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 meters (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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