Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Whoops. These things are important. We come today to the fourth, the middle of the seven O antiphons, and I’ll read the antiphon first and then we’ll turn to the scripture verses. So remain seated for this reading of the antiphon itself. The O antiphon that the scriptures we’ll be reading have relationship to is this one: “O Key of David and scepter of the house of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens. Come and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

Now, please stand for the reading of God’s word. We’ll be reading from Revelation 3:7-13, Isaiah 22:15-25, and Isaiah 9:6. Beginning at Revelation 3:7-13.

“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 that 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 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.”

And now from Isaiah 22:15-25: “Thus says the Lord God of hosts, ‘Go, proceed to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the house and say, “What have you here? And whom have you here that you have hewn a sepulcher?” A sepulcher here, as he who hews himself a sepulcher on high, who carves a tomb for himself in a rock. Indeed, the Lord will throw you away violently, O mighty man, and will surely seize you.

He will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball into a large country. There you shall die, and there your glorious chariots shall be the shame of your master’s house. So I will drive you out of your office and from your position he will pull you down. Then it shall be in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with your robe and strengthen him with your belt.

I will commit your responsibility into his hand. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 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. I will fasten him as a peg in a secure place. He will become a glorious throne to his father’s house. They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house.

The offspring and the posterity, all vessels of small quantity, from the cups to all the pitchers. In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, the peg that is fastened in the secure place will be removed and be cut down and fall, and the burden that was on it will be cut off, for the Lord has spoken.’”

And then finally, Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for this season. We thank you for this wonderful old song of the church, the antiphons that we’ve been thinking about and meditating on. Thank you, Father, for their directing us back to these incredibly beautiful and significant texts for us. Lord God, we know that individually and also as a nation we face Gordian knots. We face very complicated locked mechanisms that we cannot undo. Grant us, Lord God, the key of the Lord Jesus Christ to solve our problems, to understand how to move forward into success. Bless us, Lord God, as we consider your word. Grant us wisdom and understanding. Grant us that we might indeed be in union with Jesus Christ as key bearers for him. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. You know, we live in an odd time when we’re left with many images of Christmas past, so to speak, that we don’t understand. Yesterday morning we celebrated St. Nicholas Day as I know many of you did as well. And I put out a playlist on Spotify. I can play all these songs and there’s hundreds of songs about Santa Claus. So I put a playlist on for the family that morning, St. Nicholas morning. I was playing all these Santa Claus songs. And so I played one or two first and then we had our little time talking about what that’s all about.

People have no idea, for the most part. They have no idea. And you can get rid of Santa Claus. Christians might want to just get rid of the old guy, but we’d be losing something very valuable, as most of us who have done a little investigation into St. Nicholas realize. So we have these weird images left over. We have trees and we don’t know that they’re related to both the tree of life—these Christmas trees. We don’t remember that they’re related to the tree of Jesse, a Jesse tree, and the verses we read last week about Jesus being the root of Jesse. We don’t realize these round balls are, you know, they’re just artistic depictions of fruit. And so it’s a tree of life with fruit growing, et cetera. I mean, we just we sort of just blow by everything in our day and age and we don’t know what anything is about anymore.

It’s interesting, the same thing is true of language. I’ve used this illustration before, but in Dune—the book and the movie—you know, the navigators who are the great wise men and controllers of the universe, masters of the universe, they arrive to the emperor. They’re addressing a problem and they mention that they’ve seen many machines on planet X. Planet X. And what you find out is that actually they’d forgotten Roman numerals. Their culture had forgotten Roman numerals. So they’re left with X, but really it’s planet number nine, but they call it X because they have no idea what Roman numerals are anymore.

Great science fiction books by Gene Wolfe on science fiction series Planet of the Long Sun, et cetera. And what you find out is these guys are traveling on a ship, but they don’t even know it. And they dig down and they come to what they call ship rock, but they don’t realize it’s actually the hollow of the ship that they’re starting to get down to. And the long sun is referenced to a lamp. And instead of saying sundown, they say, I think it’s what is it? Curtain down or something. Shade down. So they don’t know this. And we’re the same sort of way. You know, we take simple objects like keys and we don’t really know anything about them. We don’t understand the imagery that the Lord God has built into the world and the wealth and variety of information and wonderful meditation things to do about something as simple as a key.

Today we are dealing with this fourth verse of this old song, the seven O antiphons, that really are the basis—as we’ve said many times—for “Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” We sing through the seven. I might add, by the way, that some people use the O antiphons as a method of prayer during Advent season. It’s a wonderful way to remind yourself how to pray: praising God for his attributes and how he works in the world, and then making imploration for yourself and for others that he’d grant his wisdom, his key of understanding and knowledge, and deliver us out of things.

We are in a mess. We have an economic problem today. We’re going to talk about Shebna, Hilkiah, or Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who were stewards, treasurers. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But economics is certainly part of what they do. You know, economics is another word we don’t know what it means anymore. It comes from oikos nomos—law of the household. So these men were stewards of the household, the king’s house, Hezekiah’s, and engaged in economics. But that’s a lot broader term than just what we think of.

Well, so we have this deal. Another interesting word related to keys is the old Roman word janitor. And most of us have no idea that janitor, that term comes from a Roman concept. And the Roman janitor was a slave and the key would be attached to him, the key to the doorway by a chain. And he’d be chained to the doorway and his job was to guard the family doorway so that nobody could get in that wasn’t allowed entrance.

So Janitora—Jana, the first part, comes from Janus. Janus, you know, is the two-faced god that looks either way. That’s the household god of the Romans. And so he’s a janitor because he’s at the doorway. He’s at the liminal space. He’s at the threshold, which is where the god of the household would be, who looks both outward and inward. And so he’d represent—he’d be powered by this Janus god—to be able to protect those inward from those coming in from outside.

And that’s a lot of what these stewards do. So we have these concepts and things and we don’t really know a whole lot about them, but they’re very important for us. We are in one pickle economically and the wise men can’t figure it out. You know, they’re trying to discern the dream. What does it mean? What does it mean? And they try this and they try that and you know, the thing just doesn’t work. Only the key of Jesus Christ can unlock things properly.

We can come up with sort of fixes to doors we can’t get in or out of. But ultimately, the key that we’re going to talk about today is the key to opening up these messes. And until the economic leaders humble themselves before the Lord Jesus Christ, they really won’t be able to solve, ultimately, our financial problems. He’s the key. And some of us have, you know, personal problems that we can’t figure out, or we have family members or friends and we don’t know what to do about them. It’s complicated. Life is complicated. Human beings are complicated. And today, what the scriptures teach us, is that Jesus Christ is the key. He’s the answer. And we’ll talk more about what that actually means in a couple of minutes.

So we move from the third O antiphon to the fourth one. And it’s kind of interesting. There are a couple of things that are interesting to me about these antiphons. You know, one thing that’s interesting is that the imagery that’s been talked about in the antiphons so far is kingly imagery. I don’t know of anything explicitly priestly really in the seven antiphons. And remember, the antiphons were the church’s understanding of who Jesus was, and it’s been the understanding for 2,000 years. And the big emphasis is kingship, right?

So he says he’s like the greater Eliakim. And Eliakim was a servant not to the priest, he was a servant to the king Hezekiah. And so Jesus relates to the kingly household, and of course he’s the key of David. And so kids, on your on the front page rather of the order of worship, you’ve got the broken chain on this circle here of that antiphon. You’ve got a star of David because a reminder of that. You’ve got the scepter. We read that Isaiah 9:6: “The government will be upon his shoulders.” He’s got the scepter of rule and authority. The scriptures tell us.

So kingly imagery—key of David, kingly imagery, root of Jesse. The kingly line will come back. And kids, on your coloring sheet, you know, this is a king, a kingly sort of guy, and he’s got the key. And you know, it looks like he’s telling some people, “No, you can’t come in,” and other people get to come in. So it’s kingly imagery.

And it’s interesting because from root of Jesse to the key of David we move from arboreal imagery—you know, plants and stuff—to now domestic or building imagery, right? So we went from a tree and vines and organic sort of growing arboreal things, and we move now to keys and doors and pillars and pegs and things that make up a house. And this is, you know, sort of the movement of the scriptures in general. You go from a garden to a city, from Genesis to Revelation. And the antiphons pick up this movement, this arboreal to domestic imagery. And as I said, this imagery is very significant to us—should be—but we don’t think about it much.

We also go from the root of Jesse. Jesse’s unknown. We don’t really know much about Jesse. We know he’s mentioned in the Bible. It’s kind of a big deal to have your name in the Bible, I would think, in a positive way. Probably a very faithful, devoted man who studied God’s word and loved God very much. And he raises David. So we go from Jesse, who is unknown, to now David, who is very much known. So we go from sort of this, you know, this stated, you know, sort of thing back here, to now full-blown statement of who Jesus is in terms of his relationship to David.

And it’s interesting because we have the same father-son thing going on with Eliakim. Jesus is the greater Eliakim from Isaiah 22. As you read that, surely you saw the connection to the key of David and opening and no other people can’t shut, and shutting and other people can’t open. And it’s interesting because Eliakim—or Elakeim—his father’s name is given to us too: Hilkiah. Now, there are different Eliakims or Elikeims in the Old Testament, and some people say, “Well, he’s given us the fatherly name just to distinguish him.” I don’t think so.

I think that, at least by way of illustration, it’s a good illustration to us again of an unknown man, and yet his name is recorded in a positive way. His son is exalted to become the major domo, you know, the chief guy in the house, the head of the house, the steward of the king. You know how in Lord of the Rings, you got the whole Denethor thing—king. He’s a steward until the king returns. And so the steward has all the authority of the king.

And so Eliakim is the steward. Now Hezekiah is there, but the representation is the same. He’s got all the authority of the king. And that authority is symbolized by this key. And that’s who Jesus is saying he is.

So there’s this kind of movement in these antiphons that’s sort of fun and interesting. We have pillars, as I said, and pegs. You know, these things represent people. Jesus is the key, and Eliakim is the key, and Eliakim is a peg. And in the church in Philadelphia, he makes them pillars in the temple of God. And in the New Testament, you know, Peter and James were pillars in the church. So the architectural imagery that’s used here all points to people, right?

And so it helps us to kind of renew back an understanding of the imagery of the sort of world that God has, in his providence, brought us, wisely ordering our creation to create things like this—places with keys and pillars and supports, pegs that things are supported on, et cetera. We should, I guess my point is, it’s good to consider these things, right? I talked several weeks ago about considering these things. And I don’t think every time you use your key you’ve got to think of Hilkiah or Jesus. But I do think sometimes you ought to. There ought to be a kind of meditation on this. When I use my keys, kind of getting to the end of my sermon already, messing up, but if you know, when I use my keys, what am I doing with them? Am I serving Jesus? Am I serving myself? What am I doing?

The imagery is there for us to pause and consider at times. We’re to be informed by this imagery being interpreted for us by the word of God.

So we could also say there’s a transition from Radix Jesse. He’s the meaning of history. That’s what we said based on the Revelation text. He’s both the beginning, the root from which Jesse comes, but he’s also a root coming out of a plant coming out of Jesse. He’s the beginning and end. And specifically, that text tells us, in the context of his opening the book of history. But now with the key of David, we get the opening thing going on. He has to open the seals. They’re probably not keyed, but in a way it’s the same kind of imagery.

Jesus is the beginning and end of history. He’s the means of history. Only way to understand history is Jesus. But he’s also the mechanism by which history unfolds. He’s using those keys. He’s shutting some guys in. He’s opening other guys up. He’s opening, you know, things up, closing them down. He’s meeting difficult circumstances, complicated issues. He’s meeting the Gordian knot, with his slashing through with his key, so to speak.

Complicated problems are addressed with a key, and so Jesus is moving in history with the application of the key in time and in space.

So in this fourth verse of this very old song about Jesus: Jesus is the key. He’s a key. He’s the key of David. Now what I want to do here, first of all, very briefly, is keys in the Bible. And I’m just going to read these verses. There aren’t that many of them, okay?

So number one on your outline is “Keys in the Bible.” Judges 3:25 says, “They waited all day till they were embarrassed. They waited rather till they were embarrassed. Still, he had not opened the doors of the upper room. Therefore, they took the key and opened them and where was their master falling dead on the floor?” You know what the story is? It’s this Eglon. You know, he failed the pinch an inch test. He was so fat the dagger disappears in his belly. It’s belly length of a dagger test for how much weight you got. And he had too much weight. Too self-aggrandizing like this Shebna guy we’re going to talk about in a little bit.

And Ehud goes in there and kills him. So Ehud is a deliverer by king by killing Eglon. He’s in this locked area of the palace—which is the bathroom basically—and he’s in there dead and they have to get a key to open up the inner sanctum, right, of the king. So keys, doors, private places. But the key is on the outside, interestingly enough.

1 Chronicles 9:27: “They lodged all around the house of God because they had the responsibility and they were in charge of opening it every morning.” That word open is the same word for key. They were to key the facility every morning. Now, who is this talking about? The Levites and the temple. So they were to key the temple, open it up, certain portions of it, compartments of it, storerooms of it, et cetera. The Levites are guardians.

Getting a little ahead of myself here, but Philadelphia is the sixth letter of the seven letters to the churches. And on the sixth day, God created Adam. And Adam had a key. Well, I don’t know that he had a literal key. But one of his two big jobs was he was supposed to grow the garden up and nurture it. But he was supposed to guard it, right? So the sixth day, Adam fails to guard his wife. He fails to guard the garden. He fails to deal properly with the temptation, the serpent, right? So he fails in that.

And so guarding—you know, “I’d rather be a doorkeeper of the house of the Lord than something else.” Well, we think that’s a small thing like the janitor thing, but it’s a big thing. The doorkeeper were important guys to grant or either admit or deny—not give access to—people to the temple and its environments. They were guards, and if you tried to get in there and you couldn’t get in there, they’d use the key called the javelin and they would throw it through your belly and kill you. They were to guard it. And it’s a picture of what Adam failed to do.

Now Adam gets kicked out and the angel becomes the guard, right? The flaming sword. That’s the kind of key he’s got. And then in the temple, we see that man is going to get the guarding responsibility back. He’s going to get it back. And so in 1 Chronicles, the key is used to guard the temple. Very important imagery.

Isaiah 22:22—we just read it. Key of the house of David is put on Eliakim’s shoulder, taken away from Shebna, given to Eliakim.

Matthew 16:19: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” That’s very similar language to what Jesus says about himself in Revelation. We’re in union with Christ. Because of that, we’re supposed to understand the keys. In fact, we have the keys. And we always think about this in terms of church discipline. And it’s true. It’s one of the marks of the church. And historically, artistically, it’s portrayed by a key. And we close the table off to certain people to try to bring them back to their senses and repentance or to cast them out. They can’t get it at all. We open the doors for all you guys to come here at the table. Keys of the kingdom.

And Jesus is saying that we are to treat the exercise of those keys by the pastors of the churches with a great, you know, with believing this is the work of God. This is the heavenly work of God being done on earth. It’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. So the key isn’t just Jesus’s. In union with Jesus, we’re supposed to exercise keys.

So we’re supposed to tell the government, “Hey, we got the key. We know how to fix this economy mess.” What is it? Well, we don’t know the details, but we do know that humility before Jesus is the beginning point, and then bringing in some Christian economists, looking at the wisdom of the ages about economics, et cetera. Good place to go. Bring in the Daniel, bring in the interpreter, and the beginning of the interpretation is Jesus is the key.

Now, you can’t get it. I’m not interested in helping some guy have a great house and giving him a bunch of techniques so that he’ll be happy in his house and still pagan. That’s not the exercise of the key. The proper exercise of the keys is pointing people to Christ. He is the key.

So we have the key. Luke 11:52 is a good counterbalance to some people that take the Matthew 16:19 one, you know, to just refer to the actions of the church in terms of discipline. Luke 11:52 says, “Woe to you lawyers. You have taken away the key of knowledge. You didn’t enter in yourselves and those who were entering in you hindered.”

So again, liminal space, doorways imagery being used. And now the key is not knowledge. So it isn’t just the liturgical actions or the actions of church discipline. It’s the knowledge of the scriptures that represents the key to getting into the table or being kicked out of the table. We have the key. We’ve got the knowledge, and we’re supposed to go in ourselves into relationship with Christ and all that means. And we’re to use that key in terms of the culture round about us.

Revelation 1:18: Jesus says, “I am he who lives and was dead. Behold, I’m alive forevermore. Amen.” This is the image of Jesus at the beginning of Revelation. And he says, “And I have the keys of Hades and of death.” So he tells John immediately that he’s the beginning and end. And you better watch it cuz he’s got the keys of Hades and death. You can either assign you a place there or let you out of there symbolically. So Jesus has the keys of Hades and death.

Revelation 3:7—we read that. Church of Philadelphia: “I’m he who has the key of David.”

Revelation 9:1: “A fifth angel sounded. I saw a star fall from heaven and to the earth. Him was given the key of the bottomless pit.” Maybe this angel is Jesus. I don’t know. But he’s got the key to the bottomless pit. So again, keys of Hades and death. Now they’re being exercised in terms of the bottomless pit.

Revelation 20:1: “I saw an angel coming from heaven and having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.” So he breaks some chains, as the image on the order of worship shows, breaking chains. But he chains other people up when he closes them, assigns them to hell. He chains them there as well. And the key then is seen in relationship to eternal destinies. There’s application of what’s going on in history, but also in terms of eschatology. Jesus has that key.

That’s keys in the Bible. Everything, every text there is—not very many of them. Good stuff to think about.

Now, let’s focus in on Revelation 3:7. We’re going to blow through this very quickly. We have to, right? Yeah, it’ll be fun.

**General comments on the letters.**

This is fun stuff. I love this stuff. Hope you do, too. Seven letters restate the creation week. And I can’t spend a lot of time going over this with you. I’ve got tapes on this, and James B. Jordan has material on this in his commentary. But as I said, on the sixth day, Adam is made, and Adam has this job of guarding the door to the garden. And so it’s significant for our purposes. We could talk more about this, but you know, the seven letters, there’s a sequence to them, and they move through the seven days of creation. They also move through seven time periods of the Old Testament.

But here on the sixth day of creation, this is the place to talk about the key and about the restoration of Adamic keyholding in a proper way. The second Adam is Jesus, and he’s got the key, and he’s going to do the right stuff with the key, right?

So the sixth letter is to Philadelphia. Now, Philadelphia means brotherly love. The sixth day also was a day when brotherly love got shot. After Adam failed to exercise the key properly, his love for his brother/sister, his wife, went away. They became accusatory toward other people. He became accusatory toward her. So here on the sixth day is the restoration of brotherly love. We’re to be faithful to Jesus, our big brother, and we’re also called to live in harmony in the context of the church. And all this is sixth day Adamic imagery, sort of stuff.

And so the key was lost by Adam, given to angels. The Levites were a picture of that key, the guarding function. The key would be restored to man at some particular point in time. Jesus comes and he says he has the key. And on the basis of him having the key, he then gives the key back to men. So there’s this movement to where we’re back now to where you and I are the keyholders in union with Jesus Christ.

So these letters restate the creation week. And in terms of our application, it means that man is being restored to one of his two primary functions—that is the proper use of guarding and the keys. Letter of Philadelphia is the sixth out of the seven letters. God created Adam on the sixth day, and one of Adam’s two jobs was to guard the garden. And so here, Jesus being the key of David means he’s the new Adam.

Secondly, the seven letters emphasize church discipline. And again, very quickly moving through this, there’s in the middle three of the seven letters a going downhill of not disciplining, and as a result ending up with destruction to the church. They’re going to get their lampstand completely taken away. And the other two, first and seventh, two and six, kind of match up in terms of discipline.

So one of the structures of these books—or things to notice in these seven letters—is this relationship of discipline. Philadelphia is matched up with Smyrna. They’re both unified. They don’t have division in them, and they’re both faithful. Ephesus and Laodicea—the first and the seventh—are unified, but they’re compromised. There’s no great division going on, but they’re compromised. But Smyrna and Philadelphia—these are the good churches. They’re unified and they’re faithful. They both have all praises and no blames in the we’ll talk about this. But typically the seven letters, Jesus praises you for some things and then tells you the other things you’ve got to attend to. Kind of how it works. But with these two, there’s no saying what you need to do. Maybe some implication, but there’s no saying it. So they both have praise, no blame.

They both suffer at the hands of Jews identified by Christ as satanic. Now, this would be a good sermon right here. Those that claim they are Jews—and then Jesus, not me, Jesus identifies the Jews who don’t come to faith in him as satanic, synagogue of Satan. This should, you know, put the stake through the heart of our dispensationalist tendencies. If you like the nation of Israel today for political reasons, great, ally reasons with the United States, great. But if you think that Israel, somehow the Jews, have a special place with God—no. The special place they had with Jesus, as this letter to Philadelphia says, is he regards them as the opposition. They’re the bad guys of all bad guys. So that’s said in both the second and sixth letters, Smyrna and Philadelphia.

There’s a common exhortation in both. Hold fast. Ah, you know, that’s pretty good, too. I mean, you know, we should know that we’re going through troubles. We got trials. We got Gordian knot problems going on in our heart or in our family, with our friends, whatever it is, with our economics. And sometimes all Jesus wants you to do is just hold on. You know, it’s like that old song, “Hold on, I’m coming.” Yeah, he is. So sometimes we just want to hold on. Remember that song when times get really tough.

Listen, I know—I know you—over the last 20 years, a number of times in certain of you’s lives, it has gotten very dark around you and difficult. And it’s a big deal that Jesus doesn’t, you know, carpet you. He tells you to hold on, persevere. That’s what they’re told to do.

There’s a common promise: their crown, kingship. And so these churches are in the same sort of way. The seven letters give us a model of how to one another one another—how do we exercise proper discipline? How do we encourage each other? Each of the seven letters starts with Christ being the measure. This is so interesting. When he comes to the church, he doesn’t start—we usually, we go to somebody, we start in their problems. He goes to him and says, “Hey, I have what you need. You got an economic mess. I’m the head treasurer guy. I know how to deal with that stuff.”

Now, in each of the seven churches, it’s a different deal. He identifies himself in a different way. Like the seven O antiphons, they don’t track those, but it’s the same kind of thing. And here in Philadelphia, you know, he says he’s holy and true. He’s steadfast to his calling. He has the key of David. So he’s the measure. He’s the greater Eliakim. He tells them who he is first when he’s trying to encourage them to increase faithfulness. And then he tells them what he sees them doing good. Again, this is counterintuitive to us. We see a problem and we just want to tell people what they’re doing wrong. But he always starts with something they’re doing good.

He tells them, “You’ve got a little strength.” Some—that’s all you have is a little strength. And Jesus says, “Hey, I’m commending you because you’ve got a little strength left after all the trials I’ve put you through.” That’s good. You’re doing things right. You still have some strength. It’s a little strength. See, when we have a little strength, we shouldn’t feel bad about that necessarily. We want more. Hold on. Jesus says he’s coming. But he commends them for their little strength. They’ve kept his word. They haven’t denied his name. They persevered.

Sometimes, folks, that’s all you can do. You’re not going to get into, you know, the land of milk and honey immediately. And by God’s good purposes and his wisdom and his sweet and mighty way, sometimes he puts you through dark periods. The best churches of the seven churches are two that are suffering. They’ve had to persevere. So he tells them that’s what they’re doing right. And then in each of these letters we then see what Christ sees bad. So he says, “Here I am. I got what you need. You’re doing great here. Now you’re not doing good here.” Okay, he gives them something that’s wrong.

Well, not in each of them. That’s the normal pattern. But in this letter, he doesn’t say anything they’re doing bad. It’s absent. So like Smyrna, they’re not doing anything bad. And then at the center is what they must do. At the center of the structure, he gives them—this is what you got to do. So I’m Jesus. Here’s I got what you need. You’re doing great things. Here’s some stuff you’re not doing good. No. This is what you got to do. This is why I’m here. This is why I’m interacting with you—to tell you what you got to do next. Okay? That’s the center.

And with the Philadelphians, he tells them he exhorts them to faithfulness: hold on, hold firmly to what they have. And then what Christ will do for them. So he sees bad things going on, but he—if they continue in the bad things, he’ll do things negative to them. If you don’t do what’s right, I’m going to bring punishments to you. But now the sanctions are clearly articulated. But again, here to Philadelphia, there are no negative sanctions. Usually there are. They connect up with those things they’re doing bad.

And then in the sixth slot, what Christ will do positively. So good things, good sanctions, clearly articulated what Jesus will do for them. He gives them an open and unshuttable door. It’s evangelism. I’ve listed some verses there from the New Testament where Paul says in Acts 14:27: “He has opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.” 1 Corinthians 16:8-9: “I will carry in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great and effective door has opened to me.” So the door he’s opening is like the one he’s talked about earlier in the New Testament, a door of evangelism. It’s going to be great.

All the people that hate them, the Jews that hate them, will either die so they won’t be around, or—but they’ll mostly be converted. They’ll become part of the church. And so he’s telling them, you know, you hold on, but I’ll give you some great things. I’ll give you an open and unshuttable door of evangelism. You’re the true synagogue.

Another verse along the same lines that’s significant is Colossians 4: “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving. Meanwhile, praying also for us that God would open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ. Pray that we’d get an open door to speak the word for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” I like that because it stresses both sides. If you’re witnessing, you know, the only way the heavenly door—the door to heaven—will be open is if that’s what God’s doing. So you’ve got to pray for an open door. You’ve got to pray that Jesus would give you—if you’re involved in evangelism—this blessing. But you also don’t just sit there and pray and don’t do anything. He says, “I need to speak.” So the sovereignty of God undergirds our evangelism, but our efforts are absolutely involved.

And he tells the Philadelphians their enemies will come down. They’ll bow to them. They’ll know that Christ loves them. He’ll keep them in the midst of the hour of trial. He doesn’t rapture them out here, right? I’ll keep you in the hour of trial. So big text to understand that he doesn’t want us out of situations, but he’ll help us persevere in the midst of difficult situations.

And then he’ll give them the blessings of God’s name and the name of God’s city and God’s new name. And I think we could see a Trinitarian emphasis here—that he gives them the name of the Father, the Spirit who builds the city, and Jesus’s own name as well. And then finally he gives himself again as Christ the measure, and implied here is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As Jesus is holy, we are to be holy. As Jesus is true and firm, so we are in him.

And he has the keys. And so do we. We’re new creatures in him with governing power over all the new world to be exercised in preaching and praying. Okay.

So now let’s focus in on verse 7 specifically. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m still in yeah on verse 7, but general comments are continuing. There are rich and deep promises given by Jesus to those who do the small things faithfully. So Philadelphia, they’re doing the small things faithfully, and he gives them tremendous promises. And we need to hear that.

Okay. And now, an interesting parallel text is found in Isaiah 60:1-14. Just listen as I read this. This is a Christmas text. It should be familiar to you, but it’s interesting in relationship to what he tells them here in Revelation 3.

Verse 3: “Arise, shine, for your light has come. The glory of the Lord is risen over you.” We’ll talk about this next week—the fifth verse is about Jesus as the dayspring or rising of the sun from the east. “Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise over you and his glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

Now, the context here is the Gentiles are persecuting the Jews in the context of Isaiah’s prophecy, right? They’re going to be taken into captivity, exile, all that stuff. The Gentiles are the bad guys. And he’s telling the Jews, “Look, the time will come when your light will rise and the Gentiles will come to the light of your—of the—of your light, to the rising of the sun. Lift up your eyes all around. See, they all gathered together. They come to you. Your sons shall come from afar. Your daughters rather shall be nursed at your side. You shall see and become radiant. Your heart shall swell with joy because the abundance of the sea—the Gentiles, that is—will be returned to you.

The wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you. The multitude of camels will cover your land. The dromedaries of Midian and Epha. All those who come from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and incense.” Well, we talked about this before, but this is clearly a prediction, a prophecy of the coming of the kings—three kings, the three magi really, wise men who were king makers go Frankincense and myrrh they bring with them. And this is a picture that the Gentiles will come. And at the middle of the darkest time of year, Jesus is born and the Gentiles start coming in the form of the wise men.

“They shall proclaim the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together to you. The rams of Nabaioth shall minister to you. They shall ascend with acceptance on my altar.” So the Gentiles will ascend with acceptance on the altar of God. “I will glorify the house of my glory. Who are these who fly like a cloud?” I won’t read the rest.

But the point is we have imagery here that is very specifically tied. Actually, I will read a couple more verses. Verse 10: “The sons of foreigners shall build up your walls. Their kings shall minister to you. In my wrath, I struck you, but in my favor, I’ve had mercy on you. Therefore, your gates shall be open continually. They shall not be shut day or night, that men may bring to you the wealth of the Gentiles and her kings in procession.”

So he goes on. The point is: This is what another reference back in Isaiah to what’s happening—and God is talking about in the letter to the Philadelphians. He’s saying, “You’ve got oppression, but I’m going to bring your oppressors in tribute to you. They’ll know you’re the loved one. You’re the true Israel.” But he’s not talking about Gentiles and Jews as he was in Isaiah. Now he’s talking about Jews and the church. Clearly, what he’s doing is appropriating the promises of Isaiah that were given to the Jews for the church.

And he’s saying that because you think you’re Jews but don’t accept the head of the Jews, Jesus, you’re cut off. But even the Jews will eventually convert and become part of the gospel kingdom. So it’s kind of an ironic fulfillment in Philadelphia because, you know, and again, this is just strong evidence that this whole dispensational view that the Jews are the special people of God is just all wrong. All wrong. Okay.

**Moving on then to specific observations in Revelation 3:7-13.**

One, there’s a preponderance of door imagery here in these verses. I mentioned this before, but he says he’s the key of David. He opens and shuts. He’s going to give him an open door. They’re going to be pillars in the temple of God. So there’s key imagery.

And I mentioned on the outline here, hallowed be this house. He’s talking about entryway imagery, keys and access. And in this book by Thomas Howard, Hallowed Be This House, and there’s a book based on it by Doug Wilson, I think. But in the book, this is what he wants you to do. When you go through a doorway, consider it something other than just a doorway. When you go home, you’re moving from the outer world into your home. You shift perspectives. You change hats, men, as you walk through that door into your home. And you start to look at doorways as transition points from one sphere of activity to another. And that imagery is all over this particular place with the key imagery that I’d mentioned before as well in these verses.

And then there is this citation of Isaiah 22. There’s an obvious reference back to Isaiah 22 here as well.

One other interesting reference is Revelation 1:13. “In the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to his feet, being girdled about the chest with a golden band.” So Jesus identifies himself before he gives the letters to John. His image is portrayed, and he’s got two items of clothing. One is a robe and one is a belt.

And now he says in the letter to the Philadelphians, “I’ve got the key of David.” Now that is the imagery that we read of in Isaiah 22. That’s the way Eliakim and before him Shebna is dressed. They’ve got a robe. They’ve got a belt, and they have the key on the shoulder—worn on the shoulder of their garment. They’ve got three items of clothing, and Jesus identifies himself as having these two items, and now the third item, the key of David.

And so he’s drawing a very direct parallel back to the antitype, the beginning, the picture of who Jesus Christ was in Eliakim. So he’s—Jesus is drawing back clearly to this imagery from Isaiah 22. So we have to look and think about that a little bit to get the full implication of what the key of David referenced in Revelation 3 to Philadelphia is all about.

First of all, a little bit of background. You know, the word for temple, it’s the same word for palace. And in the Bible, Solomon builds a temple for God, but then he builds his palace, and that’s given to us in the Bible. And the word for palace is the same as temple. So you’ve got these two imageries set up in parallel. You’ve got two temples—a priestly temple and a kingly temple, okay? And in both cases, there’s head ministers of the king. So this steward job is the head of the household. He’s the head minister. You’ve got a bunch of servants. Just like there’s a lot of priests in God’s house, there’s a lot of servants to the king in the palace. And just like the servants over here have one guy who’s the high priest, the head servant—over here in Hezekiah’s palace, you’ve got a guy who’s the head servant over here. He’s the high priest, we could say, in the temple of the king. Okay, so this is kingly imagery, and it’s setting up for us an understanding of who’s at the top of who’s serving Hezekiah.

Hezekiah is absent in the text. We know that he’s there in terms of what’s going on. But God addresses the house of Hezekiah by addressing the chief steward—by tearing down one and putting up another. So these are high servants to the king.

And so let’s look at Isaiah 22. Look there in your scriptures, please. Let’s turn there. Look at Isaiah 22 and notice some things that are going on here. And first of all, we have Shebna’s debasement in verses 15-19, okay? And he’s got his sin, his judgment, and we’ll see that in 15 to 19.

“Thus says the Lord God of hosts: ‘Go, proceed to this steward, even unto Shebna, treasurer’—steward, head guy—’and it can’t have an economic sense, but it’s not limited to that. Even unto Shebna, which is over the house. Now, what’s interesting here is the context is that Isaiah is giving prophecies. The next one will be against Tyre. So he’s addressing all of God’s enemies. And now he addresses an enemy right in the palace of the king. And at the top of the servants to the king. That’s who he’s talking to here.

“‘What have you here? And whom have you here that you should hew out a sepulcher?’” So he has made a funeral home for himself. You know like the way the great pyramids were built by the pharaohs, you know, great resting place. He made some huge hewed out place—a sepulcher—for him to lie. And this is an image that what he’s doing as chief steward is not serving Hezekiah. He is gathering up the proceeds of what he’s doing and putting him into his own burial place. You know, he’s feathering his own nest. That’s the imagery here. He’s got this great grand place that he’s going to be buried in. He’s graded himself a habitation in a rock.

So God then pronounces the judgment on him. He’s serving himself. That’s the imagery that’s given to us here. And God then brings judgment: “I will carry thee away with a mighty captivity, and he’ll violently turn and toss thee like a ball into a large country.” Shebna will lose his office. He will lose his position, and eventually he’ll be thrown into death and captivity. So he’ll be exiled. He’ll have death. He’ll have shame. And it begins with a loss of office. And that’s what God is directly talking about in this context.

“‘There thou shalt die. And there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord’s house.’” So again, he’s got himself big fancy cars, and he’s got himself a big fancy burial place that he’s used the funds that were given to him for his own benefit. He’s like the Republicans in Congress over the last, you know, four years ago. They’re feathering their own nest, and God did to them just what God does to Shebna here, okay? That’s it. You’re out of here. I’m not going to take this cuz you’re not supposed to be serving yourself. You’re supposed to be serving me and the king.

“‘I will drive thee from thy station’—that’s his office. ‘From thy state shall he pull thee down. It shall come to pass in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah.’”

So we’ve got Shebna serving himself, torn down. He loses his office first, but then eventually he’s thrown out, killed and exiled. And now we have his replacement.

“‘It shall come to pass in that day that I’ll call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with thy robe.’” See, again, we think of robes—dress, what we dress ourselves in—oh, it’s no big deal. Very symbolic in the scriptures. The robe is a representation of power and authority. The power and authority of the major domo, the chief steward, the high priest of the king, is represented by his robe. And his robe now is given to Hilkiah. I’m going to clothe him with your robe and strengthen him with thy girdle.

Remember I just said Jesus had a robe and girdle. Hilkiah has a robe and girdle that he gets from Eliakim—or from Shebna. Eliakim gets it from Shebna. He takes the robe and girdle and puts it on—I’m sorry, Eliakim. Eliakim is going to receive—I’m sorry, I used his father’s name again. Eliakim will receive the robe of authority and position, and I will strengthen him with girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand.

“‘He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.’” This is what civil rulers are supposed to be. He’s talking about kings. Again, this isn’t priestly stuff. This is kingly stuff. And kingly rule in the civil realm is to have a father-like aspect over those he rules in the context of.

And then finally in verse 22: “‘The key of the house of David I will lay upon his shoulder.’” So you know, you know, these keys are important. It drives me nuts sometimes when, you know, young people tend to leave their keys here and there. I just don’t get it. I got them right here in my pocket. I lose them occasionally, but I try to keep them close. Well, they had a special place right here.

There was a movie, and the guy—there’s a guy who’s got the key to his building and he’s stealing things from his employer. And it’s a big deal. He’s like one of these guys that has those keys on the retractable chain. You know, you’ve seen those guys? And they make a big—in the movie—and then when he’s I can’t remember if he’s breaking when he’s leaving the place and relocking it or when he’s—he tries—he gets repentant and he wants to return the stuff. But his key breaks off in the door. So, ooh, see God has broken him, right? And now he’s got to crawl up the side of the building, and that’s when the frogs in the movie come and hit him as God’s judgment, and that’s when the policeman drives by and arrests him. Well, he doesn’t arrest him. The story—it’s more interesting. But anyway, the point is the key is a big deal, and you want to keep it in a safe place. One of those retractable things. Okay.

But back then, you know, they actually wore them on their shoulder. They were pretty big deals. But physically large. And they kept them on their shoulders. And so when Jesus says he’s got the key of David, it’s this thing on the shoulder. When Isaiah 9 says the government shall be upon his shoulder, the key which represents that government, Eliakim will have the government, the office of the major guy serving the king—head over everybody else.

He’s kind of like Angie at the church office. You know, you want to see Pastor Tuuri, you’ve got to go through her. Yes. I didn’t see him. No, you can’t come in here. You know, men who are important. But in corporations, they’ve got, you know, entryways. You can’t just get into their office. You’ve got to go through guards, right? Well, that’s what this guy was. He guarded access to the king, and he used the key as part of his stead. He could get into any room he wanted. Well, all that is given away. It’s represented by the key on the shoulder, and it’s given from Shebna to Eliakim.

“‘He shall open, none shall shut. He shall shut, none shall open.’” Exactly what Jesus says about himself.

Now, this is all good and proper, and it helps us to remember that we’re supposed to be like Eliakim, not Shebna. We’re supposed to use our keys. When you use your key to start your car today, what are you going to do? Where are you going to drive? Are you going to serve Jesus, the great Hezekiah, or are you going to serve yourself? Are you going to build up his people, serve the people, be a father to the people that you have charge of? Are you being a father to yourself?

And you know, if you’re doing this stuff, God’s going to break you off. We all do this to some extent. When we come forward today, repent. Repent of the improper use of the keys, the authority that you’ve been given by God, or the failure to use it at all to help other people get free of difficult problems. And commit yourself afresh to being Eliakims.

Now there’s some incentive put into this thing in the last section. “‘I will fasten him as a nail or a peg in a sure place. He shall be for a glorious throne of his father’s house. They shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house. The offspring in the house, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons.’”

So now you know, we don’t just have doors and pillars and locks and all that. Now we’ve got coat hooks. You’ve got a coat hook imagery. He’s a peg, and everything, everybody. There’s a lot of people dependent upon him. And the picture is they’re like cups hanging on his peg. You know, men, you have people hanging on you. I thought about this last week. Stem of, you know, the root of Jesse. There’s this lineage. We’ve got family trees. Get together for Thanksgiving and I see all these people that came forth from Christine and I getting married, and they’re all in a sense hanging on us in different relationships. But they’re sort of related to you.

And so now you see it isn’t just about you. You are a place. You’re a peg upon which a lot of other people are dependent. The United States is a peg, an economic peg. And we’re a peg that’s been broken off by God, and it’s not working too good. And that’s what he goes on to say about Eliakim—about Shebna.

“‘In that day, says the Lord of Hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed and be cut down, down and fail, and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off, for the Lord has spoken it.’” He’s talking about Shebna again. It’s a climactic [word]. He starts talking about Shebna. He’s going to judge him. He gets replaced by Eliakim. And now he’s back to the final judgment of Shebna. He’s a peg that’s going to be destroyed, and everybody that depends upon him, they’ll get cast aside, too.

So, men, it’s not just about yourself and your faithfulness to Christ. Recognize that he has people hanging on you, dependent upon you. Men in business, there are people dependent upon you. And so as we exercise the key for the great key master, the Lord Jesus Christ, then those who hang on us will be blessed by him. He has the keys, and we have keys for him. And all of that is here in Jesus saying that he’s the key of David.

So in Isaiah 22, the key of David is taken away from Shebna. The key is a symbol of rule. Being a royal doorkeeper is a very important job. Using the keys is important. The important job is given to Eliakim. Both men served King Hezekiah. Shebna served himself. This is the fill in answers for the kids and the people that are doing them.

Shebna served himself. Shebna was thrown away. If we serve ourselves, Jesus will wad us up like a piece of paper and throw it right away. That’s what he does to Shebna. That’s what he’ll do to us.

Eliakim was promoted. Eliakim was faithful in whatever job he had. Jesus says, you know, if you’re faithful in little, I’ll give you more. Eliakim, we know, must have been faithful. God promoted him. So God promotes people that are faithful in small things. Jesus tells the church in Philadelphia, he tells us, “You may have a little strength—is all. You may not seem to think you have a lot of responsibility. Be faithful in the small things. And what’s he going to do? He’s going to bring all your enemies into your church. You’re going to grow like crazy through effective evangelism. Even the enemies that you had are going to be brought, you know, on their knees before you, knowing that Jesus loved you, and they’ll be brought into the church.

Faithful in small things, and Jesus, who owns the key, will give you more authority over others. How do you grow a church? Well, you can do it with marketing strategies, and that’ll be an interesting route for you to take for a number of years and see how effectively it works. But if you’re faithful to minister in the small ways in your local church, God will bring more people to you. And he probably won’t bring more people to you if you’re not handling whom he’s given you already.

So you see, it’s related here. Hilkiah was a faithful guy. Philadelphia is a faithful church in the small things. And as a result, the key—the guy that rules history and is dispensing, opening doors and shutting doors, and nobody else can effectively do that. He is going to bring them into a greater sense of responsibility.

So Eliakim later is represented as serving Hezekiah in Isaiah 36 and 37, when Rabshakeh comes and tries to scare everybody. We see Eliakim—or Eliakim rather—representing his full office there.

So the king’s chief servant wore a key, a robe, and a belt, just like Jesus does. And there is this connection between Jesus and him. Jesus is also wearing a robe and a belt in Revelation 1:13. And then he adds to that the key.

So by way of conclusion, this is what it means. Then Isaiah 9:6: “The government is on his shoulders.” The high priest, remember, high priest to the king—high priest to Yahweh in the temple, right? The high priest had the children of Israel on his shoulders. Their names of the tribes were inscribed on two stones, and he represented them, right? Jesus has us on his shoulders. He’s using that key to control our future. We’re on his shoulders in the same way.

The government will be upon his shoulders. He has the key, and he has us up there with the key as our faithful savior who opens the door for us. Key of David is worn on the shoulder, and upon Jesus’s shoulder, all government rests.

We live in, as I said earlier, complicated times. We live in times when people need answers. It’s always been like this. G.K. Chesterton wrote about the key of David, and he said, you know, that a key has shape, and if you melt the key down, it ain’t going to work unlocking the door anymore. You’ve got to keep the shape of the Christian confession. The church has given us a confession for 2,000 years. It’s the key. The key has shape. The key is complicated, right? The world is not simple. The world has complicated problems.

How do you undo the financial mess? How do you take somebody—each one of us—and try to sort through all the stuff that’s going on in our head, in our heart, in our actions to bring us into wholeness? Complicated beings. And the key is sort of complicated. It has a complicated shape. And people say, “Well, we don’t need the confessions. We just need the simple love of Jesus—will fix everything.” No, the key is complex because the solution it brings, while simple, it unlocks the door. It brings solutions to complicated difficulties. Okay?

The key is simple because it does unlock the door. It fixes the problems. It’s effective. For the last 2,000 years, Jesus has been the key of David. History has moved in relationship to the expansion of the church of Jesus Christ. Now we’re in a little downward dip. But Jesus says that when we fall away from him, we lose the key to solving all of our problems. And that is Jesus—at the at the end, at the beginning, at the bottom level of all of the difficulties.

Shebna and Hilkiah and Eliakim give us the simpleness of the key of Jesus. The simple story is: Are we serving him or not? Are we serving him or not?

Now that’s complicated. How do you serve him? Who do you help? What do you do? How do you build an economic system? How do you build a business? How do you build a household? It’s complicated. But the key will never begin to work if you’re not serving him first and foremost. If you’re serving yourself, you have to die to yourself in order for him to cause you to have life in yourself. You have to say, “I’m not going to serve myself. I’m not going to look for solutions everywhere. I’m going to go simply to Jesus Christ, serve him, and find out ways that I can serve him in differing ways—and that will be part of unlocking the complexities of the problems round about us.”

There’s only one thing right now the financial guys should do. That’s to get on their knees—not before Nancy Pelosi, but before the Lord Jesus Christ—and say, “It’s a mess. We no doubt are responsible for it. We don’t know what to do. Please guide and help us.” To humble themselves before Christ instead of trying to feather their own nest, serving Jesus, and then serving the people that God has called him to do.

May the Lord God grant Barack Obama such a heart in the new year. May he help him to understand that Jesus Christ is the key to every problem and difficulty. As complicated as they are, the Lord Jesus Christ is the key. May he help us to do that as well.

Advent is knowing that the key came in history 2,000 years ago. Ultimately, he’ll return at his final coming. But in the meantime, there are comings of Jesus Christ. Crisis happens, difficult things happen, complicated problems arise, and we cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus, come, Key of David. Unlock the difficulties that we have. Give us wisdom and understanding. We know the government is on your shoulders, and you’ve called us to participate in that government. We’re on those shoulders as well. Help us, Lord Jesus Christ, to serve you and then in that service to dispense the knowledge of the scriptures applying to the various difficulties and problems of the culture that we have now before him.”

May the Lord God grant us then in our day and age a renewed appreciation for keys. And when we look at them and when we use them like we do every day, may we remember that Jesus Christ is the key of David. He’s the one that has all rule and authority. He’s the one that, if we submit to, will answer all of our problems and open the most complex difficulties, the most complex locks that we can see in front of us. Jesus Christ is the key.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for Jesus, the greater Eliakim. We thank you, Father, for our union with him. Help us to be proper key users this week. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.