TEXT: Revelation 2:8-11

SUBJECT: Seven Churches #2: Smyrna

Today with God’s blessing, we’ll move on in our study of The Seven Churches. The term, ‘seven churches’ comes straight out of the Bible, Revelation 1 to be exact. This is what they are—the disciples of Christ, meeting in seven cities on the west coast of Asia Minor.

Asia Minor is now called Turkey, but the people who lived there back then were not Turks and, of course, they were not Muslims. They were mostly Gentiles who were Greek in their culture and Roman in their politics. This means they prided themselves on their knowledge and sophistication, and had no room for people who questioned the deity of Caesar. Asia Minor, thus, was a hard mission field.

But preachers soon came and began working the unpromising soil. With some planting and others watering, God gave the increase. Churches were founded all over the sub-continent. When Satan saw what was happening to his Empire, he hit back and hit back hard.

This brings us to Smyrna.

SMYRNA

Smyrna was a harbor on the Mediterranean Sea, and economically, the most important city in that part of the world. Like other Gentiles cities, it had its share of gods and goddesses, but it specialized in the worship of Rome and its Emperor.

The Bible doesn’t say who started the church, but looking at a map makes you think Paul must have gone there at some time during his two years in Ephesus, or maybe he sent someone there to preach the Gospel for him. In any event, the church was well grounded some years before, and still very much under the blessing and protection of the Holy Spirit. We know they were because they had not left their first love or become lukewarm or given in to heresy or grown slack in discipline.

Smyrna is a good, solid church. My theology and experience urge me to say it wasn’t perfect, but what can we say against a people when Jesus Christ looks them—up and down, back and forth—and has nothing but praise for them?

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

PAST PERSECUTION

Being a good church does not mean it’s going to be a church at ease. In fact, the opposite is more likely. If men love darkness rather than light, the brighter the church shines, the more men will hate it. And this is what we have in Smyrna.

The brothers and sisters in that town are serving the Lord with all their hearts—and suffering for it. Up to now, they have endured tribulation and poverty for Christ’s sake. Putting the two together makes you think that their poverty was a result of their tribulation. In other words, they had lost their jobs because of their stand for Christ or their property was confiscated or angry mobs looted and burned their homes. Materially, they had lost everything, and if things stayed as they were, they would have no chance of making it all back.

Sitting in our well supplied homes it’s easy to have a romantic feeling for persecution, suffering for Christ becomes a kind of adventure. But this is not how they felt about it! They were cold and wet; they were watching their children swell up with hunger; their babies were crying for milk but famished mothers didn’t have any! Self-respecting men knocked on door after door looking for work—any kind of work, nothing was too low for them. But when they refused to say, Caesar is Lord, no work could be had.

THE HUMAN SOURCE OF THEIR PERSECUTION

Who was behind their suffering? Unbelieving Jews. The word, ‘Jew’ means ‘the praise of God’. They prided themselves for both praising God and being praised by Him. But the Jews in Smyrna made a mockery of the name. They boasted—We’re

A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own peculiar people, the people of God!

But, in rejecting Christ and harassing His people they had become A Synagogue of Satan. The Lord was not smearing these people, but describing them as they were. You’ve heard the saying, ‘The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree’. Bad children are usually the offspring of bad parents. If the devil is a murder, a liar from the beginning, and the accuser of the brethren, what would you expect his children to do? Murder, lie, and accuse. Which is what the Jews in Smyrna are doing to the church. As a minority without police power, they cannot just shoot the Christians in the street, and so they lie about them to the authorities, accuse them of treason and of immorality, and of cannibalism, even! Under their deceitful influence, the Romans move against the church.

FUTURE PERSECUTION

Things are bad for the church in Smyrna. And they’re going to get worse before they get better. Before long, the devil is going to throw some of [them] into prison, and of those, some will have to die for Christ.

This is an example of the Apocalyptic or Revelational character of the Book. If these events were televised, you’d see Roman policemen arresting criminals, trying them, convicting them of serious crimes, putting them in jail, and executing the worst of the lot.

This is what happened on stage. But there’s something going on backstage as well. It explains why the actors are doing what they’re doing.

The policemen were acting on the orders of Caesar, who named himself Lord and Savior. To himself and most Romans, he was god on earth—Emmanuel an apostate Jew might have called him. But his rule wasn’t the Kingdom of Heaven acting in the world, but rather, the Chaos of Hell at work on earth. Thus, without absolving Caesar or the cops, the judges or the hangman, our Lord says,

Satan will throw some of ... they have more than bad news and hard orders.

Comfort is what the Lord chiefly has for them. It comes to them in three ways.

First, in His identity.

Who is behind this letter? John wrote it, and it and somebody carried it to them, but who’s the letter from? It is from Jesus Christ. But notice, He doesn’t call Himself Jesus Christ or some other familiar name. He says,

I am the First and Last, who was dead and came to life.

The First and Last is a name applied to God in Isaiah 44:6 and Isaiah 48:12. In both cases, it refers to His Lordship over time. The devil and Rome are persecuting, but they’re both in time—trapped in time--and when their time is up, their persecutions will end! This isn’t much comfort, until you remember, Jesus Christ says when their time is up! He limits their rage—ten days, He says. This is probably a figure of speech, but what relief it brings! There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Our suffering is limited by the power, wisdom, and love of Christ.

Speaking of that love, He’s also the one who was dead and came to life. We can love people whose plight we don’t fully understand. Most of us have never been hungry, yet we can feel for starving children. As deep as it goes, our love for them is real. But it doesn’t go very deep. To deeply feel for them we have to know what hunger is and what it means to not know where your next meal is coming from, and what it is to watch your little sister starve to death.

This is the love Christ has for His suffering people. He was dead—not of old age, but of crucifixion and all the abuses that led up to it. Because He Himself was hated, slandered, and put on a cross, He knows what the church in Smyrna is feeling.

If He used to be dead, He isn’t anymore. Honoring God in His death, He tasted the life of the Resurrection. What He entered then—back in 30 AD—He promises to everyone who suffers and dies for His sake.

Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.

SIGNIFICANCE

This Letter was written to a real church, in a real time, and a real place. We are not that church, and yet the Letter that spoke to them back then and there, speaks to us too, here and now. What does it say?

It says expect suffering for Christ’s sake. Not every church will suffer in the same way and in the same degree. But make no mistake about it, living for Christ includes suffering for Christ. Paul said, All who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

We all suffer with the same aches and pains as other people have. But do we suffer for Christ? Do men hate us for His sake? Do they revile us, persecute us, say all manner of evil against us? Do they curse us and spitefully use us? Are we the gazing stock and the off scouring of all things?

Maybe we’re not suffering persecution because the world cannot identify us. They take us for Republicans or Conservatives or some other branch of the world!

We mustn’t court persecution by being foolish, but that’s not our real temptation, is it? We mustn’t avoid persecution by blending in.

It says accept suffering with courage and thanksgiving. This is easier said than done—and no one feels that more keenly than I do. But this is our calling—be faithful unto death! If you and I are human, I sometimes wonder what species Peter and John were! When whipped and threatened with crucifixion, they went back to church,

Rejoicing, because they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name’s sake!

They didn’t strike a martyr’s pose, they didn’t complain, and they didn’t look for ways to eliminate (or reduce) the offense of the cross. While their wives were cleaning their backs with rubbing alcohol, Peter and John were crying…for joy!

They weren’t super men, but men every bit as weak as we are. But they saw suffering for Christ as part of the job and a good part too, because it put them into closer fellowship with Him and fitted them for glory.

It says trust Jesus Christ and set your hope in His promises. Suffering scares the life out of us because we don’t believe will be there when we suffer. But He will be. And we fear what it will do to us, but in the end, all it does for us is exempt us from the Second Death and put a crown on our heads!

These are not bad things—if we had the faith to believe in them.