Once again, we come to look at God’s precious Word. And I remind you of a principle of Bible study. As I remind you, I remind my own heart of that principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable—a principle we cannot take for granted, a principle we cannot live without.
That principle is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
Every time we come to this Book, we must remember that only God can reveal God. He delights to do it. He longs to show Himself far more than we desire to see Him. But only the Lord can reveal Himself.
Any study of that Book apart from the Holy Spirit’s revelation of the Lord will just make us prouder and prouder, because knowledge puffs up.
How we need both sides. We need the human side. We are not glorifying ignorance; we need to study. But, having said that, we need the divine side. After all the donkey work is done, we need to come as little babies before the Lord and just ask the Lord to dawn Christ on our hearts. He promised He would.
I want to share a verse before we pray together, and then we will look together where we left off yesterday afternoon.
I think all of us, maybe through Job or some other passage in Scripture, have rejoiced in the fact that Satan cannot do anything apart from God’s permission. Has that blessed your heart through the years—the truth that Satan needs permission to do anything?
Well, it struck me when I was reading Isaiah that so do I. I need God’s permission before I can do anything, and you need God’s permission before you can do anything.
Listen to two phrases from Isaiah 65:1:
I permitted Myself to be sought.
I permitted Myself to be found.
Is that a tremendous thing? God gives you permission to seek Him. You cannot do anything without His permission. I cannot do anything apart from His permission, and He has given His permission to seek Him. He has given His permission to find Him.
2 Chronicles 15:2 says, “If you seek Him, He will let you find Him.” We have His permission. And so, by His permission, I will ask you to bow with me, please.
Now, you do not come into God’s presence when you bow your head. You are already in the presence of the Lord before you bow your head. But in a special way, you acknowledge that presence when you bow your head. So let us bow in His presence and ask for His guidance.
Our heavenly Father, we are so thankful again for Your indwelling life—the Holy Spirit, Who lives in our hearts, Who searches the depths of God, Who takes the things of our Lord Jesus and mercifully reveals them unto us.
Thank You for the permission to seek You and to find You. Draw us, and we will run after You. Minister the Lord Jesus this afternoon to our hearts.
You know who we are. You know where we are. You know every need in our heart, every desire, every hunger, every capacity. Meet us where we are. Take us where You would have us.
We ask in the precious name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, this afternoon, I would like to continue our little look at spiritual readiness and spiritual perfection. This afternoon, I would like to look at Revelation 2 and Revelation 3—God’s address to those who had taken their eyes off the Lord Jesus in some way, and His invitation to them to return.
The only review I will really give is to place before you again the great burden that is on my heart this weekend: the reminder that the coming Lord is already here.
The One Who is coming someday physically is here spiritually right now. If I am going to be prepared to meet Him when He comes physically, I need to be meeting Him as He unveils Himself spiritually, as the Holy Spirit progressively reveals the Lord Jesus in this Book.
If, in reality, I am open to that present revelation of the Lord, He will be changing me, and I will be being prepared for that day when He comes, as we have heard so wonderfully through our brothers, in great glory.
The illustration of that message that I am using is found in Revelation 1-3. I suggested that Revelation 1, pictured by John the apostle, the servant of the Lord, sets before our hearts the right attitude.
As he fell before a full revelation of the risen and exalted Christ, God unlocked for him and disclosed the great mystery of union with Jesus. He is in us, in the lampstands, in the churches. We are in Him, like the stars in His right hand.
Corporately, He is in the churches; individually, He is holding every Christian in His right hand. I think John pictures the remnant church. He pictures the church ready, the church prepared—the people of God ready for the immediate or the distant future because they have fallen before a full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In contrast to that, we have Revelation 2 and Revelation 3: the illustration of these seven churches of Asia. Under these seven churches, these representative churches, I believe the Lord is showing us at least seven possibilities of how we might fall away from Revelation 1 and how He invites us back again.
God, I believe, has given us these seven churches in order to illustrate the seven ways—the seven possibilities—of taking our eyes off the Lord Jesus.
And so the question is, and I pray that God will answer it this afternoon: are we in Revelation 1, or are we somewhere in Revelation 2 or Revelation 3?
Now, I like what Brother Heil reminded us of last evening: the importance of warning in our lives. Do not despise it when the Lord allows you to be warned.
When we read the Scriptures and see some of the saints who have fallen away, we are surprised that some of them fell away in their maturity, not in their youth. I believe the more you go on in the Lord, the more warning you will need. The more I go on in the Lord, the more warning I am going to need.
I know that we are about to look at a rather large portion of Scripture, and we cannot do justice to looking at seven churches in one shot. I know that.
Nothing I say this afternoon, I believe, is going to be new to you. I think you have already heard everything that I am going to share with you.
I think these truths that I am going to share are illustrated in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3. I know these truths are Bible truth. I think they are illustrated in this chapter. I will not be one hundred percent dogmatic on that—just ninety-nine percent dogmatic—but I know they are Bible truths.
If you have a struggle with my illustration and say that I am misapplying some of these words to these seven churches, do not let that hang you up. An illustration is not the point. The point is the point, and an illustration is given to illustrate the point.
I know the point and the truth in the balance of Scripture. So what I will give you is the balance of Scripture. I think these truths are wonderfully illustrated in this section, so we will look at it that way. Again, if you do not fully accept my illustration, then throw the illustration out, but do not throw the point—the truth of God—out.
Before we actually begin with church one and so on, let me mention two things by way of introduction to these seven churches.
The first is this: all seven churches received all seven letters, because all the letters are in the Book of Revelation. In other words, those seven letters never existed apart from the Book that we call Revelation. That is where they are. That is where they existed.
You say, “Did every church get its own letter?” Well, glance at these verses:
They each got their own letter. But Ephesus did not go to the mailbox one day and find the letter of Revelation 2:1-7. Smyrna did not go to the mailbox and find Revelation 2:8-11. They all went to the mailbox and found a Book called Revelation, and in Revelation they had all seven letters.
Each one got the letter addressed to them, but they also got the letter addressed to the other six.
That is why the refrain found in Revelation 2:7 is used over and over again:
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
All seven churches got all seven letters. You see, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, I need the warnings that were given to every church, and so do you.
Ephesus needed to see what God had to say to Ephesus, but they also needed the warning God gave to Smyrna. Ephesus needed the warning God gave to Pergamum, and so on. That is the first observation: they all got all seven letters.
The second observation has to do with the spiritual message connected with each of these epistles. I suggested that there are seven ways illustrated here—seven ways we can take our eyes off the Lord Jesus.
I personally believe there are only seven ways we can take our eyes off the Lord Jesus. I believe the Holy Spirit, that God sovereignly overruled history so that these seven possibilities might appear at one time on the earth, so that God could collect them together for the instruction of His body through every age until Jesus comes.
We would have His final word to the churches: “I want you to look to Christ. Be careful of this; that might take your eyes off Christ. Be careful of this, and this, and this”—seven ways that we might take our eyes off Christ and find ourselves unprepared.
May God help us as we look at that.
I believe, as you go through these seven churches, you will see a spiritual order. By that I mean, I think it starts off in the most common way that we might take our eyes off the Lord Jesus. As you go through the churches, each one becomes more and more subtle than the one before.
Every Christian has two sets of eyes. You have these eyes, which we call the natural eye. You also have these eyes—the eyes of your heart, the eyes of your spirit—by which you discern spiritual things.
As you go from Ephesus to Laodicea with these eyes, on the outside, according to what it looks like—it is not true, but it looks like—the outward appearance is that each church is more spiritual than the church that went before it.
If you look at the church of Smyrna, Smyrna will appear, with these eyes, more spiritual than Ephesus. Pergamum will appear more spiritual than Smyrna and Ephesus, and so on all the way through.
Therefore, as you go through the churches, you will find the warnings become more and more intense, because the error is more and more subtle and therefore more and more insidious.
The average Christian will be most apt to fall as Ephesus did. If you grow in the Lord, you might be tempted to fall as Smyrna did, and as you keep on growing, increasingly, all the way through the churches.
Of course, the all-inclusive safeguard from all seven errors is to stay in Revelation 1. Then you do not have to worry about anything. You stay on your face before a full revelation of our Lord Jesus. Let Him continually discover to your heart the wonder of your union with Him.
He is in you. You are in Him. You will never get to the bottom of that. I will never get to the bottom of that.
All right, let us begin. Now, you know we can only look at the heart. We have to jump over so many treasures here. Let us look at the heart of each one.
What caused the church of Ephesus to be unprepared? How did they fall into the hole? How did they take their eyes off the Lord Jesus? Well, let us go straight to the heart of it: Revelation 2:4.
I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Dear friends in Christ Jesus, the chief, the most obvious way that Christians stumble and get their eyes off the Lord is that they lose their first love.
Now, when you read the record, Ephesus was one of the strongest, most vibrant, active assemblies in all of Asia Minor. When you read it at first glance, it looks like they are being commended by the Lord. They are being praised by the Lord.
Revelation 2:2 says:
I know your deeds, and your toil and perseverance,
and that you cannot tolerate evil men,
and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not,
and you found them to be false.
And then in Revelation 2:6:
You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Sounds like Jesus is commending them. He is praising them.
I am not sure He is. Just because He knows it does not mean He approves of it.
For years, I thought they were about eighty or ninety percent on the right track, but they needed a slight adjustment. They just had a little fly in the ointment, and all they needed, I thought, was to get that right. God knew all about their labor, their witness, their testimony, their Christian ministry, their service, and their perseverance.
I will tell you, brothers and sisters in Christ, may God help us when we get warnings like this. The church of Ephesus did not need a slight adjustment. They needed to repent, or God was about to remove them from their place as a candlestick. That is not a slight adjustment.
Their labor, their ministry, their clear doctrine, their discriminating zeal, their loyalty, their perseverance—God says, “I know it all.” Then He says, “Now repent from where you have fallen.”
They were doing all of that in a fallen condition. He said, “Go back to the first works.” Everything was aborted because they left their first love.
What is first love?
Most Christians, I think, believe that it is some kind of emotion, some kind of feeling. You know, when you first meet the Lord Jesus, it feels like God has tipped the jug of honey over in your heart. You get goosebumps, and it is thrilling.
I know in my case, I wept for three hours when I came to the Lord—very emotional. They say, “Well, that is first love—that first exuberance of emotional joy, that peace that you felt when God first lifted the burden.”
That might be part of it, but that is not first love.
I believe a clear statement of what first love is comes from the prophet Jeremiah. Listen as I read several verses from Jeremiah 2.
Thus saith the Lord,
I remember concerning thee the devotion of thy youth,
the love of thine espousals;
how thou wentest after Me in the wilderness,
in a land that was not sown.What unrighteousness have your fathers found in Me,
that they are gone far from Me,
and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?For My people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water.
What is first love? First love is a Person, and His name is Jesus.
They departed from the Lord. First love means first as in preeminent. Jesus was their one and only.
There is a difference between prominent and preeminent. Jesus does not want to be prominent in your life. You can have many prominent things in your life.
I hear so much about these lists, these priority lists. Christians say, “Our first is the Lord, and then my family—that is second. Third is the assembly and the fellowship of God’s people. Then my job—that is number four—and then my social life,” and on and on.
Jesus does not want to be on that list. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the first and the last. He is the beginning and the end. He is the whole list.
You say, “First—that implies a second.” There is no second to Jesus. There is no third to Jesus. Preeminent is one and only, and He wants to be your one and only.
That was the problem at Ephesus. They had left the Lord Jesus as their one and only.
I am not condemning their heart. They got so involved in the work, so involved in the ministry, so involved in the service, that the intimacy they once had as they walked in love with the Lover of their heart, the Bridegroom of their soul—they got so busy serving the Lord that they left their first love.
They got all wrapped up in the ministry. He said, “I know your labor. I know your ministry. I know your service. I know your perseverance. But it is all in a fallen condition because you forgot Me.”
Come back. Repent. Get back into that intimate union with the Lord Jesus. Make Him your one and only.
Ephesus: love Jesus. Have you heard that before? Is that some strange teaching? You want to be prepared? Love Jesus.
Smyrna also left the vision of Revelation 1. What was their error?
You are probably familiar with the approach that says there are two churches among the seven—Smyrna, the suffering church, and Philadelphia—and they had it right. There is nothing mentioned about any departure with these two churches.
Some would suggest, “Oh, Ed is up there picking on the churches.” I am not picking on the churches. I am not blasting by making observations.
I am serious about this conference. I have prayed a lot about it, as I know you have. I want to be ready, and I know you want to be ready.
If there is some suggestion here that perhaps, in some way, they took their eyes off the Lord, I want to see it. I think if we look carefully, we will see how subtle it was for them to look away from the Lord.
I have already been tempted in my life as Smyrna was tempted, and I have no doubt, as I go on with the Lord, I will be tempted again as Smyrna was tempted—to take my eyes off the Lord Jesus.
Clearly, the commentators are right: this is a suffering church. In Revelation 2:9, the Lord refers to their tribulation, their poverty, and the blasphemy by those who claim to be Jews.
In Revelation 2:10, the Lord Jesus warned them about what they were about to suffer: prison, tribulation, death.
In that little letter, they must have been excited: “A letter from Jesus to a suffering church. I cannot wait to read it. Maybe there will be some hope of deliverance, of relief.”
But the opposite is true. There was no promise of an end to their persecution.
It is like Ezekiel’s scroll in Ezekiel 2:8-3:3. This arm came out of heaven with a scroll on it, and on the scroll was written lamentations, mourning, and woe on both sides.
You ever get an arm handed out of heaven to give you a scroll with nothing but bad news on it? Then God said, “Eat it.” It is hard to swallow. It is hard to eat something that is bad news on all sides.
But Ezekiel submitted to the Lord, and the Lord fed it to him. That thing became as sweet as honey because he accepted the will of God.
Well, Smyrna had troubles, but their troubles were not their trouble. Your trouble is never your trouble. It is how you respond to your trouble that can be your trouble.
Their trouble was that they took their eyes off the Lord. How did they do it? Did they do what the church of Ephesus did—get out of that intimate walk with the Lord Jesus and that love union with Him, and look to ministry, orthodoxy, their own loyalty, and faithfulness? I do not think so.
I think Revelation 2:10 gives the key:
Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer.
Our Lord Jesus told them, “Fear not.” The Greek word is very strong: “Stop being afraid.” Why does the Lord say, “Stop being afraid”? What is implied in that? They were afraid, and He said, “Stop being afraid.”
I am amazed that some of the same commentators who let Smyrna off the hook because they were afraid are pretty hard on the disciples on the stormy sea, when our Lord Jesus in Matthew 14:27 said the same thing: “Stop being afraid. It is I.”
Look at Revelation 2:9:
I know thy tribulation, and thy poverty
(but thou art rich).
What an amazing statement. “I know your tribulation. I know you are being blasted. I know Satan is against you. I know you are suffering. I know you are going to be cast into prison. I know you are poverty-stricken, and I know you are going to die. But you are rich.”
Smyrna did not feel too rich. They were full of anxiety and fear. They lost their peace. They were living poor.
What makes a person lose his peace and live poor? May I suggest what they did? This suffering church—and how easy it is, brothers and sisters, may God help us—they took their eyes off the Lord Jesus, and they looked at their circumstances.
They looked at their suffering. They looked at their persecution. When you do that, you are going to lose your peace, and you are going to think you are poor.
Those circumstances were the very things designed by God to make the lamp shine brighter, if they had kept their eyes on the Lord.
Notice in this letter how in control the Lord is of everything. In Revelation 2:9, He claimed to know the origin of their suffering. He said, “I know Satan is behind this. I have allowed him to do that.”
In Revelation 2:9-10, He says, “I know the form it is going to take. It is going to take the form of tribulation, blasphemy, suffering, and prison.”
In Revelation 2:10, He said it was going to be for ten days. The commentators have a heyday with that. Is that ten periods? Is that ten years? What is ten days? Is it ten literal days?
Forget the particulars; get the principle. It is a fixed time. I know that. He knows when it is going to end, whatever that ten days means. It is a fixed time.
The Lord Jesus said, “I know the origin of your suffering. I know the forms it is going to take. I know the duration of your suffering. I know the end—it is going to end in death. I also know the purpose: that you might be tested.”
What He says to Smyrna is this: “Stop being afraid. Rest in Me. I know the origin of what you are going through. I know the form it is going to take. I know the duration of it. I know the end of it. I know the purpose of it. You do not have to live poor. Look to Me. Come back to Me.”
Is this some strange teaching? Ephesus: love Jesus. Smyrna: rest in Jesus.
No matter what you are going through, do not look to your ministry. Do not look to your circumstances. He is calling them back.
Revelation 2:12-17, the church of Pergamum—they also took their eyes off Jesus. Now watch: it is going to get more and more subtle.
Ephesus looked away from the Lord Jesus toward ministry and service. Smyrna looked away from the Lord Jesus toward circumstances. What did Pergamum look to?
I will state it for you and then encourage you to study and see if it is so. Notice the many references to the Word of God in this particular epistle.
Revelation 2:12 says:
The One who has the sharp two-edged sword says this.
That is a reference to the Word of God.
Revelation 2:16 says:
Repent therefore; or else I am coming to thee quickly,
and I will make war against them with the sword of My mouth.
That is a reference to the Word of God.
In Revelation 2:14, you have the expression “the teaching of Balaam.” Something had gotten into the church—a teaching. In Revelation 2:15, you have “the teaching of the Nicolaitans.” In Revelation 2:17, you have the hidden manna.
I believe the error of Pergamum is more subtle than the error of Ephesus or Smyrna. It is easy, because you love Jesus, to get so involved in working for Jesus that you forget Him. It is easy, when all the circumstances come in on you, to look away from the Lord and look to circumstances.
I believe Pergamum was looking to the Bible, the Word of God, apart from the revelation of the Lord—the letter of the Word of God, just the shell, not the Lord in the Bible.
I will tell you, if you are not seeing Jesus, that Bible can become a deadly thing.
We do not have to develop everything that Balaam did; that is just the illustration. But if you ever study Balaam, you see he had the right words. It is amazing to read. So did the Nicolaitans. They had the right words, but it was just the cold letter. They neglected the Spirit of it. They were out to gratify their own flesh.
You see in Revelation 2:14 what it led to: idolatry and immorality. Why does God often bring those two together? I will tell you why: because idolatry is a wrong relationship with God, and immorality is a wrong relationship with man. He is showing that everything is wrong if you give the Word without giving the Lord.
You could not bring Balaam to court and catch him on his words. I once wrote down every word he said, and I tried to find something wrong. It is amazing: if you do not have the Spirit of God, I would have put Balaam in heaven and Lot in hell, just from reading the surface of it, if God had not given us some light on that.
Everything Balaam said was true. He said, “I cannot curse God’s people. I can only do what He tells me. You can give me silver to fill my house, and it is not going to change a thing. When God says it, I cannot change it. There is no way I can curse God’s people.”
But he was trying to get money if he could curse God’s people. You know the story. Then listen to the suggestion he made: “I cannot curse God’s people. Only God can curse God’s people.” Then he whispered in Balak’s ear, “I cannot curse them; only God can curse them, and God will curse them. Say, for example, they intermarried. Then that would get God angry, and He would curse them.”
He whispered that suggestion in his ear, and you know what happened. That is what they did.
You say, “What did he say wrong? He only told the truth. He did not say anything wrong.” Except that his heart was very wrong.
Like the Pharisees in John 5:
Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life;
and these are they which bear witness of Me;
and ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life.
How do you know, brothers and sisters, if you are taught of God? How do you know if it is the Holy Spirit showing you the Word?
I love, in that connection, John 6:45:
They shall all be taught of God.
Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto Me.
If it leads to Jesus, it is from the Lord. That is how you know.
If they had been seeing Christ in the Word, it would have produced a man like Antipas in Revelation 2:13. But because it was just the Word—the cold Word—no Spirit, no life, no blessing, no anointing, no revelation, no fruit.
What am I saying? Listen to what I am saying: love Jesus. Rest in Jesus. Do not come just to the letter of this Book. Study the Book to know the Lord.
If you study Genesis to know Genesis, you are off-center. God gave us Genesis to know Jesus, Exodus to know Jesus, and Revelation to know Jesus. That is the revelation He gives.
Look at what He promises in Revelation 2:17:
To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna,
and I will give him a white stone,
and upon the stone a new name written,
which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.
Do not get technical there and miss God’s heart. What is manna? Manna is food. That is provision. That is God’s food. What is hidden manna? That is secret food. That is private food.
What is a white stone? It is a precious stone. What is a name written on it that only you know? That is your name. That is private.
What God says is, “They have been teaching in My church this Word of God, but they have not been giving you Christ. Repent and come back to Revelation 1. I will feed you with hidden manna—a precious, precious revelation with your name on it, tailor-made just for you that nobody else has.”
That is what He is promising.
The Bible without the Spirit of God encourages pride and covetousness, leads to unholy living, and divides the people of God. We see that in Pergamum.
To save time, I will just give you the heart of each of these remaining four churches.
Ephesus looked away from Christ to ministry. Smyrna looked away from Christ to circumstances. Pergamum looked in an unhealthy way to the Word of God itself.
Thyatira—Revelation 2:18-29. This is the longest of all the epistles. It is not long because it is confusing or puzzling. It is long because the illustration of the point is long. He develops this whole Jezebel thing, and that took some time to do.
But the key to their error is in Revelation 2:24:
But to you I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira,
as many as have not this teaching,
who know not the deep things of Satan, as they are wont to say;
I cast upon you none other burden.
That expression, “the deep things of Satan.” Remember, this is the church of God. They were not saying, “Oh, come to our church. Our teaching comes from the pit of hell.” That is not what they were advertising. They were not saying, “Come on here; we will teach you about Satan.”
They might have been saying, “We will expose Satan. We know his wiles, his schemes, his strategies, and his tricks.” They might have been saying that.
But I think it is God’s evaluation that said, “The deep things of Satan.” I think they were just teaching deep things, and God says, “Yes—of Satan.”
They claimed to have the deeper truth, the deeper life, secrets of God, esoteric information.
If you were visiting Asia Minor in that first century and looking for a place to worship and fellowship, someone might ask you, “What kind of an assembly do you want? What are you looking for?”
If you said, “I really want to get involved in ministry,” they would say, “Go to Ephesus. That is where you go. Ephesus is involved in ministry.”
If you said, “Not me. I want to be on the front lines, right where Satan is, and fight the good fight,” they would say, “Then we say you go down to Smyrna, because those Christians are on the front line.”
If you said, “I just want to learn the Word of God. I want to know the Bible,” they would say, “Go to Pergamum. That is all they do. They have Bible studies Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—every day they have a different Bible study. You want to learn the Bible, go to Pergamum.”
If you said, “I do not really want to get involved in ministry, go on the front lines, or learn the Bible. But I want to know the deeper things. I want some deep truth, some insights,” then they would send you to Thyatira.
According to Revelation 2:20, this is the error that even led the bondservants of the Lord astray.
I have been burned by every one of these churches. I have been badly burned by Thyatira.
I will tell you, there was a season in my life when I did not think Jesus was enough. I went after deeper things. I needed something greater, something more, something higher.
Praise God for the Lord Jesus, but I wanted to know about fruit and victory and rest, and entering into His light, and how to have victory over sin, and all of that kind of thing. I ran after spiritual gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. I ran after all of that.
I found others who did it with me, and we became rather elite, you know, and exclusive. “Oh, you ought to go over there because Ed has deeper truth”—as if there were something that every Christian did not have.
You know, when you got saved, you received God’s Son. In that moment, you got everything. You have got everything—except one thing: the eyes to see it.
The only thing you are going to get from now until the time you go to heaven is eyes to see what you already have. You have Him. I have Him.
There is no deeper truth, and there is no higher truth. I will tell you, our Lord Jesus is everlastingly enough.
Let us come back to Revelation 1. Is that so hard? Love Jesus. Rest in Jesus. Seek Jesus. Is that so hard? Appropriate Jesus.
Sardis—Revelation 3:1-6.
To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
He that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars, saith these things:
I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.
It is the church with a name, with a reputation. They would boast, “We have no Nicolaitans here. Come to our church. There is no Balaam here. Come to our church. There is no Jezebel here.”
They had a reputation that they were alive.
You ever hear someone say, “I am looking for an assembly that is alive. I do not want one that is formal and staid and stiff and stuffy and mechanical and cold and barren and ritualistic and dead. Give me some life. I want to go to a place where there is life.”
Well, then that is where you would go—to Sardis. Except that God said, “You are dead.”
Sardis was differently dead. What do I mean by differently dead?
The Pharisees were also dead. They are called whitewashed sepulchres by our Lord Jesus. But they did not have a reputation that they were alive. They had a reputation that they were hypocrites. They were dead, but nobody thought, “Oh, wow, they are alive.”
Paul describes the worldly widow in 1 Timothy 5:6 as “dead while she lives.” She is dead, but everybody knew she was worldly.
The false prophets in Jude 1:12 are described as “autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” That is not how Sardis was dead.
Sardis was dead, and nobody knew it. Nobody knew it. They had a reputation that they were alive. It was only a reputation. It was not true.
This is the most subtle yet, because everything was right but unreal. There was no life.
This is the church that could write books on union with Jesus, except they did not have union with Jesus. This is a church that could explain surrender and faith, except they did not surrender, and they did not have faith.
They were the ones who could explain why this abiding corruption keeps erupting and how to have victory. They could tell you about being seated with Christ in the heavenlies, identified with Him, alive to God, and dead to sin. They could tell you all that, but they knew nothing of it in reality.
What good is being able to explain repentance if we do not repent? Talk about fellowship with God if we are not walking in unbroken union with Him?
Sardis had revival meetings, but nobody ever got revived. They did not need revival; they needed vival.
Death just means separation. What is life? If death is separation, life is union. That is what they lost.
Ephesus looked away from Jesus to ministry. Smyrna looked away from Jesus to their circumstances. Pergamum looked away from Jesus to the external Word of God. Thyatira looked away from Jesus to deeper things. Sardis looked away from Jesus to the form of godliness without the power, without the Lord.
Now, some would say I am going too far when I move to Philadelphia. We had a sister catch me yesterday on the way out and say, “Wait a minute. How about Philadelphia? Revelation 3:7-13?”
This has been called a non-problem church. Once again, I am not trying to find problems in a non-problem church. I am trying to safeguard my heart against a subtle approach from departing from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The key is in Revelation 3:11:
I come quickly: hold fast that which thou hast,
that no one take thy crown.
That expression, “Hold fast that which thou hast.” What did they have?
According to the record, whatever it was, it must have pleased Jesus because He said, “Hold on to it. Do not let it go. Hang on to it. Hold fast that which thou hast.”
If the Lord Jesus said, “Stop fearing,” I get the sense that they were fearing. If the Lord Jesus said, “Trust Me,” I get the sense they were not trusting Him. If the Lord Jesus said, “Look to Me,” I get the sense they were looking somewhere else.
If I hear Jesus say, “Hold on to what you have,” I get the sense that they might be tempted to let it go, whatever it was.
Well, we know what it was. Revelation 3:8:
I know thy works.
Behold, I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut,
because thou hast a little power.
The King James says “little strength.” Wuest translates it, “You have a small amount of power.”
Why was the church of Philadelphia so blessed? Because they had something. They had a treasure. What did they have? They had weakness. They had little strength. They had helplessness.
Because of their helplessness, what did God do in Revelation 3:7-8? He opened doors that no one could shut, and He shut doors that no one could open.
Why did God do that? Revelation 3:8 tells you: because they had little power—helpless dependence.
You see the danger here. God does not fill in all the blanks, but it looks as if they were tempted to throw away their helpless dependence. God said, “Do not do that. Hold on to what you have.”
You had one thing, and that opened doors for you. That gave you ministry. You had nothing—weakness. You had helplessness. Because you had helplessness, I opened this door and opened that door.
All of a sudden, they were tempted to let go of their helplessness and look somewhere else, and find some sufficiency outside of Christ so that the doors could be opened.
He said, “Do not let go of your weakness.”
So you are weak. So that place where you gather has only three or four or five brothers and sisters in Christ. So you have limited resources. Those are not disadvantages. Hold on to your weakness and do not let it go. Trust the Lord.
It seems like they were tempted to look away from Jesus to compensate for their little power.
Maybe they thought, “If we had more money, if we had more people, if we had better facilities than this, if we had more talent than this, if we had more programs, then there would be more interest, more doors would be opened, and more people would come through the doors.”
I tell you, it gets more and more subtle.
Now, I know, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a quick, surface way to look at all this. This section is filled with great instruction. But catch the burden of my heart.
You want to be ready? Look to Jesus.
Do not leave the Bridegroom, Lover of your soul, and run after service or ministry. I am not saying there is no place for that, but that is the first works that comes out of union and out of a relationship with Him—walking in intimacy with Him.
Do not look to circumstances; look to the Lord Jesus. Do not look to the Bible in a dead way; look to the Lord Jesus. Do not look at a name that you are alive, a reputation, but look to life itself. Look to the Lord Jesus. Then we will be prepared for His coming.
There is one more, and then we will wrap it up.
Revelation 3:15:
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot:
I would thou wert cold or hot.
So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold,
I will spew thee out of My mouth.
The problem here is that they are lukewarm, but we need to know what the Holy Spirit means by lukewarm. I think many miss God’s heart on this church.
I told you earlier that I think they get more and more spiritual. Someone says, “Laodicea? You call them spiritual?” I do not think they are spiritual? Well, let us look at it.
I do not know how many commentaries I have read that present this church as the worldly church, the self-sufficient church, the materialistic church, the carnal church. I do not think that is the way the Holy Spirit presents it.
I think they get that idea from two things. Number one, the way the words hot, cold, and lukewarm are used.
They say, “What is a hot Christian?” A hot Christian is a zealous Christian. He is hot. He is unashamed, bold, excited, enthusiastic. You know when someone is hot, they are hot.
Then cold would be the opposite: the insensitive, lazy, worldly Christian, neglecting the people of God, neglecting the Word of God, neglecting the table of God, neglecting the truth of God, and so on—someone who is backslidden.
Then what is lukewarm? They say, “Somewhere in between.” They are not zealous, they are not enthusiastic, and they are not out in the world. They are just compromising, syncretistic, mixture—neither zealous nor rebellious. They are just hypocrites. They are in the middle.
They get that from the words hot, cold, and lukewarm.
They also get it from three claims that the Laodiceans made. If you look at Revelation 3:17-18, they claim three things: they claim to be rich, they claim to be clothed, and they claim that they have eyes that can see.
People say, “See? They are worldly. They are rich in this world. They are clothed—that is the style of the world, all the worldly dress and wardrobe. They claim that they can see—that is physical eyesight.”
I believe, with these eyes, the church of Laodicea is the most subtle of all of them. I think it is spiritual. There is nothing in there to show me that it is not spiritual.
When they said, “We are wealthy,” I think they were saying, “We are multi-billionaires in Christ. We are wealthy in Christ Jesus.”
When they said, “We are clothed,” I think they had the idea that, “We are clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ.” I think that is what they meant.
When they said, “I see,” I think they were saying, “We are not seeing with these eyes. We are seeing with these eyes, with the eyes of the Holy Spirit.”
Now what are you going to do? You talk about being spiritual. Here is a people that see their wealth in Christ. Here is a people that see that they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Here is a people that claim to see by the Holy Spirit.
God’s estimation is Revelation 3:17-18:
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;
and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich;
and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself,
and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest;
and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see.
Their problem is in Revelation 3:17: “I have need of nothing.”
This is the church that thought they had arrived. This is the church that had no needs.
In that light, what is hot? Let me describe hot for you. Hot is a Christian that sees his needs and looks to the Lord Jesus to meet those needs. That is hot.
What is cold? Cold is a Christian that sees his needs and looks everywhere else to meet the needs rather than Jesus—looks to psychology or counselors or every place else, but not Jesus.
What is lukewarm? “I have no needs.”
May God deliver us. “I have no need.” That is why Jesus said it is better to be hot or cold. At least you know you have needs.
But here is the church that says, “I am so rich in Christ. I am clothed in Christ. I see by the Holy Spirit. I have arrived. I have no needs.” And where is Jesus? He is on the outside, knocking at the door.
I will tell you, if we think we have arrived, I think we come to this place. They thought it would be unbelief to say, “I have needs.” “If God has made me so rich, if I am in Christ Jesus, if He looks at Christ and sees me, how can I say I have needs? I have no needs.”
If I have no needs, I do not need Jesus. If you have no needs, you do not need the Lord Jesus.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need God’s heart to come back to Revelation 1.
Again, if you do not agree with all of this illustration, you must embrace this. Listen to what I have said.
The last words of our Lord to the church are an invitation to all of those who, in any way, have taken their eyes off Christ: “Let Me back in, that I might sup with you.”
I suggest that if you are loving Jesus, resting in Jesus, seeking Jesus, abiding in Jesus, appropriating the Lord Jesus, trusting Him as your life, and surrendering to Him, you are pretty ready. I am pretty ready.
We need to come with John and fall before a full revelation of our Lord.
Let me close with these words from Jude 1:24-25. May God encourage you with this benediction:
Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling,
and to set you before the presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy,
to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty, dominion and power,
before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.