May 15: THE SEVEN LETTERS IN RETROSPECT (part 4)

Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, And the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD and meditate on His name. “They shall be mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.” Malachi 3:16-17

In mid-nineteenth century America, a small group consisting of believers from all over Sardis, eschatologically speaking, came together in a sincere and earnest effort to seek answers in the Bible for their questions. Knowing that they had been misled by popular ideas, their resolve was to rely upon the Bible only, in order to distinguish between Biblical truths and concepts that had been imposed by men.

The church that followed Sardis was Philadelphia. Along with Smyrna, Philadelphia received no rebuke whatsoever from Jesus. These are the two churches who posed the greatest threat to Satan’s agenda. It had been Smyrna’s pure witness that brought about the wholesale change in Satan’s strategic work from the inside of the church. Whereas in Ephesus, he had secretly worked to erode the love that had been the driving power behind their labors, in Pergamos compromises were ferried in openly, as if to be the norm. But instead of the church actually converting the pagans who were joining, pagans converted much of the church by this introduction of unbiblical ideas and traditions. These practices came to be widely accepted as they “hid in plain sight”. The downward trend of Pergamos became the predominant modus operandi in Thyatira (we are still speaking eschatologically), accounting for the twelve-hundred-and-sixty-year period known as the Dark Ages.

These last two thousand years contain an unbroken remnant of true worshippers who were never led astray by the supposed papal supremacy of the dark ages church. These faithful ones maintained the pure truths of the Apostolic church and operated quietly in the wilderness where they had fled to preserve and share God’s word at every opportunity. This unbroken remnant was supported and joined by other like-minded followers of Jesus who resisted the coercive tactics of the church. Feverishly, the emissaries of this dark ages church—by order of the pope—hunted down these non-conformists. The unspeakable brutality of their tactics is well-documented by historians.

The Philadelphia church emerged after that dark time, with the goal of separating error from truth. But because of their threat to Satan’s agenda, they were pounded by vicious (verbal) attacks, from Catholics, but especially from their fellow Protestants. The spirit behind these attacks can be traced all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where Cain’s fury against Abel exploded into murderous rage (Genesis 4:8).

Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days…[she] was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. Revelation 12:6,14

For further study: Psalm 69:4, Matthew 5:22, John 15:18-25