Chapter Ten/Abhorring the "Deep Things of Satan"

ABOUT 40 miles  southeast of Bergama (Pergamum) is the Turkish town of Akhisar.  Some 1,900 years ago, this town was the site of Thyatira. A traveling overseer could readily reach Thyatira by an inland road from Pergamum and then move in a circuit to the remaining congregations of Revelation chapter 3-Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.  Unlike Pergamum, Thyatira does not seem to have been an important center of emperor worship, but it did have shrines and temples dedicated to pagan gods. Thyatira was noteworthy as a commercial trading center. 

When Paul was preaching in Macedonia, he met up with a Thyatiran woman  named Lydia, a seller of purple. Lydia and all her household gladly accepted the message Paul was preaching and showed extraordinary hospitality.  (Acts 16:14, 15)  She became the first Thyatiran  on record to accept Christianity. In course of time, the city itself came to have a congregation of Christians.  Jesus directs his longest message there:  "And to the angel of the congregation in Thyatira write:  These are the things  that the Son of God says, he who has his eyes like a fiery flame, and his feet are like copper.."-Revelation 2:18.  

This is the only  time the expression "Son of God" appears in Revelation, although in other places Jesus does refer to Jehovah as "my Father."  (Revelation 2:27; 3:5, 21)  The use of the title here likely reminds Thyatiran Christians of Jesus' intimacy with Jehovah.  This  Son "had eyes like a fiery flame " - a warning  to the Christians in Thyatira that his judgment will blaze against anything that he sees to be defiling  in the congregation.  By referring  for a second time to his glowing copperlike feet, he emphasizes his own shining example of faithfulness while walking on this earth.  The Christians in Thyatira no doubt heeded his counsel, and so must we today! -1 Peter 2:21.

Happily, Jesus can commend those in Thyatira. He says:  "I know your deeds, and you love, and faith and ministry and endurance, and that your deeds of late are more than those formerly."  (Revelation 2:19)  Unlike the Ephesians, the anointed Christians there have not lost  their first love of Jehovah. Their faith is strong. Furthermore,  their deeds are more  than those formerly, and like the three preceding congregations, the Christians in Thyatira are enduring. How typical    of the 54,000 and more congregations  of Jehovah's Witnesses  throughout the earth today!  Love for Jehovah shines  through, as a spirit of zeal in the ministry permeates the organization, stimulating young and old. An increasing number  expend themselves as pioneers, thus using  wisely the yet remaining time to proclaim the glorious hope of God's incoming Kingdom! - Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:10.  

For decades, many faithful ones, both of the anointed remnant and of the great crowd, have been showing exemplary endurance  in God's service, while the world around them has been plunging deeper and deeper into a hopeless gloom.  But let us be of good courage!! Revelation confirms the testimony of God's earlier prophets.  "The great day of Jehovah is near. It is near, and there is a hurrying of it very much." - Zephaniah 1:14; Joel 2:1; Habakkuk 2:3; Revelation 7:9; 22:12, 13. 

Next time: Chapter Ten/ Abhorring the "Deep Things of Satan" 

From the book of Revelation