VIII. Sardis

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Dec 20, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 50.

“Let the Revelation speak and tell what is truth. . . . Uplift Jesus as the center of all hope.”

VIII. Sardis

The ancient city of Sardis was the opulent and luxurious capital of the renowned kingdom of Lydia, proverbial for its riches. Its last king, Croesus, was conquered by Cyrus, who is said to have found treasure of the value of $600,000,000. Sardis then passed to Alexander and his successors.

Under the Romans it rapidly declined in rank and importance. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the reign of Tiberius, but was rebuilt by that emperor’s order. Its inhabitants bore ill repute among the ancients for their voluptuous habits of life, slaves to the abominable goddess Cybele, where the ruins of her magnificent temple existed. We have no mention of a Christian church in this place in the Bible save in the Revelation. It was a fitting symbol of the post-Reformation churches. The ancient, opulent, voluptuous city is now a heap of ruins. A little village close by, called Sart, is composed of a few wandering Turkish tribes.

The Answer of the Text

[The answers are from the American Revised Version. Omitting questions, and disregarding sometimes the capital at the beginning and the period at the close of an answer, the text may be read continuously. In notes and comments both versions are used without designation.]

1. How does the Master introduce Himself to the congregation at Sardis?

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars.”

2. What does He assure them that He knows?

“I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.”

3. What admonitions are given?

“Be thou watchful, and establish the things that remain, which were ready to die: for I have found no works of thine perfected before my God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and didst hear; and keep it, and repent.”

4. What solemn warning is given?

“If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.”

5. What redeeming feature was found in Sardis?

“But thou hast a few names in Sardis that did not defile their garments: and they shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy.”

6. What promise is made to the overcomer?

“He that overcometh shall thus be arrayed in white garments; and I will in no wise blot his name out of the Book of Life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.”

7. What final admonition is given?

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.”

Note and Comment

1. “Sardis.”—The meaning of the name may have significance given by some as “song of joy.” If so it would rightly apply to the various Protestant bodies which broke from the thraldom of Romanism and found freedom in Christ; but alas, this condition did not continue. “The seven Spirits of God.”—First brought before us in 1:4, but here affirmed as the possession of Christ. Rom. 8:9 shows the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ to be synonymous. Jesus declares that the Spirit “shall bear witness of Me.” John 15:26. We may therefore know that the Spirit message was Christ’s message, and that it will agree with His word and works in all things. He who has the fulness of the Spirit of God endows with His Spirit His messenger whether angel or man.

2. “I know.”—He would have us remember the solemn, searching, condemning, comforting fact that He knows. How it affects us depends upon our relation to Him. We may hide from priest or preacher, from father or mother, from wife or husband; but we can not hide from Him whose eyes are “like a flame of fire.” He sees, He knows. How much better it is not to want to hide from Him, but to have a heart open to all His mighty molding life for good. “Thou hast a name that thou livest.”—How good it is, when the child of God is converted, his name is written in the Book of Life, he is one of the living ones bound in the “bundle of life.” Luke 10:20; Phil. 4:3. There Moses’ name was written (Ex. 32:32), there are written the names of the church of the first-born (Heb. 12:23), there many in Sardis had been written, recorded among the living. “Thou art dead.”—That too was recorded before the Omniscient One. Nothing could be sadder—to have a name among the living and yet be dead, dead in apathy, coldness, indifference, worldliness, sensuousness, backsliding. Sardis, who sang her song of joy, had defiled her garments by union with the world. Her formal profession or great prestige in the world may mislead others, but not Him of the seven Spirits. How fitting is the application to the great popular churches of the world since the aggressive days of the past. It is not our testimony, it is theirs. Listen to one of a vast number:

“The class books [of the church] are filled with the names of unconverted men and women. Official members may be found in box, dress-circle, and parquet of opera and theater. Communicants take in the races, and give and attend card-parties and dances. The distinction between inside and outside is so obscure that men smile when asked to unite with the church, and sometimes tell us that they find the best men outside. . . . The enforcement of the unmistakable letter of the Discipline for a single year would cut our membership in half, bankrupt our missionary society, close our fashionable churches, paralyse our connectional interests, and leave our pastors and bishops unpaid and in distress. But the fact remains that one of two things must happen—the Discipline must purge the church, or God’s Holy Spirit will seek other organized agencies. The ax is laid at the root of the tree. The call is to repentance. God’s work must be done. If we are in the way, He will remove us.”—From an editorial entitled “To the Church of Methodists Write,” in the “Western Christian Advocate” (Cincinnati, May 19, 1893), a Methodist Episcopal paper.

The great Methodist Church we can not believe is worse than many others, or has more worldly members. One mighty evidence of the backsliding in Christendom is the appeal to the state, is the minister in politics, is the union of religion with the state. Union with the world and the state is separation from Christ, and separation from Christ is spiritual death.

3. “Be watchful.”—It is a strong term,—wake up and watch; “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead.” Eph. 5:14. “Become what thou art not.” Vincent phrases the thought, “Do what there is every inclination not to do.” “Things that remain.”—Not all the good had gone from Sardis. There are truths, principles, still. Establish them by letting them into the heart and out in the life. Inactive, they too die out of the heart. “No works . . . perfected.”—No works made full, complete. “Ye did run well,” Paul says to one church. So did the post-Reformation churches; but worldliness and human wisdom entered, and when new truth pressed for recognition in heart and life, human wisdom’s response was a hard and fast human creed. The profession of Protestantism

—“the Bible and the Bible alone”—was good; but it could not be said to be full, perfected, complete, till the human creed power was forever broken, and the church was standing upon the Word, believing, living the Word, in its very fulness.

4. “Remember . . . how;” not so much the what as the how. The what rests largely with God; the how with us. In the Christian life and service the heart—the affections—is more important than the mind. The most ignorant loyal soldier in the American Revolution was better than the brilliant Benedict Arnold. Loyalty is better than knowledge. The promise is not that the brilliant, or the intellectual, or the student, or the philosopher, will He guide in judgment and teach His way; but “the meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way.” Meekly, humbly, hungry for God and His salvation, Protestants received the great principles of truth in the Reformation. Human greatness and pomp and power were nothing; God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Word were everything. But when the storm and stress of battle for God, of persecution for Christ’s sake, of trials, of poverty, were over, and the growing cause became popular, worldliness came in, human wisdom became exalted, and the Christ life leaked out of the broken cisterns of men. Sardis should return to the meek, humble attitude of a needy, empty suppliant before God; then she would receive and hear and keep the very fulness of the truth and light and power. The reception of the very fulness of God’s truth rests upon the attitude of the human to the divine.

5. “If . . . not.”—O Sardis, the dread message must be given, the sure result must be stated. If thou shalt not watch—awake (See note 3), I will come as a thief. Christ’s coming is life to His own. That great, dread day when He shall leave His throne of interceding priest for sinful men, when the judgment shall have closed, when He comes in to view the guests, a little while before He appears in the clouds of heaven, is spoken of as coming as a thief. That day will not so overtake His people, for they are watching (1 Thess. 5:3); but it will come as a thief upon all who do not believe, who do not watch, who do not repent of everything un-Christly.

6. “A few names.”—Names stand for persons, for characters. These have held fast and do hold fast to Christ; they are the salt in the great Protestant churches. They are the godly among the worldly, the true among the false; they are those true to all they see, opposed to the false and the vile. As they have kept themselves undefiled by the world, Christ will clothe them in the white garments of eternal righteousness; for in Him “they are worthy.”

7. “White garments.”—The robes of God’s righteousness given in Christ Jesus—a result in the overcoming. “The Book of Life” contains God’s roll of characters worthy of eternal life. Every soul of earth is called to one of these names and characters. These characters are in the plan of God’s eternal purpose concerning this earth, and the names of these characters were written in the scroll of life from the foundation of the world. Rev. 17:8; 13:8. These characters are foreordained. When a soul accepts God’s call, his own name is entered into that book as a candidate for the eternal character; if he fails, his name is blotted out; if he overcomes, he receives the eternal name, to him “the new name.”

8. “Confess his name.”—Confessing Christ is giving one’s self to Him in heart, by word, in conduct. “Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Matt. 10:33. It is highly honorable for us to confess Christ here, our greatest Benefactor; it will be glory eternal for Him to confess us there as those who have prevailed to bear the new name, wear the crown, and be enrolled in the scroll of eternal character. The confession is public in both cases.

9. “What the Spirit saith.”—The Spirit bears the messages of Christ. These messages are not alone for Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos and Thyatira and Sardis, but for you, reader, and for me.