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Arkadelphia Seventh-day Adventist Church Plant

Eugene Prewitt

Revelation 2 Pergamos and Thyatira

Let's bow our heads for a prayer and we'll start.

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you will bless us as we consider this book of Revelation, that you'll help us to understand what is true and right.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 3.

I teach a class in Revelation at the college, and I've been teaching it this semester, and the result is that I am a little fuzzy on which things I've shared there and which things I've shared here.

Have I shared with you a little bit about Revelation 3.17 about being wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked?

Not here, according to Pat, and she's here quite often, so I'm going to think that probably that we haven't.

So turn up in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 3 and verse 14.

We are talking today about the last church age.

You said before Thyatira, so not even Sardis or Philadelphia?

I believe you, okay, so look at verse 1 then.

And unto the angel of the church of Sardis write, These things saith he that hath the 7 spirits of God, and the 7 stars, I know your works, that you have a name, that thou livest, and art dead.

Following the darkness of the Middle Ages, as that darkness was subsiding, God indicated that there would be something better coming.

Do you remember in the end of chapter 2 what God promised to the overcomers in Thyatira?

Now when you see the morning star, what's coming soon?

The morning is coming, that's exactly it.

Like the morning star is an indication that the morning is coming, and that's what John Wycliffe was to the Middle Ages.

He was a herald that something better was coming, that a light was dawning on the Word of God, and now when we come to Sardis, this is it.

Do you see in verse 1 that they have a name, that they live, but they are dead?

I'm gonna suggest to you what that name is.

I mean, it's a name that represented the breaking away from the darkness of the Middle Ages.

The Protestants stood on a couple principles, that is, they would base anything they believed on the Word of God, and that men could not earn any points with heaven by good works that we were justified by faith alone.

Those were the foundations that overthrew the Catholic apostasy.

But you see in the end of verse 1 that having the right set of ideas wasn't all that was required.

Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.

You ever hear Jesus talking like that, be watchful?

He said, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.

You might think, well, that was just the disciples, but what he said is, and what I say unto you, I say unto all, watch.

I want you to look for a minute at what it means to Watch.

Turn in your Bibles to, yeah, you stay there.

Habakkuk chapter 2, we want to look at what it means to watch.

I will stand upon my watch, that is, upon my position in the watchtower.

I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower.

And listen carefully, and I will watch to see what he will say to me and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

The metaphor comes from this passage in Habakkuk.

And you're on your guard for a couple things.

1 is to see what is God going to communicate to you.

Watching to see what he's going to share with you, but that's not all you're watching for, because when he communicates to you, in all likelihood, he's going to correct something about your life.

You need to watch how you're going to answer, that's right, how you're going to respond when you are reproved.

That's what it means to watch, to be on guard, to guard your own heart, to make sure you don't respond inappropriately when God sends you correction or reproof or instruction.

Revelation chapter 3, and we're looking at verse 3.

Remember therefore how you have received and heard and hold fast and repent.

Those words don't look like they go together.

I mean, on 1 hand, the first set of them looks like it's just saying don't move from the position you're in.

But that makes a lot of sense if you've been slipping.

Does that make any sense to you, what I just said?

What's the connection between repent and hold fast?

It's that some backsliding has been going on.

And that's just what happened to the Protestant Reformation.

It was followed by a series of backslidings.

He didn't say that you didn't start out right.

He said, remember the truth that you received.

And to do that, you need to repent, to go back.

That's very practical for Christians of all ages.

Very often the devil doesn't need to lead us to change our doctrinal positions to destroy us.

He merely needs to lead us to slacken up in how firmly we hold to what's right and best.

So just to maintain where we have been requires a work of repentance.

You have a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments.

And they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

In verse 4, think it through for a minute, which happens first?

In verse 4, first you're faithful and then you walk in white.

Look at verse 5 and you'll see the same thought again.

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.

You overcome or you receive white raiment?

You overcome first, then you receive white raiment.

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not black out his name out of the book of life.

So by implication, how might someone have their name blotted out of the book of life.

It's by not overcoming, which is kind of a double negative.

Does that make sense to you what I just said?

By Losing in the battle with self, that's how your name is blotted out of the book of life.

If your name isn't blotted out, if you're an overcomer, it says, but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

Jesus says to the Reformation age that a judgment is coming.

In heaven, I'm going to be before the Father and the angels, and either I'm going to blot out your name or I'm going to confess your name.

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Revelation 2 Pergamos and Thyatira

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