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Bro. Bill Nichols
Don't lean back. When I lean back, I increase the distance. And you all know if I lean back twice as far, it's one-fourth as strong. That's my physics lesson for today. That's what we're doing, in fact, in physics over the week is how the intensity falls off with the distance from the mic.
So I should know that. So I'll lean forward. We will begin today in Revelation chapter 3, verse 1. And unto the church and to the angel of the church at Sardisrite, 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. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thy works perfect before God. 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. And 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. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment. And I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but will confess his name before my father and before his angels.
He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Now, while I've been talking, this has been sinking down, hasn't it? I'm going to retry that. Maybe it's just a matter of not squeezing harder.
How long is that for now? That is quite all right. You can leave it in. Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. And thank you for all the many gifts that you have given us.
Thank you for giving us this place that we can come to each Sunday morning and study the Word of God. Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us in our study. And most of all, thank you for giving us your Son, that he might bear the burden of our sin and we might bear his righteousness, which will give us the ability to enter into his kingdom.
Because we know we're not able on our own to do anything that will get us there. We praise you. We praise your Son. We praise the Holy Spirit. Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. OK. Unto the angel at the church of Sardis write.
We've been beginning each one of these passages, each one of these letters, with the meaning of the name. I got some different meanings for this name. The literal meaning of Sardis means the red ones.
The red ones. The ones who are red. And I believe that may infer, that may relate to the fact that they were big into the production of dyes. But that may have been fire and tire. I may have my churches mixed up.
Many scholars infer from that name that he's talking about the escaping ones. Or those who come out. Or he's talking about a remnant coming out. Coming out of what? Well, coming out of the previous church.
The church at Thyatira. There are many scholars that believe or view the previous church, the church at Thyatira, as a foreshadowing of the Roman Catholic Church. And a time that we refer to as the Dark Ages.
We talked about this a little last week. It was a time when the church in Rome took the Bible away from the people and said only they could interpret it. In fact, they kept it written in a language that was so obsolete that the people couldn't read it, even if they knew how to read.
And most of them didn't know how to read. They still recommend that their job is not to read it. And if they decide to read it anyhow, it's not their job to interpret it. Only they can interpret it. I think that that's probably a valid point.
It was a time when the mother church, the queen of heaven, were exalted above Jesus. We talked about that last week. It was a time when the church told the people that if they wanted to interact with God, they had to pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus.
They had to pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus, to get to God. Apparently, they hadn't read 1 Timothy 2, verse 5. I'm going to read that to you. You don't need to go there. We're just going to fly by, because we're not really into church that we're going to deal with this morning anyhow.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and man. And it doesn't say the mother of Jesus. It says the man, Jesus Christ. Well, I guess they couldn't allow you to read that passage, could they?
They tore it out? That page is not in the... Oh, you're just... Oh, I am way too literal today. Well, it can be compromised by what you add, and it can be compromised by what you remove. So when you look at the church at Thyatira, it's no wonder that he addressed himself as the son of God.
Now, those same scholars that view the church at Sardis... I'm sorry, the church of Thyatira as the Roman Catholic Church, view the church at Sardis as a foreshadowing of the Protestant Reformation. Now, if that's your position, I would like to warn you upfront, embrace it with care and don't take too much, because there's not much good said about either church.
So now we're going to go on to how Jesus identifies himself or portrays himself to this church. So here's what he says. And unto the angel of the church at Sardis write, these things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
That letter begins innocuously enough. Christ's introduction of himself does not hint at the severity of the situation at Sardis. If you recall, to the church at Thyatira, Jesus introduced himself as the divine judge.
He says, these things saith the son of God, who hath eyes like a flame of fire and his feet are like fine brass. He identifies himself to Sardis, Thyatira, as the divine judge. But here in Sardis, even though like the church at Thyatira, Sardis faced imminent judgment, he depicted himself as the sovereign ruler, working his will through the Holy Spirit and through godly leaders in the church.
I'm going to read the passage again. These things saith he that hath the seven spirits of God, that's the Holy Spirit, and the seven stars. Remember what the seven stars, what he told us the seven stars represented?
The leaders of the churches, of each of the churches, the pastors or the elders of the churches. And the seven spirits, well, that was the Holy Spirit. It was the sevenfold spirit of the Holy Spirit. But here, that's all he does.
That introduction, though, serves as a reminder to the Sardis church of what they lacked. What were they missing? What was the church at Sardis missing? Well, maybe that's too early. What they were missing, they had the leaders.
They had the seven stars. They had the leader of the church. What in the introduction were they missing? The spirit, the Holy Spirit. They lacked the spirit. Now, we're going to go to the next verse. I don't know if they had grieved the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit left.
I know this, that the spirit was not present and working in that church. That's what he's getting ready to say. Now, normally what would happen here, if we followed the pattern of the first three letters, we would have the name, the meaning of the name.
We would have the description of the depiction of Jesus as he speaks to the church. And the very next thing in every letter was a commendation. Something good said about the churches. When he talked about Ephesus, he said, I know thy works and how all these things they have done, yet they'll lack us one thing.
When he talked to Philadelphia, not Philadelphia, that's afterwards. When he talked to Smyrna, he started with good things. Even when he talked to Thyatira, he started by listing the good things. He doesn't start there here.
Jesus deviates from the pattern set by the previous letters. There is no commendation of the church at Sardis, at least not yet. So here's what he says. I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead.
Bam. Right away, he opens with criticism. Devoid of the spirit, the church at Sardis was dead. Populated by an unregenerate people and assembly pretending to be a church. It was a dead church. It was proclaimed dead by Jesus Christ himself.
Now the question for us as we go through these letters, and every one of these letters have something to say for us is, how is a modern church to know that it is dead or in the danger of dying? Not reading the Bible and knowing where they should be, that's one thing, yes.
The few believers should be speaking out, okay? How else do we know that the church is in danger of dying? When they tolerate sin, when they invite the world in, that may be the greatest danger. Yes, sir.
A good reputation in the community might be a bad sign. I'm not going to, I'm not going, you can cut that out of the, that is a harsh thing to say, isn't it? But that may be exactly what God's saying.
If I would, I don't have any control over what's cut in and what's left in and what's left out anyhow. Brother Virgil says that he had rather have the world mad at him than Jesus. I'm with you, brother.
Well, let's look at some of the things that I've listed. You can say these are good or not good, I don't know. When the church is more concerned with the forms of worship than with spiritual reality, it's in danger of dying.
When it focus, is that my phone ringing? When it focuses on curing social ills. When the focus of the church is curing social ills rather than changing people's heart through the gospel of Jesus. When it's more concerned with material than spiritual things, brother Virgil.
When it's more concerned with what men think than what God said. When it is more in love with doctrinal creeds and systems of theology than it is with the word of God. That is the doctrinal creed. The creed may or may not be a valid creed.
And if it is a creed that is not valid, then being enamored with it will lead you away from the spirit. Yes, sir. If it's good doctrine, it's great. That's right. And that would fit very well with the next phrase, systems of theology.
Ways of looking at God, not God himself, but the box that you put God in when you look at him. That's the systems of theology. That's the creed that some people... Everybody has a creed. Everybody has a creed.
Yes, sir. If you're... Well, there's no question about that particular topic. You may be good on that topic and bad on something else. And the warning to us is to put every creed, every doctrine up in comparison with the Bible, with the actual word of God, and see if it matches what the word of God says or not.
And if it's not, discard it or change it. And that's the only... That is absolutely correct. You can have all the doctrine right and still not be concerned with God. And that would be another sign that your church is in danger of dying or is already dead.
They're missing the point of the word of God. Well, at least one of the points of the word of God is the love that we should have for each other and for God. And it's a love that we don't have because the object of our love earns it.
It's not that you're in love with your wife because she's the prettiest girl in Texas. She's the prettiest girl in Texas because she's your wife. That's how you look at her. It's how you look at her. Or when the church loses its conviction that the word of God...
I'm sorry, that every word in the Bible is the word of God himself. When you lose track of the fact that every word in the Bible is a word from God himself, then your church is in danger of dying. No matter what its attendance, no matter how impressive its buildings, Brother David, no matter what its status in the community, such a church, having denied the only source of spiritual life, is dead.
Now, what church are we talking about right now? We're not talking about First Baptist Church in Corsicana, nor Northside, nor Park Meadows. We're talking about Sardis. Is all lost for the people in Sardis?
Well, if you read the next verse, you'll see that that's not the case. Well, if we go back to the beginning and talk about the meaning of the name, the remnant, there's a remnant, but not the entire church.
Even here in Sardis, all is not lost, or all are not lost. When I wrote that, I wrote that as like a collection all, but all in the sense of each and every one in the church, not each and every one of the people that attend that church are lost.
Some are, the most are, but some are not. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works perfect before God. 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. Christ addresses this command to the faithful remnant of true Christians that are in Sardis.
If their church was to survive, it desperately needed life, and Christ laid out for them a path to spiritual restoration by giving them five steps to follow. The first thing they needed to do, they needed to wake up and be watchful.
The sin, the church needed to confront sin and error. Somebody here, when I asked, that was what they said. We do not need to tolerate, we should not tolerate the presence of sin and error in our church.
Can we? I'm not going to even go there, that would take me too far afield. We're all sinners, but some have been spared our sin because Christ took it upon himself. Second, they needed to strengthen the things that remain, things which were about to die.
The third step was for the faithful remnant to remember what they had received and heard. They were faithful and they were remnant, they had heard and received something. They needed to go back to the truth of the Word of God, remembering the gospel and the teaching of the apostles.
Now you know by now, this is the very last book that was written in the New Testament, in fact in the Bible, the very last one. By this time, Paul's letters were in circulation. The rest of the New Testament had been written.
In fact, Peter talks about Paul and his writings being part of the scripture when he says in 2 Peter 3, 15 through 16, an account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you.
As also in all of his epistles, speaking in them of these things in which some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do also with the other scriptures.
So what he's done is he's identified Paul's letters as part of the scripture. Some things are hard to understand. I'm going to add to what Peter said. Some things are impossible to be understood by anyone other than someone who is led to his understanding by the Holy Spirit.
If you don't have the Holy Spirit in you, you can attend seminary for 20 years and come out as uninformed as you went in. Probably more so because you will have developed more false creeds, more boxes to put Jesus in, more ways to view him, and you can't get there without the Holy Spirit guiding you.
Well he says, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest as do as they do also the other scripture unto their own destruction. And fourth, we have to go back to the truths of the gospel. They needed to keep them.
Having gone back to the truth of the doctrine, the scripture, they need to keep them. And finally, they need to repent with remorse and sorrow. The believers of Sardis, if they were to confess and turn away from the sins, if they do that diligently, that would bring about a revival.
The consequences are severe if they don't. Christ warned them, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I come unto you. Coming like a thief always carries the idea of imminent judgment.
Now the threat here is not related. A lot of people take this to be a reference to his second coming, but that's not what this is about. This is a threat to the church at Sardis. And the threat is, if they do not repent, the Lord will come and destroy the Sardis church.
You can extrapolate that into a warning of judgment that all dead churches will face at Christ's return. So if your church is dead at Christ's return, the church will be destroyed, but not necessarily all the people in it.
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. Who is that? The believer, the elect, the remnant within the church, not the church as a whole, but the part of the church that is still true to the Jesus.
Is that a commendation? For the individual it is, but is it a commendation for the church as a whole? Absolutely not, because most of them are not that way. Yes sir, I think it does. I think that you can find believers in every church.
Now why are they there? Why would a believer be in a church that was condemned? Maybe to speak out. Maybe the Lord put them there and kept them there to speak out. Well, I can look around, and since I have started coming to this church, I think you came before I did.
But it's essentially the same time. You left the church you were going to. I left the church I was going to, and I look around and almost everybody I know that the Mitchell children are an exception, but almost every one of us left where we were and came here because we felt more at home here, more comfortable here, more fed here.
This is Bible study for many years. But you could not find a place yet. Actually, I left a church that I did go to, and I was appalled every Sunday morning about things that went on, and finally I said I can't.
In fact, the whole group of us, the family, I can't attend. I guess I agree with all of that. Well, it might not be laziness, but it certainly is a lack of individual study, and it's hard to study and treat the Word of God as the final authority and then do the kind of thing, attend the churches that focus on the kind of things that they focus on.
The church we attended was very good on their view of abortion. They were very much against it. They thought it was a social illness that needed to be dealt with, and they were strong on that piece. But homosexuality, they said, was a genetic defect.
Well, they had to say that because the deacon's son was. And I'm not going to go any more than that, but that was one of the reasons, not the only reason, that was the reason that I was looking to leave.
That's not the reason I stayed. The reason I stayed when I came to this church is, Brother David, I had a problem when I was at the last church. I would go in, and I would sit there, and I would nod my head, and I would doze off, and when the time to quit was there, I was always ready to leave.
When I got here, I found that even when I was under the influence of Benadryl, which sometimes I am, and it forces me to sleep, when I wake up, I'm back attentive, and the only other time is the one I, like I apologized to you last week for doing, hearing five words and then tangenting off and staying there.
But bouncing back in occasionally, I was never at a point where I didn't feel like I was being fed by the Holy Spirit when I was here. Not fed by Brother David. He was the, he was the voice that brought the thought to mind, and sometimes the Holy Spirit led me to focus directly on everything he said, and when I did, it was a great message.
And sometimes he led me to focus on the things he needed me to go to, which you guys didn't need, but it was only me. And it was still a great message. He will see that we will get a great message if we focus on the right things.
That's all the commendation, Brother David, I'm going to give you this morning.
How was he getting something different out of it than the preaching that he did?
I really like that, because what was happening is, you were being influenced by the Holy Spirit. He was leading you to the message you needed to hear, regardless of what message was going out to the group.
And would you have had that same message had you been at home? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not. You probably needed a goad to get you started.
I came here, I had no idea where we were at. You know, I mean, I think a lot of it, and maybe you're going to say it, is the buddy system with the preacher.
You can be too enamored with what the pastor is, you can be too enamored with what the preacher is saying to hear the Word of God. I think so.
I think that's true. I came the first time because Brother David didn't have anything to do with David, it had to do with you guys. Because there was love here, and I felt it here, and I was accepted here.
It's wonderful in this church, and it starts from the head down. And I want to tell you guys, you're amazing, and people, visitors that come here, they don't feel it, and they don't come back, they're not supposed to be here.
I want to give you John MacArthur's view of this verse. Even in a church like Sardis, there is yet a remnant that is undefiled. In the midst of this dead church, filled with unregenerate people, a few true Christians were scattered like flowers in a desert.
There were not enough of them, however, to change Christ's overall evaluation of the church as dead. The church was dead. But He had not forgotten those who remained faithful to Him. So, in answer to your response, while ago we said, do you think there are true Christians in a dead church?
Or can they be true Christians in a dead church? I don't remember exactly how. There can be, and they can be in a dead church right now. But, even so, Christ has not forgotten those who remain faithful to Him.
He never does. They could be lost sheep there, too. And I was going to say it'd be more dangerous to be a lost sheep there than anywhere else, but I've changed my mind. That is certainly not even close to true.
If you're a lost sheep that you have nothing to worry about, the Lord will not miss on any of His sheep. Yes, ma 'am. Well, they are, and I would say even in a small congregation, there's a likelihood that there's an unbeliever or two.
Yes, ma 'am. In that case, if the church repented and came out, then they wouldn't face this imminent judgment. But the church of Sardis didn't. There are those in it. It calls for the true believers to speak out in the dead church.
It does. Yes. We all stayed too long. We all stayed too long in a dead church. And so you're back in exactly the same condition that the church of Ephesus was. If I work hard enough, I can bring the world to the...
It is a place of edification of the believer rather than evangelicals. Yes, Brother David.
...come here, the problem was, well, I think God called me to be a burden to saddle that preacher. I can't argue with that. I thought God probably had called me. Of all people, my dad wouldn't be good at that.
I think God did leave me there for a while, but eventually the Lord gave me the freedom to leave and come here. In the last decade of my life, it's been rich. It's been bruised like crazy, especially...
And so what would have happened? What would have happened if he passed away while he was still attending the church? Okay. He didn't allow that. He wouldn't have allowed it. And we know in retrospect that he didn't allow it because it didn't happen.
But let me take it away from Brother Mitchell. If you stay in that church, if it is your role to be a burr under the saddle of the pastor, and you stay there until you die, will the Lord forget you?
Not if you're his. No, no. This is really a consecrated Christian. She had a large assembly of churches, old age churches, and she had all the women from, you know, I won't go into that because it would be stupid, but all the women.
And she had about, I don't know, maybe it was a big class and she loved teaching. And Sean and I were talking about, well, how did she handle staying in that church where the deacons would go out on the front porch and smoke and preach?
So I used to go to church and the pastor was like, trying to do like Hollywood duty, he didn't care anything about sin, the devil preached no sin. And it was the strangest environment. And how could she be happy there?
Well, her church was that group that she taught. And she focused on helping those ladies because she knew they weren't leaving. And she lived in a home with a husband who would go anyway, so she knew how to block that out and still be joyous.
So I guess that's a good example of how some people can stay in a church like that and be not defiled, you know. And she died still in that church and went to heaven. And that was your point. And that was my point.
And in fact, I got a... Well, there's a good living example of that. And it's sad to me that she didn't get to experience something different before she went through the war, but she died pretty young.
So I think she would have ended up over here and she would have lived longer. I know she wouldn't have been free because she was always the one trying to get me to get saved.
I've got two references. One in Malachi chapter three, verse 16. I'm just going to read it. He's talking about the children of Israel. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another and the Lord hearkened and heard it.
And a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. Verse 17. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
So if they're there, if they're in the community and the community as a whole does not receive the Lord, doesn't fear the Lord, and there are those that do, he will spare them as a man spareth his own son, his son that serveth him.
Well, that one is a little obscure. I'm going to go to Romans 11 and get one that's precisely to the point. Starting in verse one. I say then, hath God cast away his people? He's talking about the Israelites.
God forbid, for I am an Israelite. Of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast his people, which he foreknew? Why ye not that the scripture said of Elias, how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, thou, they have killed thy prophets and have digged down thine altars, and I am left alone and they seek my life.
But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee unto the image of Baal. Even so then, at this present time, also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
So he hasn't cast them all out. He hasn't kept them all. In fact, he cast more out than he kept. But who did he keep? He kept those that were elect. And why were they elect? By the grace of God. And here in Sardis, God had a remnant, even in the dead church.
There were a few separated among the worldly. There were a few sheep amongst the goats, a few stalks of wheat among the tare. And then we come to verse six of Revelation. 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.
I am getting close to the end, and I've got a lot to say about this passage, so I'm just going to, in just a few seconds, stop. But I want you to think about something. I want you all to read verse five again, and I'll read it along with you.
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name of the book of life, but will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. Now, I want to give you a sentence from my next.
This is from John MacArthur. Incredibly, although the text says just the opposite, some people assume that this verse teaches that a Christian's name can be erased from the book of life. Well, what does it say?
What does this verse say? It says, I will not blot out his name. And you can stretch it so far, you can stretch it so far to say, well, if he will not blot out his name, does that mean that he has the ability to blot out the name?
And so they're going to say, well, he could, if he wanted to, blot out the name from the book of life. So how you can take this verse and turn it on its head and make it say the opposite of what it says.
It says the opposite. It says, I will not blot out the name. That's a fact. Now, I'm just going to let it sit there and you can stew on it for the weekend. Does that mean, does that verse, can it be read so that it can mean that Jesus could, if he wanted to.
I don't know exactly how to say this because I'm almost putting in the terms of, can Jesus do, is there anything that Jesus can't do? I'm not trying to say that. But if you are elect, can you become unelect?
I'll just say it that way. If you're elect, is it possible to become unelect? Well, what he's really talking about here, if you go down through, it is the living. It is the book of the living that he's talking about.
Can he take the life of an elect? He can, he does, he will, he always does. And sometimes you'll be taken out of the living and listed among the dead, but that doesn't. Let me read one more verse and then I'm going to stop.
This is Psalms 69 verse 28. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous. Let them be blotted out of the book of living and not be written with the righteous.
Who's written with the righteous? Who is blotted out of the book of the living? The dead, they're not living. So there's a difference between the book of the living and the book of life. The book of life is the book of eternal life.
The book of the living is who's alive now. Can an elect be taken out? Well, we know that. Sometimes we sin to such an extent that the Lord says, it's time for me to take them out of the book of the living and they're no longer alive, but they're his.
No, they were taken out right on time, but they were taken out. But they weren't taken out of the book of life. So there's two different books here that we're dealing with and we'll get to that and hopefully resolve it in a more clear way next time.
But I'm already running over. If you guys got anything you want to add or question or comment about, yes, sir. Okay, there's a book of life. Well, I'll have to look more at that one later, but I do see the point that you're making.
I am convinced that here, the resolution is not for the elect being made unelected. And I'm confident, and this is my box that I'm thinking in, I am confident that the elect are always elect and can never become unelected.
And when I get to the point I can't do that anymore, I'll have to change. I'm convinced that the elect that in this passage that we're talking about, that's what he's talking about. The book of the being taken out of the listed among the living.
But now I'm going to have to rethink, I've got a lot of time to think between now and verse 22, chapter 22. This time next year, we'll resolve that issue or hopefully the Holy Spirit will resolve it for us.
Maybe he will have come and we will know where everybody goes. We'll know where we are for sure. Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for this day and thank you for giving us the many unanswered questions that prod us and provoke us to continue to study your word and help us to realize, to understand that as we study, it is your word that is the ultimate referee.
It's not us. It's not our theology. It's not our creed. It is your word. Give us the Holy Spirit to guide us, to gather what you want us to understand. Keep us and protect us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.