Come and study the Holy Scriptures with us as Father Stephen DeYoung teaches verse by verse on the podcast, The Whole Council of God.

Father Stephen holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies, and it's an Orthodox priest serving at Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana.

We'll go ahead and pick up in Revelation chapter 3, verse 1.

And to the angel of the church in Sardis, write,

These things says he, who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works that you have a name

that you are alive, but you are dead. So at the beginning there, as we've seen, there was this

description in chapter one where St. John encountered the risen Christ in glory.

There were these various descriptors of him, and we've seen how pieces of those descriptors

get picked up at the beginning of each of these letters by way of his identification.

So in this case, that's the he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven

stars. And so then he begins, this one, even more negative than the other ones that we heard

before. Several of the ones we read last time sort of started with, well, here's all the good

things, but or yet right

and then there would be there's this there's this other bad thing right this one just starts out

right off the bat i know your works you have a name that you are alive right there's the church

in sardis, right?

But you're dead, right?

Now, obviously, he doesn't mean all of the individuals there are dead, right?

He's talking about, again, the organism of the community.

There's no life in the community.

Verse 20. life in the community. Verse two, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die,

for I have not found your works perfect before God.

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