1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.“ ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
The seven spirits of God is “Sevenfold” in the Strong's. Isaiah 11:1-5 shows how God's messiah will receive this sevenfold spirit and later administer justice...1 Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD. 3 And He will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear, 4 but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. and...He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips. 5 Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist. The next verses in Isaiah 11 describe the new earth which are yet to be fulfilled.
Verse 1 and 2 has a confusing phrase, you are dead, but later it says it is about to die. If it is dead, how is it about to die? That isn't natural, it's prophetic. The biblehub parallel to verse 1 shows a verse that explains this, "Christians who are whitewashed tombs" in Matthew 23:27. Jesus pronounced 7 woes to the pharisees in that chapter, which was the decree for desolation spoken of in Daniel. 42 years later the temple would be levelled and the entire priesthood gone. The first woe is “For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.” And later in verse 27 “ For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” This lawlessness causes the soiled garments in verse 4.
Jesus knows the works of this church, and he does not show favorites. As harsh as his words were for the Roman church, the rebuke for this church is just as severe. This church is not Jezebel, who sits in power. It is not the synagogue of Satan, a church influenced by the dragon. This church would think it has the sevenfold spirit of God and Jesus walking among the leaders. Jesus sees their works and they are dead. The first vial judgement in chapter 16 deals with the filthy, rotten sore of slavery of Europe and the United States. Slavery was not embraced just by the wicked, but also by churches, who also owned slaves. Baptists and Methodists were two examples of newly formed denominations that did not practice the freedom of what they preached, and were whitewashed tombs because they professed Christianity and justified slavery. The works of death, called protestant supremacy, had come to the virgin churches. This wicked mindset allowed men to feel justified in owning other people as long as they tried to convert them to Christianity.
The phrase wake up relates to the parable of the 10 virgins. The warnings for this church age actually start in chapter 24 starting with verse 36. He warns that no one will know the day or the hour before the flood comes. Flood is a prophetic war, so the flood was WWI and WWII, the day of the Lord, the wedding feast, the time Jesus comes on the cloud, the time he comes on a horse with his heavenly army, and these events are covered in chapters 14, 16 and 19. The events describing one taken, one left show how quickly that the judgement will fall on these people. Between the Spanish flu, the stock market crash in the US, and the sudden start to WWI in Europe, people were left without money, houses, and even family members that were taken from plague and war. There are stories that a person that was healthy in the morning, would not survive the flu by that very evening. There are also great testimonies of how people with the light of Christ prayed through these events and were covered by God's hand.
Going back to the phrase wake up in verse two, we can look at the biblehub parallel to see how many other verses there are that warn followers of Jesus. Keep watch, be sober minded and alert, be dressed for service and keep your lamp burning, wake up from your slumber and others. These newly formed denominations...Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists and others, they were at risk of not having enough oil, and then going elsewhere in order to find oil for their lamps. Jesus will be at the wedding feast, the bride will be at the wedding, and those that were invited. Jesus even invited people from highways and byways to be present with him at his feast. There are two groups that are not at the wedding, those who did not come, and the churches without enough oil. In verse 10 it said that the door was shut. Even worse, in verse 12 Jesus said he didn't even know them.
Jesus also says the works of these churches are not complete. Even though many denominations broke away from Rome and even found the holy fire of revival, there are still works that are not complete. The works of righteousness is covered in the Laodicean church. Faith is one example of righteousness and Jesus said we would cast out demons, raise the dead, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, as well as feeding the multitude from just 1 meal. Jesus said even greater works! What a day it will be when we see the body of Jesus come together in the fullness of power, doing the complete work of the kingdom that he did!
4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
When a person was invited to the king's wedding, a set of clothes appropriate for the feast was also sent. We can see in Revelation 19:8 what kind of clothing the king expected his guests to wear. The white linen is our righteous acts, for example acts of obedience, faith, perseverance and love as well as the miracles Jesus says we will perform. The parable in Luke 12 shows how the servants of the King are to behave until they see him come back to his home. We see here that Jesus will "confess his name" before God and the angels, which speaks to the lamb's book of life at the final coming judgement. This parable says that Jesus comes to the door and knocks, and that is covered in the Laodicean church video.
The ones that did not heed this warning were still asleep at the day of judgment, so Jesus came like a thief. The thief comes to kill, steal and destroy, and starting in 1917, there was death through pestilence and war, loss of property, food and finances through the Great depression and famine, as well as destruction of entire cities and lands because of the great hailstones of WWII. This was the first lake of fire in chapter 19, and there is another in chapter 20 yet to come. We can take heed of Jesus' warnings to this church to prepare ourselves for when he comes in judgement again. There are many parables to look at in Matthew 24 & 25, Luke 12-14 and especially John 14-15. There are references to being ready and the painful consequences of being judged by fire.
7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. 8 “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
The church of Philadelphia is the return of the tribes of Israel starting in the 1880s and is still in the process of being fulfilled. The tribes were sealed in chapter 7, and unsealed in chapter 14. In Isaiah 22 we see the reference to the house of David. God had to remove a proud and wicked administrator, and in his place put a righteous steward and there would be such favor over him that nothing would stop God's will in this matter. Starting in verse 20 In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 23 And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. 24 And they will hang on him the whole honor of his father’s house, the offspring and issue, every small vessel, from the cups to all the flagons. 25 In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, the peg that was fastened in a secure place will give way, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.”
The key of David is for the house of David, and Jesus is the root and branch of David. This door will be open and no one will be able to shut. It is God's intention to return Israel back to the land because of the covenant he made with Abraham. There will be nothing to stop this prophecy from coming to pass because when the time came for God and Abraham to seal the covenant and to pass through the sacrifice, he put Abraham to sleep and walked through the sacrifices alone. Look in Genesis 15. This vow made by God's is unbreakable, and we will surely see the tribes of Israel go back to the land. This is the prophecy from the seven thunders in chapter 10 that they were ready to prophecy about. God sealed that prophecy so it would be fulfilled during the 7th trumpet, which were the vial judgements. In the 1880s we see the first Aliyah. This also fulfills the Ezekiel's prophecy of the valley of dry bones. True jews started going back to the promised land, and a few years later the Hebrew language – the breath - was resurrected. There are many more Old Testament and Apocrypha prophecies right on the cusp of being fulfilled, so when you understand how to read prophecy, you will be able to see clearly which prophecies are dealing with the final return to the land.
9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. 10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
In the Smyrna church age, there were those who claimed to be Jews, but Jesus called them the synagogue of Satan. We see here the same phrases but switched. So we see the synagogue of Satan, which was the papacy, and they are calling themselves Jews - but Jesus says they are not. In the late 1800s the harlot papacy was burned with fire from the kings. In 1929 the dragon consumed her flesh when the dragon beast rose at the Vatican. The papacy then became the woman and united with the dragon in power, location, authority and worship, as shown in chapter 17 and in chapter 20. They are marked by their religion - mystery - meaning secret - and Babylon. Babylon is the origin of every secret society, the mother of all harlots. Freemasons and Illuminati admit to receiving their teachings from the dragon. Concerning the holy land, see the connection with the Jesuit author of The Coming of the Messiah in Majesty and Glory and what kind of pseudonym he used. He claimed to be a Jew, but is not. There are Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities and who also serve Babylon. Also keep in mind whenever you see Kabballah, that is code for Babylon. When the tribes of Israel were exiled to Babylon, they kept some of the pagan customs, creating the Talmud. The true word of God is called the Torah, so use discernment when you see those who claim to be Jews use the Talmud as their source of teaching.
The parallel of verse 9 shows how God prophesied that the enemies of Israel will come and bow at their feet in Isaiah and in Psalms. There is confirmation of this in Revelation 14 Then I looked and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads. We see they will be supernaturally protected from the hour of trial over the whole world. This hour of trial is explained in Revelation 14:7 as the fall of the great city Babylon, and the fall of the dragon beast who is using the mark and the image. The fall of the great city is explained in chapter 18, and the dragon beast is shown using the mark and the image in chapter 20.
2 Peter 2:9 explains how the godly will be protected... then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, We can see this also in Isaiah 26:20 Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut your doors behind you Hide yourselves a little while until the wrath has passed. 21 For behold, the LORD is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
In Revelation, the lamb is described in the context of the tribes of Israel in chapter 7 and 14. The marriage that chapter 19 describes is a marriage to the lamb and again in chapter 21. In the Old Testament Israel was God's bride, married to the law, but the law is dead. She was a widow and will be married again to the lamb. Paul describes this in Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2 For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3 So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. 4 Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
Those that conquer receive the crown of life, explained in 1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable. And in James 1:12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Finally in 2 Timothy 4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 From now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which Jesus, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but to all who crave His appearing.
Chapter 3 (pdf)
Download