Last week we looked @ the church of Laodicea in
Firstly a little background because that will help us
anchor our thoughts & teaching. The
Church @ Philadelphia was one of the church plantings of Ephesus & as such
belonged to that circle of churches originating from Ephesus & following
the highway round in a circle. We have
some idea of what was happening here because we have looked @ the church growth
in the area from Paul’s writings to Timothy, the overseer of the churches in
this area of Asia Minor ~ modern day Turkey. Huge growth, heresy, false
teachings, huge decline.
Philadelphia is between Laodicea, the apathetic church,
& Sardis, the dead church. Now each
of the 7 churches in this area was a real church but these real churches also
represent the Church ages.
Ephesus means the
desirable one. She is accused of
losing her first love. The early church was
desirable. It grew beyond all worldly
expectation exactly because her witness & walk made her desirable.
Then there was Smyrna, the persecuted church. Her name means myrrh. Myrrh was obtained by
beating & pressing the plant ~ & this was the fate of the church during
the 2nd & 3rd centuries. Yet their witness [remember
the original Greek can also mean martyr] brought many to saving faith in
Christ.
Then along came Constantine who made Christianity the
state religion, thus marrying state & church. Pergamos means married, & the church has
had difficulty divorcing from the world ever since. People are happy to be *Christian* so long as
it doesn’t cost them anything, so long as they can have heaven & their sin.
It never works but people keep trying.
Thyatira means continual sacrifice. This is the church that moved from salvation
by Grace through the shed blood of Christ to salvation by works. This was a compromised church seeking to win
the Vandals, the Goths, the Huns with tolerance & compromise. God will not have His people compromised.
Next there is Sardis ~ a church weighed down by ritual
& man~made rules, devoid of the
power of the Holy Spirit & keeping the people in bondage through
ignorance. It was, & is, a dead
church.
We have looked @ Laodicea, so that leaves Philadelphia.
Philadelphia was an inland city beside the Cogamus River in the Kuzucay Valley
~ which probably doesn’t mean much to you. It has volcanic cliffs & being
situated on the Anatolian Fault, suffered greatly from earthquakes, but with
soil rich enough to grow grapes that produced excellent wine ~ wine good enough
for Virgil to praise it.
Philadelphia was a wealthy commercial city serving as a
crossover point between the Phrygian territory to the east & the Aegean
ports to the west. This gave them an
open doorway for spreading the gospel.
So
let us have a look @ what Jesus says to the church @ Philadelphia: Revelation
3:7~13
“Write this letter to the angel
of the church in Philadelphia.
This is
the message from the one who is holy and true,
the one who has the key of David.
What he opens, no one can close;
and what he closes, no one can open:
the one who has the key of David.
What he opens, no one can close;
and what he closes, no one can open:
“I know all the things you do,
and I have opened a door for you that no one can close. You have little
strength, yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me. Look, I will force those who belong to Satan’s synagogue—those liars
who say they are Jews but are not—to come and bow down at your feet. They will
acknowledge that you are the ones I love.
“Because you have obeyed my command to
persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come
upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will
take away your crown. All who are victorious will become pillars in the Temple of my God,
and they will never have to leave it. And I will write on them the name of my
God, and they will be citizens in the city of my God—the new Jerusalem that
comes down from heaven from my God. And I will also write on them my new name.
“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the
Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches.
When you
read about these seven churches, what is the thing that strikes you first? See these were real churches yes, but they
are also representative of the church ages & types for all ages & the
thing that struck me most ~ & I have read & reread Revelation for
decades~ is something that is quite simply horrifying. The dominant characteristic of the majority
of these churches is that they were out of step with God. Off track.
Out of order. Wow.
As we
read these letters we learn it is possible to be a loving church yet have bad
doctrine or to have good doctrine but lack love, to be tolerant of sin, to be
persecuted for righteousness or be unpersecuted & spiritually dead, for
no~one bothers to persecute the dead.
Philadelphia
is one of only two churches out of seven that is not faulted in any way. So
they have kept their first love, unlike Ephesus. They hold good doctrine,
unlike Pergamum. They are not harbouring
false prophets or heretical teaching like Thyatira. They are not spiritually
dead like Sardis, nor lukewarm like Laodicea. They are faithful, Holy Spirit
empowered, effective & holding to the Truth. To this church Jesus
identifies Himself as the Holy One; Yahweh; The Great I AM~ for none is holy
but God [1 Samuel 2:2]
He then
mentions *the key of David*. David symbolises the Messianic Office & his
key is his symbol of authority. We know
Jesus was of David’s house & line so He is, in effect saying, Messianic
authority is mine. In John 10:9 Jesus says : I am the door: if any one enter in by me, he shall be
saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture.
Now there
are a lot of ways you can interpret the reference to *pasture*. It can be the blessings of shalom ~ all the
goodness, wealth, freedom from want of God’s Kingdom. It could be what Jesus meant when He said
Come unto me …& I will give you rest for your souls ~ that security &
peace that is only found in Christ. Or
it could mean, & I am partial to this one, that we have unlimited access to
the Father through Christ the son & no~one can deny us for we have the
son’s authority to come & go @ will. This also makes sense in light of the
reference to Satan’s Synagogue.
The next
thing I would like to draw your attention to is the word Dynamai, in verse 8, once translated as able &
once [in a slightly altered form] as strength.
In both instances we are talking about power. No~one has the power to close the doors that
God opens. In the same way even though
they were a small church [mikros
means small in size or quantity] they still operated in God’s power. This must
be hugely encouraging for us. God was not interested in their numbers but He
did note their obedience, their faithfulness, their loyalty & their perseverance.
You see they had people on
their case…John calls them the Synagogue of Satan… They may have been Jews… They may have been other Christians but ones
adhering to Jewish Law [Romans 2:28/29 says it is the circumcision of the heart
that makes one a Jew, not ethnicity or religion or religious practises]…&
they were applying pressure to forgo God’s Word & deny Jesus. [V8] But this little church did not cave.
We know from Revelation &
from Church history that heresy & false teaching was spreading out from
Ephesus & infecting the other churches but not the church @
Philadelphia! Because they were obedient
to the word they were protected & earned the commendation of the Lord. They
persevered in the Truth.
Now Jesus promises this
faithful little church something that on the face of it seems a little odd but
it would have meant a great deal to the church @ Philadelphia. Remember Philadelphia was built on the Anatolian
Faultline & subject to earthquakes & their aftershocks. At least one in the 1st century
was so devastating that the Emperor provided funds to help rebuild the city.
The strongest & most secure buildings in the city
were the temples. They were built to withstand the earthquakes by laying the
foundations on a bed of charcoal overlaid with wool fleeces. This caused the temples to *float* on the
soil~ sort of like a raft, each block joined to the next by metal cramps so the
whole moved in unity. So Jesus is promising this little church a place of
eternal security & safety where nothing could harm them. What’s more, they
would never be forced to flee from this safe haven as they fled the city when
the earthquakes came.
Pillars were often inscribed ~ as archaeology amply
testifies. The inscriptions might extol
a king’s virtues or a commander’s victories ~ or they might simply denote
ownership. God’s name would be inclusive of all of these things: His virtues,
His victory over satan & the world, His ownership of those who love
Him. When you love & are loved it is
a wonderful thing to be claimed by the lover.
He also promises they will be spared from the tribulation
to come. I do not have the time to go
through this verse by verse with all the cross~references but I will give you a
little Greek because that makes the final meaning very plain.
Verse 10 says *I
will protect/keep you from the great time of testing…* tereo* is the verb keep or guard but in
this sentence is the little Greek preposition ek. Ek means out of. Completely. John does not us en [in] or dia
[through]. He uses ek. The faithful,
loyal, obedient churches, the faithful, loyal, obedient Christians will be
spared the Great Tribulation.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us
what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us
when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 2 Timothy 3:16
The church @ Philadelphia teaches us
what it is to be a church in whom Christ finds no fault ~ not perfect, because
there is no such thing, but obedient, working out their salvation with fear
& trembling ~ & loyal. How God
values loyalty! Churches & people
who do not compromise, who do not commit adultery with the world, who are not
ashamed of Christ. May we strive to be a
church like Philadelphia!
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