Sardis | The 7 Churches of Revelation

On this Day of Discovery, author and Cornerstone University President Joe Stoll enters a land rich in biblical history, modern Turkey, to explore the ancient city of Sardis. Here in the first century, a group of Jesus followers came together as a church, one of seven churches addressed in the beginning of the book of Revelation. Revelation, received in a vision by the Apostle John. At the end of the first century, Christianity is facing mounting opposition in the empire. John is a prisoner on the island of Patmos for his faith in one God, which goes against a Roman Empire that embraces many gods, chief among them, the Caesar of Rome. It is on Patmos that Jesus appears to John to send a message to the world, a message that is today what we know as the book of Revelation. But to the first century church, letters of challenge and hope. Seven letters to seven churches that stood in contrast to its culture. The fourth letter was sent to the church of Sardis, a church given a strong warning by the resurrected Jesus in his Revelation. Journey to the seven churches of Revelation, the letter to Sardis, on this day of discovery. And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, These things, says he who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars, I know your works, that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die. For I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard, hold fast and repent. Therefore, if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments. And I will not blot out his name from the book of life, but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Once part of an ancient Persian kingdom known as Lydia, Sardis was liberated in 340 BC by Alexander the Great, and it became an important Greek city, central to the worship of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, and fertility. One of the first things you cannot miss as you walk among the ruins of the ancient Roman world is how significant the worship of gods and the worship of Caesar was to the life and economic growth of the community. Needless to say, their overbearing community presence impacted every aspect of daily life. Sardis also held the largest ancient Jewish synagogue outside of Palestine, which spoke to the inclusive nature of the Roman Empire. Inclusive, that is, just as long as your God was no greater than any others that Rome worshipped. And into this world entered Christianity in the first century. To give us more insight into Sardis and what it was like, we spoke with Dr. Mark Wilson, a residing scholar in Turkey, who has thoroughly studied the biblical history of this part of the world. The area of Asia Minor came into the Roman Empire in 133 BC. The kings of the Pergamon Empire ruled what is Western Asia Minor up until this period, and the final king, Attalus III, bequeathed his kingdom then to the Romans. And so the Roman Senate in 129 BC then brought Asia as the first of its provinces in Asia Minor into the Roman Empire. So by the time you come to the end of the first century, the area up to the Euphrates in the east is by and large a part of the Roman Empire. And Asia was an extremely significant province for the Empire. It was one of the richest provinces. It was perhaps the prized political plum to be appointed governor of the province of Asia. And so it's in this province then that the seven churches that are addressed in Revelation 1 through 3 are found. So a very significant place within the Empire in the first province of Asia that was found in this peninsula. The province of Asia would be very typical of the Empire at large with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Again, a very polytheistic environment. All of these cities would have a number of pagan temples. You can still see the remains of many of these as you visit the sites today. For example, a city like Ephesus, we know there's something like 25 to 30 temples and sanctuaries to various gods and goddesses. So as you walk through these cities, you'd be very aware of the polytheistic worship that was going on here with various activities with altars making dedications on a regular basis, various ceremonial processions in honor of the gods and goddesses going on. So as a Christian in this environment, you'd be very aware of this type of religious environment. The situation of these first Christians then in the province of Asia would have been comprised of Jewish believers in Jesus as Messiah. There would be some who would be this group of God-fearers that would be Gentiles who were drawn to the synagogue and the teaching about the God of Israel there. And then some coming from an exclusively pagan background. So you'd see this mix of individuals then in these house churches. And of course it's important to emphasize we don't have church buildings at this time. We have house churches. And so as they're meeting perhaps in groups of 30 to 40 individuals in the homes of more wealthy members of the congregation, these groups would be then the place where you'd come and learn and be discipled about the Lord Jesus Christ. And early at this period Christians were seen as a sect of Judaism, which was a legal religion in the Roman Empire at this time. And it's not until the period of the early 60s when the Great Fire breaks out in Rome under Nero that really now the Romans begin to see a difference between this sect of Christians and Judaism. And we see the first great persecution taking place around 64-65 in Rome. Now as the Christians are seen as a hostile sect within the Empire. Sardis today is one of the most interesting archaeological sites that we have in Turkey. An American team has been working at the site for a number of years now and excavated some of these key sites that we have at Sardis. You've got to love this magnificent architecture here in the city of Sardis. But what fascinates me more than the architecture is Jesus's perspective on the church here. He said to them, you look alive, but you are dead. Well I guess there's no deceit quite like self-deceit when you've talked yourself into feeling okay, but from God's point of view you are not. And then what Jesus said to them next catches my attention as well. He says, if you do not repent I will come to you as a thief in the night and you will not know the hour that I come against you. When Jesus said, I will come like a thief in the night and you will not know the hour I come against you. That's kind of a head-scratcher for us, like what does he mean by that? Well I have to tell you for the people in Sardis it was not a head-scratcher. They knew exactly what he meant. They'd all read their history books about King Croesus, the wealthiest king in the world who ruled this region. And King Croesus, to protect his wealth and keep himself safe, built this massive city fortification just beyond that knob back there and built it in a way that was impregnable. No army could take it. And sure enough he was right. When Cyrus came through, Cyrus couldn't take the city so he put the city in siege and camped his soldiers around it. Well one night one of Cyrus' soldiers noticed a soldier on the wall looking over the wall and his helmet dropped to the ground. He went down these little set of stairs, opened a secret door, went out, got his helmet, closed the door and went back in. Ah, now Cyrus had the key. He sent his armies to the other side of the city, raised a fuss. All of Croesus' army went to that side of the city and Cyrus' special forces went through the little secret door and took the city. Just when King Croesus thought he was safe, he was not. That not only happened once, it happened twice. When the Persians invaded after they had rebuilt this impregnable fortification, as the Persians sieged the city, they noticed vultures camping around the edge of the wall but they never flew away. Then they noticed soldiers throwing bodies, dead bodies, people who had died over the wall for the vultures to eat. And they noticed that that part of the wall was unprotected. So the Persians took that gate and went in and took the city. Just when they thought they were safe, they were not. And Jesus reaches back into their history to remind them that you think you are alive, but you are dead. In an hour you know not, I will come against you. So whatever is going on at Sardis with the local Christians is obviously a serious problem So what was it? Well, let's start with the message of Jesus Christ. As John records, he boldly claimed, I am the way. Not a way, but the way. The truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. The exclusivity of that claim basically means that the way of Jesus is right and all the other ways are wrong. We'll put that into the context of the history of the early church and you can understand why the pressures began to mount against the church. In fact, Jesus, interestingly enough in the letters, keeps referring to those other religious systems as the systems of Satan. In Pergamum and Thyatira, we've learned that one of the ways that the early Christians navigated through the issue was to kind of go back into the temple worship, release the pressure and eat meat offered to idols and participate in the sexual immorality. So that released the pressure. They were kind of like all one. Here in Sardis, they had a different approach. In Sardis they decided, why don't we just get along? Why don't we kind of just bail on that exclusivity part of the message? Why don't we say, we can believe in Jesus and the Jews can believe in their God and the pagan idolaters can believe in their gods and in a pluralistic, relativistic culture, we make peace and we all get along. Now, that was significant because when they did that, they killed the message and they killed the power. Jesus Christ is different and distinct. He came not to collaborate with the religious systems of this world. He actually came to conquer them and to deliver and rescue lives lost out of them to himself and to eternal life. So when Jesus said, you look alive, but you're dead, it seems to me he's saying, you've killed the message and that's a problem. It's hard to finally say that the problem at Sardis was that the believers here had compromised the distinctiveness of Christ. But there's a lot of proof that the believers here lived in a get-along culture. This is the synagogue. When they excavated the synagogue, they found that on the pillars of the synagogue, the Jews had written their names. Only they wrote their names in Greek. That's a fascinating thing because to Jews, their names are vitally important. It's all a part of their identity. You can think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Old Testament. When they went to Babylon, the Babylonians changed their names to try to bring them into the culture. If you'll notice at the end of this altar, there's a Roman eagle and here there are Roman animals representing loyalty to the Empire right here in the synagogue. The excavations here in the synagogue found reliefs from Lydian culture. They're pagan temples and they decorated the walls of the synagogue. It seems to me that this was a big-time get-along culture. And why would you plant the synagogue right next to the Roman gymnasium? In the outer courts of the gymnasium, contests were held in the nude because the Romans valued the beauty of the body. And then through the door into the baths, you can imagine what would go on there. All of that normally would be a deep offense to deeply committed Jewish persons. Then if you go out into the marketplace, what really fascinates me is that in the stalls of the marketplace, there is one with the Christian cross, which meant a Christian was the shopkeeper, and one with the Jewish symbol next to it, which meant that a Jewish person was the shopkeeper. Now, anywhere where Jesus Christ was made distinct and his claims were proclaimed, the Christians would not be in the public marketplace like that. So there's a lot of clues that these Christians lived in a culture that wanted to make peace among all religions so that we could just all get along. But what convinces me that the problem at Sardis may just have been that the Christians had removed the distinctiveness of Christ for personal peace and comfort and prosperity, and to remove the threat of death, is not so much what we have in the remains, but what Jesus said to them in his letter. He said to them, strengthen what little you have left. They had reduced Jesus Christ to a very small commodity, and he's kind of like saying, take the paddles and put Jesus Christ back into power and make him all that he was intended to be. He also says in the text, remember what you learned at first. Could that be that they had learned that Jesus was the way, the truth, the life, and that no man comes to the Father but by him? But the image that I find very compelling is that he accuses them of having soiled their garments. Now, I'm a classic guy for spilling something on a brand new tie, and so I get this. But it seems to me the image means that they had brushed up against something that would stain them and soil them, that their collaboration with the false religious systems had stained their garments. And so Jesus Christ says to repent, make Jesus large again, remember his word, and keep your garments clean. The pressures that these early Christians faced in Sardis in their get-along culture are very much like the pressures that we face today in our culture, which clearly is a get-along culture. You know, today people don't mind if I tell them that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ and that he is my Lord, my Savior. Everybody's good with that. But if I get to the point where he said that he is the only way, that's where the friction starts to come. Because when Jesus says that, he says that his way is right and all the other systems are wrong. That's what we're not allowed to say in our get-along culture. I recall a famous TV interviewer whose evening program was watched by millions of people all over the country. Every time he would interview a Christian, he would ask this question, Are you one of those who believes that Jesus is the only way? Talk about standing up for Christ with everybody watching. Well, I have to say that I was shocked one night to hear a Christian leader say, Well, he is the only way for me, but I can't say that for everyone else. He folded. Thankfully, about a month later, he retracted his statement and made the claim that indeed he did believe that Jesus was the only way. Right after 9-1-1, I went to the Chicago prayer breakfast. I'd gone every year for years. At the outset, the name of Jesus was held high. People prayed in Jesus's name. But I'd noticed over the years that that slowly went away and it became more of a multiple interfaith kind of prayer breakfast. Well, this year I was very excited because a pastor from Wall Street in New York City was speaking and he was going to talk about the devastation that had happened in New York just months before. I'll tell you, he was good. He had the right pace. His illustrations were gripping. His words were spot on. I loved it. Until he got toward the end, and he made this statement that now in the future, we are going to have to drop the traditions that divide us so that we, in my words, can all get along. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The divisive reality of Jesus Christ, calling Jesus a tradition that divides us undersells Jesus for sure. But that's what he meant. When he was done with his talk, the entire room exploded in applause with a standing ovation. I knew that I couldn't stand, that to stand in response to that would be to deny Jesus Christ. I looked at my friends sitting around the table. They couldn't stand either. It was that clear, this call to get along. So what are we to do to face this kind of pressure? Well, Jesus tells the church at Sardis to hold fast what you have so you don't lose your crown. And he says, guard the truth. That word guard is a military word as though this truth will be attacked. Indeed it is. And that we are called to guard this truth. It is the very heart of our message. And then he says, to those who do this, you will walk with me in white robes. That was a great picture for these people at Sardis. Because in ancient victory processions, the conqueror, the champion would come in a great procession and all of his followers would be in white robes celebrating the victory. Jesus is indicating that someday he will prove to be the victor and we will walk in that victory procession. You know, our get along culture may be having a really big inning right now. Jesus says they're going to lose the game. And at the end of it, I can't wait to be on his side. He also says, and I will not take your name out of the Lamb's book of life. You know, our world might write us off because we don't look like get along people. But he guarantees he will never write us off. That he will keep our name firm before him and welcome us finally to heaven and with him. May our churches hear what the spirit says to the church at Sardis. You know, I realize that this is kind of a hard nut to swallow. I mean, who doesn't want to get along? I do. Who doesn't want to believe that everybody's right and nobody's wrong? Of course we all do. It's so attractive. But there's something deeper going on here that really tells us a lot about the love of Jesus Christ for us. You see, we are separated from God by our guilt. And I guess none of us would ever say that we're perfect and have never offended God. So how do we deal with that? Unless someone would come and pay the price for us. And in paying the price for us, welcome us to himself and to his Father who is in heaven, not only for an abundant life here, but for an eternal abundant existence with him. I'm just trying to think about the other religious systems of this world. Who offers that assurance securely, firmly? None of them do. Only Jesus offers that. He died for you because he loves you, because he knew he was the way. So he came to take you on the way. I guess if you came to me and you were in an emergency run and you asked for directions and he said, well, anyway is fine. Just anyway is fine. And you ended up in dead ends and you would be kind of put out, wouldn't you? I just told you anyway was fine. I think we'd be put out with God at the end of the day and certainly at the end of our lives if we finally believe that. I know that some of us may be thinking, well, what of those people who have never heard? How can they know the way? Well, God is a God of great mercy and broad grace. Whatever he does with those people will be absolutely right. And we'll celebrate that. The issue is that you've heard and I've heard. So what will we do with this Jesus who is wonderfully the way?