Sardis, The Live Wire Church, No. 1

SP01-01

Doctrinal orthodoxy, however, having said that, I must stress, is absolutely essential. Sometimes we talk about cold orthodoxy with sort of a sneer that implies that orthodoxy is unnecessary, that it is not important--and that is wrong. The orthodoxy which came out of the Reformation era, which this particular letter represents the church on earth at that time, produced something that was very important. Orthodoxy is important. It is important that you understand what the Bible teaches. That's why a local church ministry in one way will reflect its value by the fact that people are taught summaries of doctrines. That's one of the clues you can look for. Doctrines have to be periodically summarized for the people of God so they can get the picture. They can get all the pieces together. And orthodoxy, relative to a certain doctrine, is important. But it is not enough to fulfill the will of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the head of the local church. It takes more than being accurate in your doctrines. It takes a personal relationship and a personal functioning under the power of God the Holy Spirit.

The devil knows that and that's why we have so much distortion about the Holy Spirit today. The whole Pentecostal charismatic movement is one monumental festering center upon the body of believers everywhere, and it is there because the devil wants to confuse the factor of the place of God the Holy Spirit in the life of the local church ministry. Well, that began very early. Here it is, New Testament times, and we are reading about it right here at the beginning of the Christian era as existing in this church here in Asia Minor. So, the Lord Jesus Christ approaches the Sardis church as the one who judges his churches by means of the power and of the discernment of God the Holy Spirit referred to here as the seven Spirits of God. The history of the Christian Church has actually been to escape the doctrinal horror chambers of the Roman Catholic Church, only to be buried in the cold crypt of doctrinal orthodoxy without the filling of the Holy Spirit. And that's what the Reformation actually did. It did not take us all the way back to the apostolic church. It got us out of the doctrinal horror chamber that the Roman Catholic Church had created, but it basically left believers in a cold dead sepulcher sucker dead with doctrinal straightness but without Holy Spirit empowerment. And this all the more sad because one of the things that the reformers did do was (to) give an analysis of the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit which was absolutely the finest up to that time. They really got the thing together and after they had their doctrine straight, they still couldn't incorporate it.

So, here is the first thing for us to learn about local church operation, and of which we must be very careful. We know the basis--the principles--upon which God deals with us. But if you don't incorporate those into your practice, and we call that positive volition, then you are going to find yourself with straight orthodoxy and dead spirituality. That, in time, will cause you to become spiritually shipwrecked. And every one of us is threatened with that in one degree or another. To know the truth is to be held responsible for it before the Lord as Jesus once said to group of religious leaders: "If you had not known the truth it would not have been sin held against you but because you have heard me and now you do know the truth, you're responsible and you are guilty for what you do with what you've heard.

So, if you don't intend to be responsive to the orthodoxy of scripture, or if there's some doctrine, some principle, that's laid out in the Word of God, that you hear explained, and it sets ill with you because, in some respect, it goes against what you would like to do and it's offensive to you, it would be better for you not to come around to hear about it. At least you would not be held with that much responsibility. There will be differences of punishment in hell, and there will be great differences of loss of reward and of gaining of reward in heaven for believers. It will be directly related to the information that a person had and how he acted upon that information. The Bible says, "Him to whom much has been given, of him shall much be required."

Revelation 3

But this word that we have here in reference to the Sardis church, where Jesus Christ looks at them and says I know something about you people, is a word which is indicating to us that he has fullness of understanding. He's not going to learn any more about them he's got the whole picture because of his omniscience and that's why God the Holy Spirit very carefully uses this world "oida" because it immediately alerts these people to the fact that there is nothing more to be known. There's nothing secret. It's all out there. When we deal with one another as human beings, even as Christians, we don't know everything about each other. We don't know what we're thinking within our minds. We don't know what our real attitudes are on various matters, on matters of morality of one kind and another. We only know what we see outwardly. We only know what we kind of see people do and we form opinions. As we see a person in action we get to know a little and a little more and the picture clarifies, but that isn't the way with God. God knows it all. His omniscience is an "oida" knowledge. He's got the whole picture. The knowledge about these believers in Sardis was an absolute knowledge that had nothing to be added to it.

Now this does not refer to the picture that the people in the city of Sardis had about these local Christians. They had a picture about these people. This is the picture that God had of them. In the Greek language, this word is in the perfect tense, and it has a kind of peculiarity because this particular word is actually treated as a present tense, where the perfect is actually the present tense. Present tense in the Greek language indicates the kind of a picture where there is continuous action, something that just continually goes. So, the Lord Jesus is saying, "I know you people and I know about it all the time. There's never any time when I'm in doubt about your situation." Furthermore, it's active voice which means that Jesus Christ Himself possesses this knowledge, this omniscient knowledge about them, and it is indicative which is a mood, a grammatical mood, to indicate that we have here a statement of fact. You can count on it.

"I know that thy works." The word "thy" looks like this in the Greek Bible, "su." This is the personal pronoun and it's second singular, so it is indicating that he's speaking to the congregation as a whole. He's not speaking to them individually. He's talking to the congregation as a whole, and saying something that was generally true about them. Because within this congregation we're going to find that most of it was pretty bad. But here and there was an island of glory that was still hanging in there in the midst of a lot of darkness. But as a whole--singular. The thing did not look very well.

Works

"I know"--an absolute undeveloping complete knowledge of your church program, your deeds, the activities in which you are engaged. "That"--the word "that" looks like this in the Greek: "hoti." This word is a conjunction and it here introduces what Jesus Christ knows about the church ministry. The word simply is a grammatical way of saying, "I'm going to tell you what I just said I know. Here it is." It's a kind of an arrow pointing to what's coming up.

"That thou hast"--the "hast," or "have," in the Greek is "echo." This is the word which indicates possession. It is again present tense, so it means a continual possession. They had this all the time. It is active voice, which means it was actually held by the local church itself. It's indicative mood--we have a statement of a fact given to us. This church had something and Jesus Christ was well aware of the fact that they had it. And they had, he says, was a name. The word "name" in the Greek is "onoma." This is a noun and here it really means reputation, and that wouldn't be too bad of a translation for it. "I know that you have a reputation." The Sardis church was known in the New Testament world within the Christian community and within the secular community for certain qualities. Every local church is known for certain qualities. The Christians have reputations and these reputations have been created in various ways. Sometimes when other people look at a church, they believe that that church should be described in certain ways that give it a reputation which is not a true picture of that church. Because people do not have the proper frame of reference, they might evaluate a church that God highly esteems, but which they, with their human viewpoint, don't think too much of. But, the reputation is there, right or wrong.

The Live Wire Church

How nice to be called a live wire church. People like to be called live wires. When people are old and decrepit, they enjoy somebody saying, "My, you're just a real live wire. I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds good to be called a live wire. And churches like to have the reputation that they're a real live wire church, and I guess that means that people get a charge out of them.

But, in any case, they had, obviously, it would seem, lots of activities going on that served all of the various interest groups. Here in Sardis, you could come in as somebody who was unmarried--and they had a singles class. That's nice--there's a singles class. Then you had a group who wanted to get married. They weren't married, and they had the hopeful class. Then they had the class for those that had been married, and divorced, so they had the "has been" class for them. Then they had the young people's groups: They have the nice young people's groups, and then they had the fast young people's groups... They had all these different groups and categories. They were just a live wire church that had just a wonderful program and activities for everybody. You could come in, boy, and wherever you were, they were there with you already ahead of time.

So, that seems, in part, what was the appeal about this church. They had a big church program that everybody could support. That was the thing. When you don't have a ministry that is functioning and productive of divine qualities producing divine fruit, then you have to have a program--a program which everybody can get in, and everybody can support, and everybody can get all hot and zealous over. They had, probably, no doubt, a hot shot preacher--a preacher who was both entertaining and who could be described as being dynamic. And everybody wanted to come to hear this entertaining and dynamic preacher. They also had a big-time choir, no doubt, and perhaps, if they were really big-time, maybe even a band as well. And they had some real hot shot musical organizations in Sardis. They had a banquet, no doubt, and probably they put on a big program, like "I love America," and it made a big hit in the town. And everybody came to hear this wonderful program, or maybe they had a war stars banquet that was just the biggest social event of the century. Everybody knew that if you wanted social life you could find it down there at the local Sardis church.

Also, they brought famous personalities to town to speak to the Sardis church. Churches like to do that today, to bring people who are super Christians to town so that they can make a big impact on all the other Christians. Undoubtedly, it had its hot shot speakers that it was bringing in. Churches are doing the same thing today that they've always done. And we may suspect that they probably had a staff in the Sardis church which was doing P.R. work--public relations work to raise funds and to promote the attendance, and undoubtedly they conducted the best social events in town. It became the church that had all the social events that you need. How many times parents who have young people play the fool to look for a church that has a lot of social activities for its youth. Beware of that kind of a church. And don't be that kind of a stupid parent. The thing you should look for your children is a church is going to indoctrinate them in God's divine viewpoint through the principles of Scripture, and the social part as an incidental element.

Well, you can explore this on your own. You can imagine this further. You know what churches do today. Well, they were doing it back here in Sardis. And the Lord Jesus Christ looked at them and said I know your church program, and I know that you have a reputation for being a live wire organization. And then comes the zinger.

The Dead Church

The Sardis church had an impressive public program, but it had no inward spirituality. Its works were useless human good, so they were evil in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of that local church. Sardis was, in fact, a Frankenstein monster. It was a live wire organization activating a spiritual corpse, and that's all it was. It was a Frankenstein monster--a live wire organization activating a spiritual corpse. This church had a big reputation on the outside for vitality, but inwardly it reeked with the stench and the decay of spiritual death.

Now, this is not the opinion of some competitive church down the street. This was the absolute opinion of Jesus Christ, and that's why it was important to observe these previous words: "I know thy works." I know it from omniscience; I know your program; I know exactly what you're doing; and, I know exactly what it's worth. What you have is a reputation but the operation is dead.

Now that such a deceptive condition could exist so early in church history is obviously evidence by the incident of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Don't think that the early church was just a wonderful group of believers, and they were all united, and they were all going gung-ho for the Lord, and that the carnal crowd wasn't there. They no sooner opened their doors after the day of Pentecost, than Ananias and Sapphira were sneaking in, and they were having this carnal crowd in there. And you know what happened to them--the death blow that struck them, as God the Holy Spirit dealt in such a summary fashion with those who were evil in the early church. So, if Ananias and Sapphira would try to pull a stunt like they did right there in the presence of the Apostles, who had demonstrated such power under the working of God the Holy Spirit, it's no wonder that a little further down the line here, near the end of the first century, that there are people in the Sardis church who are playing exactly the same kind of spiritually deceptive game. Yet, all the while, holding to sound orthodoxy.

Human Viewpoint and Divine Viewpoint

So, you and I, if we're going to be part of a local church assembly, and if we're going to be of help to people who are looking for local church assemblies, have to know how to help them identify this condition. A church that's a live wire on the outside but dead in terms of personal spirituality. This is a point of great agony to people. I had a young man call me this past week he's on Berean tapes and he talked to me about the progress that he has made in his spiritual life. And, he said now it's leading into a problem. His problem is where is he going to go to church? He said that "in the church I'm in I recognized that what I'm learning, this church is contradicting. I'm recognizing that I'm in a place where I'm increasingly finding myself out of step with the rest of the people of that congregation because they are functioning on human viewpoint concepts, and they're not in step with the divine viewpoint of doctrine." And I had to say to him, "You have just touched upon a problem that constantly reoccurs with Christians. You have a real problem because what you're going to do is look around the neighborhood to find a church that is in step with doctrinal viewpoints, and that has real spiritual life, and you going to find you're not going to discover one very readily." He said, "I've already done that. That's exactly my case." And I never would discourage a person from attending a local church. My advice always is you hang in there. And I suggested to him that he might be a missionary. He might be a source of enlightenment. He might be a source of directing other believers to tapes. He might get enough people going in the right direction and they might turn it around. And he seemed to be very happy to hear that as something that he could do while he himself was growing. And that's what's going to happen if you're in a church that's dead and you're growing spiritually, you're going to leave the rest of that crowd behind.

That's why you don't want to get married to somebody who is your spiritual inferior. It's more likely that women will do this than men. Women are more likely ready to marry somebody who is spiritually inferior to them. And consequently, the separation that doesn't appear to be there after marriage becomes greater and greater as they move on with the Lord, and that woman drags her feet and hangs on back there resisting and fighting, and you're trying to drag her along in the spiritual things. Forget it. You never will. Someplace along the line that will come to an end. And, in our day, women need to be taught. Girls need to be taught that if they are in the tradition of the women's lib movement and of the independence that they claim for themselves from authority of a man over them, they should simply recognize the fact that they should never get married. Some girls should be taught: don't ever get married. Don't impose yourself on a man. Don't hang around his neck like a dead albatross. Instead just go your way. Set yourself up in the lifestyle that you want, that you will enjoy. Go ahead and live it high, wide, and handsome, and you call yourself a feminist. A feminist is a sex object. Female is the emphasis. It's a proper title. You're not a woman. Don't play a woman's role. Only women should get marry. Females should not get married--only women.

So, I hope that you will try to help the girls within the circle of your influence to understand that. There are some girls, if you're the women's lib type, just don't get married, because the separation is going to increasingly be there. And, the problem is for people to evaluate a church on the same basis--that you're going to recognize that if you go forward with the load, you're going to start separating from those people. Your family is the same way. If you get on the ball spiritually, and you move ahead in the things of the Lord, you can leave behind. And, you're going know to find it harder and harder for those people to come and associate with you. You'll be able to come and visit with them for a while and after the first two hours man you've had it. The ground of fellowship is dissipated very rapidly.

Bible Doctrine

Unless he can show it to you on the basis of the authority of the language that God the Holy Spirit used, he doesn't have anything to tell you. He is giving you his opinions and his viewpoint and his evaluations. So, you should be very careful about that live wire church that has that entertaining dynamic preacher who never points to what God the Holy Spirit has said, but only to what he feels and what he believes and what he really thinks. That should be your first and primary clue as to whether you have a dead church on the inside.

A Church's Social Activities

Social activities have to be secondary, and I've seen people leave good ministries because they didn't think they had enough social activity. Here comes somebody that's got a problem in his life. So, here's what they do. They say well I just wish you had more social activity so I could have fellowship with Christian people. We have a lot of fellowship here at Berean church. We have fellowship in painting. We have fellowship in cleaning up the classrooms. We have fellowship in repairing all kinds of things. (One man) had a whole wonderful day a fellowship yesterday working on the plumbing, and all he needed was someone there to help him have fellowship. But you'd be surprised how often I've heard we need more social times so that Christians can get together. If Christians aren't going to get together on the basis of the Word of God, they're not going to be drawn together because they share some cookie and coffee together.

Prayer

Grace

The Holy Spirit

Love

So therefore, the spirit of mental attitude level is very important, and I am sickened by all the talk about love that goes on among believers within churches because I know it's fake. They don't know the first thing about love, and something that's most amazing is to see someone who's way out of line with the will of God who makes a declaration about loving God. What did the Lord Jesus say in that upper room discourse to his believers that would identify that they love God and thus were able to love one another? "If you love me, keep my commandments." You cannot love God unless you keep His commandments. So, don't go around saying you love the Lord if you don't keep His commandments. That's nonsense. That's insanity, and it's not true. And you can't love Him, therefore, unless somebody has taught you the doctrine that is necessary to know his commandments. That mental attitude love--not that emotional syrupy sentimentality--is a thing that marks a church with vitality.

Service

Lines of Authority

Godly Living

Confession

Summary

Dr. John E. Danish