Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, I want to challenge you to ask, what do the somnambulant saints in Sardis? From the book of Revelation, from the book of the Apocalypse in the Bible, what do the somnambulant saints in Sardis have to tell us about the sleepwalking church of today? Somnambulants is sleepwalking, the tendency to sleepwalk. And as we saw last week, Sardis was a town in Asia to whom our Lord addresses a letter to the church.

And Sardis had twice been conquered. We reviewed this historical background, so important to understanding the book of Revelation. We saw in historical background that Sardis had twice been conquered by being sleepily unaware of the enemy and letting their guard down. Now, the same can happen to the church, and the same can happen to us. And our Lord warns them that don't be like your political leaders, like your historical past.

Don't be a church sleepwalking, even as the city has been sleepwalking in the past, sleepily unaware of the enemy at their gates. Before we unpack what we have yet to cover, and we went about halfway through the letter last week. We'll get to the other half this week. Let's refresh our memories as to what this letter tells us by reading this letter then. It is found in the book of Revelation, chapter 3, verses 1 through 6.

This is the letter to the church in Sardis. To the angel of the church in Sardis, write, these are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up.

Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard. Obey it and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.

They will walk with me dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This is the letter to the church in Sardis that we find in chapter 3 of the book of Revelation.

Now, last week, you may remember that we covered first the condemnation. Just about every letter here to the churches has both a commendation and a condemnation to present to those churches, except for two churches, Philadelphia and Laodicea, and we'll unpack those in days to come. But in the meantime, we saw last week that the large part of the church in Sardis had fallen prey to the criticisms brought to the other churches that they were tolerating Jezebel, that they were tolerating two things, primarily. They were tolerating idolatry and sexual immorality.

That idolatry took the form, as we've seen throughout these letters, that idolatry took the form of eating food sacrificed to idols and participating in the ceremonies and worship and culture of the respective pagan gods, which oftentimes were headed up by trade guilds. Each pagan trade guild had its own patron god, and those gods then were celebrated and worshiped in order to bring blessing and benefit then to the tradesmen. If you were a merchant merchant, for example, as Lydia was from Thyatira, then your patron god was Mercury, which was the god of merchants. And you worshipped Mercury. You celebrated his rites that he prescribed.

You ate food sacrificed to him. And if you didn't participate in the culture of the trade guilds, the trade unions of your particular city, then you didn't work. You were a marked man. You had to bear the mark of the beast in your thoughts and in your deeds. That's the idea of bearing the mark of the beast on the forehead and on the hand, is that what you did with your hands, that is everything you did, and what you thought with your mind, that is everything you thought in your head, had to bear a mark of Mercury, had to bear the mark of the beast.

That's the sense. Not barcodes or chips under the skin on your forehead and hands. No, it was true in their day. The mark of the beast was very real in the days of the church in Sardis, even as the mark of the beast has been throughout Christian history. And you miss this if you cast everything into the future.

You must have historical context and historical background if you're going to understand the apocalypse, if you're going to understand Revelation. Otherwise, you're spinning fantasies. You're spinning future fantasies when you do this. Cast everything into the future. That is, the mark of the beast has yet to come.

Ha! You're missing it because it has been here in the first century, and it has been there ever since, brother and sister. And you miss a lot if you don't understand the historical background and context for these letters. Well, let's continue then, um, beginning at verse four, which reads, uh, you, yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. That is, they haven't participated in these trade guild ceremonies, the food sacrifice to idols, and the cultural practices of sexual immorality to which many of these trade guilds had descended, uh, in those days.

You were expected, uh, to not only, um, as Tertullian says, not only, um, share your meals, but share your wives, uh, which the Christians did not do. Well, in any case, let's look then at verse four, where we see Sardis in the church in Sardis, in contrast to the somnambulant saints in Sardis, the Lord commends those who refuse to compromise with their culture. In contrast to the sleepwalking saints in Sardis, there are a few yet who refuse to compromise with their culture. Now in verse four, seven times the saints, or some of them at least are said to be adorned in white garments in the book of Revelation, seven times.

And this is now the second time that saints in white garments are mentioned. First was our Lord back in chapter one. In addition to our immediate context in these verses, speaking of works, you remember, um, back in the earlier verses, our Lord says, I know your works and I have not found your works complete, right? Most of the church in Sardis was like this. John explains here the figure of speech that we'll encounter then again in chapter 19, verse eight, for the fine linen are the righteous deeds of the saints.

Yes. The fine linen is symbolic of the righteous deeds of the saints. That's explained for us, um, ahead of us in chapter 19. In every letter, but the last two, Philadelphia and Laodicea, the Lord finds both commendation and condemnation in the life of each church with bare commendation here in Sardis. There's only a few.

The church in Sardis has a few names that have not soiled their garments. That is, as we know from previous letters, that this constitutes two things, idolatry, participating in the idolatrous guild life, trade guild life of the city, complete with eating food sacrificed to idols. And they were participating in sexual immorality, that those guild ceremonies often descended into debauched sexual rights. We have seen this manifest, haven't we? But according to our Lord, there was nevertheless a remnant in Sardis who did not succumb to a compromise with their culture in this fashion.

Now, this is a strong motif throughout Scripture that is the remnant motif. That is, howsoever corrupt and decadent his people may be, howsoever thoroughly and completely he may judge his people. And he's done this throughout redemptive history, hasn't he? Nevertheless, God will always save for himself a righteous remnant. Oh, what a blessing that is.

Where would we be without this mercy? Dear listener, God always preserves, no matter how harsh his judgment, no matter how thorough and complete his wrath, he will preserve a remnant. We see this, for example, in the book of Micah. Micah is strong on this remnant motif. And he says in chapter 7, verse 18, for example, from Micah, who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance.

He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in covenant love. Unquote. From Micah chapter 7, verse 18. Oh, and so we have here, then, the idea of the remnant motif here in the apocalypse, in the book of Revelation. There is indeed a remnant in this town, in Sardis, who are strong.

They see clearly, and they refuse to compromise with their culture. And that's a motif that we should embrace as well. What is exemplified here should be modeled by us. And another motif in Revelation is that of walking with Christ in white. Walking with Christ in white that we see here, too.

That is, participating in holy worship with him. Already, we have seen him walking among the lampstands. Our Lord, dressed in white, pure and holy, symbolic of his purity and his holiness. And the lampstands, of course, are the churches. And we'll see our Lord with the church in white subsequently in days to come, too.

This beautiful, beautiful picture of being dressed in white, the good works of the church, the righteousness of Christ also. We'll see white garments, white robes endowed with the saints, the church endowed with white robes, the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. So we'll see this again and again. And it means pureness and holiness. It means worship as well.

The idea of worshiping this Lord, not just walking with him in discipleship, but also worship. Worship is a strong theme throughout the book of Revelation, too. And we need to take cues for our worship from the worship that we see participating in heaven. Our worship on earth should reflect the worship that we find in the book of Revelation transpiring even now in heaven. So the early church, too, then, and we see this in the life of the early church.

I've been learning so much about this in my treatment of Revelation this time around. I'm seeing how the early church modeled its worship from the book of Revelation, as well as other sources, not just Revelation, but Revelation was a go-to source for the early church in the opening centuries of the life of the church, which the reformers sought to go back to, by the way. The reformers sought not only to reform Roman Catholic doctrine, but also to reform Roman Catholic worship, and by going back to the roots, by going back to sources, by reforming worship as well. And we often neglect this.

If you think you're so hot on Reformation doctrine, well, you should be hot for Reformation worship, too, as well, dear listener, because the early church reformed worship. You'll see this in the writings of Calvin, and it was a big theme in Luther's understanding as well. And, of course, John Knox completely overhauled, completely reformed, almost single-handedly the worship of the Presbyterian churches in Scotland, too. And these things are often neglected, and I wish to bring them forward here because Revelation is indeed a book of worship as well as doctrine, as well as last things.

Stop galloping and giddy-opping than to the good stuff, as you may call it, with the rapture, and the 666, and the Great Tribulation, and all of that stuff. No, there's rich things to mine from the book of Revelation here. And the early church sought to capture this picture of walking with Christ in worship in worship. The early church sought to capture this in her covenant renewal worship services, with the acolytes in the worship service dressed in white robes, accompanying the priests as they accessed and egressed the service.

And this became a picture of the saints bedecked in fine linen, the righteous deeds of the saints, as we see in chapter 19, which finds warrant here in Revelation. But, of course, the promise does not stop there. And that brings us to point three. Sardis, and this encompasses verses five through six. Sardis, in contrast to the somnambulant saints in Sardis, the Lord promises life and vindication in the age to come.

That encompasses verses five through six. If you have your text before you, verses five through six, he who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. These are verses five and six, chapter three of the book of Revelation in the church to Sardis.

The theme of conquering is here again, isn't it? The theme of conquering is reiterated again for us. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments. You neglect this, and the passive loser church of today neglects the idea that we should be about conquering. And we'll see in chapters to come that the new Joshua is picking up the theme of the conquest from the book of Joshua, too.

Dominion is our destiny. And the book of Joshua is the new paradigm now for the book of Revelation. And this idea of conquering is laced throughout these letters, laced throughout the book of Revelation. Wake up, church in America. Stop being passive.

We are to be aggressive. We are to be on the offense, cleansing Christ's inheritance of its interlopers and conquering in his name. So this idea of conquering is reiterated for us. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments. Has this stone splashed in the bottom of your well yet?

Listener, are you convinced yet that dominion is our destiny and that we are called to conquer? Or is that reserved for the pie in the sky when you die days, when the Lord returns and the literal thousand year reign of Christ, is that what conquering is reserved for? Oh, church, wake up. There can be no dominion until Christ returns. Oh, dominion is heresy.

And all we are supposed to do is win souls and wait for the rapture. That's the line of the contemporary evangelical church. And it's false. They say, oh, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And as far as I'm concerned, we might as well have a ministry of handing out handbaskets.

Right? The sooner Antichrist arrives, many of the reasoning goes, the sooner the Antichrist arrives, the sooner the end will come and the rapture will come. Amen? Oh, dear listener, this is wrongheaded thinking. It's the lullaby of last things that dispensationalism sings.

Dispensational pre-millennialism has a lullaby of last things, and it puts saints to sleep. The church in America is like the church in Sardis in that it is filled with somnambulant saints. Instead, dominion in revelation. When I say dominion is our destiny, I'm not saying that dominion is a matter of political parties, like the Christian Democrats, as they're called in Europe, right? And dominion is not a matter of blue laws, like a closure store on Sunday.

And dominion is not a matter of crusading armies, like the hospitaliers back in the Middle Ages. Rather, dominion is what our text tells us it is, that is conquering by bleeding in affliction and martyrdom. Conquering by doing good works in righteousness and overcoming evil by our good works. This is dominion. Dominion is conquering by proclaiming the gospel in word and then in sacrament and then in our worship.

Oh, the sacraments, the word of God, and our worship is the tools, the means by which we take dominion, and the book of Revelation bears this out for us time and time again. These are the weapons of our warfare. They're mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. And it's how we take dominion, dear listener. The great tyrant Mao Zedong said political power comes out of the barrel of the gun.

We Christians say spiritual power comes out of the blood of the cross, and this is by which we conquer. We fatally underestimate the power of these weapons and their power to conquer when we push everything into the future. To those who conquer, then, to those who conquer in this fashion, three blessings accrue. First of all, we will shine like the sun. What a beautiful image that is, right?

We will shine like the sun. We will be clothed in the beauty of holiness, in other words, in the righteous deeds of the saints. Jesus promises that we, the righteous, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, too, back in Matthew chapter 13. All brothers and sisters, this is true glory. That is, we will be shining like the sun.

Three blessings accrue. The second blessing is our names are written in ink in the book of life. Now, we have an expression for a conditional appointment or a conditional situation, don't we? I'll pencil you in. That is, we're good unless something more important comes along.

Well, in that case, I'll have to erase you from my book of life, right? My appointment calendar. No, not so with God's book of life. Our names are not written in pencil. They're written in ink.

We are inked in. It's one of the beautiful metaphors for God's sovereign certain election of his own. And if you don't believe in election, you don't believe in the five points of Calvinism. By the time you're done with the book of Revelation, then you're reading with your eyes closed. Because this is one of those beautiful metaphors for election, for the doctrine of predestination.

That is, we are, our names are written in the book of life from before the foundation of the world. And there's a certainty as well that you will persevere to the end, because your name is written in the book of life. Written in ink, not pencil. Well, the third blessing that our Lord promises us then is that Christ will own us as his before all of creation. Yes, the Lord will own us before him and before all of creation.

Yes, we will be acknowledged. Our name will be acknowledged before the Father and his angels, right? That's that sense of Christ will own us as his before all of creation. As a groom owns his bride at his wedding. As a father owns his child at his baptism.

As a youth owns his faith and Savior as his own at his first communion. And you're exhorted as you're baptized as an infant to make good your baptism. Well then, so Christ will own us at the renewal of all things. Think of him confessing your name in glory, just as you have confessed his in the dust of this age. Oh, what a blessing that would be.

At that time, all of the shame that is heaped upon you by lost creatures who despise your Savior. All of that shame will be turned to glory. Oh, at that time, when Christ acknowledges you as his before the Father and his angels, all of the obscurity and the insignificance of your faith and your confession in the world's eyes will be magnified by Christ himself. What a glorious thing. At that time, your audience will change.

From lost, scoffing demons to the angels of heaven. Oh, what a blessing that will be, dear listener. Long for this. Work for this. Because God will reward you thusly when you do.

This is our task, then, for the days ahead. Is to labor for these rewards. And to conquer. Yes, to conquer, dear listener. Don't despise this.

And don't say that's not our task. Our task is not just to run around saving souls waiting for the rapture and being pessimistic about what the world will turn into. No, we are to conquer on behalf of Christ and labor to transform the earth and the world around us, even as the church has for centuries past. You're blind to this if you cast everything into the future.

Look what the church has done to transform culture, to transform the way we live, to transform every institution of the world, and to make us not only a prosperous Christian culture as that happens, but also a blessed one, a peaceful one, a safe one, a one in which things are created and invented, a one in which new discoveries are made all the time. Christian culture is based on biblical principles. If we just look through our history and look to how the world has been transformed already by the gospel, by the church, dominion is our mandate. Dominion is our destiny and conquering is in our future.

So, um, if you don't do it, if you continue to buy the pessimistic dispensational pre-millennial, uh, line of things, um, where, uh, there is only dominion in the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, uh, then you will not participate in this. You will be left behind. But those of us who understand what true dominion is, those of us who understand what it means to conquer, uh, we'll be out doing what our forefathers have done. And that is conquering, uh, so that, uh, we use the tools before us. We use the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper.

We use suffering and martyrdom and bleeding as Christ bled, uh, to take dominion, even as we see those who persecute the church, uh, coming to Christ in places like Syria and Iran. The more Christians are butchered, the more those butcherers see the grace and the love and the peace with which they die. And we see conversions behind, um, uh, Muslim, uh, nations, Muslim veiled nations like Syria and like, uh, Iran, uh, where there's revival going on, even as the blood of the saints become the seed of the church in places like that. This is how we conquer brothers and sisters. We conquer in our worship.

Every time you go to a worship service and participate in living worship of the living Christ, you take a little more ground from the evil one. These are the way we conquer. And, uh, I love them and I embrace them. This has been pastor David Bass at new Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian church with a moment of truth. And I pray that you would be able to join us as we unpack the book of revelation in our worship services.

We're preaching through the book of revelation. Even now, I invite you to join us in our worship services and they transpire at 10 AM on Sunday morning at one on one four street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Um, join us. Uh, maybe you've been contemplating crossing our threshold. Uh, do so at new Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian church.

Come visit us this Sunday at 10 AM at one Oh one fourth street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you can call us for more information, perhaps some feedback or comment too at area code 208 5 2 3 0 1 9 6 2 0 8 5 2 3 0 1 9 6 2 0 8 5 2 3 0 1 9 6.