Now, dear friend, perhaps hitherto you have been perfectly satisfied with holding the truth with all your might, and being faithful to it in private and in your own daily life. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. I cannot but think that this state of things is referred to here: "Thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth." Precious souls are there, and our happy service is to help these then, if we can, to a better knowledge of His grace, not, of course, to make light of their being where they are, or of their doing what they do, yet in the fullest love to feel about them as the Lord does. It is quite true that, in the literal sense, Jesus Christ did not come back to those who were so warned and exhorted. If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons" ( Hebrews 11:6; Hebrews 11:8). Third, the Lord also promised to come quickly (Gr. But, Christ points out, the small group of Christians who form the church of Philadelphia are the true people of God in that city. Through the lower town flowed the River Pactolus, which was said in the old days to have had gold-bearing waters from which much of the wealth of Sardis came. Oh for ten thousand valiant men to stand about the bed of the truth, each man with his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. Then follows the last of these four churches. In the time of Vespasian Philadelphia was in gratitude to change its name again to Flavia, for Flavius was the Emperor's family name. It means: "Never stop keeping the commands of the gospel." He did originally, as for instance in the ten words, though afterwards in this very particular intervention came in. Some taught the gospel very quietly in their own family circle, and so kept it. He "ought himself also so to walk even as he (Christ) walked." Writing ones name on something indicated ownership in Johns day, as it does now. It is dark. Reuben, unstable as water, lost his place to Judah ( Genesis 49:4; Genesis 49:8). This has nothing to do with His presence for us; but after our own delight and thanksgiving have gone forth towards Jesus, the testimony to others most suitably follows the song of praise that had, I may say, involuntarily burst forth at His name. "This can hardly be His return to earth described in Revelation 19:11-21, because this phase of His coming will be preceded by all the events described in chapters 6-18. "The sons of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you; and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet" ( Isaiah 60:14). In the Protestant Reformation they drew with it many of the pagan practices that originated in Babylonian religion systems. It is amazingly easy to go through a door when it is wide open, and it will be very easy to you much easier than you think, now that you have been schooled by God's Spirit into steadfastness of character, just to say in God's name, dependent upon God's strength, what he has taught you. This to me is treason against sovereign truth. Here is a promise of the great favour God would bestow on this church, Revelation 3:9; Revelation 3:10. The verse seems intended to comfort the whole church rather than to challenge unfaithful or potentially unfaithful Christians. 293. "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate." If that doesn't happen, I have had it. This may well stand for the beauties of life and character which only the grace of Christ can give. He shall be seen by every soul if there be any difference to the sorest anguish above all of those that pierced Him ( i.e. Humanly speaking, anyone would say that there was not a more prosperous town in Asia Minor. ( Revelation 3:1-6 Continued). Hence all the fulness of divine light that had come out in Christ's person and work, as well as by the Spirit in the church of God, is necessary to be taken into account in order to give the Apocalypse its just bearing. Laodicea prides itself on the magnificent garments it produces but spiritually it is naked and nakedness is shame. I do not believe it. When the Roman peace gave it its opportunity it became, as Pliny called it, "a most distinguished city.". And the way to "maintain the spiritual glow" ( Romans 12:11, Moffatt) is to live close to Christ. never to be marked by anything that men can wonder at or admire? recurring minor shocks drive them to sheer panic. Christ is to be acknowledged as the author of all the liberty and opportunity his churches enjoy. The seven Spirits therefore refer, as I believe, to the Holy Ghost acting in the way of government. What they did was this they kept the word of God: "Thou hast kept my word, and thou hast not denied my name." We have set these letters carefully against the local situations to which they were addressed; but their message is not local and temporary. What exactly is meant by "the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ" in this connection? "He that loveth his son will continue to lay stripes upon him, that he may have joy of him in the end. Chillingworth said what ought to be true, though I am afraid that it is not "The Bible and the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants." The seven spirits signifies the completeness of the gifts of the Spirit and the universality of his presence. John then, as it is said, "testified the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ." Men do not keep things which they consider to be value-less: if men in our day had a higher opinion of the truth they would be more valiant for it. "Repent; or else I am coming to thee quickly, and will war against them with the sword of my mouth." If I am a servant, I ought to behave like a servant. What is there to praise about keeping God's word? [46] Walvoord as quoted by Robert H. Mounce, op. 12 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. Thy Word is truth. Surely something is meant outside the ordinary course of things, where so unexampled a style of address is found. What does this mean? This we find formally and doctrinally in his gospel. This term refers to earth-dwellers as contrasted with heaven-dwellers, the unsaved as contrasted with Christians. Thus the Lord speaks with exceeding tenderness of those that were true to His name. But it is a solemn thing to feel that such a crisis was even then come, as far as regarded the church of God here below. (i) It individualizes the message of the letters. Two other roads passed through the gates of Laodicea, that from Pergamum and the Hermus Valley to Pisidia and Pamphylia and the coast at Perga and that from eastern Caria to central and west Phrygia. It is crucial to distinguish between the tribulations believers endure in faith and the wrath of God that falls on an unbelieving world. by Antiochus of Syria and was named after his wife Laodice. And have we not seen it ourselves? The first of these epistles to the angel of the church in Ephesus denounced "the deeds of the Nicolaitans;" but now the iniquity in question (Antinomianism it would seem) had become a doctrine. The unique new fact that Christianity brought into this world is that God is the seeker of men. We have seen how for years Philadelphia was terrorized by recurring earthquakes of the earth and how, when such times came, its citizens fled into the open country to escape and, when the tremors ended, came uncertainly back. It mass-produced cheap outer garments. He says, "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." At this stage in the Church's history baptism was adult baptism, and at baptism a man took his personal pledge to Jesus Christ. In the gospel we bear of eternal life in the Son and this in the grace of God given to the believer. Do you not in this merely sink to the world's level? He is able to tell his message, for never did man speak as he did. Revelation Unwrapped: Commentary on Revelation by John Richardson. towards rebuilding and Sardis recovered itself by the easy way. (a) There is a door of missionary opportunity before every man and he need not go overseas to find it. Now I ask any fair mind, whose style does this identification of nature suit but the writer that we are now reading? Oh, that they would cease to display their own thought, their own cleverness, and individuality. The persevering Christian shall win the prize from backsliding professors, who once stood fair for it.". I believe that that open door will be open to us until the Lord comes. No call to repentance, just a commendation for keeping the Word, the promise that He would also keep them.Now the final apostate condition of the church, the church of Laodicea represented by those ministers that sued President Reagan for announcing the year of the Bible. I answer, because it is a holy thing to treasure up God's word. Would that you were cold or hot! They could do but little where money would be required. Why espouse a book that you can't trust or is not true? The royal apparel is for the man whom the king honours ( Esther 6:6-11). Here is the picture of Christ searching for sinful men who did not want him. There may be individual reality even where the associations are miserably untoward. No other religion has the vision of a seeking God. . God could no longer recognise them as His own. 'But he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as a vessel of the potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father." When Paul was writing to the neighbouring Church of Colossae, he says sternly: "Say to Archippus, See that you fulfil the ministry which you have received in the Lord" ( Colossians 4:17). The Lord help you to keep his word, and then to go in for public testimony. Such is the strength of the promise and the blessedness of it, that the Lord promises His own to be kept from the time. "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right land, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands." The Greeks had three meals in the day. In later days it became a very great city. In principle it is true of all that are really faithful, but there may be Christians, as we know there are, involved in one or other of the various states which have been described, and which apparently go on to the close. 8 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. (ii) Swete thinks that the white garments stand for the profession a man made at baptism; and that the phrase described the man who had not broken his baptismal vows. You have been steadfast; therefore I will employ you." It was the deipnon ( G1173) that Christ would share with the man who answered his knock, no hurried meal, but that where people lingered in fellowship. Wicked men envy the people of God their door of liberty, and would be glad to shut it against them. To try them that dwell upon the earth - To test their character. "And from the seven Spirits which are before his throne." We have seen how it was a border town, standing where the boundaries of Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia met, and founded to be a missionary of Greek language and culture to the barbarous peoples beyond. In the descriptions of the second chapter what was said about the Lord is a repetition of what was found in the vision John had just seen. Furthermore, in addition to the inner possession and the hearty belief of the truth, we must be ready to adhere to it at all times. It was founded by colonists from Pergamum under the reign of Attalus the Second, who ruled in Pergamum from 159 to 138 B.C. In Jesus is reality. iii. The feebler you are the more closely should you keep to the Scriptures. The Roman Christians are men who have been brought from death to life ( Romans 6:13). "Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain. This is the Lord's way of delivering those who keep his word: thus he shuts them away from the temptation that comes upon others. That is exactly what the church ought to have been and was not; and therefore He has to take that place Himself. But John saw "in the midst of the [seven] lampstands one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot." The state of the church in Ephesus has the same generality. Laodicea, Neither One Thing Nor Another ( Revelation 3:14-22 Continued). The expression is very striking, because it not unnaturally implies that the churches were somehow to exist continuously. We know how many scholars have dared to insult the book in their folly, as I think we may say, with the justest rebuke of their offensive language. If we have but little strength, we mean to let the times and the spirits go where they like, we shall keep to the Holy Spirit and to his eternal teachings. When God judges the ungodly, Christ will protect those who have remained loyal to him. Saul lost his place to David ( 1 Samuel 16:1, 1 Samuel 16:13). If one identifies the Jerusalem of Isaiah with the New Jerusalem of the Revelation, or the Babylon of Jeremiah to explain the Apocalyptic Babylon, it is clear that one simply loses all the special instruction that God has given us. When he came to Troas, a door was opened to him by the Lord ( 2 Corinthians 2:12). It is very possible, when the epistles were sent out in the days of John, that no particular emphasis would be laid on "the things that are;" but inasmuch as these things have been going on from that day to the present, we can see the immense force such a phrase thereby acquires. Simultaneously with this of course there was the introduction of all kinds of compromise with the world. Their subjection to the church is described: They shall worship at thy feet; not pay a religious and divine honour to the church itself, nor to the ministry of it, but shall be convinced that they have been in the wrong, that this church is in the right and is beloved of Christ, and they shall desire to be taken into communion with her and that they may worship the same God after the same manner. The first time a man sins he does so with many a qualm. III. Strabo describes the scene. ], "In light of the concept of the imminent coming of Christ and the fact that the New Testament does teach His imminent coming, we can conclude that the Pretribulation Rapture view is the only view of the Rapture of the church that comfortably fits the New Testament teaching of the imminent coming of Christ. Jesus alone has authority to admit to the new Jerusalem, the new city of David. "Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman (perhaps 'thy wife') Jezebel." Before you, my brother, the Lord God has set an open door. Now, why should God's word be kept in this way? Even then Satan was not idle in forming his synagogue "of those that said they were Jews, and are not." What is commonly called Puseyism tends to this; and that system is not confined to this country. Possibly you have not much strength as to influence: your sphere may be very narrow, and your power in it very slight. "[46] "The thrust of the verse is against this interpretation. Laodicea, Love's Chastisement ( Revelation 3:14-22 Continued), Revelation 3:19 is one whose teaching runs throughout Scripture. 1:10 + ). But habitually God's messengers were sent to Israel, even when prophets were raised up. It was not as once. The word of my patience The doctrine which has exposed you to so much trouble and persecution, and required so much patience and magnanimity to bear up under its attendant trials. The conclusion of this epistle, Revelation 3:12; Revelation 3:13. Verse Revelation 3:10. What do the white robes signify? 11 [ b]Behold,I am coming quickly!Hold fast what you have, that no one may takeyour crown. Here again we find a description of the Holy Ghost decidedly different from what meets us in the New Testament generally. . On that day the inspired writer John was in the power of the Holy Ghost with a view to take in and give out the visions he was to see. It was a time of drunkenness and feasting and the giving of gifts and celebration as the sun past through the winter solstice. Since the whole Philadelphia church was faithful (Revelation 3:8) Revelation 3:10 is probably not an inducement to remain faithful. REV 3:10 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. But even this is not enough for grace. I do not in the least doubt that God proves Himself faithful in the worst of times. If you only influence one child, who can tell what that child may be? (b) We see the offer of Christ. We Jews are not supposed to go into the house of a Gentile, but the Lord told me to come so that is why I am here." you have kept the word . With Jesus Christ the new kingdom of David was inaugurated; and, just as in the ancient kingdom Eliakim had the keys to admit to the royal presence, so Jesus is the door to admit to the kingdom of God. Many of Jesus' disciples today have "lost their first love," which is Jesus himself (Rev 2:4). See the notes on Luke 2:1. For every position we are set in, no matter where it is or what, there is always the gracious power of God as our resource; but it is to sustain the person walking in consonance with the relationship in which God has been pleased to put him. In entering God's kingdom, Jews must follow the way of these Gentiles, not Gentiles follow the way of the Jews (8- 9). There are many who in the church mock the idea of the Lord returning and interrupting history. Hence, evidently, there is a comprehensive term employed with divine wisdom, "to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass." Nevertheless, having become a man in divine grace, He speaks according to that lowly position which He entered here. I also will keep thee - That is, I will so keep you that you shall not sink under the trials which will prove a severe temptation to many. But, dear friends, as this expression was used to the angel of the church at Philadelphia, whom I suppose to be the minister of the church, I do not feel that I shall be doing any violence to the text if I take it in reference to each individual; and I have no doubt that there will be individual Christians present at this time who, though they have but little strength, have kept God's word. The clergy encouraged by a misuse of scripture every sort of commerce with the world's evil ways; as it is said here, "who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication." What He is is the main point. Believers on earth will meet the Lord in the air and thus escape the hour of trial . "Within this sacred volume lies The mystery of mysteries; Happiest they of human race To whom our God hath given grace To read, to mark, to think, to pray, To know the right, to learn the way; But better they had ne'er been born Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.". That God should have chosen John to be the instrument of communicating the closing volume of the New Testament is worthy of our consideration. I could not be in communion with a church whose chief guide and authority is another book than God's word, and whose acknowledged Head is other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the twenty-second chapter of Isaiah in verse twenty-two, well, go back to twenty-one, we read this prophecy concerning the Messiah, "I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. Revelation 10:7 "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets." "The mystery": A Greek term meaning "to shut" or "to close". This would mean even more in the ancient world than now. The Church is the possession of Jesus Christ. This book then is the revelation of Jesus Christ, "which God gave unto him." . It is the Christian insistence that this world is God's creation and that its sin and sorrow are not his fault, but are caused by the disobedience of men. In each letter the Lord addresses "the angel." "Let us keep awake and be sober" ( 1 Thessalonians 5:6). This, I think, is meant. I may be a fool, and an old-fashioned bigot, but I am not a turncoat, and I cannot quit the word of the Lord. (d) It has been suggested that the white robes stand for the resurrection bodies which the faithful will some day wear. I trust that many of us can say that the doctrines of grace are our jewels, our estate, yes, our very life. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last." Hezekiah had a faithful steward called Eliakim, who was over all his house and who alone could admit to the presence of the king. God's threat passed on by Nahum to the disobedient people was: "I will let nations look on your nakedness, and on your kingdoms shame" ( Nahum 3:5). Jesus Christ works through men; and the man who remains completely detached in his attitude to him has by that very fact refused to undertake the work which is the divine purpose for him. Then John describes himself in a manner adapted to the testimony he is called to render. For it is somewhat novel, especially in the New Testament. (a) In the ancient world white robes stood for festivity. 58. Discipline your son and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart" ( Proverbs 29:15; Proverbs 29:17). Take time by the forelock and honour your God. Scripture does not reveal Jesus Christs new name elsewhere. A certain Mardian soldier called Hyeroeades had seen a Sardian soldier accidentally drop his helmet over the battlements, and then make his way down the precipice to retrieve it. [Note: See Renald E. Showers, Maranatha: Our Lord, Come! There is an open door before you which no man can shut. There was deipnon ( G1173) ; this was the evening meal; the main meal of the day; people lingered over it, for the day's work was done. To those who have been true the promise is that they will walk with God. Revelation 2:9). He sees you at your Bible-reading, he marks you in your endeavours to get at the meaning of his word, he notes you when you sit down and meditate upon his divine thoughts, and he takes pleasure in your eagerness to know what the will of the Lord is. But when they have observed how you stand to the truth, how solid, and how steadfast you are, they will give over disputing with you, and come to inquire what your views really are. Though others fall, you shall not; though you may be afflicted with others, yet you shall have grace to sustain you. So, we find within the church today a lot of relics from the Babylonian system, the Babylonian religion. There is nothing worse than a state in which a man is orthodox because he is too lazy to think for himself He is actually better with a heresy which he holds intensely than with an orthodoxy about which in his heart of hearts he does not care. No wonder that Laodicea could boast that it was rich and had amassed wealth and had need of nothing. Christ puts them in mind of what he had done for them: I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it, v. 8. Christ puts them in mind of what he had done for them: I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it,Revelation 3:8; Revelation 3:8. But that which ye have already hold fast till I come." The Christian must live well and live in love because the judge is standing at the doors ( James 5:9). Victory lies before you. In truth, the moral reason lay in this: that Christ, if rejected as the object of faith, and the only channel of grace, becomes an executor of judgment. 101.] . The truth is too great for us ever to absorb it all, but daily and hourly we live upon it. Lord help you to keep his word, and the testimony of Jesus Christ. his... Could do but little where money would be glad to shut it against them true to his.. Be marked by anything that men can wonder at or admire that open door before which... This may well stand for the man whom the king honours ( Esther 6:6-11 ) your! To test their character surely something is meant outside the ordinary course of,. 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