Rev. 3:1-6 Sardis: The Dead Church
Intro: Today, we come to the fifth of the seven letters:
The City of Sardis: Sardis had been the capital of the fabulously wealthy Lydian Kingdom. They gathered much gold from the nearby Pactolus River. They are believed to be the first city to ever actually mint coins. They also claimed to be the first to discover how to dye wool and were famous for their wool production. Their king became so rich that there was a famous saying “as rich as Croesus.” Like today’s Bill Gates.
This city was built on a spur or hill that jutted out from the local mountain range. This hill was about 1500 feet above the surrounding valley floor. The hill had smooth, nearly perpendicular rock walls on three sides. On the south side the city could be entered via a steep and difficult pass. Sardis was considered to be impregnable because of its ideal physical arrangement and topography. It was said that even a child could defend the city from attack. They thought a handful of soldiers could defend it from a vast army.
Sardis was a city with a great past. That was her problem.
The Greek historian, Herodotus, tells the story of King Croesus going out to fight King Cyrus. After Cyrus won the initial battle in the valley, Croesus took refuge in the city of Sardis. King Cyrus lay siege to Sardis and offered large rewards to the man finding a way to scale the 1, 500 ft. hill the city was built upon. A soldier named Hyerocades one day saw a guard on top of the hill drop his helmet. Hyerocades watched the Sardis guard climb down a crack in the hill after his helmet and then scaled the heights back to his guard post. Hyerocades hand picked a band of Persian soldiers and that night as unguarded Sardis slept, they climbed the cliff. Finding no guard at the top, they went and opened the gate to the city and let the Persian army in. The city was taken captive. This story serves as background to our Lord's words in v 3b.
Amazing as the story is, about 350 years later almost the exact thing happened when Antiochus the Great conquered the city by getting some mountain climbers from Crete to scale the wall.
This city's pagan worship centered in the co called sex goddess Cybele. Worship of her perhaps caused God to allow an earthquake in AD 17 that all but devastated the city. However, Emperor Tiberius contributed $1,700,000 to have the city rebuilt.
The Church of Sardis: May have been started by the Apostle Paul??? The church had a great past too, but presently this church was composed of unbelievers, carnal believers and a few believers that we could call mature & godly (Rev. 3:4).
Prop: The church should remain spiritually alive.
I.e. We should be careful not to die commit spiritual suicide.
I. We need to consider the Description of Christ to the church of Sardis (3:1).
Jesus is pictured as:
A. The one with the seven Spirits of God = As we noted in an earlier sermon from Rev. 1:4 we saw scholars believe this is a reference to the Spirits fullness.
It may refer to Isaiah 11:2 where it talks about the Spirit of 1) divinity [of the Lord] 2) wisdom 3) understanding 4) counsel 5) strength 6) knowledge, and 7) reverential fear.
(Isa 11:2) And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
B. The one with the seven stars = As we consider Rev. 1:14 and 1:20 we saw that the seven stars referred to spiritual leadership which is primarily responsible to hold forth the light of
the Word to the local flock of believers.
God works through His church primarily through the Holy Spirit and godly leaders who teach & preach the light of God’s Word.
II. We need to consider the Diagnosis of the church of Sardis (3:1).
A. The Good News to the Church [Commendation].
For the whole church there isn’t any commendation.
However, there were still a few that had not soiled their garments (4).
“defiled” = means “soiled”, “smeared”, or “polluted”. This world would have meant a lot to the people in a city that was well known for its wool dying industry.
It is pretty bad when the Lord, who is omniscient, can’t find anything good to commend the majority of a church for.
Unlike all preceding churches which had things to be commended for.
B. The Bad News to the Church [Condemnation] (3:1).
“thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead”
1). They had a reputation that wasn’t true
“they had a name”
One can’t simply go by the reputation of a church. They may unfortunately have a bad reputation but be good or vise versa.
The community seemed to look favorably on them.
2). They were thought to be “alive”
Most of the people were simply playing church, going through the motions and doing what they knew they should be doing…
They were probably busy, coming & going, had all sorts of programs, and were probably involved in the community….
They probably had a good attendance….
The church at Sardis was a happening place, the parking lot was full… & the light were always on…
They were doing deeds. They fooled the populace and maybe even fooled themselves, but they didn’t fool the Lord and He said their deeds were unacceptable.
3). They were actually dead.
They might fool people but they couldn’t fool Jesus.
Illustration #1: They were like the Pharisees.
They looked so religious, so spiritually alive and so close to God. However, it was all a show. They were lost and not better than the worst sinner….
(Mat 23:27) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
Illustration #2: They are sort of like those stars that are so far away from us that when they burn out, it may take us several years to realize it. Though the star is actually burned out, we may think it is still working just fine for quite some time….
I think if we were to Autopsy this church to find out what killed them, we would find a dual cause of death.
It seems the following two problems are what killed them.
- The people had not walked in the Spirit: Remember how Jesus introduced Himself to the church? They became lazy, lax, overconfident in their physical situation, and self-reliant instead of dependent upon God and His Holy Spirit.
- The pastors, as the primary light bearers in the church, had failed to communicate and receive the Word in a consistent and an in-depth way with personal application and response of the mind, heart and will.
There are two life-giving provisions of God for man—the Holy Spirit and the Word. When either are neglected, the result is spiritual deadness (Zech. 4:6; Heb. 4:12; Eph. 3:16-19; 1 Thess. 2:13). (from Bible.org)
It wasn’t persecution that killed this church. There isn’t any mention of persecution in this letter. Why not? There is no need for Satan to persecute a dead church.
Also, persecution tends to make a church strong and pure – see Smyrna.
III. We need to consider the Message given to the church of Sardis s (3:2-3).
A. Be watchful = idea is to “wake up, be alert, stop being drowsy & keep watch”
They needed to wake up to their true condition.
It is good for us to stop and take a real inventory of our spiritual condition.
B. Strengthen what remains = build up whatever is still alive. They were to grow whatever true faith, whatever true love for the Lord and others that they might still have in their heart.
Barnes in his commentary likens this to when the body is invaded by a disease, and death seems to be coming on. A person will do what he can to preserve the little strength that remains so as to keep the healthful parts from being invaded, that there may be strength yet to recover.
C. Remember
“How (in what manner) you have received & heard” the gospel message…
It is not certain what is meant here.
- It is believed that perhaps there was something marked and unusual in the way in which they had been led to embrace the gospel. Perhaps there were some unusual happening when Paul brought the gospel to them (if it was Paul).
- It might refer to how earnestly embraced the gospel with zeal when they first heard it…
- Perhaps this refers to how the Holy Spirit worked in their heart and worked on them…
D. Hold fast = most every time we come across this word it is in conjuction with keeping or holding fast to DOCTRINE.
Christ wanted them to go back to the truths of scripture and remember their doctrines….
Doctrines aren’t popular today.
One visitor flat out told me they didn’t want doctrinal preaching…
Another visitor told one of our members that they liked my preaching. They said my preaching was 90% Bible and 10% stories and at their church the preaching was 90% stories and 10% Bible… How sad!
E. Repent = turn away from their evil doings with remorse, confess their sins and turn to God.
IV. We need to consider the Warning given to the church of Sardis (3:3-4).
The warning is serious.
If revival didn’t come, if they didn’t “wake up”, then Jesus would come like a thief in the night.
This has the idea of imminent judgment (Matt. 24:43; Luke 12:39; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Pt. 3:10; Rev. 16:15). .
V. We need to consider the Promise given to the church of Sardis (3:4-6).
1. The worthy will walk with Christ (4).
It would be like two friends or two companions walking around together.
The believers at Sardis who hadn’t defiled themselves are promised to walk with Christ.
2. The overcomer will be given “white” clothing (5).
White garments were worn for celebrations and festivals like weddings.
For the citizens of Sardis white or unsoiled garments were also required approach & worship of the mother-goddess Cybele.
Likewise, white garments will be worn when Christians approach our Lord and attend the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7-9).
3. The overcomer’s name will remain written down (5).
Some people read this and take it to mean that some Christian’s might have their name remove/erased from the book of Life.
This is not a threat, but a promise to assure the believers in the dead church that their name will not be erased.
In John’s day, rulers kept a register of the citizens of a city. If one died, committed a serious crime, or did something horrible, their name would be removed from the city register. However, if someone did something that was worthy of special recognition then their name was written down in gold letters.
4. The overcomer will be “confessed” before others (5).
“confessed” = acknowledged as belonging to someone….
(Mat 10:32) Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
(Mar 8:38) Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
(Luk 12:8) Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:
Conclusion: We need to consider today what the Spirit said the Church at Sardis.
Those that are spiritually dead, but playing church need see this isn’t a game.
The Lord knows you and sees whether you are truly saved or not.
Christians: We need to be spiritually alert.
We need to know our doctrines.
We need to remember that the Lord loved us so much that he sent someone to give us the gospel. He also called us and worked in our hearts with the Holy Spirit so that we might be saved…
