I’d like to read in Revelation chapter 1.
This is the first vision in the book of Revelation, or the part we will read starts in verse 12. So, Revelation chapter 1, verse 12:
And I turned back to see the voice which spoke with me;
and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands.
And in the midst of the seven lampstands, One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girded about at the breasts with a golden girdle;
His head and His hair white as white wool, as snow;
and His eyes as a flame of fire;
and His feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace.
We will stop there for now. The emphasis this time will be on these two descriptions: His eyes as a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace.
Then I want to read the letter written to the church in Thyatira. It is in Revelation 2:18.
And to the angel of the assembly in Thyatira write:
These things saith the Son of God, Who hath His eyes as a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass:
I know thy works, and thy love, and faith, and service, and thine endurance, and that thy last works are more than the first.
But I have against thee that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, she who calleth herself a prophetess; and she teacheth and leadeth astray My servants, to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols.
And I gave her time that she should repent; and she willeth not to repent of her fornication.
Behold, I cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her works.
And her children will I kill with death; and all the assemblies shall know that I am He Who searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto each one of you according to your works.
But to you I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they say; I cast upon you none other burden.
Nevertheless, that which ye have, hold fast till I come.
And he that overcometh, and he that keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations:
And he shall shepherd them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers; as I also 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 to the assemblies.
Let’s pray together.
Lord, we come to You with Your Word and pray that it would be blessed to our hearts, deep in our hearts, and have a real effect on our hearts. Lord, we pray that there would be a deepening of what we receive, that we can walk in these things and receive much from You today.
So we look away to You, Lord, and we just trust this time to walk through together with You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, this letter to the church in Thyatira is the fourth of the seven letters given in Revelation 2 and 3.
There is a vision at the beginning of Revelation—the first vision—and the vision is of Christ. You see Him in all of His glory as a great High Priest, according to Melchizedek’s way, as a kingly priest.
In this vision, the first thing John sees, in a way, as he sees Christ, is that in the background he sees these seven golden lampstands. When he sees them, he does not see the details of the lampstands. His vision actually is the details of Christ. He sees Him in all of His glory, and really, he just barely notices the seven golden lampstands at first.
He sees that they are there, but he does not actually understand them. The Lord has to interpret them for him and explain what they mean: they represent these seven churches in Asia Minor that He lists and names.
So, as John saw the vision, it really was a vision of Christ—a full and complete vision of Christ. In a way, these lampstands are shining a spotlight on Christ.
This is what he saw, and he fell down as one dead. The Lord put His right hand on him in Revelation 1, and in a way John was picked up, at least spiritually speaking. The Lord told him again Who He was. He said, “Fear not,” and then He told him Who He is.
With the Lord’s testimony, John was strengthened. Then the Lord interpreted what he saw a little further and asked him to focus on those golden lampstands. Really, John’s vision was Christ, and then Christ turned it around and said, “Now, together with Me, let’s look at these churches.”
At first, when John sees the Lord, the Lord is standing and behind Him are these seven golden lampstands. But as we get into the focus of the churches, He is actually walking amongst them.
So, what is happening in Revelation 2 and 3 is a continuation of the vision—an overflow of the vision. It is the Lord bringing John’s attention to each of these golden lampstands, and He goes down from top to bottom through the whole lampstand.
If you remember, in the Old Testament there is a sevenfold lampstand in the temple, or in the tabernacle, and its parts are described. It was beautifully made by someone very gifted from the Lord.
At the top there is the flame, and at the bottom there is a base. There are also three cups shaped like the flowers of an almond tree. These are part of the decoration of the lampstand.
As you go through each letter, amazingly, it has the same shape as one of those parts of the lampstand. At first there is the flame, where the Lord tells who He is:
These things saith the Son of God, Who hath His eyes as a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass.
That is actually the fire of the golden lampstand. Then there are usually three parts to each letter, just like those almond cups.
At the base there are two parts—a kind of double layer of the base. One part is, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the assemblies.” Another part is the call for the overcomers.
It is not only a call for them, but even a description of their reward: “To him that overcometh, I will give,” and then He describes some reward. The reward is usually something connected with the testimony of that church as well.
As the Lord is zeroing in and focusing John’s attention on each of these churches, the work He is doing as He walks amongst them is ministering to them as well. We see what they shine—the brightness of the testimony of that church—but we also see what the Lord is doing as He walks amongst the churches, how He is helping them and ministering to them.
The church in Thyatira was a real church in real time, as all seven of these were. They were in the area of modern-day Turkey. Probably the famous one amongst them that we would all recognize is the church in Ephesus, the first one.
This one we would not really recognize except that we know about Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth who was found in Philippi. When the apostle Paul went to Philippi and began preaching the gospel, he found some God-fearing women and shared with them. Lydia, the dealer in purple cloth, was one of the first ones saved.
She said, “If you really consider me a believer, stay at my house.” She probably had a house that could easily accommodate Paul and his group because she was a dealer in purple cloth.
From archaeological digs and extra-biblical history, they have found that Thyatira was known for dyeing cloth. In the ruins, you can see bins where they would dye cloth with indigo or purple. They found inscriptions concerning the guilds of the dyers—dyers as far as changing colors, not dying.
This city was known for that. It had a lot of traffic and was kind of famous for this thing. But otherwise, we do not actually know what was going on there. We do not have much history beyond that small knowledge.
Probably when they received this letter, there was some special and unique meaning for that local church in that time period, when John the apostle wrote this at the end of the first century. When he wrote about Jezebel, maybe they all looked around and said, “Who is Jezebel?” Or maybe there was something going on that they all recognized immediately.
There are some things historically lost to us that we do not actually know. But there is always this call with each of these lampstands, with each of these letters, for all of us in the churches to hear what the Spirit is saying to all the churches:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the assemblies.
So, it is not just for that church. There is another thing going on with all seven churches: there is a prophetic timeline of church history.
I think Thyatira is the most detailed and exact of all of them. It is almost strange when you go through it step by step. I have heard people go through all the minute details and find something in that time period for everything. But with this one, I do not think you have to stretch much.
It is really the darkest of the scenarios, and the church-history time period is the darkest of all the church-history periods. This is the period that starts with the first real master pope at the end of the fifth century: Pope Gregory.
My brother was named after him—or I think he was named after a movie star, actually. But anyway, Pope Gregory really took command unlike any other bishop or archbishop and ended up taking command not only of so much of Christianity, but even of so much of the world.
He himself had started off trying to be a monk, went back to politics instead, and eventually took everything over as the Roman Empire was coming to a close and becoming very weak.
Suddenly, outward Christianity kind of took up that leadership in the world. At this point, the Roman Catholic Church was really established with the first strong pope.
For about a thousand years, until the Reformation in the sixteenth century, there was a real time of darkness—not only in church history, but even in world history. There was a lot of confusion, a lack of light and knowledge, and much superstition.
There was a control coming out from Rome—not like today, but a control from the church in Rome, from the leaders in Rome, extending even over nations and kings.
How could they do that without much of an army? Or did they have an army? Eventually, in this time period, the Knights Templar were created. Eventually, we know about the dark time of the Crusades and all these wicked things that happened in this period.
But you do not even need an army when, in a dark time, you have control of everyone’s soul. A pope could say to a king who refused to bow down or do what he wanted, even refusing to marry whom he wanted him to marry, “I am going to excommunicate your whole country.”
Because of the darkness of men not knowing the truth, the whole country would revolt rather than be excommunicated, because they felt that if they were excommunicated they would all go to hell.
In this time, the Scriptures were silent. The reason they were silent was because they were silenced. The leadership had stopped men from being able to read the Bible.
This officially changed less than a hundred years ago with what remains of the Roman Catholic Church today. In the early 1940s, there was a strong push and a revival, saying, “Everybody—all Roman Catholics—let’s read the Bible and study the Bible.”
This brought a great change. A number have come to know so much about the Lord even amongst Roman Catholics currently. Just as this letter says, “Thy last works are more than the first.” It is true. What remains now is much better than the thousand-year period I am talking about.
I am saying that it remains now, but I am talking prophetically: this church represents a time period. This is different from the past three churches. The past three churches represented periods of church history, but they stopped. They each had a beginning and an ending point.
The time of Smyrna had all these persecutions, but it all stopped and their time ended. Then the time of Pergamos was swallowed up by this time here.
Since Constantine brought the world and the church to kind of marry, at this time the church discovered who it had really married: Jezebel. This marks the end of the church in Pergamos.
How would we know, even apart from world history and church history, that the last four churches continue until today? Of course, we can look around with our eyes and read history and see that these things continue. There is still the church in Sardis, the Protestant church. There are still these things going on now.
But there is also a clue in the Scriptures. At the base, at the very end of each letter, two things happen: one is the call to hear, and the other is the call to the overcomers with their reward.
The first three churches end with the overcomer’s call. The last four end with, “He that hath an ear, let him hear.” They are switched in the middle. This is actually our clue.
When people first read this, I wonder what they thought. John was very old when he wrote it, and maybe they thought, “Oh yeah, he forgot to put this in.” But actually, it is a prophetic clue to us that the last four churches are four different ways of the church continuing until the Lord’s return.
The way of Thyatira is a way happening right now. Among Christianity there are many denominations, but all of them can be put into four categories. These four categories are these last four churches amongst the seven churches.
Even though we are looking at a time period when this was very obviously the Roman Catholic Church, this includes more currently than just the Roman Catholic Church.
There are many Catholics who are not Roman Catholics, and many groups match completely with the descriptions of this church and with the woman Babylon later in Revelation, though they are not technically called Roman Catholic.
The Roman Catholic Church claims this, and some other groups claim it as well: the Russian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox, and other groups. Even the Anglicans, the Church of England, are divided into two larger groups: Catholic Anglicans and evangelical Anglicans.
In a way, these groups that have broken off rejected the pope but kept most of the same practices. They have the same feeling and the same way as the church in Thyatira. They still belong; they are still her children, as it says in this letter:
Her children will I kill with death.
Even amongst leaders in the Roman Catholic Church, they would say in a specific way through the ecumenical movement that there is a desire to bring everybody back under the Roman Catholic Church.
There is a broader thing where we can all join hands and be people who were created. But there is also a specific desire to bring everybody back under the Roman Catholic Church. I have talked to priests about this, and they are very outright about it. This is the desire and the belief: at some point all will come back under the fold.
All of her children will come back in. This literally does happen in the book of Revelation. At some point, all of those combine into one religion, one woman, one Jezebel, one Babylon woman, one city, one way of worshiping. All are brought under this, but she is deceived, and eventually the beast turns on her.
So, “Her children will I kill with death.” In the very end there is a stamping out of this. The Lord calls openly to all those in this way of the church, in this church in Thyatira: “All of you, come out of her.” All believers are called to come out.
Some right now, though, the Lord does not call out. Actually, in this letter, even up until this day, He says, “I do not cast any other burden upon you.” There were many in that thousand-year period, and even today, who do not know the depths of Satan.
What we are looking at is some of what happened in leadership and some of what happened outwardly in such darkness. But there were so many saints—real believers, the overcomers mentioned here—who did not know the deep things of Satan. They did not experience those things. They had real, genuine hearts for God.
Because of such darkness, and because the Scriptures were closed off, not much burden was put upon them because they only knew a little bit. Whatever you have received, you are responsible for. So He does not cast much burden on them.
But before final judgment comes upon this church, before the very end, the Lord does call everyone who is a believer to come out from her. What does that mean? If you come out as a believer, then what is left is a system that is not of God.
When we are talking about this, we are not at all talking about the believers. Many of us have read books by believers who were part of this way of the church, the church in Thyatira, and we really respect them.
Just as it says here, they were deceived. It says the woman Jezebel deceived My servants. “You permitted her to come in and join in, and My servants were deceived.”
Even when we read a mystical writer who was so amazing, like Saint Bernard—not the dog, but the man—you can see that he knew God. There was so much union with God and love union. Yet I think it was him who encouraged people to go and join the Crusades: “How can you not fight for the Lord?”
This type of thing was going on. The darkness surrounds you, gets into your mind, and you do not understand very much.
My family, on my father’s side, mostly has a Roman Catholic background. I was baptized as a baby as a Roman Catholic, and I went to a Roman Catholic school for a year.
I bring this up to say that we are not talking about the people, of course. We are talking about a system. The woman Jezebel is not some person we are pointing at. It is this union of the world and the church, but to such a degree that you see the true colors of the world.
As this happened in church history, it was not only that there was a large worldly influence and the church tried to baptize the world. Remember, with the church in Pergamos, mixtures began to come in and the church started to get bigger than the church.
You began to get believers who were not believers and Christians who were not Christians. They had not really believed on the Lord and had not really received Christ.
I met two last week who were believers who were not believers, and Christians who were not Christians. They both came to Christ last weekend. When we talked, I said, “You are a believer,” and they were believers. But you can be in religion and not be a Christian.
When the world and the church combined, it became popular to be a Christian. You could mentally agree and outwardly attend church meetings, but never trust in Christ and never personally have your sins forgiven.
Then, at this time, the roles were reversed. As the pope took authority over the whole world, it was no longer that the world influenced the church. Rather, the world took leadership in the church and claimed it was all the same thing. The leadership was actually Jezebel.
Now, the story of Jezebel in 1 Kings, with the prophet Elijah: she was a princess of the king of Ethbaal, and in their kingdom they worshiped the god Baal.
When she married King Ahab, she took over his kingdom. It was not that he simply made a mistake and married a foreign wife who sometimes had influence. Jezebel, the princess he married, became the queen-king of Israel. She changed everything and controlled the whole thing.
What she brought in was not just a little confusion, but outright worship of another god. Sometimes they would even use the name of the true Lord, but all the practices were from her god.
They also brought in a woman god and set that up as well. With the worship of Baal—and with many religions—there is usually a woman god.
When this began to happen, it was no longer a creeping corruption of worldly things or merely baptizing a holiday or celebration. When you shut off the Scriptures, you can do anything, because the light is gone spiritually.
They shut off the Scriptures and said only the priest could understand them, so the common people should not understand them. In whatever country you were in, you could only read in the holy language, which happened to be the Roman or Latin language.
The masses and meetings at that time—not currently, because this changed recently—were all in Latin. Now masses can be done in English, but before they would all be in Latin. I have been to a Latin service, and it was all Latin to me, you know.
This is what the people were experiencing. They knew a little bit, saw some actions, but whatever they were taught was what they were taught.
As the ways of the world, as the ways of Jezebel, came in, the world’s way of worshiping was different from the Lord’s way of worshiping. The world’s way is to have many options.
To create many options, what was brought in was praying to the saints. They created a new establishment, which is another meaning for the word saint.
Before, if you read the letters of Scripture, all Christians are called saints: “To the saints in Rome, I am writing this letter.” You are a saint because you are a holy one. How are you a saint? It is not because of what you have done, but because Christ is your holiness.
So you are a saint. This is your calling and your reality. But now the meaning became whoever is very special and has done certain things. Eventually, formulas were created: if you have done this many things, or so many prayers have been answered when people prayed to you.
That has to sound strange to us: when they prayed to the saint. What happened is that you began to pray to someone besides the Lord.
You really respect this person. Some are in the Scriptures, and some are people about whom you hear good stories. They get canonized, turned into saints, and become saints of certain things.
If you look at world history and the history of religions, there are usually gods for different aspects of life. If you are a farmer, there is a god for farming, and that is the god you pray to if you want your crops to do well.
If you herd cows, your god probably looks like a cow or something, has udders, and you pray to this god of cows. There are gods for water, lightning, and all these things. So they created saints for all these different things.
For example, Martin Luther, before he was saved, was scared into being a monk during a thunderstorm. As everything was crashing down and he thought he was going to die, he prayed to Saint Anne, who was the patron saint of coal miners. His father was a coal miner.
Who was the best person for him to pray to? Saint Anne. So he said, “Please, Saint Anne, save me, and I will become a monk.” That was who he was talking to in his moment of fear and death.
This is the kind of turning that the worldly way of Jezebel brought in: turning your eyes away from the Son of God and toward other things.
Another thing happened. Usually, you need a woman god as well. So, they transformed a true story into another story.
Even currently, you may see old pictures showing a very glorious Mary, the Virgin Mary, with a little tiny Jesus in her hand. This does a good job of describing what darkness brought in.
There was a real young girl named Mary. As you read the Scriptures, you read her story, how blessed she was, and how blessed her womb was to conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear the child who would be the Messiah.
But what it was changed into was that she is the mother of God. Eventually, in darkness, they could even change what happened to her.
What was taught was not that she continued to live and be part of the church, as we read in Acts. She was there in the prayer meeting. She was praying. Who was she praying to? She was praying to the Lord. No one was praying to her when she was alive.
She was one of the believers. She had believed on Jesus. But instead, what was taught was that she ascended and that she was sinless.
This is in order to bring in corruption. I would not pick on any one man trying to bring something in, but as darkness came in, this is something that happened.
How do you convince everybody to not pray to the Lord, but instead pray to these other things—these created gods? You stop the ability to have your sins forgiven directly.
In the Scriptures, you read that if we confess our sins to God, He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But without the Scriptures, people were taught to go into a confessional booth.
They were taught to confess to another person who was holier and trained for this. As they confessed their sins, it was not that the priest simply turned around and said, “You are forgiven.” Usually, they were told something to do.
Even currently, this is an experience. I think I did this before, but I was so young and so scared.
As you confess, one of the things I think I was told was to say so many Hail Mary prayers. The Hail Mary prayer is very short, but at the end it says something like, “Pray for us sinners,” particularly in the hour of dying. I do not have it memorized right now, but it has to do with when you are dying and asking her to pray for sinners.
When you sin and come to confession, and they say, “Do ten Hail Marys,” you ask her to pray for sinners that many times. You repeat it so often that you get into the habit of praying to her when you sin.
Why would you pray to her? It is very logical, actually. She is that much closer to the Lord Jesus. Since you are such a sinner, you are not holy enough to go directly to Him, so you pray to her. She has influence, probably because she was His mother, right? You pray to her and then she can influence Him.
It is actually a humble way to go about things. This is man’s logic, and it is just not what God wants.
I wanted to bring this up just to say that this is the darkness upon the circumstance. This is the circumstance they are in.
What is the testimony happening with the church in Thyatira? They have a light. Many walked in this light, shone this light, expressed this light, and the Lord ministered through this light in that time period.
All of us can receive something from this, because darkness can be around you even now. This is something for all the churches. You may find yourself in a circumstance where it is all cloudy and dark.
A lot of times college students who are believers get into a time like that. It is like, “My first or second year in college—it’s all Thyatira. It’s all error. It’s all darkness. My professors are Jezebels teaching me whatever they are teaching me about God, and they are trying to close off the Scriptures and undermine the Scriptures.”
Or maybe you are surrounded by family, and your family has a whole different view. It gets cloudy because you respect and trust your family, or your friends, and they are teaching you all this stuff.
In a time of darkness, what is the way through? How does the Lord help you, and how does He express Himself through you?
As we said before, the testimony is the Lord’s description of Himself. In this case, He is the Son of God, His eyes are as a flame of fire, and His feet are burning brass.
As the Son of God, this is one of the descriptions not actually found in Revelation 1. Revelation 1 uses the phrase “Son of Man,” but in this letter the phrase “Son of God” is used.
The reality of Him as Son of God was obviously realized by John when he fell down as one dead. He knew this was not just a mere man. But there is a special reason in this testimony for the Lord to bring out, “I am the Son of God,” as He shines His flame through them.
Remember the testimony of the apostle Peter. His first public testimony was, “Jesus is the Son of God.” In Matthew 16, Jesus asked them a question in a time of darkness.
All around them, the poor disciples were hearing confusion. The leaders were Jezebeled out, saying there was no way Jesus was the Messiah, calling Him all kinds of things. Those were the people you would normally respect. That is darkness.
Their friends, family, and the crowds all had different thoughts about Him. So Jesus asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” They brought out all the most respectful things people said He was.
Then He said, “But who say ye that I am?” Peter’s testimony was:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus said, “You are so blessed. The Father revealed this to you.” There is no way you can have this testimony without revelation from the Father. Without the Father removing the darkness and shining that light inside of you, you would not see this.
In a time of darkness, when all things are confusing, revelation that He is the Son of God is what delivers you from darkness.
Take John’s Gospel as another example. His Gospel is that Jesus is the Son of God. In John 1:14, he says:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us
(and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father),
full of grace and truth.
What they saw as they beheld Him, looked at Him, and contemplated Him was that He is the Son of God. That has to do with His glory. It is something unique, and not just a doctrine to understand.
Even in a thousand-year period of confusion, or in any time of confusion, people may not directly attack the doctrine that Jesus is the Son of God. They may have it built right into a creed, and everyone agrees with it. But revelation that He is the Son of God is life-changing.
The revelation in John’s Gospel is that whoever sees the signs pointing to Him, believes on Him, and receives eternal life. When the revelation comes that He is the Son of God—His glory—you receive eternal life by trusting in Him.
Whoever physically saw Jesus did not necessarily see who He really was. But if you contemplated Him, if you beheld Him spiritually, you could see by the light that came that He is the Son of God. This is life-changing.
Prophetically speaking, in this time of darkness, with so many gods to pray to, it may seem logical to pray to different beings. But when you see that He is the Son of God, you can pray to no one else.
Scripturally, this was the temptation of Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17. They had just confessed, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Then they were taken up a mountain, and Moses and Elijah appeared beside Him.
For them, this was like what we would say about all the saints and even Mary. Moses and Elijah were the ultimate saints. Peter eventually said, “This is great. Let’s make tents for all three of You.”
If you carry that further out, you get what happened in those Dark Ages. “We have a tent for Moses, we have a tent for Elijah, and we have a tent for the Lord. I am so humble, I dare not approach the Lord’s tent. I will go to Moses. Moses, I know you are best friends with Jesus, and your tent is right next to His. Can you talk to Him about this?”
Or, “Elijah, your hair is just like my hair. Let’s talk to Jesus about this.” So you have friends next to Jesus you can talk to. This is not what God wants.
As soon as Peter was saying, “Let’s make tents,” Moses and Elijah were gone. God said:
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.
This is the deepening, or practical outworking, of the revelation: all you have is the Son. All focus is on the Son of God. There is no need to pray to anyone else or go to anyone else.
You would recognize when anyone is distracted onto something else, because in a time of darkness you need discernment. Foundationally, discernment is that you have life and see that He is the Son of God. You can recognize when anything else tries to come in.
When we say He is the Son of God, we do not mean that He had a beginning in the way that a human baby begins. He became a small baby, grew to be a man, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead, ascended, and is alive right now in fullness of glory.
But before He was even a baby man—a baby human—He existed long before that. His strength and glory go far beyond that.
If there is a focus on the mother of God, she can only be the mother of the Man, and only because He became a man, and only because of what God did. It is not because of sinless perfection. Only He was sinlessly perfect.
John says, “The Word became flesh.” The Word became human. But, “In the beginning was the Word.”
Let us use the Word and the Son as concepts that are very similar. Word means what is in my heart expressed through my mouth. When we think of God and the Son of God, it does not mean that in the beginning there was the Father, then He decided to have a baby, and then He had the Son.
That sounds ridiculous to us because we may have correct doctrine in our minds, but I do not know if we always understand the practical outworking of this concept. I did not get it at first. I thought of Him as the Son of God, and therefore the younger One.
But John 1 says:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
If anything ever came into creation—if anything began at any point—it was created through the Word of God. The Word of God, the expression of God, has always existed. He was never born in the sense that we think of being born. He was never tiny.
The Son of God has always been great. He is as great as the Father, as far as His largeness. I am just bringing this out. It sounds obvious, but think of the darkness that comes upon us when we lose sight of the Son of God.
When we see Him as the Son of God, we have to change our mindset from thinking of Him as a baby son. Think of what happens with us as humans when we have a son.
Someone today said, “My son Jonathan looks like me—poor kid.” But you notice that children look like their parents, and even their personalities sometimes reflect their parents.
Your son or daughter reflects you. They express you in a way. If you watch them enough, you see some of your own expressions through your children.
Take the spiritual principle of that. Do not focus on how our children are tiny and weak. As the Son of God, whenever God is expressed, He expresses Himself through the Son of God. The Godhead always expresses through the Son of God.
That is why He is the Word of God. If you want to know what is in the heart of God, it comes out through the Word of God. The whole Godhead is large, infinite, and amazing, but He chooses to express Himself.
The Son, the Word of God, is the expression. When we say “the Son of God,” it means He is the very expression of God.
Jesus said while He was on earth, in response to someone saying, “Show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” that if you hear what He says, you hear what the Father says. If you see Him, you see the Father, because He is the Son of God.
As John 1:14 says, “We beheld His glory,” and that glory is “the glory as of the only begotten from the Father.” The Father’s glory is expressed through Him. As the Son of God, He is that expression.
When you find yourself in a time of darkness, if you have received this testimony, remember that the Lord ministers to the church first, then works it inside, and then it is expressed through the church.
As you receive this testimony from the Lord, it is revelation. You believe on Him as the Son of God. All of your heart is for Him. Everything the Holy Spirit works in you is always to point you to Christ. Everything is always about the Son of God.
So, hear Him. As this is happening in you, the Lord uses you—as He used the overcomers in Thyatira—to bear that testimony.
It does not mean we are merely teaching people an intellectual understanding that Jesus is the Son of God. We are not simply explaining the triunity of God. It means, “This is God’s Son. Hear Him.” It brings all attention to Christ.
In a time of darkness, people need to be brought back to the main thing: Jesus is the Son of God. Whoever points you to that, that you might receive the sign and believe, is doing this work.
When John wrote his Gospel, it was a time of darkness and confusion was creeping in about who Jesus was. Was He really a man? What was He? Was it only His teachings? If we get enough knowledge about Him, do we get to nirvana, or whatever it is? Do we discover heaven through our understanding?
John brought it all the way back to this: He is the Son of God. Believe on Him and have eternal life.
Consider the apostle Paul. As his days were fading, as he was in prison, writing to Timothy, the churches were turning toward corruption and darkness. The house of God was becoming a larger house of Christianity.
As this happened, Paul told Timothy, “Do the work of an evangelist.” It is the time when the expression comes through you: let people know Him as the Son of God. Basically, lead them to Christ.
This is also for your own protection. When you have this testimony, you can recognize who is a believer and who is not. You cannot recognize it just by what people say, but when you fellowship with someone, you can recognize whether they have eternal life.
Do they have the testimony of Him as Son of God or not? Many in the way of Thyatira discovered others who knew Christ, and that actually brought them through.
In that dark time, many overcomers had this testimony: He is the Son of God. Some pulled out from that system and were persecuted because of it. They were called heretics, and many times they were murdered. But this was their testimony.
Another part of the testimony is that His eyes are as a flame of fire. Remember, He is the Priest coming up and ministering first to us.
The eyes as a flame of fire are not originally meant to be scary eyes to us. They are not quite the flame of fire they will be at the great white judgment throne. But there is meaning to them.
One meaning is found in this same letter. He says, in Revelation 2:23:
I am He Who searcheth the reins and hearts:
and I will give unto each one of you according to your works.
The eyes as a flame of fire obviously give light, but there is also a piercing work that happens as He looks at you and as you look back at Him.
As He looks at you, His eyes go beyond the surface of your heart—deeper than your soul, deeper than the corruption of your old heart, and deeper than even the great things of the new heart you have been given.
Deeper than even the convictions of your heart, there is something called the reins of your heart. If you ride a horse and have the reins, you pull one side and the horse turns that way. You pull the other and it turns. If you pull both, maybe it stops or jumps. If you flick them, depending on how the horse is trained, it might run or throw you off.
The reins control the direction of the horse. In a way, this is the deepest depth of your heart. To search you down to that part is not just exposing some wickedness so that you can be forgiven of it.
Underneath the wickedness, why is there wickedness in your heart? Why did you choose that for the tenth time? You really cannot know until you look at Him face to face spiritually.
He goes beyond your choices and history and discovers what led to that. What is your real desire? What are the reins of your heart?
You cannot simply say, “I gave Him the reins of my heart, and He is Lord of my life.” That is, in a way, a rein above the rein. What rein led you to give Him the reins of your heart?
If He is Lord of your heart, underneath that is some steering of your heart, some desire, some choice that wanted Him to be Lord of your heart.
Sometimes, as the Lord searches and goes to the very bottom of your heart, you may be pleasantly surprised. Not only surprised, but you may be completely delivered from constant failure.
If you have a repeating sin that you keep falling under, you do not do what you want to do, and you do what you do not want to do. You are in confusion.
As you spend hard time with the Lord, just with Him, staring Him down, He searches your heart. He searches deeper with eyes of fire and discovers what is underneath.
“Lord, I know I have been forgiven of this sin so many times. Why? Why is it? This thing triggers me. Whenever this happens, I do this. But why? What is going on with me?”
As the flames come in, they go deeper, but they also burn as they go. If you will not refuse His sight, if you let Him continue to look, He burns as He goes.
By the burning, I mean the blood. He forgives your sins, but He also purifies all this wickedness.
When He gets down to the reins, I think sometimes you discover that deep down, you really hate this sin. You do not want to do it anymore. You want to know the Lord and follow the Lord.
When He burns you down to that rein of your heart, you are free. You say, “No more of this. I am done.”
You just needed Him to reveal the reins of your heart—the depths of your heart that truly love God.
On the surface you say, “I cannot say I love the Lord. I keep doing this. Who is to say I love the Lord?” But as you stare at Him, and He stares you through, He begins asking you questions: “Why are you doing this?”
The next thing you know, you are completely found out. But you may be surprised. What you find out is that you actually do love the Lord. This new heart in you is solid and passionately loves Him.
You may rise up and say, “No more of this. I am done with this.” It is not that you found a solution to overcoming your sin. It is that you found the heart of hearts that hates that sin, and you overcome.
Peter met these eyes as a flame of fire. I mentioned this before when we went over Melchizedek Himself, the vision in Revelation 1, but consider what happened with Peter.
As he sinned, the Lord had told him that he would sin. He told him that he would deny Him before the rooster crowed.
As the rooster crowed, Peter was not far from Jesus. Jesus looked over at him. Peter heard the rooster and discerned what had happened. The Lord Jesus knew what had happened, and He was on His way to be crucified.
The Lord looked over at Peter. In the reflection of Peter’s eyes, you could probably literally see a flame, because he was standing near a fire, warming himself with others in the cold night or morning.
But deeper than the outward flame in Peter’s eyes, the Lord’s eyes looked at him. No outward flames came out. The Lord Jesus did not look scary at that point. He was as a lamb led to slaughter, not standing up for Himself at all.
But He looked with eyes of tears, and those tears were flames. They pierced into Peter’s heart, went into its depths, and continued to burn as Peter went away and wept bitterly.
What burned in Peter’s heart brought him through such a deliverance that he would never deny the Lord again. It was a thorough burning.
What the Lord found at the bottom of Peter’s heart was, “I am attached to You. Deep down, I never want to deny You. Deep down, I love the Lord, and this is my all. This is what my whole life is about.”
The Lord then slowly restored Peter. In a way, this is like the burning feet, the burning brass of His feet.
Feet speak of judgment. In Psalm 110, it says:
The Lord saith unto my Lord,
Sit Thou at My right hand,
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.
When something is under your feet, you have conquered it. Gradually, all enemies will be put under the feet of the Lord Jesus and completely conquered.
With us, as this ministering work happens, the Lord not only burns through and pierces to the reins of the heart, bringing out what is right and purifying what is wrong, but He also wants to crush the other things with His feet.
The feet of judgment judge those other things and put an end to them. Close the back door and do not let this back in again.
The Lord did this with Peter. When He rose, He told them, “Go tell the others that I have risen, but also tell Peter.” That is step one: beginning to crush the condemnation.
Peter could have been overwhelmed in his repentance, but restoration began. The Lord privately restored Peter.
What happened privately, and what happened in the burning eyes, also happened publicly when He restored Peter. Again and again, in front of everybody, He said, “Do you love Me? Do you love Me? Are you attached to Me?”
Deeper and deeper, He got to the reins of Peter’s heart. Not only that, He exposed it to everyone there: “This is the reins of Peter’s heart, and I want him to shepherd you. I want him to lead the way. He is a man of God, and he will not deny Me.”
Those three times Peter denied the Lord had been burned through by His piercing eyes and stamped out by His burning feet.
No one could later say, “Peter, how can we listen to you? You denied the Lord Jesus three times.” It was all gone. It was publicly gone because it had publicly happened.
Everyone could follow this man of God, who would be whipped on his back just for telling people about Jesus and eventually die for the Lord Jesus. He was completely delivered by that ministry.
Peter himself could minister in that way. This is what happens: you first receive it, and then it comes out from you as your testimony.
In an odd way, you gain the flames of fire in your eyes. But these flames are not strange fire.
Some of us naturally have fiery eyes. We can naturally discover how terrible everybody is, right? It makes us angry. But when the Lord purifies your heart, it is a little safer.
When you see someone who has been dealt with by the Lord so much, they probably end up very discerning because He discerns them so much. They have had such strong dealings.
But when their eyes have a flame of fire, they have the same passion the Lord has. They have tears among those flames.
Peter could look at people and recognize what was going on with them. He could look at someone and know that they were ready to be healed, and they would be healed.
He saw one man come to him and say, “Give me this gift, so that I can lay my hands on people and they will receive the Holy Spirit.” Peter looked at him and said his heart was wicked.
He exposed him right then and showed everything. His eyes burned so much toward this former magician who had become a believer that the man said, “Pray for me, please.”
Of course, it was the wrong idea, right? But he was saying, “I do not want this judgment to happen to me.” Peter burned right through him. Those discerning eyes happened.
With us, the Lord would use us for discernment, and not only for that, but also for stamping out with those burning feet.
This does not mean you go around kicking and stepping on people. It means you are helping people be completely delivered.
If you discern something going on with somebody, the Lord is using you as a testimony. You see some darkness, something that is not the Son of God, something not right, and you discern it.
Then the Lord has you begin your stomping ground, and it begins with praying. It is that kind of praying step.
As you pray, consider the example of Jesus. When He was going to stamp out this issue with Peter, He first began by praying for Peter.
Before Peter sinned, Jesus said, “Satan wants to sift you. He has asked for you, but I prayed for you. I prayed for you that you would come through. When you come through, help your brethren.”
It all began right there. How did Jesus stamp this out? He began because He interceded.
When you discern what is going on with someone, and you discern corruption that is not Christ, begin praying for them. Occasionally, you may end up talking to them, encouraging them, or rebuking them. But all of this is done by love, and the Lord leads us in it.
This is part of the whole experience of the testimony in Thyatira. At the end, the overcomers are called, and He says in Revelation 2:26:
He that overcometh, and he that keepeth My works unto the end,
to him will I give authority over the nations:
And he shall shepherd them with a rod of iron,
as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers;
as I also have received of My Father.
In Revelation 20, this ruling with an iron rod is mentioned again. It is the time of the kingdom.
Even the reward shows the testimony of Thyatira, where there is discerning judgment acted on by those overcomers. They are able to rule over others, but in the right way.
The eyes as a flame of fire have tears, and the burning feet do not burn up the saints; they burn up the enemy. God said, “I will put Thine enemies as a footstool under Thy feet.”
You are never stamping on saints, of course. In all the ruling and reigning of this overcomer’s reward, it is always to burn out, step on, and be completely done with what is not of Christ.
Lastly, if you reject His fiery eyes, eventually they become a different type of fiery eyes—not the kind that can minister inwardly, but those that have to minister outwardly.
For our own good, we may be disciplined. With the church in Thyatira, there was discipline that outwardly happened. There was actual physical discipline, and it brought about more people discovering Christ.
With us personally, if the Lord sometimes has to burn through or stamp through in a way that feels more like judgment—more like He is attacking me or against me—remember that behind His heart is the heart of love.
It is all because you will not receive it inwardly, so it must be done outwardly. The discipline of the Holy Spirit may come outwardly upon us, but it is to bring us back to look at Him face to face and receive this inwardly.
In the very end, all of that is judged outwardly. All the way of the church in Thyatira is completely burned through and stamped out by the Lord.
But this is our testimony also, if we have an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies.
When you are tempted to reject the eyes as a flame of fire, just hold on. It may take you an hour to go through this. Spend two hours and stare Him down. Allow the burning to happen.
Even if you feel you are struggling and want to run away from His piercing look, you may be shocked by what you discover—what He discovers as He burns through.
Sometimes He will expose the worst things in our hearts. This is why we want to reject Him, because intuitively we know what is really going on in the reins of our hearts sometimes.
But what will happen if He exposes the worst thing in your heart? If He shows you that the reason you are failing is really because of something you are hiding from, what will happen is complete deliverance.
He exposes it. What do you have left to lose? You denied the Lord three times? All right, but now it is stamped behind you.
That heart is burned through and purified. Now, with this newness of heart, follow the Lord and go forward. There is no need to fear.
He is really delivering us and bringing us through. Let’s pray together.
Lord, we would receive even what seems to be the angry look from Your face. Lord, we would receive whatever the burning would feel like in our hearts, because we know behind that are those tears that have prayed for us and that love that has died for us.
Lord, we come to You as the Son of God, really believing on You, knowing that we have received eternal life, and knowing that You alone have the words of eternal life.
Who else can we flee to? Who else could we pray to? Who else could we go to?
Lord, we cast our all on You and trust in You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.