Sermon Tone Analysis

I hope you all have been enjoying our study in the book of Revelation.

I know that so far, we have not made it to the futuristic prophecies later in the book, but I truly feel that the only fair way to study the book is to do so verse by verse.

And so, tonight we are looking at a passage in Revelation chapter three that records Christ’s words to the church at Philadelphia.

And before Sister Janette asks, let me just go ahead and say that this is not the Philadelphia that’s in Pennsylvania!

This Philadelphia was located in the same Roman province as the other six churches we’re studying.

And before we go any further, who can remember what church we looked at last week?

Yes, thank you, we looked at the church of Sardis.

And compared to the other churches, was the church at Sardis doing well or poorly?

That’s right, they were the worst church that we’ve looked at so far.

And if you remember, last week I compared the churches to a stock market, and how Sardis was like the Great Depression.

Thankfully, this week, we have the privilege of studying one of the two churches that our Savior had absolutely nothing bad to say about.

If you remember, Christ had nothing bad to say to the church in Smyrna.

And in this passage, our King speaks words of praise to this little band of believers.

And so that raises the question, what’s so great about the church in Philadelphia?

To answer that question, we need to read Revelation chapter three, verses seven through thirteen.

Again, Revelation 3:7-13.

/“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; 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 hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

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.

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.

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God, 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.’”/

Let us pray.

And as we do every week, I want to give you a brief historical glimpse of the city we are studying, because often knowing the city’s history will help us put Christ’s words into their proper context.

But to be honest, there’s not much to say about the city of Philadelphia.

The city wasn’t very big.

And the city wasn’t very rich.

But the name of the town itself is fascinating.

Who here knows what the name “Philadelphia” means?

Ok, who knows what Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s nickname is? That’s right, the “City of Brotherly Love.”

The city has that nickname because Philadelphia is Greek for, anybody want to guess?

It’s Greek for “brotherly love!” Revelation three’s Philadelphia was named that because the king of that region loved his brother so much that he built him the city of Philadelphia, and named the city after their familial love.

But beyond that, there’s not much to say about this little city.

The only other interesting thing about the city is that it was famous for being destroyed by earthquakes.

Sounds like a lovely place, right?

And yet, in the midst of this unimportant, earthquake-ridden city was a small church that was extremely faithful to Christ.

And because of that, I think that out of all of the churches that we’ve studied, the church at Philadelphia is the one that is most like our church.

Because our church is small, and isn’t as well-known as some of the bigger churches in our area.

And yet, in my opinion, we have been very faithful to the gospel.

And so as we study these verses, please pay close attention, because there is something here for us.

With that in mind, let’s study verse seven of our text.

/“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.’”/

Now, every week we have looked at how Christ emphasizes a part of His character to the church before He talks to them.

And up to this point, it has always been re-emphasizing something that was first mentioned in Revelation chapter one.

But tonight, Jesus tells the church at Philadelphia things about His character that were not revealed in John’s vision in the first chapter of the book.

Jesus says three distinct things about Himself.

He says that He is holy.

He says that He is true.

And He says that He holds the key of David.

And then He says that the door that He opens, no man can shut; and the door that He shuts, no man can open.

In this verse, Christ establishes His absolute supremacy in both His character and His authority.

He establishes His character when He calls Himself holy and true.

And He establishes His authority when He talks about holding the keys.

And while the phrase about the key of David is pretty confusing, it is easily understood when you realize that it is referencing a passage out of Isaiah 22. Isaiah 22:22-23 reads, /“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.”/

In the New Testament, Christ is often referred to as the Son of David, and in this verse, the house of David refers to the Kingdom of Heaven.

So, in essence, this verse claims that Jesus has the sole authority over who enters the Kingdom of Heaven, and who doesn’t.

And so, if you are a born-again Christian, then the door is open for you.

And this verse says that no man can shut the door that Christ has opened.

Isn’t that nice to know?

And also, if you are not a Christian, then there is no amount of penance you can accrue that will open that door up for you.

There is only one Man who can open the door, and the Bible says that the only way to be saved is to make Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of your life.

And Christ continues this thought in verse eight.

Verse eight reads, /“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 hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.”/

In this verse, Jesus says that He knows the works of the church in Philadelphia, and He has set before them an open door that no man can shut!

And then Christ says that even though they have little strength, they have been faithful to the name of Christ.

When Christ says that they have little strength, He must be talking about strength in numbers, because they were strong in the spiritual sense.

And while it would be easy for a small church like that to get discouraged, Christ reminded them that because of their faithfulness, He had opened the door so that they could have eternal life.

When I studied this verse, my mind wandered back to the church at Sardis, and the parallels between Sardis and Philadelphia.

If you remember, the church at Sardis was probably not being heavily persecuted, we also know that the church was in a richer area, and the church was highly-respected by the people.

And then you have the church at Philadelphia.

The church at Philadelphia was from a less-important town, they were being persecuted for their faith, and the church was said to have “little strength.”

And yet, our Savior looked to the heart of the matter, and saw that this little church from Philadelphia was being faithful to Him.

The lesson here is that appearances can be deceiving.

But the comfort for us is that there is only one factor that determines our success in the mind of Christ.

It is not our size.

It is not our amount of money.

It is not our local popularity.

Church, the only factor that is important to our King is our faithfulness to Him and His gospel.

As soon as we stray away from that principle and begin focusing on less important things, our church will fail.

Not necessarily fail numerically.

Some of the biggest churches in the country are spouting false doctrines, and their crowds get bigger every day.

And some of the most faithful churches cannot seem to draw a crowd.

But our Savior has promised us that even if we are faithful to Him with a little strength, He will give us spiritual victory.

But sometimes, church, God does translate our spiritual faithfulness into physical growth.

To see what I’m talking about, look at verse nine.

/“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.”/

In this verse, Jesus says that the Jews who are persecuting His church are actually members of the synagogue of Satan.

Now obviously, the members of the synagogue would deny following Satan, but Christ is making the point that you cannot claim to follow the Father and yet deny the Son.

And Jesus says that He will cause these Jews to come and worship at their feet, and He would cause them to know that they were the recipients of Christ’s love.

Now, we know from several texts in the Bible that God does not permit worshipping other people, so we can say with certainty that Christ was not saying that the Jews would start worshipping the Christians.

What Christ was saying, is that some of the Jews would start worshipping God in their midst!

Jesus says that the men who are persecuting them would soon see that the church at Philadelphia was truly loved by God.

In the Bible, there are several different methods of evangelism mentioned.

Peter preached to a whole crowd at Pentecost.

Philip explained the prophet Isaiah to an Ethiopian eunuch.

Paul witnessed to his jailer immediately after an earthquake.

But in this verse, we see the church at Philadelphia witnessing to the Jews not by their words, but through their faithfulness.

Verse eight says that the Christians were holding firmly to the name of Christ, and verse nine says that some of the Jews will come to Christ because of that.

Now what do you think that would look like in our culture?