Revelation 2:22
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
Revelation 2:22 belongs to the message to Thyatira, one of the messages to the seven churches in Asia given in Revelation chapters 1 to 3, and especially chapter 2. The names of the churches are symbolic of the Christian church in different periods of the Christian era, and the number seven indicates completeness, showing that the messages extend to the end of time, portray the state of things existing in the churches of the religious world today, and are in force today. The message to Thyatira pictures a church full of zeal and activity whose charities and zeal are endangered by false teachers. Its figures are symbolic of the state of God's professed people, with wheat developing among tares and with truth standing on its own eternal basis in contrast with error.
The verse shows Christ weighing the characters of those who take His name, with every individual under His supervision, for He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart as well as every word and act and knows all about each one's religious experience and whom each loves and serves, which calls for close self-examination. The verse belongs to the warning to prepare to meet the Lord in the clouds of heaven at His coming with power and great glory, confronts indifference to the signs foretold by Christ, and gives evidence that the end of the world is right upon us. The verse must be heeded to understand what it means to lose first love, and heeding it corrects little faith.
The verse calls for daily advance to receive the saving grace of God through watchfulness and prayer in faith by the gift of the Holy Spirit, by seeking the Lord with all the heart, loving God supremely and neighbor as self, respecting those who have borne the burden in the heat of the day, and humbling the heart before God so it is safe for Him to work with and for His people, and then truth prospers and goes forth as a burning lamp. That danger is present today when worldly schemes and interests absorb time and attention and let the work languish, so Christ as the true Watchman bids workers to come into line with the progressive work He has outlined, to arouse, and to labor with far greater earnestness, faith, and self-sacrifice.