Sermon Philadelphia: Kept in the Crisis Randy Roberts 
Part 8: Letters from the Edge of Eternity

Prayer: Bernard Taylor

Pastoral Welcome: Darold Retzer

Children’s Feature: Rob Mohr

Scripture Reading: Revelation 3:7, 11–13, TNIV - Todd and Eloise Murdoch

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERMON

R. Geoffrey Brown writes this following story.  In Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1876, a train went off the tracks and over the bridge, and many people were killed.  One of those who died was Reverend P. P. Bliss, a hymn writer and great evangelist.  One of his most famous hymns was, “Hold the Fort.”  It was written after the occasion when Atlanta had been besieged and General Hood, for the Southern armies, came up and tried to draw away Sherman’s army.

Hood wasn’t successful, but he did have a couple of victories.  One of them was at Alatoona Pass, where he attacked.  At that point Sherman was on Kennesaw Mountain, a distance away.  He looked down and could see that they were losing it.  So Sherman heliographed to his beleaguered troops, “Hold the fort, I am coming.'”

Major Whittle, a member of Sherman's army, later recounted the tale to Bliss, who used it as the inspiration for his famous hymn:

 “Hold the fort, for I am coming,”
Jesus signals still.
Wave the answer back to heaven,
“By thy grace we will.”

The message is not significantly different from the message Jesus gives to the church in Philadelphia.  To that church, he says, “I am coming soon.  Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown” (Revelation 3:11, TNIV).  It is a call to endurance, to perseverance.  It is a call we need to hear today.

There is reason to wonder whether or not the church is hearing that call.  Zeal wavers.  Hope dies.  Heaven seems distant and remote.

I yearn to be one of those whom Jesus addresses when he says, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 3:13, TNIV).  What about you?

Yours for an persevering church.

Randy Roberts
Senior Pastor

MEDITATIONS

The modern world is said to have made discipleship harder.  But it has also made evangelism easier.  Today’s world is said to be multiplying crises all around us.  But we must never forget that, for the gospel, each crisis is an opportunity. – Billy Graham

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell

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