Revelation

Sardis - The Dead Church

Sardis Introduction

In the history of the human race no one has been harder to reach for Christ than the religionist, the one who is quite satisfied with the measure of his devotion to God and with the items which to him represent religion.

Walvoord, J. F. (2008).

The Revelation of Jesus Christ (p. 93).

Galaxie Software.

Like being inoculated with a dead virus to keep the live virus away.  Many have been inoculated with dead religion and it keeps living faith in the Living God away.  That person ends up living a quote Christianity in which God is a priority among many others.  That person’s time will be divided up to a slice of attention that will be determined to be “good enough.”

A culture that embraces many gods, with differing moral doctrines will devolve to the lowest common denominator.  In time, they will become completely devoid of moral and ethical boundaries.  Corruption, lawlessness, and sexual deviancy will consume them.  All that will be left is rubble, archeological evidence, or people who once searched for hope with all sincerity, searched in the wrong places and the wrong way.

The city of Sardis

The city of Sardis was nearly 1500 years old when John wrote this letter.  It was just 50 miles east of Ephesus but was at a fork in the road from Smyrna and Pergamum on the way to Colossae.  This, and the fact it was also near the Hermus River, made it a major trade city and important to the region.  Sardis had become a city known for its wealth but also for its softness.  It lacked discipline or dedication to anything.  As John wrote these words, the city of Sardis had already seen its best days.  It was a shadow of its former glory.

Back about 550 BC, King Croesus ruled this area.  He was a very rich king.  This king is credited as the first to ever mint coins.  These coins were minted in Sardis from a material called Electrum.  This was a mixture of silver and gold that was found naturally in the river that ran through Sardis.  The legends from that time say that the gold in the river came from King Midas.  Since Midas was cursed with the golden touch, he washed in that river in an attempt to rid himself of it.  The people of that area flocked to the river and placed their sheepskins in the water to collect the gold dust they believed had washed off King Midas.  This vast wealth of easy money made the area, specifically the city of Sardis, well known for its luxury and soft life.   This wealth created an affluent culture accompanied by self-centeredness, arrogance, and reliance on wealth alone.  Typically, the people of Sardis had little or no concern outside their own comfort. 

Sardis was in its glory and prominence between 300 and 600 BC.  The city was the capital of Lydia, the region of what we know of as Turkey.  This wealthy city built a temple to the goddess Cybele, which was the eighth-largest temple in the Greek world.  It was twice as large as the Parthenon in Athens.  This temple had columns 80' high and 6 feet in diameter.  Cybele was worshiped with various kinds of sexual immorality and impurity.  In the Roman era, this same temple was expanded and then used also for imperial cult worship.  This was where the Roman emperors were worshiped as gods.

The city was destroyed by an earthquake in ad 17.  It was then rebuilt and remained a wealthy and important city because of its location.  This rebuilt city was occupied until 1500 A.D_.  The main street of Sardis was marble-paved.  Archaeologists uncovered the shops alongside the road that dated back to about 400_AD.  Even though this was well after John’s time, we can see the culture and makeup of the city.  They found 27 shops in total, and among them were found menorahs and crosses, revealing 6 of Jewish ownership while 10 were Christian.  One of the Jewish shops had an inscription that said it was “Yakob’s shop.”  It seems Jacob sold paint and dye.  There were many Jews there, and they had built a synagogue, which was found among the ruins.  They also found some sort of office, a hardware store, and a restaurant, which had plates decorated with the cross.  They knew they served different kinds of shellfish and pork due to finding shells and bones.  One of the shops had a rectangular basin made of recycled marble that they believed was a baptistery.  Among the ruins, they found evidence of a church dating to 400 AD._.

There was a common association of Sardis with easy money.  Sardis was a city of wealth, decadence, laziness, and arrogance.  Right in the middle of all that worldliness was the church, and all those things were taking their toll on it.  Sardis was known as the dead or the feeble church.  Today, the city is known as Sart.  One traveler described it as “a miserable village, comprising only a few wretched cottages, occupied by Turks and Greeks.”

Revelation 3:1

How would you like to have been a member of “The dead church?”  Those were real people there, with families and jobs and lives.  These cities were great for finding other like-minded followers of Christ, but they were full of paganism that bled into the church.  In many ways, Sardis was a great place for a church to minister to the lost.  However, it seems the church wasn’t ministering well.  We can imagine the population of that city would be a tough crowd to bring the gospel to.  They had found all their sufficiency in wealth.

The Lord dictated a letter to the pastor of this important church in this important city.  Sardis had what the world wanted: money and wealth.  The church of Sardis had what the city and world needed. 

First point:

1. Wealth interferes with the ability to receive the gospel.  The eyes of the wealthy cannot see the need, nor can the ears hear the word of God.  The wealthy have a false sense of security.

Paul knew this:

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (1 Timothy 6:9-10)

Sardis had a spirit of the highfalutin. They didn’t choose that, nor did they choose to rely on wealth. They just had what others wanted, and so they held it close, protecting it and trusting it. We can see how this might make its way into any church. 

• There existed an attitude of self-reliance that came from not trusting those around them who wanted their wealth and their ability to influence or buy nearly anything. 
• There was this church in the middle of this city, and each person within that church was called to be a servant of Christ and trust in Him alone. 

These two positions couldn't be any more opposite! 

Jesus presented Himself to the messenger and his church as the one who possessed the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.   These names were used first in chapter one to characterize Jesus as the One who walked among the lampstands (churches).

• The seven Spirits represent the complete, perfect, and infinite Spirit of God.  By the Spirit of God, Jesus was obedient to suffer and die to extend eternal life by grace.  God could not be categorized and defined by any number of spirits in any complete way.
• The seven stars were the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands (1:20).  Jesus was the Lord over these angels and lampstands.  These seven stars are the pastors of the churches, those called to lead, shepherd, and bring the word to Sardis.  The stars are firmly in the grasp of the right hand of Jesus (1:20), a place of safety and strength.  Why did Jesus call them stars?  No one’s really sure.  A star is a single point of light on a dark background, a spec in the grand realm of creation.  Perhaps these stars were to be seen as tiny lights as they endeavor to be like Christ. 

There’s a fascinating coin from antiquity showing the Roman Emperor Domitian on the front.  He considered himself a divine and sovereign ruler.  On the back of the coin is the son of Domitian, sitting upon the globe with seven stars.  Some would see this as the son of god supreme over the world and the heavens.

Sardis valued anything they could see or touch. They were engaged in whatever they could influence, rent, or buy. What value would they place on He who has the seven Spirits? They could not see the Spirit. They couldn’t influence or manipulate Him. Jesus presents Himself in a way that sets Him far and away from their lives. 

Jesus knew their works. Maybe they excused themselves because the city was full of sin and sinful people. They counted on Jesus being distracted by all the sin around them as if He would never notice our sins that we perceive as minor. But Jesus wasn’t writing to the city. He was writing to the church. The unbelievers were acting like unbelievers. What were the believers acting like?

Saris had a reputation for being alive.  In spite of their reputation, Jesus said they were dead.

Second point

2. Our opinion of ourselves doesn’t count for much.  Our place in the culture has no standing in the kingdom of God.

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, ² in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, ³ among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

True life is given by God; it comes from the forgiveness of sins.  It is a supernatural work of God.  When you stand in a new life, the life you once lived looks so foreign.  You were the walking, spiritually dead, and didn’t know it.  Can you look back and see the old, dead life you once lived?

¹³ And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, ¹⁴ having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. ¹⁵ Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. (Colossians 2:13-15)

Christ makes us alive in Him. The condemnation we once walked in was lifted when all our sins were nailed to the cross in Christ. No accusation can be brought to us.  If this church of Sardis is full of believers in Jesus Christ, how can it be dead? 

Someone once said that a ministry goes through four stages. What started with a man became a movement, then a machine, and finally, a monument. It appears that the church of Sardis had become a monument to its past.  It was dying with the city.

• Pergamum was compromised and warned to turn back.
• Thyatira was corrupt and seems to show the next step after compromise.
• Sardis, in its deadness, seems to show what happens to the compromised who don’t 

One commentator put it this way,

"The church in Sardis was A perfect model of inoffensive Christianity. (Caird)” 

Barclay said,

“The church of Sardis was at peace - but it was the peace of the dead.” 

Imagine sitting in this church and hearing this written about you.  There was no commendation written.  The Lord simply looked at them and saw deadness. 

Revelation 3:2

There is no commendation for this church. 

Look around!! Be Watchful!!  This is a call to wake up and be alert.  If they sat up and took notice, they would see there were just a few things that hadn't died yet.  The situation was dire and critical.  What was the pastor doing?  Where were the people?  Didn’t anyone care?  It wasn’t too late, but they needed to move to keep these final things from dying away.  They needed emergency life support.

Third point

3. We must be diligent guardians in our lives. We must know our weaknesses and blind spots and guard them.   

Sardis must have relied on their works, thinking they were special, maybe because of their wealth.  Were expecting the Lord to pat them on the back, to hold them up as an example to all the other churches?  Had they confused wealth with blessing?  Did they think affluence meant they had arrived at some spiritual high ground?  The Lord let them know His evaluation. 

In Zechariah 4, Zerubbabel hasd a vision where he saw a lampstand with seven lamps on it and a bowl on top.  Two olive trees are by it.  When Zerubbabel said he knew what it meant, the Lord begins explained by stating:

‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,

The oil of the olive trees flowed to the lamp, keeping the light bright.  The church wasn’t born of works but by the gospel of grace.  It is the oil of the Holy Spirit that keeps the lights on, not works. 

Their works were not found to be perfect.  Their works were not done from love, by faith, for grace.  The works they did were paid for by wealth, not the blood of Christ.

Revelation 3:3

The correction comes first by remembering and going back to the beginnings.  It’s a call to remember being born again and being filled with the Spirit.  They received the gospel and then it made its way from their head to the heart.  The Lord’s work begins with the gospel.  They were transformed by the renewing of their mind.  Somewhere along the line, they began to conform to the world.  They needed to turn around, go back, agree with the Lord, and return to that truth, grab onto it, and never let go.

The Lord didn’t point out any doctrinal problems that required correction, and there was no mention of opposition or persecution.

The church of Sardis had a blind spot, and they let it swallow them whole.  If they refused to watch the blind spot and post a guard, as it were, the Lord would come against them when they least expected it.  The people who lived in Sardis knew what this was like.  It was in their heritage, the DNA of the city.

Cyrus, King of Persia, marched against Sardis in 550 BC.  Sardis was a city ideally suited for defense.  It caused the people to be complacent and show no concern for a siege.  The main part of the city was on a plateau 1500' above the main roads.  There was no apparent way for an army to scale the steep cliff walls that surrounded the city.  A direct assault was suicide but a secret advance seemed impossible.  Cyrus offered a reward to any soldier who could figure out a way to get up to the city.  One day, one of Cyrus's soldiers saw one of the soldiers defending Sardis drop his helmet down the cliff walls.  He watched as this soldier climbed down a hidden trail to recover his helmet.  The Persian soldier marked the hidden trail and later led a detachment of troops up that same path at night.  The cliffs were readily scaled and they came to the city walls and found them unguarded.  The soldiers of Sardis were so confident in the natural defenses of their city that they felt no need to keep a diligent watch.  Cyrus and his army conquered Sardis. 

Strangely enough, almost the exact same thing happened almost 200 years later when Antiochus attacked and conquered the overconfident city that didn’t set a watch properly.  While the main army attempted to storm the gate, a small band of soldiers found a spot in the wall that was completely unguarded.  They scaled the walls unchallenged, entered the city, and opened the gate for the remainder of the enemy.

The character of this city was pompous arrogance.  They were not diligent in duty -- they were slothful.  Jesus saw the same thing in this church.  If they didn’t repent, He would come on them just like the army of Cyrus.  They needed to remember the humility of first discovering their wretchedness before the Living God.  They needed to rediscover the gospel that saved them.  Then, they were to hold fast by guarding what they held dear. 

Fourth Point

4. Remember.  We see this repeatedly in the scriptures.  We are prone to forget our lessons.  Remember the gospel.  Why we believed.  Have communion with the Lord so as not to forget.

Our salvation, assurance, and hope will be assaulted just as surely as the impenetrable cliffs of that city were assaulted.

Revelation 3:4

The worshipers of the pagan gods of Sardis knew the rules.  One did not approach these pagan gods with a defiled garment.  They had to first clean themselves up.  They spent their life trying desperately to work to cover up the defilement in their life.  With all their money, they bought expensive clothes.  They were able to afford dyes that were expensive and jewelry, all to play a part, hoping beyond hope that they could somehow give the appearance of cleanliness, hoping to find favor with their god.

As dead as the church was, there were a few still alive.   Jesus looked at their heart – the apostasy was like a soiled garment in the church.  Only a few remained clean.  The garments of the forgiven, the righteous by faith, are portrayed as white.

The Lord says, “Even in Sardis,” noting that it was remarkable that some had not defiled their garments of purity.  This was another city that manufactured dyed garments.  This creates quite a spiritual contrast.

Those who remained faithful to Christ walked with Him in white.  They knew it was Jesus who cleansed men from their sins.  These few are considered worthy.  How can anyone be worthy?  I struggle to grasp the idea of being worthy because I know my sin.  It’s not the idea of being good enough, as if they could add up their good works, subtract their failures, and come up with a positive number. 

Paul charged the Thessalonians:

That you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonian 2:12)

We aren’t worthy, never were, and never could be.  But we can walk in worthiness by the blood of Christ.  These few in Sardis were to walk in a way consistent with the God who saved them.  It’s the reasonable and only response to being saved.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2)

Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. (Romans 12:16)

Revelation 3:5

Overcomers

The church at Sardis resembled the affluent and apathetic culture.  I can imagine they worked to attain their good standing in the world   But a good standing in the world is not good standing with the Lord.

 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

To overcome means to not just overcome persecution, suffering and other things that make life difficult, but also to overcome the call to love the things of the world, to overcome the temptation to try to find comfort in them, to live in them.  The world invites us to go along and get along in the flood of dissapation.

For Sardis to overcome they had to conquer the effects of wealth. 

1. No one thinks they are wealthy, they need just a little more.
2. No one thinks their wealth has had a negative effect.

Instead of being moved by the Spirit of God they were moved by the pursuit of wealth, the pursuit of things of this life.  Those who overcome will be clothed in white.  There is a Book of Life containing the names of those who have repented and trusted in Jesus.  It’s a book containing the roles of those who will inherit eternal life. 

The church of Sardis struggled to confess the name of Jesus to the world.  This may have kept them on the good side of the Jews and kept Rome from pressuring them to worship the emperor. 

Narrow is the way that leads to life and few find that way.  A time is coming when many will find their name blotted out of the Book of Life.  In life they sought to be among the majority and to be accepted.  In reality they were pursing life in the midst of the dead majority, clothed in the colors of the world.  Jesus offers life to the overcomer, to this living minority Jesus will clothe in white.  They will hear Jesus confess their name before God and all the angels.

Revelation 3:6

The message sent to Sardis is applicable to all people in all churches.  What does the Spirit say to all the churches?

1. Every church has a blind spot. Sardis was not compromised or corrupted by Jezebel, the Nicolaitans, or the Doctrine of Balaam. They appear to have a false sense of Pride. They had a blind spot, and it was their success. Their success, church growth, works, and presence in the city brought pride. 
   1. The stock market warns: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  The same holds for the church.  
   2. Dr. Vance Havner has frequently reminded us that spiritual ministries often go through four stages: a man, a movement, a machine, and then a monument. Sardis was at the “monument” stage, but there was still hope!
2. Wealth impairs the spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear the things of God. 
3. Our opinion of ourselves doesn’t count for much. 
   1. A prominent place in the culture has no standing in the kingdom of God.
   2. A person’s reputation bears no weight before the throne of God.

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, ³ among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

4. We must set a guard. Sardis teaches us that we are naturally watchful at our strongest points, at our greatest success. The confidence found in the strong point is false security over our weaknesses. 
   1. We are warned not to let our garment of white be dyed by the culture.
   2. Sardis was overconfident in its secure location, failed to set a guard, and fell to a surprise attack.  All they had to do was keep watch.  It was easy to guard because they would see the enemy coming from a great distance.
   3. The church must guard humility and glorify God.  We must set a guard against any thought that steals God's glory.  We must learn to see these enemies in the distance so we are never surprised by Jesus coming like a thief in the night.

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. (1 Timothy 6:6-7)

5. Remember and hold fast.
   1. Remember the gospel.  Hold fast, embrace it diligently, like a life preserver in tempest.  Repent and trust the Lord.  Allow the Holy Spirit to fill you and guide you.  The church wasn’t started by works, nor will it be sustained by them.  It is only by the spirit.

Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—³ Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?  (Galatians 3:2-3)

1. 2. I heard someone the other day declare that kindergarten Christianity is over.  There’s no room for it any longer.  Too many have remained there for far too long.
   3. We must seek first the kingdom of God.  This is our first love, our lifeblood.
   4. Nothing in this world can draw us away from our relationship with Jesus, our place in the church, and the service of our gift in the body.
      1. Those who serve and see success must be guarded. 
      2. What about those who don’t serve?  They are consumed by the cares of this life.  They want church and know it’s important, but other people need to do all the work. 
      3. Satan doesn’t care what ditch you fall in.

I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; ²⁰ that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. (Joshua 24:15)

To the overcomers, you’re going to look good in white!

©2021 Doug Ford; revised and updated 2024