Revelation 3:1-13
Sardis – The Denominational Church
Prophetically 1500 A.D. to Present
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Chapter 3
1 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 – Ancient Sardis was the capital of Lydia, founded about 1200 B.C. It was about fifty miles east of Ephesus at the junction of five main roads; so it was a center for trade. About thirty miles south of Thyatira in the fertile valley of the Hermus River. A series of hills jutted out from the ridge of Mount Tmolus, south of the Hermus River. On one of those hills, about fifteen hundred feet above the valley floor with steep cliffs, stood Sardis. The word “reputation” is the Greek word onoma from which the English word “denomination” is derived.
“Although the situation of the city was ideal for defense, as it stood high above the valley of Hermus and was surrounded by deep cliffs almost impossible to scale, Sardis had twice before fallen because of overconfidence and failure to watch. In 549 B.C. the Persian King Cyrus had ended the rule of Croesus by scaling the cliffs under the cover of darkness. In 214 B.C. the armies of Antiochus the Great (III) captured the city by the same method.” (Walvoord)
3 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 – Cf. Mark 7: 8; 1Thess 5:1-5.
4 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 – Cf. the parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22:11-14).
Philadelphia – The Missionary Church
1800 A.D. to the Present
7 To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: – Philadelphia means “city of brotherly love.” Named after its founder Eumenes II and his brother about 192 B.C. When Eumenes II died his brother Attalus II took over to run the city and he honored his dead brother so much that the he was nicknamed Philadelphus (“brother lover”). The city was located on the edge of a volcanic region whose fertile soil was ideally suited for vineyards. However, in 17 B.C. it was destroyed by a severe earthquake that also destroyed Sardis and ten other cities.
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open – Cf. Isaiah 22:20-23.
8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut – an open door speaks of evangelistic opportunity in the N.T. (1 Corinthians 16:9, 2 Corinthians 2:12, and Colossians 4:3).
10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth – The hour of trial is literally, the time of tribulation (Judges 10:13-14) also described as the Great Tribulation or Day of the Lord, and the time of Jacob’s trouble ( Daniel 12:2; Mark 13:19; and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Jer 30:7). “Those who live on the earth” is used nine times in the Book of Revelation, and it speaks of those who are not saved. The phrase: keep you from the hour of trial in the Greek (tēreō ek) means to be kept out of not kept in the midst of.
“Those who argue that the church will go through the Tribulation hold that this phrase means preservation in the midst of and emergence from. They believe the church will go through the Tribulation judgments and that God will preserve it in the midst of them, so that the church will thus emerge successfully at the end from the hour of testing. That view is unlikely, however, both on linguistic and biblical grounds. The basic meaning of the preposition ek is “from,” “out from,” or “away from.” Had the Lord intended to convey that the church would be preserved in the midst of the Tribulation, the prepositions en (“in”) or dia (“through”) would have been more appropriate.… The meaning of tēreō ek in John 17:15, to be kept completely out of, argues strongly for a similar meaning in Revelation 3:10. The apostle John wrote both passages, and both are direct quotes of the Lord Jesus Christ… Another obvious objection to interpreting tēreō ek as a promise of preservation in the midst of the Tribulation is that believers in that terrible time will not be preserved. In fact, many will be martyred (6:9–11; 7:9–14), leading to the conclusion that promising preservation is meaningless if the believers face the same fate as sinners during the Tribulation… Some hold that the promise of deliverance is only from God’s wrath during the Tribulation. But a promise that God will not kill believers but will allow Satan and Antichrist to do so would provide small comfort to the suffering church at Philadelphia. MacArthur’s New Testament Commentary: Revelation 1-11 Copyright © 1999 by John MacArthur Jr.
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