God has a way of bringing what is good out of what is bad, and the book of Revelation is a classic example of that. The Apostle John, because of his faith in Jesus, was sent packing into a prison colony on the Isle of Patmos. If the Romans had had their way, never to be heard of again. But while he was in exile, the Lord gave a glorious vision of himself to John, gave him the book of Revelation, which begins with seven penetrating letters to seven churches of that day. It was the word of God to those churches. It is the Word of God to us. We began last week with the first church, the church in Ephesus, that doctrinally correct church, which is a good thing, which had lost its first love. Today we read of the church in Smyrna, to which Christ calls them to be faithful unto death. Revelation chapter 2, a short passage, verses 8 through 11. Please hear the Word of God. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, the words of the first and the last who died and came to life. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto 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. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Let us pray. Lord God, give us ears to hear, that we may hear the one who died and rose again. And would you shape within us a faithfulness unto death. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Smyrna called itself the first city in Asia, in beauty and in size. If that sounds like an advertising slogan, I think in effect it was in the first century. And I'm sure if they had had internet technology, there would have been a Smyrna website because coupled with its wonderful climate, I'm sure it would have been a wonderful destination for a vacation. Smyrna was a wealthy city. In fact, it still is, though now it goes by the name of Izmir in Turkey. And we know that in the first century there was a large Jewish community in the city of Smyrna. However, as far as the Christians went, there was a dark side to Smyrna. And the Christians were pressured really from two sides. We know that the city of Smyrna, which was not far from Ephesus, was a center of the imperial cult. That is to say, emperor worship. And the citizens of Smyrna were pressured constantly to say, Jesus is Lord. In fact, we have documented in Smyrna from that time, a system of people who were called informers. And if you were not showing enough zeal for emperor worship, they would rat you out to the authorities and you'd get yourself in trouble. Now trouble at the time of John's writing the letter was largely social, there was a stigma attached to being a Christian, and it was economic. The Christians just couldn't get the good jobs. because they were Christians, and we'll see more of that as we read the letter. There was more persecution to come, but at this point, it was largely economic and social. So from the one side, there was pressure from the imperial state, if you will. We also know that at this time, the Jewish community was largely hostile to Christians. That doesn't mean that all first century Jews were hostile to Christians. In fact, many of them became devout believers. They saw their faith really as completed and fulfilled by Jesus the Messiah. Nevertheless, we can't deny reality and the fact is that large community of Jews in Smyrna was largely hostile to Christians. And so, given that setting, I think the key statement in our text is when the Lord Jesus says to his people in Smyrna, don't fear what you are about to suffer. In other words, the heat of pressure and persecution is about to get kicked up a few notches. Don't fear, says Christ, to the Smyrnan church what you are about to suffer. Let me point out to you then, in this passage, what I hear as four Christ-centered reasons. not to fear. Our theme is not fearing what you are about to suffer, not fearing death. Let's hear Jesus give them four reasons why they ought not to fear. First in verse 8, don't fear because Jesus lives. Every letter begins with a self-description of the Lord Jesus and these are very important. The words of the first and the last who died and who came to life. Christians were facing frightening uncertainty. We don't really like uncertainty of any kind, do we? We don't like the idea of not knowing maybe what's going to happen tomorrow or what's up with our health or our children or whatever. We don't like uncertainty of any kind. These Smyrna believers were facing a frightening uncertainty So it was so important and comforting for them to know that their Lord Jesus was Lord from beginning to end. Was Lord over the beginning of their trials, throughout their trials, and to the end of them. He didn't step off the throne when things got tough. He never said, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see that coming. No, He is the first and the last. And those who were under pressure for their faith would find that very reassuring. These believers also were facing the last enemy. If I were to put the key word of this passage, I would say it's the word death, because death appears in a number of connotations with slightly different meanings in our passage. These Christians were facing the last enemy, which is death. How assuring was it to know that their Lord had faced that last enemy too and had defeated it. The words of the first and the last who died and came to life. I think when you're young, I think when you've had very few afflictions, Jesus dying and rising from the grave, I realize, can be kind of a theoretical comfort. Oh yeah, I know I'm gonna die someday, sure, that's real nice that Jesus died and rose again. But when you face death, when you take it seriously, perhaps as you age, or you've had a near-death experience, as they say, it becomes precious to know that our Savior is the one who died and rose again. He has tasted death on our behalf. and has conquered it. For those Christians in Smyrna, this was a life and death matter and should be for us as well. Don't fear what you are about to suffer because Jesus lives. Look at verse 9. Don't fear what you are about to suffer because Jesus knows your tribulations. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich, and the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Take comfort, don't fear, because Jesus knows your tribulations. In every letter, Jesus says, I know. You could say this is the central theme and the central comfort and the central exhortation of all of these letters. Jesus says, I know. Jesus knows, He says, your tribulation. and your poverty. I think in this text, tribulation is really modifying poverty. What he's saying is, I know your deep poverty. I know your abject poverty. And how comforting it is to the saints of God to know that their God knows and sympathizes and empathizes with their sufferings. I thought of just one example from the Psalms, a Psalm of David, Psalm 56, verses 8 and 9. This is what David says and reassures himself with God's knowledge of his sufferings. "'You have kept count of my tossings. "'Put my tears in your bottle. "'Are they not in your book? "'Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. "'This I know that God is for me.'" In his afflictions David took comfort in the knowledge that God was for him. And how did he know that God was for him? Because he knew that his God knew what he was going through. God kept count of his tossings, tossing and turning, or perhaps wanderings. He has taken his tears and put them in a bottle to remember them. He has written David's afflictions in his book. so that there will be justice for them later. How comforting it is to know. How comforting it was for those slaves in the American South who gave us such a rich heritage of faith and spirituals. You've heard this one, I'm sure. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows the sorrow. Nobody knows but Jesus. What a wonderfully sweet song to sing in our afflictions, knowing that Jesus knows our sufferings. And He knows because He's come incarnate in the flesh. He has tasted all of our human woe and misery. And now, as we've seen in Revelation 1, He sees it all with His blazing eyes. But Jesus knowing is not just sympathy and empathy. It also expresses His Lordship because He knows things as they truly are. And Jesus tells it like it is. Notice how He reverses things and sees things as they truly are. He says, I know your poverty, but you are rich. And I know you look poor, and I know that in the things of this world you are poor, but let me remind you that in Christ you're rich. You have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Sometimes I wonder if we believe that. Sometimes we put so much emphasis on our material wealth, or what we feel is our material poverty, and we kind of fall into the worldly way of thinking that, yeah, that's what truly defines our wealth, is how much money we have in the bank. When Jesus says, oh no, it doesn't. Sure, you may be poor in that sense, but you are rich in Christ. Do we believe, beloved people, that our true riches are found in Jesus Christ. Notice that Jesus also reverses the slander of those who say they are Jews. That is, the Jews would proclaim themselves to be the chosen people of God. But he's saying they're not God's chosen people because the true Jew is one who has a circumcised heart, as Paul would put it. They actually have fallen away so far from being the people of God that they have become a synagogue of Satan. It's interesting that our Confession of Faith says a church can become that too. A church can become outwardly, with our words, a Christian church, but in our behavior and in our hearts we can fall away so far as to become a synagogue of Satan. What an awful description. May God preserve us from that happening. But Jesus tells it like it is. You know, I've been emphasizing in this series of sermons the importance of being there for one another, of one-anothering, as the Bible puts it. And I think sometimes when I say that or you hear that preacher in the pulpit, you think, oh, the pastor sits in his study and he tries to think up things for us to do, tries to think up things for us to use up our time. And then they go to the elders' meetings and the elders add to the list. And they think, they're just thinking up ways and thinking up things for us to do. You know, I think if we lived in Smyrna and we felt the pressure of the imperial cult and hostile religions, we wouldn't grumble about the need to be there for one another. We would desperately seek it. We would long for it. Well, I don't know if you've noticed much about what's happening in the world around us, but this kind of thing is starting to happen with more regularity. The heat's starting to turn up. And I hope God will use that for good. That we will long for fellowship with other Christians. We would want to get to know one another. We would want to pray with and for one another. We would want to be in the Word together with other Christians. May God help us. It's a life and death matter. Well, don't fear, not only because Jesus knows your troubles, Jesus also says to this church, don't fear because Jesus rules over your troubles. This is the first part of verse 10. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested and for 10 days you will have tribulation. We fear when the pressures of life just seem to be out of control. This text is telling us that Jesus rules the devil's malice. The devil intends for his trials to be temptations, to lure God's people into sin. Jesus rules over even the devil in such a way that he turns what he would make into temptations into trials. That is to say, into tests that improve our character. The devil's about to throw some of you into prison, but I rule this, and I'm going to turn it into a test. And Jesus also limits our troubles. He's ruling over this. Notice He says that you may be tested for 10 days. That is to say, not forever, not a limitless period of time, but for a short period of time that I control, you're going to be tested. But you see, Jesus is in charge. Not the devil. It's interesting that Daniel and his friends, when they first got to Babylon, Daniel said, try me for 10 days getting off the diet of your rich pagan food and see how this works out. Give me this short time of trial. Jesus says, when the great tribulation comes, these days will be cut short. That is to say God controls them. Paul says that no temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man and with the temptation he will provide a means of escape that you may be able to endure. You see that? God rules our trials. I learned a lot about cancer. And the reading I've done and still do, I guess you'd say is kind of with kind of a grim fascination. It's a deadly serious stuff but it's also kind of fascinating. I've learned a lot about cell division in the human body. How fearfully and wonderfully made we are. Even the cells in our body, which do you realize, in a normal healthy person, they're dividing billions of times a day. Do you realize that? That kind of thing is going on in your body. And what a fascinating mechanism God has created for that cell division. What happens with cancer is, for some reason that we don't really understand, that cell division mechanism breaks down. Something goes crazy with that mechanism, and it can start with a single cell. It just starts to divide in an out-of-control way. It just starts to divide like wildfire, which is why, when you heard my reports, you were always hearing about these over-the-top white blood cell counts. Well, that was related to this out-of-control cell division. Well, that's scary to be told that anything in your body is kind of out-of-control. It was an opportunity for me to say, do I believe that Jesus is even sovereign over the cells in my body? Well, let me see. He counts the hairs of my head and he takes care of every sparrow. Do you think his knowledge and care even cover the cells in my body and in yours? I think so. I can't tell you how comforting that is. And finally, Jesus says, don't fear because of what Jesus has promised you. Be faithful unto 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. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. First of all, Jesus promises the crown of life for those who are faithful unto death. Probably has in mind the circlet that was given to runners in the games in Rome and other places, and the winners got the crown of life. As Paul elsewhere says, look at all the trouble they go to for a crown that's going to fade away, and here we have a crown of life that will last forever. And that crown is promised to those who are faithful unto death. Paul says in his imprisonment in Philippians chapter 1 that his desire is that Christ would be exalted whether he lives or whether he dies. That Christ would be honored. And we say to ourselves, I don't know if I could be that faithful. I don't know if I've got it in me to be that faithful. Listen, our faithfulness isn't from pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Our faithfulness comes from Jesus Himself. What did we see on that Palm Sunday? What did we see on the week leading up to His death on the cross? We saw Jesus being what? Faithful unto death. Conquering death. being raised from the grave, and I tell you, all those who are in Christ, God will enable us to be faithful unto death. And there's another promise, that really, probably a parallel way of saying the same thing. But the one who conquers, the one who is faithful, will not be hurt by the second death. Look elsewhere in the book of Revelation, it's very clear what the second death is. The second death is being thrown into the lake of fire. which is exactly what's going to happen to non-believers at the Day of Judgment. And some of you are sitting there thinking, saying, isn't that kind of a crazy thing to bring up? Do we still believe in that lake of fire thing? I think some people think that Jesus came to just give a bright word of encouragement to otherwise good people. That's not what the gospel says. Why did Jesus go to all the trouble of dying on Calvary's cross if it was just to save us from some light and insignificant thing? It doesn't honor Jesus. Jesus went to a lot of trouble, my friends, to save us from the lake of fire. That's why He came. That's why He died on the cross. And I say to you with love, but I say it firmly, if you're not right with God, that's where you're headed when you die. You are headed to the lake of fire. And I urge you, even now, to flee from the wrath to come. And to cast yourself upon Christ who came for that very purpose. To deliver men, women, and children from that lake of fire. May we be faithful unto death. I thought about this. You can't study a text like this and say, Would I be faithful unto death? I think I would. I don't think I would deny my Lord. I think I would be willing to die for Him. But then I think, but then I grumble about some of the lesser deaths He calls me to die. Sometimes I grumble about the way I've got to give up my time. Sometimes I grumble about the way I've got to give up my money. Sometimes I don't know. So if I grumble about these lesser deaths, hmm, Would I be faithful unto death if that's what Jesus calls me to be? How about you? What do you think about that? But you know, there are people who are faithful unto death. I mentioned a few weeks ago, Kara Tippetts, whom after I mentioned her, I found out some of you already knew more about her than I did. Kara Tippetts, the pastor's wife, 38 years old, mother of four, dying of cancer, has died. I believe with just within the last week, she went to be with the Lord. She was faithful unto death. She rested in Jesus, she trusted in him until God called her home. Interesting story, I'm sure you've probably heard of a man named Polycarp. Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna and may well have known the Apostle Paul who undoubtedly planted this church in Smyrna. But about the middle of the second century, the persecution really got nasty. It wasn't just social and economic anymore. It was Christians actually being burned at the stake. And Polycarp was called upon to be politically correct. And Polycarp, all we want you to affirm is that Caesar is Lord. And Polycarp said, I'm not doing that. I'm not affirming Jesus is Lord. And they said, well, if you don't, we're going to burn you at the stake. We're gonna make an example of you because you're the leader of the church. And Polycarp said this, I have served him for 86 years and he has never harmed me. How can I possibly blaspheme my king and savior? You can read the story of Polycarp in Fox's Book of Martyrs. You can read them in some more, there's a more modern work about some of the sufferings of the early church believers. It's very, very inspiring. Polycarp also said, as they were tying him to the stake and getting the fire ready, he said, you threaten me with a fire that's going to burn for an hour, and then it's going to go out. But you are ignorant of the judgment fire that's going to burn forever. Bring on your little fire. And Polycarp was burned at the stake. I hope you're aware of the increased pressure being brought to bear upon Christians. And unless God sends some sort of awakening or reformation, I don't claim to be a prophet, but I don't see that pressure lessening. I only see it increasing. I fear sometimes for my son and son-in-law who are pastors. I fear sometimes for my grandchildren, wondering what the future holds for them as hopefully young men who will grow up to be Christians, I hope and pray. This text may be more relevant to us than we ever think it will be. And here are these reasons, then, to not fear. Because Jesus lives, because he knows our tribulations, because he rules over our tribulations, and because of his promises. My conclusion is one other very significant fact about this letter. most of the other letters that Jesus writes to the churches, is there's not a word of criticism of the church in this letter. Isn't that interesting? Jesus does not rebuke the Smyrnan church for anything. He doesn't give a word of correction like he did to Ephesus, or like we'll hear him give to the other churches. He, in effect, is the perfect church consultant, and he stamps his A+, on the life of the Smyrna church. That doesn't mean they were sinless. Of course they weren't sinless. There's nobody sinless in this earth. But as a church, he looked at them and he encouraged them and he said, you're faithful. Just keep up the good work. Just keep being faithful. Which says a lot about the Christian life. You know, we actually can live the Christian life in a way that pleases God. Sometimes I think we don't think you can do that. Oh, no, I just sin all the time. There's really nothing I can do to ever please God. There's no way I can ever grow in grace." What a cynical, unbelieving view of the Christian life that is. No, here's a church. Jesus doesn't rebuke them. He says, keep up the good work. It is possible by grace to live the Christian life in a way that pleases God. Sometimes I think, In terms of one of Jesus' parables, we think that Jesus is a hard master. He's not a hard master. He's a loving, gracious Lord. Let us pray that God will make us faithful, and faithful even unto death.