In the middle of the second century there was a Church leader named Polycarp. He knew the apostle John personally, and was a leader at the church in Smyrna – the very church to which these words of Jesus were originally directed.
Polycarp died a martyr’s death, for refusing to offer a sacrifice to Caesar or acknowledge Caesar as Lord.
And according to the account of his death, when he is told to forsake Christ, he responded by saying this:
“Eighty and six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong, How then can I blaspheme my King and Savior now? You threaten me with a fire that burns for a season, and after a little while is quenched; but you are ignorant of the fire of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked.”
And then he prayed: “I bless you, Father, for judging me worthy of this hour, so that in the company of the martyrs I may share the cup of Christ.”
And I wonder if, at the moments leading up to his death, what was sustaining him and strengthening him and enabling him to face his death with courage and peace and freedom from fear, were these words of Jesus captured in his mind and heart:
“Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown…the one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.”
“I know your afflictions…”
“Do not be afraid…”
These words, spoken by the one who suffered unto death to deliver us from death – certainly these could strengthen and comfort someone facing persecution and death.
Ephesus – a call to return to Love. Love is the primary distinctive mark of the church; but love for God and love for one another – those aren’t the only distinctive marks of the church.
Suffering is also a mark of the church and a mark of the Christian life.
Jesus promised to his followers that they would suffer: The Apostle Paul promised to his brothers and sisters in Christ that they would suffer; The Apostle John promised his brothers and sisters in Christ that they would suffer;
And Jesus is promising the church here – and all of Revelation is a promise to the Church that all throughout the age between Christ’s first coming at the incarnation and his second coming at the last day – that suffering will characterize the life of the Church in this world.
And Jesus’ call here to the Church in Smyrna, is a call to faithfulness in the midst of suffering.
1) The Call to Faithfulness; 2) the Temptation to Compromise; 3) The Reward of Victory
1) The Call to Faithfulness in Suffering
And this isn’t a call to suffering in general here; All people suffer in this life and in this world; and Christians aren’t magically exempt from that general suffering that is the lot of all fallen human beings who live in a fallen world but when you experience general suffering – you suffer as a Christian, and you are called to suffer in a Christian way – the way of faith and hope; but you haven’t yet suffered for your faith.
All suffering is bad, and hard; but what we see in Jesus’ words here is that not only are Christians not exempt from suffering in this life, but actually they get an extra kind of suffering that other people are exempt from: suffering which comes about specifically as a result of living out your Christian Faith in this world: Persecution.
Difference: can’t shield yourself from general suffering, it just comes upon you; but you can shield yourself from persecution – by denying Christ or compromising in faith.
Persecution is something that we choose & sign up for when we follow after Christ and is ours only as long as we continue to take up our cross and follow him.
And this call to faithfulness to Christ in the midst of persecution was especially pertinent in Smyrna, for the reason which may sound odd to us, that Smyrna was an especially patriotic city.
Smyrna was the first city that had the honor of building a temple to the Roman Emperor; and Smyrna prided itself on
And for Christians, this was a dangerous context to live especially because of the extent to which the worship of the Emperor penetrated into daily life.
“My kingdom is not of this world.” – and often it is the kingdoms and rulers of this world that come into conflict with the kingdom of God.
4 specific types of persecution:
1) poverty
This could be talking about being poor in general – the Apostle Paul mentions in his letter to the Corinthians that there were many Christians who were poor and we know that he delivered offerings to help poor Christians on his missionary journeys.
But probably it’s talking about poverty that is caused by persecution.
We know that some of the early Christians (Hebrews 10) had their property and possessions unjustly taken from them; and they joyfully accepted that because they knew they had a better possession, an abiding one – one that doesn’t disappear with this life but that lasts to eternity – the possession of faith.
And in Smyrna – we don’t know the exact details of this but based on what we know of Smyra, it’s more likely not that Christians were being robbed although that’s possible, but rather that they were being denied opportunities that were available to others because of their unwillingness to compromise in their faith.
EX: Christians today in our culture are increasingly being compelled to sacrifice to our culture’s idols of sexual freedom – and they could say, “well this is just the cost of living in a pluralistic society”; but they aren’t; they aren’t compromising; and though they receive scorn from the world they should be commended for their courage and faithfulness even when it threatens their livelihood and personal possessions.
Because pagan religion and emperor worship were not just a part of everyday life, but Christians wouldn’t participate in sacrifices of homage to Caesar or to Roman gods; and so they weren’t part of the chamber of commerce.
NT never buys into the lie that one’s financial situation is the most significant thing about them – a lie that you can buy into whether you’re rich or poor – but rather the NT recognizes that the abundance of one’s wealth does not lie in their possessions; that the way the world measures a person is not the way God measures a person; that there is such a thing as a poor rich person (which we see later characterizing the Church in Laodicea) and a rich poor person, such as we find here in Smyrna; and that’s it’s infinitely and eternally better to a rich poor person than a poor rich person.
And Jesus encourages them to endure this injustice; he reminds them that they are rich: richer than celebrities or athletes or computer programmers who live in beachfront palaces because you have Jesus. Someone else might have a cool car, or money in their bank account, all the luxuries of this life; but if you have Jesus you are richer than them – do you believe that?
Poverty; Slander
I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
As we saw from the book of Acts, even though Christianity arose out of Judaism and was the goal and fulfillment of Judaism, nevertheless many of the jewish nation rejected Christ, and formed much of the hostility & opposition to the preaching of the gospel and the ministry of the apostles.
We saw this in the apostle Paul’s missionary journeys – and we know that at Smyrna this Jewish hostility and opposition existed; and it’s not hard to see why this existed in general: 1) that Jewish people naturally thought the Christian faith blasphemy since it worshiped a peasant from Galilee who died a criminal’s death; 2) that there existed jealousy for the Christian’s success in winning converts to it’s blasphemous message.
And in Smyrna, a patriotic city, it’s not hard to see that this slander would consist of false accusations to the Roman authorities for the purpose of getting this fringe-group into trouble.
And Jesus tells them that these Jews think they’re Jews but aren’t Jews at all – because in the words of the Apostle Paul (Romans 2:28-29) “a person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly… No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly.”
Physical descent alone never made someone a child of God; but faith; and rejecting Christ disqualifies someone – no matter what their physical descent – from being included among the 1 true people of God.
And by their rejection of Christ – and by their slander of God’s true people – these slanderous people prove themselves to be not among God’s children, but among Satan’s children – whose very name in Greek means “slanderer” or “false accuser”.
And as Christians were pushed out of the umbrella of Judaism – which was an established & legal religion in the roman empire – they would be especially vulnerable to this type of slander and the resulting intimidation from the local Roman officials.
poverty; slander; imprisonment.
Jesus promises some of them imprisonment.
And that at the same time that it is wicked men who are opposing them, Jesus reminds them that they are engaged in a spiritual battle – and that behind the curtain Satan is the one putting them in prison
John himself had seen the inside of a prison cell because of his faith in Christ; Paul and Peter did as well; and many others after them.
And in the book of Acts when the apostles are in prison, they’re singing hymns and praising God, because they know God is sovereign over their trials and that God is present with them and that even the worst outcome isn’t their loss but only their gain; isn’t their defeat but only their victory.
and that brings us to the last thing they are suffering:
death. “Be faithful, even to the point of death.” Death for their faith is a real possibility they are facing in Smyrna.
They are promised an end to this suffering and persecution in 10 days – and it may be that the end of the suffering after 10 days means release from prison. But it may be that the end of the suffering after 10 days isn’t release from prison, but execution;
2) The Temptation to Compromise (faithfulness is both the cause of suffering and the response to suffering – and it’s hard to respond to suffering with the same thing that caused it because it causes more!);
test – expose them as false – as having faith that isn’t genuine but counterfeit – “fair-weather faith”;
Worst insult : fair weather friend – Not really friend at all.
Question this address to the church in Smyrna forces us to ask ourselves: “Do we have fair-weather faith?” Not really faith at all.
The Suffering church has life & vitality that we who live in relative ease, comfort, affluence, & freedom, can lack.
Question: If the weather changes, are we prepare to be faithful when faithfulness brings suffering ?
10 days – some think this is a round number indicating a short amount of time (“about a week”); others think it is a longer period but still limited.
I think it has two purposes: 1) suffering certain (for that church and for those christians but also for all churches and for all Christians;
but just as much as suffering is certain, so is suffering limited. it has a definite ending point. And that ending point may be a time of deliverance in this life; or it may be our deliverance from this life.
Because suffering is certain, we shouldn’t be surprised; because suffering is limited, we shouldn’t despair.
When you are faithful, though you will suffer, that suffering has it’s end-point. Even death itself is deliverance.
2) an allusion to Daniel & 3 friends
Daniel 1:12 “Please test your servants for 10 days.”
They too had a 10 day test, where the pressure to compromise on their faithfulness to God was at stake – 2 ways: eating food dedicated to idols, but also eating at the king’s table was a symbol of ultimate loyalty to that king – and especially when the king considered himself divine.
Very similar situation to Christians in Smyrna;
and this was something they simply could not do. And despite this pressure to compromise, they remained faithful to God; and the Christians are encouraged to follow in Daniels’ example of faithfulness in the midst of pressure to compromise.
3) The Reward of Victory.
They are facing the very real prospect of being killed for their faith.
Martyrdom – though apparent defeat in the eyes of the world, but supreme victory from the perspective of God and the one who has faith.
And that’s why Jesus refers to himself in v 8 as “him who is the first and the last, who died and came to life again.” in each of the addresses, Jesus identifies himself in terms of part of the description of the vision of Jesus which John sees in chapter 1; and the promise to the one who is victorious has a connection to the final vision of the new heavens and new earth in chapters 21-22;
and these connections are not just randomly selected but they have special significance to the particular situation of that church;
v8 – Jesus is the first and the last – he is eternal; throughout all the ups and downs that we experience in this life he remains the same; and he is not vulnerable to those ups and downs but is sovereign over them; so he can be our rock and refuge in whom we put our trust when we experience those ups and downs; and can remember that we belong to him and his kingdom which never ends and never fails.
v8 – Jesus is the one who died and came to life again – he is victorious.
And if he was victorious over death, then if we are in him we can be victorious over death; if death couldn’t harm him, then it can’t harm us – at all.
v11 – “The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.”
The second death is mentioned again in Revelation 20 and 21; and in both places as here it clearly refers to death after death – where physical death is the first death; the second death is eternal death;
And that is the real death to be afraid of and concerned about; over which if we have victory and from which we are safe, then the first death has no ability to harm us; even if it comes with suffering that comes to an end; never to be tasted again for the people of God but only a new world of pure joy and delight.
But this reward is only for those who persevere through the trial.
and the bible is very clear; that God rewards his people; and that his people must persevere.
And neither of these things mean that we earn our salvation. They don’t take away from God’s graciousness in salvation – they only add to it – because God promises us rewards because he knows the difficulties we face and the weaknesses which we face them with; and he does all he can to strengthen us to finish the race he’s called us to.
And true faith is always persevering faith; even though it might falter and stumble it always perseveres to the end; because true faith has it’s eye not ultimately on the present hardship, but ultimately on the reward of God in the life to come.
Running race.
Only reason I made it was because Amy was waiting at the finish line. And can you imagine how much faster and more faithfully we would run the race of faith if we really believed that Jesus was waiting for us at the end and we truly longed to see him?