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“Bible Land Tours: Philadelphia”

Allen Dvorak
09/15/24 - Sun PM

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(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Revelation 260 through 210 from the English standard version and to the angel of the church in Laodicea, I'm in the wrong place, excuse me.

Uh 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 will open.

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 you, you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

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 because you have kept my word about patient endurance.

I will keep you from this hour of trial that is coming to the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.

I am coming soon, hold fast what you have so that no 214 may seize your crown.

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 for my God out of heaven in my own new name.

He who has an ear?

Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

Hm When Jim began reading and read from the beginning of the letter to Le Odysseys, I immediately started thinking, what outline can I come up with on Le Odysseus?

But fortunately, he switched gears and read about Philadelphia, which has kind of been very helpful for me this evening.

On August the 223th of this year, the city of Los Angeles suffered an earthquake of the magnitude of 246.

Now, I don't have a good perspective or idea of exactly how bad that kind of an earthquake is, but apparently it didn't cause very much uh damage to the city of Los Angeles and some of the surrounding communities there.

But you may also be aware that this very last Thursday, September the 1150th Los Angeles suffered another earthquake.

This time, it registered a magnitude of 21210 but again, very little damage done and no injuries as far as I read uh were reported, uh a few boulders fell on a road and they move those out of the way.

But Los Angeles, the people of Los Angeles are not strangers to earthquakes.

They have uh weathered, many of them, some of them have those who have lived there for some time.

But this evening, we're going to talk about another city that also suffered a serious earthquake and that's the city of Philadelphia.

Now, for those of you who are perhaps visiting with us this evening or perhaps you are relatively new members of this congregation, I need to explain to you what we mean by Bible Lands tour.

If you book a tour of some of the Bible lands, it can be pretty expensive.

And right now, there's a lot of tension and, and violence going on over there.

So it's probably not the best time to be traveling in the Middle East at all.

But what we've done in order to accommodate those who don't want to fork over several $220 is we've gone on Bible land tours.

And so we put together a package, a bus and we also have a uh a driver and we have studied, we've traveled various places over the last several years, cities, uh areas uh on our Bible lands tour.

Much, much cheaper, low cost, not low brow, uh be, be aware of that.

And so that's what we're going to do this evening.

We're going to go on a Bible Lands tour bus and we're going to talk about Philadelphia.

Now, you may be aware that the name Philadelphia only appears twice in The New Testament, both times in revelation once in chapter one, as John is told to whom he is to write these uh this book.

And then in chapter three, in the letter that Jim read for us just a few moments ago, neither Paul nor Peter obviously then wrote a letter to the church at Philadelphia.

And Philadelphia is not mentioned anywhere in the book of Acts.

So we're going to focus our attention this evening on the letter to the p uh church at Philadelphia.

As was read by Jim just a few moments ago, the church at Philadelphia was one of the seven churches of the Roman Province of Asia that were addressed by the Lord in the Book of Revelation in chapters two and three.

And I've listed on the chart here and some of you have seen at least this chart or similar chat in times past in Bible classes on the Book of Revelation.

And in chapter three, the Lord addresses the church at Philadelphia.

Interestingly enough, it seems that each of the churches that are addressed the seven churches, each of them seem to have imbibed some of the characteristics or maybe even uh in some way, were influenced by the circumstances of the cities in which those churches were located.

And so as you read through the letters, there are things that Jesus says to the church that have some connection to the history or the background or even geography in some cases uh of the city in which that church was located and each of the letters to the churches follows a general pattern now because the churches are of various quality, varying quality.

I should say the letters are not exactly the same.

But this general template that you see in the middle of the slide is the way the letters typically proceed if there's uh that there's always a salutation in all but two cases, the salutation is directly taken from the description of the one who is in the standing in the midst of the lamp stands in chapter one, following the salutation, the identification of Christ.

As he writes this letter to the various churches.

There is, if there is any commendation, the commendation then is is made and then the Lord will move to criticism or condemnation.

Uh What needs to be changed or corrected within the church.

Counsel is given.

Repentance is typically the council is given and some specific information even beyond that, then there's a promise and also an invitation to hear.

He who has an ear.

Let him hear what the spirit says to the churches is the invitation to hear.

At the end of these letters, there's a transpo transposition in some of the first letters of these last two elements, the promise and the invitation to hear.

There are three things that are on every letter.

I know, I know your works.

The Lord says he's the one standing in the midst of the lamp stands and the lamp stands, we are told uh represent these seven churches.

He knows what's going on with the churches.

He knows their strengths, he knows their weaknesses.

The one who conquers.

That's how the promise begins to the one who conquers the Lord will do such and such and then the invitation to here.

So this evening, I want to talk about the church at Philadelphia.

The churches were in various stages of quality or I should say acceptability.

Some churches were had some good about them, but they were also uh had some weaknesses.

They were in some trouble.

Ephesus for instance, is a good example of that.

Pergamum and Thia Tyra, some churches were in grave danger, grave danger.

You ask, is there any other kind and so grave danger describes Sardis and Le Odyss.

But there were two churches that were in good shape, not suggesting that everything was perfect, but no criticism is given of those churches.

For instance, Smyrna and the church that we'll talk about tonight, the church uh at Philadelphia, they were in good shape.

I wanna talk to you a little bit about the background of Philadelphia.

That city was actually founded about 228 and 50 years or more before the birth of Jesus Christ.

And it was founded by uh a Perga minion.

I'm not sure I've got that, that word, right.

But you are familiar with the city of Perga.

And there was a king by the name of Eumenes, the second who was king of Pergamum.

And his brother Aus uh was the the next king of Pergamum.

And it is thought that Ay was the one who founded the city of Philadelphia Analist because of his loyalty and his love for his brother Eumenes was known as Philadelphus.

So you can guess why the city of uh that he founded was known as Philadelphia.

The city of Philadelphia was located about 30 miles to the east and southeast of the city of Sardis.

Another one of the seven cities that are uh noted in the book of Revelation.

Philadelphia was located located on a, a river called the Colas River.

It was a tri tributary to the Hermes River.

Uh I don't know how much that means to anybody but uh it was a city that was located toward the eastern side of the Roman province of Asia.

I mean, the Roman province, not what we call Asia or even Asia Minor.

Now, if you look at where Philadelphia is located uh on this map and uh the all seven churches are there in yellow uh highlighted script.

You'll notice that Philadelphia and Laodicea are fairly close to the areas of Phrygia and Presidia and Lycia that's important and we'll make the note a little bit later about why that's important.

But just note for the time being that they were located on the eastern side of the province of Asia.

Now, I really wanted to give you some slides of the ruins at Philadelphia.

But there's a problem.

And so what I had to do was I had to improvise.

And so I've given you some slides of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And that's as good as it's going to get because the city of AI I'm gonna see if I can butcher this name.

Al Sahir.

The modern city is right on the site of the ancient city of Philadelphia.

And when that happens, it's often difficult to do any excavating.

And so there's been very little excavation that's been done at uh Philadelphia, the ancient site where this new city is.

So we just have to content ourselves with some of the uh buildings of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

I hope you won't feel cheated.

Uh By not seeing some stone ruins.

The city was located on a important east west route.

Now, it looks a little bit more like it's going north and south.

But from the standpoint of Tros and Tarsus, it's an east west trade route.

And the city of Philadelphia being on that road on that trade route meant that the city of Philadelphia would uh be a uh a prosperous city.

It was prosperous for another reason that having to do with grapevines, we'll say more about that.

In just a few moments.

In 8017, there was uh an devastating earthquake and Philadelphia seems to have been perhaps the epicenter of this earthquake.

It destroyed Philadelphia.

It damaged heavily sardis and several other cities in the same general region.

The emperor at the time, Tiberius helped rebuild the city of Philadelphia from the National Treasury, from the Treasury of the Empire.

And in gratitude, the people of Philadelphia changed the name of the city to Neo Caesarea.

New Caesar in honor of Tiberius and his help in rebuilding the city.

Later on, the city's name would be changed again to Flavia uh in honor of Vespasian's wife.

But it seems as though neither of those names caught on with the citizens of the city.

The city would suffer aftershocks from this 8017 earthquake for quite some time after the initial earthquake.

We understand that some might suggest that the earthquake that Los Angeles suffered this week is essentially kind of an aftershock of the one that was took place in, in August and August the 12th.

The historian Strabo writes this about Philadelphia and we don't have a lot of information even from secular sources about Philadelphia and precious little uh from biblical sources.

But he writes about the city of Philadelphia.

This historian Strabo, he says the city of Philadelphia ever subject to earthquakes incessantly, the walls of the houses are cracked, different parts of the city being thus affected at different times for this reason.

But few people live in the city and most of them spend their as farmers in the country since they have a fertile soil yet 1 may be surprised that the few that they are so fond of the place when their dwellings are so insecure and one might marvel still more at those who founded the city.

In other words, this wasn't maybe a great place to build the city if it was given to earthquakes.

Um You can uh footnote see Los Angeles, but at any rate, uh the principal or I should say the area around uh Philadelphia contains soil or had soils very rich because it was in an area of volcanic eruptions over long period of time, that soil was very, very fertile for grape vines.

And so uh Philadelphia was known for its grape vines, its fine wines and uh the principal deity of Philadelphia was Dionysus.

Do you know what the Association of Dionysus was with everyday life?

He was the God of wine.

And so it's not surprising that he would be maybe the principal God, a patron god of this city.

Actually, it was Philadelphia was also the site of many temples that were dedicated to uh these uh idolatrous gods.

One commentator makes the observation that Philadelphia was sometimes called Little Athens because of the number of temples uh that existed uh in its history.

Well, maybe all that's fairly interesting, at least from a background standpoint, you can kind of get a feel for the city.

But one of the things that's very important is that Philadelphia was considered to be a missionary city.

William Ramsey describes the city of Philadelphia as a missionary city.

In his book, the seven churches.

Uh the letters to the seven churches of Asia.

It was a missionary city in the sense that it was intended to export Greek culture to the East.

You may recall from some of your historical studies that Philip of Macedon had a son by the name of Alexander, the great Alexander, the great was a pupil of Aristotle and Alexander.

The great believed that Greek culture, the Greek language, the Greek way of living, that it was far superior to anything else.

And so wherever he pushed his influence to the East all the way into India, he was essentially propagating spreading Greek culture.

Philadelphia had already been founded for that same purpose to push Greek culture to the east.

And so Ramsey makes these comments in that book that I've cited already.

He says the intention of its founder, the founder of Philadelphia was to make it a center of the Greco Asiatic civilization and a means of spreading the Greek language and manners in the eastern parts of Lydia and Phrygia.

You remember I said that Philadelphia is kind of on the eastern side of the province of Asia and it was the natural stepping off place, so to speak for the areas of Phrygia and Lisa to the east of that city.

And so Philadelphia was considered to be a missionary city exporting Greek culture.

He goes on to say it was a missionary city from the beginning, founded to promote a certain unity of spirit, customs and loyalty within the realm.

The Apostle of Hellenism in an oriental land.

That phrase the Apostle of Hellenism is usually applied to Alexander the great.

But Philadelphia was given the task.

It was intended to spread hellenism.

Greek culture to the east.

It was a successful teacher.

Before 203, the Lydian tongue had ceased to be spoken in Lydia and Greek was the only language of the country.

So Philadelphia was considered to be a missionary city.

The Greeks in general considered their language, their culture to be superior to all others.

Now, what I'd like to do is go back to the biblical text and take a look at what the Lord says to this church in the city of Philadelphia.

And I'm going to begin reading in verse eight, we've already passed the salutation and the Lord says, 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.

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 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.

So the first thing I want to note about this church is that the Lord says I have set before you an open door.

One commentator made the observation that the word door in the New Testament is hardly ever used in a literal sense to talk about an uh an actual door.

But that most of the time, it's used in the figurative sense of some opportunity, an opening of uh uh of an opportunity.

And so when Jesus says I have set before you an open door, I really suspect that what he's talking about was an open door.

An opportunity for evangelism just like Philadelphia was considered or intended to be a missionary city for Greek culture, spreading it to the east.

So the Lord says to the church in Philadelphia, I've set an open door before you and no one can shut that door.

Now, that's interesting that the Lord does not identify what that door is, what that opportunity is.

Now, it may have been obvious to the church at Philadelphia, but perhaps not, it might have been true that the church of Philadelphia was going to have to look for the opportunity to recognize the door that had been open for them.

The Lord says earlier in that same letter that he has the key and what he opens, no one can shut and what he shuts, no one can open a key like a door is often a symbol, a symbol of the power or the ability to limit access or to limit uh to exclude uh access.

The church at Philadelphia was given an opportunity for evangelism, but I think they had to recognize that open door.

The Lord does not identify it for them in this letter.

Now, the other thing that stands out in this uh brief letter is the Lord saying I know that you have but little power and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

What does the Lord mean by you have little power?

Well, there's several possibilities.

He may have been talking about the size of the congregation that it wasn't a big church that were, there were few members and as a result, their power wasn't very great.

It was little.

It may be that he was talking about the makeup of the church, the demographics of the congregation.

It may have been that the economic status of the members in the community of Philadelphia was lower.

They may have been of a lower class.

You may recall in your studies of First Corinthians in chapter one, that Paul makes the observation that not many rich, not many noble, not many of the upper classes were responding to the gospel.

It was primarily those who were of the lower classes of slaver, the slaves and those uh who uh were not as uh blessed economically as others in the community.

It may have been that the Lord was talking about their low social status, that the influence that they might have on others because of that status would be limited.

But he says to them, I know that you have but little power and yet he says you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

And I think in that sentence, there is a very important principle and that is that size or numbers of members or even the economic status of those who are members.

That that's not the critical issue.

That's not the criterium for success.

Success is judged by faithfulness.

This congregation has grown significantly over the last several years.

We began back in 2006.

And I think we were around 60 members at that time.

And now the membership runs well over 150 or more.

But what makes this congregation faithful is not its numbers.

I don't know that the congregation here is any stronger now with 150 members than it was when we only had 60.

The issue is not numbers.

And I think that's an important principle for us to embrace because I, I have seen so often people who seem to be enamored with numbers.

The thing that's important is how many people have we baptized?

In such and such a point, a period of time or how large is this congregation compared to another congregation?

What's the contribution level of this congregation compared to other congregations in the area or across the nation?

I know that you have but little power.

This probably wasn't a big church.

It certainly was limited in its power as the Lord says, yet, you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

I'm afraid that sometimes we think of churches only in terms of size and a good church is a big church.

I've known some big churches that were very weak.

Their members in some cases were not very committed, not very faithful to the Lord.

And I've known some congregations that were small but they were strong congregations.

The members were faithful dedicated Christians.

And what the Lord's looking for are those who will not deny his name, who will keep his word even if there's just a few of them in a congregation.

And I'm not placing a premium on small congregations.

I'm not suggesting that it's a bad thing to grow.

I think we ought to baptize as many people as we possibly can.

But what the Lord is looking for is disciples, not names on a church roll, not the numbers of members that sometimes people tout when they talk about the strength of various congregations.

He says, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

I know, it's not obvious in the English.

But in the Greek, the word kept, there is a word that refers to something in the past that's happened.

The heiress tense heis indicative.

And I wonder if the Lord had some specific incident in mind?

We don't really know that, but I would suggest to you that we need to be constant in this faithfulness to the Lord.

And, and I believe that's what he says in verse 10, because you've kept my word about patient endurance.

The Lord had said, you need to continue to be faithful and they had listened to that and they had kept his word patiently.

Jesus said in John 14 verse 23 if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.

The metric for loving the Lord is keeping his word.

I know this in this day and age when people preach that we need to obey the Lord's commands, you're you're often accused of legalism that we're all focused on doing, doing, doing.

But Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commands.

Jesus said, that's the manifestation of love is that you keep what he has said, why do you call me Lord Lord and do not do the things that I say in Luke six verse 46.

This letter will end with the promise of a new name and I think the concept of the new name is a sign of honor and possession.

It would strike the the Philadelphians, I think pretty uh pretty clearly because they were familiar with the concept of new names for the city itself.

The letter in revelation is written to a church, but opportunities for evangelism are not only of a collective nature as a congregation, we certainly need to be looking for open doors.

We need to be looking for opportunities to teach others as a collective group and the elders need to lead in that but open doors, I think should be present or present for all of us.

And I want you to think for just a moment about people that, you know, people that you come in contact with.

Are there doors that are being opened by the Lord that we're not taking advantage of that.

I'm not taking advantage of Jesus says I've put an open door before you.

He doesn't identify the Philadelphians had to look for that door.

And so do we and that door will probably be represented by the people that we know and that we have contact with.

I wonder if as individuals, we're taking advantage of opportunities to teach others.

Sometimes I feel bad that I've not taken advantage of opportunities.

Sometimes we don't know if the opportunity is there until we test the door and see if it will open.

I want to share with you a passage from Colossians, the fourth chapter, the Apostle Paul toward the end of that, epistle writes this.

He says, in verse two, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

At the same time, he says, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders making the best use of the time.

Let your speech always be gracious season with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Paul says to the Colossians and he's writing from Rome, he's under house arrest there in Rome as Luke records in the last part of acts.

And he says, pray for me, pray for us that there will be open doors.

Do you pray for that?

Do we pray that God will give us opportunities?

But I'll tell you what if He gives us the open door, we've got to step through, got to take advantage of those opportunities.

Philadelphia is only, is one of only two churches that are addressed in revelation that were given no criticism.

Smyrna is the other one but everything to Philadelphia is positive.

There's no uh criticism or correction that seems to be required.

But the Lord said, I know that you have but little power.

Do you remember the the spies that were sent into the land of Canaan when the people of Israel came up uh from the south and they camped there at the southern portion of Canaan and they sent 12 spies in and of the 1210 of them came back and they gave a negative report, not about the land.

They said the land is a, is a rich land and they even brought back some samples of some of the produce of the land.

But they also said the people of the land are giants and they live in fortified cities.

And we, we were like grasshoppers in their site and in ours.

And I think we need to be aware of the grasshopper complex fact of the matter is as congregations go and I mean, uh, uh churches in general.

I'm not talking just about the local congregations, churches of Christ.

I'm talking about religious groups just in the city of Huntsville or a across the state of Alabama.

We are small.

There are churches even in Huntsville that have thousands of members.

They have huge plants that is, they have facilities that probably cost millions and millions of dollars.

And if we're not careful, we'll begin to see us as ourselves as just grasshoppers.

What can we do?

We're small compared to those folks, but don't forget what the Lord said to Philadelphia.

I know that you have but little power yet you have kept my name.

They've been faithful and it doesn't make any difference.

Whether we're one of the smallest groups in Huntsville.

The issue is whether we're being faithful to the Lord.

Are we being a good influence in the communities in which we live?

Are we stepping through the doors of opportunity for evangelism teaching others?

When we look at the institutions around us, the religious groups around us, what people measure success with is money, influence in political ways or community ways size and in all of those things, we are dwarfed by comparison.

But I don't think the Lord is worried about that.

I think what he wants is disciples who are dedicated to following him is that you can we describe ourselves that way?

I certainly hope that it is the case.

Church of Philadelphia had little power, but they kept the word of the Lord and not denied his name despite opposition as we read a little bit earlier in the letter, they were being opposed by a synagogue of Satan.

I think that was a reference to a Jewish synagogue and they were getting some opposition from these unbelieving jews.

But this church had stood firm even.

So, what's your situation with the Lord?

Have you been bought with the blood of the lamb?

The Lord said to him who conquers?

I will give a new name.

You'll be a pillar in my temple.

He'll belong to me.

And that's exactly what happens when we obey the gospel.

We become Christians.

We belong to the Lord.

We've been purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ acts 20 verse 28.

Makes that observation, we've been redeemed, bought out of the bondage of sin by the blood, the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

Do you belong to Jesus Christ?

I didn't ask if you've been baptized.

I'm asking, do you still belong to Jesus Christ?

Sometimes people are baptized and then over time they begin to kind of wander and they stop keeping the name of the Lord.

Stop loving the Lord by obeying his commandments.

Do you still belong to the Lord?

By virtue of the fact that you're following him, hearing the voice of the shepherd and following the shepherd.

If we can assist you this evening in becoming part of God's blood bought people, we certainly want to encourage you to take that step.

If you need to repent of things in your life, things that are of a private nature, then you need to pray to God and confess your sins, ask for forgiveness.

God will forgive.

That's his promise if we'll repent.

But if you've done things, if you're not living like a disciple, if you've denied the name of the Lord, if you've been embarrassed by the fact that you are a Christian, then you need to make some changes.

And you may need in fact to confess before the saints and the saints will pray with you, the elders will pray with you if we can assist you in any way in these ways.

Tonight, we encourage you as we stand and sing to invite you.