April 23, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
When a person is found dead, an autopsy can often
determine the cause. When a church has died. Is there
a similar way to learn how it came about? Today?
On turning point, doctor David Jerebiah investigates the death of
what appeared to be a healthy church to reveal some
potential causes from Escape the Coming Night. Here's David to
(00:27):
introduce the conclusion of his message, the dead church, sartis.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
What causes a church to die. We're learning about that
here as we study this letter to that church near
the Isle of Patmos. The same things that happened there
happened today. When the word of God is decentralized, when
the concern for lost people is no longer prioritized, when
(00:54):
people only come when it's convenient, not because they're committed.
When those things start to have and death sets in,
and oh, what a sad thing it is to see
churches that, once we're alive, really on fire for God,
and see that they no longer have that life. I
hope you're not in a church like that. If you
(01:15):
want to know more about what happens when you get
in a church like that, you need to keep listening,
because we'll talk about it some more today on Turning Point. Tomorrow,
we're going to begin a discussion of one of the
great churches in this list, the church about which nothing
evil was said, the Church in Philadelphia, And we'll do
that tomorrow Part one. Hope you will join us, then, hey,
(01:37):
don't forget. You can get a copy of this commentary
on the Book of Revelation. It's two hundred and ninety pages.
It's called Escape the Coming Night, it's updated, it's beautifully designed,
and it's yours for a gift of any size to
Turning Point during the month of April. This is how
we function. This is how we keep doing what we
do because of the faithfulness of the gifts of people
(01:58):
just like you. And we want to say thank you.
We want to add value to your Christian life. So
we're always telling you about some resource that we'd love
to send you. When you send your gift, ask for
your copy of Escape the Coming Night. And now let's
begin our lesson together.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Isn't it interesting that God has always had his few
and Christ is literally saying to this church, you have
some who have not capitulated to the times. They are
the faithful remnant and his instruction to the church is
to strengthen these faithful few and encourage them. So he says,
first of all, become vigilant. Secondly, become vigorous. Now notice thirdly,
(02:38):
he says, become victorious. He's talking again now to the Christians,
and he's saying, remember how thou hast received and heard?
That phrase takes us back to the designation of the
Lord in the first verse. How is he designated? He
is the Lord who has the Holy Spirit? What is
(03:01):
death in a church? Death in a church is the
separation of the spirit from the body. The best definition
of death you will ever find, either physically or spiritually,
is this. What happens when we die, is that our
spirit is separated from our body. When the spirit leaves
the body, you're dead in the body, which is the church.
(03:26):
When the spirit leaves the body, the church dies. And
what Jesus is saying to the church when he says,
remember how thou hast received? It is a veiled reference,
in my estimation, to the Holy Spirit and his ministry
in the church. The exhortation is that believers are to
(03:46):
remember how they received and heard. It is clearly a
reference to the manner of receiving and hearing, and in
all ages the Church has received and heard in the
same way. When somebody is born and again he receives
the Holy Spirit, he comes to dwell in the human heart.
And the receiving has to do with the person of God, Father, Son,
(04:10):
and Holy Spirit. When I became a Christian, the Holy
Spirit came to live within me. That's how I received.
When a church is established, that is a church of
Jesus Christ in its truest form, the way it becomes
alive is the Spirit of God in the lives of
believers comes to live within the church. When the spirit
(04:30):
is gone, the church is dead. And so the Lord
says to the church, if you're going to have any
life left in your church, which I have already pronounced dead,
you first of all need to be vigilant. You need
to be vigorous and strength in what remains. And you
need to be victorious in the sense that you remember
how you received the Word, and you receive it through
(04:52):
the ministry of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit of
God leaves a church, the church has died. Let me
quickly point out the fourth thing that the Lord says
to this dead church. He says be vibrant, become vibrant.
The next phrase is hold fast. And whenever you find
that word hold fast, which is translated often in the
Book of Revelation by the word keep. The majority of
(05:16):
times when the word hold fast occurs in the Bible,
it occurs in reference to Bible doctrine, hold fast that
which is written, hold fast, sound doctrine, hold fast good teaching.
And so the Lord is saying to this church, which
he's pronounced dead, if you want to have any hope
of living again, not only must you be vigilant. Not
(05:38):
only must you be vigorous in establishing the remnant that
is there. Not only must you be victorious in allowing
the Spirit of God to have life again in the church.
You must create again within the church the vibrancy which
comes from teaching the Word of God and Bible doctrine.
And hold fast to that truth where the Word of
God is taught, where it is faithfully preached. Death comes hard. Finally,
(06:06):
the fifth word he gives to the church is this
become virtuous. He uses the word repent. He says repent,
and it's found over and over again in these letters
and in the book. He's saying if you have gone
the way of death, you must turn from it and repent,
to be vigilant and vigorous, and victorious and vibrant, and
(06:30):
now at last, to be virtuous. God wants us to
be clean. Notice in your Bible that he says in
the third chapter, verse four, that thou hast watched this.
Now thou hast a few names in sardis which have
not defiled their garments. What does that say about the many?
(06:51):
There were just a few in the church that were clean,
just a few in the church that we're living virtuous lives.
Will come to that again in a moment. And so
the Lord says to that church, the only hope you
have is for you to repent of your sin and
turn away from the evil of your doings and become
(07:11):
once again what I intended you to become. Now, I
just want to give you three thoughts, and I don't
have time to give you the detail that goes with it.
There are three promises that he makes to those who
will be overcomers. Look in your bible, he says, he
that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment,
and I will not blot out his name from the
(07:32):
Book of Life. But I will confess his name before
my father and before his angels. Three things. If you're
taking notes, you can just write him down this way.
To those who are overcoming, they will be clothed in white.
They will be continued in the book, and they will
be confessed before the Father. Clothing in white has to
do with the righteousness, says of the saints. They are
(07:56):
going to be clothed in their righteousness. They have not
defiled themselves, they have walked righteously. Here's a startling thought, folks,
when we get to heaven, what we are going to wear?
Listen to me. Now, we are going to wear the righteousness,
which has been our lot as believers. Now when we
(08:19):
become Christians, we take on the righteousness of Christ. But
in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation, there
is another kind of clothing. Those garments are called the righteousness.
As of the Saints, We're going to walk around for
eternity clothed in our character. And I couldn't help but
think that for some of you that is nihon to
(08:42):
indecent exposure clothed in white. I wish I had time
to talk about that. Secondly, continued in the book. Here's
a very very interesting passage. He says, here and if
you are overcomers, I will not blotch your name out
of the book. And all how people have liked to
take that message and say, see, the Bible teaches that
you can be a Christian and have your name taken
(09:04):
out of the Book of Life. But it doesn't teach
that at all. I personally believe the answer to this,
the interpretation of this is wrapped up in the culture
of that day. In the culture of that day, practically
every city of that day kept a role or a
register of its citizens, and in that record was entered
(09:24):
the name of every single child born in the city.
If one of the citizens proved guilty of treachery or disloyalty,
or public dishonor, he was not only punished, but his
name was taken out of the register of the city
as an open declaration of his lack of citizenship. He
(09:46):
was expunged from the record. If one of the citizens
proved guilty of treachery, he was given this dishonor on
the other hand, one who had performed some great exploit
deserving of special distinction and was honored by having his
name inscribed in golden letters in the citizen's role. So
(10:06):
our lord's emphatic statement implies not merely that the name
of the overcomer will not ever be taken out of
the role, as they did often in the city in
which the people of Sardists lived. He said, I will
never do that. But in essence he is saying the
other two, I will inscribe your name in golden letters
in the book where your name already is. And he
(10:27):
was simply saying to them, in essence, what your government does,
I will never do. You will never be taken out
of the book. And then he says, finally, I will
confess you before my father. The Bible tells us that
if we confess Jesus before men, he will confess us
before the Father. There is something very special in these
(10:50):
three words that Jesus gives to the overcomers. I'd like
to just read this thought that one author put together.
He says, the faithful in the white Toga of the
freeborn son should walk in the triumphal procession with the victor.
They should be brought into the banquet and clad in
the shining festal robe. Their names should be honored in
(11:11):
the civic register, and finally they should be confessed before
the Sovereign in the presence of the heavenly Emperor and
his courtiers. The victorious captain would relate the deeds of
his mighty men and acknowledge their worth before the court.
And the one who follows Christ and the life on
earth will follow him in the path of glory in heaven.
Sacrifice and loss may be our experience here, but abundant
(11:35):
compensation is found in glory above. That's it. When we
walk with the Lord, when we are overcomers, when we
avoid the death that is all around us, and we
live above that. The Lord has promised that he will
deal with us like this. We will be clothed in white,
We will be continued in the book and confessed before
the Father. We will be honored spiritually, even as the
(11:57):
patriots of that day were honored in a civic ceremony.
He will honor us in that way. I want to
conduct an autopsy of the church. Is that all right?
How does a church die? How does a Christian, though
he keeps his faith alive, die to the things of God? Well,
(12:21):
as we conduct the autopsy in truth, scientific fashion, we
have to rule out some things before we come to
what really causes death, and I'd like to just rule
out two or three things. First of all, we may
rule out death from an outside enemy. No church ever
dies from an outside enemy. It is almost impossible to
(12:41):
kill a church from the outside. In the very first
days of the Church, when the Church was turning the
world upside down, and the Jews set themselves to destroy
the church through persecution, instead they provided the impetus that
spread Christianity all over the world. And in our study
we have looked at the churches, and all of us
(13:03):
would agree that the most vibrant church of the five
churches we have studied to this date was the church
at Smyrna, and that was the church that had the
greatest persecution from the Roman Empire around them. You cannot
kill a church by outward attack, because when the church
is attacked from outside, there is always a pulling together
(13:23):
of the people inside, a regrouping and a strengthening and saying,
by God's grace, we will stand against the attacks of
this church, and they always get stronger. Can't kill a
church from the outside. We worry too much about that.
The churches don't die from suicide. The church did not
(13:44):
die on purpose. There was no deliberate break with Jesus Christ.
The members of the church did not call a meeting
and pass a resolution that would have gone something like this,
whereas we have become disenchanted with a Christian life, and
whereas we have found that the promise of Jesus Christ
are not worthy to be taken literally, be it resolved
that from this day forward we do renounce all allegiance
(14:06):
to and faith in Jesus Christ and his church. Scary
even to say it as an illustration, but no church
ever does that. I never heard of a church doing that.
Have you ever heard of a church doing that? They
don't die from deliberate suicide. And then you can rule
out death by abandonment. The church did not die because
(14:28):
it was abandoned by God. It didn't die because it
was abandoned by those who were true to him. We
know this because in this church that Jesus said was
dead was a remnant, and they had remained true to
the Lord. They were there all the time, they had
not defiled their garments, and these few Christians were a
living testimony to the availability of God's spiritual provision for
(14:51):
anybody in the church. They were alive even though surrounded
by the dead, and in spite of the tremendous evils
of the city and the church, they stayed warm and
vibrant and alive in Christ. This little remnant church didn't
die because God abandoned them. So what can we say
about its death? I have meditated on this for many
(15:13):
days in its frightening Let me just say, first of all,
that the church dies through the death of its individual members.
What a sobering thought. This is a church lives only
as its individual members live. What is a church the building?
The church is the people. I read about a minister
(15:35):
who had a reputation for doing eccentric things, and one
Sunday morning, he told his congregation that he had come
to believe in his heart that their church was dead,
and he invited them back for the evening service, at
which time he planned to preach the funeral service. And
the people came to church that night, and to their amazement,
(15:57):
as they walked into the auditorium, there was a casket
in front. The casket was closed. The pastor got up
and he preached a scathing sermon against death. In the
members of the church, and he talked about the importance
of the Word of God in the Holy Spirit, and
how they had denied the truth and they weren't living
(16:18):
righteous life and they were living like the world. And
he said, because of that, this church is dead. When
he finished his sermon, he said, I don't think some
of you really believe me, And therefore, when I'm finished,
we're going to open the casket, and I'd like for you
to file by and examine the remains. And as they
got to the casket, to their amazement, the pastor had
(16:41):
built a mirror in the bottom of the casket, and
when they walked by, they saw themselves. But he guess
the point across, doesn't it. A church dies when we die,
and you see you can't walk around say, well, I
think my church is dying. Oh, no is. The church
will be alive if you stay alive. The church will
(17:03):
be vibrant if you're vibrant. The church will be spirit
filled if you're spirit filled, and if you aren't, it
won't be. The second thing you can do as you
perform this autopsy is to remember that the church died
because it relied on its past reputation and the church
in Sardis died because it forgot that our victories from
(17:25):
yesterday don't count today. I had somebody say something that
startled me. Do you want to know how vibrant your
Christian faith is? Let me ask you a question. How
old are your illustrations? Do you have to borrow from
yesterday or the day before, or is there something going
on in your life right now that is so vibrant
that when you share your faith you can say, this
(17:47):
is what the Lord did for me today. Vance Haavner,
the great Southern Baptist preacher who is now with the Lord,
used to say often in his meetings that every spiritual
ministry goes through four stages. It starts with a man,
it goes to a movement, it becomes a machine, and
ultimately a monument. The problem with the church in Sardis
(18:10):
is it was in the monument stage and they forgot
what the ministry was. They were polishing the monument. And
I'll tell you something, folks, that is a real danger.
It's a danger to us that'll destroy us, it will
eat us alive. In the athletic world, the victory you
(18:31):
had last week doesn't mean anything. This week. You got
to do it every time every week. Problem with Sardis
is that they had become a monument. Earlier in their history,
the church had won a good reputation. Everybody came to
think well of them, and they came to think well
of themselves. They were sure they had arrived. They were
(18:54):
content with themselves. They built a beautiful building on the
corner of self satisfied and complacence Street, and quietly went
into the sleep of death. They died because they lived
in the past. I told you a story at the
beginning that maybe you haven't kept at the front of
your mind. But let me remind you. The church in
(19:16):
Sardis died the same way the city died. From over
confidence and the lack of vigilance. The enemy, who is Satan,
crept up through the empty place and into the city
and opened the doors, and Satan and all his demons
came in and killed the church. Because they were so
(19:38):
self satisfied and so cocky and so sure of themselves,
they stopped living a careful Christian walk. And the last
thing I'm going to say about the death of the
church is that the church died because it was not
sensitive to its own spiritual condition. The church that Sardis
died and it was not even conscious of his death.
(20:00):
Isn't that tragic? It didn't even know that it was dead.
All over this land their churches that think that what
they're doing is the way it's supposed to be. I
have people come to this church and they come in
with their friends to a friend day or something, and
they look around. Everybody in the church has got a Bible,
and they say, oh, you bring your Bibles to church.
(20:20):
Don't you do that in your church? No, we don't
use the Bible in our church. Well what do you do, Well,
we have church? Well what is church without the Bible? See?
But they think that's the way it is. They've been
put to sleep. It's just a routine. They just go
on week after week, going through the motions, and they
don't even know that they're dead. There's a story in
(20:43):
the Old Testament that I'm reminded of, and it's perfect
to illustrate. This greatest champion of Israel was the strong
man Samson. I remember growing up how he was my hero.
Samson could take on whole communities by himself, just destroy him.
(21:04):
One time he took a part of an anatomy from
a dead animal and used it as a club and
just wiped out a whole civilization. He talked about a
strong man. He was bigger than any wrestler you ever saw.
And he was God's man, God's champion. God used him
(21:26):
to go out and fight the enemies of the God
of Israel. But then Samson got over confident. He got
to thinking that because he was so strong and so
good and won so many victories, that he could make
his own set of rules. And the Lord had instructed
(21:48):
him not ever to be involved with the women of
the foreign countries that were around him, and he got
involved with beautiful Delilah, and you know the story. And
his hair was shaven from his head, and he was
a defeated man. Some people say, well, that's where your
(22:08):
strength is. You know, got his hair cut off, and
he didn't have any strength. It had nothing to do
with his hair. That was a symbolic thing. The symbolic
thing was that he had departed from God. He had
died spiritually inwardly. There's an interesting phrase in the story
of Samson. I want to read it to you. Listen carefully.
(22:28):
After his hair had been shorn, the Bible says that
he arose with his old confidence, and he said, I
will go out as at other times before, and shake myself.
And the Bible says he wished not that the Lord
was departed from him. Wow, that's what happened in sarties.
(22:55):
That's what happens in churches who aren't vigilant. What happens
to Christians who aren't vigilant to go out and serve
God in the power of the old victories and not
know that God isn't with you anymore. You're dead, you say, Pastor,
(23:15):
does a Christian lose his salvation? No, but a Christian
can become spiritually dead in the sense of the power
of God working in his life, just totally dead to God.
Still a Christian, but dead in terms of any effective
work for the Lord. I pray that the message delivered
(23:37):
to the church and Sardis will sober us and make
sure that we watch lest it happen to us.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Amen, these letters were not written to make us smarter.
They were written to help us become better. And I hope,
as we've listened to the information that has in this letter,
we will examine our own churches at our own hearts.
Tomorrow We're going to talk about the faithful Church in Philadelphia.
This is my favorite of all of them because it's
totally positive and I think that we have lived through
(24:10):
this age of the church as you look back historically.
So we'll talk about that tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Friends.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Don't forget we have a magazine that we think will
be helpful to you, and you can have your copy
of it sent to your home if you will just
ask for it. Go to our website or go to
the phone or to the mail and simply say please
send me Turning Points Magazine and devotional and you'll start
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Speaker 3 (24:35):
It will help you.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It will give you motivation to do the things you
know you should do as a Christian. It will add
value to your life, and we're grateful for the opportunity
of providing.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
It for you.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Have a great day. We'll see you right here again
tomorrow on the next edition of Turning Pointing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Our message today came to you from Shadow Mountain Community
Church and senior past doctor David Jeremiah. What is God
doing in your life as a result of this ministry?
Write and tell us at Turning Point po Box thirty
eight thirty eight, San Diego, California, nine two one sixty three.
Visit our website at David Jeremiah dot org, slash radio,
(25:17):
or call eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three
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(25:39):
To access our content, visit Davidjeremiah dot org slash radio
for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow
as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night on
Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah
When a person is found dead, an autopsy can often
determine the cause. When a church has died. Is there
a similar way to learn how it came about? Today?
On turning point, doctor David Jerebiah investigates the death of
what appeared to be a healthy church to reveal some
potential causes from Escape the Coming Night. Here's David to
(00:27):
introduce the conclusion of his message, the dead church, sartis.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
What causes a church to die. We're learning about that
here as we study this letter to that church near
the Isle of Patmos. The same things that happened there
happened today. When the word of God is decentralized, when
the concern for lost people is no longer prioritized, when
(00:54):
people only come when it's convenient, not because they're committed.
When those things start to have and death sets in,
and oh, what a sad thing it is to see
churches that, once we're alive, really on fire for God,
and see that they no longer have that life. I
hope you're not in a church like that. If you
(01:15):
want to know more about what happens when you get
in a church like that, you need to keep listening,
because we'll talk about it some more today on Turning Point. Tomorrow,
we're going to begin a discussion of one of the
great churches in this list, the church about which nothing
evil was said, the Church in Philadelphia, And we'll do
that tomorrow Part one. Hope you will join us, then, hey,
(01:37):
don't forget. You can get a copy of this commentary
on the Book of Revelation. It's two hundred and ninety pages.
It's called Escape the Coming Night, it's updated, it's beautifully designed,
and it's yours for a gift of any size to
Turning Point during the month of April. This is how
we function. This is how we keep doing what we
do because of the faithfulness of the gifts of people
(01:58):
just like you. And we want to say thank you.
We want to add value to your Christian life. So
we're always telling you about some resource that we'd love
to send you. When you send your gift, ask for
your copy of Escape the Coming Night. And now let's
begin our lesson together.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Isn't it interesting that God has always had his few
and Christ is literally saying to this church, you have
some who have not capitulated to the times. They are
the faithful remnant and his instruction to the church is
to strengthen these faithful few and encourage them. So he says,
first of all, become vigilant. Secondly, become vigorous. Now notice thirdly,
(02:38):
he says, become victorious. He's talking again now to the Christians,
and he's saying, remember how thou hast received and heard?
That phrase takes us back to the designation of the
Lord in the first verse. How is he designated? He
is the Lord who has the Holy Spirit? What is
(03:01):
death in a church? Death in a church is the
separation of the spirit from the body. The best definition
of death you will ever find, either physically or spiritually,
is this. What happens when we die, is that our
spirit is separated from our body. When the spirit leaves
the body, you're dead in the body, which is the church.
(03:26):
When the spirit leaves the body, the church dies. And
what Jesus is saying to the church when he says,
remember how thou hast received? It is a veiled reference,
in my estimation, to the Holy Spirit and his ministry
in the church. The exhortation is that believers are to
(03:46):
remember how they received and heard. It is clearly a
reference to the manner of receiving and hearing, and in
all ages the Church has received and heard in the
same way. When somebody is born and again he receives
the Holy Spirit, he comes to dwell in the human heart.
And the receiving has to do with the person of God, Father, Son,
(04:10):
and Holy Spirit. When I became a Christian, the Holy
Spirit came to live within me. That's how I received.
When a church is established, that is a church of
Jesus Christ in its truest form, the way it becomes
alive is the Spirit of God in the lives of
believers comes to live within the church. When the spirit
(04:30):
is gone, the church is dead. And so the Lord
says to the church, if you're going to have any
life left in your church, which I have already pronounced dead,
you first of all need to be vigilant. You need
to be vigorous and strength in what remains. And you
need to be victorious in the sense that you remember
how you received the Word, and you receive it through
(04:52):
the ministry of the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit of
God leaves a church, the church has died. Let me
quickly point out the fourth thing that the Lord says
to this dead church. He says be vibrant, become vibrant.
The next phrase is hold fast. And whenever you find
that word hold fast, which is translated often in the
Book of Revelation by the word keep. The majority of
(05:16):
times when the word hold fast occurs in the Bible,
it occurs in reference to Bible doctrine, hold fast that
which is written, hold fast, sound doctrine, hold fast good teaching.
And so the Lord is saying to this church, which
he's pronounced dead, if you want to have any hope
of living again, not only must you be vigilant. Not
(05:38):
only must you be vigorous in establishing the remnant that
is there. Not only must you be victorious in allowing
the Spirit of God to have life again in the church.
You must create again within the church the vibrancy which
comes from teaching the Word of God and Bible doctrine.
And hold fast to that truth where the Word of
God is taught, where it is faithfully preached. Death comes hard. Finally,
(06:06):
the fifth word he gives to the church is this
become virtuous. He uses the word repent. He says repent,
and it's found over and over again in these letters
and in the book. He's saying if you have gone
the way of death, you must turn from it and repent,
to be vigilant and vigorous, and victorious and vibrant, and
(06:30):
now at last, to be virtuous. God wants us to
be clean. Notice in your Bible that he says in
the third chapter, verse four, that thou hast watched this.
Now thou hast a few names in sardis which have
not defiled their garments. What does that say about the many?
(06:51):
There were just a few in the church that were clean,
just a few in the church that we're living virtuous lives.
Will come to that again in a moment. And so
the Lord says to that church, the only hope you
have is for you to repent of your sin and
turn away from the evil of your doings and become
(07:11):
once again what I intended you to become. Now, I
just want to give you three thoughts, and I don't
have time to give you the detail that goes with it.
There are three promises that he makes to those who
will be overcomers. Look in your bible, he says, he
that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment,
and I will not blot out his name from the
(07:32):
Book of Life. But I will confess his name before
my father and before his angels. Three things. If you're
taking notes, you can just write him down this way.
To those who are overcoming, they will be clothed in white.
They will be continued in the book, and they will
be confessed before the Father. Clothing in white has to
do with the righteousness, says of the saints. They are
(07:56):
going to be clothed in their righteousness. They have not
defiled themselves, they have walked righteously. Here's a startling thought, folks,
when we get to heaven, what we are going to wear?
Listen to me. Now, we are going to wear the righteousness,
which has been our lot as believers. Now when we
(08:19):
become Christians, we take on the righteousness of Christ. But
in the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation, there
is another kind of clothing. Those garments are called the righteousness.
As of the Saints, We're going to walk around for
eternity clothed in our character. And I couldn't help but
think that for some of you that is nihon to
(08:42):
indecent exposure clothed in white. I wish I had time
to talk about that. Secondly, continued in the book. Here's
a very very interesting passage. He says, here and if
you are overcomers, I will not blotch your name out
of the book. And all how people have liked to
take that message and say, see, the Bible teaches that
you can be a Christian and have your name taken
(09:04):
out of the Book of Life. But it doesn't teach
that at all. I personally believe the answer to this,
the interpretation of this is wrapped up in the culture
of that day. In the culture of that day, practically
every city of that day kept a role or a
register of its citizens, and in that record was entered
(09:24):
the name of every single child born in the city.
If one of the citizens proved guilty of treachery or disloyalty,
or public dishonor, he was not only punished, but his
name was taken out of the register of the city
as an open declaration of his lack of citizenship. He
(09:46):
was expunged from the record. If one of the citizens
proved guilty of treachery, he was given this dishonor on
the other hand, one who had performed some great exploit
deserving of special distinction and was honored by having his
name inscribed in golden letters in the citizen's role. So
(10:06):
our lord's emphatic statement implies not merely that the name
of the overcomer will not ever be taken out of
the role, as they did often in the city in
which the people of Sardists lived. He said, I will
never do that. But in essence he is saying the
other two, I will inscribe your name in golden letters
in the book where your name already is. And he
(10:27):
was simply saying to them, in essence, what your government does,
I will never do. You will never be taken out
of the book. And then he says, finally, I will
confess you before my father. The Bible tells us that
if we confess Jesus before men, he will confess us
before the Father. There is something very special in these
(10:50):
three words that Jesus gives to the overcomers. I'd like
to just read this thought that one author put together.
He says, the faithful in the white Toga of the
freeborn son should walk in the triumphal procession with the victor.
They should be brought into the banquet and clad in
the shining festal robe. Their names should be honored in
(11:11):
the civic register, and finally they should be confessed before
the Sovereign in the presence of the heavenly Emperor and
his courtiers. The victorious captain would relate the deeds of
his mighty men and acknowledge their worth before the court.
And the one who follows Christ and the life on
earth will follow him in the path of glory in heaven.
Sacrifice and loss may be our experience here, but abundant
(11:35):
compensation is found in glory above. That's it. When we
walk with the Lord, when we are overcomers, when we
avoid the death that is all around us, and we
live above that. The Lord has promised that he will
deal with us like this. We will be clothed in white,
We will be continued in the book and confessed before
the Father. We will be honored spiritually, even as the
(11:57):
patriots of that day were honored in a civic ceremony.
He will honor us in that way. I want to
conduct an autopsy of the church. Is that all right?
How does a church die? How does a Christian, though
he keeps his faith alive, die to the things of God? Well,
(12:21):
as we conduct the autopsy in truth, scientific fashion, we
have to rule out some things before we come to
what really causes death, and I'd like to just rule
out two or three things. First of all, we may
rule out death from an outside enemy. No church ever
dies from an outside enemy. It is almost impossible to
(12:41):
kill a church from the outside. In the very first
days of the Church, when the Church was turning the
world upside down, and the Jews set themselves to destroy
the church through persecution, instead they provided the impetus that
spread Christianity all over the world. And in our study
we have looked at the churches, and all of us
(13:03):
would agree that the most vibrant church of the five
churches we have studied to this date was the church
at Smyrna, and that was the church that had the
greatest persecution from the Roman Empire around them. You cannot
kill a church by outward attack, because when the church
is attacked from outside, there is always a pulling together
(13:23):
of the people inside, a regrouping and a strengthening and saying,
by God's grace, we will stand against the attacks of
this church, and they always get stronger. Can't kill a
church from the outside. We worry too much about that.
The churches don't die from suicide. The church did not
(13:44):
die on purpose. There was no deliberate break with Jesus Christ.
The members of the church did not call a meeting
and pass a resolution that would have gone something like this,
whereas we have become disenchanted with a Christian life, and
whereas we have found that the promise of Jesus Christ
are not worthy to be taken literally, be it resolved
that from this day forward we do renounce all allegiance
(14:06):
to and faith in Jesus Christ and his church. Scary
even to say it as an illustration, but no church
ever does that. I never heard of a church doing that.
Have you ever heard of a church doing that? They
don't die from deliberate suicide. And then you can rule
out death by abandonment. The church did not die because
(14:28):
it was abandoned by God. It didn't die because it
was abandoned by those who were true to him. We
know this because in this church that Jesus said was
dead was a remnant, and they had remained true to
the Lord. They were there all the time, they had
not defiled their garments, and these few Christians were a
living testimony to the availability of God's spiritual provision for
(14:51):
anybody in the church. They were alive even though surrounded
by the dead, and in spite of the tremendous evils
of the city and the church, they stayed warm and
vibrant and alive in Christ. This little remnant church didn't
die because God abandoned them. So what can we say
about its death? I have meditated on this for many
(15:13):
days in its frightening Let me just say, first of all,
that the church dies through the death of its individual members.
What a sobering thought. This is a church lives only
as its individual members live. What is a church the building?
The church is the people. I read about a minister
(15:35):
who had a reputation for doing eccentric things, and one
Sunday morning, he told his congregation that he had come
to believe in his heart that their church was dead,
and he invited them back for the evening service, at
which time he planned to preach the funeral service. And
the people came to church that night, and to their amazement,
(15:57):
as they walked into the auditorium, there was a casket
in front. The casket was closed. The pastor got up
and he preached a scathing sermon against death. In the
members of the church, and he talked about the importance
of the Word of God in the Holy Spirit, and
how they had denied the truth and they weren't living
(16:18):
righteous life and they were living like the world. And
he said, because of that, this church is dead. When
he finished his sermon, he said, I don't think some
of you really believe me, And therefore, when I'm finished,
we're going to open the casket, and I'd like for you
to file by and examine the remains. And as they
got to the casket, to their amazement, the pastor had
(16:41):
built a mirror in the bottom of the casket, and
when they walked by, they saw themselves. But he guess
the point across, doesn't it. A church dies when we die,
and you see you can't walk around say, well, I
think my church is dying. Oh, no is. The church
will be alive if you stay alive. The church will
(17:03):
be vibrant if you're vibrant. The church will be spirit
filled if you're spirit filled, and if you aren't, it
won't be. The second thing you can do as you
perform this autopsy is to remember that the church died
because it relied on its past reputation and the church
in Sardis died because it forgot that our victories from
(17:25):
yesterday don't count today. I had somebody say something that
startled me. Do you want to know how vibrant your
Christian faith is? Let me ask you a question. How
old are your illustrations? Do you have to borrow from
yesterday or the day before, or is there something going
on in your life right now that is so vibrant
that when you share your faith you can say, this
(17:47):
is what the Lord did for me today. Vance Haavner,
the great Southern Baptist preacher who is now with the Lord,
used to say often in his meetings that every spiritual
ministry goes through four stages. It starts with a man,
it goes to a movement, it becomes a machine, and
ultimately a monument. The problem with the church in Sardis
(18:10):
is it was in the monument stage and they forgot
what the ministry was. They were polishing the monument. And
I'll tell you something, folks, that is a real danger.
It's a danger to us that'll destroy us, it will
eat us alive. In the athletic world, the victory you
(18:31):
had last week doesn't mean anything. This week. You got
to do it every time every week. Problem with Sardis
is that they had become a monument. Earlier in their history,
the church had won a good reputation. Everybody came to
think well of them, and they came to think well
of themselves. They were sure they had arrived. They were
(18:54):
content with themselves. They built a beautiful building on the
corner of self satisfied and complacence Street, and quietly went
into the sleep of death. They died because they lived
in the past. I told you a story at the
beginning that maybe you haven't kept at the front of
your mind. But let me remind you. The church in
(19:16):
Sardis died the same way the city died. From over
confidence and the lack of vigilance. The enemy, who is Satan,
crept up through the empty place and into the city
and opened the doors, and Satan and all his demons
came in and killed the church. Because they were so
(19:38):
self satisfied and so cocky and so sure of themselves,
they stopped living a careful Christian walk. And the last
thing I'm going to say about the death of the
church is that the church died because it was not
sensitive to its own spiritual condition. The church that Sardis
died and it was not even conscious of his death.
(20:00):
Isn't that tragic? It didn't even know that it was dead.
All over this land their churches that think that what
they're doing is the way it's supposed to be. I
have people come to this church and they come in
with their friends to a friend day or something, and
they look around. Everybody in the church has got a Bible,
and they say, oh, you bring your Bibles to church.
(20:20):
Don't you do that in your church? No, we don't
use the Bible in our church. Well what do you do, Well,
we have church? Well what is church without the Bible? See?
But they think that's the way it is. They've been
put to sleep. It's just a routine. They just go
on week after week, going through the motions, and they
don't even know that they're dead. There's a story in
(20:43):
the Old Testament that I'm reminded of, and it's perfect
to illustrate. This greatest champion of Israel was the strong
man Samson. I remember growing up how he was my hero.
Samson could take on whole communities by himself, just destroy him.
(21:04):
One time he took a part of an anatomy from
a dead animal and used it as a club and
just wiped out a whole civilization. He talked about a
strong man. He was bigger than any wrestler you ever saw.
And he was God's man, God's champion. God used him
(21:26):
to go out and fight the enemies of the God
of Israel. But then Samson got over confident. He got
to thinking that because he was so strong and so
good and won so many victories, that he could make
his own set of rules. And the Lord had instructed
(21:48):
him not ever to be involved with the women of
the foreign countries that were around him, and he got
involved with beautiful Delilah, and you know the story. And
his hair was shaven from his head, and he was
a defeated man. Some people say, well, that's where your
(22:08):
strength is. You know, got his hair cut off, and
he didn't have any strength. It had nothing to do
with his hair. That was a symbolic thing. The symbolic
thing was that he had departed from God. He had
died spiritually inwardly. There's an interesting phrase in the story
of Samson. I want to read it to you. Listen carefully.
(22:28):
After his hair had been shorn, the Bible says that
he arose with his old confidence, and he said, I
will go out as at other times before, and shake myself.
And the Bible says he wished not that the Lord
was departed from him. Wow, that's what happened in sarties.
(22:55):
That's what happens in churches who aren't vigilant. What happens
to Christians who aren't vigilant to go out and serve
God in the power of the old victories and not
know that God isn't with you anymore. You're dead, you say, Pastor,
(23:15):
does a Christian lose his salvation? No, but a Christian
can become spiritually dead in the sense of the power
of God working in his life, just totally dead to God.
Still a Christian, but dead in terms of any effective
work for the Lord. I pray that the message delivered
(23:37):
to the church and Sardis will sober us and make
sure that we watch lest it happen to us.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Amen, these letters were not written to make us smarter.
They were written to help us become better. And I hope,
as we've listened to the information that has in this letter,
we will examine our own churches at our own hearts.
Tomorrow We're going to talk about the faithful Church in Philadelphia.
This is my favorite of all of them because it's
totally positive and I think that we have lived through
(24:10):
this age of the church as you look back historically.
So we'll talk about that tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Friends.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Don't forget we have a magazine that we think will
be helpful to you, and you can have your copy
of it sent to your home if you will just
ask for it. Go to our website or go to
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send me Turning Points Magazine and devotional and you'll start
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Speaker 3 (24:35):
It will help you.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It will give you motivation to do the things you
know you should do as a Christian. It will add
value to your life, and we're grateful for the opportunity
of providing.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
It for you.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Have a great day. We'll see you right here again
tomorrow on the next edition of Turning Pointing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Our message today came to you from Shadow Mountain Community
Church and senior past doctor David Jeremiah. What is God
doing in your life as a result of this ministry?
Write and tell us at Turning Point po Box thirty
eight thirty eight, San Diego, California, nine two one sixty three.
Visit our website at David Jeremiah dot org, slash radio,
(25:17):
or call eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three
ask for your copy of David's best selling, in depth
book on revelation, Escape the Coming Night. It's yours for
a gift of any amount. You can also download the
free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet,
or search in your app store for Turning Point ministries.
(25:39):
To access our content, visit Davidjeremiah dot org slash radio
for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow
as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night on
Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah
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