3 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
“‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. 4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. 6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
The Church at Sardis had a name that it lived, but it was dead. There is almost a modern ring about these words, and we have only to paraphrase them somewhat - 'Such and such is a very active church' - to draw the parallel in our own time. What do we mean by an 'active' church? There is very little doubt that what many people mean is a church where there is 'something on' every night of the week, and which is bulging at the seams with organisations. But there is activity and activity, and there are some forms of activity that are the evidence of death, not life, and the salvation of some churches would be that these should all cease forthwith, and let the breath of the living God breathe through the life of the congregation once again. We heard a year or two ago of a minister who wanted to start a Bible-study group in his congregation, and had to hire a hall along the street because every conceivable corner was filled up with 'activities' of various kinds. It was a terribly active church and statistically it would cut an impressive figure, but there was no room in it for the Word of God! It had a name that it was living, and was dead. There is a lesson here not only for churches, but also for individuals, for it is perilously easy for individuals as well as fellowships to be engulfed in activities of various sorts at the expense of real life in the soul. The tragedy of the situation is that we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are alive when we are dead.