Four things about Philadelphia:
1. Works
2. Little strength
3. Kept My Word
4. Not denied My name
THE NAME, THE WORD, THE STRENGTH (HOLY SPIRIT) ARE ALL TIED TO THE CROSS FROM WHICH ALL WORKS ARE JUDGED (1 Cor. 1:30-32)
I KNOW THY WORKS
1. “I Know Thy Works” – Sixth Time the Lord has used this phrase in dealing with the Churches of Revelation 2-3; The Lord KNOWS the works of the TRUE CHURCH and the False works of the Apostate Church
2. The One Among The Candlesticks can either increase the amount of light given OR Remove the candlestick (EPHESUS)
3. THE OPEN DOOR – 3:8 - We have an OPEN DOOR of utterance to take the Gospel to the world and if we don’t it’s our own fault!
4. Both those called to preach the Gospel and SUPPORT those who truly teach/preach the Gospel are part of this Missionary Church!
5. England – 1800s, America- 1900s – Twentieth Century
6. America produced more full-time Gospel preachers than all the rest of the world combined.
7. American money sponsors Gospel outreach on a massive worldwide scale.
8. The intensity of natural fighting in the civil war was manifest in the intensity with which the spiritual battle in the Pentecostal era erupted between the Apostate Church and the True Church
9. Gold was discovered in 1848 in California. Millions of settlers rushed to this frontier in a wild race for riches.
10. But in just 20 years 80% of California's Native Americans were dead. An estimated 100000 Native Americans died during the first two years of the gold rush. Many died from new diseases.
11. California became a state in 1850. A state policy of genocide saw about 16000 Native Americans murdered in cold blood as the state rewarded the killers. Tens of thousands were turned into slaves, many of whom were worked to death. This was the ugly face of America.
12. But God chose the Californian city of Los Angeles for the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit at 312 Azusa Street in 1906.
13. This was the start of God's great supernatural move in the last church age.
LITTLE STRENGTH – 3:8b
1. God decided to open the world to missionary endeavour.
2. The sixth church age began around 1750. It was a time of change as James Watt in Scotland finally developed an effective steam engine in 1776.
3. Steam engines would go on to power ships to take missionaries overseas and would be used for steam trains to take missionaries inland.
4. God allowed England to rule about one-quarter of the world so that the English could spread the Gospel.
5. In addition, English could become an international language for the spreading of the King James Version of the Bible.
6. This Bible had been translated by 47 scholars and was printed in 1611. Then it was thoroughly checked and corrected for 158 years before being finally printed in 1769.
7. The preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield took evangelism out of the church pews and into the streets and open fields. This laid the foundation for the great missionary movement that was to follow.
8. Wesley emphasized holiness as a doctrine. His own life was a testimony to the holiness of Christ.
9. Wesley taught people that truth was in the Bible, not in politics. By getting the people to ignore politics and focus on Scripture, Wesley played a major role in saving England from the horrors of the French Revolution.
10. The missionary age, by emphasizing the basics to the heathens overseas, presented Jesus to them as being Almighty God
11. This is the greatest door in history; Church today is numerically large but spiritually poor; the TRUE CHURCH is numerically small but spiritually RICH.
KEPT MY WORD
1. Striving to diligently keeping the word of God and to keep it TRUE
2. It means more than just holding on to it as a possession and safeguarding it. It means obeying it from the heart as well (Romans 6:17).
3. It is used in this sense SEVEN TIMES in Revelation – 1:3, 3:8, 10; 12:17; 14:12; 22:7,9) and some 20 times elsewhere in the New Testament (COVENANT)
4. The Word of God is the message of the CROSS – the foundation on which ALL DOCTRINE is built. It is the story of the Word of God as the Word of God is the story of the Cross.
5. In 14 Epistles Paul Relayed what the HS Had given him relating to the Cross
6. At the Cross the entirety of the OLD COVENANT was FULFILLED (HEBREWS)
7. Without the Cross we cannot understand the Old Covenant and without the Cross we cannot understand the NEW Covenant
NOT DENIED MY NAME
1. This church did not bring reproach upon the NAME OF CHRIST
2. The way reproach is brought is to IGNORE or DENY the CROSS
3. Name Jesus Means “SAVIOUR”; Christ Means “ANOINTED ONE, Or MESSIAH”
4. To Deny The Cross One Denies HIS NAME
5. The NAME and the CROSS cannot be divided; one cannot say the NAME OF JESUS and then deny the CROSS and embrace humanistic psychology
6. ANOTHER JESUS, ANOTHER SPIRIT, ANOTHER GOSPEL
7. Under Persecution Smyrna Did Same; Under Great Poverty Philadelphia Did Same; Under Great Riches, Laodicea Kicked Christ Out From Their Midst