The vision and experience of christ in his resurrection and ascension
Message Six
The Church in Sardis
Scripture Reading: Rev. 3:1-6
I. As a sign, the church in Sardis prefigures the Protestant church, from the time of the Reformation to the second coming of Christ—Rev. 3:1:
A. When the church, in her continuous fall, came to the stage of Jezebel, God could no longer tolerate it (2:18, 20); the church in Sardis is God's reaction to Thyatira.
B. Sardis emerges because the Lord has seen the condition of Thyatira; in Greek Sardis means "the remains," "the remainder," or "the restoration."
II. "I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and yet you are dead"—3:1:
A. Many have considered the reformed Protestant church to be living, but the Lord says that she is dead; she has lost the vitality of life and is living in name only.
B. The frequent revivals in the history of the Protestant denominations are a proof that they are dead.
C. We surely do not want to be in the condition of the church in Sardis; we want to be living and active in gospel preaching, in nourishing the new ones, in perfecting the saints, and in prophesying to build up the Body of Christ—John 15:16; Matt. 24:45; Eph. 4:12; 1 Cor. 14:1, 3-5, 12.
III. "These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars"—Rev. 3:1:
A. The seven Spirits enable the church to be intensely living, and the seven stars enable her to be intensely shining—1:4, 16a, 20.
B. The dead, reformed church needs the sevenfold intensified Spirit of God and the shining leaders—3:1.
C. The sevenfold intensified Spirit can never be replaced by the dead letters of knowledge—2 Cor. 3:6.
D. The seven Spirits correspond to the seven stars—Rev. 3:1:
1. A star is a messenger of a church, a leading one in a local church; such a messenger should be one with the seven Spirits of God.
2. The stars are those who shine in the darkness and turn people from the wrong way to the right way—Dan. 12:3.
3. Revelation 1:20 and 3:1 show that the stars are linked not only to the Spirit but also to the churches; if we would have the living star or the living stars, we need the Spirit and the church.
IV. "I have found none of your works completed before My God"—v. 2:
A. In the eyes of God there is nothing completed in the so-called reformed churches; everything has a beginning without an end.
B. Nothing begun in the Reformation has ever been completed by the Protestant churches; therefore, the church in Philadelphia (vv. 7-13), signifying the church in recovery, is needed for the completion.
C. The Reformation did not bring the church back to the beginning; it only caused the world church to become the state churches—cf. Matt. 16:18; 18:17; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:22-23; Rev. 1:11.
D. The Lord is a Lord of completion; therefore, He requires completion—Phil. 1:6.
V. "If therefore you will not watch, I will come as a thief, and you shall by no means know at what hour I will come upon you"—Rev. 3:3:
A. This verse indicates that Christ is the One who will come as a thief to steal away His treasures, His precious seekers.
B. Since many believers are spiritually dead, they will be unaware of the Lord's coming as a thief in His secret appearing to His seekers.
C. Only those who are matured in life and transformed in their soul will be precious enough for the Lord to steal—v. 3.
D. We must be thoroughly prepared for the time of the Lord's secret coming; therefore, we must be ready and watchful—Luke 21:36; Matt. 24:42-44.
VI. "You have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white because they are worthy"—Rev. 3:4:
A. Garments in the Bible signify what we are in our walk and living—v. 4.
B. To defile one's garments means particularly to stain them with deadness; the defiled garments indicate the presence of death or the absence of life:
1. Death is more defiling before God than sin—Lev. 11:24-25; Num. 6:6-7, 9.
2. In Revelation 3:4 defilement denotes anything of the death nature.
3. The defilement in Sardis was not the defilement of sin but the defilement of death.
C. Those who have not defiled their garments will walk with the Lord in white—v. 4:
1. White signifies not only purity but also approvedness—7:9.
2. White garments in Revelation 3:4 signify the walk and living that are unspotted by death and that will be approved by the Lord; this is a qualification for walking with the Lord, especially in the coming kingdom.
3. To walk in white garments is to have a living that is unspotted by death and approved in life by the Lord.
VII. "He who overcomes will be clothed thus, in white garments"—v. 5a:
A. To overcome here is to overcome the deadness of the Protestant churches, that is, to overcome dead Protestantism.
B. Christ is the white garments to clothe the overcomers:
1. White garments refers to livingness; to be living is to wear the white garments.
2. If we are spiritually dead, we are dirty; such a dead person is the dirtiest one; also if we are dead, we are naked—16:15.
3. We need the living garment to cover us; this living garment is Christ Himself wrought into us by the life-giving Spirit; the only way to have this garment is to turn to the spirit and live in the mingled spirit—Gal. 4:19; Eph. 3:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 8:4.
4. Being clothed in white garments, as promised in Revelation 3:5, will be a prize to the overcomers in the millennial kingdom; what they have been walking in during this age will be a prize to them in the coming age.
C. Every Christian needs two garments—Luke 15:22; Matt. 22:12:
1. The first garment is the garment of salvation, signifying Christ as our righteousness objectively:
a. In Luke 15:22, when the prodigal son returned home, the first thing that the father did was to have the best robe placed upon him.
b. Wearing the best robe, he was justified and approved; this means that he was justified in Christ and that Christ became his justifying covering.
c. He was covered with Christ as his righteousness; thus, the garment of justification is for salvation.
2. In addition to the garment of justification, we need another garment to make us approved and well pleasing to the Lord—Matt. 22:12; Rev. 3:5a:
a. This is the garment of approvedness for our acceptance, signifying the Christ whom we live out as our subjective righteousness—Phil. 1:21; 3:9:
1. The "fine linen, bright and clean" in Revelation 19:8 denotes this second garment.
2. According to typology, the queen in Psalm 45 has two garments: one for salvation and the other for her to be with the King in His reign (vv. 8, 13-14).
b. We have been saved and justified and have the first garment—Christ as our objective righteousness—for our salvation; now we need to go on to experience Christ as our subjective righteousness so that we may have the second garment—Phil. 3:9.
c. Christ as our objective righteousness has been put upon us, whereas Christ as our subjective righteousness comes out of us.
d. The white garments in Revelation 3:5 refer to the second garment, which is needed for us to receive the reward and enter into the kingdom to walk with the Lord, that is, to reign with Him—2 Tim. 2:11-12.
D. We all should overcome the dead situation in religion, conquer all kinds of death, and wear the white garments—Rev. 3:4-5a.