Wasted Religion

Revelation 3:1 KJV

And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.

Barnes says that to have a name that you live but to be dead is "wasted religion." It is:

• Having activity,
• Holding services,
• Offering prayers,
• Etc.

but to be without the new birth.

Such is Christ's judgment of the church at Sardis (or at the least, the pastor of this church.)

To think that there are pastors of churches who occupy their time in activities that look spiritual when the man himself is spiritually dead is difficult to fathom.

But that has been the case as in the days of George Whitefield who was known to begin his preaching campaigns by calling on the pastors to be born again. We can be assured that if it was a problem in Whitefield's day it is a problem in our day too.

To take that a step further and consider that perhaps whole congregations have an appearance of spiritual life when in fact every member is dead in their trespasses and sins is an unthinkable tragedy.

And yet if the message is not one with a sound gospel presentation that church will end up with members who have not been born again.

But Gill goes a step further still and claims that the entire movement of Protestantism had a name of life because they were know for their first tenant of justification by faith, but were, in his estimation devoid of the work of grace.

This is interesting because Gill ministered in a time (1690-1771 AD) when today's preachers like to quote those old Protestants (I just quoted from Barnes) and justify themselves by claiming the Protestants then were much different than now. Gill seems to disagree and labels Protestantism dead from the start.

Oh, and this is consistent with the Baptists of that time who would not accept the baptisms of the Protestants from their inception.

Historic Baptists understand that they neither came from Protestantism nor were they ever supportive of it.