“I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.”
Revelation 2:19-20
The church in Thyatira was a faithful church for the most part. Unlike Ephesus where they abandoned their first love, the believers in Thyatira exceeded their early devotion with even greater service. However, there was a woman who arose there as a teacher and prophetess who had gained a following, and the church was tolerating her rather than addressing her false teaching and immorality. The Jezebel account is found in 1 Kings.
“And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him. And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him.”
1 Kings 16:30-31
There was a direct connection between King Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel of Sidon and his worship of Baal, a foreign god. As God had warned the kings of Israel, marriage to foreigners would lead the hearts of the people away from the Lord their God.
Check out this excellent summary of the Day of the Lord from the Bible Project. It provides a brief history of the term “Babylon” in Scripture and how God consistently stepped in to confront the evil of different worldly powers.
Notice in Revelation how “the beast” is connected to an immoral woman.
“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.”
Revelation 17:3
The spiritual forces of evil have always used “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” to entice people to rebel against God (Gen. 3:6; Matt 4:3; 1 Jn. 2:16). This alliance of Satan with Babylon is pictured in the woman riding on the beast. While the way of Babylon is to use violence and the fear of death to manipulate people, the way of Satan is to tempt us with our own selfish desires. Together these enemies are formidable indeed.
But look at how these temporary allies will turn on one another in the end:
“And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”
Revelation 17:16-18
The warning to all who choose the way of Babylon and give in to the temptations of this world is that they will share the final fate of Babylon and participate in its terrible downfall (read Revelation 18). As the video above showed, even God’s people can become “Babylon” by forsaking justice and mercy, making themselves enemies of God (see Amos 5 before you start demanding “the Day of the Lord”).
But look at the promise for those who resist these temptations and stand firm to the end.
“The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.”
Revelation 2:26-27
This is a direct reference to Psalm 2 and the promised victory of the Messiah. Those who follow the way of Jesus and stand firm in Him through tribulation will participate in His eternal rule instead of the enemy’s eternal destruction.
Our culture is full of Jezebels who preach and practice immorality and would seduce all listeners to follow their ways. Anything that turns our hearts away from God and His holiness is the voice of Jezebel and the siren song of Babylon.
Where have you tolerated the voice of Jezebel? How can we fight for holiness together this week?