The Dead Church - Letter to Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6)

The Dead Church in Sardis and the Meaning of Spiritual Death

All right, so we're continuing in the book of Revelation. I hope this study has been or is beneficial for you. I know I'm enjoying it. I've never really taken the time to really dig deep into each church and what was going on when I did a sermon series through Revelation.

I think it was last summer, maybe the year before, I kind of skimmed through chapters two and three. So it's been helpful for me to really understand what each church was going through and then being able to compare that to what churches are facing today and how there's so many parallels.

If something was happening back then, it's happening now. It's just a matter of where. And even though I noticed, for what it's worth, even though maybe we only have a smaller group here, I don't know how many there are here tonight, 20 maybe, but even if you only get 25 on a Wednesday night, last week's message online, I think we had 200 people watch it during the week.

So, and despite what my daughter says, it's not just me clicking on it 200 times to get that many views. That's not true, okay, if she ever tells you that. But let's open up to Revelation chapter three.

Sardis as a Dead Church and a Warning Against Mere Reputation

Tonight, we're gonna be looking at the church in Sardis, which is known as the dead church, the dead church. The last thing a church wants to be is dead. And it's obvious when Jesus says the dead church, he isn't saying they're dead physically.

I mean, they're dead spiritually. In other words, the people in this church are not saved. They're not saved. Today, when people talk about whether or not a church is dead, they describe it, oh, this church is really vibrant, they're really alive, or this church is dead.

Today, sometimes people have a very superficial understanding of that. So if a church doesn't have a lot of programs or if the people are sitting quietly in the pews and they're sort of reserved, sometimes people say, well, that church is dead.

There's nothing going on or the people aren't lively. Well, that's not how you determine whether a church is alive or dead. It's all about spiritual life. So a dead church is where the people don't know Christ as their Lord and Savior.

They have an outward form of religion. They've convinced themselves that they're good and that everything is fine, but they're not fine because they've never really understood the gospel or never believed the gospel.

Now, Jesus will say to this congregation, you have a name that you're alive, but you are dead. So it's likely that a generation ago, the church at Sardis was alive. They were probably a great church 20 years ago or 30 years prior, whenever they started.

But now that it's on to the second generation, these people are not like their parents or the new people that have come in. They were not holding to the true faith. They were nominally Christian. They were Christian, but it was in name only.

So long story short, living, for a church to be living, it's that the Holy Spirit has made their dead spirits alive. The people have gone through regeneration. They're born again, and that's simply not the case with the majority of this church.

However, there were a few true believers left. They were keeping the candle burning, so to speak, but time was running out. So let's read the letter, Revelation 3, one through six. It says, and to the angel of the church in Sardis, right?

These things says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.

Remember, therefore, how you have received and heard. Hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. You have a few names, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

The City of Sardis and the Background of Syncretism

Okay, so just a little background about the city of Sardis. Today, it's still there. I mean, the ruins are there, but there's still people living in the city today. It's called Sart, but back then, it was Sardis.

Today, it's mainly poor people living there, and the ruins are still there. People can go and see it, but one commentator said this. Situated on the natural Acropolis, rising 1 ,500 feet above the valley floor, the city was nearly impregnable.

Around 1200 BC, Sardis gained prominence as the capital of the Lydian kingdom. Who's heard of the Lydian kingdom? Nobody, a few people have, but its primary industry back then was harvesting wool and dyeing it.

I read one article that said that's where dyeing was invented in the city of Sardis. I'm not sure if that's the case, but their industry was harvesting wool, dyeing it, making garments from it. The famous author Aesop came from Sardis, so most people have heard of Aesop's fables.

So he came from this city, and tradition says that Melito was a member of the church in Sardis, and what's significant about that man, he wrote the first ever commentary, biblical commentary on certain passages of the book of Revelation.

So just a little background for the city, but in ancient times, it was a magnificent city. They had wealth, and alongside their industry of dyeing wool, like many of the other cities in Asia Minor, they also had a lot of paganism and a lot of temples to false gods.

Archeologists believe that they have uncovered a synagogue in the city of Sardis, and on the altar, on the side of the altar is actually a Roman eagle. So what does that mean? Well, if they were willing to mix religious symbols with pagan symbols, basically it's believed that there was a spirit of syncretism in the city.

Today, we call this interfaith, where all the religions are like, hey, let's all just kind of hold hands and get along, and basically all roads lead to God anyways, so who cares? I mean, that's the way it is in our culture today, and that's the way it was back then in the city of Sardis.

So it's called syncretism. So any claim that one faith was true and the others were wrong, I mean, that would have been highly offensive. I mean, it's offensive now, isn't it? Sort of like in our culture, right, being a Christian's perfectly fine as long as you don't say Jesus is the only way, as long as you don't speak against things, people don't mind you being a Christian, but if you do take a stand, then that is a problem.

So that's probably what the church was facing. So that's one thing to keep in mind as far as what led the church down the wrong road. The next thing, in their heyday, the city was, I guess, a military fortress, and it was thought to be impenetrable, so they didn't think that anyone could come in and conquer them.

Remember, 1 ,500 feet up the hill, they got a fortress, high walls, they didn't think anyone could ever give them any problems. Obviously, at some point, they did, and the city fell, but some commentators believe that that was part of their history and that everyone in the city would have known about that kind of attitude that, hey, we're safe here, no one can ever touch us.

Again, sort of like us in the United States, we kind of feel safe, like no one can touch us. Other countries might get invaded, that will never happen here. So just keep those two things in mind that will be important later on.

Christ Has the Seven Spirits of God and the Church Lacks the Holy Spirit

But let's go through this verse by verse. Revelation 3, verse one, and to the angel of the church in Sardis, right, and I've said it every time we've gone through, the angel is probably the pastor of the church, okay?

So it's the messenger, probably the pastor, and Jesus is speaking to him, and Jesus says something slightly different here, easy to kind of skim over it. Back in chapter one, verse four, the message is coming from the Lord and from the seven spirits.

But here in chapter three, it's a slight change. It says that Jesus has the seven spirits. So what's significant about that? Well, instead of the message coming from the Holy Spirit, Jesus seems to be claiming that he possesses or owns the Holy Spirit.

And the message might be a not-so-subtle message to the church that I have the Spirit and you don't. Maybe that's what's being communicated. But turn to Isaiah chapter 11 for a moment. Just wanna spend a moment on this confusing, this always puzzled me for years and years.

And I'd read a commentary, I'd look at the answer, and I don't know if I was totally satisfied with the answer, but this statement about the seven spirits of God. You're like, wait a second, there's only one God and there's only one Holy Spirit.

So what is he talking about, the seven spirits of God? You know, that always, again, didn't really make sense to me. We had said in chapter one, one explanation is that seven is symbolic and it means, you know, completion, fullness.

So this is the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That may be what it's referring to. The other theory is here in Isaiah chapter 11, that there are sort of the seven spirits or seven ministries of the Spirit.

So let's read Isaiah 11, one and two. It says, there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse. A branch shall grow out of his roots. And who's Jesse? We were studying the Old Testament before we got into Revelation.

We know Jesse is the, right, he's the father of David. So a branch shall grow out of his roots. The branch is a name for Christ. So it's talking about Jesus here. Verse two, the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.

So clear reference to Christ. The Holy Spirit empowers him. Isaiah goes on, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

So the idea is that the seven Spirits of God is this right here. Number one, he's the Holy Spirit of the Lord.

He's God.

Number two, he's the Spirit of wisdom. Number three, the Spirit of understanding. Four, counsel. Five, might. Six, knowledge. And seven, the fear of the Lord. So hence the seven Spirits of God. Again, is that really what it's referring to?

We don't know for certain, but that's, these are sort of the two best, I don't wanna say guesses, but again, we don't know for certain. So, all right, let's go back to Revelation 3. But, you know, when we come across a statement that gets you scratching your head about the seven Spirits of God, I wanna try to explain it if I can.

But one thing we know for sure, the majority of the people in the church at Sardis did not have the Holy Spirit, because again, they're the dead church. The people are not saved. Had nothing to do with, you know, you walk into the congregation, you walk into the building, and the people aren't like, woo, you know, like, you know, some churches are, people are yelling an amen to this, and it's a lively group.

That has nothing to do with whether or not you're dead or alive. Okay, so Revelation 3, and to the angel of the church in Sardis write, these things says he who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are, what?

Dead.

You ever heard someone talk about a church, oh yeah, that church is dead over there. Hopefully they're not saying that about Morris Forner, but, you know, they probably, you probably heard someone say that, right?

And maybe someone might say it just to kind of be rude. They don't like the people over there, so they say something like that. I've heard this over the years. Typically it'll be, you know, it'll be a Pentecostal or someone that, yeah, they sort of judge things based on the atmosphere and the noise and the energy level.

But again, that's just not what's being said. So any impressions on what you thought was the dead church? Is this your understanding that dead means like spiritually dead? Okay, okay, good. So like in the other letters, Jesus says, I know your works.

So after evaluating the church, Christ has come to the tragic conclusion that they are dead. So this is the worst church yet. Of all the churches we've looked at so far in Revelation 2, this is the worst one yet.

The only one that might be worse than Sardis is Laodicea. But, you know, it's kind of hard to be worse than dead. Jesus says in verse one, you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. So here's an illustration.

It said that the speed of light travels 186 ,000 miles per second. Okay, now who knows where I'm going with this illustration? Okay, 186 ,000 miles per second. So scientists believe that if you were to go outside tonight, look at the night sky, you see all the stars, whatever, 1 ,200 stars that are visible to the naked eye.

Scientists believe, and this is probably true, that many of those stars, which are however many light years away, more than you can even comprehend, they believe that even though those stars are shining bright in the night sky, many of those stars have burnt out a long time ago.

But the light has been traveling, maybe the light that you're seeing now left that star 1 ,000 years ago, and it's just getting here now. So we're looking at the star and it's shining bright, and actually I think stars shine brighter before they implode or go out.

So you can be looking at a star and it's shining bright, but actually the thing went out 500 years ago. But you would never know, it still looks to be alive. So that's kind of the situation with this church.

They were alive at one point, they had this reputation, this is a great church, but something happened and now they're dead. But not everyone has realized it. And obviously the people there, they're spiritually blinded.

I mean, they don't even realize it themselves. So this still happens. Churches will pop up. I shouldn't say pop up, they'll be planted. Church will be planted, they'll do a great work, they'll get a reputation as a solid Bible-believing church.

Everyone thinks of them as a great congregation, but that was then and this is now. So the church in Sardis, somewhere along the line, things went bad. But they still had this good reputation. So people would have, if you lived in Ephesus and somebody was talking about the church in Sardis, oh yeah, that's a great congregation.

I used to go there 20 years ago. Yeah, but a totally different situation now. But Jesus, remember, he has the eyes like a flame of fire. He has the x-ray vision, as we called it last week. He can see through all that and he knows that the people there are just not, they're not saved.

So has nothing to do with the fact that maybe they don't have a thriving youth group or children's ministry, or they don't have enough programs, or they're not fired up enough, nothing like that. It's that they have never been born again, the majority of them.

Are there churches like that where the majority of people there, they'll tell you, well, I'm a Christian. I mean, they're going to a church, but nobody knows Christ. Actually, if you were to ask them, what is the gospel, they'd give you some off-the-wall answer, like the idea of, well, I'm saved by grace through faith.

Jesus has saved me and I'm a sinner. I'm not deserving, but Jesus died on the cross for my, that's not even in the conversation. Who knows what they would say? I mean, there's plenty of churches like that.

And again, we don't know all the details of the church at Sardis, but they are dead. So we already saw in previous weeks with the church in Pergamos and the church at Thyatira, there were unsaved people in those churches.

There's unsaved people in every church, probably. But this church, it's like the church of tares. It's the majority. John MacArthur writes this about the church in Sardis. He says, the church in Sardis was dead.

That is basically populated by unredeemed, unregenerate people. There are many churches like this today that have a great name, and most people assume the people who fill the pews love Christ, but in actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.

So in making application, I want to be careful because I know there are churches out there that we could probably use as examples, but they had a good name in the past, but today it's totally different, totally unlike.

It's not even the same congregation. It's typically, why would a church go bad like this? Typically, okay, I'll take a, do you have, are you just raising your hand?

Right, yeah, right.

Yeah, and you think, well, substitutionary atonement. Well, I mean, that's just another way of saying like the gospel. Jesus died for our sins. He's our substitute. But you're right, a lot of churches, like that concept is, it's bizarre to them.

Like you believe Jesus actually like died and rose again? Well, like that's how some places are. So typically, it's because of a bad, most of the time, it's because of a bad pastor, most of the time. Is that the case with Sardis?

Who knows, but today, that's been my experience. A new guy will come in, he looks good at first, but something happens along the way and he leads the church in the wrong direction. Here's the example I thought of, not a local situation, so, but a national situation.

I think of the past generation. Charles Stanley was known as one of the most faithful, gospel preachers in the United States. And his church, First Baptist Atlanta, I mean, this is one of the better congregate, as far as big congregations, famous pastors go, Charles Stanley was thought of as a very faithful minister of the gospel.

You with me so far? You know Charles Stanley, okay. But then the next generation came along and his son, Andy, opened up his church with the backing from First Baptist Atlanta. And because his name was Stanley, most people assume that, well, he's a faithful minister of the gospel, just like his dad.

What was that?

He had a name that he was alive, you know, Stanley, but in reality, what he's preaching is radically different than his father. So at First Baptist Atlanta, where Charles Stanley was, he passed away a couple of years ago, but I'm sure at that church, and even today, most of the people, but under Charles Stanley's leadership, no doubt, most of the people in that church were saved.

They knew Christ, they were born again. Their children, though, who went over to that church plant that his son was leading, what about them?

I don't know.

Maybe at first, most of them were saved, but, you know, 20, 25 years goes by and things have changed. Andy Stanley has come out saying that the Bible has errors. He says that Christians need to unhitch from the Old Testament, and he now affirms transgender and LGBT, you know, whatever.

But because of that name, Stanley, and there's still people today, oh, he's Charles Stanley? Oh, yeah, he's, that's Charles Stanley's son. He must be good, right? He has the name that he's alive, Stanley, but very different situation.

Now, even today, I suspect there's some saved people at North Point Church, where Andy Stanley is the pastor. I don't doubt that there's saved people there. It's puzzling to me why they would still be there after all this time.

Maybe they attend because of family or they just can't break away for whatever reason. But remember, these churches in Revelation, we're talking about, what was it last week? Thyatira, and they had some serious problems, and somebody said, well, why don't they just leave?

Why don't people in that congregation just leave and go somewhere else? Well, why couldn't they do that? There's nowhere else to go. Back in the ancient world, you had one church per city, and people are traveling by foot.

So what are you gonna do, travel 60 miles to the next? Like, you didn't have any other choice. So these churches, Smyrna, Pergamos, Ephesus, Sardis, I mean, there's one church there, so if your church is going bad, I mean, at least if there's a few other saved people, even in Sardis, you could still go to church and find some Christian fellowship.

And I think this is the mindset with some people. They will stay in a bad church because they think that them and a few others, hey, we can help turn this thing around. I think a lot of people will stay in a church because they feel like, well, if we leave, then there's really no hope.

So me and my group of friends, we can do something. Back then, that was probably the right strategy back then. And maybe even today, there could be a situation where that actually works. Most of the time, especially if the pastor is preaching false doctrine, I mean, you're not gonna be able to turn that church around.

Just my personal opinion today, if someone was in that situation, try it, but you're probably gonna have to leave. And it would probably be better for you to leave and go to a place where the gospel is being preached.

But again, at Sardis, there's no other options. So keep that in mind. Say, why do these people, why are the Christians who Jesus says they're faithful and they're gonna walk in white, why are they still going there?

They don't really have a choice. Well, they could stay home and not go to church at all. Well, for these people, they knew better. They're like, that's not an option either. Okay, look at verse two. So here's what Jesus says to them.

Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain. So there's something there that remains, but what?

It's ready to die.

For I have not found your works perfect before God. So they had something to work with, wasn't much, but there was a faithful remnant. I remember so many years ago, they left Moore's Corner and they started attending a church.

And I'm thinking, why are you going to this place? But they said, well, they almost preached the gospel there, they said, but there were still a few saved people. And I hear this, that there are actually churches that are totally off the wall, but you'll find that there's actually a few born again people there.

I don't know why they're there. Again, puzzling to me, but sometimes that happens. So Jesus tells the born again people in the church at Sardis, be watchful, strengthen the things which remain. Jesus tells them, I have not found your works perfect before God.

He doesn't really get into what they did wrong. Now I had mentioned, and this is true with a lot of these churches, you have to read between the lines, look at outside, and I hate basing. So take this with a grain of salt, I have to say that, because anytime you're basing something off of commentaries or archeology, like it's not in the Bible, so you can't know for certain, but we're kind of left trying to figure out what happened.

So I had mentioned that the religious sites in the city, the archeology shows us that there is this kind of go along to get along spirit, religious syncretism. Like I said, the altar that was found in the, this isn't the church, but the synagogue had this big altar and had a Roman eagle on the side of it.

A faithful Jew would totally be offended to see a Roman altar or a Roman eagle on the side of the altar. So that tells you something. At the marketplace that they dug up, there were signs of different shops.

There was a Christian shop, you know, with religious symbols for Christianity, and right next door, like literally right next to it was a shop with Jewish symbols on it. So right next door. Now in 21st century America, that's maybe normal.

You say, well, so what? That doesn't really mean anything. But if you read the book of Acts, you know that type of thing just didn't happen. Jews who are committed to their faith and Christian, like the two were not working together.

They were not getting along, right? And especially if you add the Romans into the equation. So the theory goes and the evidence suggests that Sardis was a get along type of culture. In the Roman empire, Christians were persecuted.

Everybody knows that. The only way you could avoid persecution is to compromise. Typically, you would compromise on the exclusivity of Christ. The earliest Christian creed was Jesus is Lord. Okay, so you can believe Jesus is Lord as long as you're willing to say what?

Well, Caesar's also Lord, and actually he's Lord above Jesus. So as long as you're willing to compromise and do that. Actually, I think in the end times, this will be what the Antichrist does. I think he'll say, oh yeah, the Muslims, they can have their rugs and their prayer time and their mosques and Christians with their churches.

Everyone can keep doing whatever you're doing as long as you bow down and worship me. If you do that, fine. But of course, a true Christian isn't going to do that. So the first generation was probably faithful.

The second generation compromised. So in the Roman empire, I read this. Apparently what everybody was called to do, if you lived in the Roman empire, you were at some point, maybe once a year, you were asked to offer a pinch of incense on the Roman altar.

So if you were a Christian, fine, as long as you would sort of bow the knee to Caesar and offer your pinch of incense and say, Caesar is Lord. As long as you were willing to say that and do that, you could worship Jesus.

And I mean, Rome really didn't care as long as you're submissive to them, right? That's what it's about. So Roman symbols on your altar, that's sort of like a church to me, the equivalent would be like a church putting out the rainbow.

It's sort of a sign, it's a symbol letting everyone know, hey, we're going along with all of it, don't worry about us. Now, if you refuse to do that, if you refuse to offer your pinch of incense, what's gonna happen to you?

Well, you might be beaten, thrown in jail or worse, right? And that's probably what happened to the church members in Sardis. So this next generation comes along and they wanna live comfortable lives, they wanna live in luxury, they didn't want the trouble, so they were willing to compromise on anything that, anytime they're pressured, hey, the culture doesn't like this, they don't like this, we'll compromise on this, this and this.

And that's what they did. And that's still what happens today. If something's controversial, the world doesn't like a certain teaching, we just don't believe that anymore. And then that church is, they're one of the good guys.

That's just the way it goes. So that's probably the attitude of the church at Sardis. You have your beliefs, we'll have ours. You know, that was something that happened in the Old Testament. If you look at it, there were Jews who worshiped Jehovah, but right next to that altar of the Lord, they had an altar to Baal on the high places.

They would have Asherah, and you know, you can have Jehovah in there too, but you'd also have these other idols. So I mean, that's idolatry. It doesn't matter if, actually having God in the mix, it's almost worse.

It's more of an offense. So this is just the climate that we're in today. We've all seen the bumper sticker that says co-exist. Well, we believe in living peaceably with all men, Christians. We want to be good neighbors.

We want to be friendly. We want to help people. And if your neighbor is a Hindu, you want to be a good neighbor to them. But at the same time, we want to balance that out with the fact that we want all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

But if you compromise that, you've compromised the gospel itself. Look at verse three. Remember therefore how you have received, how you have received and heard, hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.

So time was running out. They had heard enough of the truth to know what they ought to do. But Jesus says, I will come upon you, like what? A thief. Now, typically when we read those passages about Jesus coming like a thief in the night, typically those are end times passages about the second coming.

That's probably not the case here. There's a video online. If you want to look in to the Churches of Revelation, there's actually a good series from Our Daily Bread Ministries. They kind of cover the historical aspect of all this.

I watched one of them. I thought it was pretty good. But in that video, they show the ruins of the city. And the speaker told of the military fortress. It said at the beginning of the people thought that the city, you couldn't take the city.

They were safe. They're on the hill, high walls. No one can touch us. Well, he told this story how basically when Jesus says, I'm coming as a thief, what does a thief do? Thief comes suddenly. It's harmful.

You don't know when it's gonna, it's a surprise attack.

And yeah.

So he told this story about King Cyrus. His military actually surrounded the city of Sardis, but they couldn't do anything because of the fortress. But one night, one of Cyrus's men noticed one of the Sardis, one of their soldiers on the wall.

He was looking over. As the story goes, he looked over the wall and his helmet fell off. And it fell whatever, 40 feet down to the ground. And they watched. Apparently the guy walked down some secret set of stairs and out this little doorway and grabbed his helmet and went back up and back on the wall.

So, okay, they know there's a way into the city. So the military went around to the opposite side and created a big commotion, which drew all the soldiers to that side of the city. And their special forces went through that opening and they took the city that way.

And the point was, you think you're safe, but at an hour you know not, I'm gonna come against you. And this is Jesus saying that to the church. So what that looks like, that Jesus comes against, I don't know, but it's judgment.

You're a dead church. Well, now you're totally finished. And of course the church at Sardis does not exist today. So at some point that happens. So it's an urgent warning given through the pastor to the congregation.

And we're sort of assuming the pastor's saved, but verse four, there are still a few names, even in Sardis, Jesus says, who have not defiled their garments. And they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

They were still enough spirit-filled people in the congregation to make a difference. But it had to be now, it had to be soon. But even if the church didn't go through a revival, these faithful members in the church received this promise, verse five.

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. And we'll talk more about the book of life in future studies.

That's a whole big topic all its own. It's mentioned seven times in Revelation. So we'll deal with that later on. But in each letter to the seven churches, this word from Jesus to the saints, assuring them of their salvation and heavenly reward, Jesus always phrases it a little different to each church.

You know, the hidden manna to eat, the white stone, you'll be clothed in white, but he's all saying the same thing. You'll be redeemed, you'll be in heaven, you'll receive your reward. So in conclusion, verse six, he says, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

So there's just a lot of churches today. They have a name that they're alive, but they're dead. They're resting on their laurels, so to speak. People think it's a good church, and 20 years ago, yeah, I guess it was.

And it just makes us think that any church, no matter how good it is, any church is really just one generation away or just one pastor away from going from alive to dead. So my advice, you know, to anyone and everyone, be watchful in adopting a syncretistic view that there are many paths to God and just being willing to compromise on any controversial issue.

If you do that, that is a sure way that the Lord is gonna take away your candlestick. The dead church, he who has an ear to hear, let them hear.