1 This message is for the divine emissary to Sardis, the guardian of the apostolic elder, of the gathering called together at Sardis. You are one of those stars which I hold in my right hand. I am he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars in order to light the golden menorahs . These are my words to you. Receive this message and use it to strengthen the light of your menorah.
I know what you do. You are known by others for being a living assembly. But it is a false appearance that you are projecting. In truth, you are not a living assembly but one that is without any life at all. You are not regenerating. You are degenerating.
2 Wake up and face the truth of your condition! You have a little life left in you, but it is almost gone. Strengthen the ember of life that remains in you, by returning to the Good News of my prayer and sacrifice for my people, which first brought you life. For, I have not found the things you do to be wholesome before my God, and Father, nor to be moved by the grace of my God. Indeed, those things which you do which lead to death and not to life are moved by the inspiration of another god.
3 Remember, then, the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah that penetrated your heart and conscience, which you heard in the first instant of your regeneration, but which was lost in the self-centredness of your own understanding. Remember the first moment you believed how I came to my own people and how I prayed for their forgiveness with my whole soul, when they did not receive me and how my God forgave them in answer to my prayer, showing this by raising me form the dead. Remember the moment you believed this and keep it foremost in your mind and life. Live your lives in this faith. Let everything you do be motivated by this Good News. If you will not wake up again to this Gospel, when I come it will be to you like the coming of a thief, and you will not be prepared for my coming. It will be like judgment to you and not salvation.
4 Yet you still have a small gathering of people in Sardis whom, like Joshua the High Priest, I do not see standing in filthy garments, for they are covered by my atonement, and they will walk together with me in robes of white linen. They are justified by their faith and they are worthy. But those who do not return to their faith at the moment they came to hope in me, and live their lives in that faith, will find it a trial when I come, and it will be proven then whether their faith was true in the beginning, or only an appearance.
5 Everyone who overcomes their unbelief and obeys what the Spirit says will be clothed in white linen robes, just like the Temple priests. I will not remove the space that is set for their name in the book of life. Instead, I will claim them by name as my own before my Father and rejoice in them before his angels.
6 You who hear this message from the Spirit know who you are. Listen carefully to all that the Spirit says to the assemblies. Not everyone who counts themselves a member of an assembly, or does works in my name, hears, believes and obeys what the Spirit says.
The Text ESV adapted
1 “And to the angel of the assembly in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.’
