Revelation 3:7 “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 opens.
Matthew 16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Job 11:10 If he passes through and imprisons and summons the court, who can turn him back?
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
We are occupied sometimes with the want to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We listen and want to believe someone is telling us the truth. Sometimes we just hear what we want to hear and that becomes truth for us. We are going through some political hail storm in our country right now. Investigations, interrogations, and judicial inquiries fill the news on social networks, media outlets, TV, and radio. We hear things only to find out what someone said 3 months or 2 years ago was not the truth. New evidence is found and the foundation for our beliefs in the situation is no longer supported. I don’t care what side of the current situation you are on, or what media outlets you choose to listen too, they all have given some truth, some half-truths, and some outright lies. It is hard to trust what we hear and who to believe. At some point, many just don’t listen anymore because they get fed up having to try to sort it out.
I think some are the same way when it comes to reading and believing what is recorded in the bible. People apply the skeptic’s eye they have been trained to use on the culture and society they live in. They read what is written and say that can not be true because “they did not personally see it”, “it has never happened before”, “that is not in agreement with science”, and “if a man wrote it, it must be tainted with what they believe to be the truth”.
Here we read the Holy One and the True one is speaking to this church in Philadelphia. He is one we can believe. He is one who speaks no lies. He is in control. He shuts, no one can open and what He opens no one can shut. There is so much to unpack in this it would take years and volumes of writing to scratch the surface of it. Three words describe God, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, and they are the beginning of our foundation of truth. All-powerful, all-knowing, and always present. If we do not start here it will be hard to believe or have faith or put action to our faith. The church in Philadelphia was such a church of faith and to whom this letter is written.