20. The Kingdom Parables – The Fifth – The Hidden Treasure – Part 4 Of 4 Series

20. The Kingdom Parables – The Fifth – The Hidden Treasure – Part 4 of 4

This interesting Parable has been examined in regards to meaning, to its matching church, and to Church History as can be done for all these Parables of the Kingdom. This last message is looking at the reasons why the Reformation saw “deeds not completed” and “having a name, but dead”. This is a shorter message.

[M]. THE POSITION OF THIS HIDDEN TREASURE AND SARDIS IN CHURCH HISTORY.

Sardis means “the escaping ones” and in God’s time, (in the 1500s) the escaping ones got through the clutches of the Roman Catholic Church dominated by enormous wickedness. We saw a little of that in the last Parable.

Before we go any further let us be clear about what the Lord wrote to Sardis as it is so important:-

{{“I know your deeds, that YOU HAVE A NAME THAT YOU ARE ALIVE, BUT YOU ARE DEAD.”}}

AND

{{“for I HAVE NOT FOUND YOUR DEEDS COMPLETED IN THE SIGHT OF MY GOD.”}}

The letter reveals them to be alive but dead, works not complete, had a name but had to wake up. (Revelation 3:1-3). Sardis represents the church history period from 1517 - 1750 A.D. and then on to the present. It is the period of the Protestant Reformations and speaks of those “escaping ones” coming out of Rome’s clutches, living in a time of great evil and paganism. Works not complete - they did not go far enough but set up state churches and became lifeless. (W. Kelly).

William Kelly says, [[“Sardis describes what followed the Reformation, when the glow and fervour of truth, and the first flush of blessing had passed away, and cold formalism had set in.”]]

Miller’s Church History adds, [[“the period of church history that is associated with Sardis commences with the Diet of Spires in 1529 A.D. Scarcely had the Christians tasted the blessings of deliverance from Rome’s oppression, when they fell back into a state of bondage to the governments and princes of the world, and consequently, into spiritual deadness. In their anxiety to obtain complete deliverance from the threatening power of the Pope, backed by Catholic priests, the reformed Christians placed themselves under the protection of the Protestant princes. This was their failure.”]]

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church at Wurtemburg on 31 October 1517, many thought a new era had commenced, but Protestantism, with all its schisms, sectarianism and lifeless formalism, fell far short of New Testament Christianity. Its initial promises never came to fruition; its appearance of spiritual power masked a spiritual weakness; it professed to have life but was spiritually dead. (Revelation 3:1). The period of church history represented by Sardis, commenced early in the 16 th century and continues to the present.

F.C. Ottman writes, [[“When the voice of Martin Luther thundered through the German Empire, it found an echo in many hearts, distressed with the existing system. The protest of these reformers against the abuses of the church were articulated in the Augsburg Confession. Over against these articles of protest were written the decrees of the Council of Trent (Catholic). The Reformation, of which many had dreamed and longed for, had come at last and was manifestly the work of God. The Protestants, bound together by the courage of their convictions, stood firmly against the evils they had long endured. If anyone, however, hoped for a united Protestantism against Rome’s despotism, he was doomed to disappointment. Zwingli and the Swiss Reformers differed from Luther and his followers in regard to the Lord’s Supper. Calvin, later on was not able to reconcile these two systems to each other. Nor to his own. The sacramentarian controversy was the destruction of unity. The Lord’s Supper, which was to be the fullest expression of Christ’s Body, became the subject of a heated controversy, and split the Protestant church into fragments.”]]

The Reformation was commendable but was not a proper return to the teachings and practices of the Apostles as set out in the New Testament, and resulted in a whole host of breaks and disputes that have splintered Protestantism into thousands of fragmented sects and denominations. This imperfection and incompleteness of the Reformation is what has made Protestantism (the State Churches) into having a name as being alive, but are dead! The Reformation early lost its vitality and power and lapsed into an orthodox formality. Spiritual energy finally disappeared and denominationalism took the place of a living organism. “The clanking of ecclesiastical machinery soon superseded the virile spontaneity of the first awakening.” Milligan comments, “She has been proud of her external ordinances and has thought more of them than of living in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit. True piety has declined and, as a natural consequence, sins of the flesh have asserted their supremacy.”