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.
8 “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. 9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. 10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. 11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. 12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and 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 from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. 13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
The city of Philadelphia, authorities tell us, was built for the prime purpose of being a 'missionary' city to spread Greek influence and civilisation in the hinterland of Asia Minor. Christ takes this up and says, 'Behold I have set before thee an open door', for into that city of opportunity the gospel had come, and all the avenues of outreach that were open for the spir it of Hellenistic culture were accessible to Christ and His Church. What He was saying was, 'Just as the Greeks established this city in order to spread Greek culture, so I have planted my Church in this strategic position in order that it might be a missionary Church to reach out to the hinterland of Asia with the unsearchable riches of My grace'. What should impress us here is the use Christ makes of natural advantages and opportunities, and the vehicle He makes of them for His own sovereign purposes in the gospel, and this should encourage us to be alive ourselves to opportunities of capital being made out of secular dispensations. The in stance made known by Col. Thomson some time ago, from behind the Iron Curtain is a case in point, in which territorial adjustments and boundary-revision opened a great and effectual door into Russia itself for the gospel, and brought large numbers of believers from Poland into Soviet citizenship. There is nothing too hard for the Lord!