Apocalipse 3
Ray Stedman · Citado em PreceptAustin
Apocalipse 3
Stedman - The way the Lord presents Himself is to what that particular church needs. What this church desperately needed was the Spirit from Whom all believers receive LIFE. The church had built up a good reputation, but it was really dead and corrupt inside. The members of this church were, for the most part, not even believers. Today we would call the Christians at Sardis ''NOMINAL CHRISTIANS'' where nominal is from the root word for NAME. The church of the WALKING DEAD, the church of the ZOMBIES. Most at Sardis outwardly professed Christ, but who possessed no real spiritual life. The world sees this church, filled with pious platitudes but lacking a life that validates all their pomp. The First Zombie Church of Sardis it could have been nicknamed.The church at Sardis was so devoid of life that there weren't even struggles going on within it. The Jews aren't opposing it. False teaching isn't rampant. There were no Nicolaitans springing up like choking weeds. Wake up! And this message is for believers. We dare not shrink from the convicting words and say that does not apply to me. Rather, we must bravely face them and ask ourselves '' What has gone wrong w. my spiritual life? Why does my worship and Christian service seem so dreary? Why does my church seem so lifeless and unattractive? THOUGHT - As we stand under the hot glare of the letter to Sardis, the question is Can people tell whether we are alive or dead? Am I truly alive, or do I just have a reputation, a name, for being alive? Lehman Strauss - The deadness of the church perhaps is the reason why the Lord identified Himself as the one with the seven Spirits of God (that is, the omnipresent and all-seeing Holy Spirit)....The church was in dire need of the quickening power of the Holy Spirit." (Book of the Revelation: Outlined Studies - BORROW) (Sardis) a perfect model of inoffensive Christianity S Lewis
Apocalipse 3
Stedman - Wake up! And this message is for believers. We dare not shrink from the convicting words and say that does not apply to me. Rather, we must bravely face them and ask ourselves ''What has gone wrong w. my spiritual life? Why does my worship and Christian service seem so dreary? Why does my church seem so lifeless and unattractive?" Wake up, (gregoreuo) - The first question to address is to whom are these 5 commands addressed? By default they would have to be believers (the few in Rev 3:4+) because spiritually dead people cannot wake up. Only sleepy saints could respond by waking up. Wake up is two Greek words ginomai which means "be" and and gregoreuo which means watchful or awake from sleep and speaks of mental alertness. Jesus gives this command in the present imperative, which means He is calling for this alert mindset to be their constant practice, their lifestyle. The best way to keep from falling asleep spiritually is to keep spiritually awake continually. This command would be especially apropos for citizens in Sardis, for the city of Sardis was considered to be a natural citadel and incapable of capture and yet there were several times in the city’s history that the Sardis fell because of self-confidence and failure to post guards to watch watch (See note by Allen below)! So just as the city had fallen for failure to be watchful, the church was in danger of being defeated because the "spiritual sentries" were not guarding their posts. Allen - Cyrus the Persian captured the city in 549 bc by sending a cohort of soldier-mountaineers up the cliffs that King Croesus had left unguarded imagining them unclimbable. The city was captured and looted. The Sardians never seemed to learn the lesson and, in the changing politics of the pre-Roman era it was captured...by Seleucid Antiochus (214 bc) using the same tactics. Trusting in a false impregnability Sardis was an easy prey to a determined enemy. (What the Bible Teaches -Revelation) Andrus adds that "On both occasions enemy troops scaled the precipice at night and discovered that the over-confident Sardians had set no guard. The temptation for those who consider themselves safe is always to get complacent." MacArthur on wake up - The believing remnant needed to look at what was happening in their church, evaluate the situation, get involved in changing things, confront sin and error, and make a difference.