The messages to the church of Ephesus and to the church in Sardis have been often repeated to me by the One who gives me instruction for His people... {8T 98.1}
We are seeing the fulfillment of these warnings. Never have scriptures been more strictly fulfilled than these have been. {8T 99.1} Men may erect the most carefully constructed, fireproof buildings, but one touch of God's hand, one spark from heaven, will sweep away every refuge. {8T 99.2} It has been asked if I have any advice to give. I have already given the advice that God has given me, hoping to prevent the falling of the fiery sword that was hanging over Battle Creek. Now that which I dreaded has come-the news of the burning of the Review and Herald building. When this news came, I felt no surprise, and I had no words to speak. What I have had to say from time to time in warnings has had no effect except to harden those who heard, and now I can only say: I am so sorry, so very sorry, that it was necessary for this stroke to come. Light enough has been given. If it were acted upon, further light would not be needed. {8T 99.3} To our people, ministers and lay members, I am instructed to say: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord,"-for many ministers and people are walking in strange paths,-"and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." Isaiah 55:6, 7. {8T 99.4} Let every soul be on the alert. The adversary is on your track. Be vigilant, watching diligently lest some carefully concealed and masterly snare shall take you unawares. Let the careless and indifferent beware lest the day of the Lord come upon them as a thief in the night. Many will wander from the path of humility, and, casting aside the yoke of Christ, will walk in strange paths. Blinded and bewildered, they will leave the narrow path that leads to the city of God. {8T 99.5} A man cannot be a happy Christian unless he is a watchful Christian. He who overcomes must watch; for, with worldly entanglements, error, and superstition, Satan strives to win Christ's followers from Him. It is not enough that we avoid glaring dangers and perilous, inconsistent moves. We are to keep close to the side of Christ, walking in the path of self-denial and sacrifice. We are in an enemy's country. He who was cast out of heaven has come down with great power. With every conceivable artifice and device he is seeking to take souls captive. Unless we are constantly on guard we shall fall an easy prey to his unnumbered deceptions. {8T 100.1} The experience of the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane contains a lesson for the Lord's people today. Taking with Him Peter and James and John, Christ went to Gethsemane to pray. He said to them: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from Him. And He said, Abba Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from Me: nevertheless not what I will, but what Thou wilt. And He cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." Mark 14:34-38. {8T 100.2} Read these words carefully. Many today are asleep, as were the disciples. They are not watching and praying lest they enter into temptation. Let us read and study those portions of God's word that have special reference to these last days, pointing out the dangers that will threaten God's people. {8T 100.3} We need keen, sanctified perception. This perception is not to be used in criticizing and condemning one another, but discerning the signs of the times. We are to keep our hearts with all diligence, that we may not make shipwreck of faith. Many who were once firm believers in the truth have become careless in regard to their spiritual welfare and are yielding, without the slightest opposition, to Satan's well-laid plots. It is time for our people to take their families from the cities into more retired localities, else many of the youth, and many also of those older in years, will be ensnared and taken by the enemy. {8T 101.1}
At first I thought this quote below was just Satan showing himself and laying his hands on people and healing them.
I'm not so sure now.
As Spiritualism more closely imitates the nominal Christianity of the day, it has greater power to deceive and ensnare. Satan himself is converted, after the modern order of things. He will appear in the character of an angel of light. Through the agency of Spiritualism, miracles will be wrought, (through pharmakia/sorceries?) the sick will be healed, and many undeniable wonders will be performed. And as the spirits will profess faith in the Bible, and manifest respect for the institutions of the church, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine power. {GC88 588.2}
The line of distinction between professed Christians and the ungodly is now hardly distinguishable. Church-members love what the world loves, and are ready to join with them; and Satan determines to unite them in one body, and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of Spiritualism. Papists, who boast of miracles as a certain sign of the true church, will be readily deceived by this wonder-working power; and Protestants, having cast away the shield of truth, will also be deluded. Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world, (Transhumanism?) and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium (or the destruction of man like in the days of Noah?). {GC88 588.3}
But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere.{1SP 69.1}
Back to the quote that ended at {GC88 588.3} and continuing...
Through Spiritualism (pharmakia/sorceries?) Satan appears as a benefactor of the race, healing the diseases of the people (through vaccines?), and professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith (evolution/science?); but at the same time he works as a destroyer (by this science?). His temptations are leading multitudes to ruin. Intemperance (brought through ingredients in food, drugs and vaccines?) dethrones reason; sensual indulgence, strife, and bloodshed follow (still to come?). Satan delights in war; for it excites the worst passions of the soul, and then sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object to incite the nations to war against one another; for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God. {GC88 589.1}
Satan works through the elements (climate change?) also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields his creatures, and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what he has declared that he would, he will withdraw his blessings from the earth, and remove his protecting care from those who are rebelling against his law, and teaching and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some, in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others, and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them. {GC88 589.2}
While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies (through vaccines?), he will bring disease and disaster (covid variants?), until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power (climate change?). He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence (due to the vaccines they took?).
These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast. "The earth mourneth and fadeth away," "the haughty people ... do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant." Isaiah 24:4, 5.
And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God's commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God will be repeated and upon grounds equally well established: "And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings 18:17, 18. As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God's ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah. {GC 590}
Sorry for the long introduction but what Ellen White said on Sardis opened up much of what I was thinking on these quotes.
Rev 3:1 "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;
The seven spirits of God are also known as seven eyes that are sent forth into all the earth.
I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: (Zech 4:2)
They are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth. (Zech 4:10)
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. (Prov 15:3)
Jesus in his spirit is there and watching us even now.
Rev 3:1 "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead."
Rev 3:2 "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God."
Rev 3:3 "Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
What was the sin of the Sardis church? It was want of love and interest to strengthen the things which remained. They were not to put down those things, but build them up on the most holy faith. Their works could not be perfect before God until they had done this work. They were to keep fresh in their memory the things they had heard and received, and were to communicate the same to others. They were themselves to hold fast, and repent, that they had made so little use of the truth in helping the souls that were ready to die. This work had been neglected, and they were revealing to the world that their works did not correspond with their faith. The things they had received and heard, they were to hold fast in their memory, and in love for souls, they were to communicate it. God called for repentance, because of this neglect of duty, which made their work imperfect before Him. They were weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, and found wanting. {Lt44-1898.9}
The sin especially charged against this church is that they have not strengthened the things that remain, that are ready to die. Does this warning apply to us? Let us individually examine our hearts in the light of God's word, and let our first work be to set our hearts in order by the help of Christ. {5T 610.1}
Rev 3:4 "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy."
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev 7:13-14)
Do you not want to be among the number of whom Christ says, "I have a few names even in Sardis that have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy." [Revelation 3:4.] {Ms28-1901.19}
Rev 3:5 "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels."
Rev 3:6 "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."