here's what's interesting. God told Ahab, and please get this. God told, through Elijah, God told Ahab that Jezebel would be eaten by dogs. You're like, wow, that's a bit out there. Maybe it was just, you know, that's illustrative of what God would do.
No, no, no, no, no. It was literally fulfilled years later when Jehu showed up on the scene, and he commanded Jezebel's servants to throw her out of a second floor window. They threw her out the window, this Jezebel. And she literally laid on the ground, and the Bible says that Jehu drove his chariot over her body. And then he went into the dwelling, sat down, and ate a meal. And after he ate, he said, well, let's go out and bury her body. And when they got out, the Bible says the only thing that was left was her skull and a few bones.
Why? Because after they had run over with the chariot while they were eating, dogs came and literally consumed her body. Elijah said, God said, this is what's going to happen, and that's exactly what happened. You say, well, why did I come to hear this is gruesome? Why are my kids in this room?
What's going on here? I'll tell you why. Because we fast forward all the way to Revelation chapter 2, and this woman Jezebel, we believe, this was not probably her God-given name or her birth name. She assumed the name of Jezebel because she saw the Jezebel from the Old Testament as a hero. And now she was in the church of Thyatira preaching the same doctrine as the Jezebel that we're talking about.
And what they believed was she was, here's what she was teaching, and the doctrine of Baal is this, that your soul and your body are disconnected from each other. So your soul... The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know Him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with the sin nature. Romans 3 23 says, for all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory or to get to heaven. Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6 23 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin or the payment of our sin only equals death and separation from God, but it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept Him as our Savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5 8, but God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ by faith as your Savior. Romans 10 9 says, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner, believing that Jesus is the only way, and calling upon His name. The Bible says whosoever, that's anyone, can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Savior? If you have any questions please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at corwinbaptistchurch.com or visit that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
