And to chapter 2 and chapter 3, we're looking at the church at Philadelphia. The church at Philadelphia. And so you'll have one more Sunday's message that's on the church of Thyatira. And we have covered the church at Sardis. and we have covered the church at Pergamos, and now we come to Philadelphia. The only one that I haven't covered in these weeks, between Sundays and Tuesdays, will be Laodicea. And I am reminded of a little historic fact. When I drive up to Locke and I see the water pipe that's along the road line, And I was surprised to see it above ground. Most pipes that I've ever noticed would be underground. But I imagine that there are reasons to just to keep the levels right and so on, that these pipes are above ground. And I thought, you know, they must warm up, must warm up the water. And the sun beating down on the metal pipe, surely the water would get warmed up to some degree. Well, in Roman times, The Romans built aqueducts to carry water into cities. There would have been bridges like an archway, and they would be carrying a stream of water, but they were open channels. They weren't pipelines. They were open channels. And the sun would warm up the water traveling whatever distance into the city. And it is likely that from there, that the Lord used the analogy that the church at Laodicea was lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. And of course, water that's lukewarm is never very pleasing. We like it cold, we like it hot. But lukewarm, and that was the state of the church at Laodicea. But that's just a little tidbit of information on that one. Tonight we're looking at Philadelphia. And that's chapter 3, verse 7. Chapter 3, verse 7. 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 has kept my word and has 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 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. Amen. We'll end our reading just there. We'll come back to the hymnal now to six. Philadelphia, we are looking for things for prayer. Things that we can bring to the Lord tonight in our prayers and ask with confidence that these things are the will of God. The Church of Philadelphia is, well, there's one of them in the USA, near New York. There is the city of Philadelphia. I don't know how that place got its name, but it is a truth that this Philadelphia at Asia Minor, it got its name not from Christianity, but from a Greek king. He gave this city, Philadelphia, to his brother as a gift. Therefore, that was the extension of brotherly love. The city got named Philadelphia, which in the Greek language means City of Brotherly Love. I wish I had a brother like that. I'm sure you may too, but that's how this name originated. Now, there's absolutely no reference to brotherly love in the letter. This is a reference, of course, to the Lord's love. to his church. You'll notice at the end of verse nine, and to know that I have loved thee. So I'll take that as a good basis to refer to this as the Lord's love letter to the people in this city whom the Lord loves. Isn't that precious? Isn't that blessed to our own souls this evening, that the Lord loves his own people, he loves his own church, In all her needs and all her warts and wrinkles and problems and cares, the Lord loves His own people. He loved them from all eternity. And when we gather together, the Lord has an interest in our hearts. Now, there's no rebuke to this church at Philadelphia. This was certainly a model church and a very good church to emulate. If we wanted to be a pleasing church that honored the Lord, we could certainly take our cue from this church in Philadelphia. Now, again, we ask, does it matter? Does it really matter what a church is like? and how they worship and how they behave and what they do. Well, it does because this was the church that the Lord promised he would give them an open door. And I take that to mean that the Lord will use this church. The Lord will make this church effective to reach men and to preach the gospel to men. It is the church of the open door. In chapter three, verse 10, you will see that it is a church that is kept. Because you've kept the word of my patience, he goes on to say, I also will keep thee. And that's something we want to see and want to experience. We want the Lord to do that here in Locke. to keep this church, and to watch over it at all times, and to care for it. In verse 11, this church would receive a crown. That is God's favor. That's God's reward for faithfulness, and what a blessing this will be. Now, the point of the church that God will use, you'll see that in verse 9, and this is a big one. Surprisingly, 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." Now, that is absolutely fantastic. Just think about it. These ugly Jews, anti-Christian, they were persecutors of the church of Christ and there was no love lost. And yet the Lord says, I will bring those hostile people to join you and be teachable in your ministry. Now that is something only the Lord could do. But here is this church in Philadelphia, and it is a church that God is going to use to reach men with the gospel. And I know that's your burden. I know that you care for souls all around in this community, in the Ayer Peninsula, and to reach men and women with the gospel. And so here's a church that we can learn from and take note. Lord, make this church to be useful and to see men come and be saved. So this is about conversions, people who are obstinate to the gospel. They come and sit at the feet of the ministry of the church. That's powerful. And the only way to see a church grow, of course, is conversions. And so we need to pray about that tonight. We need to pray that the Lord will give conversions in the ministry of the church. Now that can be within the walls of the church, or it can be further afield. It could be you bringing people in, inviting them to the Sunday service and telling them, come and hear the gospel and praying for the Reverend Graham, that the Lord will give him gospel messages that will speak to the hearts of the unconverted and bring them to the Lord Jesus. Now, this bringing men to the feet of the ministry of the church at Philadelphia It's not by tyranny. It's not by fear. It is really the power of the gospel. And it's what Christ does, because one of his offices is that he is king. And our shorter catechism, question 26, says, how does Christ execute the office of a king? And the answer is, he executed the office of a king by subduing us to himself. So he did that for us. He did in us what is spoken of here, of bringing unconverted, un-Christian, anti-Christian people to the feet of the gospel, and he has done it for us. And he will do it for others. He subdues us unto himself and to subdue all his enemies and our enemies. And that's the work of grace. That's the work of the gospel. And brothers and sisters, pray for this. Ask God tonight. to do this in your ministry and in your church, that you will see conversions. Now, that happened mightily in the first century church. We know how many were converted, how those, even Paul the apostle himself, hardened, bitter, persecuting. He was guilty of the blood of Christians, and yet he, the chief of sinners, was marvelously converted and cast to the ground and saying, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And that's the power and the grace of the gospel. Now, I've always had a bit of an interest in the gospel ministry of George G. Patton. He was a Scottish missionary to the New Hebrides. Now, the New Hebrides is down in this part of the world. If you draw a line from Auckland, New Zealand, straight north, and then you draw another line on the map from Cairns in Queensland, and you go eastward and where that intersects, that's the New Hebride Islands. They're quite small, but they've been populated for a long time. And they were a native people living on an island called Tannin Island. And there, George Patton arrived as a missionary to preach to cannibals. They were a very hostile people. Indeed, it took years to reach them. And when his first wife died, he buried her on the island with their little child. And because they were cannibals, he slept on top of the grave so that they would not use her body for cannibalism. And yet over time, he saw those people converted and they formed a gospel church. And it is reported that when those people became Christians, there was no better model of Christian people at communion than the people of Tannin, ministered to by George, not Patton. Where am I at here? Yeah, it is Patton, but it's John Patton. I'm getting mixed up here. It's John Patton, John G. Patton. That's his name. It was a marvel of power in the gospel. And we must not stop remembering that the Lord has power to convert people and to save, just as he did with Lydia. And it simply says, the Lord opened her heart. Now, this is the church of the open door. And for a church to have an open door, the Lord has the key to hearts. Let's remember that. The Lord has the key to the hearts of men and women, boys and girls, and to neighbors and in this community. And let's pray that the Lord in his grace will turn the hearts of men and women to himself. Now, what else do we pray for here? Well, this church had a testimony that the Lord loved them. And we saw that in the Verse nine, right down at the end, but do lie, behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee. That will become their testimony. There'll be people driving by and they will say, God loves that people. They're God's people. They're a special people to God. And that becomes a marvelous testimony, and God brought the people in Philadelphia to appreciate that the Lord loved these Christians in this church, and God used that. That became a tremendous witness to the community all around them, and that has to be our power of evangelism too. That's why the testimony of the church is so important. It's a place of truth. It's a place of righteousness. It's a place where the Lord blesses and the Lord works by his grace. That's the testimony that we need in the church. It said in the book of Acts chapter 4, 13, that all men knew that we had been with Jesus. Oh, that's a powerful testimony to have, and we need that. And we need to be a gracious people. In our radio ministry in Canada, there's a station a way out in the East Coast, and it was called Harvesters FM. And we were on that station for a number of years. And the owner operator of that radio station was a Christian. He started the station to reach Eastern Canada with the gospel. And he was doing a great work. And then he died very suddenly. His family tried to pick up the pieces and keep it going. it was really too much for them, and then they ended up hiring a man who had some experience in that kind of media, and he is doing a very good job. When I talked to him on the phone about programming and times and so on, he said there's three things that we look for when we take on a radio broadcast. One, that it is excellent. The audio needs to be good. The sound quality needs to be clear. And of course, it needs to be a content that's interesting. So it needs to be excellent. It needs to be evangelical, was the other one. It needs to be about the gospel, not about weird things, but focusing on the gospel. And he was thankful that that was our focus and glad to have our broadcast on there. Then the third thing he mentioned, it needs to be winsome. You want a ministry that wins people over. It's not always negative. It's not always banging, battering against things, but it is sweetly, graciously presenting the gospel of the Lord Jesus in all its fullness. to the hurts and the broken hearts of men and women, a word of encouragement, a word of grace, a word that will give them hope, and it will win people. And that's what we all need in our churches. And you need to pray for that here in Locke, that this ministry is winsome. that your minister will come on Sundays with messages that are filled with grace and filled with comfort to the hearts of men and women. And wherever the recordings go, I don't know, do you end up on sermon audio or go out on CD or however it goes out, that others will learn. there is a ministry in luck that is presenting the deep, deep love of the Lord Jesus on a regular basis. And let's pray for that. So pray for conversions, pray for a ministry that is winsome, and pray for no compromise. If you look at verse 10 and 11, it says, 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." Now, notice that the Lord warned us that there will be great testing and trial, trouble and temptation against the church. It's going to come upon the whole world. We'll not escape it no matter where we live, but the Lord will keep us. And because thou hast kept the word of my patience, my endurance, my trials, because you've kept the word, I'll keep you. That's how it works. That's how the Bible presents it over and over. You have God's sovereignty, human responsibility. The Lord says in Jude unto him that is able to keep us from falling, but just a verse before it, keep yourselves from falling. And so we are to keep ourselves and the Lord keeps us. So as you keep the word of God and keep true to that word, The Lord will bless you. The Lord will bless your ministry, and it will be a holding fast, and you'll see that in verse 11. Behold, I come quickly. Hold that fast which thou hast, and there is the call to keep on keeping on. Don't give up. Don't water it down. Don't change the message. Don't cease to be a witness, but hold that fast which thou hast. And thank God tonight you have the gospel. You have the word of God. You've had what, 30, how many years now since you formed this church? 35, is it? What year was it you start opened this building? 86. So you're coming up to 40 years, right? You're coming up to 40 years since the beginning of this ministry. And you've had the gospel all of these years. Oh, don't give up now. Hold fast. There's another generation that needs this gospel. There's a young element right here tonight and in the community that needs the gospel. And what the Lord did 40 years ago, he needs to continue and maintain that work and keep it firm and true. And God will use you. And to do that, no compromise. It says in verse 12, him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the church, a pillar in the temple of my God. Now, that's a great picture, isn't it? The pillar. The pillar is holding up the structure. And that's what ministers do. That's what elders do. That's what office bearers in the church do. They are to be pillars holding up the structure and all the other parts of the building are weaker. But the pillar is to be the strong structure of the building. And Christian, you are to be the pillar bearing the weakness of other believers, bearing the offense of the cross and holding up the truth as pillars in the church and being instant and overcoming for God. Now, if you do this, it says, and I will write him upon him the name of my God. and the name of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and I will write upon him my new name. And right down there you have that wonderful communion that is between the Lord and his people. What a wonderful communion. This Jerusalem is heaven, heaven comes down, and the blessing is upon the people of God. Let's pray for that blessing tonight, that we will have the Lord in the midst, the Lord speaking, the Lord ministering to every one of our hearts. So we have a lot of things to pray for here, haven't we? And when you start looking in the Bible for things for prayer, and I would advise that you keep a little notebook And as you do your daily reading in the Bible, look for things for prayer. And as you jot those down, you'll never be short of something to be praying about, whether in private or in the church. you will be fortified or you will be furnished with things to pray for. And I know sometimes you get down to pray and you wonder, well, what are we going to pray about? And you kind of draw a blank. And to have a little list would be very helpful. Now, the list that comes to us tonight from this church in Philadelphia is to pray for conversions, that sinners will be brought to the foot of the cross. Pray that the Lord will make the church to be winsome, and then the church will be a pillar, and God's people will be strong, enjoying the power of the Lord in our souls. So let's do that tonight. We would value your prayers, of course, for our travel tomorrow.