• A new chapter tonight in our study of the Revelation of Jesus Christ!  A new letter to a different church, a new message from the Lord to us personally, a new age of the church to survey. 
• We have looked at the “things which John has seen.”  (Revelation 1:19a)  Chapter 1, the glorified Jesus as John exiled on the Island of Patmos FOR the Word of God and His testimony of Jesus was not moping and complaining or grumbling about his present circumstance, he was in the spirit it says there in Chapter 1 verse 10 and he hears a loud voice like a trumpet behind him saying “I am the Alpha and the Omega.”
• So cool as we compared that statement with Revelation 22:13 concluding that the person talking now with John is indeed Jesus Christ, identified proof positive and clearly by the Bible and therefore Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega…significant because you can only have one…therefore God the Father and God the Son…indeed one.
• And John turned…so important to not only be in the spirit, so important to not only hear the voice of the Lord (as we are tonight), but also to turn…man to apply it!  That it has power in your life to make you turn!  Then, at this moment, he is able to (as Revelation 1:19a says) “write the things which you have seen.”
• Then we began our march through the seven letters to the seven churches.  The “things which are” according to Revelation 1:19b.  Chapters 2 and 3 of this book.  The church age.  We began with Ephesus…the church that represents a period of about 33AD to about 100AD.  And although Jesus had wonderful things to say about it, He indicted them for something that we all do so often…we convolute this Christian walk.
• We pile on programs and vocation and stress and position and church becomes something other than simple worship of Jesus, a refreshing time of Bible study and gathering with the family of God.  They had left their first love you see…that simple walk, that personal walk with the Lord.  His command?  Remember Me, repent of yourself, return to Me.
• Then we looked at Smyrna.  The persecuted church which represents a time period of about 101AD to about 312AD which was in the future, yet to come as John recorded the words of Jesus.  And so Jesus prepares His church…nothing bad to say to them, just an exhortation to endure…endure the ten waves of persecution under 10 horribly evil emperors.  Be faithful until death, and your reward…heavenly.
• Then on to Pergamos.  The unholy compromise.  The church that represents a period of about 312AD to about 590AD.  Ushered into existence under the watch of Constantine with his Edict of Toleration and Edict of Milan.  And as we studied this church we saw how paganism and mystery Babylonian Queen of Heaven religious practices and customs were married to the doctrine of Christianity.  An unacceptable union for sure as the church is not to be married to the world but to Jesus Christ.
• We then concluded our series of churches that are no longer in existence today and moved into the next set of churches which even today, remain.  How do we know that?  Two things Jesus says to the remaining four churches.  Two subjects that He brings up that He does not talk about with the first three churches.  Two things that these next four churches need to be mindful of, need to be prepared for because they, unlike the churches in Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamos…would see these events.  The Great Tribulation and the Second Coming of Jesus.
• And so we looked at Thyatira last week.  This church began around 590AD and remains to this day.  And as we surveyed the facts and the statements of Jesus…like the literal meaning of the word Thyatira being “continual sacrifice” and the great works but the lacking love…and the spirit of Jezebel the prophetess woman being allowed, even being encouraged within its system…we concluded that this church is indeed the modern day Roman Catholic church.
• And tonight we continue our survey of the seven churches with the church in Sardis. 
• But first real quick, let’s complete the picture.  The end times scenario.  Because the Book of Revelation is not a hard book at all to understand.  It’s the only Book in the Bible that has its own divine outline.  We’ve looked at the first two portions there in Revelation 1:19.  The things which John has seen.  Chapter 1.  The things which are.  Chapters 2 and 3.  The things which will take place after this or meta touta in the Greek.
• Chapter 4 begins with “meta touta.”  So cool!  So simple.  And what is, or what are Chapters 4 and 5?  The church in heaven.  Meanwhile, back on earth, Chapters 6 – 19 the Great Tribulation is taking place!  God’s wrath, which we are not appointed to see according to 1 Thessalonians 5:9.
• Then Revelation Chapter 20, Jesus’ Second Coming…the King returns to earth to save the day and who comes with Him?  Yup we’re riding with Him!  Satan is bound for 1,000 years during the Milinneal Reign of Christ on the earth.  Then Satan is released after that period and the Great White Throne Judgment occurs where death and hell and the devil and the false prophet and the beast are cast into the Lake of Fire along with all of the Christ rejecting men and women of history.
• Then Revelation Chapters 21 and 22, God makes all things new.  The old earth and the old heavens pass away and a new heaven and a new earth were given by God…perfect and undefiled in any way for us to live there and be with Him and we live happily ever after!
• Such a great book.  Such an easy book to understand.  And we will get to the end of it in just a couple of weeks (obvious joke) but tonight we find ourselves visiting a little church that was situated in a place called Sardis. 
• Many folks watch a show today, one I actually have never seen, but the title strikes me as interesting.  The Walking Dead.  It interests me because that is really what Jesus calls this church…

Chapter 3 Verse 1

• The church of Sardis is known as the dead church.  It represents the church period of about 1500 to the present day.  Now there was actually a church at this time in Asia Minor…there at Sardis.  According to Matthew Henry, this church there in Sardis was actually founded by John himself.  It was situated about 35 miles almost due south of Thyatira.  It was situated within a mountainous region and therefore was a natural citadel of sorts. 
• The city was famous for its arts and crafts, especially its refinement and production of wool.  The nearby mountains were dotted with gold mines and so they made lavish jewelry and it’s said that they were the first to mint coinage using precious metals. 
• It has a rich historical story.  I’ll just deliver the highlights.  The city endured many wars and experienced great victory because of its geographic location.  In one attempted siege, around 195BC, the Sardians had grown so arrogant that they left some of their city walls unguarded, thinking that no one could possibly scale them.  They were wrong.  Antiochus the Great was successful in capturing the city by scaling an unguarded wall.  It was said that even a child could have defended that city…but not so much as one observer had been appointed to stand watch…that’s relevant as we look at the state of this church…
• By the time this letter was written by Jesus to the church in Sardis, the city had decayed from a center of art, textile and luxury to a defeated Roman territory.  All because no one was on guard…very interesting.
• Now looking at church history, we are able to readily identify the church of Sardis as the Reformation church.  The age of Medieval Catholocism became so dark that when Sergius III become Pope (904AD through 967AD), he ushered in what history calls the Rule of Harlots, during which time his mistress publically accompanied him to the papal palace.
• Sergius’ grandson, John X, continued his legacy until he was actually killed in his bedroom while committing adultery.  Next came Benedict IX, who assumed the position of pope at twelve years old through a practice of simony (selling positions within the church to the highest bidder).  Benedict IX was so corrupt that the citizens of Rome drove him out of the city, replacing him with Clement III, who was appointed actually by King Henry III.
• Clement III was not a Roman…he was the first non-Roman pope because Henry III publically declared that he would not appoint a Roman because there were no Roman priests who were free from the pollution of fornication and simony.
• These were very dark times to say the least.  And this darkness being so prevalent in the church began to stir the hearts of some good Catholic people.  In 1330, a wonderful man of faith was born named John Wycliffe.  He was an Oxford scholar and a Catholic priest who saw this corruption and began to write about the need to get away from papal edicts and back to the Bible.  He began to publically question Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation and continual sacrifice.  So much so that he was excommunicated by the powers in Rome.
• Although he himself was safe at Oxford, his disciples, men like John Hus and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake by the Catholic Church.  Their deaths and others at the hand of the horribly corrupt Catholic Church sparked a Reformation that would burn throughout England!
• A miraculous move took place culminating in the year 1483 in Eiselben, Saxon Germany, when a coal miner and his wife gave birth to a baby boy named Martin.  His father did not want his son to endure the hard life of a coal miner and so young Martin Luther enrolled in University and studied Law. 
• While walking on campus one day, a thunderstorm arose unlike anything he had ever seen.  Petrified, Martin cried out to St. Anne, the patron saint of coal miners.  He cried out, “If you save me from this lightning, I will become a monk.”  Spared, and true to his word, Martin Luther enrolled in seminary.
• He earned his doctorate after only two years but the more he studied theology, the more he knew he could never be righteous enough to earn God’s approval.  He struggled and struggles with being busted in the sight of God often beating himself and fasting until one day he was advised by another Monk to read the Book of Habakkuk. 
• Why Habakkuk?  Well because Habakkuk was a prophet that suffered with the same busted spirit.  Luther read and he came to the fourth verse of the second chapter, “The just shall live by faith.”  And he thought, “thats it!”  “If I’m going to be just, its not because of what I do or don’t do…not because of who I am or who I am not…but it is alone by faith in who God is and what HE has done!”
• He returned to Germany on fire and set free and quickly, very quickly, became quite uncomfortable in the position of Catholic priest.  He began to see all of the paganism and humanism and evil that had crept in and corrupted the church and shortly thereafter drafted his 95 theses challenging the pope, the church and Catholocism as a whole.  He nailed them to the University door in Wittenburg…interesting that he nailed them.
• Well, Rome answered.  Their response.  Short and sweet.  “Retract of die.”  Luther burned their response.  And subsequently he was summoned to Rome.  In 1521, Luther wasn’t even 40 years old yet, the Diet of Worms as it was called was convened at which the Church realized that they had a problem in Luther because by now he had become quite popular and had many followers.  They offered him a second chance to recant at which he gave his famous response, “Here I stand.  I can do no other; so help me God.”
• Well God did help him indeed and from that statement a movement known as the Protestant movement was born.  A movement which protested the worldliness of the church and demanded simplicity of faith.
• The Reformation was born which gave rise to the Denominations we see today.  The Baptists, the Methodists, the Pentecostals, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians…and so on… 
• Now understanding this context of the Reformation is vital to understanding the meaning of this letter sent to the church in Sardis by Jesus.  The story of Sardis is a story of degeneration. 
• Jesus says to them, “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.”  Wait Matt, you skipped over the seven Spirits of God…what’s that all about?  Well we looked at that in our second study because these seven Spirits were mentioned already in Revelation Chapter 1 Verse 4.
• But interesting…why does God repeat Himself.  We saw in Chapter 1 that the seven Spirits of God refers to the seven-fold character, the seven-fold nature if you will of the Holy Spirit as seen in Isaiah 11:2.  The Spirit of the Lord, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear or reverence or obedience…and so why would this be repeated in conjunction with Sardis?  The Reformation churches?  Well, better and more clearly seen now than ever before, I believe that its because while most mainline traditional denominations like Protestants, Lutherans, Methodists and so on champion everything from homosexuality to environmental issues, they are no longer champions of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  And so I see this repetition not as a reminder, not as fact but as an indictment…
• And you know the tragedy is that you cannot champion both sin and righteousness…and so as churches elect gay pastors and support causes such gay marriage and safe sex…they are forfeiting the wonder and benefit and real witness of the living power of the Holy Spirit!!
• But He says here, I know your works which is typically followed by a commendation…not for Sardis though…he simply continues with you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead…Astronomers tells us that the light from the polar star takes years to reach the earth. What that means is that star could have been plunged into darkness years ago and its light would still be pouring down to earth. It would be shining in the sky tonight as brightly as if nothing had happened. It could be a dead star, but we wouldn't know it was dead. The church at Sardis was like that. It had a name. The name appeared to say it was alive. It was shining solely by the light of its brilliant past. But in the present it was dead.
• Now the term dead in a spiritual sense is always connected with sin in the Bible.  Ephesians 2:1, “you were dead in your trespasses and sins.”  Colossians 2 verse 13…and so here we have a church living in the deadness of sin…and its interesting here, so very clear…God just leaves us simple clues that with one ounce of effort we see great and amazing truths…Jesus says here you have a name…a reputation…that you are alive but you are dead.  The word there for name in the Greek that He used is onoma which is precisely where we get our word demomination…
• And man this church, hoping for a commendation…hoping to at least hear something that Jesus is pleased with like Thyatira in that they had great charity, service, faith and patience…but here in Sardis…you’re dead.  Ouch.

Chapter 3 Verse 2

• Jesus says “be watchful!”  Why?  Because the city fell as they slumbered…and so too as the shepherds sleep, the wolves…they creep.  These huge churches that emerged from the great Reformation of radicals…have become…dull, hard of hearing, eyes growing dim to the truth man, that they are under attack and Satan’s ploy…same as it ever was…if you can’t beat them, join them.  Happened in Pergamos, conceived Thyatira…and tragically, after begin begun so wonderfully, the protestant movement also has fallen like the polar star…not according to me…according to Jesus!
• Jesus says, “wake up!”  “Strengthen the things which remain.”  For you and for me…do you have any desire to read your Bibles?  Well then get to it!  Do you have a 1% desire to go to church?  Go!  The fruit will flourish where it is cultivated, fed, watered and given sunlight!!  Strengthen yourself Jesus says!  Exercise.  And to the church there in Sardis…”strengthen that which remains.”  Well what’s that?  Look at verse 3…

Chapter 3 Verse 3a

• What remains is a remembrance of a great past.  A mighty birth!  “Remember how you have received!”  How did they receive initially?  The Bible!  Wycliffe gave it to them…Calvin, Knox, Hus, Luther…they staked their lives on the Word, the Truth of God apart from man’s corruption…and my how far they’ve fallen.  Jesus says here to them, He pleads, He commands “hold fast and repent!”

Chapter 3 Verse 3b

• Why would Jesus say this?  Describe Himself like this…like a thief?  Does He mean that He will steal from them?  Certainly not!  He’s making reference to the end times.  In 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5 Paul informs the church that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night…Peter also says this in 2 Peter 3…and this day of the Lord, it is sudden for them for when they say “peace and safety” sudden destruction comes upon them Paul writes, as labor pains…and they shall not escape.  But, Paul continues, brethren you are not in darkness that this should be sudden to you.  Let us not slumber but watch and be sober…
• And so Jesus is saying here…He is making reference here…He is proclaiming to them that they are indeed in danger of not being included in the rapture…and being caught in the Great Tribulation…because they are playing church…but there is a remnant for sure…look at the next few verses…

Chapter 3 Verses 4 and 5

• What a wonderful comfort from the Lord…for them and for us.  Because if you come to the Lord, if you approach the Word of God, if you seek Him in the midst of His people with a heart of humility…”God, heal me.  Let me hear you.  Change me.  Don’t let this just be education but let it be power so that I might live for you and not for me…” then He promises here, I will confess your name…personally, to the Father and the host of heaven.  But if not, if there’s no repentance week after month after year after decade…white raiment is not for you…and you are in danger of the Lord Himself blotting you out of the Book of Life…denying you for in truth…you have denied Him…

Chapter 3 Verse 6

• Every generation needs its own Reformation, its own renewal, its own revival.  It’s not enough for a generation to hear about how it was in their parents’ day.  The Jesus movement of the ‘60s produced wonderful movements such as Horizon, Vineyard, Calvary and others but the days ahead are going to be grander still because God’s heart is to go from glory to greater glory in continued revelation of Himself whenever we get out of the way and refuse to fall prey to the Sardis Syndrome.  We have ears to hear…and in this generation of political correctness and fairness and progressivism…we have a unique opportunity…an opportunity only for us…not for our fathers, not for our sons…WE have a unique opportunity to stand once again for Truth.  And by God’s Spirit, grace and command > we shall stand!