Take me and your Bibles this
morning to Revelation chapter 3. We're going through the entire
book of Revelation. And we've been dealing with the
seven churches which our Lord spoke to early in the book. And our lesson this morning is
concerning our Lord's words to His pastor and church at Sardis. If you look at a map, most Bibles
have maps in the back of them. You can turn to them after a
while and look at it. But if you look down at the bottom
of where all these churches were, you're going to see the Mediterranean
Sea. And kind of over on the right-hand
side a little bit begins a line and it runs all the way on an
angle clear up to the Aegean Sea and ends with the Church
of Thessalonica. So kind of beginning southwest
is all these churches that we read about in the scriptures,
Pamphylia and Lystra and Laodicea and Sardis and Thyatira and Troas
and then Thessalonica all the way at the top. And so it was
just like a road. Now the most famous road was
the road where all the trade goods were sold and it run north
and south from there. But there was a road that went
up and kind of interconnected all these Now, if you go over on the coastline
and you find Ephesus over there, and then there's kind of a little
peninsula that goes out there, and then Smyrna's on the other
side of it. And if you just take a line and kind of draw it like
that, you come straight inland over here, and that's where Sardis
was. And it was about 60 miles from
either one of those churches. Back in the day, under Greek
rule and some of these other nations that ruled there, this
was a huge metropolis, just a huge metropolis. And they built a
shrine there to the chief goddess, which was Artemis, the daughter
of Zeus, which the Romans called Diana. And you're probably more
familiar with that than you are the other. And Sardis, is located
not too far from this big mountain. And I was surprised when I was
reading the history about this place that Sardis, when the sands
in the creek, or a small stream that ran through Sardis down
in this open valley, was known for its gold and silver. The
sand was actually made up of gold and silver dust. And the metallurgists, the early
metallurgists there, discovered there was nuggets in there, and
there'd be gold and silver both in the nuggets. Well, they'd
hammer that thing down, you know, and fool with it and make a coin
out of it. But the problem was sometimes it was 80 percent silver
and 20 percent gold, and sometimes it was 80 percent gold and 20
percent silver, and they never could determine an actual price
on the coin because it was of a bad mixture. And the metallurgist
at Sardis figured out how to separate the two metals. And
so Sardis become kind of the beginning of all of modern currency. They were the first ones to produce
a coin that actually held its value and everybody recognized
it all over that whole area. What I'm trying to tell you is
Sardis wasn't no little old burg out in the middle of nowhere.
It was a big metropolis at one time, and it was a huge city. Through the years, Sardis was
conquered, and that whole area came under the rule of the Persians
and of the Greeks and the Romans and so on. And shortly after
the coming of Christ, this city was hit by a huge earthquake. And it almost destroyed the city. So that by the time John wrote
his letter to the church at Sardis, it was no longer a prominent
city, but one dying a slow death. It was just at one time, you
can imagine. I used to drive from here over
to Mississippi and preach every week. Because of our economy,
we drive through these little towns, and you could tell at
one time they were bustling cities, and now it's just one vacant
business after another. You can go through Louisville,
you can see the same thing. It's just one vacant building
after the other. It's kind of the way Sardis was.
It was just going downhill. The church at Sardis, perhaps,
depicts the church today more than any of the rest of the churches
that our Lord speaks to. Brother Fortner in his book on
Revelation said this, he said, the enemy had come and by degrees
had silently destroyed the life of this once magnificent church.
The church enjoyed a peaceful existence now. being persecuted
by neither Jews nor Gentiles. No one bothered them because
they didn't bother anyone. And all of the writers that I
read had this to say about this church. This church was dead. It was dead. They enjoyed a time
of peace, but it was the peace of a cemetery. And spiritually
speaking, this church was dead. And it seems to me that we live
in a day when the church is so small in its influence on them
around us that they consider us dead. And it's pictured that
way. We'll get into that later on in the book of Revelations
where he talks about those servants being dead in the street. Those
servants are a picture of his church in our day. And it just,
they don't even consider us. These big denominations and these
big massive religious organizations, they don't even consider us a
threat. We're like those witnesses that
were dead in the street. Dead in the street. Well, this
is the way it was here at this church, but not under those same
conditions. But I believe this church pictures
our day as well as any of them that we see. Viewing this church with an ear
to hear what the spirit sayeth to the churches is what I want
us to consider this morning. You'll notice here he starts
off talking to a specific church and to a specific pastor with
a specific message. But then when he ends what he
has to say, he says, now he that hath an ear, let him hear what
the Spirit saith unto the churches. Because what he has to say to
them, he has to say to us. And our Lord begins by telling
them that he had the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. Now,
the number seven, as I've told you often, is the number of perfection
and completion. What Christ is saying here is
that he who speaks to them has the fullness of the gifts and
graces of God. He has the fullness of the Spirit. He has the fullness of the revelation
of God and the fullness of the power and the will of God. He
has the seven Spirits. And those Spirits are all the
same. What Spirit He gave to one church, He gave to the other,
to the other, to the other, to all seven churches. Now, just
one spirit, but the spirit speaking individually as far as the revelation
to this church and the revelation to that church or the power to
this church and the power to that church was the same. It
was the same. And the church can have life
inasmuch as that life is derived from Christ who is our life. And it may be that he uses the
number seven here with the Spirit of God to denote that God the
Spirit is his gift to give to his churches, and a gift not to be taken lightly.
And then he reminds them that the seven stars are his also. There he is. He holds them in
his hand. He can do with his pastors what he pleases. He can
take a pastor I've been through this so many times with young
preachers and been through it myself. And you sit down and
you try to figure, where could I go? Where could I have this
influence? How can this all come about?
What am I going to preach? How am I going to do that? How
am I going to conduct the services? And we sit down and we try to
figure all the best sources and means and everything and put
them all together. Pastors are in his hands. He can send one
to the most unlikely of places. And he can raise up a church to the most unlikely a place,
a place that you wouldn't even think God would ever even consider.
That would be the place where he raises up his church. And
he can take a pastor and he can make him a worldwide influence,
or he can take a pastor and just leave him nearly silent. What Christ is saying here is
that He who speaks to them, He has the fullness of all these
things. And the Spirit is His to give
and the pastures are His to use. He is to give and He is to take
away. He is to stir up and He is to
make silent. These two things are the basis
of the life and power and influence of the church in this world.
The Spirit of the living God and the preaching of the gospel.
You take those two things away and there is no church. The Spirit of the living God,
the ascension gift of Christ to His church. This is what He
gave on that day of Pentecost. We're going to talk about it
here in just a little while. He is the inspirer of Holy Scripture
and the revealer of its message to men. Eye hath not seen nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things
which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed
them unto us, how? By His Spirit. By His Spirit. And I tell you, men gather in
here on Sundays and listen to messages, but not everybody hears. I wish they did. I pray that
God will open their ears and make them to hear, but everybody
don't hear. It takes the Spirit of the living
God to press His Word home on your heart, enable you to eat
that Word like meat and drink it like His blood. Even the gospel. in all of its
glory has no effect on men except it's accompanied by the powerful
influence of the Holy Ghost." And that's what thrilled Paul's
heart at Thessalonica. He said, I know your election
of God because my gospel came not unto you in word only. It
wasn't just a doctrine. It wasn't just a dead letter.
It didn't just go out and you say, oh, I've never seen that
before. That's in the Word of God. And
now you've got a new basis for arguing, and you can go somewhere
and argue about it. No. No, it came in power, and
it came in the Holy Ghost, and it came with much assurance. The Spirit of the living God,
and then the preaching of the Gospel. So-called Spirit-filled
churches of our day have no power over lost souls because there's
no truth being preached. The primary mission of the Holy
Spirit is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto
us. That's what the Spirit's going to do when He comes. Our
Lord tells us that in John 16. When He comes, He's not going
to speak of Himself. Well, what do these Spirit-filled
churches talk about? The Spirit, the Spirit, the Spirit,
the Spirit. When the Spirit of God comes,
He's not going to speak of Himself. He's going to take of the things
of mine, Christ said, and show them unto you. How do I know
when the Spirit of God speaks? When He teaches me something
about Christ. Opens my heart and fills it with
Christ. Now the Spirit of God is in that
meeting. Not when you jump up and down
and wave in your arms and all that kind of nonsense. The Spirit of the living God
comes in power to all those given to Christ in eternal election
and redeemed by His precious blood. He is the guarantor that
that gift of the Spirit, that gift He said is unto you. We're
going to talk about this in just a little bit. Oh, what a wonderful
scripture that was as I studied this and began to think about
that at the same time. And I thought, well, I'm going
to preach on that. He poured out His Spirit on the
church, and He began to show them the things of Christ And
3,000 souls were called to Christ. Huh? Their hearts were pricked. Do you see what our Savior is
saying to His churches? These things are mine to give. I have these things. You need
these things. I have these things. I'm going
to give them to you. I'm going to give them to you.
And don't you take them lightly. Don't you take them lightly. I purpose to give these things.
I have given them, and I shall yet give them. And then listen
to this, Revelation 3, verse 1. I know thy works, that thou hast
a name, that thou livest, and art dead. That is, You have a
reputation of being alive. You've made a profession of faith.
You walk down an aisle. Whatever it is you did, you made
a public profession. You were baptized. You identified
yourself with a certain faith, with a certain Christ, with a
certain gospel. You identified yourself. You
have a reputation of being alive. Men, when they talk about you,
say, that man has life. That man's a believer. He's a
child of God. He's an heir of grace. He said,
you have that. You have a name. You ever think about that? Those
of you who have made professions of faith, you have a name. God
has given you a name. You are not a dead man anymore,
you are alive. Called out of darkness into His
marvelous light, you have a name. And this is what our Lord told
them, I know thy works and that thou hast a name and livest. and are dead. You've got a reputation of being
alive from the dead, of being my church and heirs of eternal
life, but you're dead. You know, when a person makes
a profession of faith and submits himself or herself to baptism
and joins a local church, they take upon themselves the name
of a Christian. They put on the uniform, Brother
Barnard used to say. put on the uniform. They have,
by their obedience to His divine command, proclaimed publicly
that they are children of God and heirs of His grace. And as
believers called of God into this kingdom, we're called, I
want you to hear me now, to service. We're called to service. When God made the woman, He took
her from the man and he made her to be a helpmate. That woman
is a picture of the church which is taken from Christ to be his
helpmate. When he calls us out of darkness
into his marvelous light, he's calling us into service. He doesn't
call you to go sit in the corner. He doesn't call us to just throw
our hands up and say, what's the use? He doesn't call us to
just assemble in a little thing over here in the corner so that
nobody knows what we believe or who we worship. He calls us
to service. In Romans 6, verse 11, He presses
this issue home all through this chapter, telling us to reckon
ourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Now, he said, let not sin reign
in your mortal body as though the grace of God had no effect
on you whatsoever. And to not yield our members
as instruments of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves unto God
as those that are alive from the dead. For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace."
Romans 6.16. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants, to obey his servants ye are to whom ye
obey? Whether of sin unto death, or
obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked. That you
were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered you. The gospel came
to you in power. Being then made free from sin,
you become the servants of righteousness. In 1 Corinthians 7.23, the Apostle
tells us you're bought with a price. Be not ye the servants. of men. Serve God. Serve God. Believers are justified
freely by His grace through the redemption of our Lord Jesus
Christ. His hope is a good hope through
grace. And His faith is the gift of
God's grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. But the
believer's faith, now hear me, there's a difference The believer's
faith is justified before God and men by its works. Not the man, but the faith the
man proclaims. And that's what the book of James
is. If you read the book of James in any other light, you're just
going to come away scratching your head. He's not talking about
men being justified before God. He's talking about men's faith
being justified before God. What kind of faith do you have? Why, you talk to anybody over
there in the city where I live, Owen Taylor, they all believe.
They all believe according to their profession. But who has
the faith of God? Huh? Who has effectual faith? Turn with me over to the book
of James. Faith is the work of God, and
as such, it shall be proven by God to be so. It's going to be
tried in the fires of trial and persecution. James chapter 2,
verse 14. What does it profit, my brethren,
Though a man say he hath faith, and hath not works, can faith
save him? That is, can this kind of faith
save him, a fruitless, workless faith? If a brother or sister
be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto
them, Lord bless you. You go in peace. Lord bless you.
I hope somebody gives you something, and you just go on your way. Notwithstanding you give them
not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?
Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead being alone."
Verse 20. Faith without works is dead. It's dead. Now, he said, you've
got a name. Now, I know your works, and you
have a name, and thou livest, but you're dead. You're dead. And then, over in the book of James, he
gives us two examples of this in that same chapter. In verse
21, Abraham's faith was justified when he offered his son upon
the altar. And Rahab's faith was justified
before God when she received the messengers and let them down
and gave them a way of escape. And then he draws this conclusion
down in verse 26, For as the body without the spirit is dead,
so faith without works is dead also. Now, the church at Sardis
was a church full of people who were orthodox in their doctrine.
They'd argue with you over doctrine. You couldn't convince one of
anything other than pure doctrine. They were correct in their forms
of worship. They weren't all mixed, smashed,
and blowed about with every wind of doctrine, and they didn't
come in and just have a whatever. let everybody do whatever they
wanted to in their worship. They were orthodox not only in
their doctrine, but in their forms of worship, and they were
accurate in their observance of the ordinances. They served
wine, and they served the bread exactly
the way it's said in the scriptures, and they baptized, and they buried
men under water exactly according to the scriptures. But they didn't
have a heart for it. You see what our Lord is saying?
They didn't have a heart for it. They were lax in their attendance,
half-hearted in their hearing. They were not moved by the messages
or motivated to serve the Lord. They prayed, but there was no
heart in their prayers. pleading for the lost, no mourning
over themselves, no interest in the furtherance of the gospel.
They've become lethargic, I think is the word I'm hunting for,
and indifferent. What do you mean, preacher? I
mean, well, whatever will be, will be. One old fellow told
me that one time. This had been 30-some years ago.
He told me, he said, I just believe whatever will be, will be, whether
it ever comes to pass or not. Boy, that's dead, what that is.
That's dead. Let me tell you something. The sovereign
God of glory who has predestinated us, who has predestinated us and
determined our end, has also ordained the means to bring that
end to pass. I don't know why that's so hard
for men to understand. This same God who has determined
it, From the beginning, He determined the end from the beginning, and
He controls everything in between, has determined the means to bring
the end to pass. That's what religion says about
God looking down through the telescope of time to see how
things turn out, and then adjusting what He has to say to that. That's
not God. God controls the means. Every
day he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.
He works in the heart. He works in the tongue. He works
in the mind. And he works through these means. These means include his local
churches. It includes the hearts of His
people. It includes prayer and the preaching of the Gospel.
And these means include a new birth and a new heart and living
faith. Do you know the Scripture doesn't
say... A man told me the other day, he said, the Scripture says
the just are saved by faith. I said, Scripture don't say that. It says the just shall live by
faith. And sometimes it says it this
way, the just shall live by his faith. And maybe that's the more
accurate statement. Our lives are controlled according
to what we really believe. That's what our Lord's telling
this church. You call it what you will, but our Lord calls
it dead. That's what He calls it. Be done for such a condition. Revelation chapter 3, verse 2. Be watchful and strengthen the
things that remain, watch this now, that are ready to die. Strengthen those things which
remain that are ready to die. The surest
way to spiritual death is to throw your hands up and sink
into the mindset of indifference. God has given to you and I the
greatest of hopes, the widest of doors, the most wonderful
of expectations, and to ignore such things is the greatest of
crimes. Revelation 3, verse 3. Remember,
therefore, have thou hast received, and heard, and hold fast, and
repent. Remember the grace of God that
afforded you the opportunity to hear. Remember. Here you were. You were out here in Sardis.
You were a Gentile pagan. You were bowing to Diana. And you were just kind of going
with the flow. And you were just being tossed
about this way and that way. And you were under the rules
and laws and influence of men and false religion and God. in power, come into your heart
and called you out of that mess and caused you to live and gave
you faith and repentance and turned you. He turned you. And you remember that, our Lord
said. Remember the grace of God that afforded you the opportunity
to hear and a man to tell you the truth and then gave you a
heart to receive it. Remember the glorious sacrifice
of your beloved Redeemer and how far He stooped to save your
soul. Remember, therefore, and repent. If, therefore, thou shalt not
watch, I'll come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know the hour
I will come upon you. I thought about this verse for
a long time. I thought about Demas. He was the first one to come
to my mind. Demas did not leave the ministry
all at once. It was most likely by degrees. Little degrees. Probably didn't
even notice that he was falling away, falling away, falling away. But one day, one day, the Lord
pulled the plug. And Demas packed his bags, and
he left, and he never came back. That's what the Lord is telling
this church. I'll come on you like a thief, and you won't know. You won't know when I'm coming.
But you'll know the effect of it. Those who have no heart for the
gospel and the kingdom of God will be visited by our great
King, and even that which they seem to have will be taken away. Our Lord said this, He said,
Take heed what you hear with what measure you meet. It shall
be measured to you. And unto you that hear shall
more be given. For he that hath to him shall
be given, and he that hath not from him shall be taken, even
that which he hath. And a more correct translation
might be this, or easier to understand, I'll put it that way. He appears
to have, shall be taken away. And then he closes his words
to the church at Sardis, commending the few who were faithful. In
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. How were they worthy? By their
faith in Him, and rejoicing in Him, and by their love for Him,
all of which were the gifts of His grace. And verse 5, He that overcometh,
the same shall be clothed in white raiment. And I will not
blot out His name out of the book of life, but I'll confess
His name before the Father and before His angels. Oh, what a
glorious thought that our Lord, even as we're gathered in this
place this morning, might confess our names before our Father. Huh? That our great high priest
in glory, even as we're gathered here this morning, might be mentioning
our name to the Father. What a glorious thought. And then he says, he that hath
an ear, do you have an ear? Let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto his churches.