It was August of 2010. Communication specialist Judy Rivers went to her local bank to open a new account. As the clerk input Rivers' personal information, everything seemed to be going very smoothly. But then, the woman behind the desk stopped abruptly and frowned. That's odd, she said. There seems to be an issue regarding your social security number. With a skeptical glance, the employee rose and disappeared in the back room. Several minutes later, Rivers was greeted by the branch manager. Ma'am, the women pronounced, brandishing a folded piece of paper. Your social security number was deactivated in 2008 due to a death. Incredulous, Rivers rose from her chair. You're trying to tell me that I have been dead for two years, she stammered, and no one bothered to tell me? This week I reposted on Facebook what a magician friend of mine posted on a site that is for historical pictures and remembrances of the Southern California county where I grew up. Frank posted a picture of his uncle's magic store where I spent many hours of my youth Frank wrote about his uncle George who owned the shop and was my first magic mentor. About 15, 20 years later, George was also Frank's mentor. Below the picture, Frank wrote about his uncle's passing away in the early 1980s. Now, when I reposted the picture along with Frank's comments below it, a well-intentioned former high school friend who had seen the post added a comment of her memories seeing Frank do a magic show at the Kern County Fairgrounds and she offered her condolences for Frank's death. Well, a day later, this was Frank's clever response. To quote Mark Twain, the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. And then he wrote in all caps, I am very much alive. Frank and Judy Rivers' plight from being categorized as a deceased person Believe it or not is not uncommon. It is estimated that every year some 12,200 US citizens are declared dead by social security administration due to keystroke errors. In 2011, the Office of Inspector General conducted an audit of the Death Master file and found that from May 2007 to April 2010, 36,657 people had been mistakenly added to the file. making them legally dead. Those affected become like walking dead, unable to secure a job, make financial transactions, file taxes, or visit the doctor. And for months on end, they've got to endure the nightmare of convincing a large bureaucracy that they have not bit the dust. Kind of wish I didn't read about this problem. Maybe you wish I had not told you. It just gives us one more thing to worry about. Doesn't it make you shudder to think how easy it is for some bureaucrat who is bored with their job, which involves typing names and numbers into a computer all day long, can with a simple slip of the finger mistakenly declare you or I dead. And now that we know that it happens tens of thousands of time each year, I can only imagine all of the frustration because of the time and effort it would take to convince the government of their mistake. But as annoying as that would be, It is not nearly as devastating as having Christ pronounce us dead. This can also happen. We're going to see in today's passage that the church at Sardis was pronounced by Jesus to be a dead church. When Christ pronounces a church dead, We will also see that there are far worse things to be concerned about than the certain inconveniences that government administrations can create for you and I. And if Christ declares us dead, we know for sure that it is no mistake. However, just like a bureaucratic error, With time and effort, a church, too, can be fixed, is what we see in today's passage. We have been studying the book of Revelation here on Sunday morning, and today we continue with a fifth letter that John was instructed by Jesus to write. John was given a threefold outline of the book of Revelation that he was told by the angel sent by Jesus to write. Revelation 1, 19 says, write, therefore, the things you have seen, and he had just seen the image of Christ standing before him, the things that are, in other words, the existing church, and its entirety until it is taken up down through the ages. But the church will not continue to exist on earth forever. So John was also told to write, and those things that are to take place, the events that will occur after the church age, which are the very events of the tribulation, which we come to in chapter four onward in the book of Revelation. The church age in its entirety is represented by the seven letters to the seven churches. The number seven represents completeness, and these seven churches represent the complete history of the church from Pentecost, when the church began, to its end, the rapture. We have been going through these letters one a week and seeing John was addressing specific contemporary situations in each church, events that were current to John's own day. But also, as Old Testament prophecy often did, these letter prophecies clearly relate to future events as well. Now in this case, we are talking about these seven distinct periods of church ages. When we studied the letter to the church at Ephesus, we saw that it had a strong parallel between the literal church in Ephesus during John's day, and the church period from Pentecost to around 100 AD, when the next church period began. Both the local church and that church era experienced hardship, suffering. They patiently endured it. They defended God's truth against false teachers. They worked sacrificially. But eventually, They were only doing ministry out of a sense of duty. They had lost their first love for Jesus. And they were warned that if they did not repent, Jesus would remove their witness to the world. Today, when we look at the entire region where Ephesus had once thrived, their testimony has been extinguished. It is Muslim land today. Then we studied the letter to the church at Smyrna, which amazingly paralleled the period of church history from 100 AD to 312 AD. The church at Smyrna is the church under persecution. The letter said that there would be 10 periods of testing. And this time period from 100 AD to 312 AD, the church had never known previously or since then such severe persecution. During that time period, 10 separate Roman emperors tried to extinguish the church. But that church period eventually ended. Next, we looked at the letter to the church at Pergamum. This represents the church period from approximately 312 to AD 590. Beginning in 312, Emperor Constantine not only made Christianity legal, but he forced his armies and induced much of Roman society to convert to Christianity. He was allowed to take over and preside over the church as its leader. And so in this period of church history, we see the church married the world. You know what the word Pergamum means? Pergamum means to marry. So often the names of these churches also indicate the character of that church period they represent. Last week we studied the letter to the church at Thyatira. This parallels the period of church history from 590 to 1517. This is when the church tolerated what is depicted in the letter as the woman Jezebel. Jezebel led the church into idolatry, depreciating the person of Jesus Christ, and there are many parallels to the developments of the system of Catholicism and this contemporary church at Thyatira. Now, the word Thyatira means continual sacrifice. You know, what was developed during this historical period was the unbiblical concept of Mass. Mass is where Jesus is sacrificed all over again every time it is celebrated. Now today, we come to the fifth letter the letter to Sardis. Now the word Sardis, listen to this. The word Sardis means escaping ones. Those who come out. We have been seeing that there is prophetic significance in the meanings of these church names, and this is no exception. The Sardis period of church history is the Reformation period, from about 1517 to AD 1750. In the midst of spiritual darkness, there were those who escaped, who came out from the church's contamination. Among those who escaped, among those who came out were Luther, Knox, Wycliffe, Zwingli, and other reformers. These were the great reformers who broke with the Church of Rome. The intolerable direction that the church had taken, the system that it had adopted of idolatry, you remember Jezebel from the Old Testament who brought idolatry to Israel and she's identified in that letter that we were looking at last week, holding her Jezebel and the idolatry and so forth there, it was rampant in the church. And this intolerable direction of idolatry and their system of popes and priestly confessions and salvation by works reached its climax on October 31st, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany. When Luther's voice resounded throughout the German Empire, it found response in many hearts of those who were weary of the church's unbiblical systems. Until now, spiritual darkness had covered the land. Only the so-called leaders had scriptures Then, with the invention of the printing press, the Word of God was put into the hands of lay people. And with this, a new study of the Bible began. Lost truths were rediscovered. Heresies were exposed. And the Reformation had begun. However, The Reformation fell short of accomplishing all that it could have. While it protested ecclesiastical hierarchies and the systems of the previous church era, depicted in all that we saw last week in the letter to the church at Thyatira, This next period of church history went to another extreme. No longer united under a pope, being free from such hierarchy, the church became divided. State churches were organized depending on what nation you were part of, you had your own denomination. Many of which are still in operation today in Germany, Holland, England, other countries, their own church for that nation. Denominationalism with its own sacraments, forms and ceremonies became a cold, lifeless, Formalism. You see, you were part of the church because you were part of that particular nation. Ministers became ministers of the church, not of Christ. There was little to no emphasis on living biblical truth. And with the Protestants' newfound freedom through knowledge, tremendous pride came along as well. We have the truth. No one else does, but we do. Tragically, Wars were fought between cities and nations that identified themselves with one denomination or creed or another. People were imprisoned. People were put to death if they did not conform with their nation's state church. I sure do hope that our last week's study, that letter to the church at Thyatira, which dealt with the establishing of Roman Catholic idolatry, did not make any of us feel smug. The new church era, which established Protestantism does not leave us with anything to feel smug about. Protestant Christianity had indeed escaped. It had come out from Catholicism, just as the word sardis means. But these come out ones developed a dead church. Is there anything Christ-like that says, believe our doctrinal creed or lose your life? They became overly obsessed, focused on having right doctrine. Now, doctrine is a good thing. But if the church becomes so consumed with it that nothing else matters, that church is dead. Where's the love and compassion and sense of forgiving one's enemies that Christ wants for his church? All that remains is dead orthodoxy. The very life of Christ is gone. Identify yourself with this creed. You don't need to understand it or even believe it. Just identify with it. That's all you need to do. That is a dead church. Now let's read from today's passage. and see the tragic circumstances that are described for us. And I just realized I left my Bible in my office. I'll read from the screen here, though. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die. For you have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments. and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Thank you, heart. I want you to notice there are no words of commendation. to these believers at Sardis. You know, usually in these letters to the churches, Jesus has something good to say about them. In this case, he doesn't. Nor did the Lord point out any doctrinal problems that required correction. And neither is there any mention of opposition or persecution. The church had grown comfortable The church had grown content. They were depending on what they thought made them safe and secure. They had lulled themselves to sleep and they enjoyed their reputation as being awake. Now, Sardis is the perfect church to represent this period of church history. You see, the city of Sardis was built on a 1,500-foot plateau, surrounded by rugged cliffs. Its residents simply assumed that they were safe from any enemy invasion. No army would be able to scale the cliffs to attack them. As a result, they became careless. Now, they had built a fortress, they had military watchmen on the walls, as every good city required, but no one really thought they needed to stay vigilant. The cliffs served as a natural protection for them. In 547 BC. Cyrus the Persian found a way to move his attacking forces up the cliffs. An unguarded Sardis was overtaken. The people of Sardis should have learned their lesson, but they didn't. 300 years later, Antiochus the Greek invaded the city again, finding a way up the cliffs with his army. The unguarded city fell again. Now, in John's letter here to the church at Sardis, and subsequently to the church of the Reformation period, He references this little tidbit of Sardis' sad history. Wake up! Stay alert! Be vigilant! You think that you are safe, but you are not! You think you are alive, but you are dead! Jesus says to them, and Jesus is saying to us, Church, don't go to sleep. Resting on your laurels, thinking your doctrine has you safe, thinking because I walked an aisle, I don't need anything else. The false security of the church during the Reformation was their sense of having the right doctrine. We're safe. We have nothing to fear because we have Christianity all figured out. Boy, don't we know a lot of believers in churches today who think the same way. They're asleep with dead orthodoxy. They wrongfully think that they are safe because they have identified themselves with a certain set of beliefs. We don't need anything else. We don't need to give ourself to the Lord. Just accept the right doctrinal belief. Now, if this includes you, then Jesus is saying to you, wake up. It's a good thing for a church to have a name for being alive. No one brags about having a dead church. You know, if we would have visited the Sardis church, we might have been shown the many people that they were running every Sunday. We might have been impressed by all the programs that they had going on. If you had just moved to the area and you asked about a local church, no doubt, you would have been directed to, all right, over there, that church is Sardis. That's the one you want to be part of. And we live today in a day of super churches. Larger the crowd, the more secure they feel. Many churches have a good name. They're said to be really alive. But if Christ were to evaluate their work, what would his conclusion be? Christ's omniscient evaluation of things is often different from ours. He found Sardis to be a church with a lifeless profession. They were alive in reputation only. Verse one again, it says this, and to the angel of the church at Sardis write, the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Remember, the number seven represents completeness. And in addition, it was considered by the Jew to be a very sacred number. The seven spirits of God is obviously a reference to the completeness of the Holy Spirit's ministry. Christ would have the church in Sardis know that he desires to control his church by the effective work of the Holy Spirit. Notice the reference to the seven stars once again. When we were in chapter one, I told you I believe the evidence is strongest to understand that this refers to pastors of the churches. In Sardis, the church was not being led by the spirit through its pastors, as it should have been. You want to know how you can pray for your pastor? You want to know how you can pray for your elders? Pray that we would have the completeness represented by seven spirits, the completeness of the Holy Spirit leading us completely under his control. We think today that the church needs the right methods. We have all kinds of bandwagon movements and programs. They're very quick to claim that they have all the answers to solve the church's problems, to make the church great again. Do this and your church will grow. But all of the church's man-made programs can never bring life anymore than a circus can resurrect a corpse. The church's life comes from the spirit, not the talents, not the efforts of talented human beings. When the spirit is ignored in favor of something even as important as correct doctrine, the church begins to lose its life and power. verses two and three. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is about to die. For I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard. Keep it and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you." When a church begins to die, the first thing it must do is admit that a problem exists. The first step toward renewing a dying church is an honest awareness that something's wrong. When an organism is alive, there's growth, there's repair, there's reproduction, there's power. If these elements are lacking in a church, then the church is either dying or it's already dead. Even though Christ has pronounced the church at Sardis to be dead, he also indicates that there is a fix. First, strengthen what remains. Nourish any flicker of love that still may linger. Fan it into flames. Focus on whatever remains, such as a weakened missionary purpose or outreach to the community with evangelism and biblical discipleship. Second, remember what you've received and heard. The church at Ephesus was also told to remember their past, just as this church is told to remember the same thing. Let's keep fresh in our hearts. Let's keep fresh in our minds that God has kept us alive in recent years. Expensive roof repairs, a dried up water well, were serious threats to closing down our ministry. But God would not let that happen. In ways that only he could have orchestrated, we still exist as a church today. We're having ministry to the community and to our world. Through Grief Share, through Awana, through our broadcasts going out all over the world. We're having ministry. Our work is not complete here either. Third, hold on to what you have received and heard. Not only are they to remember what it was like when, as a whole church, they seized every opportunity to live for the Lord and to work for him and to witness for him, but they're especially to remember their spiritual gifting, their abilities, and so are we, those that we have. The Apostle Paul said the same thing, Colossians 2, 6 and 7. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, remember that? Remember receiving him? How excited you were? So walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. We are rooted up, built up, established in the faith by the very truths that saved us. What we are to hold on to is Christ's unfathomable love, his rich mercy, his grace. Do not simply hold on to cold, lifeless creeds of doctrine. Cling also to the vibrant realities that saved you and will cause your faith to grow. Fourth, Jesus says to repent. This one word summarizes all that's been said. Repentance will cause the church to turn around and begin to wake itself up from its stupor, strengthen what remains, study the received doctrine again, and begin to live it out in obedience. Here again, we see that it's a matter of repent or else. The else is, I will come like a thief. How different from other promises of his return. In this passage, there is a note of warning because Sardis was not ready for his return. Let me give you a good test. It's a good test for any church or any individual Christian. How does the prospect of his coming make you feel? Do you dread it? Or do you eagerly anticipate it? Do you longingly welcome it? Some say all we can do is be ready. But the early Christians were not only ready, they were expectant. Do you love his appearing? And perhaps you believe it doctrinally, but does it thrill you? Does it motivate you? Does it make you want to purify yourself? When Jesus says, behold, I come quickly, does your heart respond, even so, Lord Jesus, come? Verse four. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white. for they are worthy. There is evidence from the first century that temple worshipers were not permitted to approach their gods and goddesses if they were wearing dirty garments. And Jesus may have been referring to this practice. Notice the word that there are a few, he says few of you. About 90% of America claims to be Christian. while all along becoming more and more enslaved to sin. Most everyone is quick to proclaim their salvation, but God says there are few. Thank God for the faithful remnant that seems always to be present in every generation. A remnant of dedicated people often exists in even a dying church. The Christians at Sardis had life, although it was feeble. The Lord admonished them to strengthen what remained and not to give up simply because the church was weak. Where there is life, there is hope. What was the difference about the few who were mentioned in this verse, the dedicated remnant, They had not defiled their garments. That's the point that's being made here. Our righteousness is Christ himself. That's our righteousness. But we have the responsibility to keep our garments clean. Our own self-righteousness is filthy rags. but the believer is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and God expects Christians to live in a manner that depicts what God has done for us. There are also some who, while they do not spot or stain their garments with gross iniquity, nevertheless do not walk in white, they walk in gray, Gray's the color of compromise. It's neither black nor white. It's a very popular color nowadays in the realm of religion, isn't it? Not taking a stand on anything. When Mickey Cohen, a famous Los Angeles gangster of the 1940s, made a public profession of faith in Christ, his new Christian friends were elated. But as time passed, they began to wonder why he did not leave his gangster lifestyle. When they confronted him with this question, however he protested, you never told me I had to give up my career. You never told me I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, Christian businessmen. So what's the matter with being a Christian gangster? If I have to give that up, if that's Christianity, count me out. Cohen gradually drifted away from Christian circles and ultimately died lonely and forgotten. I took this from Charles Colson, who concluded this illustration with this. Cohen was echoing the millions of professing Christians who though unwilling to admit it, through their very lives, pose the same question, not about being Christian gangsters, but about being Christianized versions of what they already are and are determined to remain. Verse five, the one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments. And I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. Every letter in the seven letters to the churches here in Revelation has a message about the overcomer, namely the one who overcomes evil in the church. There's a threefold compensation for the overcomer in Sardis that we see here in our text. The first is they will be clothed thus in white garments. This is the final robing of all saints which every believer will receive. There were those in Sardis who had denied their garments. They might have professed to be Christians, but they had not been clothed in Christ's righteousness while they were on earth. They only identified themselves as cold, hard believers in a doctrine. These shall in no wise enter heaven. The man without a wedding garment cannot be present at the marriage supper of the lamb, according to the teaching of Christ found in his teaching, Matthew 22, verses 11 through 14. Second, they will never have their name blotted out of the book of life. This is written in the Greek in the strongest form possible. They will not ever have their names blotted out. They are robed with Christ's righteousness, and that simply means they've been given here now. The second is a special assurance. I'm saved. My name is in the Lamb's Book of Life. It's never gonna be blotted out. Third, they will have their name confessed or honored in the most regal assemblies ever to gather, the heavenly Father and his heavenly host. The Father's angels and the angels of the churches mentioned in chapter one and chapter three here, they're not the same. This is a picture of signaling out a person before this grand assembly of the Heavenly Father and his vast array of angels that surround him. And what a scene, what an honor to have your name mentioned in that assembly. Verse six, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Do you have an appearance of life, but in reality you're dead? What is it about your experience that would prompt Jesus to say to you, wake up? At what place on the wall have you thought that you were the safest against the attacks of the evil one, and you don't need to remain vigilant? Are there no guards? Are you inviting an enemy's attack? Are there things in your life that have the appearance of godliness which Jesus knows only result from a compromise somewhere else? The hope for us is the same hope that Jesus offered this church in Sardis. But let's not fool ourselves. Staying awake is difficult. The world around us remains asleep. In Nazi Germany, some 7,000 to 18,000 pastors in the state church opposed the Aryan clause that excluded Christians of Jewish descent from working in the church. In time, the confessing church formed to protest the state church's compromise with Hitler. But gradually Hitler began to woo this very church. He allowed some of their distinctives and provided legitimacy for them if they would simply acquiesce to his expansionist plans. Dietrich Bonhoeffer fought this compromise. but became an increasingly isolated minority voice in view of the practical realities of the church's situation. He decried the failure of the German Christians to resist the Nazis' rise to power and said, the only people who can stand firm in such situations are those whose standard is not reason or conscience, but God and his word. That's the only way we will stand firm. If we make our standard, not our conscience or reason, but God and his word. Whether we're seeking to win a lost person to Christ who resists very hard, or fighting for justice of the poor or the unborn, it's always easy to grow weary in doing good. It's very easy to just give up and follow the crowd, especially when the church around us becomes part of it. Today we see church after church following the crowd of this world with regard to basic Christian teaching and morals. What did we see in 2020? When the government began telling us when we can meet to worship and when we can't. Is that our standard or is God our standard? A lot of churches caved. Wake up. Strengthen what remains. Remember what you have been given and hold on to it. I'm pulling out an article that I read this week in light of the earthquake that just happened about 100 miles south of the Oregon border, off the coast. In light of that article, I read this, that as of May 2021, The US earthquake early warning system can issue earthquake alerts to cell phone users in California, Oregon, and Washington. That's pretty handy. Okay? The MyShake app is an early warning system that is faster than the motion of the earth. It can reach you quicker than that, giving you up to about 80 seconds for you to get under a doorway or in some safe place under a table or whatever. Pretty cool, huh? that we have this technology now and you can have it on your personal phone, this early warning system. It's been tested down in Los Angeles. Apparently it worked out pretty well down there. But you know what? The Bible is an early warning system for us. It's warning us about devastating judgment that is about to jolt the entire world. Those who listen can take shelter before it strikes. Do you have a relationship with Jesus, not a relationship with a doctrinal belief? Doctrine's good, but it's no substitute for a personal faith in Jesus Christ, trusting in him and in him alone. Do you have a relationship with him, one that is excited about his return? If you don't have a personal relationship, Jesus living in your life, Please settle that matter today.