Philadelphian Church Age

The Age of Philadelphia extends from 1750 - 1906, and progresses from John Wesley's teaching on sanctification by faith in Jesus Christ, to worldwide missions, and the finally to the Pentecostal revivals. Unlike the Age of Sardis, the Age of Philadelphia has a name that liveth: the name of Jesus Christ.

[edit] Summary

• The Ephesian Age left its first love,
• The Smyrian Age fought with Satan, and
• The Pergamian Age prostituted Christianity with paganism,
• The Thyariran Age was under the dominion of Jezebel,
• The Sardisian Age was the age of death, and few righteous,
• The Philadelphian age was the age of recovery, and growth.

[edit] The Message to the Church

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, HE THAT HATH THE KEY OF DAVID, HE THAT OPENETH AND NO MAN SHUTTETH, AND SHUTTETH, AND NO MAN OPENETH; I know thy works behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not but do lie' behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Revelation 3:7-13

The open door that Peter was given on the day of Pentecost was to "repent, and be baptized". The open door of the Age of Philadelphia was the same door, and they took this message to the world. Some noteable missionaries during this time period include:

George Whitefield (December 16, 1714 - September 30, 1770), was a minister in the Church of England and one of the leaders of the Methodist movement. He travelled through America, England, Scotland, Ireland, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and The Netherlands. Benjamin Franklin calculated, by pacing the area around George Whitefield where his voice was audible while preaching, that he could indeed speak to tens of thousands of people in a single sermon.

Francis Asbury (August 20, 1745 – March 31, 1816) became a local preacher at 18 and was ordained at 22. In 1771 he volunteered to travel to America. When the American War of Independence broke out in 1776 he was the only Methodist minister to remain in America. ^[1]

William Carey (August 17, 1761 – June 9, 1834) was an English Protestant missionary and Baptist minister. Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society. As a missionary in Serampore, India, he translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects.

Adoniram Judson: (9 August 1788 - 12 April 1850) An American Baptist missionary who translated the Bible into the Burmese language, and suffered severe persecution and imprisonment. His work inspired and equipped Ko Tha Byu, a Karen native, to become the first apostle to the Burmese. ^[2]

Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875), was a major leader of the Second Great Awakening in America.

George Müller (September 27, 1805 – March 10, 1898), a Christian evangelist and coordinator of orphanages in Bristol, England, cared for a total of over 100,000 orphans in his life. He was well-known for his constant faith in God and for providing an education to the children under his care, to the point where he was accused of raising the poor above their natural station in life. In 1875, at the age of 70, he began a 17 year period of missionary travel. In that time, he preached in the United States, India, Australia, Japan, China, and nearly forty other countries. ^[3]

Dwight Lyman Moody (February 5, 1837 - December 22, 1899), also known as D.L. Moody, was an American evangelist, setting up Sunday Schools, and preaching accross America, and visiting China and England. ^[4]

James Hudson Taylor (May 21, 1832 – June 3, 1905), was a British Protestant Christian missionary to China, and founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM) (now OMF International). ^[5]

Out of nowhere, and under unrelated circumstances, people began believing in the Holy Scriptures, renouced the Trinity, and were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

WITHIN about one-half century, a very considerable body of religionists have arisen in the United States, who, rejecting all names, appellations, and badges of distinctive party among the followers or Christ, simply call themselves CHRISTIANS.

...this people originated from the three principal Protestant sects in America. The branch at the south, from the Methodists; the one at the north, from the [165] Baptists, and the one at the west, from the Presbyterians. The three branches rose within the space of eight years, in sections remote and unknown to each other, until some years afterwards...

The adopting of the Holy Scriptures as their only system of faith, has led them to the study of shaping their belief by the language of the sacred oracles. A doctrine, which cannot be expressed in the language of inspiration, they do not hold themselves obligated to believe. Hence, with very few exceptions, they are not Trinitarians, averring that they can neither find the word nor the doctrine in the Bible. They believe "Lord our Jehovah is one Lord," and purely one. That "Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God." That the Holy Ghost is that divine unction with which our Saviour was anointed.

Rev. David Millard, History of all the religious denominations in the United States, 1848.

Romans 2:29 says " But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." A Jew in the New Testament scripture therefore refers to someone who is filled with the Holy Ghost. A member of the Synagogue of Satan is therefore someone who professes to have the Holy Spirit, but does not actually have the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 16:15-16) All Christians accept and often quote these scriptures, and the Age of Philidelphia was a time of great witness. However, Jesus also said "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." (Mark 16:17-18)

While John Wesley had supernatural signs following his ministry, many other ministries did not. In fact, many other ministries, even Methodists, condemned these same supernatural signs when they appeared in other ministires.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ America's Bishop: The Life of Francis Asbury (2003) by Darius Salter (ISBN 1-928915-39-6)
2. ↑ Burmese Bible & Adoniram Judson Biography
3. ↑ (Works by George Muller at Project Guttenberg [1])
4. ↑ (Sermons of D.L. Moody [2])
5. ↑ James Hudson Taylor, OMF Website