The title of this message is
The Grace of Faithfulness, and you might recall that in just
about every one of the letters, seven letters to the seven churches,
all of them but two contain what we call admonitions, corrections,
plus there are encouragements. This church at Philadelphia,
beginning here in Revelation 3-7, he has no word of admonition
as far as correction. And I made sure that I put in
your lesson that you understand it's not because this was a perfect
church here on earth. There's no such thing as a perfect
church here on this earth. We who are in Christ, the true
church of the living God, we're perfect in Christ. We're complete
in Him. We're righteous in Him. But we
all have our problems on this earth. We're in a warfare. And
that refers to the end of warfare of the flesh and the spirit refers
to the individual believer, but it also refers to the church
collectively. The church is in a hostile world,
religiously speaking. But he has no word of admonition
for this church. He commends them for their faithfulness
to Christ. And I was reading, when studying
this, it reminded me of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
4. Let me just read it to you. In
verse 1, he said, let a man so account of us as of the ministers
of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. That is stewards
of the gospel. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. And so, that's what's required.
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and faithfulness to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Perseverance in the faith. And
we know that both faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and faithfulness
to the Lord Jesus Christ, continuance in that faith, perseverance,
are both gifts of God, given by the Spirit. Our faith in Christ
did not come to us by our own power, our own will, or our own
supposed goodness, which we have none, the scripture says. The
natural man will not receive the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. That's why Christ said you must
be born again, or you cannot see or enter the kingdom of God.
It's impossible. Man left to himself will not
believe, will not receive, will not submit to Christ as his only
righteousness before God. And then we see also in the scripture
that our continued faithfulness to Christ in the gospel against
all opposition. That too is not by our own power
or goodness or our own decision, our own wills.
It's all by the power of God. It's God who keeps us. He saves
us and He keeps us. So I say all that to say this,
what He's commending this church for is not their own merit or
something they've earned, but it's simply in by the grace of
God following continually in faithfulness to Christ against
all opposition. Now the city of Philadelphia,
look at verse 7, to the angel or the minister of the church
in Philadelphia write these things. Philadelphia was located on a
very important road in the Roman Empire and it was established
as a cultural center to spread the Greek culture, the Greek
language and the Greek culture. So it was a place of idolatry
just like all Gentile cities back then, but in this city there
was a small group of believers. And we can certainly identify
with that. And that's what they were. There wasn't a large church. Corinth was a pretty good-sized
church, but Philadelphia was a small church. There were other
small churches, obviously, around the Roman Empire. The church
at Colossae, the tradition says that the church at Colossae met
in the home of Philemon. So, you know, the Book of Philemon. We don't know that for sure,
but it's possible. But this was a small group of believers. And
they weren't rich with material goods, with numbers. They weren't
impressive. Somebody would look at this group
and say, wow, what's going on there? They weren't like that.
They were just a small, non-influential group as far as material gain
or material riches. But they were rich in the grace
of God. And that's what's important.
And I'll put in your lesson here, they represent the true church
of Christ remaining faithful to him and his word in the face
of opposition. And you know as well as I do,
these churches faced a lot of opposition back in their day,
more than what we've had to face. We face opposition, we do, don't
get me wrong. And I don't wanna downplay that
or belittle it, but we don't go through near what these groups
went through in the wicked Roman Empire and He's going to mention
here the unbelieving Jews who persecuted them. Look at how
he identifies himself. Verse 7, And to the angel, the
minister, the church in Philadelphia write, These things saith he
that is holy, Christ the Holy One, that holy thing, the Holy
One of Israel, the Holy One of God. Now, Jesus Christ, the God-man,
The Savior, the Lord our righteousness, is in himself, always has been,
is and always will be morally perfect. But the idea that he's
putting forth here to the Church of Philadelphia is that he's
separate from everything else. He's unique. The holiness of
God is certainly God. There's no sin in God. in his
nature. There's no sin in Jesus Christ
as God or as man, the God-man. But the idea of holiness is set
forth to show us that there's nothing else, no one else, like
God. That's what that holiness is
about. There's no one to compare to him. There's no one to, you
could say, is like him in that sense, in his nature. The Lord
our God is one God and there's no gods above him. All other
gods are idols. And so Christ is identifying
himself as the one who is separate from all other things on this
earth. And what he's showing here is
that the church at Philadelphia, by the grace of God, has been
enabled to remain separate from their environment. Don't be conformed
to the world, he say, in that sense. And it's not in taste,
not touch, not handle, not. It's not in what religion says.
But it's in the gospel of God's grace. We preach God's grace. Pure, free, sovereign grace. And that's what separates us
from the religious world. We preach salvation, conditioned
on Christ, who fulfilled all those conditions, And we stand
before God based on His righteousness imputed, which we by God-given
faith have received coming to Christ, and that's what sets
us apart. We live unto the Lord for His
glory. So he that is holy, and the church
of Philadelphia, by the grace of God had done that. He goes
on, he says, he that is true, To be true there means to be
true to himself, to be true to his promises, to be true to his
people. It's his faithfulness. That's
what it's talking about. Christ is the faithful one. God
in Christ has never made a promise he couldn't fulfill and keep.
All the promises of God in him are yea and in him amen. He doesn't
promise to save people if they'll let him. That's not the God of
this book. He doesn't promise to save you
if you'll do your part. Because if you read the Bible,
the part that people say we need to do, we won't do by nature.
There's none good, no not one. Man left to himself will not
receive Christ. He will not choose the things
that glorify God. He can be religious, he can be
moral, he can be dedicated, he can be sincere, but it's only
in the things of the flesh that exalt the flesh, even religion.
But Christ is the true and faithful one. He is faithful. I like that
over in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, when it's talking
about identifying with believers in the household of faith. And
he's talking about faithfulness in Hebrews 10, 23. He says, let
us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering. Now
that's what he's commending the church at Philadelphia for doing.
And then in parenthesis, the writer of Hebrews put, as he
was inspired by the Holy Spirit, for he is faithful that promise. There's the basis of it. There's
the power of it. So it's his faithfulness. So
he identifies himself as he that is holy and true. And then he
says in verse seven, he that hath the key of David, he that
openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth.
The key of David is a messianic title of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is Messiah. The key of David,
if you go back and look at the covenant God made with David
in 2 Samuel chapter 7, it's the promise of an eternal throne
over the people of God as fulfilled, not in an earthly king, in an
earthly kingdom. but as fulfilled by the Messiah,
the King Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Son of David
according to the flesh. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. He was born not by the aid of
man, but of woman, the seed of woman, conceived in the womb
of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, but Mary herself was
a descendant of Judah, which is the household of David. Through the scriptures, since
the time of David and the time of that covenant in 2 Samuel
7, the Messiah, one of the identifications of the Messiah would be the son
of David. And I've got some, I think I've
got one verse here in Luke chapter 1, but you could go through all
kinds of verses there, even in the New Testament. You remember
blind Bartimaeus, when he called out for healing, he said, he
said, Jesus thou son of David, you know. And that's how they
identified the Messiah. Now, the Jews went wrong, the
unbelieving Jews went wrong in seeking that fulfillment in an
earthly throne by an earthly king in an earthly kingdom. But
that wasn't to be fulfilled. This key of David was not to
be fulfilled that way. It was a spiritual kingdom through
God the Son incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord our righteousness. Remember, he rules with a righteous
scepter. Scripture says, the scepter would
not leave the house of Judah until Shiloh come peace, which
Christ is the prince of peace. And this key, it refers to the
doors that Christ opens and no man can shut it, and Christ shuts
and no man can open it. Now, we know that Christ is the
key and the door into the presence of God. We know that. He said
that in John, I am the door. I'm the way. I'm the entrance. But you know what he's talking
about here, I believe, more than anything else? He's talking about,
mainly here, opportunities to preach the gospel. Whenever we
get an opportunity to preach the gospel, Whether it's from
this pulpit, on television, by DVD, CD, or by written literature,
or whenever we're out in the community. Debbie and I were
over at the mall yesterday, and I think I had four different
people come up to me and say, what's your name? And I'd say,
you're on TV, things like that. And they'll tell me they watch
that program. So that's an opportunity. That's
a door that Christ opens, and no man can shut it. Now, does that mean that he's
going to save everyone to whom he opens the door? No. But it
does mean that that's an opportunity for us to step through the door
and preach the gospel, witness the gospel of Christ. And no
man can shut that off. But then there are times that
he shuts the door and no man can open. You know, Paul, the
apostle, he mentioned in one place in the book of Acts how
he wanted to go to a certain place and the Holy Spirit forbade
him to go. And then he sent him somewhere
else. He wanted to leave Corinth and the Holy Spirit says, stay
here, I have much people in this city. The Lord Jesus Christ in
his own earthly ministry, he was going somewhere with the
disciples and he told them, he said, I must needs go through
Samaria. That's a door he opened to preach
to an adulterous woman, the woman at the well. So we see these
things. And then the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts chapter eight
sent Philip. out to the desert to preach to
the eunuch, the Ethiopian eunuch. That's a door open. And that's
what I believe he's talking about. And it's all in line with what
he's saying about the church at Philadelphia here. They were
a small group of believers in an idolatrous situation. And
by the grace of God, they had remained faithful to preach that
gospel that separates them and to take those open doors of opportunity
to preach and to witness. And that's what he's talking
about. Look at verse 8. He says, I know thy works. That's what
he says to every one of them. And sometimes the works are works
they need to be rebuked for. They need to repent of. But here
he says this. He says, I have set before thee
an open door and no man can shut it. I've given you an opportunity,
he's saying. I've opened the door for you
to preach the gospel in this city. And nobody can close that. You're experiencing opposition.
This is what it is, you know. Sometimes we get so much opposition
and we see so little fruit of our preaching that we wonder,
man, let's just give up. And that's what he's doing here.
He's showing them don't give up. And you haven't. They haven't
given up. But he's saying, I've set before
you an open door, and no man can shut it. Now again, now understand,
Christ is the door to salvation. He is the way to salvation. And
that's what we preach. That's what we witness through
these open doors. We talk about how Jesus Christ
is the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by him. And I was thinking about that
because You know, we live in such a day, you know, of relativism
and pluralism where people think, well, there's many ways to God.
I heard one preacher say, you know, who claims to be a Christian,
and an interviewer asked him, he said, do you believe that
Jesus is the only way to God? And he really doesn't believe
that. I've heard him preach before.
But he didn't want to come out and openly say that, that Jesus
is not the only way to God. So here's how he put it. He said,
well, I believe Jesus is the only way, but there are many
ways to Jesus. That's how they do it. See, that's
one of Satan's more subtle ways of bringing that in. Because
that sounds good to people. Well, my friend, you can't be
a witness for Christ. And you cannot be a true Christian.
and believe that there's any other way to God or to Jesus
but the one way of God's grace through the righteousness that
he established on the cross. There's no other way. And people
say, well, you're just being too narrow. Well, straight is
the gate, narrow is the way. That's the way it is. That's
the way it is. But you see, we get discouraged,
but he's opened a door and no man can shut it. As long as he
gives us these opportunities through television or the internet
or the pulpit to preach the gospel, let's just preach it. And you
know, he gives the increase. That's what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
3. God gives the increase. It's up to him. We, you know,
anything we would do to try to, as people say today, get people
saved is just human, human efforts that really amount to nothing.
But he said, I've set before thee an open door, no man can
shut it. Look at verse eight, he says, for you have little
strength, thou hast little strength, he said, and has kept my word
and has not denied my name. They had little power, and I
believe what he's referring to there is that this group of believers,
as I said before, they didn't have great numbers. You know,
how do men measure strength? Numbers, money, that's about it. That's how people
measure strength, you know. And we could talk about other
things. By the way that men naturally
measure power and strength, this church didn't have it. And then
in the context of what we are by nature, and then what we are
even as sinners saved by grace, we know what our strength is.
It's little. It's little. We can't save ourselves. We can't keep ourselves saved.
We can't really open doors of opportunity. I mean, you know,
we can go in like a bull in a china shop and do some damage, but
that's not a door that God opens. You can't force the gospel on
anybody. We don't have that power. That's
why I was telling somebody, you know, when people talk about
Christianity and the history of Christianity, sometimes they'll
bring up atrocities that were committed by Christians. Well,
I want to tell you something, and this may be a bold statement,
but it's true. Those atrocities, as far as in
the name of Christianity, they weren't committed by Christians.
They were just committed by people who called themselves Christians,
because no Christian has ever taken up arms, physical arms,
in the cause of the faith under the teachings of Jesus Christ.
In fact, Paul said, the weapons of our warfare are not what?
Carnal, they're not physical. But the weapons of our warfare
is the gospel. Our battlefield is the mind and
the heart. You can't force someone to confess
Christ or confess their sin. That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
So anytime anybody has taken up physical means to try to force
somebody to believe, they may claim to be Christian, but that's
not a Christian thing at all. At all. So when he says this,
we have little strength, that's what he means. We don't have
the power. To do these things, only God does. Salvation is of
the Lord and not of me and not of you. We're just instruments.
We're just stewards of the grace of God. And it's required of
us that we be faithful, no doubt about that. But listen to what
he says in verse eight. He says, you have little strength
and has kept my word, that's perseverance, that's faithfulness
to Christ by the grace of God, and has not denied my name. We
confess Christ when we preach the gospel, even against opposition.
And we know that it takes the power and grace of God for any
of us to do that. Left to ourselves, we compromise
in a heartbeat. I know it. And we're tempted
to, aren't we? We're put to the test because
we don't, listen, some of these people, they were tested by threats
of physical harm or threats of loss of their jobs and their
income. All we're basically faced with
in our day is just people getting upset, or not liking us anymore,
or not wanting to be around us, and things like that. I don't
like that either, but that's pretty light compared to what
they were going through. And there may come a time in our
lifetime where it gets worse than that. But he says, you have
not denied my name. That's the faithfulness that
he talks about. Look at verse nine. He says, 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.
Now, in the New Testament, references such as that are usually describing
Jewish people who claimed to be Christian but who were not. And he calls it the synagogue. That's a Jewish gathering, religious
gathering. You remember Christ went to the
synagogue to preach the gospel. Paul went into the synagogues.
That was a Jewish gathering, religious gathering, where they
prayed and they read the Old Testament. And of course, the
reason Christ went there was to teach them what the Old Testament
really taught. Not salvation by works of the
law, but salvation by the grace of God in him. Paul did the same
thing. So usually when he said they
say they are Jews and they're not, I don't believe he's saying
that these were claiming to be physical Jews but were not physical
Jews. I believe he's doing it in the
context of what he inspired Paul to write when he said in Romans
2, 28 and 29, for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he
is a Jew which is one inwardly. In other words, these people
claim to be children of God, but they weren't. They were physical
Jews. And they claim to be saved by the grace of God. They claim
to be Christian. They claim to be children of
God, but they weren't. They were the synagogue of Satan.
And lest you think that that's language that's too harsh, of
course, we know it's not because it's given to John by the Lord.
Remember what the Lord said of the Pharisees and the Jews, the
unbelieving Jews over in John 8 and verse 44, when he said,
you're of your father, the devil. and the lust, the unlawful desires
of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning."
Now remember, what's he talking about the beginning there? He's
talking about the fall of man in Adam. Don't believe God. Don't believe what God says,
believe what you want to believe. That's basically where it goes
to. God said, you'll surely die when
you eat of this fruit. What was Satan's message? You
shall not surely die. We as preachers of the gospel,
we tell people that apart from Jesus Christ and him crucified
and raised from the dead, apart from his blood and his righteousness
to save us and justify us and secure us, you'll die. Other
preachers come along and say, well, now, you know, we're not
going to be that strict. Well, you're of your father,
the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning. And how did
he murder? He says, and he abode not in
the truth. Now what's he commending the
church of Philadelphia for doing? Abiding in the truth. You've
kept the faith. You've kept my word. You have
not denied my name. These Judaizers come in, claim
to be Christian, and they claim that their physical connection
with Abraham has some power to give them more authority or a
better standing in the kingdom than other people. He says it's
not true. They're the synagogue of Satan,
he says. And they don't abide in the truth. They don't come
unto repentance. And he says because there's no
truth in him, when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.
In other words, when Satan speaks a lie, he's speaking that which
is natural to him. That's what that means. When
false preachers, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, when false
preachers preach a false gospel, they're only doing what's natural
to the natural man. And so he says, for he's a liar
and the father of it. Well, he says in verse 9 of chapter
3, he says, I will make them come and worship before thy feet
and to know that I have loved thee. Now you know as well as
I do, he's not saying there that he's going to make those unbelievers
in the end worship us. We're not to be worshiped. The
only one who's to be worshiped is God. That's why I always,
when I was talking to a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses years
ago, and I told them, I said, well, the problem that you have
is you're an idolater. And they'd like to fell out of
their seat. Well, what do you mean? And I said, well, do you worship
Jesus Christ? And they said, yes, we worship
him. And I said, do you believe he is God? Oh, no. Well, if you
worship anything that's not God, that's idolatry. I worship Jesus
Christ because I believe Him to be God manifest in the flesh. He's Emmanuel, God with us, who
died for my sins and made me righteous. And so that's not
idolatry, because he's God. But if you don't believe him
to be God, remember what he told Nicodemus, you know, when Nicodemus said,
well, we know you're a teacher sent from God, because nobody
could do the things you do except God be with him. So Nicodemus
was saying there, well, you're not really God, but you're a
good teacher. And that's why Christ said, well, you've got
to be born again. You can't even see or understand the kingdom.
And he brought it. Remember the rich young man that
approached him. What good thing must, he called him good master.
He said, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?
And Christ said, well, why do you call me good? There's none
good but God. Now he wasn't denying his goodness
or his deity, but he was approaching the young man on what he believed.
Young man did not believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God, but
he called him good master. And Christ said, well, don't
call me good then if you don't believe me, then I'm God. Well, these
Judaizers, they're not going to worship us. Those who die
in unbelief will not worship the saints. We don't worship
the saints. We don't pray to or through the saints. No, sir. We worship Christ and we pray
to God through him alone. He's one mediator between God
and man. What he means there is that they will be made to
see that what we preach is the truth. And they will have to
come to acknowledge, forced so by the sovereign power of God,
to acknowledge that these are the people whom God loves. God
loves these people. The people of God's love are
those who come to Christ and are saved by the grace of God.
And they'll acknowledge that. Every knee is going to bow. Every
tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Now look
at verse 10. He says, because thou hast kept
the word of my patience. I love the way that's put. In
other words, you've evidenced that God loves you in Christ
because you've kept the word, and he calls it the word of his
patience. That word patience means endurance. In other words,
we don't preach salvation conditioned on our endurance. We preach the
word of his patience. We preach salvation conditioned
on his endurance. Now, how do we do that? When
we preach Jesus Christ as the Lord our righteousness, the one
who came to this earth and in union with perfect human flesh,
human nature, walked this earth in strict obedience to the law,
he was faithful to keep the law, went to the cross, he was faithful
to do what he said he promised to do before the foundation of
the world as our substitute and surety, He died, he was buried,
he arose the third day, and he ascended into the Father, and
what is he doing now? He's seated at the right hand
of the Father. The scripture says in several places, ever
living to make intercession for us, and he'll never quit. That's
the word of his patience. Now, what does all that say?
All that says that, who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
He's risen again and is seated at the right hand of the Father,
ever living to make intercession for us. It says that we're righteous. We can never be anything but
righteous before God. It cannot be tainted, contaminated,
or taken away. We are secure in Christ. And
the reason so many people don't like that today is because you
know how they object to it. They say, well, then you just
go out and sin as much as you want. That's not what the scripture
teaches. He says you have kept the word of my patience. You've
guarded it. It's in your heart. It's written
in your heart. You can't get away from it. That's what he's
saying. He says in verse 10, I will also
keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the
world to try them, to test them that dwell upon the earth. Now
he doesn't say here that there'll be no testing of our faith. When he says I will keep you
from the hour of temptation, that doesn't mean that we're
not gonna be tested. Doesn't mean we're not gonna be tempted.
But what it means is this, it means that he's going to keep
us from this hour of temptation that's going to come upon the
earth. That's the people who dwell on
earth, who are connected to the earth, that's unbelievers. And
he says, behold, I come quickly, hold that fast which thou hast,
that no man take thy cramp. Well, I'm going to have to quit
there because I'm running out of time. And I'll pick up with
this next week. But this is so important, isn't
it? All right.