11 The Key of David
CHAPTER
11
The Key of David
To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. (Revelation 3:7)
The seven epistles to the churches in Revelation contain the last message of Christ to the Church today. It would seem natural to suppose that the seven churches He chose to receive these final messages were in some respect representative of the whole Church to the end of time. They are singularly descriptive of the epochs that have passed over the Church since the days of John.
The first, the church in Ephesus, perfectly represents the church of the days of John, strong in works, but beginning to decline in love. The next, Smyrna, is true to the life of the next age of Christianity, the age of persecution. The third, the church in Pergamos, has some strong resemblance to the worldly church of the days of Constantine and succeeding emperors. The church in Thyatira is almost a perfect type of the apostasy which followed through the rise of the Papacy, with that woman Jezebel on the throne and the depths of Satan beneath her seat of ecclesiastical pride and wickedness.
Then comes the church in Sardis. “You have a reputation of being alive, but are dead” (3:1b). This is a sure and perfect type of the middle ages and the absolute death of spiritual life, with the exception of a few names, even in Sardis, “who have not soiled their clothes” (4a).
Then there is a sudden burst of light—the church of Philadelphia. This message is all promise, encouragement and love. It is the dawn of Reformation. It is the gathering out of the little flock before the end. They have kept His word; they have not denied His name. They will be kept through the hour of temptation and tribulation. They will be established as pillars in the temple of God. They will be enrolled in the New Jerusalem. They will be received into the intimacy of Jesus. They will have an open door which none can shut.
There is one more picture, the church of the Laodiceans, strong, proud, wealthy, self-sufficient, lukewarm and about to be rejected. This is the second apostasy. It is apostate Protestantism. It is the worldly church, which already in our day is beginning to show signs of this final portrait; and with it comes the Master’s hand upon the door, and the solemn warning, “I stand at the door and knock” (20). The end is just about to come. But in the previous picture the end is also about to come, and the solemn message even there is, “I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown” (11), so that these two pictures of Philadelphia and Laodicea both belong to the end. The one is the picture of the little flock of simple faithful ones; the other is the picture of the great worldly church contemporary with Philadelphia and about to be rejected by the Lord at His coming.
It is of this sixth picture of the little Philadelphian church that we wish to consider, or rather of the Master in the attitude in which He addresses to them His cheering message. There are three great and blessed names.
He that is holy
He is holy; therefore, He expects us to be holy for His message is, “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16b). He is our example, our standard, and we can never rest behind His footsteps.
He is holy; therefore, He enables us to be holy. His holiness is the source of ours, as well as the sanction and the ground of obligation, for He gives us His own holiness. He enters our heart, becomes our life and lives in us His own pure, heavenly life. Therefore the apostle has said,
Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Hebrews 2:11)
Jesus said in His own parting prayer, “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19).
This did not mean that Christ required to be made holy, as if He were unholy, but He devoted Himself in the sense of entire consecration to this one thing, the sanctification of His people. He set Himself apart for our sakes that we might be truly sanctified, and as we receive Him to dwell within us we receive the sanctification. We receive the Holy One and He becomes our holiness, and “who has become … our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). This is the secret of our holiness, to receive Him that is holy, to abide in Him that is holy and to let Him live in us His own heavenly life.
He that is true
This is the picture of the Faithful Promiser. It means His words are true. “Does he speak and then not act?/ Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19b). How many precious words of promise has He spoken! How many things has He spoken to us! How many has He to speak to us today! Earth and heaven will pass away, but one jot or one tittle of His promises shall in no wise pass away, until all are fulfilled. Every one of them has come to us with the mighty preface, “These are the words of him who is holy and true” (Revelation 3:7a). Let us rest in them, let us wait for them, for though they tarry, they will surely come, and they will not tarry long. He Himself has endorsed them and is their personal Guarantee.
On an old mosque in Syria there is a strange and beautiful illustration of God’s eternal and unchanging word. It was a Christian church and it had on its front, worked in the stone, the words of God, “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy truth endureth to all generations” (Psalm 145:13, KJV).
When the Moslems conquered Palestine they captured the old church, plastered over the front and wrote another inscription in honor of the false prophet in blazing and resplendent letters of gold. But as the centuries have gone by, the plaster has fallen off. The transient record of human sin and pride has perished, and the deeply written record of God’s Word stands out bold and clear, as a solemn intimation that all men’s works and words shall pass away, but the Word of our God shall stand forever.
But it means much more than this. Back of all is His own true heart. He Himself is true, our faithful, unchangeable Friend, and the Guarantee of the certainty and stability of everything that we value and hold in Him. God is much more to the Christian’s faith than even His Word. Abraham believed God, and therefore he believed His Word. It is because we can trust Him that we can trust His promises. How we value a true heart! How we rest in a faithful friend! How we love to lean on one that we know is loyal to the core! Christ is absolutely true. He loved us from the beginning; He will love us to the end. It is because He chose us knowing all, anticipating all, prepared for the worst, that His love is everlasting. He is so true that He will keep us true. Think of some of the assurances of His faithfulness. He has said,
Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5b)
He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9)
And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. (1 Peter 4:19)
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24)
So then we have the faithfulness of God vouched for our sanctification, for our preservation, for our deliverance, for our temptation, for our comfort and support in trial and suffering, for all we can trust Him up to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we can trust Him with all our heart, with all our weight, giving all our cares to Him because He cares for us, trusting in the Lord Jehovah forever, for He is the Rock of Ages.
But still further, “He that is true” is the Guarantee of our true-heartedness and stability. He will keep us true. We can take Him for our steadfastness.
Not only is God at the heaven-side to anchor the cable there; but He is also heart-side, through the Holy Ghost, to fasten it here, so that it will not slip as it holds us.
And so this precious epistle is full of promises of keeping. While on the one side it bids us hold fast that which we have, that no man take our crown, on the other it promises, “I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth” (Revelation 3:10), and still more strongly, “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it” (12).
Thank God we can take Him for our courage, for our steadfastness, for He “is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24). Blessed is He that is holy, He that is true.
He that has the key of David
This, of course, is a description of Christ as a King, as the real successor to David, King of Israel, the Sovereign Lord of Nature, Providence, the Church, and the Millennial World, the One that controls all destinies and possesses all power and dominion in heaven and in earth. But more particularly, He is the Holder of the key of David, “What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open” (Revelation 3:7b).
How many things He opens, and opens forever to His people! He opens the gates of life; for, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9). He opens the gate of heaven; for into that city shall those only enter that are written in the Lamb’s book of life, and over the gate are written the words, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14). He opens our heart for His incoming. He won our stubborn will and taught us to trust and love Him and yield ourselves to Him, and He alone can rule and subdue us with His scepter of perfect love.
He opens our eyes to understand His will, and He opens His Word to our understanding, so that we may behold wondrous things out of His law and possess all the treasures of His glorious truth. He opens for us the gates of difficulty and breaks in pieces the gates of brass and cuts in sunder the bars of iron and enables us to go forward through what seem impassible barriers in His work and will. He holds the key of knowledge and opens to us every problem that perplexes and every question that baffles and will be our wisdom and guide in every trying hour.
He opens our way of service, our door of usefulness and prepares us for them, for our work, and our field, and He says to us, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.” He prepared Paul’s work and gave it to him, and He will give you yours if you are ready to do it, and none can hinder, for when He gives it, everything must go away.
He holds the key of human hearts and can open them to your message. He can convict the conscience, influence the will, persuade the heart, draw the sinner to His feet and constrain the reluctant to be willing in the days of His power. He holds the key to every safe and pocketbook, and He can say to you, “I will give you the treasures of darkness,/ riches stored in secret places” (Isaiah 45:3a), and He will provide the means that you need for every undertaking on which He sends you.
He holds the key of providence and can control all events and circumstances in your eternal life, to cooperate with you or become tributary to you in your service for Him. He that opened the prison gates for Peter and rent the bars of the Philippian jail is still the same. He who gave Esther and Daniel favor in the courts of Persia and Babylon, and made Joseph to be beloved of all he met in the land of Egypt, and gave Paul the friendship of the captain of the guard, and made Cyrus, in the flush of his pride, send forth the captives of Israel to their land, can still open every door and control every heart. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD;/ he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases” (Proverbs 21:1). He will open for you the pathway of His will, the way in which He would have you go. “I will lead the blind,” He says,
by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before
them
and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
I will not forsake them. (Isaiah 42:16)
I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways. (Isaiah 45:13, KJV)
When I act, who can reverse it? (Isaiah 43:13b)
His people’s path may lead through Red Seas and Jordans of swollen tides, and Jerichos of formidable and definite power, and Euroclydian’s wild tempestuous fire; but He who has already burst through the gates of death and hell will fulfill all His counsel and accomplish all His perfect will.
Who shall His power withstand,
When He His people’s cause maintains,
Who, who shall stay His hand?
Beloved, will you use your key more faithfully, more trustfully, more constantly? Will you prove more fully than ever that you have One with you who “opens” and no one can shut?
What He shuts
How many things He shuts! He has shut for us the gates of hell, blessed be His name forever. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), and they will not come into judgment but have passed out of death into life. He holds the keys of death, and its darts cannot touch His children until He permits them. He holds back the gates of temptation. Satan cannot touch one of His children even with a tormenting thought until the Master permits.
There is an “if need be” in our manifold temptations. We are led out of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Between every dragon wing or hellish dart and us is the presence of the Holy Ghost, the bosom of Jesus and the shield of faith, and He that was begotten of God keeps us and that wicked one cannot touch us. And therefore He says in this verse, “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth” (Revelation 3:10). This probably means the last and terrible tribulation from which the saints of God will be taken out and preserved; but it also means many other hours of temptation from which His people are free. One of the terrible calamities of the wicked is that they are tempted above that which they are able to bear; but one of the most blessed promises to a saint is that he will not be so tempted, but that he will be guarded, and when the pressure would be too strong it will be held back.
He also keeps back the floods of sorrow and calamity. In the seventh chapter of Revelation we behold an angel standing in the sky and holding back the winds, lest they should blow upon the earth before the saints of God were sealed. And so God shuts the doors of the natural world, the floodgates of the tides of all evil, and says, “This far you may come and no farther” (Job 38:11), and there the waves are stopped. Fear not, He will deliver you in trial. The floods may have lifted up their voice and made a mighty noise of many waters and the great sea billows. The Lord sitteth King above the floods; yea, the Lord sitteth King forever.
There is another door that He shuts, and that is the door of the inner chamber, where He hides us with Himself, where He takes us into His fellowship, where He gives us His eternal covenant and seals and secures to us “what [we] have entrusted to him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12b).
In this closing verse He says, “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God … and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name” (Revelation 3:12). When God put Noah in the ark He shut him in. When He takes us into His bosom He shuts us in. When He gives us His promises He guarantees them, seals them and keeps them for us.
The ideas underlying these beautiful figures are stability, security and intimacy. He will keep us. He will make us a part of Himself, which is the meaning of the name of God. He will make us part of the New Jerusalem, giving us a place in His millennial glory and writing the very name of that city upon us as if we inseparately belonged to it. And He will give us the pledge of His own personal and pure intimacy, writing upon us His own new name. This refers back to the white stone and the name written upon it, which no man could read except he to whom it was given. This is the token of the secret love, the special covenant, the confidential friendship, the inmost, uttermost love of Jesus.
Now unto Him “who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open” (7) be glory forever. And He answers back to us, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut” (3:8). It opens up to the glory of His coming with the crown shining in the light of vision, as He cries, “I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown” (11). And we take Him to hold us, and to hold for us our crown, and then to let us lay it at His blessed feet forever and say, “You who are holy, you who are true, you who have given all and kept all, you will have all the glory forever. Amen.”