The Seven Churches: 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.  -Jesus in Revelation 3:1-6

We are now getting into the later churches.  The church in Sardis represents the dominate church from the time of the Reformation (AD1500) to about this day.  We think of this church as the Protestant churches.  The reformers have always had a reputation of being alive.  Today many Protestants put about as much emphasis on their favorite reformer and their own particular denomination's tradition as the Bible, and maybe more.  But the reality of these churches, which came out of the reformation, is that they were not alive.  If you study closely the history of Protestant churches and the people in and around them, you can see clearly that all is not well.  Spiritual deadness is hard to see in history, but we can see the effects of it.  During the time that Protestantism was dominate in Europe, there were wars and colonial slavery, which is obviously contrary to Christ's teachings.  Its also evident in the amount of division, with all the different denominations in Protestantism.

It could be that the "Wake up!" in this letter is reflected in the Great Awakening.  The two great awakenings were massive revivals that get a good bit of attention.  The awakenings themselves are pretty cool, but a person has to wonder why they had to awaken.  Their impact did not last for long.  It seems that churches went right back to sleep.  Christ tells the church in Sardis that they must strengthen what remains, because their deeds are not complete.  The fact that their deeds are not complete is a result of Sola Fide (by faith alone), which is a teaching peculiar to Protestant churches.  Protestants have always had the idea that deeds do not need to be done to enter heaven, and as a result, deeds have not been done.  So today, if you think about it critically, you see that there are many Protestant churches that are dead and dying.  You see churches that are spiritually dead and physically dying.  Those that go to church do not take their religion seriously, and you find more and more post-Christian people, because there is little reason to go to church.  There must be a realization that deeds are necessary, and good deeds have been lacking in Protestant churches.  The word "strengthen" is used, because there is an overall weakness in these churches.  Church-goers must learn the Bible and learn some apologetics, which will strengthen their faith and make them able to defend it.  This is one thing that has been lacking in Protestant churches.

Even still, there are some in the Protestant churches that have done good deeds and have obeyed their Master.  These are the "few people" that Jesus talks to in this letter.  You can read about missionaries that went to distant lands and put their lives in danger.  You can read about song-writers who wrote countless worship songs.  You can see strong fathers and mothers who raised their children well and taught them Scripture.  You can see, among the broader deadness, a few saints that have paid attention to Christ's words and followed them.