The Seven Churches of Revelation – Part 6 Sardis – The Dead Church
Revelation 3:1-6 "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, 'These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: "I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 4 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. 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. 6 "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." '
Most of the world does not like process. Because of the fall, impatience has invaded the space of our hearts where patience once dwelt. The Sardis Church wanted to make a name for herself, and rather than wait in patience…living in the leadership of the Holy Spirit, which brings life in abundance…she chose to impatiently “get some stuff going” in her own strength. Though the world loves what she sells, by relying on her own logic and marketing, she has actually chosen death…she just doesn’t know it yet. Jesus is warning her that the Day of the Lord, the process of His return, will reveal just how dead she is:
1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God.
The life of Sardis is connected to the operation of the Holy Spirit by Jesus. Sardis, by choosing to care more about her earthly reputation, fearing man’s opinion more than God’s, has actually shut off the flow of the Spirit…she has severed herself from the vine:
John 15:5-6 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
It is by the Spirit that we abide in Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the connection from man to God. This is called life. The more of a connection to God you have, the more abundant life you have. When God made Adam, He formed him from the dust and breathed the Holy Spirit…the Spirit of Life into Adam through his nostril:
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
The breath of life IS the Holy Spirit. The word breath in this passage is n’shamah…which is the Spirit of life. God made man to relate to God in LOVE. Love requires a choice to love back, or say “no” to love. Without free will, love cannot be. So God had to give mankind an option to say no to love. In God’s mercy, He gave Adam and Eve only one choice to say no. God was not trying to trick Adam and Eve. In fact, He made it require a very conscious act to reject His love, instead of just a rebellious thought. To reject God’s love was to choose to take in evil…the absence of God…it required a physical act of actually eating the fruit of death…a choice to explore life apart from God’s loving leadership, to reject love…which IS to reject life. Evil isn’t an equal and opposite force to God’s goodness. Evil is the ABSENCE of God…just like dark is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat. God is the source…the light…of life:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of evil, darkness entered their being for the first time. God is bright holiness, much brighter than the dim sun we are temporarily stuck with. When Adam and Eve ate darkness, it diminished their infinite capacity to host the bright presence of God in their physical frame. God’s light became deadly to the dark in their being. God withdrew for love, and they began the process of dying that day. Although their physical body lived on for a while..the process of death had been initiated by their choice to reject love, which is to reject life. Mankind was made in God’s image…triune…like the three in one. Man is spirit, soul (mind, will, and emotion…also called our heart), and body. What died that day in the garden was Adam and Eve’s Spirit, as the breath of life exited their frame. Darkness was left in their spirit, which could not live apart from the light of mankind. Shame, which is an awareness of lack, filled the space the Holy Spirit once occupied:
Genesis 3:7-8 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. 8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees.
The spirit of Adam died in the garden, and following close behind, Adam’s heart began to die, as the choices mankind made veered further and further from the path God had for man. No longer led by the Spirit of God living on the inside, man was left to the leadership of his soul…his mind, will, and emotions. Clearly, life became less abundant. Mankind began to wither. The death of the heart of mankind became more and more apparent as generation passed to generation. Depravity rose up in the hearts of man (their mind, will, and emotion) until the time came where God regretted His creation:
Genesis 6:5-8 The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and He saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the LORD was sorry He had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke His heart. 7 And the LORD said, "I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them." 8 But Noah found favor with the LORD.
The initial beauty of salvation is evident in the immediate life brought into the frame of man. Although the heart of mankind is dark and slippery, the presence of the Spirit of God can illuminate the heart and cause it to begin to grow in righteousness again. Shame is what drives mankind to hide from God, but the Holy Spirit put back in the spirit of man is what draws a man closer and closer to the source of life! Jesus said everyone born again is “born of the Spirit” once again…choosing Jesus is choosing to have God breathe His Holy Spirit back into your nostrils so you can live led by the Spirit of God once more:
John 3:3-6 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God." 4 "What do You mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?" 5 Jesus replied, "I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
This is what it means to be “born again”…it means you ask God for life in confidence (faith) that Jesus paid the fare back into life with His unjust death on your behalf. You turn from the dead ways of the world…denying your heart and flesh the leadership they have enjoyed while the Spirit was away, and you choose to try to let Jesus be the leader of your life through the Spirit inside of you. When you do this, the promise is that the Spirit of life comes back in to your spirit and the process of life begins in you for the first time. If you haven’t accepted Jesus on these terms, you are not saved (if you haven’t already invited God by declaring this to Him, just go ahead and do that right now out loud if you want to be born again. God is listening. Salvation is as simple as expressing your desire to God to live again on these terms). If you have chosen to live again on these terms, you FOR SURE have the Holy Spirit IN you. That means the Genesis 1 Creator God who spoke all of life into being lives on the INSIDE of you. Oh Glory!!:
Ephesians 1:12-14 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
That means that if Jesus is your Savior, then you have the fullness of the Fruit of the Spirit living in your spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, faithfulness. Just as Adam first died in His spirit, then over time…in a process…his heart died, new birth happens the exact same way. First to come back to life is your spirit, as the Spirit of God takes up residency within you. Many saved people, although their spirit is alive with the very righteousness of God, their mind, will, and emotions show almost no evidence of it. There is very little love peeking through their choices or thoughts…little patience…little self control, gentleness, peace.
Because God will never violate love, He will never violate your free will. Just like you need to choose to invite God back into your Spirit, by inviting Him to be the leader of your life again, you must do the same thing with your heart. This happens in a process, just like everything else.
This is how you choose to let the Holy Spirit revive your heart: choice by choice, rather than letting your mind, will, and emotions lead, you deny those things leadership and you draw the leadership of the Spirit into your situation. You do this with your words: Holy Spirit, what are you doing in this situation? Why this sickness? Should I take a pill or call on the healing power of the living God within me? Holy Spirit, why this lack? Should I learn to save more money, or to live in the extravagant generosity Jesus taught with the widow and her two mites…giving all she had to live on, so she might live in the smile of God? In the weak discipline of our fallen mind, living in the power of God is impossible…but when we draw on the power of God living within us, the impossible becomes possible, and more and more we are sanctified…or set apart. This is how we need to learn to live to make it through the tribulation. This is what Jesus prayed for His Bride:
John 17:15-19 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
Jesus is coming back…physically….to planet earth. He is so bright that His coming will literally consume the darkness in the earth. Sanctification prepares you to receive Him in all His glory.
In order to prepare the earth to receive Jesus, God is lifting His restraint from the desires of mankind. Everyone gets what they want in the end, and in our generation, we can clearly see this happening. Evil…the darkness in men’s hearts…is going to a whole new level. In this hour evil is increasing because God is lifting his restraining hand from the evil desires in man’s heart. In His mercy, for thousands of years, God has, by orchestrating the circumstances of the earth, blocked the full expression of evil in mankind. In the final hours of history before the return of God, God has promised to lift this restraint and allow everyone to get what they want. This is the wheat and the tares maturing…both evil and righteousness are maturing in this hour. Sanctification is going to a WHOLE new level too…IF YOU WANT IT.
The restraining hand of the Holy Spirit is being lifted from the places that DO NOT WANT HIM. That is why schools are blowing up with violence, evil men are getting their way in war and crime, lust is being unrestrained in our media, and all sorts of darkness is increasing all around us. The harvest season is upon us. For those not denying themselves leadership of their own lives and going hard after the Spirit, the falling away MUST come:
2 Thessalonians 2:1-8 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
This brings us to Sardis…the dead Church. Jesus is giving the Sardis church a physical and finding that, though her great marketing is making the world think Sardis is alive…inside, She is dead. The Spirit has left the building. Let’s look at the four-fold pattern for Sardis and see what Jesus is saying to the Church through His Spirit:
1. Jesus addresses Sardis as “He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.”
Jesus comes to Sardis as the one who has the Holy Spirit, because that is what Sardis is lacking. She has uninvited the Spirit by not yielding to Him.
GOD WILL NOT COME TO OCCUPY SECOND PLACE. If you will not yield to Him in your mind, will, and emotions, He will not renew your mind will and emotions. Period.
Jesus HAS the Spirit…Jesus and the Spirit are ONE. Jesus is the one who has exactly what she needs. He also holds the “seven stars.” The stars are the messengers to the churches. “Angels” in this passage can mean either supernatural or human messengers:
Revelation 1:20 This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in My right hand and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Jesus is saying to Sardis that He is perfectly able to fill her with all the strength that comes with the leadership of the Spirit by giving the messengers to the church true information from heaven…true leadership right from the throne…if she wants it. BUT, in order to get it, she needs to decide where she wants a name…in heaven or in earth. Everyone gets what they want, and if Sardis wants her reputation to be in a dying earth, he will let her have it…but if she finds her identity in a dying earth, she WILL die with it:
Matthew 16:24-27 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come with His angels in the glory of His Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.
Unlike the other churches in Revelation 2 and 3…each known for works, love, faith, and or service…Sardis is only commended for ONE thing. That brings us to the second part of the four-fold pattern:
2. “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Jesus says even her works…famous in the earth, are DEAD in His sight. Sardis ONLY has her programs. Designed in the heart of her man-pleasing leaders…all designed to make a name for herself…but inside, she is dead. Though Sardis “sounds” power filled, the Spirit is NOT welcome to lead. Though a dying world thinks she is powerful, from the other side of the veil comes this truth “you are dead, and when the Bright Life of Mankind shows up, it will be plainly clear to everyone that you are dark and dead.” Having a name among people is usually a sign that you DO not have a good reputation in heaven:
Luke 6:26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you, For so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Though everyone seems to think Sardis is the most amazing church in town, God has found her to be dead. But all is not lost. All she needs to do is repent that she might live before it is too late. That brings is to part 3 of the pattern:
3. Revelation 3:2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 4 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.
God connects the death of Sardis…the casting off of the Spirit of God…to Sardis’ lack of “watching.” Jesus is saying that Sardis is NOT paying attention to the very specific thing He is doing, and this lack of vision has caused her to “cast off restraint” that it requires to, choice by choice, let the Spirit lead.
Remember, to be born again, we must deny the leadership of our mind, will, and emotions and restrain our leadership to obedience to the Spirit…even when the Spirit is calling us to do, or say, unpopular things. Without an understanding of what God is doing, this process is tiresome. We fall asleep in the process. That is why Jesus told the disciples to stay awake and pray. A time of trouble requires an unusual response!!
Mark 14:36-38 And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will." 37 Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Jesus wanted Peter to understand the unique hour He was in. It required WATCHING. That is why Revelation is SO important. It gives us the indicators in the Bible to connect to the news…called watching. Without clear indications of progress, and a vision for where we are going, lose incentive to live restrained in the leadership of the Spirit and focused on the process God is working out in the time we MOST need it:
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.
Jesus didn’t accidentally choose the name of the book of Revelation OR the wording this proverb. This is a direct warning about disregarding Revelation. He stated it again in Revelation:
Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
There is a reason that God appointed the Book of Revelation as the last book of the Bible. The Bible is the story of God restoring all that was lost in Genesis 3. Genesis 1 and 2 is the story of what God desires in the earth: God with man, face to face, full of the Spirit, on a physical earth, with an open supernatural realm…heaven on earth. THAT is what God called very good, and God does not change. God is in the process of restoring “very good” for himself and anyone else who wants to call God with man “very good,” too. God has chosen a BRILLIANT process to restore all that was lost and let the people of the earth choose for themselves whether they want in. Revelation is the MATURING of that process. That is where this whole thing is going.
WATCH.
You go where YOU are looking.
Sardis isn’t reading the end time promises…they are doing their own thing, and Jesus says THAT is causing them to cast off the leadership of the Holy Spirit and try to squeeze every last drop from their man-based logic and marketing plan. Their focus on the world has caused them to miss the plain and obvious fact that they are dying in a time when everyone should be growing in life…growing in being led by the Spirit.
Sardis uses the warning of Jesus “no one knows the day or hour” as an excuse to NOT watch. This is actually…blasphemy! This statement has become one of the most common expressions of the lack of being led by the Spirit and instead leading from your own logic. Using this phrase…no one knows the day or hour…to DO NOTHING is actually speaking judgment over yourself. If you are the leader of a church, using this expression to take comfort to NOT watch is speaking judgment over your whole church. You must repent if you have used Jesus’ warning as an excuse to do nothing:
Revelation 3:3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.
Jesus’ coming will seem like you have been stolen from if you will not watch. That means refusing to watch will result in much loss for you, your family, and your church. To watch you must know the word and declare what you see as the word connects with the news of the day.
You must stand for the truth as revealed by the Spirit through the Word. Remember Pergamos? They had the Spirit without the word. They were about to blow up. Sardis has the exact OPPOSITE problem. They lack the Spirit and are not even praised for the word. They are DRYING UP and don’t even have the Word anymore. All they have is a reputation that is no longer accurate, if it ever was. It takes the Spirit and the Word to grow up…to live again.
The Spirit does things that offend the mind. The Word says things that are unpopular. The Spirit is not good for popularity contests. BUT, the Spirit is the one who searches the deep things of God. The Holy Spirit gives us counsel to the right and to the left, when no one else knows what to do. Confusion is guaranteed to increase. This will create great intensity. There are two kinds of people who will be present on the earth at the time the trouble breaks out…those who are seeking God with their whole heart…as their ONE THING…which is the safe place to be in the time of trouble:
Psalms 27:4-6 One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple. 5 For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. 6 And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.
The generation that agrees with this is the “Generation of Jacob” in the Bible. They are the ones who want to see God’s face…they will literally open the heavens with their desire to see God. An opening of heaven is GREAT for those that are ready…you get ready by making your life ENTIRELY about seeing God. This causes you, in earnest zeal and desire, to HUNGER and THIRST for clean hands and a pure heart. This causes you to choose holiness because you are literally watching for heaven to start opening as you press in. Jesus is returning to people that RESPOND to Him…that is what it means for the King of Glory to come in:
Psalms 24:1-10 A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein. 2 For He has founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the waters. 3 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. 5 He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face. Selah 7 Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah
This is describing a ready, watching, and actively responding people. BUT, if you are not ready…not actively growing in holiness by drawing the Spirit into your mind, will, and emotions both individually and as a church…getting cleaner hands and a purer heart. If you are lackadaisical in searching what the Spirit is saying to you in this hour because you have not STUDIED Jesus’ end time plan, you will be terrified as heaven opens. If you aren’t seeking His face with cleaner hands and ever purer hearts, you will, in SHAME, hide from His face:
Revelation 6:12-17 I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. 13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. 14 Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
Who is able to stand? That is the question of the hour. Jesus says “listen to what the Spirit says to the Churches if you want to stand.” If you want to hide and be terrified in the next years coming, go ahead and keep listening to your own heart and grading yourself by how many people come to your meetings or talk about you as “anointed”…you will hide with those same people behind rocks when God’s glory appears. Everyone gets what they want.
In His mercy, Jesus has planted, as missionaries, those who have are Spirit-led…contending for holiness by the Spirit…in the Churches with great reputations but no life:
Revelation 3:4 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.
These are the ones who keep throwing the wrenches in the cogs of your man-pleasing programs. They say “shouldn’t we pray?”…or “what is the Spirit saying?” These are the ones who don’t care about what logic says…they say “if God brought us to this, He will take us through this.” These faithful ones say “I hear the Lord saying we should go this unpopular way…” They are led by the Spirit, which is MUCH different than being led by man-based wisdom and a man-pleasing spirit. These faithful ones are much more concerned about offending God and missing what He is doing, than they are about offending people…especially pastors. These are like gold dust sprinkled among you. If you will listen to them, they will help your whole Church live. IF you disregard them, you will die while they still live. If you want to live where they live, you must live LIKE they live. This is the promise available to you if you will repent and stand for truth:
4. 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.
The process of Jesus returning is a process. Impatience will not endure this hour. You cannot gauge your success by what people think or say about you. If God is your source AND your reward, you WILL stand.
Jesus, by the information in Revelation, has promised to remove every man-based strength from the earth in order to judge the inadequacy of anything less than relying on God’s manna-producing, water-from-the-rock, moment by moment leadership. You need to be as rooted in Him..in His leadership…as possible. To be saved, yet remains rooted in the world’s ways, is a recipe to fall away…to wither and die:
Luke 8:13 But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches
Most of the world does not like process. Because of the fall, impatience has invaded the space of our hearts where patience once dwelt. The Sardis Church wanted to make a name for herself, and rather than wait in patience…living in the leadership of the Holy Spirit, which brings life in abundance…she chose to impatiently “get some stuff going” in her own strength. Though the world loves what she sells, by relying on her own logic and marketing, she has actually chosen death…she just doesn’t know it yet. Jesus is warning her that the Day of the Lord, the process of His return, will reveal just how dead she is:
1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God.
The life of Sardis is connected to the operation of the Holy Spirit by Jesus. Sardis, by choosing to care more about her earthly reputation, fearing man’s opinion more than God’s, has actually shut off the flow of the Spirit…she has severed herself from the vine:
John 15:5-6 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
It is by the Spirit that we abide in Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the connection from man to God. This is called life. The more of a connection to God you have, the more abundant life you have. When God made Adam, He formed him from the dust and breathed the Holy Spirit…the Spirit of Life into Adam through his nostril:
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
The breath of life IS the Holy Spirit. The word breath in this passage is n’shamah…which is the Spirit of life. God made man to relate to God in LOVE. Love requires a choice to love back, or say “no” to love. Without free will, love cannot be. So God had to give mankind an option to say no to love. In God’s mercy, He gave Adam and Eve only one choice to say no. God was not trying to trick Adam and Eve. In fact, He made it require a very conscious act to reject His love, instead of just a rebellious thought. To reject God’s love was to choose to take in evil…the absence of God…it required a physical act of actually eating the fruit of death…a choice to explore life apart from God’s loving leadership, to reject love…which IS to reject life. Evil isn’t an equal and opposite force to God’s goodness. Evil is the ABSENCE of God…just like dark is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat. God is the source…the light…of life:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of evil, darkness entered their being for the first time. God is bright holiness, much brighter than the dim sun we are temporarily stuck with. When Adam and Eve ate darkness, it diminished their infinite capacity to host the bright presence of God in their physical frame. God’s light became deadly to the dark in their being. God withdrew for love, and they began the process of dying that day. Although their physical body lived on for a while..the process of death had been initiated by their choice to reject love, which is to reject life. Mankind was made in God’s image…triune…like the three in one. Man is spirit, soul (mind, will, and emotion…also called our heart), and body. What died that day in the garden was Adam and Eve’s Spirit, as the breath of life exited their frame. Darkness was left in their spirit, which could not live apart from the light of mankind. Shame, which is an awareness of lack, filled the space the Holy Spirit once occupied:
Genesis 3:7-8 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. 8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the LORD God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees.
The spirit of Adam died in the garden, and following close behind, Adam’s heart began to die, as the choices mankind made veered further and further from the path God had for man. No longer led by the Spirit of God living on the inside, man was left to the leadership of his soul…his mind, will, and emotions. Clearly, life became less abundant. Mankind began to wither. The death of the heart of mankind became more and more apparent as generation passed to generation. Depravity rose up in the hearts of man (their mind, will, and emotion) until the time came where God regretted His creation:
Genesis 6:5-8 The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and He saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the LORD was sorry He had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke His heart. 7 And the LORD said, "I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them." 8 But Noah found favor with the LORD.
The initial beauty of salvation is evident in the immediate life brought into the frame of man. Although the heart of mankind is dark and slippery, the presence of the Spirit of God can illuminate the heart and cause it to begin to grow in righteousness again. Shame is what drives mankind to hide from God, but the Holy Spirit put back in the spirit of man is what draws a man closer and closer to the source of life! Jesus said everyone born again is “born of the Spirit” once again…choosing Jesus is choosing to have God breathe His Holy Spirit back into your nostrils so you can live led by the Spirit of God once more:
John 3:3-6 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God." 4 "What do You mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?" 5 Jesus replied, "I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
This is what it means to be “born again”…it means you ask God for life in confidence (faith) that Jesus paid the fare back into life with His unjust death on your behalf. You turn from the dead ways of the world…denying your heart and flesh the leadership they have enjoyed while the Spirit was away, and you choose to try to let Jesus be the leader of your life through the Spirit inside of you. When you do this, the promise is that the Spirit of life comes back in to your spirit and the process of life begins in you for the first time. If you haven’t accepted Jesus on these terms, you are not saved (if you haven’t already invited God by declaring this to Him, just go ahead and do that right now out loud if you want to be born again. God is listening. Salvation is as simple as expressing your desire to God to live again on these terms). If you have chosen to live again on these terms, you FOR SURE have the Holy Spirit IN you. That means the Genesis 1 Creator God who spoke all of life into being lives on the INSIDE of you. Oh Glory!!:
Ephesians 1:12-14 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
That means that if Jesus is your Savior, then you have the fullness of the Fruit of the Spirit living in your spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, faithfulness. Just as Adam first died in His spirit, then over time…in a process…his heart died, new birth happens the exact same way. First to come back to life is your spirit, as the Spirit of God takes up residency within you. Many saved people, although their spirit is alive with the very righteousness of God, their mind, will, and emotions show almost no evidence of it. There is very little love peeking through their choices or thoughts…little patience…little self control, gentleness, peace.
Because God will never violate love, He will never violate your free will. Just like you need to choose to invite God back into your Spirit, by inviting Him to be the leader of your life again, you must do the same thing with your heart. This happens in a process, just like everything else.
This is how you choose to let the Holy Spirit revive your heart: choice by choice, rather than letting your mind, will, and emotions lead, you deny those things leadership and you draw the leadership of the Spirit into your situation. You do this with your words: Holy Spirit, what are you doing in this situation? Why this sickness? Should I take a pill or call on the healing power of the living God within me? Holy Spirit, why this lack? Should I learn to save more money, or to live in the extravagant generosity Jesus taught with the widow and her two mites…giving all she had to live on, so she might live in the smile of God? In the weak discipline of our fallen mind, living in the power of God is impossible…but when we draw on the power of God living within us, the impossible becomes possible, and more and more we are sanctified…or set apart. This is how we need to learn to live to make it through the tribulation. This is what Jesus prayed for His Bride:
John 17:15-19 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
Jesus is coming back…physically….to planet earth. He is so bright that His coming will literally consume the darkness in the earth. Sanctification prepares you to receive Him in all His glory.
In order to prepare the earth to receive Jesus, God is lifting His restraint from the desires of mankind. Everyone gets what they want in the end, and in our generation, we can clearly see this happening. Evil…the darkness in men’s hearts…is going to a whole new level. In this hour evil is increasing because God is lifting his restraining hand from the evil desires in man’s heart. In His mercy, for thousands of years, God has, by orchestrating the circumstances of the earth, blocked the full expression of evil in mankind. In the final hours of history before the return of God, God has promised to lift this restraint and allow everyone to get what they want. This is the wheat and the tares maturing…both evil and righteousness are maturing in this hour. Sanctification is going to a WHOLE new level too…IF YOU WANT IT.
The restraining hand of the Holy Spirit is being lifted from the places that DO NOT WANT HIM. That is why schools are blowing up with violence, evil men are getting their way in war and crime, lust is being unrestrained in our media, and all sorts of darkness is increasing all around us. The harvest season is upon us. For those not denying themselves leadership of their own lives and going hard after the Spirit, the falling away MUST come:
2 Thessalonians 2:1-8 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, 2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. 3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
This brings us to Sardis…the dead Church. Jesus is giving the Sardis church a physical and finding that, though her great marketing is making the world think Sardis is alive…inside, She is dead. The Spirit has left the building. Let’s look at the four-fold pattern for Sardis and see what Jesus is saying to the Church through His Spirit:
1. Jesus addresses Sardis as “He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.”
Jesus comes to Sardis as the one who has the Holy Spirit, because that is what Sardis is lacking. She has uninvited the Spirit by not yielding to Him.
GOD WILL NOT COME TO OCCUPY SECOND PLACE. If you will not yield to Him in your mind, will, and emotions, He will not renew your mind will and emotions. Period.
Jesus HAS the Spirit…Jesus and the Spirit are ONE. Jesus is the one who has exactly what she needs. He also holds the “seven stars.” The stars are the messengers to the churches. “Angels” in this passage can mean either supernatural or human messengers:
Revelation 1:20 This is the meaning of the mystery of the seven stars you saw in My right hand and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Jesus is saying to Sardis that He is perfectly able to fill her with all the strength that comes with the leadership of the Spirit by giving the messengers to the church true information from heaven…true leadership right from the throne…if she wants it. BUT, in order to get it, she needs to decide where she wants a name…in heaven or in earth. Everyone gets what they want, and if Sardis wants her reputation to be in a dying earth, he will let her have it…but if she finds her identity in a dying earth, she WILL die with it:
Matthew 16:24-27 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow Me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come with His angels in the glory of His Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.
Unlike the other churches in Revelation 2 and 3…each known for works, love, faith, and or service…Sardis is only commended for ONE thing. That brings us to the second part of the four-fold pattern:
2. “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.
Jesus says even her works…famous in the earth, are DEAD in His sight. Sardis ONLY has her programs. Designed in the heart of her man-pleasing leaders…all designed to make a name for herself…but inside, she is dead. Though Sardis “sounds” power filled, the Spirit is NOT welcome to lead. Though a dying world thinks she is powerful, from the other side of the veil comes this truth “you are dead, and when the Bright Life of Mankind shows up, it will be plainly clear to everyone that you are dark and dead.” Having a name among people is usually a sign that you DO not have a good reputation in heaven:
Luke 6:26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you, For so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Though everyone seems to think Sardis is the most amazing church in town, God has found her to be dead. But all is not lost. All she needs to do is repent that she might live before it is too late. That brings is to part 3 of the pattern:
3. Revelation 3:2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 4 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.
God connects the death of Sardis…the casting off of the Spirit of God…to Sardis’ lack of “watching.” Jesus is saying that Sardis is NOT paying attention to the very specific thing He is doing, and this lack of vision has caused her to “cast off restraint” that it requires to, choice by choice, let the Spirit lead.
Remember, to be born again, we must deny the leadership of our mind, will, and emotions and restrain our leadership to obedience to the Spirit…even when the Spirit is calling us to do, or say, unpopular things. Without an understanding of what God is doing, this process is tiresome. We fall asleep in the process. That is why Jesus told the disciples to stay awake and pray. A time of trouble requires an unusual response!!
Mark 14:36-38 And He said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will." 37 Then He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
Jesus wanted Peter to understand the unique hour He was in. It required WATCHING. That is why Revelation is SO important. It gives us the indicators in the Bible to connect to the news…called watching. Without clear indications of progress, and a vision for where we are going, lose incentive to live restrained in the leadership of the Spirit and focused on the process God is working out in the time we MOST need it:
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.
Jesus didn’t accidentally choose the name of the book of Revelation OR the wording this proverb. This is a direct warning about disregarding Revelation. He stated it again in Revelation:
Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
There is a reason that God appointed the Book of Revelation as the last book of the Bible. The Bible is the story of God restoring all that was lost in Genesis 3. Genesis 1 and 2 is the story of what God desires in the earth: God with man, face to face, full of the Spirit, on a physical earth, with an open supernatural realm…heaven on earth. THAT is what God called very good, and God does not change. God is in the process of restoring “very good” for himself and anyone else who wants to call God with man “very good,” too. God has chosen a BRILLIANT process to restore all that was lost and let the people of the earth choose for themselves whether they want in. Revelation is the MATURING of that process. That is where this whole thing is going.
WATCH.
You go where YOU are looking.
Sardis isn’t reading the end time promises…they are doing their own thing, and Jesus says THAT is causing them to cast off the leadership of the Holy Spirit and try to squeeze every last drop from their man-based logic and marketing plan. Their focus on the world has caused them to miss the plain and obvious fact that they are dying in a time when everyone should be growing in life…growing in being led by the Spirit.
Sardis uses the warning of Jesus “no one knows the day or hour” as an excuse to NOT watch. This is actually…blasphemy! This statement has become one of the most common expressions of the lack of being led by the Spirit and instead leading from your own logic. Using this phrase…no one knows the day or hour…to DO NOTHING is actually speaking judgment over yourself. If you are the leader of a church, using this expression to take comfort to NOT watch is speaking judgment over your whole church. You must repent if you have used Jesus’ warning as an excuse to do nothing:
Revelation 3:3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.
Jesus’ coming will seem like you have been stolen from if you will not watch. That means refusing to watch will result in much loss for you, your family, and your church. To watch you must know the word and declare what you see as the word connects with the news of the day.
You must stand for the truth as revealed by the Spirit through the Word. Remember Pergamos? They had the Spirit without the word. They were about to blow up. Sardis has the exact OPPOSITE problem. They lack the Spirit and are not even praised for the word. They are DRYING UP and don’t even have the Word anymore. All they have is a reputation that is no longer accurate, if it ever was. It takes the Spirit and the Word to grow up…to live again.
The Spirit does things that offend the mind. The Word says things that are unpopular. The Spirit is not good for popularity contests. BUT, the Spirit is the one who searches the deep things of God. The Holy Spirit gives us counsel to the right and to the left, when no one else knows what to do. Confusion is guaranteed to increase. This will create great intensity. There are two kinds of people who will be present on the earth at the time the trouble breaks out…those who are seeking God with their whole heart…as their ONE THING…which is the safe place to be in the time of trouble:
Psalms 27:4-6 One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple. 5 For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. 6 And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.
The generation that agrees with this is the “Generation of Jacob” in the Bible. They are the ones who want to see God’s face…they will literally open the heavens with their desire to see God. An opening of heaven is GREAT for those that are ready…you get ready by making your life ENTIRELY about seeing God. This causes you, in earnest zeal and desire, to HUNGER and THIRST for clean hands and a pure heart. This causes you to choose holiness because you are literally watching for heaven to start opening as you press in. Jesus is returning to people that RESPOND to Him…that is what it means for the King of Glory to come in:
Psalms 24:1-10 A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD's, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein. 2 For He has founded it upon the seas, And established it upon the waters. 3 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. 5 He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face. Selah 7 Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah
This is describing a ready, watching, and actively responding people. BUT, if you are not ready…not actively growing in holiness by drawing the Spirit into your mind, will, and emotions both individually and as a church…getting cleaner hands and a purer heart. If you are lackadaisical in searching what the Spirit is saying to you in this hour because you have not STUDIED Jesus’ end time plan, you will be terrified as heaven opens. If you aren’t seeking His face with cleaner hands and ever purer hearts, you will, in SHAME, hide from His face:
Revelation 6:12-17 I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. 13 And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. 14 Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"
Who is able to stand? That is the question of the hour. Jesus says “listen to what the Spirit says to the Churches if you want to stand.” If you want to hide and be terrified in the next years coming, go ahead and keep listening to your own heart and grading yourself by how many people come to your meetings or talk about you as “anointed”…you will hide with those same people behind rocks when God’s glory appears. Everyone gets what they want.
In His mercy, Jesus has planted, as missionaries, those who have are Spirit-led…contending for holiness by the Spirit…in the Churches with great reputations but no life:
Revelation 3:4 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.
These are the ones who keep throwing the wrenches in the cogs of your man-pleasing programs. They say “shouldn’t we pray?”…or “what is the Spirit saying?” These are the ones who don’t care about what logic says…they say “if God brought us to this, He will take us through this.” These faithful ones say “I hear the Lord saying we should go this unpopular way…” They are led by the Spirit, which is MUCH different than being led by man-based wisdom and a man-pleasing spirit. These faithful ones are much more concerned about offending God and missing what He is doing, than they are about offending people…especially pastors. These are like gold dust sprinkled among you. If you will listen to them, they will help your whole Church live. IF you disregard them, you will die while they still live. If you want to live where they live, you must live LIKE they live. This is the promise available to you if you will repent and stand for truth:
4. 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.
The process of Jesus returning is a process. Impatience will not endure this hour. You cannot gauge your success by what people think or say about you. If God is your source AND your reward, you WILL stand.
Jesus, by the information in Revelation, has promised to remove every man-based strength from the earth in order to judge the inadequacy of anything less than relying on God’s manna-producing, water-from-the-rock, moment by moment leadership. You need to be as rooted in Him..in His leadership…as possible. To be saved, yet remains rooted in the world’s ways, is a recipe to fall away…to wither and die:
Luke 8:13 But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches
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