To Philadelphia: I Will Reward You for Not Denying My Name

I took a break last week from the sermons on the churches. We're going to go back today to the sermons on the seven churches of Revelation. So far, we've talked about the church in Ephesus, in Smyrna, in Pergamum, in Thyatira, and Sardis. Each one of these churches developed differently. Each one of these churches had their own set of problems and strengths and weaknesses. I mean, Thyatira had basically absorbed huge amounts of paganism.

They were a paganized church. Sardis is very interesting because it appeared to be a good, healthy church, but it was a dying church. Christ condemns them greatly for being a dying church. He gives the reasons why. We covered that two weeks ago. What is it like to be a dying church? Sandwich between Sardis and Laodicea, which has a very serious set of problems. There's Philadelphia.

Now, Philadelphia has some problems too, but it's different than those two other churches. There's something we need to learn from Philadelphia that's going to help us to understand the problem in Laodicea. When we go through Laodicea, I think you'll look at it a little different in some ways than you have in the past. There is actually a book in the Bible that was specifically told for the Laodiceans to read. We'll have to look at that letter. It was a letter by Paul, and it was told. You make sure the Laodiceans read this letter. So we're going to have to look at that letter and say, what is in that letter that was a problem in Laodicea? It was a problem in Colossae. So, okay, there's a similar problem in those two churches. Philadelphia is different than the other of the six churches in one way in that it was a young city. Remember how we talked about many of those cities existed for 500 years, one of them for a thousand years? These were old cities. These were cities that people had lived in for generation after generation after generation. We talked about Smyrna. Alexander the Great had conquered Smyrna when he went through, which was centuries before this time. Philadelphia was probably about 150 years old as a city. It was not a great center of congress, like Ephesus. Although it seems that the average person was rather wealthy, it was not a great market city. It wasn't on the coast. It was actually on a on a plain, an open plain. It had its share of pagan temples, like all cities did in Asia Minor. Asia Minor was a very rich area for the Roman Empire, but it didn't have any great cults there.

So many of the cities that we've gone through had maybe a specific god or goddess. That was their cult. You know, in Ephesus, it was Artemis, you know, in Diana. That was the cult. That so many of the people came from all over the world to worship her there. People, you didn't go to Philadelphia to worship some specific god or goddess. They, you know, they had temples to everybody and it was just sort of a normal city. There was only one thing that was sort of uniquely known for, well, there's another thing. They, I guess they grew really good grapes in the valley around them. I read that someplace, but what they were really known for that we know is that it was built as a city in order to be an example of Greek culture.

In other words, it was supposed to be this is what a good Greek city would look like.

Educated, Greek was the primary language, and it did have an influence on the spreading of Greek culture throughout Asia Minor. But I'd say to that there's nothing about Philadelphia that you would say, oh wow, this is a this was a great city of the day. Another thing it was known for was earthquakes. In 17 AD, so there were people alive who had been children, you know, they were alive when Paul wrote this, would have been children. There was an earthquake that just about destroyed Philadelphia. And it's interesting that Philadelphia throughout that valley there were lots of little villages around it. And some historians have come to the conclusions and archaeologists, there was lots of little villages because there were so many aftershocks and so many buildings were falling down, it was safer to live outside the city. You know, you could work in the city, you come into the city to do your grocery shopping, so to speak, but you wanted to live outside because it was sort of dangerous to live in the city. So it wasn't, you know, like so many cities, they're almost like a city state back then. You had the city and then the surrounding area around it, people would flow in and out of that city as their center of commerce and culture.

Let's look at what the message to the Philadelphians are, or is.

And you have to really look at this. There's something very subtle about what Jesus Christ, who remembers Jesus Christ, who is the head of each one of these churches. And it is Jesus Christ that's giving the message as the head of the church. He's speaking to each church, and He has warnings. He has judgments on them. And look what Jesus says in verse 7.

So we have this messenger, this angel, and the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, these things says He, so this is what Jesus Christ is saying, He who is holy, He who is true, He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens.

So it's interesting, in each of these congregations, Christ sort of reveals something specific about Himself, almost like that's really important for these people. And what He said here is really important for the Philadelphians. So when you look through this, and we've been touching on it, everyone we go through, there's something from Jesus Christ as He gives a message to each one of these congregations. He's saying, this is who I am in relationship to you. And here He talks about the key of David. Key of David is a term that comes from a verse in the Old Testament. We have a situation in the Old Testament. Hezekiah is the king of Judah. And there's a Shebna, his name. Shebna is a high-ranking official. I've seen him referred to as sort of almost like a secretary of state. He's a high-ranking official in Judah under Hezekiah. And God is upset with him because of his pride. And God, because God is the ruler over Judah and Israel, and this is real important, God is their ruler. He's their sovereign. Because of that, He's going to remove a member of the government. So let's go to Isaiah 22, and look how this is used. Isaiah 22.

Because you think, why? He uses this key of David. There's all kind of speculation of what that means. But it's very, when we look at how it's used here, it becomes quite clear. So let's pick it up in verse 15. Thus says the Lord God of hosts.

Whenever God reveals himself as the Lord of hosts, you're in trouble. Because that means the Lord of armies. In other words, there's power behind this. When He reveals Himself as the God of grace, as the God of mercy, and then every once in a while, I am the Lord of hosts. There's power behind what I'm saying. So this has to do with a government official who He's not happy with.

Go proceed to the steward, to Shebna, who is over the house, and say, what have you done here? And whom have you here? That you have hewed a sepulcher here, as He has hewed himself on high, who carves a tomb for himself in a rock. What He'd done is He'd built some kind of monument to Himself to be His grave. When He died, He was going to go down in the history of Judah. They may not remember the kings, but they would remember Him because there was going to be a monument to Him.

I guess it's who are you to build a tomb for yourself as a monument so that when you die, everybody remembers you? Indeed, verse 17, the Lord will throw you away violently, O mighty man, and will surely seize you, and He will turn violently and toss you like a ball into a large country.

There you shall die, and there your glorious chariot shall be the shame of your master's house. In other words, your trust in your own army is even going to be a shame to the kings of Judah. And I will drive you out of your office and from your position, and He will pull you down. Verse 20, then it shall be of that day I will call my servant, Eliakim, the son of Healkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe and strengthen him with your belt, and I will commit your responsibility into his hand, and he shall be the father of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder, so he shall open and no one shall shut, and he shall shut and no one shall open. So here we have him saying, I'm replacing you with someone else. And the key of David, the door that's open, no one will shut, is authority that's coming from God.

Now remember, it is Jesus who says, He has the key of David. I've seen people, human beings, take that passage and say, I have the key of David. The key of David in Revelation is Jesus Christ saying, He hasn't.

Okay? So God says here, the key of David is a term that shows that God is working someplace, that God is the sovereign. God was in charge of Judah. He was showing them by replacing who He wanted in order to carry out His will. Now we also know in the book of Revelation, or Isaiah, if you just go back to Isaiah 10, and we won't read all of it.

But there's in Isaiah 10 is a prophecy about how God, through David and David's family, starts with Jesse. And through David, He is going to bring about the Messiah who will rule the earth, and He will be a son of David. So the key of David has to do with where God is ruling on earth at time and who He's ruling through. It has to do with who God is ruling through at any given time and what He's doing through them.

The important thing here is it really has to do with where God is doing. The key of David is what God is doing. It's the authority of God. Look at something that Jesus said in Matthew 16. Now there's a lot in these few verses, and I'm not going to get into all of it. I mean, we could spend a half hour just going through these few verses, explaining what they mean and delving into the implications of all this.

I just want to bring out one point. I want to zero into one point here. Matthew 16. In verse 13, so we understand why Christ says when He says, When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, Who do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. In other words, they were starting to believe He was someone resurrected from the dead because of the power, because of what God was doing through Him, because they could see that He wasn't just a normal person.

He was doing miracles and the way He was preaching. And He said to them, But who do you say that I am? He says, Okay, this is what other people are saying about me. Jesus says, Who do you say, my disciples? And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. It's interesting. You'll find another story of the Gospels where He asked this question, and all the disciples said, Oh, we know who you are.

You're the Messiah. You're the Son of God. We know that. Here, just Peter blurts it out first. We know who you are. And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

Now, exactly what that verse means takes a lot of explanation, but that's not what I was iterated on. The important thing is, He's explaining, I'm building a church. I'm doing something different.

This is a group of called-out ones. This isn't just, I'm working through the physical descendants of Abraham, known as Israel. I'm doing something different now. They didn't even understand what he was doing. He would explain it to him throughout his ministry. This is a flock. I have other flocks that you don't even know about. Flocks that aren't even like you that I'm going to bring together. He's starting the church.

And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind in earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven. In other words, I'm giving to the church the privileges and the responsibilities of having Jesus Christ rule over it. I'm giving to the church. Now, this has been used to to try to prove that the Pope is the only person on the earth that God is working through and has led to abuses beyond imagination. This isn't what that means. What it is is that Jesus Christ is saying, remember what he says in Revelation, I have the key of David, which is the authority to rule. And he says here, I am going to be ruling in this church. In the church he's forming.

So there's people that have been called throughout the millennia for the last two thousand years to come into and under the rulership of Jesus Christ. And the church in Philadelphia is told, you understand, you know, who am I? I'm the one who has the key of David.

Now, once again, he's not talking there about, okay, authority. No, this person has the key of David. This person has the key of David. Jesus Christ has the key of David. The church in Philadelphia recognized Jesus Christ as over their church.

That's important to understand. When we get to lay in the sea, you're going to see something different.

They recognized, they understood Jesus Christ was over their church. Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Paul calls him the head of the church.

You know, Wednesday night, you know, I try not to make too many political comments, but I have to say this. Wednesday night, you know, turn on the TV and I'm watching the Capitol be stormed by a mob. That's never happened. That's never happened in the history of the United States. Now, there's been protests and attempts to take over parts of Washington, D.C. I mean, there was a protest by World War I veterans one time because they weren't getting their pensions, and they sent in the army to clear them out. I can't remember the president who did that. That was the late 1920s, early 1930s. During the Great Depression, there were times where people protested by building shanty towns on parts of Washington, D.C., and they would bring in police to clear them out. But never has there been a mob that actually breached the Senate. That's never happened. A sitting Senate. But as I'm watching it, and people were saying to me, I'm so surprised, I'm thinking, why? I mean, I told my wife in the last three or four months, sooner or later, there's going to be some violence against Washington or against some place by people of a certain mindset. We've been watching violence by people of another mindset.

I wasn't surprised.

And here's why. The United States of America has been blessed by God. The United States of America has been given physical blessings from God, and we had this book.

By having this book, we understood certain things, and it's given us blessings. I mean, when you do anything in this book that God tells you to do, there's some good from it.

But the United States, through all those blessings, has done great good, and it's done great evil. All you have to do is read American history.

But you know what it's never been? It has never been ruled over by Jesus Christ.

Never. Jesus Christ does not rule in the United States of America. He never did. He never will. Jesus Christ rules in His church.

When He came, He came to rule in His church. Now, we've been through a whole lot of looking at different churches or studying these churches, and you know what? We find that most of them Christ wasn't ruling in the way He was supposed to, right? Philadelphia, He seems to be ruling there because He has the key of David. They recognize it. I mean, if you believe that President Trump or President Biden are led by Jesus Christ, you know nothing about biblical Christianity.

I know I said that. I know that's going out on the YouTube, and boy, why get emails for that. But you know what? It's not truth. It's not truth. If you think either of them are being led by Jesus Christ, I don't even know how to talk to you. But the church is where Christ is supposed to be ruling. He doesn't rule the nation, so He comes back, and then He rules over all of them. He comes back as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Right now, He's the head of the church.

And this is where He's supposed to be ruling. And unfortunately, in the history of the church, throughout His history, there's been times when we have not allowed Christ to rule in His church the way He's supposed to. It's the word and the wonder He deals with this at all. That's what's so scary about Sardis, remember? He said they could be blotted out of the Book of Life when we get to Laodicea. They have a condemnation that if they don't repent, they will be thrown out of His church, which means He will not be involved in their lives anymore. That's a scary thing. That's a frightening statement.

The message of Philadelphia is important for us to understand, and it's all predicated on the understanding who is the key of David. It is Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ. We are to have Him rule in us. Now, we go back to Revelation. Well, that's my only political comment for that. I try to stay away from political comments, but sometimes you just can't. Verse 8.

He says, I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, that no one can shut it, for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name.

An open door. It's interesting. There's two places in Corinthians. One of first and second Corinthians. There's a place in Acts, and I'll go to the one in Colossians, where it talks about God giving the early church an open door. And all of them, it means the same thing. Colossians 4. Colossians 4. Paul says, he writes to the Church of Colossae, Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the Word to speak the mystery of Christ. In Philadelphia, we don't know how it worked. We don't know what happened. It might have been just through personal example. But that church had an open door where they were spreading the gospel. They were spreading the knowledge of the Bible in a way that you don't see actually in some of the churches mentioned.

I mean, poor Smyrna seems to have spread it. Remember, they were all persecuted.

Smyrna was a despised congregation that was persecuted and had to live in poverty. But here you have some kind of success in which they are spreading the Word. There's some kind of interaction with the church, with the community that works. That's very rare in the New Testament church.

And so they had a door open. And then he says, you have a little strength, which means that, okay, they weren't a super wealthy church. They didn't have lots of resources. You just have a little strength, but you have some strength. God's working with them.

He says, you have kept my Word. You kept it. You didn't give it up. Philadelphia is not condemned for false doctrine, but neither is Laodicea. Theotyradel. You wouldn't even recognize that as a true Christian church. It was a mess. He says, there's only a few here that even are Christians still.

But Philadelphia kept the Word.

And then he says, you have not denied my name. That is real important. It is very personal. He didn't say you haven't denied God. Okay. Remember, this is Jesus Christ talking first person. He says, you haven't denied my name. See, they recognize that Christ was the head of their church and they did not deny who he is. They did not deny him. How could a church deny Jesus Christ? I mean, how could we deny Jesus Christ? I mean, we believe in Him. We talk about Him. I've got a sermon I'm thinking of working on. It was a video I watched this week of a person, a pastor who had a 10,000 person church and quit and doesn't even know the man or woman, his wife, if they believe in God. And it's because all their lives, they lived as Christians, and they lived perfect lives, and they had all these blessings. And one day, they couldn't have a child. And the entire congregation said, you just don't have enough faith. There must be something wrong with you. And they realized their whole relationship with God was, it was a contract. We obey you, you give us things. We obey you, you give us things. And when that didn't work, they decided that Christianity doesn't work. Interesting concept. A lot of people have that concept.

How do we deny Jesus Christ? Okay, are we going to do that? Well, no. How do we deny Him?

I mean, nobody's holding a gun to our head saying, deny Him. You know, we're not under that kind of duress. Let me talk about three ways we can deny Jesus Christ. First of all, we can deny Jesus Christ because we deny His Lordship over us. You know, if God put Him as the head of the church, He is now our Lord of Lords.

Yeah, when we pray, we go directly to the Father because Christ takes us to the Father. You know, in certain Protestant parts of the Protestant world, they emphasize Jesus Christ so much that it's almost like the Father doesn't exist. I've had people literally tell me, both Catholics and Protestants, that have come into our church over the years, that have said, it's like you opened a door. It's like I didn't even realize the Father was there or that I could go to Him. Of course, Catholics will say that because they thought they had to get there through Mary. It's like, wow, Christ takes us there. Yes, that's where He wants us to go. But that doesn't mean He is just sort of an observer of what's going on. Jesus Christ is personally involved. He is our Lord of Lords. Whereas I like to say every once in a while, boss, I've got a problem in the church and I can't fix it. What do you want me to do?

I hope there's a fitting about it. Yeah, sometimes I call Him boss. I mean, what am I supposed to do here? Right? You're my Lord. God put you in charge and I'm pretty stupid. So what am I supposed to do?

How do we take care of people? How do we keep people together in the COVID crisis or in a deteriorating society, which it's only going to get worse? Once again, I'm not trying to be pessimistic because, you know, I'm happy. I mean, not every minute of every day, but I'm a happy person. But I tell you what, this society isn't going to get any better. As far as Christianity goes, true Christianity. Boss, how do we do this? How do we stay together? How do we do this? How do we keep people focused on the Father? Philippians 2. A couple of very well-known scriptures here, but I want to think about it in terms of looking at these a little different in terms of, can we deny Jesus Christ and not even know it? The church at Philadelphia didn't fall into these traps. Verse 5 of Philippians chapter 2. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has also highly exalted him. Now, we need to always remember this.

We always need to remember how we got where we are.

The Sabbath to us is something special because God gave it to us. And we look at other people and we think, why can't you see the Sabbath? Why can't you understand it? It's so obvious. This is a blessing from God. But always remember, you and I didn't come to that of ourselves. We're not that smart.

We're Sabbath keepers because God gave it to us. Now, we have to respond.

Our responsibility is to respond. If we don't respond, you know, God isn't going to force us. But the important thing is we've got to remember how we got here. So we never deny Him. Therefore, God also has highly exalted Him, Jesus Christ, and given Him a name, and which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. If we want to glorify God, we must bow to Jesus Christ. And we'll do that at the Passover. That's only a few months away. And we're going to bow to Jesus Christ at the Passover.

Why? We glorify Him, but we glorify the Father. I mean, Jesus said, if you don't glorify Me, but He said, if you don't honor Me, you're not honoring the Father. And if you don't honor the Father, you're not honoring Me. That's interesting. We can't choose here. We know the Father is the focal point because Christ makes Him that. But He's not just a bystander of what's going on. He is our Lord. We have to understand what that actually means. Oh, yeah, yeah, we know He's the Lord. No, no, no, we don't. The Church of Philadelphia did.

And He was the Lord in their lives. Once again, you say, oh, I'm not trying to take this where certain evangelicals take it where they ignore the Father. Christ won't let us do that. He won't let us do that. But we can't shove Him over here either. We're in real trouble. We're in real trouble. So we deny Jesus by denying His Lordship over our lives. Second way is we deny Christ as our Savior by refusing to live as someone who has received forgiveness through His sacrifice. God, the mighty God, has forgiven us through the sacrifice of His Son. And we deny Jesus Christ when we ever say, well, no, my sins are too bad for God to forgive. Yeah, I know I would dedicate my life more to God, but how I can remember is about all the things I did in the past. If we do that, we're denying the power of Jesus Christ as our Savior. Or, oh, Jesus forgave me, oh, I have the grace of God. I can do whatever I want. That's denying Jesus as the Savior, too, because we make His sacrifice meaningless. Oh, yeah, He'll just apply it to my sins, so it doesn't matter what sins I have. Oh, you talk about a spit in the face of Jesus Christ. We deny Him. We can't deny Jesus Christ by one living in our past sins so that we never can get over them and accept the forgiveness of God or do the opposite. You know, God's forgiven me, and by His grace, I don't have to do anything else. Both of those are denying of Jesus Christ. They're denying Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. Once again, I'm not going through any scriptures that we haven't read many, many times here today, but they all have to do with understanding the Church of Philadelphia and the Key of David and who that is. 2 Corinthians 5, 16.

Well, it would be good to get 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5. And verse 16.

Therefore, for now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Verse 17. Therefore, this is the important part. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. See? We can't say, I'm stuck in my sins. I can't get over my sins. I can't. I can never move past my sins. I can never get over the guilt of my past. We can carry terrible things for a long time, can't we? Sometimes we have this idea, okay, something you run into every once in a while. 30 years ago, I committed an abortion. God can't forgive me of that. It's so wrong. Yes, He can. But He forgives me. That means it's all right. No, it means He forgives you. That's the whole power of forgiveness. You can't be made right. You can't make what you did right. You can't change it. You can't overcome it. You have to accept. God says, that doesn't matter to me anymore because Christ sacrifices in your stead.

Now, you have to be a new creature. See, what happens is we won't accept forgiveness, so we stay the old person. If we stay the old person, we're denying Jesus Christ as Savior. If we stay the old person, we're denying Jesus Christ as Savior. Old things have passed away, Paul says. Behold, all things have become new. Now, all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. We are now reconciled to God and we become His children, and sins are forgiven.

We can't deny Christ as Savior. And then one third other way that we deny Jesus Christ. And this is what we can do really unwittingly. What we do is we choose relationships with other people that cause us to… well, actually what we do is we choose relationships with other people over our relationship with Christ as the head of the church and as our brother and as our Savior and as the King of Kings.

In other words, friendships or other relationships are more important than God and our commitment to Jesus Christ. And we can do that subtly all the time by letting other people influence us so that they become more important than God. We find an excuse not to follow God's way because of these other people, whether it's family or friends or people at work, whatever. They give us the excuse not to be what we're supposed to be or do what we're supposed to do.

Remember what Jesus Christ said, if you don't love me more than mother, sister, brother, father, if you don't love me more than your own life also, you cannot be my disciple. He meant that. He's not talking about love towards the Father. He draws us to love the Father. He mentions Himself. He says, if you don't love me more than every other person in your life, including yourself, you're not going to end up being my disciple. Now, I have to tell you, I have struggled with loving Jesus Christ more than me because I really love me. But, you know, that's the whole point, isn't it? At some point, this is about saying, wait a minute, I've got to give something up here. Or I'm just going to ruin my life and everybody's life around me by loving me too much. Now, it doesn't mean we're supposed to despise ourselves, but we're supposed to despise the sin we see in us. Okay, there's part of us, we really look at ourselves as Christians. There's part of us that's like, oh, that's pretty ugly. It should be ugly. But we're not to go around hating ourselves because why? Because God is saving us. That's why. Because God has poured His Spirit into our lives so that we can become somebody else. We are new creations, as we just read. That's the excitement of Christianity is, I didn't have to say the same old jerk I've always been. I can be somebody else. I can become somebody else through the power of God. That's the power of it.

That's the power of it. Now, we have to submit to God and we won't do it. We end up denying Him, and we end up denying Jesus Christ because we let our relationships with other people.

That's what's so hard for a younger person and which relationships are so important. And sometimes, it's like, well, I go to college or I go to school or at my work or just in the neighborhood or in the apartment complex. There's people here I can associate with that I'm with a whole lot more than the few people I'm with at church. And those influences become so great because we're designed to be social. That's not like it's evil. We're designed to be social. The problem is we have to be real, real careful not to let those people become more important than God our Father and our Lord and brother Jesus Christ.

Or we can end up denying Jesus Christ. We're still coming to church, but we're actually denying Jesus Christ.

Let's go back now to Revelation 3.

And look at the last comments that John makes or Jesus makes.

He says in verse 9, And indeed I will make those in the synagogue of Satan, those who say they are Jews and are not, but lie, and indeed I will make them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.

Once again, the Jews here may literally refer to literal Jews who were persecuting them. There was a large Jewish community throughout the Roman Empire. Some estimates are that they were anywhere from 8 to 10 percent of the entire Roman Empire were Jews, because every major city had a Jewish population. So out of 60 million people, there may have been as many as 60 to 80 million people at the height of the Roman Empire, 6 to 8 million of them may have been Jews. That's remarkable.

That's why every place you go in the New Testament, it seems like the Jews have an influence on society because they're congregated in the big cities. They become business people and bankers, and that's who they were outside of Judea. It may have been Jews that were persecuting. Some have looked at this and said, well, maybe it was actually some Christian group that's persecuting them. We don't know. But they were facing persecution, too. Being in Philadelphia didn't mean, oh, everything was just fine. You know, because Christ says, I want them to know I love you. That's a great statement every Christian wants.

When Christ says, yeah, I want other people to know I love you. But they were being persecuted. They were having hard times. Now, they weren't being killed, it seems like, like in Smyrna. You know, they weren't suffering that level of persecution, but they were going through hard times. They had to persevere. It wasn't easy all the time. Sometimes we say, oh, well, that church is going to be easy all the time. No, it was hard to be a Christian at times in Philadelphia.

It's always hard to be a Christian. It's always hard to be so odd because really, you are, wherever you are, one of the few people where Jesus Christ is your king.

Jesus Christ is the one ruling your life.

Because everybody else is being ruled by somebody else, right? Everybody else is being ruled by somebody else. He goes on, because you have kept my command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial, which will come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. Now, once again, there's a prophetic meaning to that, but we're just going through right now what it meant in the first century. Okay, the last sermon in the series. We'll look at some of the prophetic messages here.

Behold, I am coming quickly. Christ says He's coming to the church in Philadelphia quickly. But remember, He told that to Sardis and Ephesus. He tells all of them, I'm coming for you.

And it's going to be quick. It's not going to be exactly what you think it's going to be.

Then He says the only warning that He gives to the Philadelphians, Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.

Hold fast that no person can take your crown. That's interesting.

How can a person take your crown? Well, there's a couple ways.

I think of Jesus' parable where He said that my servants will say the Lord delays His coming, and they'll beat each other, and they'll begin to live sinful lifestyles. And He says the Lord will come at a time when they do not know or they're not prepared. I think of that right off. When I read this, ah, that's a great warning. There's a parable that fits right with this. We can lose the crown when we stop focusing on the return of Jesus Christ, and we start focusing on what's happening around us right now.

When we focus on all the problems happening around us right now, and we don't focus on Jesus Christ, we can let a person have us lose our crown. We can replace Jesus Christ with somebody else.

Somebody else is going to somehow give us some kind of salvation or save our country or save our lives.

We also can, this could be fulfilled, in that we can be offended by another person in the Church. More people I've seen throughout the years lose their connection with being part of a congregation and just go off and many times give up the truth, simply because they were offended by somebody in the congregation.

The bottom line is Christians are a pretty messy group.

And unless we can love each other because, why? God loves us. Christ shows us how to love each other. And even though sometimes we don't feel like it, we love each other.

But see, other people, we can't let them take our crown by letting us become bitter. We can't become bitter. Having us despise others in the Church, creating division in the Church. Those are all things that show that we're not focused on Christ as the head of the Church.

So the Church here is warned not to allow other people. Don't let somebody else take the crown that is waiting for you. It's the only warning given to Philadelphia. He goes on and finishes then, He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and I will write on him my new name. Wow, this is one of the longest positive promises made to any of the Churches. And he points way ahead, not to the Millennium, not to Christ's return to the Millennium, but beyond that, the Great White Throne Judgment. And after that, when New Jerusalem, at the end of Revelation, is brought down, New Jerusalem is brought down to earth, the very throne of God, it goes clear to them. He says, you're going to be there with God with that temple of God, the very throne of God is brought to earth. Well, there'll be a new heavens and a new earth. Satan will remove forever. He tells the people of Philadelphia, that's your goal. That's where you're going. That's where I'm going to take you. And then he says to them what he says to all the Churches. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches. All the Churches listen to this. No matter where, whoever got this message, and of course, this message has been read for almost 2000 years. And every Church is supposed to read every message. The Philadelphia Church here is one of the Churches that Christ commends greatly.

The only warning he gives them is, hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown. What a group! They're submissive to the rulership of Jesus Christ in their lives and in their congregation. They continue to go through the open door of preaching the Gospel, of telling others. They don't hide. They don't pull within themselves. They're telling others. They continue to persevere in the face of some difficulties, including persecution. And they don't allow others to lead them astray or to make them bitter so that they lose their crown. That's the Church in Philadelphia.

Christ ruled their hearts and minds. And they were prepared for Christ's return.

This is important for us to understand to emulate the Church in Philadelphia. To try to emulate that Church. But it also is very important for us to understand, as we will next time, when we get into what was the great problem. So I want to tell you something about the Church at Laodicea. It feels real good to be in that Church. It makes sense to be in that Church. It is attractive to be in that Church. And yet it has a great problem. And understanding Philadelphia will help us understand Laodicea.