SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/11/2015
3:40 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Sardis the City
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
3:1b
Message of the
verses: “"To the angel of the church in
Sardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars,
says this: ’I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you
are dead.”
I must say that this is one of my favorite parts of this study
that is look into the ancient cities that these seven churches came from. I have always been a fan of history and I
suppose that is why I like this part of our study.
Sardis
was an important ancient city and capital of the kingdom
of Lydia, located in western Anatolia,
present-day Sartmustafa, Manisa province in western Turkey.
Its strategic location made it a central point connecting the interior of
Anatolia to the Aegean coast. During its
history, control of Sardis changed many times, but it always kept a high status
among cities.
The Origin of Sardis
Around 612 BCE, the
greatest city in the world at that time, Nineveh,
was besieged and sacked by an allied army of Persians, Medes, rebelling
Chaldeans, and Babylonians, putting an end to the Assyrian Empire.
This event shaped a new political map: Babylon became the imperial centre
of Mesopotamia
and the kingdom of Lydia became the dominant power in western Anatolia with
Sardis as its capital.
The life of Sardis began
as a hilltop citadel where the king of Lydia lived. The city developed into a
two part town: the lower town, located along the banks of the Pactolus river,
where the ordinary citizens lived, and the upper town for the wealthy
citizens, royal members, and the palace. Herodotus
wrote that the lower town was a modest place with many of its houses made of
reeds from the river and with no surrounding wall.
Sardis Today
Since 1958 CE, the universities of Harvard and
Cornell have been performing annual excavations at Sardis. As part of these
works, Sardis’ gymnasium has been restored and the synagogue was discovered in
1962 CE, a building measuring over 91.4 metres (300 feet) in length. Some
of the important finds from the archaeological site of Sardis are kept in
the Archaeological Museum of Manisa in Turkey, including many Roman
mosaics and sculptures and pottery from different periods
in the history of the city. I got this
info from a website called “Ancient History.”
John
MacArthur writes “God and silver coins were apparently first minted at
Sardis. The city also benefited from its
location at the western end of the royal road that led east to the Persian
capital city of Susa, and from its proximity to other important trade routes. It was also a center for wool production and
the garment industry; in fact, Sardis claimed to have discovered how to dye
wool.”
The
location of the city was on a very high hill overlooking the Hermus River and
because of this site many believed that the city was impregnable, but not
so. Because of this site the people
became over confident and careless. And
because of this the city was conquered. John MacArthur quotes Dr. Robert L.
Thomas as he relates to the account of Sardis’s fall: “Despite an alleged warning against
self-satisfaction by the Greek god whom he consulted, Croesus the king of Lydia
initiated an attack against Cyrus king of Persia, but was soundly defeated. Returning
to Sardis to recoup and rebuild his army for another attack, he was perused
quickly by Cyrus who laid siege against Sardis.
Croesus felt utterly secure in his impregnable situation atop the
acropolis and foresaw an easy victory over the Persians who were cornered among
the perpendicular rocks in the lower city, and easy prey for the assembling Lydian
army to crush. After retiring on evening while the drama was
unfolding, he awakened to discover that the Persians had gained control of the
acropolis by scaling one-by-one the steep walls (549 BC). So secure did the Sardians feel that they left
this means of access completely unguarded, permitting the climbers to ascend
unobserved. It is said that even a child
could have defended the city from this kind of attack, but not so much as one
observer had been appointed to watch the side that was believed to be
inaccessible. History repeated itself
more than three and a half centuries later when Atiochus the Great conquered Sardis
by utilizing the services of a sure-footed mountain climber from Crete (195
BC). His army entered the city by another
route while the defenders in careless confidence were content to guard the one
known approach, the isthmus of land connected to Mount Tmolus on the south.”
Eventually
the Romans conquered them in 133 BC as they never again regained their
independence. In 17 AD there was a
catastrophic earthquake which destroyed the city. MacArthur writes “but it was rebuilt with the
generous financial id of Emperor Tiberius.
In gratitude, the inhabitants of Sardis built a temple in his honor.”
Message of the verses: One of
the reasons that I like looking at the history of the cities of where the
churches were is because it seems to me that the Lord blesses a country where
the churches are strong and when they get weak then the Lord will withhold His
blessings on that nation. Just look
around today and you may see this in action.
When
the Soviet Nation was about to break up I heard a sermon from the then
president of the Moody Bible Institute, Joe Stowell speaking about how the
government of the Soviet Union was changing their minds about those who were
believers. In the message Stowell was
saying that the government leaders were saying that the believers were the best
citizens in the country. I suppose that
this is, as it should be, the way it is in all countries, but as we go through
these seven churches one may not believe that this would be the case, and that
is a sad situation.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To learn to better love the Lord with all of
my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to learn to better understand the love
that the Lord has for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Daniel.”
Today’s Bible question: “When the children of Israel cried out to
their God, what did He do?”
Answer in our next SD.
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