It is truly sovereign of the Lord that the situation and condition of the seven churches in Rev. 2 and Rev. 3 match the stages of church history. The history of the church from the first century to the present is clearly divided into seven stages: the initial stage, the suffering stage, the worldly stage, the apostate stage, the stage of Reformation, the stage of the recovered church, and the stage of the degradation of the recovered church. In this message we must consider the church in Sardis, the church in reformation (Rev. 3:1-6).
Sardis in Greek means the remains, the remainder, or the restoration. As a sign, the church in Sardis prefigures the Protestant Church from the time of the Reformation to the second coming of Christ. The Reformation was God’s reaction to the apostate Roman Catholic Church, signified by the degraded church in Thyatira. It was accomplished by a minority of the believers, the remainder. Hence, it was the restoration by the remainder.
In 3:1 the Lord says, “These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.” The seven Spirits of God are for the church to be living intensely, and the seven stars are for her to be shining intensely. To the church in Ephesus, Christ is the One who holds the seven stars and walks in the midst of the seven lampstands. The initial church needed the care of Christ, and her leaders needed His keeping grace. To the church in Smyrna, He is the One who became dead and lived again. The suffering church needed the resurrection life of Christ. To the church in Pergamos, Christ is the One who has the sharp two-edged sword. The degraded, worldly church needed His judging and slaying word. To the church in Thyatira, He is the One who has eyes like flaming fire and feet like shining brass. The apostate church needed His searching and judging. Now to the church in Sardis, He is the One who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars. The dead reformed church needs the sevenfold intensified Spirit of God and the shining leaders.
If we examine the situation of Protestant Christianity today, we shall see that it lacks the seven Spirits. Their deadness is due to the lack of the seven Spirits. Because of their organization, they also need the shining stars. This is all they need — the intensified Spirit and the shining stars. However, they do not pay attention to the seven Spirits. The seven Spirits are the full intensified realization of Christ as the Spirit. This is not a matter of the so-called Pentecostal or charismatic movement, but of the indwelling sevenfold intensified Spirit. This is what dead Protestantism needs today. It also needs the shining stars, not the positions or the organization. Their leading ones must be shining ones.
To the messenger of the church in Sardis the Lord says, “I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and you are dead. Become watchful and establish the things which remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your works completed before My God.” These two verses present a full picture of the so-called Protestant Church. The reformed Protestant Church has been considered to be living, but the Lord says that she is dead. Hence, in her dead condition, she needs the living Spirits and the shining stars.
In verse 2 the Lord says to “establish the things which remain, which were about to die.” “The things which remain” are the things lost and restored by the Reformation, such as justification by faith and the open Bible. Though these things were restored, they “were about to die.” Hence, the Protestant Church needs revivals to keep things alive. This is the actual situation of the Protestant churches.
The Lord also said, “I have not found your works completed before My God.” Nothing begun in the Reformation has ever been completed. Therefore, the church in Philadelphia is needed for the completion. In the eyes of God, there are no complete works in the so-called reformed churches. Do not think that justification by faith is completed among them. If you have the inner sight, you will see that the justification by faith recovered by Martin Luther was quite shallow, for Luther did not touch justification very much in the way of life, but mainly in the way of doctrine, in a superficial way. We thank the Lord for this great servant of God, but he was not perfect. None of the work under his hand was completed. The things recovered in the days of Luther have been dying and are still about to die. This is why so many Protestant churches have frequent revivals.
The crucial point about the fifth church is that it is dead and dying. While it has a name that it is living, actually it is dead. Many of us can testify that when we were saved, we were quite living. But after getting into a denominational church, we were put into the refrigerator and, after a few months, we cooled down and died. The reformed churches are deadening. I was raised in a so-called Protestant church and I know that there is absolutely no life there. In nearly every way, it is filled with death.
In verse 3 the Lord says, “Remember therefore how you have received and heard, and keep it and repent.” In both this verse and in verse 2, the Lord charges the church in Sardis to be watchful, to establish the things which remain and which are about to die, to keep what she has received and heard, and to repent.
In verse 3 the Lord also says, “If therefore you will not watch, I will come as a thief, and you shall by no means know at what hour I will come upon you.” A thief comes to steal precious things at an unknown time. Since the reformed Protestant churches are dead, they will be unaware of the Lord’s coming as a thief in His secret appearing to His seekers. Hence, there is the need of watchfulness.
The revelation in the New Testament regarding the Lord’s second coming is not according to our natural understanding. According to our natural thought, the Lord will suddenly descend from the throne in the heavens to the earth. This thought has caused much difficulty to the students of the Bible, and we must drop it. In understanding anything found in the Bible, we should have no trust in our thoughts, and we should never apply our natural concepts. This is why we need a clear, renewed mind when we come to the Word of God. We must drop the colored eyeglasses of our concepts and come to the pure Word. The Lord’s coming back is a process. His coming back will begin from the throne and will pass through a process until He descends to fight the battle at Armageddon. As we have pointed out, the Lord will descend from the throne to the air where He will accomplish many things: the rapture of the majority of the saints, the judgment at the judgment seat, and the wedding of the Lamb. After all this has been accomplished in the air, the Lord will descend to the earth. The rapture of the early overcomers, including the man-child (ch. 12) and the firstfruits (ch. 14), will occur at the start of the process of the Lord’s coming back. In other words, when they are raptured, the process of the Lord’s coming back begins.
In Rev. 3:3 and Matt. 24:43 we are told that the Lord will come as a thief. Suddenly, some of the believers who are the early overcomers will be taken away. No one knows the time of the beginning of the process of the Lord’s coming back and of the rapture of the early overcomers. When it comes, there will be no time for you to prepare yourself. You must be thoroughly prepared before that time. Therefore, we must be prepared, ready, and watchful.
In verse 4 the Lord says, “But you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments.” Garments in the Bible signify what we are in our walk and living. To defile the garments means particularly to stain them with deadness. Death is more defiling before God than sin (Lev. 11:24-25; Num. 6:6, 7, 9). In this verse, the defilement denotes anything of the death nature. The defilement in Sardis was not the defilement of sin; it was the defilement of death. Death is dirtier than sin. According to the Old Testament, if anyone sinned, he could be forgiven simply by offering the sin offering (Lev. 4:27-31). However, anyone who touched the dead body of a man had to wait seven days before he could be cleansed (Num. 19:11, 16). This indicates that the defilement of death is more serious than that of sin. Christians today have no consciousness of death. If you go to Las Vegas to gamble in a casino, you will sense that you have sinned. But if you came to a meeting in a dead way, you may not sense the seriousness of it. But in the eyes of God, this death situation is more serious than gambling in a Las Vegas casino. Although Christians condemn sin, they do not condemn deadness. People sit in the meetings like corpses and they see nothing wrong with it. I do not like to be near anything dead. One day, my mother died. Although we all loved her, none of us dared to stay near her dead body overnight. If your dear wife would dirty herself while doing something for you, you would love her more than ever before. But if she were to die, you would not want to be near her dead body. The Lord hates death. However, most Christians in the reformed churches do not have this concept of death. They may say, “What is wrong with the denominational churches?” They are not only wrong — they are filled with death. Though there may be nothing wrong with the corpses in a mortuary, they are full of death. Death is the greatest problem. How ugly it is! It is a stench to God, and He cannot tolerate it.
In the local churches, we all must hate death. I would rather see the people in the churches wrong than to see them dead. Many times I have asked the brothers and sisters why they do not function in the meetings. Often their reply was, “I’m afraid of making a mistake.” To this, I responded, “The more mistakes you make, the better. Living children make many mistakes. But the dead children in the cemeteries make no mistakes at all.” If you simply sit in the meeting without doing anything, you will never be wrong. Although you may be right, you will be dead right. I would rather be livingly wrong than dead right. I may make mistakes, but everyone will know how living I am. Which do you prefer — to be dead right or livingly wrong?
Speaking of these who have not defiled their garments, the Lord says that “they shall walk with Me in white for they are worthy” (v. 4). White not only signifies purity, but also approvedness. White garments here signify the walk and living which are unspotted by death and which will be approved by the Lord. It is a qualification for walking with the Lord, especially in the coming kingdom.
If you read the context of Revelation 2 and 3, you will see that every time the Lord gives a promise in these seven epistles, strictly speaking it refers to the coming kingdom. It never refers to eternity, to our eternal destiny. Rather, it refers to our future in the coming kingdom. This is the basic and governing principle in understanding all the promises in these seven epistles. In verse 4 the Lord promises that the living ones, those who have not defiled their garments, will walk with Him in white. When will this be? In the wedding day of Christ which will last for a thousand years. To walk with the Lord in white means to walk with Him during these thousand years. In principle, this must also be applied to our walk with the Lord today.
In verse 5 the Lord says, “He who overcomes, he shall be clothed in white garments, and I will by no means erase his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” To overcome here means to overcome the deadness of the Protestant churches, that is, to overcome dead Protestantism. The whole of verse 5 is the Lord’s promise to the overcomers. It will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom after He comes back.
Firstly, the Lord promises the overcomer that he will be “clothed in white garments.” To be “clothed in white garments” in this promise will be a prize to the overcomers in the millennial kingdom. In what they have been walking in this age, will be a prize to them in the coming age. Every Christian needs two garments. The first is the garment of salvation signifying Christ as our righteousness objectively. In Luke 15, when the prodigal son returned home, the father had the best robe prepared for him. The first thing the father did was to have the best robe placed upon him. Wearing that robe, the prodigal son was justified in the presence of the father. He had been a pitiful beggar, no longer worthy to be with the father. But once he had the robe upon him, he was justified and approved. This means that he was justified in Christ and that Christ became his justifying covering. He was covered by Christ as his righteousness. Thus, the garment of justification is for salvation. However, besides this, we need another garment to make us approved and well-pleasing to the Lord. The “fine linen, bright and pure” in 19:8 denotes this second garment. According to typology, the queen in Psa. 45 has two garments, one for salvation and the other for her to be with the king in His reign. After we have been saved, we need to mature and overcome all frustrations and distractions. We must run the race and reach the goal. As we are running the race, there are many things which would frustrate us from reaching the goal. We must overcome all these frustrations. Yes, we have been saved and justified and have the first robe for our salvation. But we must go on to maturity and reach our destination. If we do so, then we shall receive a reward. This is not a matter of Christ as our objective righteousness, but of experiencing Christ as our subjective righteousness. Christ as our objective righteousness has been put upon us, whereas Christ as our subjective righteousness comes out of us. We must live out Christ as our second garment. This garment is for the reward. The white garments mentioned in verse 5 refer to this second garment. When we have this second garment, we are well-pleasing to the Lord and shall receive the reward.
To the one who overcomes the Lord promises that He “will by no means erase his name out of the book of life.” We cannot understand this verse by itself. It is dangerous to do this. In order to understand a verse such as this we need to be safeguarded by the whole Bible. The name being “erased out of the book of life” indicates that that name was already written in the book of life. “The book of life” is a divine record of the names of those who partake of the blessings God has prepared for them. The names of all the saints chosen by God and predestinated to partake of these blessings are written in this book (Luke 10:20). These blessings are in three stages: the church, the millennial kingdom, and eternity. The blessings in the stage of the church, such as forgiveness, redemption, regeneration, eternal life, and the divine nature are all the initial portions. All God’s chosen ones whose names are written in the book of life have a share in these initial portions to begin their spiritual life. If they cooperate with God’s supplying grace, they will mature in life in the church age, and this earlier maturity in life will constitute a prize with which the Lord will reward them at His coming back. That prize will be the entrance into the millennial kingdom and participation in the divine blessings in that stage, such as the joy and rest of the Lord (Matt. 25:21, 23; Heb. 4:9-11) and the reign over the nations (Rev. 2:26-27; 20:4, 6) which God has prepared as an incentive for His chosen ones to go on with Him in the church age. However, many of His chosen ones, after receiving His forgiveness, redemption, eternal life, divine nature, etc., will not cooperate with His grace and go on with Him. Hence, they are unable to mature in life in the church age and thus will not be ready at the Lord’s coming back to enter into the millennial kingdom and share in the divine blessings of that age as a prize. Therefore, during the millennial kingdom their names will be erased from the book of life. After being disciplined by the Lord and growing in life unto maturity during the millennial kingdom, they will share in the divine blessings in the stage of eternity, such as the eternal service with God’s eternal presence, the eternal kingship (Rev. 22:3-5), the New Jerusalem, the tree of life (Rev. 22:14), and the water of life (Rev. 22:17). Then their names should be written in the book of life again. This means that all God’s chosen ones whose names are written in the book of life and who have been brought into the participation of the divine blessings in the stage of the church shall “by no means perish forever” (John 10:28), that is, they shall by no means lose the divine blessings of eternity. But some, who will not cooperate with the Lord in the church age, will be dispensationally disciplined by the Lord during the millennial kingdom and will miss the divine blessings in that stage.
We face the danger of having our names erased from the book of life during the thousand years. If you are defeated and refuse to be an overcomer by the Lord’s grace, your name will not be there in the book of life when He is reigning during the thousand years. This means that you have been called but that you have not been chosen. In Rev. 17:14, we can see that, at His coming back, after all the saints have been raptured, the Lord will make a selection. This selection will depend on how we have lived our Christian life. If we have lived in a defeated way, the Lord certainly will not select us. But if we have lived in a victorious way, we shall be selected, and our names will be there during the thousand years. This is similar to graduation from school. Although all the names of the students may be on the class list, only a few names will be on the list to receive a reward. To erase the name of a believer from the book of life does not mean that he shall perish for eternity. It only means that during the thousand years of the coming kingdom his name will not be there. This means that he will lose his birthright in the millennial kingdom, having no right to share what God originally intended to give to all of His chosen ones.
God’s original intention is that all His chosen ones should enjoy Christ to the uttermost today that they might also have the right to enjoy Christ in the coming age. Since many are unwilling to do this now, when the kingdom comes, they will lose their birthright. Only those who cooperate with God’s original intention will be in the kingdom enjoying Christ as their special portion. Their names will be in the book of life at that time, but the names of many others will not be there. Because not many Christians have seen this vision, they cannot understand the verses concerning this matter.
God’s intention is to work Christ into us for our enjoyment. The church age is the time for this to be accomplished. But whether or not we are willing to cooperate with God in this matter depends on us. Because many will not cooperate with God, in His wisdom He has decided to make the enjoyment of Christ in the coming kingdom age a reward. This reward is an incentive encouraging us to cooperate with God and to enjoy Christ today. If we do not cooperate, we shall miss the kingdom age. The book of life is a record of all the names who have a share in the enjoyment of Christ. During the church age all our names are there. But in the kingdom age, the names of the sloppy ones will be erased from this book. After the millennial kingdom, their names will then be put back into the book of life. It is good to see that God’s blessing in His salvation is of three ages: the church age, the kingdom age, and the age of eternity. Whether or not we will be in the kingdom sharing the full enjoyment of Christ depends upon whether we are willing to enjoy Christ today in the church life. Do not miss the opportunity today. If we enjoy Christ today, we shall be rewarded in the coming kingdom. Those who miss the special enjoyment of Christ in the coming kingdom will be dealt with by God that they might be brought into the full enjoyment of Christ. Therefore, eventually, when we all have passed through these two ages, the church age and the kingdom age, we all shall be ripe in the enjoyment of Christ and shall enter into the age of eternity.
If we are overcomers, the Lord will not erase our names out of the book of life; rather, He will confess our names before the Father and His angels. This indicates that since the names of those believers who are unwilling to be overcomers will be erased out of the book of life, their names will not be confessed by the Lord before the Father and His angels.
The dead reformed church needs the speaking of the living Spirit. The knowledge of the dead letters can never replace the speaking of the intensified Spirit. The letter kills (2 Cor. 3:6). It is the Spirit who gives life (John 6:63). All those in dead Protestantism must listen to the speaking of the Spirit.
