I have a book. I hope I don't
have to read it. I want to thank you and your
pastor for inviting me here tonight. I've known about and prayed for
the work here almost since the beginning, but I've never had
the opportunity to come and visit with you. And there's a lot of
places in our country like that. I've known Gene Harmon out in
rescue forever. I've known him. But only recently
I went out there and got to meet his congregation and preach for
him. And the same for the folks in
San Diego. And like your pastor said, I've
known him from the time he was just a baby. I've known his daddy, and I've known his mother, and I knew his daddy's daddy,
and his wife, and a lot of their family. And I love them, I love
you, and it's been a a long and loving
relationship with the Stonikers. And I also want to thank God
for this opportunity to stand and speak for him. Older I get, the more he presses that on my
heart. And what it means to speak for
him And I pray tonight that the Lord
will give me his spirit to accompany the message and make my time
here a blessing to you. I don't want to be a disappointment.
I've had some of them over the years. I just, boy, had expectation
and nothing. So turn with me, if you will.
to the last book of the Bible, the revelation of Jesus Christ,
chapter three. I didn't plan this, I didn't
know this, but this morning I preached from Genesis one, from the first
book of the Bible. And I talked to him about the
beginning, and I talked to him about the beginning before the
beginning. Christ is the beginning. And you know the first thing
he told John on the Isle of Patmos? He said, I'm Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, and everything in between. Everything
in between. In chapters two and three, the
Lord himself dictates to John, his faithful servant, certain
things concerning the selection of these seven churches and certain
things concerning their problems, their works, their attitudes,
their faith, all of these things. These seven churches, if you
look at the map in the back of your Bible, and just start down
here on the Mediterranean, and kind of go up through here, and
you go all the way up there to the top, and then you start back
down the other side, and there's church after church after church
after church after church. But he only speaks to seven in
the book of Revelations. He carefully chose seven churches,
all of them in Asia, And I want you to look at these churches
tonight as kind of a cross-section of all his local churches, because
I'm persuaded that's exactly what he did. And in these seven
churches, and all that he had to say for them, he says to them
individually, he tells John, now you write, you write, to
their pastor. That's what that word means.
You write to their pastor. And you tell their pastor to
tell that church and give that church these words. Did you know
that that's how God speaks to his people, speaks to his churches?
Through his pastors. Through his pastors. First thing he told John, all
my pastors, all my stars, right here in my hand. They're mine.
I know them. I know who they are. I know who
they speak to. I called them. I equipped them.
And I'm going to use them. And I'll correct them. Not up
to me to correct them. To his own master, he standeth
and called us. He'll correct you. He'll correct
you. And he speaks to these churches
as individual churches. He writes, I had him to read
three of the seven to you tonight because I wanted you to see this.
He writes to these individual churches and he talks to them
about these individual problems. But then when he gets to the
end of the letter, he said, he that hath ear, hath an ear, you
know what that is, right? He that hath an ear, Let him
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. What churches? All the churches. Oh, you mean
all those churches back in that day? Mm-mm. All the churches
throughout the whole gospel age. Everything he says to all seven
churches, he's saying to you tonight. He gives them words of commendation,
rebuke, counsel, warnings, and instructions, all down through
here. And then he said, he that hath
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. So when he's talking to the church
at Ephesus and we read that, he's talking to me right here
tonight. When he's talking to the church
at Thyatira, he's talking to us tonight. Now this evening,
I just wanna focus our attention on the church at Philadelphia,
and in particular, what he has to say to them in Revelations
3.8. Philadelphia, according to historians,
was just a little congregation, just like this one. See, you
had it in your mind when you read that, boy, you pictured
this big old congregation. This was a tiny little congregation
just like this. I don't know what kind of building
they had. You can go on your computer. This is a lot of fun
if you're even interested in it. But you can go on there and
type in there Philadelphia, church at Philadelphia. And it'll tell
you the history of it. And you can read, I don't know,
eight or 10 sources on the history of it. And then you can type
in pictures of the church at Philadelphia, and they'll give
you a modern picture of Philadelphia, and they'll give you a picture
from the air of all the relics and everything that's left in
that city, and then they'll give you a projection with all those
relics that you're looking at down there, what they must have
looked like in the day. You say, what's that got to do
with anything? It sets the context, if you can picture in your mind,
It'll help you set the context of what our Lord's saying to
these people. You'll see what kind of condition they were in.
They weren't out here in the wilderness with nobody around
them. They were surrounded with idolatry. Temples, cathedrals,
synagogues. They were surrounded with idolatry. It was just a little congregation.
Probably no bigger than this one. And in the books that I
read, books that I would have some confidence in, they said
that this church had nobody in it that was famous or rich or
held any kind of great station in the city, yet the church did
not receive one single rebuke from our Lord. All the rest of
them did. This one didn't. Not one. You couldn't imagine
that, could you, if the Lord sent that letter to you and had
not one rebuke. Can you imagine? Just words of praise and encouragement
by our Lord. All we did was that. They were praised, why? Because they were faithful. Faithful in what? Well, they
were faithful in obedience to Christ. They were faithful in
their affections for one another, but especially here, what he's
talking about is that they were faithful in the ministry of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing turned them aside. There
was idolatry around them, there was religion around them, there
was satanic forces all around them, but they didn't turn aside. There was men trying to sneak
in unawares and trying to take away their peace and trying to
take away their hope and trying to take away their joy. They
would not be turned aside. That pastor preached to that
congregation, he loved that congregation, and he fed that congregation
Christ. Next week, he fed them Christ. The next week came, he fed them
Christ. He sent Christ before them, and
they ate it up. And you know what happened? They
got stronger. They got settled. They got established. And those men in that church
could not be turned aside. Could not. They were faithful.
Faithful in this thing of the ministry of the gospel. Everything
in their worship revolved around the gospel. Everything in their
songs revolved around the gospel. They didn't sing I'll Fly Away. They sang gospel honoring hymns,
Christ honoring hymns, and they prayed in consistency with that
revelation of Christ that he gave them in their hearts. That's
how they prayed. They didn't pray to some old
poor defeated reformer who couldn't give them what they want anyway.
They prayed to the sovereign Christ. The first message I brought over
at Paul's was this. Sanctify the Lord God in your
hearts. That's the only way you can serve
him. This church understood that. That pastor understood that.
And he pressed that home. The gospel was preeminent with
him. It was preeminent. Not church
discipline. He didn't take the whip and whip
him. He didn't beat him around with church duties and all this
kind of nonsense. He preached Christ to him. You
want your people here to serve Christ honorably? Preach Christ
to them. Just preach Christ. Love them
and preach Christ to them. When they stood up to read, they
read clear and concise Bible verses where the gospel was clearly
stated. And the pastors preached the
gospel to them. Now the verse I want us to look
at tonight is verse 8, Revelation 3, 8. He says, I know thy works. That makes me tremble, don't
you? I know thy works. Behold, I've set before thee
an open door. No man can shut it. For thou hast a little strength,
and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Now let's begin here. I know
thy works. What do you think he's talking
about? You think he's talking about tithing? You think he's talking about
church attendance? What kind of good works is he talking about?
I know thy works. In Ephesians chapter two, we
always look at verses eight and nine and we quote them, boy,
we know them by heart, don't we? But we seldom read the next
verse. The next verse says far, far. Here's how this is to be. Here's how this gets the faith,
it comes to you. This is how you're enabled to
believe. This is how you're enabled to receive the treasure. Far. You're my workmanship. My workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. which God hath before ordained
that you should walk in. What kind of work? Works that
nobody else can do. What can a believer do that nobody
else can do? Believe. Believe. You can't believe. You can't. I remember being so depressed. Oh, I wanted to believe. I wanted
to. Why can't you hold on to that?
I wanted to believe. You can't believe. But you know
what? When he enables you, you can
believe. You can believe. And when you
do, it'll be just as though God didn't do anything. God doesn't believe for you.
And it was you too. That's those good works. We're
ordained to walk in them. All God's people believe. Every
one of them. What else? What else? They love. He that loveth not does what? He don't know God. He don't know
God. A man who knows God loves. That's
those good works. Good works that God ordained
that we should walk in. What else? Repentance. You know
anybody else repenting other than believers? I don't. Believers
repent. Believers rejoice and worship
and love one another. Christ said, I know your works. I know your works. If you read and study the book
of James, I think you're gonna come to this conclusion that
the faith of God's elect is justified by God by your works. Now I'm not talking about you
being justified before God, I'm talking about your faith being
justified by works. All through there, what he talks
about. Who's doing this justifying you? Oh, no. God is. Here's how it is. God gives you
faith. This is my gift. By grace are
you saved through faith. That not of yourselves, it's
the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. God gives you this faith. And now he says to the devils
in hell and to all this religious work, He said, now I'm going
to prove to you that that's my faith. And boy, he put you through the
mill sometimes, don't he? Put you through the mill. Trials,
persecutions, all of these things. You know what happens in the
end? He proves his faith. Proves it. And while he's proving it to
the world, he proves it to you. He proves it to you. God gives us the gift of repentance,
but he don't repent for us. He gives us the gift of faith
and love and all these things, and we do all these things, but
these are the works that God has done, and he's gonna justify
these works. He that loveth not knoweth not
God. Just that simple. All right, now here's the next
thing he tells us here in this verse. Says, I know your work.
Second line. Behold, I have set before thee
an open door, and no man can shut it. There's three things
here that we ought to recognize about this open door. First and
foremost is that Christ is the door. We're all in agreement
about that, right? He's the door. He said he was
the door. I'm the door of the sheepfold. No other way in, no
other way out. I'm the door. I'm the door. And oh, my friend, I would that
the Holy Spirit would help me tonight. Jesus Christ, I want
you to hear me. Jesus Christ is set before men
an open door, not a closed door, an open door. You want to know
how open that door is? That door was flung open back
in eternity when God appointed him as the federal head of his
sheep. He flung that door open and he
said, here's the priest, here's the king, here's the prophet,
here's salvation, here's the way. That door is so open. And I spent years trying to preach
the gospel, and I'd preach it open sometimes and shut sometimes.
That door ain't shut. That door never been shut. He
said no man can shut that door. That door's wide open. Now here's the closed door. I
stretched forth my hand, but you wouldn't acknowledge it. There's the closed door. Closed
door is the sinner. Not Christ. All the promises
of God in Christ are yea and amen. It's not no, it's yea. Problem is men won't come to
Christ. He's the door. Listen to this. He's the open door. The spirit
and the church, well they say, Come on. Why? Here's the door. Huh? Come to
the door. Here's the door. It's wide open.
Come on. Come on. Let him that heareth. You here
tonight and maybe for the first time hearing the gospel of Jesus
Christ? Let him that heareth. Let him
say come to. Come on. And let him that is
athirst, come on, you thirsty? Come on. And whosoever will,
made willing in the day of his power, whosoever will, let him
come, let him. Get out of his way. See, that's
the problem. Preachers get in the way. Get
out of the way. Let him come to the door. One of the Bonars, and I can't
remember which one it was, Andrew or Horatio, but anyway, one of
them was in Glasgow, and he had a class that he had to teach
at a seminary there in Glasgow. And it was a beautiful morning,
and just all these beautiful sailboats and everything there.
He said, I'm going to walk. So he just told the carriage
to go on, and he was walking. And he got downtown a little
bit, and he come across this art gallery. You'll appreciate
this. Here's an art gallery. and they're
having an auction, and people are crowded all around, and he's
looking, he wants to see what they're auctioning. And he looks
in there, and here's this big old picture. I've seen some of
them up in Washington, D.C. at that big gallery. They're
huge paintings, and there's benches from about here to there, and
you can sit on that bench in this great big painting. And
he looks in, and here's this painting, and he hears this voice,
but he can't see the man. All he can see is his fingers.
And as he's talking, he's pointing different things on that picture.
And he looked in there, and he said, oh, he said, when I get
over there to preach, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going
to hold my Savior out to where they can't see me whatsoever.
All they can see is my fingers. All they can do is hear my word,
telling me, pointing out, come to the door. It's an open door. It's a great door. It's a majestic
door. It's a holy door. Come on. What's holding you back? Why
won't you come? Why won't you believe? Why won't
you rest? God opened the door. Nobody's
going to shut it. Nobody's going to shut it. He
said to those, he said, my sheep hear my voice. I know them, they
know me, I give unto them eternal life and they'll never perish.
And man, I read that to a fella in an Armenian church one night
and he looked at me and he said, yeah, but you can, you can cut
yourself out. And all the scripture says, all
the scripture says, though they believe not, he cannot deny himself. He's faithful. He's faithful. Oh, I set before you an open
door. You know there's a great door in that old ark. Monster
door. Said it started down at the lower,
went up to the second, went all the way up to the third story
of that ark, clear up to the top. I don't know if you ever
thought about this, but when you walked in that door, that
door that was a picture of this door I'm preaching to you tonight,
When you walk through that door, you can access anything, anything
in the ark. Christ is your ark, isn't he?
Full access. Full access. All the mysteries,
full access. Go through the door. Through
the door. He's an open door. Scripture said, but of him are
you in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom. Over
in Proverbs 1, it says wisdom. Listen to this, this is Christ
talking. He's our wisdom. Wisdom crieth without. She utters her voice in the street. Proverbs 121, she crieth in the
chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates, in
the city, She uttereth her words, saying, how long, you simple
ones? Will you love simplicity, and
the scorners delight in the scorning, and fools hate knowledge. Turn
ye at my reproof. Behold, I'll pour out my spirit
unto you. I'll make known my words unto
you. Does that sound like a closed door? She's crying everywhere. Crying
everywhere. Come to the door. Like I said, the closed door
is the sinner. What are you saying, preacher?
I'm saying to you that there's a great golf fix between the
sinner and his God, and Christ is the only way through the sea.
That's what I'm saying. The only way. But he is a way. Isn't that right? He's the way. Imagine yourself out in a great
field of dry stubble. He said, that's pretty far-fetched.
Well, I don't know. He said, the ungodly are as stubble
before the wind. That's what he said. And chaff
that the storm carries away. David said, as stubble before
the wind, as the fire burneth and the flame setteth on fire,
so persecute them with thy tempest and make them afraid with the
storm. So now imagine yourself. You're out in this field of dry
stubble. And God sends down the lightning bolt and sets it on
fire. And you heard at one time that
there was a great river to the east. Great river. And boy, you
take off. You're out in the flames, and
here comes the fire. And you're running. You're running
as hard as you can go to the east. And every time you turn
around, those flames are a little closer and a little closer and
a little closer. And finally, you come to this huge wall. And it's too high to scale. Oh,
it just goes up, seems like forever. Great wall, smooth, no way to
climb up. And you look to the right, look
to the left, and there's nothing there. So you go to the left,
and you take off running down that wall. And you run for a
while, and there's nothing there. And you turn around, and you
come back, and you go the other way. All of a sudden, you come
up on a door, come up on this door. And you look around. And that door, he says this door is for God's sheep. This door is for God's elect. This door is for those that he
chose before the foundation of the world. But you don't believe that, you're
an Arminian. Because it don't suit your doctrine,
you're gonna not go through the door. Huh? Because you grew up believing
man had a free will, you're not gonna go through the door. There's
just one door. You'll go through that door or
you'll perish. That's what I'm saying. And he's
telling this church, I know what this world is. I know that you're
surrounded with idolatry. I know that all the cities, all
the churches, every last one of them was just steeped with
idolatry all around them. But I sit before you an open
door. Open door. And no man can shut
it. The Pope can't shut it. The rabbi
can't shut it. Reverend so-and-so can't shut
it. It's an open door. No man gonna shut that door. I've set before thee an open
door. Christ is that door. And then secondly, this open
door is the door of utterance. You've got in this church a man
who has passed through the door. He's passed through the door.
He knows God, and he knows Christ, and he's made an able minister
by the Spirit of God. And his presence here, by the
providence of God, sets before you an open door. Ain't that what he said? John,
write this letter. Give it to the pastor. I've set before you an open door.
Now be faithful. Every time you preach, preach
that door wide open. Wide open. Come to it. There's no greater gift apart
from Christ that God can give to a people, to a church or community
than a spirit-filled gospel preacher. And you have one. You have one. His maturity is way beyond his
age. When he stands before men knowing
the one and only way to glory, knowing the one and only way
to forgiveness, knowing the one way to the Father. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. He won't spend his time beating
up his people and whipping his people with the law and duties
and all these things. He's not going to spend his time
taking away their peace and hope in God. He'll simply and continually
and always point them to the door. You have a problem? Oh,
look at this. Look at this. Boy, isn't it funny
how when you see Christ in His glory, the problem just goes
away. Just goes away. And even if it
don't, you look at the problem and look at Christ and you say,
well. That door is open in eternity.
It's the one, only one worthy to open the seals and mediate
the will and purpose of God was the Lamb slain. And I'm gonna
tell you something else about this church at Philadelphia that
I guarantee you, you didn't know. What's the longest church? Bob, you've been reading for
a long time and you have. What is the longest period of
time in one place that you ever heard of a church existing? I would say Charles Spurgeon's
church. John Gill and John Rapone and
Benjamin Keech and Charles Spurgeon. 200 years. Each one of them had
almost a 50 year ministry in that one place and then it was
gone. 200 years. I've never read about
anything even close to that. You know how long this church
remained faithful? That God, He praised them for
their faithfulness. God will honor faithfulness.
And I'm telling you that and showing you an example tonight
of it to encourage you to be faithful to this man and support
him in the gospel he preaches. This church, God made that church
an open door and that door remained open for 800 Think about it, that's half of
the gospel age up to this day, almost. 800 years they preached
the gospel in Philadelphia. My soul, that's an open door. And I'm telling you, he opens
the door and he keeps the door open. He keeps the door open. So here's
what we know so far. This open door is Christ, a fountain
opened, a way manifested, a truth declared. And this door, this
open door, is a door of utterance. I'll tell you if I could tonight,
with the sword of God, I'd cut off every avenue of escape. From
you I'd strip every one of his false hopes and tear down every
false record. I just leave you one door, just
one door. One way of escape, one city of
refuge, one place of rest. He's the way. There are no bars
on the doors, there are no flaming swords barring the way. The Lord
Jesus Christ has ushered in the righteousness of God and paid
the sin debt for any and all who believe. So what stands in
your way? what stands in your way, what
holds you back. Preaching my faith at best is
just a pitiful excuse for faith. We're not called to have faith
in our faith. If that's what you're doing,
get it out of your mind, quit doing it. We're not called to
have faith in our faith, we're called to have faith in Christ.
I don't care how weak that arm, faith is like an arm that reaches
over and it gets the remedy. The power's in the remedy, not
in the hand. The hand just gets it up here
to take a drink, and God even enables you to do that. A preacher, I don't understand
everything you're preaching. Neither did his disciples. They didn't either. And they turned and looked at
him and said, Lord, we believe. Help thou our unbelief. Preacher, I don't know if I'm
ready to commit my life to Christ. I'm so sick of hearing that.
The gospel is not an invitation urging you to get ready. It's
a commandment of the king ordering you to surrender. No option to it. It's a command.
It's a command. Men and women being told that
salvation will always be there for them, it's right there on
the shelf. All you have to do is reach out and grab it. A fella told
me one time, he said, we had a construction elevator. Boy,
you haven't lived till you ride on one of them. And this thing,
you're doing this, and we're going up, and we're about seven
or eight stories up. I was working on Biomed Center
at UK, and I did all the metal work on that, and I had to ride
up that thing, go up there seven or eight stories in the air.
And fella looked over at me, and he said, if it falls he said
wait until just before it hits and jump up. Let me tell you something, that's
exactly what religious people have in their mind. Just for
judgment, I'm going to jump up and grab it off the shelf. Problem
is, it ain't on the shelf. It ain't on the shelf. He sits
before you. Open door. And he has. He has. He has in his son and
he has in his preachers sitting before you an open door. No man can shut it. And then
he tells us this, I'm also he that shuts it and no man can
open. No man can open. You see what
a precious thing this is? All my soul. What a precious
thing it is. God would let a worm like me
preach his gospel. I got done preaching this morning,
Bruce Crabtree got up and said, oh boy, what a miracle grace
that somebody as ugly as him and as ignorant as him could
preach the gospel. And that's exactly right. And I see it every day. Who am
I? You think Ezekiel got up there
and put them hands in them lapels and leaned back when he was out
there looking at that valley of dry bones? Oh, he felt about
this big. I don't know if they can live.
I don't know. He didn't know how to answer
the question. Oh, Lord God. I don't know. Preach to them.
preached on. What am I going to tell them,
Lord? Live. Live? Live. Live. And then he commanded the Spirit
of God to blow on them bones. And they come up and rose and
stood on their feet a great army. And he just stood there and watched
in amazement. And that's what happens when God saves a sinner
spiritually inside where you can't see. That's exactly what
he does. He raises us from the dead and gives us life. Gives
us life. How does he do it? Through the
preaching of the gospel, accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That's how it goes. It's an open door. Oh, may God
leave the door open here and that you all be faithful to it.
I tell you, he can shut that door. When he does, light goes
out in this community. Ain't nothing out there but darkness.
Light's right here. If this light goes out, what
about your children? What about your grandchildren?
Oh, my, so this is, I'm telling you, it's a treasure, a special
treasure.