Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #23 of Revelation 2, and we are presently looking at Revelation 2:19:

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.

The Lord is addressing the angel, or messenger, of the church in Thyatira.  It is the fourth of the seven churches we will read about, as the Lord will address seven churches in chapters 2 and 3.  We have been moving along, verse by verse, and we have come to the fourth address to the fourth church that is listed, Thyatira.

The Lord began with some positive statements, “I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works…”  I do not know if you noticed this, but this is the first time I noticed that the Lord has had a similar opening statement to each church, and an almost identical closing statement, but He also says this same thing to each of the  churches: “I know thy works.”  If we go back to His statement to the church at Ephesus, He said in Revelation 2:2: “I know thy works;” and He said to the church at Smyrna in Revelation 2:8, “I know thy works;” and to the church at Pergamos He said in Revelation 2:13, “I know thy works;” and now He says to the church in Thyatira, “I know thy works.”  Then the Lord will speak to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:1, “I know thy works;” and He will speak to the church in Philadelphia in Revelation 3:8, “I know thy works;” and, finally, He will speak to the seventh and last church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:15, “I know thy works.” To every church the Lord made this statement, and He certainly does know their works.

Of the seven churches that the Lord said that He knew their works, five of them was said in a positive way, like the church in Thyatira.  Regarding two of the churches, it was not positive.  For instance, He said to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:1: “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”  And He said to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:15: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.”  We can see that both of these statement were not positive, but to the remaining churches it was fairly positive. 

Again, to the church at Thyatira, the Lord said in Revelation 2:19:

I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works…

The Lord repeats that twice, and then He lists: charity, service, faith, and patience.  By the way, these things would also be “works.”  Charity is another word for love, and Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep me commandments.”  And if we keep His commandments, that is a work.  But the Lord is making a general statement that He knows the works of the church in Thyatira, and that would also represent the works found in the congregations throughout the church age.  It would be good works that were pleasing to God, like works of obedience to His commandments concerning the ministry of the Gospel, and concerning various Laws that the Word of God declared.  Yes, the churches had “high places,” and they failed to keep the Law perfectly, but they did some things right, and God was recognizing, “I know thy works,” and more specifically, He lists charity, service, faith, and patience.   

Charity really has to do with sharing the Word of God with sinners that they might hear and become saved, and it had to do with continuing to minister to them during the period of being under the hearing of the Gospel during the church age, and so on.

And the word “service” is a Greek word pronounced “dee-ak-on-ee'-ah,” which is often translated as “ministry.”  For instance, it says in 1Corinthians 16:15:

I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,)

That is the same word for “service.”  The Corinthians were also a church, and they were doing right by obeying the Lord and His commandment to minister the Gospel to others.  They addicted themselves to the ministry.  There is nothing wrong with a good “addiction.”  The word “addiction” often has a very negative connotation, as well it should, because most people get addicted to harmful things like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and other things that are not good.  But if we “addict” ourselves to something good, it is a wonderful thing.  It is a wonderful thing to do something good, over and over.

A child of God may addict himself to reading the Bible.  Believe it, or not, you will find people that will find fault with that: “You know, there are other books out there.  Why not read something else?”  They may even get a disgusted look on their face because you are reading the Bible again.  And yet these people probably would have no qualms about someone with an evil addiction,  They may not say a word about that.  It is only because reading the Bible is a good thing that it is annoying to them.  That is the nature of man.  Man often does what is contrary to good.  If we have an addiction that is good and which is comforting, strengthening, and encouraging, like reading the Word of God or sharing these truths with others (addicting ourselves to the ministry), it is a wonderful thing, and there is no Law of God against it.  There is no Law of God against doing that which is good.

People often feel constrained because there are laws doing that which is evil, and that is their “bent,” and that is the direction their hearts want to go, and their desires lean in that direction, so laws forbidding evil is something they find too confining and troubling, and it impacts their freedom.  They want to be free to do as they wish and to commit evil.  That is the fact.  That is the truth, and we see it all over this world.  That is man’s nature.

When we think about it, only the Bible is so perfectly accurate in its description of mankind.  We could wonder what is wrong with man as we listen to the world speak of how they are basically good.  We could wonder, “Well, what is the problem that man cannot get it together and straighten themselves out, and live in peace, and do good things?”  But we do not wonder that at all because the Bible tells us about the heart of man.  We know from the Word of God what is in man, and we are not surprised when we see the daily reports of constant wickedness that engulfs this world in the United States, South America, Canada, China, Russia, India, Asia, Africa, and all over the earth.  There is just intense wickedness, and it is not just the “lower class” or poor people.  It is not just the middle class, but we find evil being committed by all people throughout all classes.  It does not matter what their education may be, what they look like, what color they are, or what religion they are, because evil predominates everywhere in this world in the heart of man. 

And it is only the Bible that quickly sums it up and tells us that man is desperately wicked, and man has a deceitful heart above all things.   It is only the Bible that says, “There is none good, no not one.”  The Bible tells us the truth.  It does not paint a flattering and rosy picture of man.  It tells us exactly what the problem is, and that is one of the reasons the natural man does not want to hear from the Bible.  He prefers a lie.  He prefers the lie he tells himself: “I am basically a good guy.”  He likes to hear the lies from others, “Yes, you are so good, so generous, and so kind,” rather than hearing what the Bible tells him about what flows out of the heart of man, a constant flow of ugliness, filthiness, and nothing good.

So the Gospel goes into the world, and the Lord sent it forth via the churches, and they did accomplish good works in that regard for many centuries, although that did not apply to all churches.  And certainly not any church fulfilled God’s Word perfectly, but to some degree some of the churches did do the work of the Lord, and God was blessing them as the Lord Jesus was in the midst of them, and He commended them: “I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith…”  Why does it mention faith?  We were saved by the faith of Christ.  As the Lord saved us and we were justified by His faith, He gave His people new resurrected souls.  He placed His Holy Spirit in His people, and the fruit of the Spirit developed, and one of those fruits is faith.  So the people of God exhibit and demonstrate faith.  We believe God.  We trust God.  We believe the Bible, and we trust and lean upon the Word of God.

Here in Revelation 2:19, the people of God are commended for their faith and patience.  The Christian life is one of waiting upon the Lord.  Even before we became a Christian, we had to wait on the Lord that He might bestow His grace and mercy upon us in salvation.  We could not force it.  We could not make God do that.  So believers cried out to the Lord that He might have mercy, but salvation was not instantaneous.  We had to wait for God and His timing.  It started there, and it continues in every other area, as Romans 12:7 tells us, “…Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering…”  If we want to minister, we must go to the Lord and pray that He would help us, and that He would open doors and present opportunities, and that He would supply the resources and people necessary, and so forth.  We do not just jump into it, but we wait on God for our ministering.

Likewise, the child of God waits upon the Lord for a wife or a husband, and we take every aspect of our life to Him (in prayer).  Patience is involved. 

Of course the corporate churches were responsible to send the Gospel out, and to wait on God and His timetable for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to complete the promises of God in the Bible.  Throughout history, God’s people have had to wait upon the Lord.  The Old Testament saints had to wait for the coming Messiah.  We had to wait for God to come in judgment, and now we are waiting for the Lord to complete that judgment and end all things, and for Him to create a new heaven and new earth.  We patiently wait for Him to fulfill all Scripture and all promises of the Bible.

Again, it says in Revelation 2:19:

I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works…

The Lord says “thy works” a second time, and then concludes in Revelation 2:19:

… and the last to be more than the first.

This fits with this “doubling” of works – there are the “first works,” and there are the “last works.”  We learned when God was addressing the church in Ephesus, He said in Revelation 2:5:

Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick…

And here in Revelation 2:19, we read of “works,” a duplicated statement.  The Lord mentions it once, and then He mentions other attributes, and then He concludes with the same words, “thy works, and the last to be more than the first.”  This would seem to point to God looking at the church age as a whole, and there were early works, or first works, and there were latter works that occurred later in the history of the church.  For instance, we can look at the time of the Reformation, hundreds of years ago, and that was really toward the latter end of the church age during the 1400s or 1500s, which was at least 1,400 years from the beginning of the church age.  The church age would end after 1,955 years in the year 1988 A. D., so those “works” were later.

Even the mission work of the churches and congregations really just began to take off in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, as God’s people traveled to the far reaches of the earth to evangelize people who had never heard the Gospel.  The churches did a good work in reaching out in that way to bring the Word of God to those lands, and to translate the Word into various languages.  So there were early works, and there were works that occurred later, like works dealing with doctrines during the Reformation when doctrines were refined to some degree, and then there were works involved with the spreading of the Word of God through missionaries over the last few centuries of the church age.

Here, the Lord seems to be commending the church at Thyatira, but He is really commending the overall work of the corporate churches in being faithful to the command, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel...”

Let us move on to Revelation 2:20:

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.

We notice right away that this verse is similar to what we read in Revelation 2:14:

But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

Of course verse 20 refers to a different character.  We read about Balaam being a false prophet.  Here in Revelation 20:20 it is not Balaam, but Jezebel: “…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.”  These are the two same sins that are listed in verse 14.  So there are some similarities and some differences.

First, we want to read to see what the Bible has to say about Jezebel, and to get a better idea of why God is signaling her out.  By the way, this is the only place in the New Testament where Jezebel is mentioned.  She is only found in the Old Testament, so let us go back to 1Kings 18, and we will read of Jezebel’s great wickedness.  It says in 1Kings 18:4:

For it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of JEHOVAH, that Obadiah took an hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)

I am unsure of what it means that she cut them off.  Let us go down to verse 13 where Obadiah was conversing with Elijah, and it says in 1Kings 18:13:

Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of JEHOVAH, how I hid an hundred men of the JEHOVAH'S prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water?

So we see that Jezebel slew the prophets of JEHOVAH.  She had them killed, and that was just one of many evils in which she was involved. 

In 1Kings 21, Ahab was sad and depressed because he wanted Naboth’s vineyard, but Naboth refused to give it to him.  Jezebel heard about it, and it says in 1Kings 21:5-10:

But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth. And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people: And set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die.

They did exactly that, and Naboth was stoned to death, murdered by the evil plot of Jezebel.  Then Jezebel told Ahab that Naboth was dead, and he could have his vineyard.  Then Ahab went to Naboth’s vineyard, but the Lord sent Elijah the prophet there to meet him, and it says in 1Kings 21:19-24:

And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith JEHOVAH, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith JEHOVAH, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine. And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of JEHOVAH. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also spake JEHOVAH, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.

The Lord had Elijah to declare these things to Ahab.  Ahab was struck by them, and he put on sackcloth and ashes, and he delayed the judgment as far as he was concerned, but we read that Jezebel was killed by Jehu, and she was thrown down from a wall and the dogs did eat her.  We will take a closer look at that, and we will discuss the spiritual meaning of these things, and how they relate to our verse in Revelation 2.