In 2010, Cheryl & our youngest son Michael & I visited England, and one the top things on my list to see was the Metropolitan Tabernacle Church in London: once the “megachurch” of the 1800s, where Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the greatest preacher of all time, had been pastor. The church held over 5000 people — in the 1800s! They said there were times that 8000 people crammed into it. I couldn’t wait to see it. We arrived at the front of it, and it had an impressive front edifice, with great columns, as you can see. (This picture really doesn’t do it justice.) But I was dismayed to discover that the impressive front of the church was just a FACADE! Most of the rest of the building besides the front burned down after Spurgeon died, in 1898, and when they rebuilt it, they kept the imposing facade, but behind it is a much smaller, unimpressive 1950s building that doesn’t hold anywhere near as many people. From the outside, Spurgeon’s Tabernacle today looks much more impressive than it really is inside.
That is something like how it was with the church at Sardis that Jesus addresses here in the opening verses of Revelation 3. He said to them: “You have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.” They appeared to be a better church than they really were. Unfortunately, many churches today are just like that: they appear outwardly to be a “great church” — but the reality is far different — especially in the eyes of the Lord. And many of us as individual Christians are the same way too: we may “appear” to many people to be “great Christians” — but Jesus knows the truth — and again, the reality is far different! Let’s look at how Jesus says this church at Sardis “Looked Better Than It Really Was.”
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