I have titled today's examination of Jesus' letter to the church in Sardis in Revelation chapter 3, 1 through 6, as Sardis the Zombie Church. Now, I don't watch zombie movies. I don't like them. But I am familiar enough about the sci-fi creatures to know that they give the resemblance of being alive. They move about, but they're dead. The letter that we are going to be looking at today, zombies are a fitting description. This letter contends to be probably the harshest of the letters written to the churches in Asia. Let me quickly emphasize two points I've been making since we began our studies of these churches. First, if you haven't heard the introductory sermons or read them, or the ones on chapter one, please go to our website, take a look at those, because they'll help you tremendously in understanding our approach to this book. And second is these are seven specific letters to seven specific churches in specific locations in Asia with specific messages to those churches at a specific time. And yet each one concludes with a universal appeal that the principles that are in each of these letters has to be applied to all Christians, all churches in all time and every place. We have covered the first of the four, seven churches. We have spent a lot of time actually digging into some of the background of the cities of each of these churches, so we'll understand the situation they were in and why they're responding as they were, what the troubles that were upon them, what was oppressing them. And we've covered four of them. We found that you start in Ephesus, and see you've got the map? The next slide. Yeah, there's the map. John is writing this from Patmos, a Nile that's off the coast. And then if you get up to Ephesus, the first is to a port city. It is to them. You go 35 miles north and you reach Smyrna. 65 miles north from that you get to Pergamum. And then you go southeast 40 miles to Thyatira. And today we're going to go 33 miles farther south to Sardis. But first let's give a quick review. Each of these four churches we've already covered are all commended for their perseverance in the midst of difficult situations. Tribulation they were in because they were all in pagan cultures. The emperor cult was strong in Ephesus, and it got stronger as you went north, reaching its apex in Pergamum. In Ephesus, the reason that John was exiled to Patmos is he was faithful in the testimony of Christ. He would not join in the emperor worship. You had to burn incense to the emperor and say, Caesar is Lord, and you get a certificate for that. If you did not do that, you might be considered treasonous to the empire. So John was exiled. Those in Smyrna, because they would not do that, were shut out from the economic system and even trade because they didn't have that certificate. And so they were impoverished and yet commended that they were rich in the things of the Lord. As you get to Pergamum, which is the capital city of this province, they had the right for execution. And they did. We're even told that they executed Antipas because he held faith to Jesus' name and he would not deny the faith. Now the emperor cult was of little consequence in Thyatira, but the paganism of the trade guilds pressured Christians to either participate in what they were doing or they'd get kicked out of the guild. And so you don't have any work. Now the church at Ephesus commended their deeds, their toil, their perseverance, as well strong integrity morally and doctrinally. They exposed false teachers for what they were. They did not tolerate those who did evil, and especially the Nicolaitans, which were a syncristic group. Their problem was they left their first love. And so their strong orthodoxy lacked the proper Christian charity that's supposed to mark our lives. They were charged to remember from where they had fallen, to repent from that, and then go back and start redoing the works they had done at first. And if they did not repent, they were in danger of losing their lambstand. They would cease to be a church. The overcomers are given a promise. Overcomers are true Christians. They've overcome by faith in Christ. They would eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God, which is described in Revelation 22 at the beginning of eternity. Now, there are a lot of churches that are like Ephesus. There's Christians who are like Ephesus. They are very strong in their orthodoxy. They understand their theology, but they're cold in it. They lack the warmth of Christian love, quick to admonish, but not doing what they should be doing and being encouraging, helpful, patient with those who are fainthearted and weak, coming alongside and bearing their burdens. In Smyrna, this church experienced much tribulation in a pagan society and also the unbelieving Jews there that blasphemed them. And so they were impoverished in the things of the world, rich in the things of God and Jesus makes no correction of them. In fact, all he really does is he encourages them because there's a greater tribulation coming upon them. It'd be short-lived, but he encouraged them, remain faithful in the midst of it, even to the point of death. They could be martyred, and they would receive the crown of life. Overcomers, true Christians, would not be harmed by the second death described in Revelation 20 as casting the unrighteous into the lake of fire that burns forever. Now those whose faith is in the person and work of Jesus Christ have life, not death. It's an encouraging message. There are a lot of Christians who are enduring, a lot of churches that are enduring great tribulation. They are in situations similar to those of Smyrna. They have great persecution, they're impoverished, and yet they remain faithful to Christ. And so they're rich in the things of Christ. We're now quite a ways past the days of the Iron Curtain and Communism, but there are a lot of stories that came out from behind the Iron Curtain of the Christians who were there that prayed for those in the West because they couldn't understand how in the world do you live for Christ faithfully in the midst of such abundance? Doesn't that distract you away? They rejoiced even in their poverty. Singular focus on living for Christ. In Pergamon, Now they dwelt in a very difficult place. In fact Jesus refers to it as Satan's throne. And yet they would not deny faith in Christ. Problem there was they tolerated some of those who were teaching as Balaam did and those the Nicolaitans. Both of those were syncristic. They would join pagan practices to Christian practices and say it's okay to do those things. That included eating meat, sacrifice to idols and the immorality that was practiced in paganism. They were commanded to repent or Jesus was going to come and make war against them. Again, the overcomers, the true Christians, were told they would receive a hidden manna and a white stone with a new name written on it, both of which are references that they will be part of the marriage supper of the Lamb, which is described in Revelation 19. There are a lot of Christians in churches like those in Pergamum, too. They follow false teaching by which they think they can be good Christians and still pursue worldliness. even though that's contrary to even the basics of the Christian life. A gospel that is a fire insurance policy against hell is not the same of a gospel salvation from sin. That is what we're saved from and we're saved to holiness, to walking in righteousness, to a life walking with God. You're saved from something to something. The true gospel makes sinners into saints. A false gospel tickles the ear so that those hearing turn away to myths. There's a lot of that in our time. The church at Thyatira was commended for its deeds of love, faith, service, and perseverance. That actually had increased over time. The problem there was toleration of a woman that Jesus equates with Jezebel, the wife of Ahab in the Old Testament that had brought in the pagan worship of Baal and Asherah and made it dominant in Israel. This false teacher was leading some Christians, referred to in the passage as Jesus' slaves, into a false worship of paganism, including the idea that in doing so they did not sin. Similar to the syncretic problem in Pergamum, but worse because the commendation is to the majority of the church tolerating it, not just a small portion of it. Thyatira actually had the opposite problem of Ephesus. They had a false idea that love tolerates. Well, it will tolerate. Love covers a multitude of sin. But it doesn't tolerate heresy and sinful practices. It seeks to help her brother get out of it. Those following her teaching are commanded to repent, a promise of great tribulation, even death if they did not. The few that were not following this heresy were called to remain faithful. The overcomer, the true Christian, is promised that he'll rule with Christ in his coming millennial kingdom, again described at the end of Revelation. Tragically, there's a lot of churches and Christians like that in our current time. There always have been. False teachers can be very effective because what they say to those ignorant of the scriptures, ignorant of the work of the Holy Spirit in them, so that they ignore actually that prodding and conviction, they make it like, it's okay to believe, I can mix the two. They want heaven, they want to escape hell, but they also want the things of the world. And these kind of heretics not only make that sound plausible, they can even make what is worldly sound like it's a pursuit of godliness. An example of that would be the health, wealth, prosperity preachers. Their pursuit of blatant materialism is passed off as if it's a pursuit of God's blessings. It's not. We now turn our attention to Jesus' letter to the church at Sardis. Look at Revelation chapter 3. Let's read through verses, follow along as I read through verses 1 through 6. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, this is what he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says, I know your deeds and that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, strengthen the things that remain, which are about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. So remember what you have received and heard and keep it and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. But you have a few names in Sardis that have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will never erase his name from 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. Now, as with the previous letters, it begins with identification of to whom it is written. To the angel at the church of Sardis, just like the other ones, this is a human messenger, not a supernatural being from God. A human messenger who is representing the church and who is taking the physical letter to that church in that city. Like the other letters, we need to know something about the background of the city where this church is located. Sardis is located 33 miles south of Thyatira. You can go to the next slide. Okay, there it is. Sorry, it's a black and white, but it gives you an idea. It's 33 miles south of Thyatira. It's on top of an elevated plateau. Mount Timolus behind it, there's a slight gray shadow there, is behind it. The Hill of Acropolis is that first one, and it's very steep. Only one way to get to it from the south. But the valley there is the Hermes Valley. And it's wide and broad, and that goes straight up to Thyatira. So the King's Highway is there. And if you keep going south, you eventually reach Susa. Now that's the city where the Persian Empire had its kingdom at one time. That's where Esther takes place, is in Susa. Now this small plateau in which Sardis was located, it's got very steep sides to the east, the north, and the west. And there's just this little neck of land from the south that you can reach it. Okay, next slide. Now that gives it an impregnable, makes it a fortress. So this is from one of the sides, you can see how from the back side it's actually a plateau up there, but that's kind of tough to scale, isn't it? And so they consider themselves impregnable, and it became the capital of the Lydian kingdom. Now, there's not much space up there, so a sister city began to develop at its base. And so it actually ends up, it's a twin city. And so Sardis actually is a plural word, because it takes into account the Acropolis, where the old city was, and this larger city that's developing at its base. Now it was founded around 1200 B.C., became the capital of the Lydian kingdom and because of that there was a lot of frequent wars because whoever controlled it controlled the whole kingdom. And a lot of the Greek cities over to the west sought to conquer it and lost. Hard to conquer that. It's also located at the juncture between the Hellenistic, the Greek cities that have settled along the coast, and the Antolian cities, the Asian oriental cities that are off to its east. In fact, it's scribed on its coins was this, Sardis the first metropolis of Asian and of Lydia and of Hellenism. It really had a mixture of all these cultures. Now in the middle of the 6th century BC Croesus the king of Lydia attacks Cyrus king of Persia and he lost. So he retreats to Sardis He's up on this Acropolis and he feels extremely secure not only because he's up there and it's very hard to attack, it doesn't take much to defend yourself there, and a new Lydian army is gathering which will be able to crush Cyrus because to be where Cyrus is trying to attack he's actually hemmed in. He's going to be in trouble. Now Croesus felt so secure that the only place he put any guards, any watchman was on the south end. There were no guards looking out over the cliff to see if anybody was trying to scale him. So what did Cyrus do? Yeah, you guessed it. He had people scale it, which they didn't think people were going to do. Captured the gate, let the army in, and it fell. The news of this was so shocking when it got to the Greek cities, they didn't believe it. It couldn't have fallen. It fell. Three and a half centuries later, in 195 BC, Antiochus the Great conquered Sardis by the exact same method for the exact same reason. Now the city was severely damaged in an earthquake in AD 17 and then rebuilt by Emperor Tiberius. Granted to that a temple was later constructed in honor of him and Empress Livia who was portrayed as a mother goddess and Tiberius as a god as well. Indicating emperor cult worship was also going on there. Sardis had been a very wealthy city, trade, agriculture, commerce to the east. It was thought that gold may have been discovered because a lot of crucibles for melting precious metals were found. So at minima, there was at least a thriving jewelry market there. The main industry in the Roman period was wool and textiles and dyeing fabric. In fact, it's claimed that Sardis was the first city to perfect dyeing wool. By time of this letter though, Sardis still doing well, but declining from its peak. Now the Emperor Colt present there, but the patron goddess of it was Sibel, the Antonian version of Artemis whose temple ruins are still visible today. In fact in the previous slide, the ruins there, that was the temple of Artemis. The Antolian culture also worshiped the forces of nature. which those subject to death also had the power of self-reproduction. There was some sort of special emphasis within that city on the idea of restoring life from the dead. Now part of it, just two miles from here, were some hot springs which they considered a manifestation of the God of the dead. So there's a fixation here in this city. Now Josephus records the existence of a wealthy and influenced Jewish community there in the first century. Now if the evangelist from Ephesus, which is just 15 miles to the southwest, had followed Paul's example, he would have gone to the synagogues first, preached the gospel, some of them would have responded, and that would have been the beginnings of the church. Now what does become obvious as we look at this letter is that, like the city, the church has passed its prime. Now Jesus identifies himself in the second part of Revelation 3.1 as he who has the seven spirits of God and seven stars. Now the seven spirits of God, we discussed that in the sermon covering Revelation 1-4, it's a reference to the Holy Spirit, the idea of seven spirits probably ascribing to Him what it states in Isaiah 11, 2-5. The Holy Spirit is ascribed to the spirit of Yahweh, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of strength, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of Yahweh. That Jesus has the seven spirits, or he controls them, supports the theological idea that the Holy Spirit, the third person, the triune Godhead, proceeds from the Father and the Son. Jesus having the seven stars, as in Revelation 1.16 and 2.1, is a reference to the seven churches, and Jesus controls them. We've looked at that before. But why does Jesus use this particular description of Himself? So far we've seen whatever description He uses has something to do with the message that He's given to that particular church. It's actually similar in several ways to the church at Ephesus, but more likely it is tied to this preoccupation of death and restoration to life that was in that particular city. Why? Jesus gives life through the power of the Holy Spirit who regenerates the believer to new life, right? That'd be John 6, 33, 10, 28, Romans 8, 11, Ephesians 2, 5, all talk about that. God gives life to what's dead. He gives us spiritual life. We were dead in our trespass and sin, but Jesus through the Holy Spirit empowers us and he makes us alive. Now that theme is reversed in the very next sentence. Jesus says, I know your deeds that you have a name that you're alive, but you are dead. As in the other letters Jesus is demonstrating an omniscience here. The very term used refers Jesus has a present full knowledge of them. He knows everything about them and he's going to continue to know everything about them in the future. He knows all about their past works which have given them a reputation for being alive. At some point in the past they were known to be a very vibrant church. He also knows their present condition was opposite of that reputation. Their name, who they are, it's become false. They're not alive. They're dead. The word for alive here, zao, refers to the inner spiritual life as compared to the other Greek word for life, baios, which refers to physical life. You have both, don't you? Everybody here is alive physically? Anybody not alive physically, raise your hand. You couldn't do that, could you, right? In fact, you couldn't even understand what I said if you were spiritually dead too, right? So there's an inner life that enables your physical life to respond. They're dead. The word for death here, necros, we get our word necrotic from it, but it's referring here, they're spiritually dead. Those in a church are supposed to be spiritually alive. What do you mean they're dead? They are dead. A reputation of the past is opposite even though they have outward actions that are continuing to make it look like they're alive. They're a zombie walking around, but they're dead. There's no spiritual life in them. Now what's the evidence of that? The evidence is what is not said about them. There's no mention, there's not even an illusion of any kind of persecution of them in which they need to persevere. Nothing. The emperor cult is present. But it's no threat to them. There are influential Jews present and unbelieving Jews throughout the New Testament are always against Christians. There is no threat there. Apparently they're ignoring the Christians in Sardis. Paganism dominates the city. No evidence, any oppression of them in any manner. There's no mention of false teachings, such as that of Balaam, or the Nicolaitans, or a false teacher such as Jezebel. There's no foe, either internal or external, that seems to be active against them. The message of the cross is an offense to the unbelieving Jew and Gentile, but no unbeliever there appears to be offended by the church at Sardis. Whatever they may have been carrying out in the past, whatever rituals they are carrying out in the future is making no difference in the community. and there's no longer spiritual life in them, they make no difference. And yet even with that kind of strong indictment, we find our God always finds a place to give hope. And there's some hope here. He gives five commands. Now it would seem futile to try to command a dead body to wake up, right? How many need if we could do it? We'd have a funeral, we'd have a coffin out here, and he's like, wake up! And he gets up and he walks out. That'd be great. Now of course, if that did happen, everybody would scatter. But guess what Jesus does? He wakes the dead, doesn't he? What power he has. Remember John 11? Jesus told the disciples. He had delayed where he was. We're going to go to Lazarus. He's in Bethel. We're going to wake him out of his sleep. Then he had to clarify. He's dead. He's dead. He goes there and what does he do? He calls Lazarus out of the grave he'd been in for four days. Jesus does that. He wakes the dead. It's the Holy Spirit that wakes the dead in you and makes you spiritually alive. Jesus does that. However, the phrase here, Ganu Garaon, is literally translated as, you be watching, not wake up. You be watching, you be on the alert. The word simply means to be continuous in readiness and alertness. The emphasis of the phrase here then is actually more on what you do after you're awake. And given the history of Sardis, it seemed better to fit to a referral to be viligant, lest the enemy come from some unexpected direction and destroy you as it happened twice, both by Cyrus and Antiochus the Great in their history. Be watchful, be viligant in guarding. The second command, strengthen Now the fact that there's something that remained that was about to die that needed to be strengthened lets us know there are a few cells in this dead corpse that were still hanging on to life barely. Death was imminent for them too unless they would follow the commands that are being given. And the reason for the warning is that their deeds, whatever, how many of there were, did not meet God's standards. You gotta strengthen them. Most people think they can impress God, please God by the many things they do. But without the proper motivation and done in faith to glorify God, they're actually worthless exercises. Wasn't that part of Jesus' contention with the Pharisees continually? In the Sermon on the Mount, especially in Matthew 6, We find Jesus correcting them. They wanted the acclaim of men and so they would make long prayers and Jesus says it's just vain repetition. It's going nowhere. Their alms were done with the same kind of wrong motives as well as fasting. They did it to get the acclaim of men. They were worthless. Wrong motives. Something similar was true about those in this church in Sardis. Their works are deficient before God, and so he's telling them, whatever little remains here that's not so deficient, that's got a little something there, strengthen it. Become stronger. Be firm in a proper attitude, belief, motivation. The next command points them back on how they're supposed to do that. Remember. Remember what you received. Remember what you heard. It's a call for them to look back at what they had been given and told in the past. Look back because at some point they had received the gospel and a church had been born that was effective enough to grow in the midst of a pagan city. Something had happened there in the past. Go back and look. What was it? What was the gospel? The next command directs them to what to do after they remember. Keep it. Word here, tereo, means to cause a state to continue. So it's not just continue doing what you're currently doing that has a little value to it. It's go back, remember those things, repeat what you used to do, and keep at it. The final command is repent. Repentance is simply a change of mind that leads to a change of direction. Change your mind about what has been currently going on that is wrong to go back to doing what is right. Change your direction. These commands end up being actually very similar to the solution given to Ephesians, right? What little life there is that's barely hanging on is in danger of dying. So be watchful to remember, repent, redo what you did at first when you had life. And then you'll see growth. Maybe a little encouragement here. History tells us at the end of the second century, there was a fellow in Sardis that was known as quite an apologist for Christianity. So what little was there, somebody listened. And a church did continue there for at least another hundred years. Now the seriousness of the matter is emphasized in the warning of the end of verse three. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I come. So if you fail this, I'm gonna come unexpectedly. The context here, this is a warning of judgment. He would bring again to mind the people of Sardis to their past history. And that'd just be part of their history, they'd know it. We weren't watchful, we didn't do the kinds of things, and our city fell twice, and it never should have. But if you do what is right, you're gonna stand firm. Now verse four gives a little more insight into these faithful few that are remaining. You have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy." Now it begins with a strong adversative but, and that is contrasting these few names, these few persons that remain that were actually alive to some degree with those who had defiled themselves and are spiritually dead. And that's the vast majority. Now this would be a powerful description in a city whose major industry was the dyeing of textiles. Because if you have a very expensive garment and it gets stained, what worth is it? Not much, maybe you can go work on the car with it or something, but you're not going out with stained garments, right? So it would have been a very pointed way to describe their problem. A Christian A professing Christian whose life has been soiled, whose life has been polluted with sin, loses his testimony and his positive usefulness through Christ disappears. We need to make sure we're walking with Christ, we're walking in holiness. Now the reward for the undefiled is walking with Christ clothed in white. It says because they're worthy. A white robe generally symbolizes purity and holiness. So here this is a promise of a purity that's going to allow them to walk in close fellowship with Christ. Now that's a good motivation to continue in diligent faithfulness despite the apathy of the majority of the church there who are not doing that. Verse five continues this thought. Expanding for all who overcome, again all two Christians. The ones who have faith in Christ overcome. Our sins are forgiven in Christ because of faith in him. He who overcomes will be clothed in white garments. I will never erase his name from the book of life and I will confess his name before my father, before his angels. Now the promise of being clothed in white is the same as in verse four. It's a promise we'll see at the end of Revelation, even those that are coming back with Christ are clothed in white. They will be pure. That's something to look forward to, isn't it? We eventually get glorified bodies and we don't have to deal with sin anymore. Praise God for that. And if you're not, your spouse will. Praise God, he won't be sinful anymore. But neither will she. That's a good thing, isn't it? That's a great promise of what God has in store for us. Whatever struggles we have now will be put behind us. But we're not there yet. But this is a promise given, a great encouragement. But the question this verse is, what is meant by, I will never erase or blot out his name from the book of life? Hmm. Some cite this as a proof that you can lose your salvation. Can you lose your salvation? Hmm. Well, if I was just gonna use this verse, I might go there, but we don't develop doctrine off of one verse taken out of context. We gotta look at everything the scripture says, and there's a lot the scripture says about the security of our salvation. Probably the most important statements on this come from Jesus. Let's go over to John chapter four. I'm sorry, chapter six, John six. Verse 37. So Jesus is teaching the people he's had an interaction with the Pharisees again. He's talked about being the bread of life. The people are like, well, then give us this bread. And then in verse 37, it says, all the father gives me shall come to me. The one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of Him who sent me, that all that He has given me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day. Who's doing the work there? God is doing the work there, right? God is doing a work. It's being presented as God the Father is drawing people and He's giving them to Christ, And Christ doesn't lose them. He holds them. He loses nothing. All that the Father gives, He holds and He loses none of them. Period. So it's an action of God the Father to God the Son. And the promise is made by God the Son. Over a couple pages, John 10. This is following the parable of the good shepherd. Starting in verse, we'll pick it up at verse 27. In verse 25 and 26, he is rebuking them. It's, you do not believe because you're not my sheep. And then verse 27, my sheep hear my voice. I know them, they follow me. I give eternal life to them. They shall never perish. No one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one. I've had the Jews pick up stones to stone them because for them that's blasphemy. It's not blasphemy to say the truth. If salvation was something dependent upon you, And because you're immutable, you change, then you could lose it. If it was dependent upon you. But since salvation is actually action of God the Father giving the believer to the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, then there is an absolute security. Why? Jesus is not going to cast you out. He loses none. That means you can't jump out of His hands. You can't get away. You might squirm. You might try and wiggle out. He ain't going to lose you. You can try and grease yourself. You're still not going to get lost. Okay? He's holding on to you. That's His promise. Nor can anyone or anything snatch you out of His hand. That's Romans 8 right? Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Now, is that secure? That encourage you? When you're wavering sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm ... He's got you. Now, that also means that sometimes your life's going to get a little miserable. Because He's going to correct you too. All right? When we're faithless, He is faithful. He keeps His promises. So, can the idea that you're not gonna be blotted out of the book of life in any way be taken then as somehow is that you can lose your salvation? The answer is no. Too many promises, and especially these of Christ, you can't lose it because it wasn't you that gave it to you. God gave it to you, okay? Well, what does this verse mean then? This gets difficult. Now some take it to be a litotus. Now that's a figure of speech. If you were a grammar major, you might go, oh yeah, I remember that. All right, so follow along. A litotus is an affirmative which is expressed by the negative of the contrary statement. Got it? No? I'll repeat it, all right? It is the affirmative expressed by the negative of the contrary statement. That being so, then this would be a promise of security since the overcomer cannot be blotted out of this. And then this is immediately tied to the promise that actually goes back to Matthew 10, 32, confirmed here. Those who confess Jesus Christ before men, that would be the overcomer, he will confess before the Father and the angels of heaven. So you can see they're both tied together. However, The statement here has a clear implication that a name could be blotted out or the promises seem to be an empty one without that possibility. In other words, what encouragement would this be to someone in Sardis who's told this when he already knows, well, absolutely, of course I can't be blotted out. I can't lose my salvation. This can't apply to me. Would that be an encouragement? Now, it gets more difficult. There are a lot of references to the Book of Life. It shows up in Philippians 4, 3. It shows up in Revelation also, this passage, and then Revelation 13, 8, 17, 8, 20, verse 12, and 15, and chapter 21, verse 27. Now in all those passages your name being written in the book of life is equated with salvation and heaven and if the name is missing from the book of life it is equated with judgment and being cast into the eternal lake of fire. Then there is Psalm 6928. This is an imprecatory psalm. It is a psalm of a prayer to God to bring judgment upon the unrighteous, which includes this statement. May they, the unrighteous, be blotted out of the book of life, and may they not be recorded with the righteous. So this sentence is something more than a figure of speech. And since the unrighteous, according to Psalm 69, have their names written in the book of life, now we've got another question. Well, how do they get in there? That's confusing, isn't it? Well, let's confuse the matter a little more. Revelation 13, 8 and 17, 8 both refer to those that dwell on the earth that are going to worship the beasts manifestation of Satan as those who quote, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation the world unquote. Now that statement doesn't say they were never in it, it just says from that point on they weren't in it. You got it figured out now? You do? Well good, you come up here and explain it because I don't. Alright? Well, I'm glad you're trying to follow anyways, all right? All right, a little honesty here. Without some biblical clarity, frankly, I'm gonna put this in the category of a theological antinomy. That's when there's two stated truths in apparent contradiction that are worked out in the mind of God. I'm pretty comfortable with that. There's a whole lot of things that God does I don't know. Because he's infinite and I'm a finite creature. Now several solutions have been suggested. There's only one that I think has at least hold some water. But frankly, I'm not really quite sure I understand it because it requires jumping back and forth between God's decrees in eternity past. Including that of Christ's atonement. Alright, that was decreed from before the foundation of the world. And then working that actually out in time, because what was decreed actually does come true at a point in time. But the decrees were made before time. And then an unclear distinction between the book of life and the book of the life of the Lamb. The basic premise explained by John Walvoord in his commentary is this, the book of life is not quote, a role of those who are saved, but rather a list of those for whom Christ died, that is all humanity who have possessed physical life, unquote. Now that'd be the Johanian position, the position of the Apostle John because he presents that Jesus died for the world. No one excluded. That'd be John 1.29, 3.16, 4.42, 1 John 2.2, 1 John 4.14. That is John's position. Jesus died for the world. No one excluded. And so from that premise then, everybody who's going to live has their name written in the book at some point in time. Continuing on, quote, as they come to maturity and are faced with the responsibility of accepting or rejecting Christ, their names are blotted out if they fail to receive Jesus Christ as Savior. Whereas those who do not accept Christ as Savior are confirmed in their position in the book of life and their names are confessed before the Father and the heavenly angels. Now this ends up, it has to trace back to eternity past when God chose the redeemed, when? Before, not at, but before the foundation of the world as it were told in Ephesians 1-4. But that becomes reality in time in the life of the individual when they either accept or make a final rejection of the gospel. Now, Don't worry if you don't understand that. Okay? You're welcome. Okay? Don't worry. All right? We're finite creatures trying to understand, to comprehend the declarations of an infinite God, and he doesn't reveal everything to us. He doesn't. Moses even understood that. Deuteronomy 29.29. The secret things belong to the Lord but these things belong to us and our children. What he's revealed we have. But there's a whole lot of stuff he hasn't revealed. Do you have questions he'd like? I've got a bunch of ones like when I get to heaven like so how does this actually work? Because I don't get it. But I'll be able to understand it then, I don't understand it now. And part of this whole problem is we are creatures. We're in this time-space continuum, we're in a box. And we can't even conceive being out of the box. I use this illustration a lot of times, especially young people, they think time is just going to go on and I'm going to live forever. You get older and bones hurt and Thangs Creek and saw a cartoon the other day, this elderly woman walking around and first she hears a snap as her back goes one thing, then she hears a crackle as lower down it starts making things and her knee pops. She said, man, I didn't know that getting old means your breakfast cereal. But as you get older, you start recognizing because your friends are dying, well, life doesn't continue. but we have so many promises about eternal future, we kind of get a grasp, well, okay, I will continue in some force. Try and do that backwards. What was there before time existed? We're told in scripture, can you comprehend that? Can you comprehend before time? And yet, whatever the answer is, it involves this. Jumping back before time, when God decrees, before the foundation of the world, because some of these are at the foundation of the world, but you have something before that. or maybe Paul's statement in Romans 11, 33 and 34. Hang on to this one, okay? Because this is so true about our God. It certainly makes it understandable. You are not God. You're nothing like him. He says, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways. Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has become his counselor? Our God is so beyond us. So again, if you don't get it, it's okay. You just leave it in the hands of an omnipotent, infinite God in all things, and He knows what He's doing. We get a little glimpse, but I'm not sure we understand what it is. I've used the analogy of flat world many times. I'll use it here again. Flat world would be the idea of if, uh, if there's only two dimensions, okay, only two dimensions and not a third dimension and you exist in these two dimensions, how would you know anything from another dimension exists? Only at that point where it intersects and you get like something's there, but I don't know what it is. Well, we're living in, With a reality, there's a spiritual dimension I don't really understand. It's real, but I don't understand it. I'm not in it yet. The point of the passage really here is as Walvord states, quote, those who put their trust in Christ and thus overcome by faith have the privilege of being recognized as the saints of God throughout eternity, even though they come from such a church as Sardis, where their spiritual testimony was at a low ebb and much was offensive to their holy Lord. That should be encouraging. The letter ends, as all the previous ones do, it's a call to everyone, a call to all. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. So the principles of this letter apply to every Christian, in every church, in every place, throughout time. Now the sad reality is there are many professing believers and many churches that fit this description in this letter to Sardis. They're like zombies. They have a past reputation of being alive, vibrant. They may continue to do things that gives some sort of outward appearance of life. There are actions there. The reality, they're spiritually dead. Perhaps they're resting on their laurels of past accomplishments and they think it's good enough. They forget. We as Christians run a race as best we can until the Lord calls us home. All sorts of passages deal with this. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 9, 24 and 27, Philippians 3, 12 through 14, where he's running a race. He's ready to go to the Lord. Hebrews 12, one, of setting aside the stuff in this world and running the race before it's unencumbered. 1 Timothy 4, seven, I have run the race, I fought the good fight. That is the way we should be living. A pastor friend of mine in Florida, he complained about the many Christians in his church that moved there, and they became like zombies. Why? They retired, he said, from everything, including Christian service. They walk in, but you really wouldn't know any spiritual life is in them because they do nothing. So that's a possibility. I'm just resting on what I used to do in the past. No, we strive until the Lord calls us home. We may not be able to do the things we used to do, but we're going to keep striving. Perhaps they have let the liturgy of their church replace actual worship. They would fall into the condemnation the Lord gave in Isaiah 1, 11 through 15 of rejecting the religious rituals of such people unless they repent and pursue a true worship expressed in living a holy life and actually serving the Lord. There are a lot of liturgical churches, the dead. They have an outward appearance, but they're dead and there's no meaning. And most of them don't even know what the rituals are about. They don't know. This is what we do. Or perhaps they become so comfortable with the world that there's little difference in how they live and the non-Christian. And this lack of holiness or life allows them to live among the unrighteous and the unrighteous can feel comfortable with them. They don't proclaim the holiness of God, either verbally or by how they live. They don't proclaim the gospel of Christ, that the unregenerate might become convicted because they're sinners, and they need a Savior. They need His forgiveness. And that salvation is only, only by faith in Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only way. Well, if that's not there, then why would a non-Christian get upset with you? You're just like Him. You just got your hobby over there. You see, true Christians who are in such churches need to heed Jesus' call of what He's saying here. And it seems like there's always at least one or two in these kind of churches. They're striving. I've met some of them, even locally, says, well, I'm going to continue going there because somebody has to be there to teach and preach and tell the truth because they recognize the rest of the church is dead. So remain faithful. Keep your garments unsoiled. Don't let sin and compromise creep into your life and destroy your testimony. Be the light of Christ shining in a dark place. I praise God that we have a light shining here. but I know some of them are going to be watching this on video or see this in print. They're in a place, well, there's really not an option. There is not a live church around. And so, remain faithful. You be the light of Christ. Shine in even in a dark church and see how God might use you. Rejoice that you belong to Christ. You can rest in his promises. And maybe you, like this second century apologist in Sardis, You have a history. It's a tough place, but you're the only light shining. But you be that light. Father, thank you for the truth of your word. And Father, even when things are confusing, which we don't understand, we can simply trust you. And regardless of exactly the meaning of this phrase of not being blotted out, we do understand what a wonderful promise to every Christian. We're secure in you. And in that security, that means we can walk in holiness with you. We can make a difference in the lives of those around us by how we live and in proclamation of what you have said about Christ, what the gospel is.