<p>3:7 <em>And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things says he that is holy, he that is true- </em>The Lord's essential character is important to establish, because it is He who has the power to eternally open and close the way to eternity in His Kingdom. 'Holy and true' was one of the many titles heaped upon the Caesars, and again the radical, subversive nature of the book of Revelation appears. For the ultimate holy and true one is not Caesar, but the Lord.</p><p><em>He that has the key of David, he that opens and none shall shut, and that shuts and none opens</em>- The quotation is from Is. 22:22, where Eliakim is given delegated rulership in David's Kingdom. Perhaps the idea of David having the key to his kingdom alludes to the way that he consciously chose his successor and did not let it pass automatically to his firstborn. But the power to eternally shut and open the Kingdom has been delegated to us, in the sense that if we do not preach to others, or make them stumble from the path, we have closed up the Kingdom to them. The keys of knowledge are in our hands as preachers, and we can thereby open or shut up the Kingdom to men (Mt. 16:19; Lk. 11:52; see on Jn. 20:23). We have just been reminded that a man's name can at one stage be in the book of life, and then be removed; eternity can be closed to a person, as well as opened. The foolish virgins find the door to the Kingdom eternally locked against them. We get a strong sense from this imagery of the future we may miss, and how commitment to the things of the Kingdom logically demands 100% commitment from us.</p>