Wednesday Bible Study: The Seven Churches part six

 

It would seem that God never leads me in straight lines in these things.  Let's look at the text of our next Church:

Rev 3:7  "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: 'The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. 

Rev 3:8  "'I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 

Rev 3:9  Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie--behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. 

Rev 3:10  Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. 

Rev 3:11  I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 

Rev 3:12  The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 

Rev 3:13  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' 

The opening line is just the first thing I had to question here.  That phrase (verse 7) is a direct lift from a passage in Isaiah 22- a quite mysterious story.  You see, during the story told of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, there were three gentlemen who received the taunts of the "Rabshakeh" of Sennacherib: one of these was Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, the master over the king's household.  Another was Shebna, the scribe.  They are told of only in this story, as two of the three who carried messages back and forth.  Oh, and this one other place:

Isa 22:15  Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, "Come, go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: 

Isa 22:16  What have you to do here, and whom have you here, that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock? 

Isa 22:17  Behold, the LORD will hurl you away violently, O you strong man. He will seize firm hold on you 

Isa 22:18  and whirl you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your glorious chariots, you shame of your master's house. 

Isa 22:19  I will thrust you from your office, and you will be pulled down from your station. 

Isa 22:20  In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, 

Isa 22:21  and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your sash on him, and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 

Isa 22:22  And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 

Isa 22:23  And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father's house. 

Somewhere along the line, Shebna HAD been the steward of the whole house- one commentator mentions that the phrasing indicates this was a very high position- but got stripped of it, and by the time of the siege, he and Eliakim had switched places, because of a dishonor that Shebna committed.  But other than the Key of David part, does this have anything to do with our target church?  Perhaps.  Look at 3:9- the Philadelphia Church faced another, false church, that were actually leading people to Satan.  This could represent the Catholic/Protestant split: An established church, betraying its God for money and political power, being replaced by one that would humbly serve.  It also could represent the falling away of the "mainline" churches of our day, and the elevation of non-denominational, Bible-believing Churches that sought after the Kingdom and not money or power.

Second thing that hit me was in 3:8: "I know your works."  Period.  Other churches had a description of those works (Ephesus, Smyrna, Thyatira), no works at all (Pergamum), false or inadequate works (Sardis, Laodecia), but only this church stops right there.  Philadelphia had works, and their other actions came with no caveats.  They had done right from the start, and never stopped.

The next thing, also from 3:8, is a phrase no one seemed to agree on, here translated, "You have but little power."  Thing is, the translations and the commentators are split on whether this means, "You are weak" or "Unlike the others, you HAVE some strength".  My take: Look at what follows- "You have kept My Word; You have not denied My Name".  This, then, is a Church of persecution- and that persecution is from those who claim that THEY are what Philadelphia really IS.

Next thing I took away, this is the ultimate answer to those who don't believe in the Rapture of the Church, when Jesus comes BEFORE the Second Coming, to remove the Church from the Earth prior to the Seven-Year-Judgment.  Look here:

Rev 3:10  Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. 

If that trial is to come upon the "whole world" to all those "who dwell on the earth", then the only way to keep this Church from it is to physically remove them from the earth- exactly what Paul explains in 2 Thessalonians, and why the Churches are never mentioned once Jesus starts to show John the future.  I wouldn't say I have "suffered persecution", but I have debated on SM with those who don't believe in the Rapture, trying to threaten us it's a 'doctrine of demons'.  I say to them, here and now- angry debates over doctrine are battlegrounds of Satan, and you'd better decide what kind of spirit you truly are, as Jesus said...

Luk 9:54  And seeing, His disciples James and John said, Lord, do You desire that we command fire to come down from Heaven and consume them, even as Elijah did? 

Luk 9:55  But He turned and rebuked them and said, You do not know of what spirit you are. 

Luk 9:56  For the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save. And they went to another village. 

In 3:9, we get a delicious taste of what will happen to those who spitefully oppose the Word of God and this church- a humbling round of "You were right, we were wrong".

Finally, the reward that this church gets- to be fixed in place before the Lord forever!  Last time, we saw Sardis- the dead church- get the bare minimum reward: the White robes and their names not blotted from the Book of Life.  This church literally becomes the Temple of God!  So if they are first, that means they were last once, on earth.  Here, then, is what I think is meant by "little strength"- they humbled themselves to know that ALL their strength came from Jesus, and not their own efforts.  They don't seek greatness, they don't put, "We are the One True Church" on their marquees and business cards.  They simply do the works.  Period.