REVELATION
CHAPTER 2:18-29, “Letter To
By
1.
INTRODUCTION
1.1.
In our last
study, we looked at the letter of Jesus
to the churches of
1.1.1. Smyrna was a church that was
going through tremendous persecution and because of this it had been purified
to the point that Jesus had no rebuke for it, but only an admonishment to not fear,
and an encouragement that if they endured faithful to the end that they would
be rewarded with a “crown of life”
1.1.2.
1.1.2.1.We saw how important it is
that the church not be compromised by being joined to any other purpose than
that which the Lord has called her to
1.1.2.2.We also saw how important it
is that the church learn to discipline those who go astray from the clear
teaching and practice of the word of God
1.2.
In our study today, we are going to look at the letter from Christ to the
church in Thyatira
1.2.1. We will see that for those
who see the seven churches representing the church throughout various periods
of history, this church represents in church history the “papal church”,
or the church from the middle of the Dark Ages until the period of the
Reformation
1.2.2. The church had many good
deeds
1.2.3. The church however was
putting up with the wicked teachings and influence of Jezebel
2.
VS 2:18 - “18 “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like
burnished bronze, says this:” - Jesus tells John to dictate a
letter from Him to the church in Thyatira
2.1.
In this verse,
Christ is now going to address the
2.2.
Before I get into
my commentary, I want to pause just for a moment. Since there have been so many jokes about the
pope, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share just one harmless one here:
The
Pope was riding around
Pope: Driver, could
you please pull over? I want to drive.
Driver: O.K. your
holiness...whatever you say. So the
driver pulls over, switches places with the pope, and the Pope starts to drive.
The pope got the hang of it before long, and decided to put the pedal to the
metal. A few minutes later, a police officer signals the limo to pull over...
Officer: License and reg...(sees that it's the Pope). Oh, well....um... let me radio
headquarters...um...I'll be right back.
The
officer radios headquarters....
Officer: Chief, I just pulled over a very important man. What
should I do?
Chief: Well, how
important is he? Is he a Governor?
Officer: No, he's more
important than that.
Chief: Is he a
Congressman?
Officer: Nope...more
important than a Congressman.
Chief: Surely he
can't be more important than the president!
Officer: Well....
Chief: Good God!!
Who did you pull over???
Officer: I dunno who he is, but who ever he is he's got the
Pope driving him around!!
2.3.
About the city of
2.3.1. Thyatira was located about forty miles east of
Pergamus in this area known today as
2.3.2. Of the seven cities, Thyatira appears to be the least significant
political center.
2.3.3. It was mainly known as being a trade center, with many
trade guilds.
2.3.4. In the book of Acts, Paul’s first convert in
2.4.
Something worth
noting here is that this letter to
Thyatira is quite a bit longer than the other letters.
2.5.
Before I begin to
discuss the church at Thyatira and what is directed to the church by Christ, I
want to say first of all is that it has occurred numerous times in my Christian
experience that a non-believer has asked me to come to the defense of the
church during some particular period or periods of church history. This is often an objection that comes up when
witnessing to a non-Christian. People
often object to becoming a Christian because of something that has occurred in
the history of the church such as the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades,
etc. Really when I look at the history of the church though, there is no
period of time subsequent to the period documented in the book of Acts, that is
not filled with corruption of some sort.
In fact, the whole history of
the church subsequent to the book of Acts is mostly a big trash heap, as far as
I am concerned, and with few exceptions.
I can’t defend it, and I won’t.
All I can do is look at that first generation of the church as recorded
in the book of Acts in order to see the church as she ought to be, but I cannot
say the same thing about any other period of time. So, as we look at the period we will look at
today of the Roman church from the dark ages until the reformation, I can say
that though I am critical of the church during that time, I am also critical of
it in every other time. In fact, those
who point to the church of Thyatira as being the Roman Church during the dark
ages, they must also look at the church of Sardis as being the protestant
church of the Reformation, and as we see from the letter to the church of
Sardis there was nothing that the Lord says is good about that church. At least the church in Thyatira had many good
things going on in it, and in fact Christ says that its latter deeds were
better than its earlier ones.
2.6.
The name of the city of Thyatira means “continual sacrifice”, and some would point to the fingerprint of the Holy
Spirit in this name since this church seems to symbolize the Roman church
during the dark ages, and the Roman
Catholic “mass” is thought by many to be a denial of the what the Bible
teaches as the “once-for-all-sacrifice of Christ” for the sins of all
mankind as it is considered by Catholics to be a non-bloody sacrifice of Christ
for the believer as received in the bread and the wine which literally become
the body and blood of Christ during the service (Transubstantiation). In
the Roman system, a person supposedly becomes a Christian not by having a
salvation experience with Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, but rather by
joining the church. Then, all of the
sacraments of the church impart grace to the church member who is trying to
live his life in such a way as to establish his righteousness before God based
upon his works. The Roman Catholic
church makes the believer dependent upon the church for everything in the
spiritual realm, and thus instead of the believer being taught to go to Christ
directly for grace and help in time of need, the believer is taught to go to
the church.
2.7.
Conversely, the Bible teaches that a person is saved by his faith in
Christ’s completed work on the cross, not
by his works. The Bible also teaches the “priesthood of the believer”. Instead of having to go through a human intermediary
to get to God, each individual believer is considered by God to be a priest
unto God himself. Having direct access
to God through Christ, the believer as a priest can intercede for others in
prayer and lead others to salvation through faith in Christ.
2.8.
So, as a result
of these things and many more, the Roman Catholic Church has kept its people in
a form of bondage and darkness as regards the truth, from the time of the
middle ages until the present day.
2.9.
We saw that the
previous letter to
2.10. In the
2.11. What the church at Thyatira
is rebuked for in this letter for not opposing a woman who is designated by the name of Jezebel. Now, she may have really had that name,
however more probably Christ is saying
through the use of this name that her deeds were a direct parallel to the
wicked woman of the Old Testament who was the wife of wicked King Ahab. We will talk more about Jezebel later in the
commentary on this chapter.
2.12. In this letter to the church
at Thyatira, we have to see first of all that what Christ reveals about Himself, ‘The Son
of God, has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze,’
is primarily something which refers to
the fiery wrath of His impending judgment.
2.12.1.The first thing however that Christ reveals about
Himself is that He is the ‘Son of
God.’ Now this may not at
first glance seem significant, however this is the first time that the
scripture has Jesus referring to Himself directly as the ‘Son of God’. He refers to Himself normally through some
sort of an obscure reference that seems to hide to a degree who He is, such as
“Son of man.”
2.12.2.Secondly, Christ refers to Himself as He who ‘has eyes like a flame of fire’. This is the same description which John gives
of the vision of Christ which he had in chapter 1, and when we were there, in
my commentary I mentioned that these flaming eyes are symbolic of the fact that
Christ sees through everything to see the real motives and intentions of each
person’s heart. This all-knowing
characteristic of Christ which is communicated by Christ is evidence of
impending judgment for this church if she does not repent of her sins.
2.12.3.Third, Christ refers to Himself as He whose ‘feet are like burnished bronze.’ This is likewise identical to John’s
description of Jesus given in chapter 1, and what I mentioned about this in
chapter 1 is that ‘bronze’ is a composite metal that is formed by the
intense heat of fire, and that this was then a reference of the fire of God’s
wrath that is ready to burn up and consume His enemies. The church in Thyatira ought to have taken
seriously this sternest of warnings found in this letter.
3.
VS 2:19 - “19 ‘I know your deeds, and your love and faith and
service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at
first.” - Jesus tells the church in Thyatira that He
knows their deeds
3.1.
In this verse, Christ reveals to the church in Thyatira the
things that He knows about them.
Because of His omniscience, He knows their ‘deeds’. He will one day be able to judge the world
with complete and impartial fairness and justice, and this is because being God
He knows the reality of all that ever goes on in all of creation.
3.2.
Christ gives the
church a commendation by telling them that He knows their ‘love and faith and service and perseverance’. The church had many good things going for
it. For the most part, they had God’s ‘love’
for people, they had ‘faith’ in God and His Word, and they had
faithfully served Him.
3.2.1. I wonder how this church in Thyatira viewed itself
before God. I imagine that they thought
that they were trying to be doers of God’s Word and not merely hearers, and
that they realized that faith by itself was really dead, and therefore they had
to show their faith by their works. They
probably thought they were doing pretty good then in their relationship with
God.
3.2.2. They were people who acted upon their faith.
3.3.
However, the big mistake of those who saw through the
deceptive and errant teaching of Jezebel was that they thought that they should
be open-minded concerning this woman who had been placed over them as a teacher,
and that they should not judge her sins or confront her for them, but rather
being more noble they would simply leave it to the Lord to correct her. However, in so doing they were allowing the
entire church itself to be corrupted in the sight of God.
3.3.1. If the church were to continue to have God’s favor
there was no other option, they must oppose this woman and remove her from her
position of leadership in the church.
3.3.2. She was probably the wife of the pastor or an elder in
the church, so their removing of her would have been a tremendously difficult
and trying experience for them.
3.4.
In His
commendation of the church in Thyatira, Christ does mention that their recent works were even greater than
their prior works.
4.
VS 2:20 - “20 ‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate the
woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My
bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things
sacrificed to idols.” - Jesus tells the Thyatirian church that He has
something against them
4.1.
The one and only thing that the Lord had against this
4.2.
About this woman Jezebel:
4.2.1. Christ says of Jezebel that she ‘calls herself a prophetess.’
In calling herself a ‘prophetess’, she is promoting herself, which
is something that any person who is walking with the Lord should not do, and
does not need to do.
4.2.2. It also is evident here that she has some doctrine or revelations which have not come from God, in
other words she is a “false prophet” who is proclaiming something
of herself which she is not. This is
then confirmed when Christ says, ‘she teaches and leads My bond-servants
astray’.
4.2.3. She was teaching for
doctrine things that would only lead people astray from the Lord.
4.3.
We ought to take
a second to notice that the scripture is very clear that a woman is not to be designated to be a
teacher over men, nor to be placed in a position of authority over men. Paul gave this directive in 1 Tim. 2:12-14, “12 But I do not allow a
woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it
was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was
deceived, but the woman being quite deceived, fell into transgression.”
4.3.1. So, this church had placed itself in direct opposition
with what Paul’s clear teaching was on this subject. Those who were mature in the church should
have known better than to allow this to occur in the church.
4.4.
In describing the heresy that
Jezebel had brought into the church, Christ says ‘they commit acts of immorality’. I don’t think that Jezebel was teaching that
it was OK in the sight of God to commit ‘fornication’ (sex outside of
marriage) in the literal sense, but rather that this was a symbolic reference
to general unfaithfulness to the Lord, which the scriptures denote as being
unto the Lord spiritual ‘fornication’ or ‘adultery’.
4.4.1. In Hosea 1:2-3,
we read that because the children of Israel had committed immorality by being
unfaithful to the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Hosea and told him to go and as
a sign to the people to marry a harlot, “2
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take
to yourself a wife of harlotry, and have children of harlotry; for the land
commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.” 3 So he went and took Gomer the
daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son”.
4.4.2. The reference here in the epistle to the church in
Thyatira is most likely a reference to spiritual fornication that had come
about “as a result of the false teaching” that had come from this woman
named Jezebel.
4.5.
Christ says that Jezebel had also caused the people in
the church in Thyatira to ‘eat things sacrificed to idols’, which
is probably a literal reference to the eating without discrimination of meat
bought in the market place which had previously been sacrificed to idols. This is something that Paul told the church
not to do, so that in not doing it they would keep a weaker brother who perhaps
had previously been involved in idolatry from stumbling in that sin of his
weakness.
4.6.
Before we go any further, we ought to take a look at who this woman
Jezebel was from the Old Testament.
4.6.1. First of all, we see that Jezebel’s husband, Ahab, walked in the ways of Jeroboam,
had set the golden calves to be
worshipped in
4.6.2. However, Ahab was even worse than Jeroboam, for he was
the wickedest king of all (which is quit an epitaph). Ahab
married this woman Jezebel, even though she was not Jewish, but the
daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians.
Then, Ahab immediately went about worshipping Baal, and
he even built an altar to Baal.
4.6.2.1.These things are recorded in 1 Kings 16:31-33, “31 And it came about, as though it had been a
trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he
married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to
serve Baal and worshipped him. 32 So he erected an altar for Baal in the house
of Baal, which he built in
4.6.3. We remember from 1 Kings that after Elijah had first challenged and then led in the killing of the 450 prophets
of Baal, that later when he had heard that Jezebel was plotting to kill him he
fled into the wilderness and got very depressed because he was so
fearful of this very revengeful and murderous woman.
4.6.4. Then we see in
1 Kings 21, that when Ahab was depressed because Naboth would not sell him his
vineyard, that Jezebel told him not to be depressed because she would take care
of seeing that he got it. So she
sent out letters with Ahab’s seal upon them requesting a public fast to be
held. Then, during this get together
some men were to lyingly testify against Naboth that he had blasphemed God, and
then they were to see that he was taken out and stoned to death. This plot was then carried out, and this was
how that Jezebel obtained Naboth’s vineyard for Ahab.
4.6.5. In 1 Kings
21:22-25, it is written that the punishment
for Jezebel was so severe that she would not be buried and the dogs would eat
her body, “22 and I will make
your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of
Baasha the son of Ahijah, because of the provocation with which you have
provoked Me to anger, and because you have made Israel sin. 23 “And of Jezebel
also has the Lord spoken, saying, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the district
of Jezreel.’ 24 “The one belonging to Ahab, who dies in the city, the dogs
shall eat, and the one who dies in the field the birds of heaven shall
eat.” 25 Surely there was no one like
Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his
wife incited him.”
4.6.6. Jezebel was always inciting
Ahab to do evil, and in fact as we look
at the stories about her, we see that she
was actually the one who was running the kingdom, not King Ahab.
4.6.6.1.This was surely also true of
the woman Jezebel in the church in Thyatira.
Jezebel had usurped her husband’s authority and was running things in
the church.
4.7.
Tim Lahaye, in his Revelation
commentary has the following quote about the various changes in doctrine and
practice that came in to the Roman church from paganism during this period that
the church in Thyatira represents, “
A.D. 607—Boniface III made first Pope
A.D. 709—Kissing the Pope’s foot
A.D. 786—worshipping of images and relics
A.D. 850—Use of “holy water” begun
A.D. 995—Canonization of dead saints
A.D. 998—Fasting of Fridays and during Lent
A.D. 1079—Celibacy of the priesthood
A.D. 1090—Prayer beads
A.D. 1184—The Inquisition
A.D. 1190—
A.D. 1215--Transubstantiation
A.D. 1220—Adoration of the wafer (host)
A.D. 1229—Bible forbidden to laypeople
A.D. 1414—Cup forbidden to people at Communion
A.D. 1439—Doctrine of purgatory decreed
A.D. 1439-- Doctrine of seven sacraments affirmed
A.D. 1508—The Ave Maria approved
A.D. 1534—Jesuit order founded
A.D. 1545—Tradition granted equal authority with
Bible
A.D. 1546—Apocryphal books put into Bible
A.D. 1854—Immaculate conception of Mary
A.D. 1864—Syllabus of Errors proclaimed
A.D. 1870—Infallibility of the Pope declared
A.D. 1930—Public schools condemned
A.D. 1965—Mary proclaimed Mother of the Church”
5.
VS 2:21 - “21 ‘And I gave her time to repent; and she does not
want to repent of her immorality.” - Jesus tells the Thytirian
church that He had given Jezebel time to repent
5.1.
Christ gives the warning to the
church in this verse that He has
already given Jezebel ‘time to repent’, and that she ‘does not want
to repent of her immorality’.
This means that all that is left at this point is to deal with her
severely in judgment, or according to her works (which is not a good thing to
happen to anyone).
5.2.
Again, ‘immorality’
can be taken to mean literal sexual fornication, but I believe even here it means spiritual ‘fornication’,
or disobedience to God. However,
in addition to her being a false prophet and leading the church astray, Jezebel may also have practiced sexual
immorality.
5.3.
To the person who
refuses to yield his or her life to God is promised the certainty of the
judgment of hell, for Jesus said that only those who do His will shall be saved
(Matt. 7:21).
5.4.
The book of
Revelation makes some things very clear, and here with this woman Jezebel and
this church in Thyatira, it becomes clear that though the Lord is patient with people who are in rebellion against Him,
there will eventually come a time if they continue unrepentant, when the Lord
will judge them according to their deeds, and the unrepentant shall be
fully recompensed for all of their sins.
It is a much better plan for you to allow your sins to be judged in
Christ and His death on the cross than to have to come before the Lord on the
day of judgment and receive your full punishment for them, and then be cast
into hell for eternity.
6.
VS 2:22-23 - “22 ‘Behold, I will cast her upon a bed of sickness,
and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they
repent of her deeds. 23 ‘And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all
the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I
will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” - Jesus tells the Thyatirian church about how
He is going to judge Jezebel
6.1.
In these two
verses are several promises related to the severe judgment that will be
awaiting the woman who is called Jezebel in the church at Thyatira:
6.1.1. First of all,
Christ will ‘cast her upon a bed of sickness’, which would
indicate some sort of illness or disease which will come as a judgment upon
her.
6.1.2. Secondly, for
those who follow her teachings, Christ promises that they will go ‘into
great tribulation’ unless they repent of ‘her deeds’, or the
deeds that they learned from her.
6.1.2.1.Now, if this church symbolizes historically the Roman
church, then what is promised her is that when Christ returns for His church,
that the unrepentant in that church will not go with Him, but will instead
enter that seven year period that is discussed later on in the book as the ‘Great
Tribulation’.
6.1.3. Third, it is promised that in judgment against
Jezebel, that He ‘will kill her
children with pestilence’, which is a promise of some sort of disease
which will take the lives of her children (whether they are her spiritual
children who follow her doctrine or her children of physical descent).
6.1.4. Fourth, it is promised by Christ that when He judges Jezebel, that ‘all the
churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts’. Since He has said that He will do this, when
these things befall her, her children, and all who follow her teaching, then
all of the other churches will observe this and know that Christ is God, and as
God who knows what is within every person’s heart, and none shall escape His
judgment.
6.1.5. Fifth, I mentioned once before that when the Lord says
that He will give to us according to our deeds, that this is really not good
news for us. This is the final aspect of
judgment coming to the church because of Jezebel, and it pertains to everyone, ‘I will give to each one of you according
to your deeds’.
6.2.
If this letter
symbolizes the Roman Church during the period of the papacy (until the time of
the Reformation), and yet this church still remains today (something which is
true of all of these churches since there are some of these characteristics in
churches today), then perhaps there is a reference here to those who remain
unrepentant up until the time when the church is raptured. Then, those unrepentant ones will not be
taken by Christ in the Rapture, but they will end up going through the seven
years of the ‘Great Tribulation’.
6.2.1. The Roman Catholic church appears after the rapture of
the church to be one of the vehicles for the “anti-Christ” to be able to
come to world power during the 7 Year Tribulation period. After all,
7.
VS 2:24 - “24 ‘But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira,
who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as
they call them—I place no other burden on you.” - Jesus tells the Thytirian church that for
those who did not hold the teachings of Jezebel that He would place no other
burden on them
7.1.
This verse declares that the “immorality” that was discussed by Christ in this letter to the
church at Thyatira is actually a ‘teaching’
that was being taught by Jezebel.
7.2.
Christ tells the
rest of the church at Thyatira, those
who ‘do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan,
as they call them’, that He places no other burden upon them. This is because it is enough that they are
already enduring a great amount of trial and testing by refusing to accept this
false ‘teaching’ of Jezebel, even though most in the church have
embraced her.
7.3.
Jezebel’s teaching is described as ‘the deep things of Satan’, and not only is it described this way, but the adherents
themselves call Jezebel’s doctrine this very thing. This
type of religious activity is common in some cult groups in the world
today. They have their secret rites and
secret knowledge that one can gain by going through these rites.
7.3.1. For instance, the Masons have secret knowledge that is gained through their secret
rites. This knowledge gained in the
rites of the Masons is actually knowledge about the worship of demons.
7.3.2. Likewise, the Mormons
have their secret knowledge that they get when they go into their temple for
these rites, including the rite of marriage itself.
7.3.3. Evidently, in the church in
Thyatira there was some sort of secret knowledge such as this which was being taught by this self-proclaimed
prophetess Jezebel. I wonder if Jezebel
was into the Gnostic heresy which declared its adherents would received a
secret knowledge…
7.4.
We Christians
need to beware whenever anyone tells us
that we can go through some secret rites and gain some secret knowledge in this
way. This should always be a red
flag for us to stay away from that sort of thing. The knowledge of God is freely available to
all, as it is contained right within the pages of our Bible.
7.5.
There is a saying
that I have always appreciated, and it goes like this, “If it’s really true, its not new, and if its really new, its not
true.” We need to beware
whenever someone comes up to us and has some new revelation from God or some
new teaching that the church has never known before. This is almost surely going to be a false
teaching or revelation.
8.
VS 2:25 - “25 ‘Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I
come.” - Jesus tells the Thyatirian church to hold
fast to what they have until He comes
8.1.
The exhortation which Christ gives to the faithful brethren in Thyatira was to ‘hold fast what you have until’ He comes for them. Now, this is the first time that the second coming of Christ is mentioned in these letters. This is the first church for which Christ
says that He is coming for those who are the faithful remnant.
8.2.
To ‘hold fast’ means to be unmoved in their faith and convictions, especially
as concerning this heresy that was being taught by this woman Jezebel.
8.3.
We Christians must always make sure that we never lose the things that
the Lord has taught us and worked into our life. We must not let our faith or our
beliefs gradually erode, for Jesus taught us that if we lose what we have then
we will have everything taken away from us in Matt. 13:12, “12 “For whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he
shall have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be
taken away from him.”
9.
VS 2:26-28 - “26 ‘And he who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds
until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; 27 and he shall rule them with a rod of iron,
as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received
authority from My Father; 28 and I will give him the morning star.” - Jesus gives promised blessings to those who
are overcomers
9.1.
The promise which Christ gives to the ones who overcome and do not
succumb to the teaching of heresy, is
that the overcomer will in the Millenium be given ‘authority over the nations’, and that ‘he shall rule them with a rod of iron’,
and that his rod shall break the ‘vessels of the potter’.
9.2.
Christ says that
He has ‘received authority from’ His Father, and thus He is able to give
that authority to whomsoever that He wishes.
9.3.
The last promise
that is made to the overcomer is that He
will ‘give him the morning star’.
9.3.1. Jesus calls Himself ‘The
Morning Star’ in Revelation 22:16.
9.3.2. Likewise,
Peter makes an interesting promise concerning ‘the morning star’ in 2
Peter 1:19, “19 And so we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which
you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the
day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts”.
9.3.3. ‘The morning star’ is
also another name for Venus, because is
often the first stellar light to be seen in the morning because of its
brightness. In Luke 1:78 there is perhaps a reference to ‘the morning star’,
“78 Because of the tender mercy of
our God, With which the
9.3.4. Perhaps all of the
references to ‘the morning star’ are pointing to the Lord promising to
the overcomer to shed new light to him daily
just as the light of the first star that shines each morning.
9.4.
We must keep the
blessing before us: Christ promises to us ‘the morning star’
if we will be an overcomer. Such
precious light will be shed upon us new each morning if we will but cause
ourselves to walk in that same light by day.
9.4.1. There is nothing that is good that can be said about
darkness. One does not know where he
goes, what he is doing, or what is happening in the darkness, for he is blind
to the true light of God.
9.4.2. However, we who are God’s children have been promised
new light from Him for every day.
10.
VS 2:29 - “29 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
says to the churches.’” - Jesus tells those who have an ear to hear
what the Spirit is saying to the churches
10.1. Just as in the previous letters, Christ challenges
everyone who has ‘an ear’ to ‘hear what the Spirit says to the
churches’, again implying that each of these letters have been written for
the edification of every believer in Christ.