Rapture: The Secrets of the Open Door, part 1

"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."

Jesus, Revelation 3:7-8, NKJV

Jesus is talking to His faithful church, His beautiful bride, His true believers.  That Philadelphian church was small, but committed to the Word and the Name of Jesus Christ.  Persecuted by pretenders, they had kept the command to persevere through the hardships.  Compared to the other churches addressed by Jesus in the Revelation, the Philadelphians were doing it right.  Not so everywhere else.

In Ephesus, the believers were self-righteous, legalistic and had lost their love.

In Pergamos, the believers had compromised their belief and practice in the face of persecution.

In Thyatira, the believers had followed false teachers into the corruption of license and vice.

In Sardis, the believers were busy with a semblance of church life to cover up their own spiritual death.

And in Laodicea, the believers had prospered to the point of comfort and complacency. 

Only in Philadelphia (and in Smyrna, where the believers were experiencing intense persecution), were the believers holding fast to their belief in Christ and their purity in the world.  Only with Phildelphia and Smyrna was Jesus pleased.  In the modern world, there are two kinds of churches with which Jesus is pleased--those churches that are faithful in the midst of terrible trial and tribulation, and those churches that are faithful in the vale of peace.  To everyone else Jesus offers rebuke and a call to repent.  But to these faithful churches Jesus makes great and precious promises.

To the downtrodden believers at Smyrna He says, "Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer...be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.  He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death."

And to the thriving believers at Philadelphia He says, "I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it...I 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!"

In those two promises, Jesus revisits the declaration He made at the tomb of Lazarus, where he the dead who believed in Him would live again, and the living who believed would never die.  He reminds us of Paul's expectation of being transformed and translated alive into heaven along with the resurrected dead in Christ.  He says that some will escape this world and its troubles through death, and others He will deliver completely from the troublesome trial.  And we can be reminded of Paul again, who said the Lord would punish with tribulation those who trouble us while giving those who are troubled rest!

For the believers, there are only two ways out of this world--death, or the rapture.  And Jesus has set before us an open door through which we may enter the Kingdom of God and life everlasting!