UK Revelation chapter three. Lesson begins in verse seven
this morning, and I've entitled our lesson An Example of Faithfulness. As I read the Lord's letter to
the church at Philadelphia, I noticed he didn't have a single rebuke
for that church. And that got my attention. The
Lord didn't see a need to correct any attitude or any conduct there.
That interested me, I'd like to be that in a congregation
like that. So what was the cause of this?
Well, the cause was the church at Philadelphia is known for
its faithfulness. They were faithful. They kept
following the Lord no matter what for years and years and
years. John Gill says there was a gospel church in Philadelphia
for eight centuries. That's a long time. So I want
us to look at this letter this morning. See, maybe the Lord
will be pleased to teach us something about faithfulness. and allow
us to imitate the example of faithfulness of this congregation
in Philadelphia. That's one of the things I desire
the most, almost, is to be faithful. I desire to be faithful. That's
all the Lord requires of his stewards, of you and me both.
That's all he requires of us is to be faithful. He doesn't
require us to produce results. He requires us to faithfully
serve him. What is required of a steward
is to be faithful. These people were faithful. So
let's look at it and see what it was about this faithfulness.
The first thing we've got to see is the character of the God
and Savior who we serve. You're not going to serve a master
faithfully if he's just a no-count rotten person. Let's see the
character of our Savior. That's what makes us serve him
faithfully. Verse 7, and to the angel of the church in Philadelphia
write, These things saith he that is holy, he that is true,
he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth,
and shutteth and no man openeth. This is the character of our
Lord. And first he describes himself as he that is holy. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only holy man to ever live. I mean, you think about that.
a holy man. He thought no sin, he did no
sin, he desired no sin. He wasn't even acquainted with
any sin, scripture says. And it's that personal holiness,
his personal holiness that gives him a beauty that nobody else
has. And since he's holy, you and
I can trust him. Since he's holy, we can trust
him to follow him anywhere. He's not going to lead us into
sin and he's not going to lead us into error. Because he's holy,
he's trustworthy. And more than that, this one
who's holy, the holy one, he is the holiness of his people.
It's him who makes his people holy. Now, God can only accept
people into his presence and into his family who are holy.
God can only accept holiness. But you and I, we can't make
ourselves holy, can we? By what we do or what we are,
we can't make ourselves holy. So Christ has come to be the
holiness of his people. We're holy in him. Now we talk
a lot about that, being holy, being righteous in Christ, Christ
being our righteousness. What does that mean exactly?
How is it that Christ is our holiness? Well, God makes his
people holy. He makes them holy, first of
all, by imputing the obedience of Christ to them so that the
obedience of Christ is their obedience. So they're holy because
God imputed it to them. God counted them to be holy.
And whatever God says is the way it really is. God counts
his people holy. But God also imparts the holiness
of Christ into his people. He puts it in them by the new
birth. God causes a new man to be born
in his people, and that man is holy. He has the nature of Christ. That's how he's holy. He's got
Christ's nature. That's Christ, our holiness. He's made his people holy. That
doesn't make me think, oh, well, it doesn't matter whatever I
do, you know, sin all I want, I'll still be holy. No. That
makes me want to serve Him and follow Him and love Him and live
a holy life even more than ever. He is our holiness. What a holy,
beautiful Savior that we ought to faithfully serve Him, shouldn't
we? Second, our God describes Himself as He that is true. He
is true. It's not that just He brings
truth or He reveals truth. He is true. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the truth of the gospel. The gospel is not just a series
of true sayings about Christ. Christ is the truth of the gospel.
He is truth. That's what he told his disciples.
I am the way, the truth, and the life. Christ is the truth
about God. The only way we see who God is
is by seeing the Lord Jesus Christ. We know God is just. How? Because God fully punished sin
when sin was found upon his only begotten son. God didn't give
him a hint of mercy. He didn't hold anything back.
He poured out his wrath upon sin, even when it was on his
only begotten son, because God's just. We know God is love. How do we know that? Because
God sent his son into this world to be the sacrifice for sin. God sent his son into this world
to save sinners because he loved them. That's the only way we
know that God is love. We know God is wise. How? By seeing the Lord Jesus Christ.
God in his wisdom provided a way to both be just and at the same
time to justify the ungodly in the person of our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's God's wisdom. We see who God is when we see
the Lord Jesus Christ. But Christ is also the truth
about you and me. He's the truth about man. Preachers can stand in front
of us and tell us till we're blue in the face, all of us are
sinners. But we'll never see how sinful
and how vile we are until God shows us the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we see him in his holiness and his beauty, then we're going
to see how unholy and how wretched and ugly and vile we are in sin.
We won't see the truth about ourselves until we see Christ.
He is everything that we're not. And that shows us how much we
need him. Then Christ is the truth of salvation.
Christ is salvation. He's the only salvation. There's
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. It's all in him. Christ is the
salvation of his people. The obedience of Christ and the
sacrifice of Christ is the only way it's possible that a sinner
can be made whole and the law satisfied at the same time. Christ
is the truth of salvation. He is the truth in every way. That makes me want to follow
him. He's the true way. He's not going to lead us into
error. He is true. And thirdly, Christ identifies himself as
he that has the key of David. If you look back in Isaiah 22,
I can show you what this means. He that has the key of David. What it means is simply this.
That Christ has all power and all authority and has no rivals. He's king. Isaiah 22 verse 20. Here's a prophecy of the Messiah.
And it shall come to pass in that day that I will call my
servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah. He's going to be a picture of
Christ. And I will clothe him with thy
robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit
thy government into his hand, and he shall be a father to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And the
key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder. So he
shall open, and none shall shut. And he shall shut, and none shall
open, and I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place. And he
shall be for a glorious throne to his father's house. So that's
talking about Christ. That's talking, that's a picture
of Christ, the sovereign savior. And since he's sovereign and
everything he does is sure and cannot be undone, then the salvation
of his people is sure. The salvation or the certainty
of everything he does being successful is sure. Because when he opens,
no man can shut. And when he shuts, no man can
open. He has all power and all authority. No one can undo what
he's done. No one. He's the king. And it's
the Lord. He opens and no man can shut.
The Lord is the one who opens his word to his people. Christ
opens his word to the understanding so we believe it with our heart. I've heard the scriptures my
entire life long. And I believe there were true
things there. But one day, the Lord opened
my heart and I believed that, I believed it. That's what the
Lord does for his people. Remember after our Lord's resurrection,
he met with the disciples and he told them everything in the
scriptures, in the law, in the prophets, in the Psalms, it's
all concerning me. They knew those scriptures. But
then, Luke said, opened he their understanding. that they might
understand the scriptures and they believe. That's when we
believe, when the Lord opens his word to our heart. And if
the Lord is the one who opened your heart, who opened the word
to you so you understand it, you believe him. And you can't
not follow him. You can't not believe if the
Lord's the one who's opened his word to you. No one can convince
you this book is not true. If the Lord is one who opened
his word to your understanding. But now Christ is also the one
who shuts his word to me. He shuts it up so that those
who do not believe it cannot believe it and they cannot understand
it. Look at second Corinthians chapter
three. You know, the example of this
is the Jews. First, they would not believe they refuse to believe
they rejected Christ. First, they would not see and
then they could not see because the Lord gave to them judicial
blindness so that they cannot understand. They can't see. Second
Corinthians 3 verse 14. But their minds were blinded
for until this day remain at the same veil, untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ.
But even under this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon
their heart. And they cannot see because the
Lord has shut His Word to them. And they'll never be able to
understand it until the Lord opens it. Because what He shuts,
no man can open. Christ opens His Word. And secondly,
He opens the hearts of His people. And when He opens our heart,
we believe Him. Lydia, the seller of purple.
She was saved. She went down one morning and
down by the riverside. She heard the apostle Paul preach
and God saved her. And Lydia is described in scripture
as the seller of purple, whose heart the Lord opened. She believed
because the Lord opened her heart. And that's what he does with
all of his people. If the Lord is the one who's opened your
heart, you can't not believe it. You just can't not believe
it. You just can't help it. He's opened your heart. But you
know, the Lord is also the one who closes the hearts of people.
So they cannot believe. And it's always their fault.
First, they will not believe. First, they harden their own
heart. And then God closes their heart. And what God closes, no
man can open. First, they would not believe.
They harden their own heart. And then the Lord hardened their
heart. And that's exactly what happened to Pharaoh. Moses kept
coming into him and Pharaoh hardened his heart. Pharaoh hardened his
heart. But one day, The Lord hardened his heart. And what
the Lord shut, no man could open. Tell you what this shows us.
How desperately we need Christ. How desperately we need to beg
him to do something for us, because he's the only one who can. Then
Christ opens the door of salvation. Christ is the door, and he's
the porter who opens the door. And when he opens the door, no
man can shut it. When he opens the door, the sheep
go in and out and they find pasture. They're let out of the bondage
of false religion. They're let out of trusting self
and relying upon self. And they're let out into freedom
of salvation, following Christ. And if Christ doesn't come and
open those prison doors, they're going to stay shut forever. He's
the only one who can open it. But when he opens it, no man
can close it. No man can take it away from
him. Now, that's the character. of the God and Savior who we
serve. Gene, how could we not serve
Him faithfully? How could we not? Look who He is. He's holy
and He's true. He'll never lead us into sin
or into error. How could we not follow Him anywhere?
We know it's right. Christ is the Sovereign. And
as the Sovereign, you think what He's done for His people. He's
opened His Word to us. Opened His Word. I talked to
a woman this week who just utterly refused to believe in predestination
or election, even though that God's word plainly says it. I thought later that afternoon,
why do I believe that? She doesn't. I opened his word. Oh, how could I not follow him?
How could I not? How could I not faithfully serve
him? He's given us an understanding. He's given us faith. He's opened
the prison door and set us free. How could we not faithfully serve
him? Because of who he is. All right, the second thing I
want us to see here, and I believe this will be a blessing to us.
I want us to see the nature of faithfulness. How is it that
this church was so faithful? Look at the way they're described
in verse eight. Our Lord says, I know thy works. Behold, I have
set before thee an open door and no man can shut it. For thou
hast a little strength and has kept my word and has not denied
my name. Now, the Lord tells all seven
churches in each of these seven letters, he tells them, I know
your works. Of course, he knows their works.
He's sovereign, he knows all things. And in the case of the
Church of Philadelphia, the Lord says, I know your faithful works
in serving me in faith and love. I know them. Now, what were their
works? Well, for them to be singled
out as an example of a faithful congregation, I mean, they must
have done great things. I mean, that's what we think.
They've got to do so many great things that made them be singled
out for this. Not really, not really at all.
Let's look at what the Lord says about them and see the nature
of faithfulness. First, the nature of faithfulness
is to go through an open door and to not try to open a closed
one. Now that's pretty simple. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence
or a lot of strength. If there's an open door, go through
it. And if the Lord's left the door shut, don't try to open
it. Just be still. And if the Lord
does open the door, go through it boldly, just boldly, without
even wondering what's on the other side. If the Lord's opened
it, we've got to go through it. We cannot help but be successful. Recently, I was talking with
Brother Todd Nyberg. He told me he was on an airplane.
He was reading Colossians 4, verse 3, where the Lord, or where
Paul said, pray for us, brethren, pray for us, that the Lord would
open a door, give us an open door of utterance. And Todd said,
he said, I thought we should pray that. And he said, I did. Right there on that plane, I
prayed that the Lord would give us an open door of utterance.
He got off that plane, went to his study, and just a couple
of hours later, he got to his study, and this man called him.
Phone rang, Todd picked it up. It was a pastor of a large Baptist
church in Lexington. He told Todd, I've been listening
to you on sermon audio. I've been listening to you so
much, I feel like I know you. I want you to come preach to
my congregation. I want you to preach a message on predestination
and election. I said, all right, I will. Isn't
that wonderful? Oh, I pray the Lord will bless
that message. You and I ought to pray the same
thing. We really should. There's something wrong if we
don't have a missionary attitude that we want this gospel to go
forth to reach people. We don't want to keep it here
to ourselves. It's a little treasure. You know, we're going to enjoy
it for ourselves. We want the gospel. We want everybody to
know Christ. And I don't know if the Lord
will open a door like that, you know, here in Ashland or not.
But I can tell you this. He's given us an open door. Before
we worry about a second open door, let's worry about the one
he has open. He's opened a door right here. Let's be faithful
to him. If it's your job to preach, be
faithful to preach. If it's your job to pray, faithfully
pray. If it's your job to support it
and be here and be an encouragement, do that. What an honor the Lord
has given us to be in his service. How can we not faithfully serve
him? Second, their faithfulness was
not seen in doing great things where the world looked at this
church and said, wow, that's a great church. Look at their
faithfulness. The world didn't recognize it. The Lord identified
their faithfulness by saying, you did what you could. When
he says here, for thou hast a little strength, he's not rebuking them.
Actually, he's encouraging them. You have little strength. He
doesn't say you have little faith. Now that would be a rebuke, wouldn't
it? Oh, ye of little faith. That would be a rebuke. But he
tells him you have little strength. It's a very small congregation.
You're few in numbers, you're few in financial resources, few
in gifts. The church at Philadelphia, They
couldn't do things on such a grand scale as the Church of Corinth
could do. The Church of Corinth had large numbers and so many
people, so many gifts. They could do things on a grand
scale. The Church of Philadelphia couldn't. But that did not stop
them from doing what they could in the service of the Lord. They
didn't have a big crowd. But their pastor, he studied
and he preached like he was preaching to 1,000. Didn't matter how many
people were there, he was going to be faithful to preach Christ.
That congregation, they couldn't support a missionary all by themselves,
but they were faithful to send an offering every month to help
where they could. They didn't have a large crowd, but they
were faithful to attend the service, to encourage one another. That's
being faithful. Just do what you can. And I'll give you a perfect example
of that. Mary. One day she came and anointed
our Lord with that precious ointment. And people watched as she poured
out that very expensive ointment upon the Savior. And they thought,
now that's an extravagant waste. We could have used that better.
And our Lord said, you let her alone, for she hath done what
she could. That's faith. Just do what you
can. We don't have to be the Apostle
Paul. We don't have to be like all
the martyrs or like Luther going and nailing those things to the
church door or anything. We don't have to be like Spurgeon.
Just serve the Lord where you are. Serve the Lord with the
gifts and the talents God's given you. Do what you can. That's
faithfully serving the Lord. The Lord recognizes it. See, following the Lord, being
faithful, doesn't require a lot, does it? Just do what you can.
And then third, the nature of faithfulness is keeping God's
word and not denying the name of Christ. And what does it mean
to keep God's word? What means to guard it? It means
to hold it unmarred. That's what the word here he
uses, keep, means. To hold it, to keep it from being
unmarred and to guard it carefully. Well, we keep God's word by guarding
it. We don't let God's word be taken
away from us. We guard the message of it. We
don't let that message become corrupted. We don't compromise
the message of this word. That's how we guard it. And we
hold God's word unmarred by just preaching the scriptures, just
preaching the sincere milk of the word and not allowing it
to become twisted. You know, sometimes people want
to prove their theology by going to scripture and finding a verse,
you know, that this proves my theology. Be careful now. If you do that, you could be
twisting God's Word, getting twisted up in it. To keep God's
Word is just believe it. If you want to know what to believe,
go to God's Word and find it. I believe that. Whatever it says.
To keep God's Word is to believe it. It's to obey it. To keep
God's Word is to love it and to defend it. We keep God's Word,
and then to be faithful is to not deny the name of Christ.
Now, we don't deny the name of Christ by telling exactly who
he is. Exactly. Why wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we tell people exactly
who Christ is? His name tells us who he is.
Why wouldn't we say exactly who he is? If we would be saved,
we must believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That we
need to know who he is. What's his name? His name is
Savior. Jehovah, God, my Savior. He saved somebody like me. His
name is Master. He's my Master. He's my Lord.
I follow Him. I serve Him. I obey Him. His
name is Jehovah Sidken. The Lord our righteousness. I
never produced any righteousness. The Lord is my righteousness.
His name is Jehovah Jireh. The Lord will provide. I've never
provided anything that's necessary for the salvation of my soul.
The Lord, He provided all that. And what am I going to eat today?
What am I going to eat tomorrow? Where am I going to wear tomorrow?
Where am I going to live tomorrow? The Lord will provide. The Lord
will provide. His name is Jehovah Rea. The
Lord, my shepherd. I don't want to walk one step
in a way I think ought to go. He's my shepherd. I want to follow
Him, to be led into the green pastures of His Word, be able
to drink from the water of His Word. That's who He is. And to deny the name of Christ,
to take the edge off of it so more people kind of accept it,
you know. That is to deny the very character of the person
who suffered and died to put away my sin. Perish the thought
that we would deny his name. They didn't deny his name. And
the Lord said he held them up as an example of faithfulness.
And then fourth, the nature of faithfulness is to endure to
the end. Look at verse 11. Our Lord says,
Behold, I come quickly. Hold that fast, which thou hast,
that no man take thy crown. You know, most times to us, the
way seems long and difficult, doesn't it? We think, how can
I ever make it to the end? It's so far out there in the
future, it's so long. It's just, I can't even imagine
making it to the end of this thing. How can this be possible?
You know, really? The wait's not very long at all.
Not very long. The Lord says, behold, I come
quickly. I'm coming quickly. You just be faithful for a little
while more. A little while, I'll be here before you know it. And
saving faith, faithfulness, true faithfulness to the Lord will
endure to the end. All right, now third, I want
us to see some promises from our faithful savior to his faithful
people. The first promise is this, you
remain faithful. And one day the Lord's going
to reveal to everybody, you're faithful now, people mock you
and ridicule you, think you're crazy. You remain faithful. And one day the Lord's going
to reveal to everybody, you're his people, the people that he
loves, verse nine. Behold, I will make them of the
synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and 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 the Lord calls
false religion the synagogue of Satan. Is that too hard? The synagogue
of Satan. Free will, man's religion is
satanic. It's of Satan. It's not, well,
they've got some good things and some bad things. They got
some things we can agree on. Remember I told you whatever
God's word says, that's what we believe. God's word says it's
satanic. They act religious, but they
lie. Any religion, I don't care who they are or where they are,
any religion that does not proclaim God's sovereign in all things,
nothing happens that he does not will. Any religion that does
not, boldly, clearly proclaim, the Lord Jesus Christ came and
died for his elect. And he saved them. He put their
sin away. He died for them and them only. No one he died for
can ever perish. The Holy Spirit comes and gives
life to those people in new birth. They're born again. The flesh
is nothing but flesh. There'll never be flesh. But
there's a new man born. And that new man born in the
believer, that's the man the Lord's gonna take to glory. Any
religion that does not proclaim clearly, without any doubt, that
salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, without
any of man's works. That ministry is satanic. It's
of Satan. It is really, truly that cut
and dry. They oppose the gospel. They
oppose the people who believe the gospel in every way. But our Lord promises His people,
you stay faithful, you do what you can where you are, one day
they're gonna see all these faithful followers of Christ are His people
and He's always loved them. That's why they serve Him, faithfully,
because He loves them. All right, here's the second
promise. The Lord promises to keep His people faithful. You
know, if we remain faithful, there's only one reason for it.
Our faithful God has kept us faithful. That's the only reason,
verse 10. Because thou has kept the word
of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation,
which will come upon all the world to try them that dwell
upon the earth. Now in the hour of temptation
that comes on all the world, if we don't fall into apostasy,
the only reason for it is the Lord's kept his statement. That's
the only reason. And he promises his people, I
will keep you from it. I will be the one to keep you
from falling. Now we know we will be tried. This temptation
to come on the world will be tried. But the Lord promises,
I'll keep you faithful. I'll pray for you, just like
I prayed for Peter. The Lord told Peter, you're going
to be tried. Satan's desire to have you. He might sift you like
wheat. But Peter, I prayed for you that your faith fail not. Peter, you're going to fail,
but your faith won't fail. I'll keep you faithful. And like
I said, to begin the lesson, I hope we're always faithful.
We ought to be known as a faithful people. There's no reason we
would not be faithful when you consider who our Lord is. But
our confidence is never in how faithful we are. We never say,
oh, look how faithful I am. No, our confidence is in how
faithful our Lord is to his word and to his promises and to his
people. That's our confidence. The third promise is this. It's
a promise of permanent salvation that can never be lost. Verse
12, he ended overcome with why make a pillar in the temple of
my God and he should go no more out. Now, a pillar is a permanent
thing in a permanent house. The promise of God here, I mean,
this is in a picture, that his children will always be in his
house. He's put them in his house and they'll never go out again.
He'll never cast them out again. And that does not make me presume
on God's grace. Think, well, no matter what happens,
you need not kick me out of the house. No, he's promised a permanent
salvation. I'm going to bring you into my
family and I won't cast you out. That makes me want to serve even
more faithfully than ever, doesn't it? And here's the last promise. It's the promise of a new name.
The rest of verse 12. And I will write upon him the
name of my God and the name of the city of my God, which is
New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven for my God, And
I will write upon him my name, my new name. And the Lord's not
actually going to write a name or a symbol, you know, somewhere
on the skin of his people. This is figurative. What he's
saying is he's going to make it obvious to everyone. You're
my people. You're my bride. I've given you
my name. You belong to me. It'll be obvious
we've been given a new name, the name of Christ. He says my
name. No more will we bear Adam's shameful name. No more will I
have to bear my worthless name. We've been given the precious
name of Christ. Now, I ask you, how could we
not faithfully serve him? You think what he's done for
us. I hope this will encourage us to continue faithfully serving
our Lord and our Savior. And I can say to this congregation,
so many of you have been here a long time and that you've done
just that. faithfully following and serving
our Lord. But here's the thing about faithfully
serving. It's not looking to our past
service, what we've done in the past, you know. It's not even
to dwell upon what I wish we could do now. I wish we could
do more, you know. That's not it. To faithfully
serve the Lord is to faithfully do what God has put to my hand
to do today. That's all it is. Sometimes I
wonder, I get in the morning, I go into my study and I think,
what on earth are you doing? Who do you think you are to preach
God's word to his people? And this is the only answer I
can come to. The only thing I know to do is to do what God has put
to my hand to do today. I don't care how big it is or
how small it is. Just do what God's given you
to do today. That's being a faithful servant. And we'll trust him
to produce the results, won't we? Just trust him. All right.
I hope the Lord will bless that too.