He promised to keep them from the hour of testing. Under John's leadership, Grace Community Church's two morning worship services fill the 3,500-seat auditorium to capacity. It signified becoming one with the other person. At one time that temple was the social, administrative and commercial centre of the whole area. It was the deipnon ( G1173) that Christ would share with the man who answered his knock, no hurried meal, but that where people lingered in fellowship. The National Christian Council of Japan in a document found the distinctive difference of Christianity from all other religions in, "Man not seeking God, but God taking the initiative in seeking man." Behold, I stand at the door, and knock ( Revelation 3:20 ): Actually the church has put Christ on the outside. The Lord simply takes notice of these in His call. Let us first take the word rebuke. Nor is this all. Clearly such a position made it almost impregnable. It was all over with them, unless they judged themselves, and in the power of the Holy Ghost Christ regained His place. Gird up your loins and enter it. "Behold, I come quickly!" But the people of Philadelphia well knew what it was to receive "a new name.". They are waiting for Him expectantly without such an idea as His thief-like surprise. Life was lived in an atmosphere of insecurity. People will be willing to hear what you have to say, and, what is more, people will be converted by what you say, for God has set before you this open door, and no man can shut it. In A.D. 61 it was devastated by an earthquake; but so rich and independent were its citizens that they refused any help from the Roman government and out of their own resources rebuilt their city. "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." In A.D. 17 it was destroyed by an earthquake which devasted the area. Thy Word is truth. While, therefore, he had all that is properly Christian, he also had very special communications of another character for saints who will follow us at the end of this age. Revelation 3 - Jesus' Letters to the Churches (Continued) A. It is to be feared many are doing the same at this moment. He stands at the door of the human heart and knocks. Let us weigh a little more these remarkable words. This was an excellent spirit, and, when sanctified by the grace of the gospel, would render them an excellent church, as indeed they were, for here is no one fault found with this church, and yet, doubtless, there were faults in it of common infirmity; but love covers such faults. And are you not to walk as He? 46-50, 108-37; and Jeffrey Townsend, "The Rapture in Revelation 3:10," Bibliotheca Sacra 137:547 (July-September 1980):252-66.]. The overcomers in Philadelphia were promised future positions with Christ which appear to be described by the meanings of the names given to these two pillars. Now if there be in the state of Protestantism one thing more marked than another, it is that they always fall back on the world to deliver themselves from the power of the priest or the church. Thus the Lord was no longer fighting in defence of His own people, nor was He employing the enemy's hatred and persecution to nip in the bud or prune evil excrescences. It is the second of these words which is used here. "To you I say, the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not known this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden. The new name of Christ, the Mediator, the Redeemer, the captain of our salvation; by this it will appear under whose banner this conquering believer had enlisted, under whose conduct he acted, by whose example he was encouraged, and under whose influence he fought the good fight, and came off victorious. Nor is it confined to prophecy, for the same force holds good wherever symbol is employed. If people despise the truth possessed by those who are waiting for the Lord, they are in danger of falling into the awful condition that is here set forth. Moses is willing to be wiped out of the book which God has written, if by his sacrifice he can save his people from the consequence of their sin ( Exodus 32:32-33). As God bears testimony in his word to his own dear Son, believe that testimony; accept the Saviour whom he has given, and find immediate salvation: find it to-night. "I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.". It was not yet a question of coming out from the public body. Philadelphia, Titles And Claims ( Revelation 3:7-13 Continued). Revelation 2:17; Revelation 14:1; Revelation 19:12). (a) In the cities of Asia Minor, and in Philadelphia, when a priest died after a lifetime of faithfulness, men honoured him, by erecting a new pillar in the temple in which he had served and by inscribing his name and the name of his father upon it. Applying this to the present time, and our own circumstances, is it not most grave? Hence it is that the Lord introduces Himself to them as the Amen, the end of every thing human, where all the security is in the faithfulness of God. 9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. God's threat passed on by Nahum to the disobedient people was: "I will let nations look on your nakedness, and on your kingdoms shame" ( Nahum 3:5). People in Philadelphia well knew what security lay in a promise that "they would go out no more. I do not the least doubt that those who are commonly called the Waldenses and Albigenses, and others perhaps of similar character, are referred to here. Their works weren't complete. In Greek there are two words for true. How shall this great change be wrought? What is there to praise about keeping God's word? It is not simply clericalism now, nor persons holding the doctrine of Balaam; but a formal state of things, as the symbol of a woman regularly represents. The Greek for truly is Amen. Trench says: "The beginning of all true amendment is to see ourselves as we are." 290. In a very different form it is the topic of John everywhere: we may trace Him as going up to heaven, where Paul above all contemplated Him glorified; but John's task is ever to point to Christ in connection with what He was here below. When John wrote his letter to Sardis, it was wealthy but degenerate. The persecutions in the Roman empire would furnish abundant occasions for such a trial. Those who are holding to the Word of God. I am miserable, wretched, lost if the doctrines of grace be not true. It mass-produced cheap outer garments. The word translated "sup" is deipnein ( G1172) and its corresponding noun is deipnon ( G1173) . Laodicea, The Claims Of Christ ( Revelation 3:14-22 Continued). And this is seen to be the occasion of the letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna. Thirdly, This will, by the grace of Christ, soften the hearts of their enemies, and make them desirous to be admitted into communion with them. "Alas," said one minister to me, "I see some of my best people becoming sceptical; are you not worried by seeing the thoughtful ones drifting off into new views?" The condemnation of Laodicea begins with a picture of almost crude vividness; because the Laodiceans are neither cold nor hot, they have about them a kind of nauseating quality, which will make the Risen Christ vomit them out of his mouth. We long to know Your truth. The hour of temptation shall come upon all the habitable world, "to try them that dwell upon the earth," be they where they may. Laodicea, The Wealth That Is Poverty ( Revelation 3:14-22 Continued). Where was the endurance of hope? Though others fall, you shall not; though you may be afflicted with others, yet you shall have grace to sustain you. There is positive evidence of the most convincing and satisfactory kind for the insertions, omissions, or changes, which may be mentioned from time to time. But there must first be a retrospective notice, in which the Lord would pronounce His judgment of that which bore the name of Christendom here below. Who then can escape? Because thou hast kept the word of my patience - My word commanding or enjoining patience; that is, thou hast manifested the patience which I require. Now, dear friend, perhaps hitherto you have been perfectly satisfied with holding the truth with all your might, and being faithful to it in private and in your own daily life. "To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? I hold one single sentence out of God's word to be of more certainty, and of more power, than all the discoveries of all the learned men of all the ages. If anything is to be rescued from the impending ruin of the Church in Sardis the Christians there must wake from their deadly lethargy and watch. the beginning of the creation of God ( Revelation 3:14 ); Or who was in the beginning of God's creation. Oh, that they would cease to display their own thought, their own cleverness, and individuality. It has two aspects of meaning. Here we have to remark that Christ is seen in a judicial point of view. These terrible days in Philadelphia were never wholly forgotten, and people in it ever waited subconsciously for the ominous tremors of the ground, ready to flee for their lives to the open spaces. The King James and Revised Standard Versions speak of eye-salve. They had little strength, but they kept God's word, and they did not deny his name. The combination of the verb and the preposition in Greek in this verse clearly means that He would keep them out of it (the pretribulation position). But that which ye have already hold fast till I come." And I will kill her children with death." Verse Revelation 3:10. Revelation 1:1; Revelation 1:7; Revelation 2:16; Revelation 22:7; Revelation 22:12; Revelation 22:20; 2 Peter 3:8). Solomon made shields of gold, which were borne before the king when he went into the house of the Lord; but Rehoboam took away the shields of gold, and put shields of brass in their place. This meaning is particularly appropriate for Philadelphia. He "ought himself also so to walk even as he (Christ) walked." (iii) Jesus Christ will write upon the faithful Christian the name of his God. Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, perfect one" (SS 5:2-6). Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found your works (complete) before God ( Revelation 3:2 ). Truth is the jewel for which all believers must be ready to die. (iv) There is the command to watch. "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would that. Yet Christ says that because some of His people have been keeping His command to persevere, He will keep them from the worst of it. The church in Ephesus tried these pretended apostles, specially the angel, as one that helped them much by grace from the Lord. At night with a band of brave men he climbed the steep cliffs. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy ( Revelation 3:4 ). Possibly if they had felt stronger they might have presumptuously quitted the word of the Lord for the opinions of men, as the Galatians did, and then they would have lost their reward. The old saying is true: "Fate is what we must do; destiny is what we are meant to do." To the north of that plain rose the long ridge of Mount Tmolus; from that ridge a series of hills went out like spurs, each forming a narrow plateau. Sardis, The Threefold Promise ( Revelation 3:1-6 Continued). Though few and small and weak your bands. Simultaneously with this of course there was the introduction of all kinds of compromise with the world. ", Come you, then, and search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Christ and let it not be said that you will not come unto him that you might have life. He who is first is necessarily God; and He who is first, being God, must certainly be last. It is not that the time is actually come so that we must go through all or any part; but the time is at hand. In the Sunday-school there are little children that you will be the means of bringing to Christ if you take a class; and out at the street corners there are folks that you will turn to the Saviour if you have but the courage to stand up and preach. In the sentence, "You have kept my word, and have not denied my name," both the verbs are in the aorist tense, which describes one definite act in past time; and the implication is that there had been some time of trial out of which the Philadelphian Church had emerged triumphantly true. Keep to the truth, and the modern school will give you a wide berth. Some taught the gospel very quietly in their own family circle, and so kept it. The Lord was pleased to afflict after the declension from apostolic purity, and above all from first love. If the thought of the age happens to be right, well and good; but it is not upon temporary opinion that we rest. The Roman Christians are men who have been brought from death to life ( Romans 6:13). I should like to see a few more of such Protestants. In short, as the book itself afterwards shows that the church will be on high outside the scene of its varied troubles and inflicted judgments, so the motive assigned in the preface is of a strikingly holy nature, adapted to those who walk by faith, not by sight, and free from all selfish considerations "for the time is at hand." (iii) He is he who has the key of David, who opens and no man will shut, who shuts and no man opens. "I have not found thy works perfect before my God. (ii) The one impossible attitude to Christianity is neutrality. Laodicea was so proud of the garments it produced that it never realized it was naked in the sight of God. The Risen Christ urges it to buy white raiment from him. Our last point was to be A WORD OF PROMISE; for, according to the tenth verse, it is written, "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." Holy is the description of God himself "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts," was the song of the seraphs which Isaiah heard ( Isaiah 6:3). That is my only hope. It has been said that an author can write a good biography if he loves his subject or hates him but not if he is coldly indifferent. Those who keep the gospel in a time of peace shall be kept by Christ in an hour of temptation. The duty itself: "Hold fast that which thou hast, that faith, that truth, that strength of grace, that zeal, that love to the brethren; thou hast been possessed of this excellent treasure, hold it fast." Revelation 3:10. Revelation 1:1-3 indicates the judgment of which this book is about, was to come soon, for the time is at hand. You shall be offensive to them, or they to you, and you shall soon part company." Remember also that it is so much to the increase of brotherly love to have a clear eye to see the imperfections of our friends. [5.] But before the Spirit of God could fitly launch him into the visions of the future, there must be a retrospective glance. It is expressly so taught in John's own gospel. He puts His voucher on the book from the beginning. It [ Rev 3:10] is a promise, not to all the church, but to a certain clearly-defined portion of itthose who keep the doctrine of Christ's second advent, and its hope of rapture. I warrant you if you get faith into your soul, and the word becomes your joy and comfort, you will never let it go. Hence what judges Protestantism is this, that they have the testimony of God's word much more fully than those who had sunk into the mere ecclesiastical formalism of the middle ages. The emphasis of his pulpit ministry is the careful study and verse-by-verse exposition of the Bible, with special attention devoted to the historical and grammatical background behind each passage. It is not a new thing for God thus to set out the strongest contrasts by the same inspired writer. Surely love can go no further than that. You might as well establish another religion on Mother Goose rhymes or something, or Aesops Fables. That which had produced the mighty results was no longer active, nor could be. This indifference can be broken down only by the actual demonstration that Christianity is a power to make life strong and a grace to make life beautiful. Point of view the door of the Holy Ghost Christ regained His place with others, you... Something, or they to you, and they did not deny His name. `` is! Translated `` sup '' is deipnein ( G1172 ) and its corresponding noun is (... 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