The 7 Churches Revelation Chapter 3

The fifth church is the church in Sardis. "I know your record and what you are doing: you are supposed to be alive but in reality you are dead." This reminds me of churches that were alive a long time ago, the Wesleyan churches that were very powerful and influential until the 1900s, the pentecostal churches of our lifetime that were born in revival in the late 1960s but now have few miracles and have become very normal. A new church is born in a revival but in time the Holy Spirit will want to blow in a different direction. People want to keep everything as it was before. I once caused a great deal of offence, at an Easter interchurch housegroup, by suggesting that a Methodist minister couldn't talk for half an hour without mentioning Wesley. I then caused great amusement when the radio came on and the Methodist minister quoted one of Wesley's sermons. I had observed the Methodist preacher on another radio station and his love of Wesley. Chuck Swindall says that one of the signs of a dead church is an obsession with the past. I would see this as a church that was once very alive  and, in the minds of the people, can only keep going back to the time it was alive. What does God say? "Awake and strenghthen what remains and is at the point of death." But there are some good people among them. "Yet you still have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me in white for they are worthy."
The sixth church is the church in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love. The Greek meaning of the word is brotherhood and friendship. It is similar to people in our lifetime describing Thailand as the Land of Smiles. "I know your works and what you are doing. See! I have set before you a door wide open which no one is able to shut; I know that you have little power, and yet you have kept my word and guarded my message and have not renounced or denied my name." This is a church which has been through a difficult time. If we think of the church as being a body there are times when it has a car accident. Whatever the church at Philadelphia has been through has sapped the people of all their power and of all their strength. They probably feel as if the church won't be there in five years time. But they have been faithful. They have kept God's word and guarded his message. What will God do? He will put an open door before them that no one can shut. This is often when revival comes, when people have almost given up hope. The revival in the Scottish town of Lewis only occurred after years of incredible decay and decline. The churches were empty on this traditionally Christian island in the Hebrides. The pubs and cinemas were full. Two old ladies began to pray. A few miles away their church elders were having a prayer meeting. After several nights of fruitless prayer, one of the church elders stood up and read Psalm 15, which is apparently far more terrifying in the original Gaelic language. "Oh Lord, who may climb your holy mountain? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Him whose heart is pure and whose hands are clean. Brethren, is my heart pure? Are my hands clean?" At that moment the old ladies, a few miles from the meeting, knew that Heaven had opened. What followed was a revival that lasted for several years, that saw many thousands led to Christ with lasting conversions and many go into the ministry.
The seventh church is the church in Laodicea. It is the lukewarm church, like the lukewarm water that the Romans piped to Laodicea using the technology of that era. God says that it makes him feel sick. This church is often seen as being symbolic of the church in the last period of history which is our own, according to many people. I have a problem with this interpretation. It may even be the last period of history before Jesus comes again. People have believed this for at least two hundred years and since the days of John Nelson Darby but the signs we see are unusual. With Israel a nation again and the world becoming completely evangelised in the middle of the 21st century, we are much closer to the coming of Christ than the Brethren preacher Philip Gosse, who believed, in the 1850s, that he would 'not taste death.' The problem is that the church is not the same temperature everywhere. Are the Christians in Sri Lanka who were blown up by terrorist bombs on Easter Sunday in 2019 lukewarm? I doubt it. There was a fantastic Sunday School service in one church where 12 young people gave their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. Then the bomb exploded. Those 12 young people went straight up to Heaven. The church in 21st century Asia would be more like the church in Smyrna. What do we mean when we say that a church is lukewarm? I remember, on a college work placement, manufacturing a circuit board using a method that involved developing a photograph. The water used to develop the photograph was exactly tepid. If you put your hand in, it felt neither hot nor cold. When you go to a lukewarm church you will feel nothing. I recall some churches I have visited that are cold. I am offended by their 'all religions lead to salvation because so few people go to Hell' theology. One old man quoted the comedian Dave Allen, who used to say at the end of his broadcast, 'May your God go with you.' Whatever God you believe in. May that God go with you. I asked the old man what the real God would be like, the God you will see when you die. He said that we didn't know what that God would be like. These churches are dead, they are cold, not lukewarm. Many churches are alive. You walk in for the first time.  These are people who are worshipping God. They love Jesus. What is the lukewarm church? It is the church where you feel nothing at all. Imagine a church where, if the rapture happened, only 1 in 10 of the church would be taken. They aren't a dead church. They aren't convinced that all religions can be made equal with a good dose of relativism, they believe in being born again. But only one in ten have ever actually made it that far. Those who are born again have been Christians for a long time but they are content to be caterpillars when God wants them to be butterflies. Spiritual growth has happened but it's two steps forward and one step back, a few months solid growth and then some backsliding or some drifting into sin. Another 3 out of 10 believe that they are born again because they have said a prayer or filled in a decision card many years ago. But they are not. They think that Jesus can be their Saviour without being their Lord. But you can't have one without the other. Jesus' mission on the cross was to break the power of sin, not simply to forgive sin. 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,' (1John1:9.) Jesus can't forgive your sin without purifying you from sin. He can not be your Saviour without being your Lord. In a young Christian, it might be some time before that sanctification work has really begun so that it can be seen in your life but if you have been genuinely converted it must genuinely happen. If you think you know Jesus as Saviour but he's never been your Lord examine yourself carefully. Have you ever been saved? One man kept phoning his mother because he was worried about whether he had been genuinely saved. She kept telling him, 'You are saved. You said the prayer when you were 4 years old. I heard you.' A prayer that he couldn't even remember. The lukewarm Christian is a minimalist. How little do I have to do to go to Heaven? I strongly warn you that most theologians are unsure of the answer to that question. Don't risk it. You might have to go to Hell to find out. If I had said a prayer when I was 4 years old I would say it again, why not? Ask Mother, what was the prayer? I'll say it now. As an adult, I could make that vow to God and really mean it. Remember that the lukewarm church believe in the truth. They simply neglect the truth. Some countries have a very strong working class tradition of church going. England was like this in the 1960s and Northern Ireland is still like that now. It isn't always a problem if there are lots of unsaved people in the church. The minister needs to challenge those people. Are they saved? The minister in the lukewarm church never challenges people at all. Some American Pastors say, 'I am your pastor and your life coach. God just wants you to have a comfortable life.' In some churches the focus is so much on God solving your practical problems, healing your sicknesses, working your miracles, making you an ideal American citizen who fits into the American dream, that the sanctifying work of Christ and the Holy Spirit are rarely mentioned. The work of Christ can be mentioned in the prayer that the minister says when he breaks the bread and pours the wine at communion but please, at no other time. The Holy Spirit can be mentioned in the prayer during the altar call, when the piano is playing loudly and the Pastor is asking you, 'Would you like a home in Heaven? Would you like a friend who is always by your side?' but please, at no other time. Always keep the emphasis on God solving people's problems. 'I am your Pastor, I am your life coach, Jesus is your life coach, God is there to answer all your prayers and solve all your practical problems.' It's very deceptive. Nothing that this pastor says is untrue. Nothing that he says would strike you as being wrong. But if you listen very carefully you might be alarmed by the things that he doesn't say. "For you say, 'I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, I am in need of nothing,' and you do not realise that you are naked, poor, pitiful and blind." This pastor is a prosperity teacher. He wants God to make everybody rich. It's not enough for poor Christians to give generously from the tiny wages that they earn. They must earn maximum amounts in order to give more to the Lord's work. What does God say to the lukewarm church? He doesn't condemn it, he wants to restore it. "Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, white clothes to cover the shame of your nakedness and salve to put on your eyes so that you may see." However badly damaged or disfunctional the churches in the book of Revelation are, it is always God's desire to restore them again, or at least to find some people who can be restored again. None of these churches are condemned completely.