Our constant guide is He. Turn with me, please, to Isaiah, the sixth chapter. Isaiah, chapter six. Any of you who wish a Bible, if you'll hold up your hands, the ushers will see that you get one. Isaiah, chapter six. Anyone else like a Bible? Isaiah chapter 6, no collusion between myself and Bill as he began with chapter 6 this morning. I didn't even know that until he began reading it there. There have been times when there was collusion between us two, but not this time. Isaiah chapter 6, I'll begin reading in verse 8. Isaiah is speaking. He's just accepted the commission that God had given him. to be his minister. Isaiah 6, verse 8. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And I said, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go and tell this people. Be ever hearing, but never understanding. Be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused. Make their eyes dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed. Then I said, for how long, O Lord? And he answered, until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken, and though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land. There's one other scripture that I'd like to read just in passing, and that's in Matthew chapter 16. We read it last week. It applies to each one of these letters that we're studying now. Matthew 16, Jesus is speaking. Peter has just said, thou art the Christ. It's in verse 15, 16. Peter has just said, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, the rock of that testimony, on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. Now turn with me to the other reading from the Gospels in John chapter 15. John 15 seems to me particularly appropriate in view of the message that Christ was speaking. So many years later to the church in Smyrna, John 15 beginning in verse 18. Jesus is speaking. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. This is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you? No servant is greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of My name, for they do not know the One who sent Me." Now turn with me, please, to Revelation, the second chapter, the last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation, the second chapter, beginning in verse 8. Christ is speaking to each one of the cities, each one of the churches. To the angel of the church in Smyrna write, these are the words of him who is the first and the last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty, yet you are rich. I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death." the words that I'd like us to focus on particularly here, do not be afraid of what you're about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you and you will suffer persecution for some day, for 10 days. Be faithful even to the point of death, I'll give you the crown of life. Now today, Jesus Christ is speaking these words to the church in Smyrna. All these letters here in Revelation 2 and 3 are describing Jesus Christ as the master contractor, the one who made that promise to us when He was with us here on earth. He says, I will build my church. You believe me? The one who showed us how he's going to do that there in his continuing acts, now working through other people, not his own body, but through the bodies of others, Paul, for example, in the book of Acts, he's showing us how he intends to keep on with his building of his church. But 30 years now, after his death and resurrection, through the apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, there in Acts, has evangelized all of Asia, sent him into Ephesus, and then through Ephesus, all of Asia, Gentiles and Jews, had heard the good news. That entire country had been evangelized. Among others there in that country were seven churches, seven particular churches, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. These seven churches Now 30 years later, 30 years after the days of Paul, some long time after Christ's resurrection and ascension, here is Christ again on earth. And he describes himself and shows himself there in those opening chapters, the opening verses of the book of Revelation, as the one who is walking around among those candlesticks to check their light, to see how they're doing. The churches have been formed 30 years earlier. He's back to review their progress. And the first chapter describes Jesus Christ as the one who's holding up those seven churches and examining them continually. warning them of weaknesses that he's beginning to see show up there, praising them for strengths, preparing them for what's coming, being an encouragement to them. All this is not by accident. He's causing us to know that this is the same way he's constantly evaluating the Second Reform Presbyterian Church or all the other churches in the area, all those that belong to him. Last week, it was Ephesus, the number one landing point in Asia, the port of entry, the door through whom everyone went in going in and coming out. The proconsul of Rome went through Ephesus into Asia. Jesus Christ is saying, in effect, you know, the proconsul of heaven has chosen Ephesus as the entry point for all of Asia. And the key word in Christ's review of Ephesus was the word love. Every Christian must live love. But Christ's message to Ephesus and to the Christians there was a severe warning. You have left your first love. You're doing the same things you were always doing. You're very diligent about those things. But you're not doing those things because of a love for me. That's how you started out doing them. You were very keenly aware. than the beginning of where you fell from, of the sin that was in your life and of how I loved you. And so everything you did in that case was because of a love for me. But somewhere along the line, Ephesians, you've kept on doing the same things, but you're not doing those things because you love me. It's just the program. It's just the thing to do. And Jesus is very strong. He says, you need to know that if you keep on doing the right things for the wrong reason, though, I'm going to remove your lampstand. I'll throw you away like a burned out light bulb. The motivation, love, love. Now today, Christ is speaking to the Christians in the city of Smyrna. And the key word here is suffer. Did you notice how often we read that word suffer in the verse that I came back across? Do not be afraid of what you're about to suffer. I tell you the devil will put some of you in prison and you will suffer persecution for 10 days. Be faithful even on the point of death and I will give you the crown of life. The first essential of a healthy church is love. And I'm afraid to say this next thing, but it's true. The second essential of a healthy Christian life and of a healthy church is suffering. Suffering. And those two are related. When people really love, then they're willing to suffer for Christ and for each other. How do you really love or know you love unless there's some suffering in it? Until you have something you're willing to suffer for, you don't really have anything worth living for or loving for. And until you have suffered, how do you know? How can you know that you really do love when you love a person enough to marry them and have children? you really multiply the risk of suffering. You're going way out on a limb at that point. Remember how Carolyn Homa came back after Ron Homa had died of cancer over there in the house where Jack and Karen and their family lived. And she was right in here with a group of girls And they had watched her as she grew up. And this tall, handsome, dark, master's degree student down at Indiana University was marrying the beautiful master's degree student from Ball State University. And it was a sort of a romance thing. And it was. It really was. But I'll never forget. As she said to the girls in there that day, you know, if I had known when I said yes to Ron's proposal to marry me, he had asked her to marry him. And she said yes. If I had only known that I was saying yes to God, I am willing to go through the months of suffering that I've gone through with him and to become a widow. I don't know. If I had known in advance, I don't know whether I could have said yes or not. But she went ahead to say, I'm glad I did. Because now I know genuine love. I thought the same thing about the church. When we received them into membership, were we willing to suffer with them? Would we have accepted them so joyfully if we had known what we were going to suffer with them? I'm persuaded that God hid that promise, but that we know something as a congregation about love that we never would have known had it not been for that experience. And we did. That was a genuine love. Wasn't anyone in the congregation. who wasn't involved. Heimburgers moved them into their home with them. And then later, the congregation bought that house. Genuine love, two essentials, absolutely essential for the life of any church, genuine love and a willingness to suffer. We like the children when they're nice and clean and smell good. But what about all those other times, mothers, dads, What about all those other times? And that same thing happens with people spiritually. It's nice when they're sharing a testimony and growing on in the Christian life and sharing the gospel and other people are becoming Christians. But what about when they get into sin? Are we willing to get down into Egypt with them? Joseph and Mary went down into Egypt with that baby in order to keep him from being killed. Children, I don't know how you're going to draw this message today, but you've done such a beautiful job in the other days as the children draw the picture of what I'm talking about in the sermon. I'll tell you what I'm going to talk about, and then maybe you'll get an idea about how you could draw that picture, the outline of what I'm going to be saying. The first thing I'm going to be talking about is a description of the geography of Smyrna. a map of Smyrna and some of the political history of the city of Smyrna is very important. If we're going to understand the words that Christ spoke to Smyrna with, we have to understand something about the geography of the city and also the history of that city. That's why he chose those particular words in speaking to them. We miss part of the impact of it when we don't understand that. The second thing I'm going to do is to describe the situation in John's day, the people to whom these words were first written, a man named Polycarp, who lived right here in Smyrna. He was a man who was a close friend of the Apostle John. John, the Apostle. Polycarp, as far as we can see, probably learned his Christianity and how to live the Christian life and what the true teachings of Scripture were through the Apostle John. That's the relationship between John and Polycarp. And third, and incidentally what Polycarp had to suffer right here in the city we're talking about today, Smyrna. And third, what this means to us. in our own suffering today. First then, the description of the city and the history of it. Now Smyrna, children especially, but all of you, was a little bit like Ephesus in that it was on the west coast of Turkey. It was quite a bit north up that coast of Turkey, quite a bit north of Ephesus. And Smyrna had a little harbor also. Incidentally, Smyrna is called Izmir today. And it's the NATO capital for Turkey, which is interesting. We'll get into that in a little bit. But it's called Izmir today. Smyrna's harbor was just a little shallow thing compared to the harbor of Ephesus. It is at the end of a small bay or inlet. And that little bay could be closed in the event of an attack. They had ways of, it was narrow there, and you could put some sort of logs or something across it or sink a ship in it, and other ships couldn't get in. But it's the buildings of the city of Smyrna that we're interested in in this map here. The buildings of the city of Smyrna, and we saw this just a few years ago when we were over there, the buildings of the city of Smyrna seemed to rise right up out of the water. And they build right to the top of the hill. And all around the top of the hill, there's a palace and a wall. Not like the China wall. It's not that big. But it's a wall, a fortified wall that goes around the top of that. Looks like a crown at the top of the city. So that when you look up to the skyline, you see the palace and that other wall that goes around there. And it's a little bit like a crown. The neck and the head is the city rising up out of the water, and then up at the top is this crown and the wall around there. Part of what Jesus was talking about then when He said to them about giving to them the crown of life. Smyrna was known as the Crown City. We're known as the Circle City down here. But Smyrna was known as the Crown City. But another reason for crowns being so important to the city of Smyrna, the life of Smyrna, was that Smyrna was the capital of Asia for the Olympic Games. And in the days that we're talking about, the people who won the contest in the Olympic Games didn't get a gold medal, or a silver medal, or a bronze medal, or a medal. They got a crown. It was a crown that they sat on the head of the winner. But Smyrna had not always been a crown city. History becomes very important to us here. First, over 1,000 BC, Smyrna had been strong, alive, and beautiful. But then, around 600 BC, disaster hit. And the Lydian barbarians swept down out of the north and conquered Smyrna. And the citizens of Smyrna left the city. They fled into the surrounding hills, and they left the city. And for 400 years, Smyrna was dead. The streets were empty. People weren't there. That was the first death. But then the Greeks conquered Asia and a man named Lysimachus, I suppose you'd call him a city engineer, but he planned and rebuilt the whole city of Smyrna. Beautiful city now, new life. And he was the man who built that palace and the fort on top of the wall, on top of the circle of hills that surrounded Smyrna. And he also made a beautiful street around the base of the hill towards the edge of the water called the Golden Street. And on that street, there's a temple of Zeus at one end of it and a temple of Cybele at the other end of it, golden temples. And there were 30 other temples on that street all the way around. The Golden Street looked like a kind of a golden necklace around the neck of a queen. and the crown like the tiara that a queen wears. Smyrna was the queen city and the crown city. In other words, the city that had been dead for 400 years now came back to life in history and was given a crown of life. But Smyrna also had a fascinating political and religious history. When the Romans came in around 200 B.C., when Rome was still young and struggling to conquer, fighting in Asia, Sulla's armies were fighting there in Asia. And no one was sure at that point who was going to win that struggle, but the citizens of Smyrna threw in their lot with General Sulla and his Roman legions, and they took the clothes off their back and the food out of their families and gave it to Sulla. And Smyrna found that she'd picked a winner. And Rome found that she had a loyal city. Cicero said of Smyrna, one of our most faithful and most ancient allies. So loyalty to Rome was desperately important to the people of Smyrna. Rome loved Smyrna, and Smyrna loved Rome. She was a free city, an Assiz city. And she was determined never again to die a second death as she had earlier. And Rome guaranteed death. Rome said, you never will die. We'll see to that. Around 195, Rome, Smyrna, built a special temple to the goddess of Rome. Now sometimes we think that the Romans came in and forced their religion on people, but you have to stop and think back to the terrible political inconsistencies and revolution and anarchy that had been going on there, and it wasn't like that at all. The people of Smyrna loved Rome. They petitioned Rome again and again. They said, please let us. build a temple so that we can worship Rome. And more than that in a few minutes as we're going to see. Around 195 BC, Smyrna built a special temple to the goddess of Rome. Now that's 195 years before Christ. About the time Christ was working in the carpenter shop there in Nazareth, about 25 AD, Smyrna was especially selected and given permission to build a temple to Tiberius, the emperor. Now, It wasn't the case of Rome telling her she had to do that. It was the people coming up with this idea, you know, hey, we just are so appreciative of what Rome has done for us, and we think that it'd be nice to build a temple to Tiberius. And about 25 AD, Smyrna was given permission to do that. There was an amazing loyalty between Smyrna and Rome and Rome and Smyrna. Rome guaranteed that Smyrna would never again die a second death. All this helps to explain, then, why Christ described himself the way he does there in verse 8. Christ says, I am the one. Remember, I told you this in the first chapter. I described myself there in the first chapter, the way I am today in heaven for eternity will be. I am the first and the last who was dead and yet I live. Sounds a little bit like an Olympic coach. who's coaching his runners or his competitors, his contestants, when he keeps encouraging them to be faithful and loyal unto death in order that they might receive the crown of life. How do you coach a winner? Well, that's Christ coaching the team or the individual competitors there in Smyrna. Now we go to the circumstances at the time that this letter was written around 9100 A.D. Domitian was the emperor in Rome. And he wasn't the way you saw some of those other emperors in the book AD, but he wasn't far off them, too. He was a sort of an odd man. And we know this from secular history. It's not in scripture. But one of the little things he liked to do, and you children, I don't know what this means to you, but he liked to catch flies and then kill them with his pen or his pen. And there were just lots of little idiosyncrasies about him that put him in a class by himself. He was the emperor, and emperor worship was beginning to become compulsory. Although there were a number of the emperors who said, don't worship me. Didn't want to be elevated to the position of an emperor. But the people kept petitioning, and Rome's circumstances were deteriorating. And so some of the emperors began to see that this would be an opportunity to bring back unity. If everybody all over the empire were beginning to worship the same person, and that person could be the emperor, and that could have a political advantage, an edge, as well as a religious one. So the people of Turkey and Smyrna were begging to be allowed to worship the emperor, and especially the people of Smyrna, first to worship the emperor, first to set up a church federation. That was the other thing that was going on there, the setting up of a church federation, a commune of churches. And this commune of churches would superintend all worship, all religions, of all faiths, Now, you see, their purpose was to make sure that everyone was related properly to the Roman Empire and to the Roman government, worshiping the emperor. Interestingly enough, and I don't know why this is, I just throw it in at this point, I mentioned it a little bit ago, I forget the name of the NATO general. that we met at Laodicea. He, too, was a student of Scripture, but he was the U.S. general who was in charge of all NATO forces in that part of the country. And he was a student of Scripture and was down there studying Laodicea at the same time we were there. And Izmir is the capital of NATO. In that day, Izmir, or Smyrna, was the capital of the Church Federation, I have a copy, let's see if I can go on and see how this applies to us. I have a copy of a very ancient letter that shows how all this was beginning to hit the Christians there in Smyrna. This is a translation of a very ancient letter written about the time the book of Revelation was written. Quote, to those who have been appointed to preside over the sacrifices. from Aicus together with his wife and children who reside in the village of Theodelfia. We have sacrificed always to the gods and now in your presence, according to the regulations, we have sacrificed and offered libation. and tasted the sacred things, and we ask you to give us certification that we have done so. May you fare well." And then we also have the certificate that went with us. We, the representatives of the emperor, have seen you sacrificing, signed and dated. Now, it was not so much a religious test as it was a test of loyalty to Rome. Just say Caesar is Lord, burn a pinch of salt once a year, there'll be no problem. You're in. But you see, that was exactly what the Christians could not do. They could not do that. To them, Jesus Christ alone was Lord. And no compromise. What would you have done? And it's not just your life, it's the life of your family, your children. What would you have done? You could see where the compromise could creep in there. All the legal machinery of the Church Federation was desperately anxious to report a 100% loyalty to Rome. And these exasperating, stubborn Christians could not give them that 100% loyalty. So the anger of all the Gentiles fell on these stubborn Christians. Now we'll get into this a little bit later on, but one of the things that they fell heir to was the accusation that they were atheists. The Christians were the atheists. Don't worship the emperor. And he's the only one allowed to be God. And all the other gods are just subservient to him. You don't worship him. You're an atheist. So one of the things that they used to demand, and they demanded this at Polycarp, as we're going to see in a little bit, was that you would denounce all atheists. But the Christian knew, the minute he was denouncing the atheists in the mind of those who were demanding this of him, that he was denouncing Jesus Christ. What would you have done to that one? Would you have denounced all atheists, knowing what the thinking was of the man who required that of you? Well, we'll see what Polycarp did in a little bit. But that wasn't the only problem for the Christians in Smyrna. In verse 9, there were Jews there. That is, Jesus said, Jews who do not have in them Abraham's kind of faith. I was thinking of this as Bob Heimberger was showing that psalm this morning in such a beautiful way. These were Jews, that is, they were professing Jews. They said they were Jews, but they did not have Abraham's kind of faith in them. And Jesus was a Jew, so we might have expected that the Jews would have supported the Christians. But Rome was beginning to suspect that the Jews would not worship Caesar either. They wouldn't bow down to Caesar. And so they were suspect at this particular time. And the Jews, of course, were trying to pass off all the blame they could on anyone else to find someone else who was guilty. And so they landed full force on the Christians. The Jews were very desirous of winning the favor of Rome. They gave 10,000 denarii to the city for beautification purposes just about this time. Jewish businessmen wanted good relationships with Rome. But the Jews, too, joined the persecution of the Christians. So there was persecution of the Christians from the religious church federation, from the emperor and civil government, and from Jewish business. One of the things that Christ is saying here is whenever organized religion and civil government work together, organized religion, I'm not talking about Christianity, organized religion, whenever those organizations or federations get together with civil government, look out. Christians need to look out. One special example of all this persecution there in Smyrna makes some of these things very clear. About 50 years after this letter was written, a man named Polycarp, an old citizen of Smyrna, he'd been born around 70 AD. We don't know exactly when he was born. And he died about 85 years later. According to lots of good tradition, he was the bishop. in Smyrna. But we do realize, we do know, that he was an excellent Bible teacher. He was a minister of the Word. He'd been a close friend and student of the Apostle John. Probably had read this letter 50 years after this letter was written that these things were taking place. But even after reading this letter that Jesus himself had sent to Smyrna, he didn't leave town. On Saturday, the 23rd of February, 155 AD, the crowds were at the games in the arena in Smyrna. And suddenly a great chant went up, away with the atheists. Let Polycarp be searched for. Those were the crowds that could go on chanting and chanting and chanting for hours at a time. And Polycarp could have gotten away. He had been warned before. And actually, he had agreed to leave town, and he'd gone into a little suburb there, a little village not far from there. And he was even warned, according to some of the best traditions, he was even warned when they set out the search party for him. But when the police captain came to him, he served them meal and then prayed, asked if he could have an hour to pray. And according to the records, he didn't pray one hour, he prayed two hours. And at the end of the time, the police captain wanted to find some way for him to escape and tried to help him do that. And even after he was under custody and was on his way back into Smyrna, he said, what harm is it to say Caesar is Lord and to offer sacrifice and be saved? He says, I'll certify these things right on the road here. Polycarp was given his chance and his choice, sacrifice to Caesar or be burned. And Polycarp said, 80 and six years have I served Christ, and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me? And they offered to turn him loose with the wild animals. And he said, no, he didn't fear them. And so the man in charge said, well, then they would burn him. And when they had him to the stake, he said, you don't need to tie me. You don't need to nail me to the stake with those nails. I'm not going to run away. And although it was Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath, the Jews, it says specifically here in scripture, were the ones who picked up the wood on their Sabbath. and brought it in to burn him. And he said again, it is well. I fear not the fire that burns for a season, but after a while is quenched. I fear not the fire that burns for a season, but after a while is quenched. And then he prayed a very remarkable prayer. I thank thee that thou hast graciously thought me worthy of this day and of this hour, that I may receive a portion in the number of the martyrs in the cup of thy Christ." And he was burned there that day, burned to death. Nowhere in all the world was the persecution more intense or more severe for the Christians than in Smyrna. How would you have responded? What would you have done? The four words that Jesus used to describe their suffering, the first in verse nine, Jesus says, I know your afflictions, your ellipsis, literally pressures, the pressures of your life. That's the 20th century buzzword, the under pressure, the pressures of your life. But in those days, one of the means of persecution was to tie a huge boulder over a man who was tied down to the ground. And then that boulder was gradually lowered until he was literally pressured to death, crushed to death, little by little. The second word Christ says, I know. I know your pressures. I know your poverty, pachia. You're not just poor. You are being starved to death. He says, I know that. It's not just you don't have enough to live and have to go out and scratch for it. You're not being allowed to eat. He says, I know that. I know your pressures. I know you're being starved. And the third word. is in verse 10. I know you are put into prison, some of you, but not all of you. Some of you, and that's important. And for 10 days, indefinite period of time, but it isn't going on and on and on and never ending. Because I am in control. Can't you see that? Will you see that? I know. I know. I know. I am sovereign. I know. I know your history. I know your pressures. I know your poverty. I know your imprisonments. But you will please look to me and find my answer to all this. In verse 8, I am the first and the last. I was here before all this began. And I will be here after all this is finished. And it will not go on longer than I determined. 10 days. 60 years from the date they put me to death. Do you remember they put me under pressure? They crucified me. Do you remember that? Now I'm back. I'm back this many years later. I am not dead. They could not kill me. I conquered that death. You see my eyes? Remember them? Those laser eyes? They look right through all that concerns you. And it's not just a knife through, it's a love through. I understand from the inside out. I understand more even than a mother or a daughter or anyone else. I understand. I know. With these eyes, I see it all. Do you see my hair? That's white hair. It's guaranteed justice. Absolute perfect equity. You see my feet? They're always moving. They're brass, they go right through that fire. It does not melt. They keep moving. A persecution. Satan, you see, sends that fire to make you hurt. Fire hurts. Ask anyone that's been burned. Fire hurts, and Satan is interested in hurting. But Jesus uses that same fire to refine and to make more beautiful. He uses the worst that Satan can do to make something that much more beautiful. He says, do you see my feet? Do you understand what I'm telling you, what I'm showing you there? And do you hear my voice? voice of many waters. Sometimes it thunders and sometimes it ripples. And sometimes it whispers and sometimes it hisses. But my voice and what I'm praying there. You heard me there in John 17. Father, my prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of this world. If they have hated me, of course they're going to hate you. What gave you the right to think that you would be exempt? If they hated me, they'll hate you. And it's true that I took off the glories of heaven, and I laid down my own life willingly. They didn't take it from me. I took it and gave it. No one took that life from me, I gave it. I just laid it down the same way Polycarp did. I became dead. But I became dead so that you would know that there will never be a second death. Now I'm back alive. Speaking again to the Christians of Smyrna and of Indianapolis. I think we can almost hear the Christians of Smyrna looking at one another and saying, what I pray every one of you will be able to say when this kind of suffering hits you. This is a time when we have to prepare for that. And I think we could see them looking at one another and saying, you know, let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God, for nothing, nothing, shall ever be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The applications, I think you've seen applications as we went along today, but I'll comment on a couple of them. How do you get ready for suffering and how do you face it when it hits you? How will you do? And not a question of whether it's coming or not, it's just when. How will you face that? How will you face that? John Greenleaf Whittier said it this way, and I like his words, I know not where his islands lift their fronded palms in air. I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care. John Greenleaf Whittier. Most important thing that Christ teaches us here is to keep our eyes on him. He's eternal. the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He was there before it began. He'll be there after it's finished. He's victorious. I conquered death. Can't you see? I'm alive. They didn't kill me. They couldn't keep me dead. Oh, death, where is your sting? I pulled the stinger right out of death. But I did what I did in rising again. And he's balanced. Yeah, I know you're poverty. But let me tell you something. You're rich. Satan sent that fire in order to make you burn. But I controlled it so that it made you refined. He has a purpose in it all. And he is generous in his rewards. You know, I'll give you a crown of life. And you'll never again die. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you that crown of life. Father in heaven, we We understand a little of what those Christians in Smyrna went through. And thank you, Jesus, for telling us how you understood. You knew. You knew everything that went on with them. And none of it escaped your attention. And you were in control of all of it. And some of them died. But still, you were in control of it. God, we just desire that we would be as you were, and as Polycarp was, that that kind of faith would burn and shine in us, and that the sufferings that we go through would somehow or other make that more plain to other people. and that they would see so much of you in us that they wanted to know you and become like you. Would you please use us to accomplish that? We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen. In closing, let's sing together from Psalm 73C. 73C.