The Church at Sardis - A Dead Church - Revelation: The Apocalypse

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

It's a really bad idea not to be saved.

I think heaven's a lot better than hell.

And some of us in this room, you've chosen a living hell on earth.

Because what you're doing is you know the truth that sets you free, and you've experienced the power of it, and you've gone back into your sin, and in so doing, you feel miserable.

The Lord would say, remember where you came from.

And remember who you are.

And be free.

Today, Pastor Steve continues his series on the Book of Revelation.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Okay, men and women, we are in the book of Revelation, and we are looking at the church at Sardis tonight, but I want to remind us again of the importance of the book of Revelation, the Revelation of John.

No book in the Bible takes a higher view of God and specifically Jesus Christ like the book of Revelation.

Matter of fact, there's a pageantry and a beauty to the book of Revelation like no other book of the Bible.

No book of the Bible takes such a high view of the scriptures.

Of 404 verses in the book of Revelation, 278 are biblical references.

No book of the Bible so reveals the majesty of power of God the Father to us.

No book of the Bible so describes heaven.

In the next couple weeks, we're going to look at heaven.

And if you've ever had a child ask you, what is heaven like?

There's no better description than Revelation chapter 4 and 5 to give us a picture of what heaven is like.

Revelation 4 · chapter mention

No book of the Bible so describes the end times.

It is a briefing.

It is God's intelligence briefing of the last days.

It describes the rapture.

It describes the seals being opened.

It describes the false prophet.

It describes the Antichrist.

And as we move forward into the book of Revelation, we're going to see specific references to the last days that are amazing.

And we see the outline of Revelation in Revelation chapter 1, verse 19.

Revelation 1:19

If you have a Bible, I'm going to turn there.

Revelation 1, 19 gives us three sections to the book of Revelation.

I know we've already covered this, but I want to hit it again as we move forward.

First, here's what it says: Write the things which you have seen, that's the first part, and the things which are, that's the second part, and the things which will take place after this.

So first, the first outline is the things that we have seen.

And that's chapter one.

We already covered that.

In chapter one, we saw the cosmic beauty of the pageantry of the one who is and who is and who is to come, the Alpha and the Omega.

Then, secondly, the things which are, and that's where we are right now.

So here we are looking at the seven churches in the book of Revelation.

Those were the things that are at that time, and I've said so many times, and I'll say it again, that when we're studying the seven churches, we're looking at a local meaning.

At that time in the first century, we're looking at a translocal meaning, which means that when we study a particular church, that is a translation for all churches for all time.

And then it has a prophetic meaning.

And some have even believed that each of the seven churches represents different churches in times in history immemorial.

And then the third division in Revelation, and the largest, and we're going to soon be there here into the summer, is the things that are about to come, the things that will come, and that's chapters four through 22.

That's the last days.

So when we finish with the seven churches, you guys, we're going to go into Revelation 4 and 5.

And in Revelation 4 and 5, we're going to see a picture of heaven.

Some believe that's a picture of the raptured church.

So I'll cover that.

I think most of us in this church at the road believe in the rapture.

You may not.

You may come from a preterist perspective.

You may come from a different perspective in the book of Revelation.

That's okay.

I'm not God.

I don't pretend to be God.

I mean, my wife would say a lot of times I do pretend to be God, but I'm not supposed to.

And some of you in here struggle with the same, same issues.

But the reality is that only God knows, right?

And so what we're dealing with is symbols, the most symbolic book of the Bible.

No book of the Bible is so symbolic as the book of Revelation.

And currently we're looking at the seven churches.

And I've put this map up last week.

I want you to see it again.

Because, see the numbers.

We covered Ephesus, and then we went to Smyrna, and then we went to Pergamos, and then we went to Thyatira last week, and this week we're in Sardis.

But that's a male route.

That's a map.

See Patmos out in the Aegean Sea.

That's where John is.

And he's writing what we call a cyclical letter.

So that meant that his writings, even to Ephesus, would be read all around Ephesus and Smyrna.

Those were specific churches, but men and women don't miss this.

There were hundreds of churches at that time in even bigger cities.

I think it's noteworthy.

There's no note to the church at Jerusalem.

There's no note to the church at Rome.

He chose these seven churches for a purpose, and I believe the purpose is that each one represents something that all of us struggle with, and every church struggle with.

And so there's a church meaning, but there's also a personal meaning.

So we're in Revelation chapter 3.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

If you're new here at the road, we're in Revelation chapter 3.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

And it begins this way to the angel of the church in Sardis right.

So dealing here with the church at Sardis, Sardis was a wealthy city, though in some decline at the time.

It was known for textile manufacturing, dye, the dye industry, and a beautiful jewelry came out of this city.

But what's most noteworthy about Sardis was the idolatry, the mystery cults, and the secret religious societies of that time.

So when we were looking at the other churches, there were different issues about persecution from the Romans.

In this case, there's a it's not a persecution from the Roman arena.

There's actually going to be corruption from within.

And he starts this way These things, says he, who has the seven spirits of God.

You ought to underline that or highlight that.

That you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead.

Now there's been a lot written from Isaiah, another passage about the seven spirits of God.

I believe when you look at the passages where it talks about the seven spirits of God, there's only six.

It's interesting.

So when guys reference that and commentary say that, they give you this reference in Isaiah, and then if you actually count it, it's six.

So here's what I think he's saying.

I think seven spirits of God is only symbolic for the completeness of the Holy Spirit.

Whenever we see the number seven, many times it speaks of completeness.

Here we have the seven churches.

We're talking about seven churches, the completeness of God's revelation to the church through the number, using the number seven, and he says, the seven spirits of God, the completeness, the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit.

And men and women, how many of you have been a part of churches where you never hear about the Holy Spirit?

I mean, I grew up as a Lutheran, and I'm not speaking of all Lutheran churches.

I mean, we always had the creed and the creedal statements of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If there was a baptism with the little um kind of pool, it was a small pool, and we sprinkled, it was in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit was mentioned, but I don't remember.

And Dad, if you're streaming, then you can rebuke me at our family reunion this summer.

But I don't remember any teaching on the Holy Spirit.

And yet, the Holy Spirit is the key to worship.

The Holy Spirit is the key to salvation.

The Holy Spirit is the key to the teaching of the word.

I mean, in Acts chapter 2, verse 47, it says the Spirit of God was upon the church when they were praising God, and he was drawing hundreds, yea, even thousands by Acts chapter six into the church.

Acts 2:47

That's the Holy Spirit at work.

Then in Acts 13, you remember Paul and Barnabas are ministering before the Lord.

They've been in fasting and prayer, and the Holy Spirit calls them out to missions from the church at Antioch.

And then in Ephesians 4, it says, These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So the gift of teaching, the gift of administrations, the gift of evangelism, all of that is because of the Holy Spirit.

So there's a cry here from John to remind them all that there is and all that you have is from the Holy Spirit.

And men and women, in our homes, we need, we need the power of the Holy Spirit just running through all aspects of our home.

And when we pray together, we worship together, we minister together.

That's through the power of the seven spirits of the Spirit of God.

And then he says, I know your works.

And we talked about this more last week.

But remember, remember Revelation 2, 18?

These things, says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire.

And then in chapter 2, verse 23, he says, To all the churches shall know that I am he who searches minds and hearts.

And so the Spirit of God is here.

And what's interesting about all these churches is there's not an emphasis at any point on any of the programs of the church.

I don't know what their programs were.

I mean, did they have a how to be a Jew and a Christian and deal with idolatry classes 101?

Did they have a signs and wonders class 202?

Did they have divine healing 303?

I don't know what they had.

And there's no reference here anywhere of God even caring about that.

What he cared about was the heart and the soul of the church, and I believe whether the Holy Spirit had freedom to move through that church or whether it was being quenched.

And we're going to find out that it's being quenched in this particular church at Sardis.

He says, I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

So evidently, and this is all we know of Sardis, very little of Sardis, even historically, the church was always weak at Sardis.

So even our archaeological findings there have been skimpy at best in Sardis.

And it seems as though it's kind of experiencing this slow death.

And maybe at one point it had been alive.

And it had it has a reputation, you have a reputation that you're alive.

So somehow it had a reputation, but God, with his eyes, the flames of fire, sees that church as dead.

Wilbur Smith, according to Billy Graham, one of the great Bible scholars that he ever met, said, Billy Graham asked Wilbur Smith, What do you think is the greatest danger in the church today in America?

And Wilbur Smith said, dead orthodoxy.

The church is so right that it's dead right.

Every position nailed down, every theology defined, but there's no life.

No evangelism, no one getting saved, no one getting delivered, no one getting set free, no bondages being broken.

Just show up.

Just show up.

Instead of D-O-E, dead on arrival, it's D-O, dead orthodoxy.

I call it the paralysis of analysis.

The paralysis of analysis.

We analyze things and we have we have heady churches in America, don't we?

Especially us that are evangelicals.

Our heads are so full of theology that our hearts are anemic because we don't stir up the Spirit of God within us.

And so we have this kind of a paralysis of analysis.

We're always analyzing everything.

Would analysis have parted the Red Sea?

Would analysis have pulled down the walls of Jericho?

Would we fight a giant with a slingshot based on analysis?

Would Elijah have pulled down fire from heaven with analysis?

Men and women, we walk by faith.

I want to give you five characteristics that I believe are the characteristics of a dead or dying church.

And I have no, by the way, I have no particular church in mind.

Matter of fact, I would say every church has some of this.

We all struggle with all of it at some time.

And the church at Sardis obviously is a dying church.

And I don't know what exactly Jesus, who's actually in the vision, giving the word straight to John, has in mind with Sardis.

He just says, you have a reputation for being alive, but you're dead.

But let me give you five things that I found over the years to be true about dying or dead churches.

Number one, worshiping the past rather than envisioning the future.

Worship of the past rather than envisioning the future.

So I think all of us that are getting older, you struggle with that.

To think back, I mean, in the political campaign, the Democrats do it and the Republicans do it.

Everybody's always looking back to the past instead of envisioning the future.

And the church is notorious for this because we believe in traditional values.

So we for some people it's the 1950s.

You know, beaver cleaver type of neighborhoods and and and families.

I think for others it's it's the it's the radical 60s.

You know, everybody wishes the hair would come back and we'd have more headbands.

But we have Mike.

Mike wears a headband almost every day.

But I think what happens is that in our churches, we begin to think about the past the way it used to be, the glory days.

And I was in the vineyard.

You guys know that I came out of the vineyard movement, so good grief.

When I came in, it was 1991, everybody was talking about the 80s.

And then by 2001, because I was still in the vineyard, everybody was talking about the 90s.

Couldn't anybody talk about like the third millennium, like where we're going?

I swear we had so many conferences we were talking about who is the vineyard?

Like I didn't care.

You know, and it just drive, I quit going.

Drove me crazy.

So that's a sign, I believe, of a dying movement.

Number two, more concerned with form than function.

More concern with form than function.

So you've got to have, I mean, we'll start to do it too, you guys, you know.

If I move these tables out, I'm gonna have somebody complain.

Well, that's where I like them when they're there, you know?

And so we we start to worship the form rather than the function.

The function of these tables for communion are here for you to experience the living Christ through the blood and the body of Christ each week.

We do it each week, and we have symbols.

We have a cross up there, and and we have candles, but we might not later because it's part of the function.

The function is to experience Christ, not just have a form or symbol of it.

Number three, loving the mode of systems, and denominations are really bad on this one.

Loving the mode of systems rather than the movement of the Spirit.

So we start saying, well, you know, this is the way the board, we vote on these things.

We vote.

We don't care what the pastor says, we don't care what the Holy Spirit says, this is our church.

I actually heard that one time in a church.

I won't name the church.

You don't know the church.

It's in Georgia.

But what happens is we become enamored with our systems rather than the movement of the Holy Spirit, because it oftentimes the Spirit supersedes systems, doesn't he?

I mean, he's a little bit bigger than that.

I mean, they're in a prayer meeting.

120.

All those guys had ever known was hanging out with Jesus beside the fire, going to the temple, and going to a tabernacle in Galilee.

And then the Spirit of God comes and they're all speaking in tongues, and they look drunk in the middle of the day, and that's what he does.

The Spirit of God comes and he messes up our systems.

And so a sign of a dying church is that they're actually worshiping the systems instead of allowing the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Number four, more concerned with material stuff or material needs than ministry transformation.

When we started the road, I didn't want to have, I didn't want to do offering.

I just didn't remember we had done that.

For you that were with me at the last church, you know, we we had an offering.

I just didn't want to do it.

I I wanted to have a box in the back.

I wanted to trust you guys with the giving, and I wanted to be free will giving.

And yes, that's important.

We wouldn't be here if you weren't giving.

But but rather I didn't want the focus to be material needs, I wanted it to be ministry transformation.

And I felt like I still hold to what Jay Hudson Taylor, the great missionary of China, said God's work done God's way will never lack God's resources.

God's work done God's way will never lack God's resources.

And then number five, and this is the most important one, forgetting whose church it is.

Forgetting whose church it is.

The ownership and the leading is Jesus.

Not a committee, not a board, and not the senior pastor.

I'm the under-shepherd of the chief shepherd.

And if you guys, when I'm teaching, you hear something that you believe is not of the Lord, then talk to me about it because I want to learn and grow, because I'm just a human being and I can make mistakes too.

But he's the leader of this church.

He says, He says, I shall build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

So here's what I've always said.

If Jesus is building the church, then the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

But if we're building his church, the gates of hell can prevail against it.

Because it becomes our church.

This isn't our church.

This is his church.

Hello?

Right?

And so and so we forget that, we start to forget that we get into trouble.

And that's when all the bickering occurs and all that kind of stuff.

So that's a sign, I believe some of the signs of a death or dying church.

Look at verse 2.

So then he says, very interesting, he says, be watchful and add more programs.

No, be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.

So he has a rebuke.

And by the way, at Sordas, and for the subsequent churches to follow, it's an unmixed message of rebuke.

And he rebukes in threefold here.

The first thing he says is that you exist in name only and you have no power.

There's only a few things, secondly, that remain.

And then even the good things that you do have aren't very complete.

Men and women, I don't want to be a name only Christian.

How about you?

I don't want to be.

I was gonna say a Sunday Christian, but that wouldn't work here.

A Saturday night Christian.

On September 18th, you'll become a Sunday Christian.

That's when we do our grand opening for Sunday morning is September 18th.

Most people who call themselves believers in America are not Christians.

They're believers.

I think they can probably quote some dogma, or they can tell you when they walked the aisle, or they can tell you what they did at a Louis Palau or Billy Graham crusade or something like that.

But if we looked at the morals of our country, if you look at the ethics of our country, if we look at the politics of our country, you can't tell me that the majority of America is really born again.

And so I don't want that either.

But I I can all of us can fall into that trap of kind of a name-only Christian.

And what church, I can ask almost anybody in Collar Springs where they go to church, they'll name some church.

Here's what's funny.

So I'll warn you, because you may be my next victim.

Um you're new here.

You come to the road.

I meet you.

Hey, I'm just trying to make conversations.

Where are you from?

Uh Fort Lauderdale.

Great, that's fantastic.

Did you have a home church in Fort Lauderdale?

Oh, yeah, I loved our church.

What church was it?

Um, um, who was the pastor?

Um I think they changed pastors.

Right?

And so here's the deal.

What are the characteristics of an alive believer?

Let me give you three things that I think are true of someone who's alive in Christ.

Number one, they have vision for their life.

Men and women, they have a vision for their life.

You young people in this room, and we we hit this all the time in the whole family.

What's your vision?

Where are you going?

You're not on this earth just to exist.

You're here to make a difference, to make an impact, to touch people's lives.

How are we going to do that?

How can we train you now to have a vision for your life?

So that's the first of all.

Men and women, I don't care what age we are, you need a vision for your life.

If you don't have a vision for your life, you're going nowhere.

You're going nowhere.

Secondly, spirit-empowered.

You're learning to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

You're learning to relinquish control of the stuff of your life and the issues of your life, and you're asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit on a regular basis.

You're being filled with God's Spirit.

And then thirdly, intimacy with Christ.

So, first, a vision, second, spirit empowered, and third, intimacy.

Do you have an intimate relationship with Jesus?

Are you growing in that?

I want to grow in that.

I want to grow in that, don't you?

With full conviction and wholehearted discipleship to be one called out by God to make a difference.

While there's still time.

As we move into Revelation, we're going to see the pressure of the shortness of time that's before us.

And so to make a difference while there's still time.

And I see all these dead places in my life.

And I see the apathy in my life.

I came in with a couple tonight.

We came in the door together into the lobby.

And the woman I was walking, she said, I feel really tired.

And I said, Man, me too.

I said, I can't wait till Sunday morning because I, you guys, seriously, you get about 50% of me.

Because I mean, I I spend, I usually have a pack day on Saturday and I'm exhausted.

And that's why I've come to believe in the power of the Holy Spirit in organic energy drinks.

Okay?

So I feel the power.

This is organic caffeine from organic green coffee beans.

Organic cane sugar.

It makes you a rock star.

Okay.

I remember one time I was with a man named John Wimber, and I was assistant in Anaheim, and he he taught at four theological seminary, and he had seen a lot of healings happen and stuff.

And so someone asked him, So what do you do?

I mean, how do you do that?

Where like people get healed and stuff.

And he says, Well, I pray for them in the name of Jesus, and they get healed, and I have a diet coke.

And he said, I swear, the next week there were tons of people with diet coke in his class.

Okay, so that's weird, but it really happened.

So we wane and we wax and we wane because we get in, we get tired, don't we?

We just kind of get tired.

And um, and so we have to we have to remember back.

So he says, remember therefore how you've received and heard.

Hold fast and repent.

Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief.

And you could parenthetically say a thief in the night, as a thief in the night, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.

He says, remember what you did before.

When you first got saved, when you first came into a personal relationship with you, remember that.

And go back to that and ask God to strengthen you again with that relationship you had with the Lord.

Because it says, therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief.

Now here's what people don't understand.

Historically, the men and women of Sardis were known for three major episodes in their history.

Don't miss this.

Sardis had once been the ancient capital of the kingdom of Lydia under the king Croasus.

That's 560 to 546 BC.

But Cyrus the Great in 549 surrounded the city.

Now let me explain this.

Sardis, you couldn't tell by the map, has five trade routes that all come in to what is the intersection of the city of Sardis, which was up on a cliff.

Some would say militarily a perfect setting for no enemy to get in.

So Cyrus the Great in 549 could not figure out how to sack Sardis.

So he put out a reward.

If anybody can figure out how to get into Sardis, there was this reward.

What happened was a soldier had left his helmet in the field.

They found the helmet.

And in finding the helmet, they stayed back because they knew that the soldier would come back for his helmet.

And surely that night he did.

And he came and they followed him secretly to see a secret passageway that led through the cliffs to the city.

And the next night, Cyrus the Great and his army used that route, surrounded the city at night, and sacked it and took it over.

In 218, Antiochus did the same thing.

He came at night when they weren't expecting, and he sacked the city.

So a phrase came in vogue in the first century.

Sardis was taken like a thief in the night.

Sardis was taken like a thief in the night, and the city was also destroyed in 17 AD.

Again, an enemy coming like a thief in the night.

Men and women.

To me, that is a picture of apathy.

Here's a city with beauty.

Here's a city perfect, has the high ground militarily.

But because of apathy, because of not being, what does he say?

Be watchful, not being watchful, the enemy gradually came in and took over the city.

And that's what happens in our lives if we're not careful.

And apathy is a struggle, isn't it?

I mean, it's a struggle for all of us to lose the passion and the intimacy that we had with Christ.

And I don't even care what kind of church we come out of or how fired up that church is, we're going to struggle with that.

There's that temptation to just kind of clock in and clock out.

Here's the deal, man and women.

For some of us, for some of us, it's going to be a mission trip.

For the Perkins family and for those that are going to Brazil, that is going to be a powerful encounter with some needs and some issues and some culture and some language.

It's going to be way out of their comfort zone, and they're going to have to depend on God in a fresh new way, and it's going to stir up their faith.

For some of you, it's the Springs Initiative.

You're going to go out and you're going to, we're all going to be together, no one left behind.

You're going to go in there and you're going to paint a garage.

Or you're going to pick up trash.

We're going to do it together.

And that's going to stimulate your faith.

For some of us, it's going to the evangelism explosion on a Thursday night and just learning the gospel again.

And how to, in a winsome, caring, joyful, non-dogmatic way, engage someone in the gospel?

I mean, what if someone says, well, I know that, I know that I'm going to heaven because I'm a really, really good person?

Oh, you are?

Yeah, if you'd have seen Uncle Bob, who I grew up with, man, I'm like a saint compared to him.

What do you say to that?

What if someone says, what do you mean Jesus died on the cross from our sins?

Can you explain to me what you're talking about?

So what is some guy, some Galilean Jew guy who was kind of a wandering prophet and he died on the cross?

What's that do?

I mean, what's the difference between him and Muhammad?

Muhammad, you know, he died for his faith too.

Buddha did too.

So what makes Jesus so unique?

What are you going to say?

So we take you through in just three hours a simple way to explain the gospel that anybody can understand in a winsome and joyful way.

And so some of these things help.

Tonight, when Marcus gets back up.

Some of you have stuff you need to repent of.

You know there's stuff in your life that's gotten in the way of your relationship with Jesus Christ.

And you're going to take communion.

And if you begin, and if I begin, if we begin, say, Lord, I need a fresh encounter with you.

You think Jesus in heaven's going, oh, that's such a dumb idea.

I mean, the Lord loves that kind of a prayer.

He hears that kind of a prayer.

And we cry out, He'll restore us and He'll begin revival in our lives to strengthen us.

Remember the passion.

I think it's really important.

Don't miss this, guys.

Listen to this.

I don't think it's some new teaching we need.

I don't think we need a new teaching.

I think it's remembering the main and the plane of what Jesus did at Calvary.

I think it's remembering the resurrection.

I think it's remembering where he once took you and asking him.

See, that's what revival is.

Revival is reviving something that once was alive but is now dead.

To revive us again and afresh in our relationship with him.

You have a few names, even in Sardis, who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.

Think about the Reformers.

I think about John Wesley, and from Wesley came the Methodist Church.

Would John Wesley worship in the Methodist Church today?

Or I think about Martin Luther in the Lutheran Church.

Would Martin Luther, would he worship in a Lutheran church today?

And yeah, let me tell you this.

So I'm driving down Hamden.

Many of you remember my knee injury from skiing, and I just had my MRI, so I was going to get to have the MRI picture shown to me by the doctor.

So I'm driving down Hamden yesterday, and my son Isaac has got a very important meeting with his baseball coaches at Omaha, and uh it's right at the hour, it's right there when he's having the meetings.

So I'm looking for a place to pray.

I'm really hungry too.

I'm thinking, okay, I just really need an Einstein bagel really bad right now.

I said, God, do you want me to have an Einstein bagel or do you want me to pray for my son?

Okay, there was a Lutheran church.

Not Einstein bagels.

So I turned off, I went in, and it's called Bethany Lutheran Church.

Really looked pretty on the outside.

So I got up there and I'm looking around, I'm going, oh no, this, you know, this is 2016.

Everybody locks their churches.

Back when I was a kid, every church was open.

I don't know if you remember that.

But you used to go to a church and the door would always be open.

You'd go in there and pray.

It's locked.

And the next one's locked, door's locked.

And then I see this guy way in the back, and I go like that, and he's cleaning, it's a custodial guy.

He comes up to me and I said, I know this is really weird.

I don't go to this church or anything, but my son needs prayer right now, and I just um, can I pray?

And you're like in your sanctuary, and he goes, Oh, that's what it's there for.

And I said, You get to be the keeper of the house of the Lord?

And he said, Yes.

And it was like he started to tremble when I said that.

So I went in and for the next 30 minutes I prayed.

The reason I tell you that story is I don't know that guy.

I'll probably never see him again.

But in every church, even the most dead church, somebody's alive in Christ.

I really believe that.

I believe in that dead church, there's people that are still alive.

And that's what happens here.

Jesus said, there's still people in Sardis that are alive.

They're still here.

Don't ever say a church is dead.

Jesus can say it, but I don't want to say it here.

Because I believe there's always somebody alive there.

There's somebody there who still worships God.

There's still somebody there that's clinging to something they believe in that maybe that church was built on many, many years ago, and they're believing it for revival again.

They're believing that God's going to show up again.

And I believe that custodian there at Bethany Lutheran Church that I could tell he loved his church, and I believe he loved his Lord.

And he loved, and so while I was in there, he's cleaning, he's he's dusting the candles.

That was a Lutheran church.

Big, fat, white candles.

Some things never change.

And so he's sitting there and he's doing all the candles.

And it was, I just thought it was really cool.

He was doing that.

Verse 5.

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but 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.

Very controversial passage.

Some have looked at that and said, Is he saying that we can actually lose our salvation?

Let me give you a comparison of two passages.

You might want to write this down.

If you compare Psalm 139, that in verse 16 says this.

Seems to be indicating that all the days of our life, there's actually a book that is opened that we would call the book of life for all of our life.

You compare that with Psalm 69, 28, that says the disobedient will have their names blotted out of the book of the living.

So here's what I believe he's saying here.

I believe there's actually three or four different kinds of books that are going to be open in the latter days, but one is the book of life, and there's a book of life.

Everyone who's ever been born, their name is in that.

That's not the book of life that's going to be opened with every name being there, but rather those names that are not blotted out are those that will be saved.

Here's what Revelation chapter 20 says.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and the books, books, plural, were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books, plural.

Verse 13.

The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works.

Verse 14.

So here's what I believe he's saying is there's a book of which everybody who was born, their names are written there.

Those that are not choosing to follow Christ, their names are blotted out of that.

It does not mean that if your name was in the book of life and you've given your heart to Christ and you lust in your heart one day, that now your name is blotted out.

You understand what I'm saying?

That that's the confusion that has been compounded through the centuries about what that passage means, not what it's saying.

If you're genuinely saved and have a relationship with Christ, your name can't be blotted out.

But God is the great bookkeeper.

And these are the names of everyone who have ever lived, but those who have died and have not accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, their names are blotted out.

Your name's not blotted out if you've given your heart to Christ.

Your name can't be blotted out because it didn't depend on you anyway.

For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourself.

It is a gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast.

And so your salvation is through the grace of God and your faith in that, but the faith to have God's grace in your heart is because of the faith he gave you.

So he's called you to that.

So if you couldn't save yourself in the first place, then you can't hold on to your salvation in the second place.

If it didn't depend on you in the beginning, it doesn't depend on you in the end.

You say, well, what does that mean?

We can just kind of sarah, sada, whatever shall be.

No.

If you're saved and the Spirit of God's living within you, there's this passion and desire to do the right thing.

If you have no desire to do the right thing and you're messing around, you might not be saved.

You probably should get saved.

It's a really bad idea not to be saved.

I'm not real smart.

I'm from Georgia.

I figured that out.

I think heaven's a lot better than hell.

And some of us in this room, you've chosen a living hell on earth.

And to use a theological term, you're acting like an idiot.

Because what you're doing is you know the truth that sets you free, and you've experienced the power of it, and you've gone back into your sin, and in so doing, you feel miserable.

And the Lord would say, remember where you came from.

And remember who you are, and be free.

And walk in that freedom.

Because here's what happens.

Now don't miss this.

To be, to have our name in the book of life, listen, means that you're gonna have to blot out your name on other lists.

When I got saved at Georgia, and I'm an athlete and I'm a partier and I'm hanging out with all the guys and everything, I had to blot my name out at the fraternity houses.

Where's Steve?

The last time he was here, he was repelling off the third floor.

I kid you not.

I blotted my name off of Akio because I had my name written in the book of life.

I'll take the book of life over AKIO any day.

It was an easy decision.

I had to blot my name off some of the clubs that I went to.

I had to blot my name off some of the things that I did.

So sometimes we realize when we open the book of life, we actually get our names blotted out of the stuff that's messing us up.

And so, be revived.

Remember who you are, remember where you've come from.

You've been listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve.

Eve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.