In this message we shall cover two further stages of the church, the stages signified by the church in Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29) and the church in Sardis (3:1-6).
The church in Thyatira is the church in apostasy. “Thyatira” in Greek means “sacrifice of perfume” or “unceasing sacrifice.” As a sign, the church in Thyatira prefigures the Roman Catholic Church, which was fully formed as the apostate church by the establishment of the universal papal system in the latter part of the sixth century. This apostate church is full of sacrifices, as demonstrated in her unceasing mass. This apostate church will remain until the Lord’s coming back.
In 2:19 the Lord says, “I know your works and love and faith and service and your endurance, and that your last works are more than the first.” The apostate Catholic Church has many works and services. Her works in the last days are more than in the past.
The church in Thyatira is a continuation of the worldly church, pre-symbolized by the church in Pergamos. The church in Pergamos had the teaching of the Gentile prophet Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans, that is, the teaching of a clerical system. The Catholic Church continues these teachings, the teaching of Balaam to bring people into idol worship and fornication and the teaching of the Nicolaitans to build up the hierarchy. In the Catholic Church today there is a strong teaching concerning the building up of a religious organization with its hierarchy.
One of the crucial points in the epistle to the church in Thyatira concerns the woman Jezebel. The Lord refers to her in verse 20. “I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My slaves astray to commit fornication and to eat idol sacrifices.” This is the very woman prophesied by the Lord in Matthew 13:33, the woman who added leaven (signifying evil, heretical, and pagan things) into the fine flour (signifying Christ as the meal offering for the satisfaction of God and man). This woman is also the great prostitute of Revelation 17, who mixes abominations with the divine things. The pagan wife of Ahab, Jezebel, was a type of this apostate church.
In verse 20 the Lord indicates that the apostate church is a self-appointed prophetess. A prophet is one who speaks for God with His authorization. The apostate Catholic Church presumes to be authorized by God to speak for Him. She demands that people listen to her rather than to God. Her adherents are all drugged by her heretical, religious teaching, not caring for Christ as their life and life supply, as indicated by the tree of life and the hidden manna promised by the Lord to the churches in Ephesus and Pergamos (2:7, 17).
Matthew 13:33 says, “Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” Sound teachers of the Bible recognize that the Jezebel in Revelation 2:20 is the same woman prophesied by the Lord in Matthew 13:33. The great harlot in Revelation 17 is also the same woman. Thus, the woman in Matthew 13 is the Jezebel in Revelation 2, and Jezebel becomes the great harlot who is called the great Babylon in Revelation 17. The Jezebel in the Old Testament (1 Kings 16:31) was a prefigure of “the woman Jezebel” in Revelation 2:20. When the Lord spoke to the church in Thyatira, He said that there was a present-day Jezebel. According to history, this present-day Jezebel undoubtedly is the apostate church, the Roman Catholic Church. In using the name Jezebel, the Lord was reminding us of what Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, did. She came from a heathen background and brought pagan things into the worship of God by His people. This is the crucial and most central point in the epistle to Thyatira. The principle of the deeds of the apostate church is to mix the heathen, pagan things with the worship of God by His people. She helps God’s people to worship Him, but she does not do so in God’s way; rather, she does it in her own heathen, pagan way.
The Roman Catholic Church has leavened everything related to Christ. This is indicated by the words “the whole was leavened” in Matthew 13:33. The Roman Catholic Church does have Christ, the meal, but it has put leaven into the meal.
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