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Churches of Revelation#6 - Philadelphia
March 2006 • Chris Rowney
These messages are also available as audio podcasts at www.tcfnet.org.au/podcasts
QUICK RECAP…
Ephesus: Return to the first love
Smyrna: Endure through Suffering
Pergamum: Remain True to the name (character) of Christ.
Thyatira: Not tolerating things opposed to God’s Kingdom
Sardis: Reality not reputation – wake up!
And Now to Philadelphia…
Of all the churches, this ones name at least is probably familiar, from its name sake in the USA –
It means ‘city of brotherly love’ and is named for an earlier King and his brother, and the relationship they shared.
The story goes that when the King was away he was feared to have died, and the younger brother was crowned in his place, but he then willingly relinquished the crown when the older brother returned.
“7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no-one can shut, and what he shuts no-one can open.
8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no-one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars--I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.
10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.
11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no-one will take your crown.
12 Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name.
13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Revelation 3:7-13, NIV.
Unlike Sardis last time I preached on this series, which had nothing good said about it, Philadelphia is the opposite, Jesus has only praise for this church.
I know your deeds, Jesus says, as he has 5 times before, and this time there is no BUT..
Though the church has only a ‘little strength’ (were they a small group?) they had remained faithful, and it would seem had not succumbed to some of the sins that had entered into some of the surrounding churches.
From what is written we can assume that the established Jewish community in the City had turned against these Christians, and in rejecting the claims that Jesus was the Messiah they awaited,… they also rejected the newly formed group of Christian believers, and probably made life a bit hard for them. So Jesus assures them that the truth they believe will be made known even to those who oppose them in the end…
Before moving to the main theme for today, the next couple of verses mention a time of trial, . Some people associate this with the ‘tribulations’ mentioned in some of the other letters to the churches, and elsewhere in the New Testament. So I want to spend a minute teaching a bit about how to interpret and understand the Bible…
Verse 10 promises to keep this group from the ;’hour of trial’ to come..
Revelation is most commonly read and taught by people wanting to explain and map out the end of the world – the second coming of Jesus to close out history and usher in eternity…
It is widely taught that before the end of History, there will be an intense period of evil and persecution, or trouble and suffering called the ‘great tribulation’..
Now, whether there is or is not such a time is not my concern this morning.. but it is also widely taught that before this terrible time happens, the believers will be supernaturally removed from the earth, and the rest will be ‘left behind.. (a series of Christian movies is based on that idea…)
This particular verse is often used to teach that in the end there will be a terrible time of trouble and persecution, but that the faithful Christians will be ‘raptured’ (a word from the LATIN (EARLY ROMAN) translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16
“the Lord himself shall descend with a shout and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are still alive will be ‘caught up’ (Latin translation is raptured) with him.”
Personally, I am not convinced one way or the other about whether there will be an especially bad time of troubles immediately before Jesus comes again… there have certainly been some pretty bad times for some people already.. but maybe there will be a global simultaneous time of difficulty..
However, I do not think the Bible teaches us that we will be removed before that takes place.. if you want to ask me about that do so later, or pick up one of the sheets on the back table that briefly cover that issue…, And I also do not think this verse teaches that the readers will be ‘raptured’ away before any suffering comes.
For one thing, this is initially written to an actual group of Christians 1900 years ago – so for them at least I don’t think it promised they would be ‘raptured’ before jesus 2nd Coming –
I think the key for them and for us to understanding this is to see another place in the Bible that uses this phrase.
John 17:15 shows us Jesus praying,, and he says
“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil…”
“Keep them from” is the SAME GREEK WORDS as used in the letter we are looking at in Revelation.. and in this verse from Johns Gospel we are specifically told that they wont be taken out of the world but “kept within it!”
I think it actually means God keeping them in and through a coming time of persecution in their own era of History.
So as a result I DON”T think this verse can be used to teach that Christians will be raptured or removed from the world before some time of terrible tribulation.
WHAT WE ARE PROMISED is that AS WE HAVE ‘(like the Philadelphians) already endured patiently – we will be given strength and grace to continue.
We may not suffer all that goes on around us, we may be ‘kept from’ some of its effects – OR we may experience all that those around us do - .. just read about Rwanda, or China, or the Congo, or even the early church.. often believers undergo the same suffering as others around them sometimes even more…
BUT in either instance God will be with us and will KEEP US - preserve us TO ETERNAL LIFE…
As we have seen in previous letters, again Jesus urges the faithful to HOLD ON TO WHAT THEY HAVE…
And once more there is a promise to those who ‘overcome’ to those who continue in their faith – that they will be built into the temple of God ‘maybe this is where we say someone is a ‘pillar of the church” !!
?’’
And here I want to again take a little moment to teach something about how to understand and interpret Revelation and some other parts of the Bible.
Here the person is told they will be a pillar in the temple of God.
Yet in Rev 21:22 we read..
“22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”
Revelation 21:22, NIV.
If you grab a short piece of the Bible and try to pick it apart and build a doctrine on it, you can run into trouble when you look more widely, even within the same Bible book.
This just shows that we are NOT meant to think of Revelation as a documentary style description of things – as if a video camera was filming all the events of the end times and playing them back.
BUT that it uses word pictures to describe the indescribable – the type of relationship with God that awaits us.
That does NOT mean that the words are less true or less real or less literal, but that we read them properly to gain understanding of what their message is, and take that away rather than a faulty mental picture of things…
So here, whether there is a temple or not (and think about it, who wants to spend eternity holding up a roof!) the promise for those who believe is that they will belong to God and be part of what he is building,
An everlasting Kingdom of joy, peace and purity.
Of intimacy with God.. which bring me (AT LAST!) to the main thrust for this mornings message – the OPEN DOOR>
Verse 8, Jesus has placed before us an open door which no one can shut.
The open door in Revelation can mean Intimacy with God, being in His presence.. – as it does in Chapter 4 :1 “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
But there is another aspect of the ‘open door’ to be looked at today.
The open door of opportunity..
Quite a few places in the Bible we read about open doors…
(1 Corinthians 16:9) in Ephesus Paul wrote of a door opening…
“9 because a great door for effective work has opened to me, ….. and there are many who oppose me.”
1 Corinthians 16:9, NIV.
And again in Colossians..
“3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.
4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
5 Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.
6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Colossians 4:3-6, NIV.
And again in the second letter to the church at Corinth..
“12 Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me,”
2 Corinthians 2:12, NIV.
An open door – an opportunity ….
Paul prays that God would open that door for him.
Well here in Philadelphia Jesus tells the church that he HAS opened it and that no one will shut it!.
And I think that the Holy Spirit caused this to be in our Bibles because Jesus still places open doos before US here in torquay today..
What opportunities await us as a church, what opportunities await us as individuals?
When I hear people talk about life, and if they ever talk about regrets, it is not usually something they HAVE done that they talk of regretting, but something they have not done!
Some opportunity they did not take up, or that they missed
To trivialise it a bit they might say they regret ‘never having learnt the piano’ or ‘not seeing more of Australia while they could still travel”
Sometimes it is something like regretting not saying ‘I love you’ more to someone who has died..
Regret often hangs around with missed opportunities..
Do you remember last time I preached a couple of weeks ago? I spoke about “sins of Omission? That in a way is some of what a missed opportunity may be…
There are times that we complain not of missed opportunities, but of never having HAD the opportunity to do whatever…
The absence of opportunity can be a very stifling thing in your life.. but the presence of opportunities is like breathing fresh air.. it is invigorating and helps you to grow and develop..
AND WE AS A CHURCH HAVE OPPORTUNITIES BEFORE US.. – an OPEN DOOR WHICH CANNOT BE SHUT..
Something I find exciting about this open door, these opportunities is we don’t just find ourselves accidentally in front of them.
Jesus says he PLACED it there.
See, I have placed before you an open door that no-one can shut
That makes me think of a verse I often use here –
“10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10, NAS95.
Good works (opportunities) OPEN DOORS - which are prepared beforehand…
ARE PLACED BEFORE US
This is wonderful, it means things have been prepared!… we don’t just go in cold to a hard situation, the Holy Spirit has been working…
TCF has opportunities, you and I have opportunities, open doors
You know church people often use the phrase ‘an open door’ in terms of going somewhere or getting a new job or something like that – but it is much more everyday.. open doors are opportunities for sharing the good news, the presence and person of Jesus with people…
People you work with, travel with, people you regularly buy a coffee or stamps from.
There are opportunities to share the faith you have with other people.
BUT you need to take a few steps!
An Open door is still something YOU need to pass through.. that You need to take steps to do.
Remember the Ephesians verse, good works prepared in advance … “so that we may walk in them’!
Take steps to ‘realise’ (make real!) the good works, the opportunities, the open doors Jesus has prepared for you!
To naturally give away the faith you have, step one is to have a natural faith first!
Make sure God is in your life.. in the things you do be mindful of his presence with you, and talk with him during the day about what you are doing.
Then it is much more natural to talk to other people about him as well!
Other steps are to have other people in your life!… you probably have that already, but if not, make a choice to spend a few minutes advancing the relationships you have with some people. The person you pass walking, say more than three words next time, then a couple of sentences the time after that…
And to let them see Christ in you, by what you do and what you say…
An important step is ‘intentionality’ .. choose to do something that might bring people closer to God.
As I said earlier this year, make a choice to do some inviting.
Invite people to your home – to a church dinner – and to a church service.. I don’t mind which order you do that in, but Jesus has put open doors before us.
People that all you need to do is utter some words of invitation to.
They may say no the first time, they may say no the third time.. but they may say yes sometime!
Philadelphia meant brotherly love –surely brotherly love is what we should show towards the people we live among here in Torquay..
All that can happen if you walk though the door that is standing open before you, the opportunities jesus has placed in your life.
And we can start doing that Today!.
