This open door leads us into the heavenly temple, before the throne of God above, and, as Jesus works both in and through our worship, this is what gives our worship its meaning, its worth and its power. The Philadelphian church was not to consider itself worse off that the earthly temple had closed its doors to them. They were to consider themselves better off because their Lord Jesus Christ had set open before them the door to the heavenly temple.

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,

‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”:
“I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.”
Revelation 3:7, 8
In terms of the myriad of metaphors, illustrations, and picture-imagery in Revelation, the ‘open door’ that has been set open before the Philadelphian church seems relatively minor. The reality is that it contains one of the most glorious truths of Scripture, yet it is a truth that seems to be missed in many considerations of this Philadelphian letter.
Whenever dealing with the imagery of Revelation, it’s always interesting to compare the interpretations of various commentators. John Stott is representative of a quite popular understanding of this ‘open door’, interpreting it as an open door of opportunity – in reference to salvation and evangelism.[1]
The reasoning for this viewpoint is simple: these are generally the meanings whenever door imagery is used throughout the New Testament. The Lord Jesus tends primarily to use door/gate imagery in terms of salvation, i.e. “I am the Door. If anyone enters by Me, they will be saved.” (John 10:9). In his epistles, Paul’s usage tends more towards evangelism, i.e. “Pray also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ.” (Colossians 4:3).
Whilst this interpretation is not wrong, I feel it only covers only a very small part of what was promised to this Philadelphian church by the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew Poole helpfully highlights the Key of David (v.7) as being “the key of the church, which answered the temple, the house David designed for God.”[2] Craig S. Keener somewhat tentatively nudges us a bit further in the right direction when he writes, “The text probably also alludes to a door to heaven… or more likely to the gates of the new Jerusalem… or the entrance to the temple… to presently available fellowship with Jesus.”[3] These thoughts of Poole and Keener both offer hints that there is an idea here that seems to have not quite been fully grasped in the main.
Verse 9 provides a key help that regretfully seems to be seldom read back into the preceding two verses.

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Can the church, therefore, (whom God has so graciously called out of that sinful world for the express purpose of succeeding where the world had initially failed) really also fail to esteem and exalt its precious Lord so miserably – and yet expect great blessing? It is necessary for the point to be made, making clear that revival – like individual salvation – is something that can never be earned. It is an act of the grace of God from beginning to end. But… we can forfeit God’s blessing, as David reminds us in Psalm 66:18, using the example there of heard prayer.

Firstly, some clarification:

There is still power in the gospel and its message in Wales in 2024. As recently as a couple of months ago I was one of many blessed attendees at the baptism of two teenage girls. There are many Christians around Wales today who are receiving much needed edification, comfort, conviction and more from sitting under the regular preaching of the gospel. There are still new converts being saved by the gospel’s preaching too. As Paul once wrote to the flailing church in Corinth:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18

This is one of the reasons why I become so exasperated by churches who downgrade a preaching service to something else because “preaching doesn’t seem to attract non-Christians”. We are told that yes, of course, non-Christians are going to find the preaching of Christ to be both foolishness and a stumbling block, but as Christians, we know it to be the power of God – in saving us, as all Christians once experienced, and in the building up of our faith. William Cowper was able to write during a time of great revival:
“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power”
Thank God that this is still true for us today!
The country of Wales has had a great history of Christianity and revivals. Some of the most famous include the 18th century Great Awakening revivals, with preachers such as Daniel Rowlands, Howell Harris, William Williams, and even the English George Whitefield being greatly used, the revival of 1859 of Humphrey Jones and David Morgan, and the widespread revivals of 1904-5.
Although, thankfully, there are a good number of churches around Wales that are bucking the current general trend of Christianity today, there are also many churches that are dwindling in number at a startling rate, many churches are closing or are recently closed, and many churches of all types and denominations are feeling a great sense of powerlessness in the taking of the gospel to the lost.
One of the most wonderful stories I have come across from reading of the Welsh revivals of the past – this account coming from the 1904-5 revival – concerns a man named Levi Jarvis:
Levi Jarvis was a man who loved to drink, who loved to fight, and who was feared throughout the whole community. This fearsome man, however, became very scared of the revival that was now spreading throughout his locality… so much so that his wife thought he was going mad! He would even leave his house for work an hour earlier than usual, so as to avoid the conversations concerning the revival from his fellow workers as they walked together to the coal mining pit.
Well, one day, when Levi Jarvis returned home from work, his wife said to him, “Levi, you’ll never believe it! R.B. Jones (the preacher of that revival) has called round, asking to speak to you!” Levi Jarvis responded by taking a big drink of water, picking up the loaf of bread from the table and running off into the mountain to hide himself away!
A mere hour or two later, Levi Jarvis was found stepping into the entrance of the packed-out church, and as the preacher stopped speaking to look at Levi Jarvis, and all the congregation turning to look upon him also, Levi Jarvis asked in a trembling voice, “Can the Lord Jesus save such a sinner as me?”
40 years or so later, this same Levi Jarvis was known to gather the young people of the church to himself, and say, “Come, and let’s talk about that time when the Lord saved me!”[1]
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We must view this vow of Jephthah as an incredibly sinful response to the Lord’s gracious working in Him and through Him. It tapped into his pride, and it was whilst drunk on success and his own pride and ego – as opposed to being filled with the Spirit – that Jephthah made the rash vow that led to the sacrifice of his daughter; a vow which completely contravened the law of God.

Recently, on a Facebook Christian theology group I am a member of, the following request for help was asked by one the other members. I thought it would be a good idea to turn the answer into a blog post with a bit of extra detail to my original answer as I had found that there was not a great deal of help to be found, either by commentaries or from internet articles. Here is the question:
“In the final section of Judges 11 Jephthah makes a rash vow that he will give whatever comes through his front door up for a burnt offering if he beats the ammonites. low and behold his daughter walks through and so he offers his daughter. So I’m trying to understand it said in a couple verses before he gave the vow that he was in the Spirit of The Lord but God ultimately knew that his daughter would be the one to come through the door.
I know God is good and isn’t the author of sin obviously so I’m just trying to understand this passage in light of this truth and need some help.”
This really is such a good question, due in part to the fact that I was unable to find the explanation that touched upon all the subject’s related aspects in one place! Here is my own humble attempt to do so:
In Judges 11, we find Jephthah, who was an Israelite from the region of Gilead. He had been exiled from his home by his own brothers for being an illegitimate child, the son of a prostitute. Presumably, Jephthah was deemed to be a source of familial shame by his pure-blooded siblings, who decided one day to drive him out of their midst.
During Jephthah’s time in exile, he became renowned as a skilled and courageous leader, leading a group of fellow outlaws who had joined together with him as a means of survival. The people of Ammon started to wage a war against Israel at some point during this time. As Israel set about assembling its strongest possible army, the elders of Gilead naturally turned to the Gileadean who had now established himself as a skilful and courageous leader, Jephthah, asking him to be a commander in the Israelite army.
Quite understandably, Jephthah was a little nonplussed by this sudden turnaround in treatment that he was receiving from his native people, and so bargained for the leadership of his hometown should he take up this role as commander in the army and successfully help the Israelites to victory. The elders of Gilead, out of desperation, agreed to the request.
(There are a couple of certain points that will prove helpful to note at this point as we consider the controversial vow of Jephthah. Jephthah, as a child, and despite his father’s indiscretion, would have certainly been taught about the Israelite religion, their laws and of Yahweh, their God. Perhaps even during that same time, but certainly after his ejection from Gilead, Jephthah would have also learnt about local pagan religions, some of which would have included human sacrifices.)
Jephthah became a key commander in the Israelite army and helped them bargain for an end to the conflict with the king of Ammon, albeit unsuccessfully. It is at this point we come to the part of the story that is of the most interest regarding our question:
v.29 “Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and passed through Mizpah of Gilead; and from Mizpah of Gilead he advanced toward the people of Ammon.
v.30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, ‘If You will indeed deliver the people of Ammon into my hands,
v.31 then it will be that whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the people of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up as a burnt offering.’”
As we can see, in v.29, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He then undertook a journey that led him right to the battlefront, and at this point Jephthah made what is often described as his rash vow. 
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It may just be that, by the grace of God, we will yet see revival in our nation once again. It is also important for us to remember that, generally speaking, it is not the preachers whom God uses to kick-start times of revival but it is the pray-ers whom God first uses.

Back still in the relatively early days of when the Covid Pandemic hit our nation, the church I attend, like many churches, had a time of prayer and fasting. We prayed for the healing of our nation from the pandemic, of course, but we also prayed that God would use this pandemic as a means of turning the minds and hearts of a now largely godless nation towards Him. We prayed that people would see this pandemic as a divinely inspired punishment and warning, hearing the voice of God within it, crying out, “Repent of your sins, and seek for the Lord while He may be found!”
My church, like the majority of churches, came out of the Covid pandemic numerically smaller than it had been before Covid came and caused such disruption to our lives. This fruit of the pandemic left a question that rattled around the back of my mind, albeit quietly, that voiced itself in the following prayer:
“Lord, surely that was the opportunity that we needed to penetrate through the hardened hearts of the godless people of our day. If people are to come to our churches seeking for the salvation that is only found in Jesus Christ, surely that was the chance!”
A few years ago, the late George Verwer, the world-renowned founder of the world-wide mission society Operation Mobilisation, came to my sleepy little hometown of Wrexham, North Wales, to speak at a mission meeting. A large church building was hired out to host the meeting and all of the many churches throughout the locality were invited, across the many denominations. When the time for the first meeting to start came, the church was barely half-full. My church’s own evangelical reformed alliance community was the worst represented of all the denominations. I, like my pastor who had organised the event, was left feeling incredibly disheartened and downcast by the turnout:
“Lord, surely that greatly used, and still ever so passionate man of God was the opportunity we needed to breathe life into our flagging churches. If our churches are to be revived in our day, surely that was the chance!”
Perhaps some of you have experienced such feelings on similar widespread scales. Perhaps some of you have experienced similar feelings within a much more personal and intimate capacity.
Maybe you can imagine being a Christian who has a close and much-loved family member who is not a Christian and who’s opposition to Christianity is so strong they will not let you say a word about it to them. One day, a dear friend of theirs is killed in a sudden and unexpected way. In their struggle to come to terms with what has happened, this close family member begins to open up to you about their feelings relating to death, which then leads on to an hour-long conversation about God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are ever so thankful for this opportunity, but then a week passes by, and this family member has returned to their opposition to the Lord and refuses to hear of Him from you again:
“Lord, surely that was the opportunity I had been praying for them for so long. If they are to find salvation in Jesus Christ, surely that was the chance!”
Elijah
The great Old Testament prophet, Elijah, experienced these very same feelings in 1 Kings 18, 19.
In 1 Kings 18, Elijah has experienced that incredible victory over the prophets of Baal: 450 prophets of Baal verses Elijah, the one prophet of Yahweh. Both sides had built an altar to their god, and a bull was placed on top of each of the altars. The challenge was that both sides would call upon their god, praying for fire to be sent to consume their respective altars.
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There is always someone praying for you… always! Someone in heaven is praying for you… and He is praying for you because you are upon His heart! Isn’t that a wonderful thought, also? In fact, the more that we come to see, and understand, about God’s love, the more we are also able to see why the Apostle John says quite simply, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel on the breastplate of judgement over his heart, when he goes into the holy place, as a memorial before the Lord continually. Exodus 28:29

Have you ever tried to read through the Bible from start to finish, perhaps with the aid of a reading plan or perhaps just jumping right in at Genesis 1:1?
How did you get on? For many (if not all) of us, reading the Bible through just isn’t as easy as we perhaps feel it ought to be.
Take the chapters upon chapters of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers that deal with the building of the tabernacle (with the lists of dimensions and materials and so on); or that deal with the priestly clothing (again, with the lists of dimensions and materials and so on); or that list the various censuses (with the numbers upon numbers upon numbers)…
Now, I’m sure that there are people will enjoy reading those parts – architects, engineers, mathematicians perhaps, who have an interest in such things; or who will have a great understanding of such things;
But some of you may be like me and the words seem just to all blur together and, to be honest, I generally get very little out of these sections of the Bible by just reading through them by myself, without the help of experts explaining the importance and relevance of what I am reading.
However, in my experience of reading through these portions of the Bible I find that every so often, in the midst of all this blurriness, something will just shine out, like a bit of metal suddenly catching the sunlight…
And Exodus 28:29 is an example of exactly that.
 Now, we know that in the design of temple, the design of the sacrifices, and even in the design of the priestly clothing God is teaching us something about salvation; and as the priestly clothing applies specifically to the priest, so this teaching applies specifically to the Person of Jesus Christ – who is, of course, our Great High Priest –
So when we find ourselves reading about the names of the people of God being placed especially over the priest’s heart we do not necessarily need so great a theological mind to understand the meaning.
 We know what it means for someone to be ‘upon our heart’. We might have found ourselves saying to someone, “I just want you to know that you’re very much upon my heart”. It means to love, to care and even to cherish.
We know what that means. It means we are loved. And so, we can know immediately from this verse that we are loved by Jesus – our names (the names of ‘the people of God’) are written upon His heart!