The Church the gets Raptured - Letter to Philadelphia | Faith By Reason

And up until this point, the churches had been looking pretty bleak, the last few churches.

You had the church at Pergamum, the church that compromised and basically married the world.

You had the church at Thyatira, which allowed idolatry to come in.

They were basically turning the church into a pagan system of worship.

Then you had the church at Sardis, which was basically spiritually dead, so looking pretty bleak.

Fortunately, we have the church of Philadelphia, that shining example of what a church should be.

And let's just start by diving into the verses.

to the angel of the church in philadelphia write these are the words of him that is holy and true he who has the key of david who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens i know your works see i have set before you an open door and no one can shut it for you have a little strength have kept my word and have not denied my name indeed i will make those of the synagogue of satan who say they are jews and are not but lie indeed i will make them come and worship before your feet and to know that i have loved you because you have kept my command to persevere i also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth behold i am coming quickly hold fast to what you have that no one may take your crown he who overcomes i will make him a pillar in the temple of my god and he shall go out no more 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 out of heaven from my god and i will write on him my new name he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches OK, I think as we can see right off the bat, this letter is just full of effusive praise for this church.

In fact, this praise even has a very strong marital marriage concept to it, which we'll talk about in a few minutes.

But before we break down this first list, as usual, look at the historic concept, because, again, these were seven actual churches in seven real cities in Asia Minor.

Ancient Asia Minor, which is modern day Turkey and Philadelphia, was a city in in ancient Asia Minor, not as prominent as some of the other cities.

It wasn't a big hustling metropolis like Ephesus or Smyrna.

It wasn't a blue collar town like Thyatira or anything like that.

It was actually just a farming community.

Nothing fancy about it at all.

These were just farmers.

The name Philadelphia, which means brotherly love, comes from the fact that this the land that became the city of Philadelphia was gifted from one Greek leader to his brother.

So it's the name.

And again, it's a farming community to this day.

That area in Turkey is known for growing grapes for raisins.

And that's about it for Philadelphia.

It is interesting that this area, this city that was just humble salt of the earth, just regular hardworking people, humble people would be the church that exemplifies what Jesus wants most of all, because while there was nothing fancy or notable about them in any way materially or spiritually, They were giants spiritually.

So while you would not have noticed them or pay much attention to them while they were on Earth, because we only look at the physical from a spiritual standpoint, they were absolutely magnificent, humble, salt of the earth, regular folk who were just doing the work of Jesus.