Revelation 3:13 - Exposition

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches (see on Revelation 2:7 ). Of the condition of the Church in Philadelphia we know nothing from Holy Writ, except what is contained in the passage before us. But its comparative immunity from trouble and destruction, and its continued existence to the present day (see on Revelation 3:7-13 , "Philadelphia"), render it probable that the message of the apostle was not without some effect. Thus Gibbon writes: "In the loss of Ephesus the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, the extinction of the first candlestick, of the Revelation; the desolation is complete; and the Temple of Diana or the Church of Mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveller. The circus and three stately theatres of Laodicea are now peopled with wolves and foxes; Sardis is reduced to a miserable village; the God of Mahomet, without a rival or a Son, is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira and Pergamos, and the populousness of Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy or courage" ('Decline and Fall,' c. 64).