Alright, we're going to be looking
at that passage that Brother Mark just read in Revelation
3 concerning the church at Sardis. The title of the message is,
The Church Dead and Dying. And it's an awful state to talk
about. It's a sad state of some churches. during the last days. But before
I get to that, I want you to turn to Acts chapter 16 because
there's something in the message that I forgot to bring out last
week. And the reason I forgot to bring
it out is, you know me, I get going and sometimes it's hard
to put on the brakes. So, and I just overlooked this.
It was in my notes and I just overlooked it. But I mentioned
in the church at Thyatira how that church had been plagued
by a woman who was a self-appointed prophetess who took upon herself,
going against the word of God, to try to be a leader in the
church, try to take an authority in the church, and women are
not supposed to do that. God forbids it. And it's not
because we hate you women. It's not because we look down
upon you women. It's because this is God's word.
We cherish you. And I may mention how that women
are vitally gifted and used in the kingdom of God for the promotion
of the gospel. And of course, one great, big,
obvious issue that we should keep in
our minds is that the humanity of Christ came to this earth
through a woman named Mary. And she was greatly used of God.
But she wasn't a pastor. She wasn't a deacon or an elder.
And she wasn't immaculate. She was a sinner saved by grace.
But that's one way. But in the church at Thyatira,
over in Acts chapter 16, there's a woman mentioned. If you look
at verse 13, her name was Lydia. Now, in the ancient world, when
we're talking about it, the church at Sardis was in an area called
Lydia. It wasn't named after this woman,
though. But this woman's name was Lydia. And look at verse
13 of Acts 16. It says, on the Sabbath, we went
out of the city by a riverside. where prayer was want to be made,
often to be made. And we sat down and spoke unto
the woman which resorted there. And a certain woman named Lydia,
a seller of purple. She was a merchant woman who
sold purple dye and purple cloth. And that was her profession. And apparently she didn't have
a husband. It says, seller of purple of the city of Thyatira. which worship God, heard us,
whose heart the Lord opened." I love that, don't you? That's
what God does when he brings a sinner. to faith in Christ. He opens our hearts. He gives
us a new heart. And that's called opening the
heart. And it says that she attended unto the things which were spoken
of Paul. And when she was baptized and
her household, she besought us saying, if you have judged me
to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there.
And she constrained us. So there's Lydia. And many of
the commentators say it's highly likely that the church at Thyatira
that Lydia was instrumental in the beginning of that church.
So don't think that women aren't used in the kingdom of God just
because you don't hold office in the church. You're used greatly
of God. And that's how this church, and
this church at Thyatira, though it had its problems, and we read
about them last week, it was begun as a gospel church, a gospel
life. Well, here in chapter three of
Revelation, here we come to the church at Sardis, unto the angel,
the minister, the pastor, the elder, the messenger of the church
at Sardis. Write these things. Sardis was
the capital of an area called Lydia. It was situated on a hill,
and people considered it invincible. It was not really a big place,
but they considered it invincible. But what's ironic about that
is in AD 17, it was partly destroyed by an earthquake. And by the
time this epistle here was written, It had been conquered several
times, and yet they were proud, you know, proud of their city.
And I often liken, when I read about Sardis, I often think about
us in America because, you know, we're proud of our country, and
we thank God for our country, and don't get me wrong, I do
too, but sometimes we get the impression that we're invincible.
And when people get lifted up like that, and think that nothing
can touch us, Sometimes God has a tendency in his providence
to bring us down, doesn't he? So we need to pray about that,
don't we? We need to be careful about that. We have pride in
our flag, but our flag is not our salvation. Understand that. Our country is not our salvation.
Salvation is by the grace of God in Christ. Well, I don't
believe what they call the gospel of the flag, that if you're American,
that means you've got an automatic entrance into heaven. You don't.
It's sinners saved by grace. Well, this church here in Sardis
had been established in the gospel, but it was a decaying city which
was facing a slow death. And sadly, the condition of the
city of Sardis as a whole reflected the condition of the church,
which had been begun on the gospel, as I said. I want to stress that.
This was one of the gospel witnesses in the Gentile world. Christ
identifies himself here. Look at verse 1. These things
saith he that hath the seven spirits of God. Now, the seven
spirits we learned from back in verse 1 symbolizes the complete
the perfect work of the Holy Spirit to give life to dead sinners. Seven being the number of a finished
work, a perfected work. Christ's work on the cross is
a seven. Man is identified by the symbol
of the number six. And you know about 666, we'll
get to that later on. in Revelation. But why are we
identified by the number of six? Because we are always less than
a seven. We're not perfect in ourselves.
We never are. Even as sinners saved by grace,
we're not perfect in ourselves. I know there's some who preach
that we have some kind of inward perfection. And I know the Spirit
works in us and His work is perfect. But my friend, when it comes
through me and you, It is imperfect. And I'll give you this example.
The Spirit of God enables us to believe in Christ. He gives
us faith to believe. But is our believing perfect?
Do you ever have any doubts at all? Do you ever question God? Hey, do you ever complain? I do. Well, that's unbelief. And I always remember the disciples
who looked at the Lord and they said, Lord, we believe, but help
thou our unbelief. Go through circumstances in life
that just don't go our way. Why me, Lord? Why God? Are you
really up there? Are you really watching out for
me? That kind of thing. We all go through things like
that. But the reason that we do not denounce Him completely
is because He won't let us go. Aren't you glad of that? All
the things that we've done that were just rotten, but he will
not let his children go. None shall pluck them out of
my Father's hand. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God in Christ. So the seven spirits of God,
now he's talking about a complete work here, to a church within
whose confines are a lot of people who are incomplete. And that's
the spiritual deadness that he's going to talk about. But you
know what? Only Christ can do that perfect
work. And he did it on the cross to
save his people from their sins. And when he does his work within
us, it is a completed work, meaning that it has reached its goal.
We'll talk about that in just a minute. But he says in the
seven stars, he said, I know thy works. That's their attitude,
their conduct, all of that. And here's what he says, that
thou hast a name that thou livest and are dead. Sad to say their works revealed
something negative about them, not positive. Their works didn't
give evidence of the life of Christ within. He doesn't get
really specific on what was happening here other than he talks about
a defiled garment. And I'll get to that in just
a moment too. Their works revealed that they were Christian in name
only. You got a name, but you're dead,
spiritually dead. That's what he's talking about.
That means their faith was a mere profession and not the confession
that leads to repentance unto life. Not that confession that
leads to real love for Christ and his truth. They had a reputation. Well, we like a good reputation,
don't we? Nothing wrong with a good reputation if it reveals
the positive. They had the name, but Christ
sees and He knows the heart. He knows the reality. He knows
me right now. He knows my thoughts. He knows
your thoughts. He knows your heart. He knows
whether or not you'd rather be somewhere else today. rather
than thanking him and glorifying him and worshiping him. He knows
that. I don't. Sometimes I can look
at people and see them reading a book or whatever. But not often,
I don't look for it. I'm just gonna preach to you
whether you hear me or not. That's the way it is. But he
says, they had a good reputation. And like Pergamum that we read
about earlier in another message, Basically, in some of these churches,
there were two congregations. Those who held fast his name
and had not denied the faith, and those who were just giving
off that mere profession. In Pergamum, they had those who
held fast to the name of Christ in history. Then they had those
who got sucked into the doctrine of Balaam, compromised, followed
men rather than God. I've seen that happen. I've seen,
in churches, where God has kept the faithful
faithful, and where men and women have followed men out. That's
the doctrine of Balaam. Compromise. But here, most of
the congregation of professing believers were dead spiritually.
So here we see the problem was not without the church. It wasn't
Satan attacking them from without, like he did, for example, in
another church, the church at Smyrna, going through persecution
from without. But the problem here was Satan's
deception from within. And it sort of reminds me of
2 Thessalonians 2, where he talks about those who perished, not
because they openly denied the truth, but because they receive
not the love of the truth. To understand that this is life
and death. You realize the gospel that we
preach and believe here is life and death? It's not just another
shade of Christianity. It's not just another denomination. It's not about doctrine on which
we can agree to disagree. Do you understand that? This
is life and death. Anything less than this is death.
People preaching salvation conditioned on sinners. People measuring
righteousness on that sliding scale. That's deadly. We preach Christ crucified, risen
from the dead, the standard of all things. Christ who is God
manifest in the flesh. Anything less is an idol, is
an imposter. We preach the righteousness of
God in Christ. What is that? That's the merits
of the obedience unto death of Christ who died on that cross
as my surety, my substitute, and my redeemer. By which he
saved all for whom he stood on that cross. And will bring them
to glory. Not one of them will perish.
Anything less is deadly. So there was no conflict outside
this church because being dead, they were no threat to anybody.
Evil men only stand against the light when it shines. You hide
it under a bushel, no problem. No offense. We're just going
to get along with everybody. And I'm not saying that we're
going to go out here and look for trouble and try to make people
angry. That's not what we're doing. We just preach the truth.
That's all you have to do. Preach it in love. Be as kind
and smile all you want. But still by nature, men and
women hate the light. Our gospel is a challenge. Our
gospel is controversial. Why is it such a controversial
thing? It's because we're lights in
a dark world. And where the light shines, it
exposes evil deeds, men and women's works, which they highly esteem
and think recommend them unto God. It does not tell lost people
what they want to hear, which makes them feel good about themselves.
It does not speak peace where there's no peace. A church at
peace is the peace of a graveyard. Dead spiritually. I mean at peace
with the world. False religion. With Satan himself. In this church it could be soon
that Ichabod would be written over his door. You know what
Ichabod means? It's not Ichabod Crane. It means the glory has
departed. That's what that word means.
Well what is the glory of our church? It's not in what we wear,
it's not in how impressive we are, it's certainly not in our
numbers. It's in what we preach, who we
preach. Christ, there's the glory of
the church. That distinct message of salvation
by God's free and sovereign grace, the sovereign God of this universe,
who answers to no one? Who are you to reply against
God? Well, I don't like that doctrine. Who do you think you
are? God created this world. He gave
you the next breath you take. You gonna argue with him? You
gonna debate with him? He's wisdom itself. We're such
a foolish people. Who do you think you are? Who
can say to him, what do you think you're doing, God? Who can stay
his hand? No one. No one. And do you realize that one day,
sooner or later, you're going to go meet him, stand right before
him, and your meager existence will pale, except for one thing. If you stand before him washed
in the blood of the crucified one, clothed in His righteousness,
having been given a new heart, a new life, thinking differently
unto the glory of God. But such is our fleshly natures.
If God doesn't give us life and keep us unto glory, we will not
be saved, will we? Well, He says in verse 2, be
watchful. That means wake up. Be diligent. He says, the things
which remain." Cultivate and grow whatever's left of the truth. That's what he means. A lot of the truth had been forsaken
by many in this church. But there were some still. Now
you remember, in all the churches throughout the New Covenant age,
you're going to have believers and unbelievers in them. If the
message is not preached strong from the pulpit, standing firm,
it's going to dwindle. And so he says, strengthen, cultivate,
grow that which remains that are ready to die. You know, the light is going
out in this church, but he commands them. And I know that God's in
control. If he meant for there to be a
church in the town that was known as Sardis even today, It would
be there, you know that. But he's making a point here.
For our benefit, let's not let go. Let's hold on to Christ for
dear life. Let's stand firm for his truth
come hell or high water. That's what we're to do. And
we know if we do it, who gets the glory? God does. If we do maintain and if we do
persevere and we do continue, it's only by the grace of God.
Isn't that right? You know that. He says, for I
have not found thy works perfect before God. Now what he's talking
about is completion. And here's the idea. When God
the Holy Spirit gives new life within, He doesn't make us perfect
within ourselves as far as sin or sinlessly perfect, but He
does complete His work. He perfects it. And how does
He do that? He brings us to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works unto the love of God. I think
it's in 1 John where He talks about love made perfect It doesn't
mean that when God sheds abroad in my heart His love and then
I can honestly say I love God and love His truth and love you.
It doesn't mean that I do that with a perfect love. I don't.
Again, I'm a sinner saved by grace. I have the flesh to deal
with. And you know what the flesh loves? Loves self. I love me. And you love you. But He gives us the spirit of
truth, life within to love God and to love His truth and love
His people, not yet perfectly. But love made perfect is that
which love of God shed abroad in our hearts that brings us
to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works and walking in
the grace of God. That's the completed work here
on earth. Now there is a work to come that
will make us perfect in ourselves, the completed work. That's glorification. That's when I die or when Christ
comes again, whichever comes first. Then I'll be perfect in
myself because this corruptible will put on incorruption. We'll
have a new body, a spiritual body. Don't know a whole lot
about that. But if you want to read what
the Bible has to say about it, read 1 Corinthians 15 and still
you'll have more questions than answers when you're finished. But this is what he's saying
to this church. Look at it. Verse three. What he's saying,
thy works perfect before God. Many of you have not come to
repentance. You claim to believe, but you've
not come to repentance. The Bible says in 2 Peter 3 and
9 that it's God's will that all of his children, his elect, come
to repentance. And what I mean is it would be
like saying, well, I believe that Christ and He's the only
way, but you don't have to believe that in order to be saved. You
can believe other things. It's like these churches who
say there are many ways to God or many ways to Christ. Christ
says one way. All other ways are death. All other ways are dead works,
fruit unto death, evil deeds. Idolatry, all those words that
you can think of. But he says here that that idea
of perfection, of the completed work has not been accomplished.
If God meant to accomplish it, it would be. But from this comes
perseverance and growth and grace and knowledge as we seek to cultivate
the fruit of the spirit, fight the warfare of the flesh and
the spirit. It's a testimony that Christ is the only way of
salvation. Salvation, he's the only way of righteousness, the
only way of eternal life, the only way to glorify and be accepted
with God, and every other way is a false way of death and damnation.
Look at verse three. 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. To consider the Word of God in
the Gospel lightly, or something less than life and death, is
to court death and damnation. Do you know that? He calls on
them to remember. But what are they to remember?
Well, remember how this church was started when Lydia was there.
When God brought in a preacher who preached the truth and the
Gospel. How excited and how firm we were in our resolve. and all
of that. The great truths of God's grace
in Christ, the doctrines that honor God and not men, brought
us to conviction of our depravity and sin, exalted Christ and drove
us to Him and His righteousness alone for all salvation, and
which motivated us unto love and obedience in the faith. Hold
fast and repent, means to believe in Christ, believe His word.
Live by this word unto repentance of dead works and all sin. The
only other alternative is death, and don't ever depart from the
basic gospel truth, else the light will go out completely. I've heard preachers say, well,
I've moved on from that, meaning the gospel. Now I'm dealing with
how we should live. Here's the thing. We don't know
how to live without the gospel. We don't know how we should live
without the gospel. Teaching people how to live without
the gospel is like going out there in your car and getting
in and trying to drive it on an empty tank. Not gonna go anywhere, is it?
You can shine it up, you can fix everything that's wrong in
it, but until there's gas in that tank, you're going nowhere.
And that's what the gospel is. It's the gas in our tanks. It's
the motivation. It's the end result. It's the
guide. Everything that we do by way
of obedience is to be motivated by grace, love, and gratitude.
Where do you find that? In the gospel. And that's what he's telling
them. And he said, if you don't do that, I'm coming as a thief
in the night when you least expect it, and I'm going to remove this
light. this candlelight. Look at verse
4, he says, 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. In other words, there were a
few believers still left there. This was a slow process. You
need to understand that. This wasn't like a true believer
in a false church listening to a false gospel every day. That
doesn't happen. If you're under a false gospel,
if you're a true believer, you're going to get out of there. But
this was a gradual declension. See? And it didn't come on all
of a sudden. And so he says, there's still
some true believers there. And look how he puts it. They
haven't defiled their garments. Well, what's he talking about?
The garments of salvation. the garment of the righteousness
of Christ, which is often in this metaphor called a cloak,
the imputed righteousness of Christ. Do you know when you
get away from the gospel, you first get away from the heart
of it. And what is the heart of the
gospel? Justification before God based upon the imputed righteousness
of Christ. That's the heart of the gospel.
That's right. forgiven of all my sins by the
blood of Christ, declared righteous in His sight, based upon Christ's
righteousness, charged to me. That's my standing before God
and it never changes. And from that, the Spirit gives
me life within to rest in Christ and believe in Him. And you mark
my words, when men and women start tolerating The decline,
the negativity upon that heart of the Gospel. Deny imputation,
deny righteousness, that's the beginning of the death. Right
there. And you'd be amazed how many
people will go along with him. He says this, he said, they shall
walk with me in white, for they're worthy. Now let's look at the
whole of Scripture. And ask yourself, am I worthy? Well, the best you could say
if you're going to lie to yourself, the best you could say, well,
there are times I'm worthy and there's times I'm not. Well,
if that's the kind of worthiness you have, you're in trouble. What is our worthiness? We're going to read about it
in Revelation 5, where the apostle sees the vision
of those in heaven proclaiming worthiness. And where is their
worthiness? Well, he talks about a book.
It's the book of God's decrees. It's the book of life. And he
says no man in heaven and no man on earth was worthy to open
that book. And you know what he did when
he saw that? He wept. He just cried. But all of a sudden,
somebody comes on the scene. Who is this somebody? The Lamb! The Lion of the tribe of Jesus.
Christ comes! And He opens the book because
He's worthy. So when He speaks of our worthiness,
what's He speaking of? Those who haven't defiled their
garments. Those who stand before God dressed in the righteous
robe of Christ, washed in His blood. What can take away my
sin, wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood. There's
my worthiness. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood
and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
Our worthiness is in Him. Worthy of all blessings of salvation
and eternal life in and by Him. How do men and women defile that
garment which they claim to have? Well, they defile it by trying
to establish their own righteousness. Paul wrote about it in Galatians
2.21. He said, if righteousness come by the law, Christ died
in vain. They defile it by compromise,
not giving it, giving Christ the honor that He deserves as
the one and only Savior. Look at verse 5. He says, He
that overcometh. Now who's the overcomers here?
It's believers. Sinners saved by grace. Looking
to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. The same shall
be clothed in white raiment. That gives evidence that they're
found in the righteousness of Christ. How do I know that I
have His righteousness, His blood, to wash away my sins? The overcomers. And how do we overcome? Not by
our own power. Not by our own goodness, but
by the power and goodness and grace of God. And he says, 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. Now my
friend, when you see this term, the book of life, people's minds
automatically go to the Lamb's book of life, which is mentioned
several times in Revelation. The Lamb's book of life is a
metaphor for the names of God's elect written on his heart. It's
not a literal book. And he's not up there writing
names down and erasing names out and all that junk. That's
heresy. The book of life here is just
the book of the living. The Bible is the book of the
living. How do I know that whenever it describes this book from Genesis
to Revelation, how do I know when it describes a sinner saved
by grace that that's me? How do I know that? Well, what
does it say? He that believeth in Christ. That's living. And if you don't,
your name's not in this book, the book of the living. And all
he's simply saying, he's not talking about your name's going
to be blotted out of a book up there. No. All he's simply saying
here is that what life you have now, that's it. Because the rest of eternity,
it's gonna be spiritual eternal death, or the equivalent thereof. You have no part in the book
of the living, which is for God's people in Christ. And Christ
says, I'll confess you before my father and before his angels.
And then he concludes it with what he concludes every letter
to every church. He that hath an ear, Let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Do you have an ear? You say,
well, preacher, I've got two of them. That's not the kind
of ear he's talking about. He's talking about spiritual
ears. Given to a dead sinner by God when he gives that sinner
spiritual life. And it means to heed, obey, act
upon, embrace and love that which is written, that which is preached
in the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. May
the Lord bless his word to our hearts.