Revelation: Church of Philadelphia, You Are Secure | June 3, 2023

Revelation 3:12 ESV

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.

I experienced my first big earthquake on the third floor of my college dorm. As the building swayed back and forth, car alarms sounded and the ground itself rolled. My native California roommate shouted for us to get in the doorway where it would be more secure.

I prefer tornadoes over earthquakes. Rather, I prefer tornado warnings. There is time to prepare and find shelter and safety. Earthquakes have no warning. Instantly it's happening. It’s unsettling when the ground moves beneath your feet and shakes down things around you that seemed secure.

The people who lived in Philadelphia knew what it was like to feel unstable and insecure after a large earthquake leveled their city. In fact, many choose to live outside the city once the city was rebuilt. It was just too unsettling. In an instant, everything was gone. No warning. How were they to know it wouldn’t happen again? Life was not secure.

I love that Jesus sees them in their circumstances and encourages them where they are. He casts vision for their future. Soon they will be pillars in His house. What can we learn about pillars from these Scriptures?

2 Chronicles 3:1, 15-17 ESV

Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem … ¹⁵ In front of the house he made two pillars thirty-five cubits high, with a capital of five cubits on the top of each. ¹⁶ He made chains like a necklace and put them on the tops of the pillars, and he made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains. ¹⁷ He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the south, the other on the north; that on the south he called Jachin, and that on the north Boaz.

1 Timothy 3:14-15 NIV

Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.

Galatians 2:9 NIV

⁹ James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. 

Merriam-Webster defines a pillar as a firm upright support for a superstructure.

In this temporary life, so many things are unstable and in danger of collapsing at any minute. But our future holds for us a position of eternal stability in God’s house, immovable and permanently in His presence. We no longer live in fear of destruction; now we walk confidently in faith that their eternal home is secure.