THE SPIRIT’S MESSAGE TO PHILADELPHIA
Revelation 3:7-13
Revelation 3:7-13
Philadelphia, the name derived it meaning from the Greek words meaning brotherly love. On several occasion, Paul wrote about brotherly love. Romans 12:10, "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another;", 1st Thessalonians 4:9, "But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye, yourselves are taught of God to love one another." Hebrews 13:1, "Let brotherly love continue."
Among the many attributes that make a church and people great and acceptable to Jesus Christ is its ability to show brotherly love. The interpreted term "brotherly love" in today's modernist society does not necessarily equate to the teaching of Christ.
Brotherly love was the theme of the Gospel and the New Testament message to the church. Because of the Devil's attempt to destroy the church brotherly love has become one of the most elusive and counterfeit expressions within the organized church. Love has been converted to a series of shallow expression that makes good fodder for a lively Sunday morning sermon by preachers that cannot get along with their brothers or members of the community they serve.
The social media has become aflame with Christians projecting messages of hate in the name of "staying woke". To facilitate their objective they have cast aside or reinterpreted the Word of God to allow for The Pacification of Christian Values. There is nothing more heartbreaking than the testimony of a saint expressing their love for their sisters and brothers when their actions betray them. Brotherly love requires more depth than expressions. The defining and redefining of love has rendered it an irrelevant entity in modern society.
Counterfeit love the same as counterfeit Christianity is a destructive force within the home, church and the community. The academic scholars have dissected the attributes of pure love and reassembled them into five or more separate entities. The basic reason is to justify our failure to achieve and live by the goals Jesus set. It is all part of The Pacification of Christian Values. Love, now in its polluted form has become a powerful force that overrides justice, judgment and common sense. If God loves me so, he would not send me to a place like Hell is now a misconception of many. 2nd Peter 2:4, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;", this should be enough to set our thinking straight.
The next verse in our verse-by-verse study of the Church of Brotherly Love begins with a promise made to the assembly by Jesus. There again this promise was not made to make thing easier here on earth, it was a promise payable in the Kingdom. One of the major differences between the church of Philadelphia and the church of the Laodiceans was the church of Philadelphia was looking towards their heavenly reward. The Laodiceans boasted in their earthly good. The Laodicean church is a representation of many churches today and it is the last church we will discuss before we follow John on his view of Jesus and his church in his Throne room in Heaven. I can hardly wait to begin that lesson...
Verse 10: “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” Two things are pointed out here. First, “Because thou has kept the word of my patience . . .” By this, the Spirit means, “Because you have been true to the pure Word of God.” Until we reach that heavenly state, we will never know the full importance of God’s Holy Word. If the devil could discredit the Word of God through deliberate confusion, the foundation of Christianity would crumble and that would destroy the Church. However, that will never happen. There is a certain clarification that we will make pertaining to this statement later on in this study. The fact that it will never happen does not prevent the Devil from trying. John 1:1, "In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.", If the devil could destroy the Word, the devil could destroy God, because God and His Word are synonymous. If the devil could discredit the Word of God, the devil would look God in the face and brand Him a liar.
I challenge you to open your mind and think about this. Are we guilty of doing things that discredit the Word of God? In our zeal to display our righteousness, are we putting our God to an open shame, "writing checks and making promises that God is not honoring", thereby rendering him irreverent to our younger generation? Because of our lack of knowledge concerning the Word of God, do we present God as a God who does not keep his promises or as a God who takes forever to achieve his means? On the sixth day, God created man but to some of us, years have passed and we are still a work in progress.
Secondly - they had not only kept the Word, but they had also kept His name. They had not denied but had lifted up the name that is lifted up in the Word - the name at the sound of which every knee shall bow in Heaven, in the earth, and things under the earth (Philippians 2:10). “I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation.”
"Understanding the Word of God", teach us to let the Word of God speak without trying to shape it to fit our predefined idea. Denominational guidelines often play an important but dangerous role in interpreting the Word of God. There are many shaped truths, ideas, doctrines, and dogmas concerning The Church and the Great Tribulation period that shall come upon the earth during the reign of the Antichrist. It is hard to come to a conscious when searching for an answer. Some teach that The Church will go through the first half of the Tribulation. Some teach that The Church will go through all of the Tribulation. There are those who teach that the rapture of the church will take place in mid-Tribulation. Then - there are those who preach the rapture of the church will take place before the appearing of The Antichrist, before the beginning of the Tribulation, “the hour of temptation that shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth.”
To inject a level of confusion that will become clear as this study proceeds, this statement has nothing to do with whether the church goes through the tribulation or not. Regardless of your answer, the scripture teaches that souls will be saved during the tribulation. Revelation 7:14 And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they that come of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Yet the promise to the church in Philadelphia is, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I will keep thee from the hour of temptation that will come upon all the earth.”
The question of how do we reconcile the two different scriptures that seems to contradict each other? There are questions that we must answer before we can understand these verses. Was the church mention in the New Testament and Revelation the conduit to salvation or was it a called out body, selected to be the Bride of Christ? What role will the bride of Christ play in the Kingdom of God? After the church has been taken out of the earth to meet the Lord in the air, will salvation still be available? My book, "The Five Judgments" explains the end time events in a non-denominational manner including the status of the church during the tribulation, the judgments and the establishment of the Heavenly Kingdom.
What we do know is the Bride of Christ will emerge as Holy Angels and return to judge the world. We will engage your minds further in Revelation 4: as we search for the truth. (My Mother taught me to always wash the pitcher before filling it with water, least what was there taint what is.)
Verse 11: “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” This verse contains an announcement and good sound advice. “Behold, I come quickly.” When Jesus comes for the Church it will be quick all will be over in the twinkling of an eye. Believers are admonished to “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man takes thy crown.” This does not say, “Hold fast to your salvation, let no man steal your salvation.” Oh, no! It says “crown.” Crowns are rewards. I will name them for you in just a few moments.
Verses 12 and 13: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of myGod, and he shall go no more out: 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 from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Without a doubt, the Philadelphia church is The Church that will be raptured out of this earth at the same time the Laodiceans, the last and final church will be spewed out and left to go through the tribulation You do believe in God, don't you?
It is true that in John’s day, there was a city named Philadelphia, and there was a church there. But the message goes much further than the local assembly in Philadelphia. Each of the seven churches is identical to a period of church history behind us, up to the church at Philadelphia. We are now living in the time corresponding to the church of the Laodiceans. The church at Philadelphia is a picture of The True Church, just before the Rapture.
Every minute detail of prophecy having to do with the coming of the Lord has been fulfilled, or is being fulfilled today before our very eyes! So many things have happened in the past years, one almost becomes dizzy when comparing current events with prophecy.
After we visit the Throne room of Jesus, we will take a look at the things that "are to be." Things prophesied centuries ago have been fulfilled in our day. One of these glorious days, Christ will return to judge the world - and it will all be over “in the blink of an eye” (1st Corinthians 15:51, 52).
There is a need for more preachers to give up their quest for financial gain or status in the Social Media and preach faithfulness to God's Word. If ever there was a day when God’s people need to be faithful and stand up to be counted for Jesus, it is today.
There are many works that are done in Jesus name, but they will not stand when tried by the fire of God. The offering, the programs, the entertainment aspect of worship, will it be able to stand? The outstanding danger among believers today is unfaithfulness to the pure Gospel. Read slowly and carefully study the Second Epistle of John, and hear what the Spirit is saying to you in that passage.
No born again person should attend an assembly that is not true to the pure Gospel nor support a preacher who denies the faith. When I say “the faith,” I am speaking of the faith once delivered to the saints, as referred to in the first three verses of Jude. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? so run, that ye may obtain” (1st Corinthians 9:24). Personally, I want some trophies to lay at His feet when we crown Him Lord of all. I want some trophies to lay at His feet when we crown Him King of Kings. By God’s grace, I will be true and faithful to His Word.
Overcomers (members of the assembly who endured) will become pillars in the temple of God. There will be no liberal temples in the Pearly White City (Revelation 21:22). The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb shall be the temple in the Pearly White City. Overcomers will be the pillars (the members) of that great temple of God. True believers are pushed around by the worldly element in the local assemblies. True believers and true Bible preachers are many times put out of the local church. However, thanks unto God, true believers and true preachers will not be put out of that Holy temple in the New Jerusalem. “He shall go no more out!”
Thousands of Christians today have been put out of churches they helped to build. Many believers sacrificed to build churches in the years gone by. But when the old saint of God, the old minister of the Gospel, passed on to be with the Lord, a streamlined, seminary-manufactured denominational preacher took over and changed all the old ideas. He brought in “the new frontier” in religion. The mourner’s bench was junked, the prayer room was outlawed, and a social gospel of entitlements and entertainment was substituted for the pure Gospel of God’s marvelous grace. Programs, handshaking and card signing took the place of the real, old-fashioned “experience by grace through faith in the shed blood.” After two thousand years, we became educated and realized, "it doesn't take all of that." There is no danger of missing the identity of these true-blue, consecrated overcomers. Jesus tells us that He will identify them by writing on them the name of the City of God, and “My new name.”
Again we hear the Spirit saying, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.” In these “last days” we need as never before to hear the Spirit as He speaks to us. If we walk in the Spirit, fellowship with the Spirit and listen to the Spirit, we will not become discouraged in these trying hours.
