Please turn in your Bibles this morning to Revelation chapter 3 as we look at the letter that Jesus wrote to the church in Sardis. As we have seen, Revelation chapters 2 and 3 deal with the second division of this book, “the things which are,” and the focus is 7 letters that Jesus wrote to 7 different churches all located in the Roman Province of Asia Minor or the western part of modern day Turkey.
On Thursday we looked at this church HISTORICALLY, that this was a real church that existed in John’s day. The city of Sardis was located about 30 miles southeast of Thyatira and it was located on a 1500-foot plateau. Because of the location and their ability to defend their city, they were complacent, lethargic to any attack that might come. In fact, one of the sides into the city was impregnable, or so they thought because of the high cliffs that the enemy would have to scale to get in. But, in all their security, they were invaded twice, by Cyrus and the Persians in 549 BC and by Antiochus the Great in 218 BC, they neglected to guard that part of the city and that is where the enemy penetrated into the city, before they were even aware! By 133 BC they were under Roman control and their protection. That was not only the weakness of this city, their lethargy, their complacency, being asleep; but it was also the weakness of the church there in Sardis.
The city was filled with rampant immorality and was well known for their lax moral standards and open licentiousness or decadence, depravity. The goddess they worshiped with Cybele and the worship of this goddess was centered around sexual immorality. But the light of the Gospel pierced the darkness of this city, probably during Paul’s missionary journey as he spent 2 years in Ephesus. But now, some 40 plus years have passed and the church is spiritually dead, they are not even on life-support. The Spirit of God no longer was in the church or in the people. The church was devoid of the Spirit of God, they were dead, populated by unredeemed people for the most part! So Jesus writes this letter to this dead church in around 96 AD, it was a real church.
We also looked at this church on Thursday PROPHETICALLY speaking or how this church fits into the church age. The church of Sardis represented the dead Protestant church. You see, out of the compromising church of Pergamos we moved to the corrupt church of Thyatira, which represented the Roman Catholic Church and their corruption of salvation, besides many other things. Out of that their was a remnant of believers who wanted to get back to the Word of God and they protested against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, men like Martin Luther led the way for the Protestant Reformation that believed in a salvation solely upon the grace of God through faith upon God that is only found in the Son of God, Jesus Christ! This was a move of God and it was badly needed and it lasted from around 1517 AD to 1750 AD.
The problem was the church became lifeless the church was dead! How did this happen? This can happen very easily and keep in mind it still can happen today with any move of God if they travel down this same road. First of all there is a man who God stirs to get back to God, back to His truth, back to His Word. From there a movement starts or a mission as people are getting saved, they are growing in the Lord. It is a great work of God but as time goes by the work becomes a monument to a man and a monument is cold, it is hard, it is lifeless. There is no Spirit working in it! That is what happened to the Protestant church prophetically speaking.
But our main focus this morning is to look at these words or this letter INDIVIDUALLY or how they relate to us, what we can glean for our own lives as Jesus speaks to us. You see, Jesus closes this letter and all His letters with these words, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 3:6. Are you open this morning to what the Spirit is saying to you? I know you all have ears, but what about your spiritual ears, are you open to hear what God is saying to you? He wants you to be!
In Isaiah 55:8-9 we are told, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Now that can be disheartening, how can we know the ways of the Lord, how can we know what He desires for us? Don’t fret, because He goes on to say, “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:10-11.
You see, as you hear God’s Word, as you apply God’s Word to your life, it refreshes you, it helps you to grow in the Lord. God works by His Spirit through His Word and when God’s Word is proclaimed, when you hear it, it will accomplish in your life what God desires if you allow it to, if you are open to what the Spirit is saying to you. If you leave here this morning unchanged, it is not God’s fault, His Word went forth, it is your fault for not hearing what the Spirit is saying to you!
Now God is not being harsh here, He is just telling it like it is and He loves us so much that He wants us to hear His Words, apply His Words to our lives so we may know His ways, so we may know His thoughts for our lives. That is exactly what Paul tells us in I Corinthians 2:10-16, how we know the mind of God by the Spirit of God. He tells us, “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” May we be open to what the Spirit of God is saying to us!
Before we get to our text this morning, let me share with you this story about “The Ancient Mariner.” We are told:
Have you ever read “The Ancient Mariner”? I dare say you thought it one of the strangest imaginations ever put together, especially that part where the old mariner represents the corpses of all the dead men rising up to man the ship, - dead men pulling the rope, dead men steering, dead men spreading sails. I thought what a strange idea that was.
But do you know, I have lived to see that time. I have gone into churches, and I have seen a dead man in the pulpit, a dead man as deacon, a dead man handling the plate, and dead men sitting to hear.
- C. H. Spurgeon
Do you know who said those words? It was Charles Spurgeon and how insightful he was. You see, as we look at this letter to the church of Sardis we will look at it individually. Where are you at with the Lord? Are you sleeping in your relationship with Him? Maybe you are just a religious person and you believe that will save you, you are playing church but the Lord is going to show you that you are dead, spiritually speaking. With that as our background, let’s begin reading in Revelation chapter 3, starting in verse 1 and see what the Lord has for us this morning as we look at the dead church and the lessons we can learn from them so we may be alive in Christ!
As Jesus looked at this church in Sardis He knew their work but it was not good, it was done half-heartedly, it was never finished. They were not like the church in Ephesus that worked to the point of exhaustion for the Lord and completed the work. And instead of moving forward, of growing, they sat on their past accomplishments but they had died long ago, spiritually speaking. There was no life in them!
Back in 1984, some 22 years ago I ran the Chicago Marathon in 3 hours, 34 minutes and 32 seconds. That is it took me that long to run 26.2 miles! It was great, running through all the various ethnic neighborhoods. They had water and snacks throughout the race course! “That’s great, but what are you doing now?” “Well, I walk to the mailbox and sometimes I do make it that far! Did you know I ran 26.2 miles! It was great back then.” You see, what am I doing now in regards to running, racing? Absolutely nothing! That is what can happen in our lives, it is what happened in this church in Sardis and we need to be careful we don’t go down that same path!
The title that Jesus uses of Himself from Revelation chapter 1 is that He is the one who “has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.” Revelation 3:1. In other words, through Jesus the manifold or complete working of the Holy Spirit is found, as the number 7 represents completeness. Thus, many who say they are alive and are actually dead spiritually speaking because they don’t have the Spirit of God working in them. Paul made that point in Romans 8:9-11 as he said, “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
This morning we are going to look at two groups of people, those who are not saved or the unregenerate; and those who are saved, the regenerate. The reason we are doing this is because some of you may be spiritually dead, you are not saved and you are here this morning for that purpose. Others of you may have quenched the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, ignoring what He is showing you. Both of these groups or people need to change, they need to be open to what the Spirit of God is saying to them, one for salvation and one for sanctification, they need to return back to the Lord. And folks, without the Spirit of God working in you, you are spiritually dead!
THE UNREGENERATE
PERSON
The unregenerate person is the one who has rejected Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They may be religious and they may not be, but in either case, they don’t know the Lord, they don’t have a personal relationship with Him! Because of that their names will be blotted out of the Book of Life. I don’t believe this is speaking of losing your salvation because that would go contrary to what the Scriptures teach us. I believe that everyone’s name is written in the Book of Life and the reason for that is everyone has the same chance to accept or reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior. If you reject Him, then your name will be blotted out of the Book of Life and you will enter into eternity one day apart from Him in the Lake of Fire!
Paul, in Ephesians chapter 4, staring in verse 18 says this about the unsaved, “having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Ephesians 4:18-19. They are alienated from God, they don’t understand the things of God because they don’t have the Spirit of God in them and they refuse the work that the Holy Spirit is doing right now, drawing them to Jesus! Their hearts are hard towards the things of God and they are insensitive to Him. Thus, they do as they please and because the heart of man is evil, that is what is manifested in their lives, some worse than others!
Paul, in I Corinthians 6:9-10 tells us, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” Don’t be deceived into thinking you will enter into heaven because of your good works, the only righteousness that God will accept is the righteousness of Christ or perfection. I know what you are thinking, “It can’t be done!” That is true from a human perspective we can’t accomplish that. Dead people can’t help themselves and being spiritually dead you are in that boat!
Then what can be done? How can we attain that righteousness? By faith in Jesus Christ as Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” You see, it is not my righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ that has been imputed into my life by faith! That is also Paul’s point in I Corinthians 6:11, after he listed all that will not inherit the kingdom of God because of their sins, he says, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
We were dead, but our Lord came and took our spiritually dead bodies that were filled with sin and He washed them, He sanctified them, He justified them and it is all IN CHRIST! In Ephesians 2:1 Paul said, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Now it is your choice, to remain spiritually dead, separated from God by your sins, blotted out of the Book of Life, or you can receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior and He will bring life to your spirit so His Spirit can guide you!
THE REGENERATE
PERSON
The regenerate person is one who is saved but they have moved away from the Lord, they have backslidden and are cold and insensitive to the things of God. How do you know where you are at this morning? Well, ask yourself these questions, it is not exhaustive but you will see where it is going and you will know.
And the list can go on-and-on but you get the idea. We can become spiritually dead as we close our lives to God, to the Spirit of God. Paul in I Thessalonians 5:19 said, “Do not quench the Spirit.” That word “quench” is the Greek word SBENNUMI, (sben’-noo’mee) and it speaks of extinguishing. In other words, you are throwing water upon the flames of God’s Spirit, you are putting out what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life and you are spiritually dying!
Again, I don’t believe you can lose your salvation but you can live your Christian life in the wilderness instead of the land of Canaan or the Promise Land, living a life of the Spirit under His control! Paul put it this way in Ephesians 5:15-21, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.” A life that is submitted to the Holy Spirit will be a life in submission to God and to others. Could the reason there is so much conflict in your life with other people is that it is related to your refusal to submit to God and because of that you refuse to submit to others?
Think of it like this. The nearest star to the earth is Alpha Centauri, which is really three stars – Proxima Centauri, which is 4.24 light years away from the earth, and Alpha Centauri A and B, which are 4.36 light years away from the earth. Because these and the other stars are trillions of miles away from us we had to come up with an appropriate measurement unit, and thus, light-year. What does that mean? Light travels at 186,000 miles per second and thus, in 1 year it travels more than 6 trillion miles! And so, you can see how far the nearest stars are from us!
Now, think about this for a minute. If a star that was only some thirty light years away exploded and died some 5 years ago, we would not realize it for another 25 years! By the time we can tell that the star had died, it already died some 30 years ago!
I think many Christians are like that! Spiritually speaking they are dying but they go on like nothing has happened. They may live on their reputation, what they have done in the past, but eventually, what has taken place on the inside will overflow into their actions! Can that happen? You bet, it has and it continues to happen!
One of the best and saddest examples of this is seen in the life of Samson. The angel of the Lord told Samson’s parents that they would have a son and he is to be consecrated to the Lord. And in Judges 13:24-25 we are told, “So the woman bore a son and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him. And the Spirit of the LORD began to move upon him at Mahaneh Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.”
The Spirit of God moved upon this man who was to deliver the children of Israel from the oppression they endured from the hands of the Philistines. But, as he grows he beings to rebel against the Spirit of God by marrying a woman of Timnah, who was a daughter of the Philistines. And over-and-over again he quenches what the Spirit of God is trying to do in his life. He is filled with anger, bitterness, his temper is out of control. He goes and has a sexual relationship with a harlot! Not a good of a picture for this man of God who is not walking as he should!
He then finds another Philistine woman, Delilah and has a sexual relationship her. And Samson was strong, no one could stand against him as the Lord was working in him and through him. Nothing changed in his life no matter what he did, or so he thought. As the Philistines plotted with Delilah to capture Samson, she needed to find out the secret of his strength so they could take him without a fight. So three times Samson lies to her and each time, as the Philistines came in to get him, he overpowered them!
And Delilah keep persisting, saying that he didn’t love her because he did not tell her the truth and he finally gave in. He told her that it was his long hair that gave him the strength and if it was cut off he would be like any other man. And so, in Judges 16:18-20 we are told, “When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, ‘Come up once more, for he has told me all his heart.’ So the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hand. Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And she said, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ So he awoke from his sleep, and said, ‘I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!’ But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.”
Notice that last sentence, “But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.” He didn’t know the Lord left him, why? Because he had quenched the work of the Holy Spirit so much in is life he couldn’t recognize that the Holy Spirit was no longer with him, directing him, guiding him. In fact, in Judges 16:21 we are told, “Then the Philistines took him and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza. They bound him with bronze fetters, and he became a grinder in the prison.”
That is what sin does in our lives folks. It BLINDS us to the evil we are doing and to the things of God we are not doing. Sin BINDS us, it takes us captive, places us in bondage, which God wants to set us free from. And sin GRINDS at us, condemns us, beats us up, which God wants us to be free from that condemnation.
Well, what can we do about this? In Revelation chapter 3 Jesus gives the church in Sardis and us, a five-fold plan of what we need to do if we don’t know the Lord or if we are backslidden in our relationship with Him!
1. BE WATCHFUL
How often are we caught by surprise because we were not paying attention? Do you realize that is what happened to the city of Sardis, not once but at least twice because the people were not paying attention, they were sleeping you might say. You see, Sardis seemed impregnable, sitting on top of a 1500-foot plateau and surrounded by high cliffs, which no army could scale or so they thought. They became cocky and confident, the people of Sardis slept soundly while Cyrus, the Persian king, and his army climbed the steep cliffs. When the sun rose over Sardis on that day in 549 BC its inhabitants discovered they should have been watching instead of sleeping. Did the people of Sardis learn the lesson? It doesn’t seem like it or if they did it was short lived. In 218 BC Sardis again fell when Antiochus the Great surprised the sleeping city by scaling the cliffs at night.
Paul, in Ephesians 5:13-17 warns us, “But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.’ See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Be wise, be alert, be watchful in your walk with the Lord and if you don’t know the Lord, wake up and receive Him! It is time to wake up and not let the enemy keep us dead in sin and it is time to wake up and not let the enemy keep us in this backslidden condition!
2. STRENGTHEN THE THINGS WHICH REMAIN
If you have received the light of the Gospel, don’t ignore it but let it bring you to saving faith. If you are saved and living a life of quenching the Spirit of God, you need to fan those embers so those embers may ignite into a raging fire for the Lord in your life and that is done as you obey Him. DON’T QUENCH THE SPIRIT!
3. REMEMBER HOW YOU HAVE RECEIVED AND HEARD
Don’t negate the truths of God found in the Word of God that you have heard but apply them to your life. Again, let it bring you to saving faith. Don’t let the past hold you back, hold you down, what you have done in the past because God wants to give you a new life in Him! If you are saved and not living for God, get back to that place you were when you first were saved, when you were in love with Jesus and be sensitive to His Spirit in your life, moving forward in Him!
4. HOLD FAST
I don’t care if you are a believer or not, people will try to get you to doubt God’s Word so you don’t grow or so that you don’t get saved! Folks, God’s Word has stood the test of time, it is truth and because it is, it will set you free from the lies of the Devil! Hold onto the truths of God found in the Word of God!
5. REPENT
This is where it truly begins, repenting before God or turning toward God – confessing you are a sinner and asking Jesus to forgive you of your sins, and to be Lord of your life. Or, if you are saved, repenting for your present conduct and turning back to God. You agree with God that sin is sin and you make a move towards Him and not away from Him!
For Samson, he had a lot of time to think about his condition, his life and how he had moved away from God as he went around and around grinding the grain at the wheel. And I believe that Samson did repent, get right with God as we are told that his hair grew back. Now his long hair was not his strength but a symbol of his strength, his consecration to God and now he was back!
And as the Philistines gathered one day to offer sacrifice to their fish god, Dagon, they brought in Samson to put on display showing that their god was superior to the God of Samson. And as Samson was led into this temple to this god of the Philistines he asked the Lord to give him the strength to have victory over the enemies of God. And in Judges 16:29-30 we are told, “And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars which supported the temple, and he braced himself against them, one on his right and the other on his left. Then Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life.”
May our life not end in tragedy as Samson’s did, but in victory as we walk with the Lord and are open to His Spirit’s guiding in our lives. Dead men can’t feel, they can’t do anything at all but we don’t have to remain dead!
Let me leave you this morning with these words from Paul in Ephesians chapter 2, starting in verse 1 as he says, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:1-10.
May we walk in the new life that God has given to us for we once were dead but now the Lord has made us alive and may we not quench the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives but be sensitive and obedient as He leads us!