Devotions with Dre Episode 22: Book of Revelation Part 7: Sardis

LETTER TO SARDIS (5th out of 7) “How to Know if a Church is Spiritually Dead”

how to know if a church is spiritually dead

white garments

- book of life

First a quick reminder summary of revelation as a whole - credit to the Bible Project podcast for a lot of this verbiage:

rev's genre = 2nd temple jewish apocalyptic literature. other jewish apocalypses exist from the same period that give us even more literary context for the genre.

this genre was written by Hebrew Bible nerds that thoroughly studied and meditated on the story line and symbols of the Hebrew Bible

and while meditating and praying they made all kinds of connections, had encounters with God's presence, and gained revelation from Holy Spirit to give God's people additional insight and wisdom

John is a Christian jew so his revelation is all about Jesus

he begins with some messages that Jesus wants to give to 7 churches - the number he chose is a giveaway that he knew it would have a wider readership (end of Bible Project- inspired summary)

these churches are experiencing a lot of persecution, they contain a lot of jewish ppl who embrace Jesus as messiah while other jews in their cities don’t

John includes references to lots of things: satan as a dragon/serpent, world leaders as beasts, Jesus as the foretold anointed one, and as a sacrificed lamb, Rome and possibly other corrupt govt’s as as Babylon, a beautiful city as future Jerusalem/heaven, sooo many hyperlinks back to the Hebrew scriptures, tied together in a trippy tapestry from John’s spiritual experiences and visions, in this known apocalyptic writing style.

Letter To the Church in Sardis

3 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. 6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

topic 1: how to know if a church is spiritually dead -

are there good-looking actions but it’s actually just fruitless busywork?

In Is 57:12 God tells corrupt leaders in ancient Israel “I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not help you at all” - God always sees the heart of our actions, not the PR campaign that we can put on sometimes.

The church in Sardis had a reputation of being alive, but in Jesus’ opinion it was spiritually dead at the time of the letter.

Sardis doesn’t seem to be going through persecution like the previous churches, nor did it get rebuked for heresy or false teaching like we’ve heard in other letters; it was just spiritually un-alive. Nominally Christian only. A place that went through the external actions but in a zombie-like way.

The church in N America doesn’t go through much persecution; makes me wonder if that’s part of why many of our congregations struggle with spiritual zombie-hood too? And obviously if a group of people love their sins, that’ll do it too.

2 Tim 3:5 talks about people who claim to be part of the faith who “have a form of godliness but deny its power” - i wonder if this is the same principle with these nominal Sardis christians?

Yet there’s still a hand-full of genuine Jesus followers who have stayed pure in heir pursuit. They’ll be counted as Christ’s victors / conquerors.

(why were genuine followers going to this worldly compromised dead church? it’s very likely it was the only church in Sardis. that’s not the case today with most of us listening to this podcast.)

topic 2: white garments

Found in Rev 3:4-5 (sardis), 3:18 (laodicea), 4:4, 6:11, 7:14, 19:14 - the gift from God of a white robe is salvation. In ancient times people wore white robes to weddings and parties - we who are given a white robe get to attend the marriage supper of the lamb.

Also Daniel 11:35, 12:1 - the day of the Lord and being found white/pure/holy, or being found doing wickedness.

So not only do we get a crown when we overcome (which is linked to dying in a committed faith/not abandoning the faith), as we saw in previous letters, not only do we get a shared spot of authority alongside Jesus (whaa), not only do we get the morning star... we get these pure garments.

Beale's book "John's use of the OT in Rev" as well as Michael Heiser's podcasts on Revelation lay out the concept of this being part of a visual transformation as we take our place as members of the divine counsel of God along with heavenly beings, like angels. White garments and thrones and crowns are for God's faithful people, white garments (no crowns) are for faithful angels (they dont rule with Christ like we do).

PS - other symbols of rulership that show up in Rev are swords, keys, robes, rods, horns, and more.

so again what are these believer outfits telling us? they're telling us we get to be co-rulers.

btw this letter mentions "walking w God" there are some prominent Hebrew Bible characters that are said to have walked with God like Enoch and Noah - they entered the throne room basically.

The metaphor of a necessary, purified garment to enter the company of God is a VERY common metaphor in scripture. The salvation and righteousness that He gifts us is often described as a garment, and we're warned to never be found without it - we need what He offers us.

side factiod: Sardis thought of itself as un-conquerable as a city, but in 213 bc Antiochus 3rd did a sneak attack in the night and bragged that the city was captured "like a thief in the night" - prob just bc it was a popular phrase, first seen in the book of job, but still an interesting factoid.

topic 3: Book of Life

The faithful in Sardis are also promised that their names will be written in the book of life. In Rev 21:27 we learn that it’s the people who are allowed in the new Jerusalem. The book of life is mentioned in Ex 32:32, Ps 69:28. Daniel 12:1, Lk 10:20, Phil 4:3, Heb 12:23 and prob more.

for instance daniel 12:1 says “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.”

And the book of names metaphor worked for non Jews unfamiliar with Hebrew scripture too: Sardis was the western capitol of the Earlier Persian and Seleucid empires which makes it likely to have a long history of Royal Records keeping for the area around it, and when Greco-Roman times hit, all these cities kept registries. Citizens were included in the books, criminals’ names were removed from the books.

So… Revelation is constantly encouraging us to zoom out - to play the long game - to remember what we’ve been given in Christ and stay near His presence and don’t let go of this great invitation into eternity reigning with Him where every tear is gone and His light permeates everything. To endure the hurt of the here and now because we have a huge unshakeable hope which is Jesus our King.