David Reagan — Thyatira and Sardis
Jesus returned to this earth in 95 AD when He appeared to the apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. He dictated letters to seven churches that were located in modern day Turkey. Two of those letters were addressed to a pagan church and a dead church. To see how those letters apply to us today, stay tuned.
Greetings in the name of Jesus our blessed hope. I’m Dave Reagan, Founder and Director of Lamb and Lion Ministries, and welcome to our program, Christ in Prophecy! I am delighted to have with me once again this week two colleagues who are experts, experts. These guys are experts, experts in Bible prophecy and they’re going to help me interpret and apply the seven church letters of Revelation.
They are Dennis Pollock of Spirit of Grace ministries in McKinney, Texas, and Don McGee of Crown and Sickle Ministries in Amite, Louisiana. Thanks for joining me fellows once again, I’m glad to have you, and I guess I’m glad to have you Dennis, okay. Now this is our fourth program in a series on the seven letters to the seven churches of Revelation.
Now, these are letters that Jesus dictated to the apostle John, when He returned to this earth 65 years after His death, burial, and resurrection. In our first program, we presented an overview of all seven letters, focusing on 13 promises the letters contain for those who are classified as overcomers. And we saw that an overcome is defined as a person who has placed his faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
In our second program we took a look at the Isle of Patmos, where the letters were written and we discussed the first letter, the one to the church in Ephesus. Last week we discussed the letters written to the churches at Smyrna and Pergamum.
Smyrna was a church suffering from intense persecution. The church at Pergamum was a liberal church that had embraced various forms of heresy. This week, we’re going to take a look at two more of the letters of Jesus, the ones addressed to the churches at Thyatira and Sardis.
The church at Thyatira was a pagan church, full of cultic practices. The church in Sardis had a reputation for being alive, but in reality it was dead. But before we take a look at these churches, let’s pause for a word about some Revelation study resources.