In the sermon 'Philadelphia - The Small Obedient Church' by Scott Brown, the speaker examines the message to the church in Philadelphia from Revelation 3:7-13. The sermon emphasizes three key attributes of Jesus Christ: holiness, truth, and sovereignty. Jesus is portrayed as having the 'key of David,' symbolizing His control over salvation and His authority to open and close doors, both literally and metaphorically. The church in Philadelphia is commended for its little strength, obedience to God's word, and refusal to deny His name. Despite their small size and lack of worldly power, they are seen as favored by God, receiving promises of vindication, protection, and eternal life in the New Jerusalem. Scott Brown encourages listeners to reflect on their own lives and churches, questioning what they will say in old age about their faithfulness to God's word. The sermon concludes with a call to embrace holiness, truth, and the sovereignty of Jesus, drawing parallels between the Philadelphia church and the personal and communal spiritual journey of believers today.

Please find Revelation chapter 3 beginning in verse 7. We'll read from verse 7 to verse 13. We read The inerrant, the sufficient life-giving word of God, praise the Lord for his word. Verse 7. And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, these things says he who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he 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 to 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 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.

Let's pray. Oh Lord we thank you for this thrilling passage of scripture, this encouraging testimony of this little church. We pray that you would give us wisdom. We pray that you would open doors today. We pray that you would come and bless your people with wisdom and help from heaven.

Amen. Please be seated. So this is the sixth letter of seven letters to the churches in Turkey. These letters and really everything that is in the Book of Revelation is designed for one thing and one thing alone. If you walk out with anything but this one thing, you might have missed the point and that is they all declare the glory and the beauty and the power, the majesty of Jesus Christ.

Every word of Revelation is designed to display that. We learned that in the first three verses of the book. And so these letters to the churches find the Lord Jesus Christ scrutinizing churches, comforting churches, rebuking, revealing things to these churches, and encouraging them. That's what we find in this letter here. The Lord Jesus Christ comes to encourage a little church and these letters are designed to teach us how to think about the church, our church, our lives in the church and to help us to understand what we see going on in the churches all around us in the world.

And he's walking among the churches and he's walking among this church, scrutinizing this church, comforting this church, correcting this church. We should all look at these churches as reflections of our own. I believe that these letters are really designed to unmask various maladies, various comorbidities in churches that exist. So here we are in the church in Philadelphia. Many commentators have called this the favored church.

And so in this letter the Lord Jesus Christ comes alongside a small and rejected and Persecuted church and he encourages them They were shut out of the synagogue. They faced very, very difficult times in their city which required perseverance. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes to affirm them. You remember last in the last letter to the church in Sardis, the Lord Jesus didn't come to affirm them but to expose that they were dead. They thought they were alive but they were dead and Jesus comes with a very hard message.

You heard a hard message when we were engaged with the church in Sardis But here the Lord Jesus Christ comes to affirm this church and he encourages it. Maybe that's what you need today. So in these letters there are there are three kinds of churches. There are kinds that only receive a warning. That's all they receive warnings and rebukes.

There are two of them and then there are three churches that are a mix of warning and encouragement. And then there are the churches that only receive encouragement and inspiration. That's the church in Smyrna and the church in Philadelphia. You know I heard somebody say one time that there there are two kinds of people in the world for you to look at. There are those who are an inspiration and there are those who are a warning.

And these letters ask us something of us. What kind of church are we? What kind of church do we want to be? This letter shows us an inspiring Church. So it really is a joy to be in this letter.

You know many years ago Deborah and I were driving to Florida on vacation with our young family, our little family. We were driving. It was late at night. Our kids were asleep in the back of the car. And Deborah and I started talking about something.

I asked her a question. And I said, Deborah, when we grow old, what are the things that we don't want to be saying when we look back. What do we want not to say when we're in our old age and we're looking back on all the years that passed us by in our lives with our children particularly. And really it was a question about patterns in our lives that we might regret if we grew older and we looked back and it was a question that I asked her to help us to think about where we want to be as a family and and what we don't want to be saying when we look back and I remember there we made a long list And I remember we said we don't want to say that we didn't take walks together. We don't want to say that we didn't go camping.

We don't want to say that we neglected to read the Bible every day in our home. We didn't want to say that we never took vacations. Well, there was a lot that we said that we didn't want to say. And I pray that maybe this passage will help you think about what you will say when you get older about your life. Will you say the things that Jesus says here?

Will you have regrets? You know right about that time it was interesting when our young little family one of my friends called me from California and he said he said Scott let's live so that we have no regrets. And so that became the year of no regrets. And so these things were on our minds. How do you live a life where the Lord looks upon your life?

And he says the kinds of things that we find here in this church in Philadelphia. Now this church they embraced obedience they received the words of a holy and true God and the Lord showered them with blessings. This church wanted to identify with the name of Jesus Christ and they would not deny his name, the content and corpus of the meaning of His name. But they were small, but they were kept by God. You know, what you see here is the Lord blessed this church with so many things.

We'll see them in this message. But one of the things that I love about this passage is that it shows the preciousness of the church to Jesus Christ, his care that he gives, the things that he says about his church, the oversight that he has over his church, and also too the success that he grants a church. So these are the things that are emphasized here. You have an outline in front of you. I hope you can see where I'm going in this message.

I've divided this up into three sections, you know, as you can see. The one who loves them is speaking to them. We have an identification of who he is that's speaking in in verse 7 and then What he loves about this church that's in verse 8 and then finally his promises to them in verses 9 through 13 So let's let's get into the text verse 1 the one who loves them, he identifies himself, he tells them who he is who is speaking to them and to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write. This is a local church and he is writing a letter. Remember this is an epistle.

It's a letter to a local church. Just like Ephesians and Colossians, Revelation is a letter to local churches to display the glory of Jesus Christ. And what we find here are Christ and his attributes. These things says, He who is holy, He who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens. I know your works.

This is the one who knows. And he knows everything. He has eyes as flame as a flame of fire as we saw in the first chapter. He sees, he understands the church. Jesus Christ lives with his wife in an understanding way.

He understands everything about his wife, the church. He understands every thought, every activity, every sin, every joy, every trial. He knows everything and this is the one who is speaking to the church and this is the one who is speaking to our church right now. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to this church through these words and when we gather we're hearing the words of God. It's such a sacred thing to open up the Word of God and to bring the words of God.

God speaks in his church. If you want to hear God speak, open up his book. He'll speak to you. And there's this, there are these attributes of God that come forth. There are three of them primarily.

By the way, As an aside, one of the things I love about our Wednesday night prayer meetings and also the prayers that happen on Sunday morning is that the prayers exalt the attributes of God. You know, I know pastors who've had to correct their congregations and say, would you just quit playing, would you just quit playing about, quit praying about grandma's broken toe and pray about the majestic God that rules the universe, you know? And I don't have to do that here because you have God and his attributes in your hearts. This is the most helpful thing that you can have. You can be overcome by all the broken things of this world, but to have a fixation on the attributes of God is life-giving to a church.

Well that's what we find here. First, he's holy. There are things here about his holiness. God is holy. The one who's speaking to this church is holy.

And I'm going to give you four things about God's holiness just briefly. First, He's like no other. He's separate. We are not like Him. We don't think like Him.

We need Him. We need His thinking. Secondly, He's pure. He's perfectly pure. He is pure happiness.

He is absolute undiluted purity. Third, he's not neutral. His presence stands against all that is not holy, and his perfections are designed to call every human being to repent and fall down on our knees and say, have mercy on me, oh Lord God Almighty. His holiness is the greatest offense to the unholy and the greatest joy and desire of those who want to be holy. Fourth, His holiness is our only hope.

The Holy Son of God makes His children holy. His holiness is imputed to our unholiness so that we are without blemish, so that we are forgiven, so that we are clean in His cleanliness. We are made holy by His holiness. Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, laid down His life for sinners to make them holy. So this is His holiness, and it's such a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Abraham Kuyper said, ''Holiness is the very essence of the church. The church is synonymous with holiness. So we first encounter this attribute of God, he is holy. It's not really an attribute as a particular, it's the attribute that sums up all the other attributes he is holy and then he is true secondly do you see that he is holy and true we live in a world of lies Jesus Christ will always tell you the truth. He'll always tell you the truth about yourself, He'll always tell you the truth about the world, He'll always tell you the truth about everything.

He is the way, the truth, and the life. And He is true. Not one of his words will fail. You can pick up all these success books you want. Their words will fail, his words will never fail.

What a blessing that is. We're always facing the question, who will we believe in the world? Will you believe the great news outlets? The liberal ones, the conservative ones? There's one outlet you can believe.

This news outlet is the Word of God because the Word of God is true. In Revelation 21 we encounter the same terminology. These words are faithful and true. They're repeated also in chapter 22. And of course the church always sins when she adds or subtracts from the Word of God.

This is so critical. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book, says the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation 22, 18. And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of this prophecy God will take away His part from the book of life and from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book this this is a holy book for a holy people for a holy nation for a holy church and we dare not add or subtract from it. The Word of God is designed to be the guide, the exclusive and singular guide of the church. The word of God is designed to be the exclusive and singular guide to every person.

This Philadelphia church, they kept the word of God. They kept it because they believed it was true. And then he is sovereign. Look at these words, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens. I'll start with a general principle about this phrase here.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Johnson to communicate this general principle of this matter of doors that only one person can open and only one person can shut and it's the holy true Lord God Almighty. The Lord Jesus is at the helm of all things. He determines the opening, the duration, and the shutting of every activity and action that takes place in his domain. It is his decree, his will, and his purpose that determines when everything begins, how long it continues, and when it ends. God and God alone opens and shuts everything.

He opened the first day of creation. He will close it down with fire. He opens the womb and He closes the tomb at death. He kills, He heals, He makes alive, He's the first, He's the last, He's the ruler of the kings of the earth. Everything that happens, happens by His hand.

Thank God that every wave that has ever hit you has come from the hand of God and not from the devil. It was God who sent it. Praise God. It's God who sent it and it's God who will sustain you in it. What a wonderful thing it is to know God.

Well the Philadelphians understood that. Well the key of David really is a declaration of his sovereign power and this is imagery, a key. There is the key of David and you know keys were symbols of authority and only those who had authority carried them. By the way, now you can carry a key in your pocket. But in those days, you never lost your keys.

They were huge. So imagine you children, a huge key, the key of David that unlocks everything. Not like your little key in your pocket. They were large and the Lord Jesus Christ says that he holds the key. He's saying that he holds the keys of salvation.

He opens up the doors of heaven and he keeps them shut. He's opening and closing the ways of salvation. But, Jesus Christ can open up the tightest closed heart. He can soften the hardest heart. That's the blessing.

In Revelation chapter 9 and verse 20, we also read that Jesus Christ has the key to the bottomless pit and he has the key to Hades and this reference to the keys of David though is directly related to Isaiah 22. Jesus is quoting Isaiah 22 verse 22 and what is happening in Isaiah 22 is a shadow of what is being communicated here. Revelation is full of Old Testament citations. It's difficult to understand the Book of Revelation without always going back to the Old Testament. And if you want to interpret the Book of Revelation in its most difficult places, go back to the Old Testament, don't go to the newspaper, okay, because the Old Testament interprets what the meaning is.

And I'll just read Isaiah 22, 22, the key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder so he shall open and no one shall shut and he shall shut and no one shall open." This is the exact language that Jesus Christ is using 2700 years later. Now this is a remarkable, It comes from a remarkable story of two stewards. One is named Shebna and the other is Eliakim. And God places a corrupt leader by the name of Shebna as a steward, and he's given authority. And He wanted to make a name for himself.

It's really a very very striking Story he built a large burial edifice for himself. He's exalting himself. He wants to leave something behind He wants to build his platform. He wants to make his legacy shine for a long long time He he was selfish she in verse 16 he who hues himself a sepulcher on high, who carves a tomb for himself in a rock. And he's thrown down.

He's like just thrown across the nations. God gets rid of him and replaces him with Eliakim, a different kind of steward. Eliakim takes his place and this is said of Eliakim. Eliakim has the keys and he opens and he shuts. Now he's a picture of Christ.

He's a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the whole meaning here is that Jesus Christ has the key to open the door of your soul to be saved and you won't be saved until he opens the door. Have you entered into the door of the kingdom of God? That's the question that this poses. Have you entered into that door?

Have you walked through it and seen the kingdom of heaven? To walk through the door means that you want to relinquish everything in your life to follow Him who is holy, Him who is true, Him who is sovereign. And you've come to the place where you want to lose your life. You realize your life is nothing. It is irrelevant.

It's profane. That you are losing true life and you want to find life in Him. You've seen Him. You've heard of Him and you want His life and you don't want your life anymore. That's what it means to walk through the door.

Is that what you want? Do you want His life? Do you want His ways? Do you want His laws? Do you want His mercy?

Do you want His holiness to make you holy? Then repent of your sins so the times of refreshing will come in. Jesus Christ opens the door to those who repent and he is holy and he is true and he is in absolute control and you'll never be able to escape him. So these are these these three marvelous attributes he is holy he is true and he is sovereign He opens and no one can shut, and he shuts and no one can open. If you are the kind of person now, right now, in this room who says I want to be holy I want to follow Jesus Christ then tell him tell him say oh Lord Jesus Christ open the door to me I want to walk into your kingdom I believe he'll let you in and then he he he he tells them who it is who loves them.

He's holy and true and he's sovereign. But then he tells them what he loves about them in verse 8. What he loves about them. Now is this what the Lord loves about you or is it what the Lord loves about me or is there something short of that in your life or my life? I think this is given to us to help us to evaluate our own lives as a whole church and as individuals.

Now the first thing that He loves about them, this might surprise you, The first thing that he loves about them is that they have a little strength. Isn't that strange? They have a little strength. For you have a little strength. I couldn't find a commentator that thought that this was a criticism.

But it's an acknowledgement of a blessed reality of their existence together in their church. And it's not negative. And it could mean that it was a small church without much status, could have been of little size, of little gifts, of little resources, of little reputation, unimpressive, little. Small platform, not well known, not the biggest shot in town. It's a picture really of the majority of churches in the world.

If you would take this as a small church. The average size church in America is 75. I think half the churches in America are under 40. So the world is full of small churches, but they're unknown, but not to God. And the small churches have hope and their his strength is perfected in weakness.

His power in this church is shown by their simple obedience and that they would not deny the content of his name. That's what made them wonderful. That's what made them great. And they're holding fast to the word and God will open doors. This is a very common idea in the Word of God.

Paul was weak. He talks about how God made him weak. He did it through an affliction, a thorn in the flesh. In 2 Corinthians 12, he sums it all up of this weakness. We don't even know what it was, but he says, therefore I take pleasure in infirmities in reproaches in needs in persecutions in distresses for Christ's sake for when I am weak I'm strong We know that the Lord uses the weak things of this world.

In 1 Corinthians 1.26, he speaks of that Corinthian church, not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. The Corinthian church wanted to be so mighty, they wanted to be so hot, they wanted to be so impressive, you know. And the Lord says no no no no no I don't need your impressiveness, I don't need your coolness. Because the Lord is saying, I'm using foolish things to put to shame the wisdom of the wise. I'm using the little things to say big things.

Al Martin, a pastor, wrote this, I can use a weak man who trusts me, but I can't use a proud man who thinks he doesn't need me. His grace is sufficient in weakness and God does choose the weak things of this world. Now we live in a world of idols. The two most prominent idols are health and wealth. And Those are the two things that get the most traction by those who want to preach a gospel of health and wealth.

They connect. They connect with us. They connect with our idols. We want wealth. We want health.

God doesn't always give it. We're impressed by manpower. We're impressed by resources. God is not impressed. He's not impressed.

What is he impressed with? The church with a little strength. Their strength, I believe, was in the Lord. It wasn't in their outward appearances, like the church in Sardis. So they're a little church without much power.

Don't underestimate, don't be fooled by the wisdom of this world. What God desires is a humble and a contrite heart, a heart that desires to obey the Lord and to identify with everything in His name no matter what may come. That's a true church that Jesus praises. Now also second they've been obedient. They've kept my word, kept my word.

You see those three words. They kept my word. They obeyed the word of God. They were obeying the word of God. They were listening to the word of God in the face of the power trip that Zeus wanted to lay on them, the pleasures that Dionysius wanted to lay on them, the big fat wisdom that Athena wanted to lay on them, all the health that Askeplius wanted to lay on them.

They wanted to go to God. They wanted to go to the Word of God for their health. They wanted to go to God for their wisdom and their strength. That's where they went. They lived by a fixed rule, not a flexible rule.

This is, I think, a manifestation of a people who really understood that Scripture was sufficient, that was Scripture was all they needed and they kept His Word. They stood upon the rock, not the sand. By the way, the rock that Jesus speaks about in Matthew is not Jesus. The rock is obedience. You stand on obedience to Jesus Christ.

That's the idea. You know, there's nothing better for a church than to find such joy in the words of God. And it manifests itself in different ways. You know, when the words are on the screen you just want to hang on those words When you're singing the songs there's this phrase and it just grabs you and you almost go into a freeze-frame moment in your life You just want to stop and then you find out. Oh, no, the song has gone on I just got lost in those two words that were such a blessing to my soul.

They loved the words, they hung on the words. What a blessing that is. They, you know, in Jeremiah 15-16, they had what we all need. Jeremiah said, your words were found and I ate them and your word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart for I am called by your name oh Lord God of hosts that the word would be sweet like joy to our hearts. You know, in Psalm 19, we learn that the word of God is like honey, it's like honey in the honeycomb.

You know. You know, there have been times when I have given the Word of God to my grandchildren and I've gotten out a bottle of honey and I had them take a spoonful of honey and say, how sweet are your words to me because the Word of God is sweet. Job said I have not departed from the commandment of his lips I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. The Christian life has lived not on a pendulum swinging but on a fixed point of reference. Like a plumb line, a plumb line at rest.

The plumb line is the word of God for our lives. We live in a world where everything is swinging. I mean people are swinging on the theological vines like you can't believe in the churches today. But we don't swing on those vines. We stand on the rock.

It's eternal and it's perfect and it's pure and it's beautiful. The third thing is that they did not deny his name. What a wonderful thing to have the Lord say. What a wonderful thing that you would say at the end of your life. You'd say, I can deny His name.

I loved His name. I wanted the entire content and corpus of His name To be mine and I identified with everything that his name represented. That's what the name is When you pray in Jesus name, you're really praying the things that Jesus represents And when you do not deny his name, it's not It's not exactly the same thing as, you know, you're in a conversation and you denied him. It has to do with his entire picture of his character and his life. You don't deny his name.

To deny is to say not willing. I'm taking this out of a Greek dictionary. To deny here in this word means to resist, to reject. They did not resist his name. They did not reject his name.

They did not say, I'm unwilling. Are you willing? Are you willing to bear his name? I take this that this was a church that did not want to deny anything in His name. When you get to the end of your life and you look back, What will you say?

Did you deny his name? Was there anything in his name that you despised? Was there any particular law of God that you hated and you Resisted and you rejected and you said I'm not willing. Are you willing? Are you willing to accept all of his laws?

Are you willing to accept all of his promises? They did not deny his name and then the result is I've set for you an open door. There you go. He blessed them. He set them an open door that no one can shut, for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and not denied my name.

So I'm going to open the door. I think it's The door of salvation primarily, but it's every other door. You know, the Apostle Paul spoke of open doors in 1 Corinthians 16, 9. There was an open door, but it was an open door of trouble, he said. He said, but I'll tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

Sometimes the door the door that God opens is a door where there are adversaries. Sometimes it's an open door to preach, that's in 2nd Corinthians 12 too. When I came to Troas to preach the gospel and a door was opened to me by the Lord to preach. God opens doors to preach. In Acts chapter 14, God opened a door for the Gentiles.

So There are various kinds of doors that were open to this church because of their faithfulness, because they loved his name and they wanted to obey him. The Lord Jesus opens the doors when we need them. He closes them when we need them to close. And it is key, it is David's key, it's the Lord Jesus Christ's key. He opens and closes every door.

You know everybody's really concerned about getting canceled today? Guess what? God is the king of cancel culture. If you got canceled, there was somebody that opened that door and closed that door. It was God.

So don't worry about it too much. God is opening and closing the door to cancel culture. He's the keeper of the doors. He's the one who's in charge of deplatforming. He's the one in charge of prison doors.

He's the one in charge of every door. You know when we gather together to pray, the reason we gather to pray is that we're acknowledging that only He can open the doors. And we cry out to Him to open doors. We cry out to him that he would open the windows of heaven on a number of different Fronts we cry out to him to shut doors and to stop things from happening last Wednesday night somebody prayed that God would shut the doors of the abortion clinics and and just yesterday a woman walked away and say and kept her baby praise the Lord but we didn't just pray about it some people actually went out there and they did something about it praise God for that I praise God for those that go out there every week. You know, the Lord Jesus opens the hardest doors.

You know, the synagogue of Satan was in an all-out war against this church. And it seems like the Lord even opened the door to some of them. We'll get to that in a minute. Now There's nothing more heartbreaking than having an open door and you don't walk through it. So is there anybody that's just been hanging on, you're waiting, you're waiting, you're going to follow the Lord someday soon, someday in the future.

You don't wanna lose what you have now. You know, you think that some little pleasure that you are gonna preserve is gonna be good for you, and it's not. But the Lord Jesus Christ is the keeper of the door. Walk through the door, walk through the door. And then the Lord makes heartwarming promises, many heartwarming promises.

There are many of them here and I'm going to itemize them just so you see the Lord Jesus Christ offers these beautiful promises. You know when you get to the end of your life and you look back you know what will you see? Will you see all the promises God fulfilled in your life? All these marvelous things that he delivered on in your life. Well Here are six, well there are, there's a phrase here in these verses, I will.

Do you see that? I will. I will, I will, I will, I will, I will. Six times in three verses, I will. God is going to do something for this church.

And first, He will vindicate. He will vindicate them. He says, I will vindicate you. 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." Those of the synagogue of Satan are going to come and they're going to worship with them.

They're going to show up at church and they're going to worship. I don't think it's that they're going to bow down at their feet. They're going to come and they are going to engage in the worship of God. There's much to say about this matter of the Jews here. And so there's this first promise, I will vindicate you.

And then in verse 9, I will make you know that I love you. And then he says, I will keep you because you have kept my command. I will also keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world. And then he says, I will make you a pillar in my house and then he says I will give you the name of my God in other words God is going to hang his name on you. And then he says I will write my new name on you.

This is Jesus Christ saying he's now going to write his name on you. God the Father and God the Son are going to say you're mine. And then he says I will write on you the name of New Jerusalem and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven. The coming of the New Jerusalem is the moment that marks when all the trials and tribulations will come to an end and the Lord Jesus Christ will move his bride into her heavenly home, into the New Jerusalem. And after all the smoke and the fire of this world, the Lord Jesus Christ will move his children into the most beautiful place.

You know the Bible begins in a garden and it ends in a garden. It begins by a river and it ends by a river. It begins with a tree of life and it ends with trees of life. And that's what he's saying here. He's promising them heaven.

That he will put the name of Jerusalem on them to remind them that that's where they're going. You know, I'm getting ready to do a conference called The Theology of the Family, and I'm going to do a Biblical Theology of the Family. A Biblical theology is not a systematic theology. A systematic theology talks about what the Bible says about a particular subject. A Biblical theology starts from Genesis and goes all the way to Revelation.

And it marks the purpose and the functionality of the family from Genesis to Revelation, going through every book of the Bible. That's what I'm going to do at this conference. We're going to start in Genesis and a man's going to give a message on that. We're going to give a message, you know, of creation and manhood and womanhood, and then we're going to deal with the fall. Paul Washer is gonna give a message on that.

We're gonna go all the way through the entire Bible all the way to the end and we end up in Revelation. We end up in the New Jerusalem. That's where we end up. God, everything that God is doing in the world with the family is to rescue a bride and really to divide the sheep and the goats through the preaching of the gospel in a home. That's what God is doing with the family.

That's his purpose for the family. And so I've been talking to my speakers and I told them how this will all go. One of them wrote who is doing the message at the very end of the conference in Revelation to see the entire purpose that God had for the family. I'll read you what he wrote. The triumphant God leaves the battlefield to gather his family to himself in a new and perfect creation.

His people are described here as holy and glorious, new Jerusalem, beautiful beyond description. They are his people, his sons, his bride. The fulfillment of his ancient covenant promises. Their home will be an everlastingly perfect creation in which nothing unclean or sad can exist. It will contain the fullness of all the biblical types and shadows, needing no temple nor sun, as God himself will live among his people.

This new home will be bursting with life, filled with the undiluted joy of serving before the face of our King." And so the Lord says to this church, I'm gonna write on you the name New Jerusalem as an encouragement for where it's all going and where he's taking them. The Lord is so good. So the Lord makes many promises. He tells them who He is, who it is that loves them. He tells them what He loves about them.

And So when you look back on your life, what will you be saying? Let's not as a church say that we did not keep his word. Let's not say that we regret that we did not identify with everything that his name represented. That we lived in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation and we did not deny his name in the world that he made. Will you say the word of God was so sweet to me it was sweeter than honey?

What will you say? Well you have many years ahead of you probably and I pray that God would give all of us the promises that are here. Revelation 1 3 says blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it. Would you pray with me? Lord, these words are faithful and true.

We thank you for the encouragement that they are. Lord, thank you for revealing yourself as the holy and the true and the sovereign. Lord, thank you. Thank you Lord for affirming a little church. Could we be affirmed today in these same things?

Lord, we thank you that you're the one who opens and closes the doors. Lord, we thank you for your many promises to make us your own as a result of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you would help us all to walk with you in holiness and in faithfulness that we would be like this little faithful Church. Amen. Thank you.