THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Part 9
The Revelation Of Jesus Christ
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Message
to the Church in Sardis
The Words of Jesus written to the Church of Sardis
"To the angel of the church in Sardis
write:
These are the Words of Him Who holds the
Seven Spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a
reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains
and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of
My God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and
repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not
know at what time I will come to you.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who
have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with Me, dressed in white, for
they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will
never blot out his name from the Book of Life, but will acknowledge his name
before My Father and His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what The
Spirit says to the churches.
Rev
3:1-6 NIV
Though this church had gained a great reputation; a
name, and a very honorable one, a name for vitality and liveliness, for purity
of doctrine, unity, uniformity in worship, decency, and orderliness, yet, hypocrisy,
and a lamentable decay in doctrine was found in her.
With a reproof, and a very severe one, The Lord says
to her: I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
This church was not really what it was reputed to
be. They had a name to live, but they were dead; there was a form of Godliness,
but not the Power, a name to live, but not a principle of life.
If there was not a total privation of life, yet
there was a great deadness in their souls and in their services, a great
deadness in the spirits of their ministers, and a great deadness in their
ministrations, in their praying, in their preaching, in their converse, and a
great deadness in the people in hearing, in prayer, and in conversation; what
little life was yet left among them was, in a manner, expiring, ready to die.
Our Lord proceeds to give this degenerate church the
best advice: Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain...v. 2. He
advises them to be upon their watch. They had let down their watch. Whenever we
are off our watch, we lose ground, and therefore must return to our
watchfulness against sin, and against satan, and whatever is distraction to the
life and power of Godliness.
Church of Sardis was “reformation church,” with a
righteous remnant.”
1517-1700 A.D.