Smyrna - The Suffering Church
Text: Revelation 2:8-11.
Introduction: In our first study of the seven churches we examined the church at Ephesus, the fallen church, this morning, we leave Ephesus behind and travel forty miles North up the coast of modern Turkey where we come to the ancient city of Smyrna which is now known as Izmir. As cities go Smyrna was one of the most beautiful of the ancient world, with wonderful topography and magnificent architecture. As you approached the city you would first be struck by the sight of Mount Pagos rising out of the Aegean Sea. Near the pinnacle of the mountain you would notice a ring of the finest public buildings in all the Roman Empire. If as a tourist you had mentioned this sight, the citizens of Smyrna their hearts would have swollen with pride may have taken you on a tour of the world famous “crown of Smyrna.”
Ancient Smyrna was the Paris of its day. Wealthy, stylish, opulent. Everything was measured by the standard of wealth, everyone was clamouring after greater symbols of status. It was also, within the Roman Empire, a free city, and as such it owed much loyalty to Rome. Indeed so loyal were the citizens of Smyrna to Rome that history tells us of one winter when word came back of Roman soldiers freezing at the battle front that the people of Smyrna stripped the clothes of their own backs and sent them to the troops on the front-line.
Like all Roman cities Smyrna was saturated with paganism. At the foot of Mount Pagos stood the temple of Zeus the father of the gods, along the Golden Street were shrines to Apollo, the sun god, Aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty and Æsculapius the god of medicine. I notice that our young people today, as in every day, are very impressed by designer labels on their clothing. Clothes are no good unless they bear the mark of Adidas, or Reebok, or Nike. But the young people of Smyrna knew about Nike 1000’s of years before our modern fashion houses, for Nike was the goddess of victory and was depicted as winged and carrying a wreath or palm of victory. The motif of the modern Nike clothing company is based upon the image of the ancient goddess.
Commercially, the city of Smyrna was most famous for one product: Myrrh. Indeed so synonymous was the city with myrrh that it drew its name from the product Smyrna meaning bitter. Myrrh is a resin which is harvested from a shrubby tree and had a bitter taste. It is invariably associated with suffering and sorrow, and that is fitting for the church at Smyrna was a suffering church.
Every Christmas and we are reminded of the gifts given to the Christ child. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Myrrh was emblematic of the suffering of the Saviour it pictured Him as the man of sorrows. On the cross Christ was offered to drink “wine mingled with myrrh” (Mark 15:23). After His death He was embalmed with “a mixture of myrrh and aloes” (John 19:39). At his birth, death and burial myrrh features, but not at His coming again for Isaiah tells us that when the Lord returns in glory he will be presented with gold and frankincense but no myrrh “They shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD.” (Isaiah 60:6). When He comes again the Lord Jesus comes as Sovereign and not as Sufferer therefore there is no mention of Myrrh.
Now, let’s talk about this church at Smyrna. Who started it no one knows, but we do know from church history that its Pastor at the time of this letter was Polycarp. He was the angel of the church. It was a suffering church, constantly subjected to persecution by the pagan people because of their resistance to idols, by the Romans because they refused to acknowledge the Emperor as a god, and by the Jews who were constantly stirring trouble for the Christians there. There are great lessons for our church in this passage concerning tribulation and trial, and there is much we can gain from it.
I. Address To The Saints (Verse 8)
A. The Lord presents Himself as “the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.” (Revelation 2:8).
1. It is not without reason that the Lord addresses them in this way.
B. All ready mentioned the fact that the Smyrnian citizens worshipped many gods, but there was one goddess which they particularly honoured.
1. Her name was Cybele and she was the goddess of nature and fertility and was worshipped in Rome as the Great Mother of the Gods.
2. She was deemed to have presided over mountains and fortresses, and on her head she wore a crown in the form of a city wall.
3. She was the guardian goddess of Smyrna.
4. Because she was the goddess of nature she was said to descend into death every winter and resurrect to new life every Spring.
5. These seasons were duly celebrated by eunuch priests, who led the faithful in ritual orgies accompanied by wild cries and the frenzied music of flutes, drums, and cymbals.
C. To the suffering Christians at Smyrna well accustomed to the celebrations of death & resurrection as found in the worship of Cybele, the Lord Jesus had a message: “I am the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.”
1. The phrase is in the aorist tense meaning that his death and resurrection was once and forever, never to be repeated.
2. So whereas, according to mythology, the goddess Cybele died and rose year in and year out. Jesus Christ had actually died and risen again to die no more - death had no more hold over Him. Cybele was a mere shadow - Christ was the substance, and had proven His superiority over the pagan gods of Smyrna by His death & resurrection.
II. The Awareness of the Saints (Verse 9a).
A. Notice those two words first spoken to Ephesus “I know.”
1. But the emphasis of this passage is different. whereas the Lord focused upon the empty works of Ephesus, at Smyrna he saw the real suffering of the saints.
2. I know thy... tribulation and poverty.
3. This passage is pregnant with the sorrow and sufferings of the saints at Smyrna.
4. The Lord Jesus sees every sorrow, His heart feels every pang. He counts every tear, he senses the oppression of their grief’s.
a. tribulation = “pressure”.
b. He felt the full weight of their burdens.
5. Not a trial had passed unnoticed, not a difficulty unobserved.
a. Friends, the Lord Jesus knows all about it.
b. He knows the pressures we endure.
7. And his knowing is not merely academic nor remote - it is very real to Him for He too has passed through the fire. He has been tried and tested. He has endured the rigours of persecution and the pain of suffering.
a. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15).
b. “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:18).
B. He knew all About their trial, and he knew, that in a city which placed such value on personal wealth, they had been rendered poor.
1. “I know thy ... poverty.”
a. poverty = destitution. They had been made destitute because of their faith.
2. They had been displaced from work, discriminated against, boycotted by their neighbours - the problems faced by some in this 20th century are not new.
3. Yet though they were rendered poor by their neighbours they were deemed rich by the Lord.
a. It is better far to be poor in the eyes of the world and rich in the sight of the Lord than to be rich in the eyes of the world and “wretched and miserable and poor” in the eyes of the Lord as the Laodiceans were.
b. That is the message of God’s Word.
(i) “Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.” (Proverbs 15:16).
(ii) “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.” (Proverbs 16:8).
(iii) “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.” (Psalms 37:16).
C. Here then were these poor believers in the midst of suffering, seemingly without a friend in the world, but He who sees the sparrow fall to the earth, He who counts the hairs on every believers head, He says “I know .... I know all about it.”
1. Let us then consider all the Lord Jesus had to say about their situation.
III. Affliction of the Saints (verse 9b - 10c)
A. I want you to see their suffering on three levels.
1. There is the human level - we can call that misery
2. There is the satanic level - we can call that mystery
3. There is the Divine level - we can call that ministry
4. And all three levels are on view in these verses, and all three levels are at play in all our sufferings both individually and as a church.
B. See their suffering on the human level - misery.
1. “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.”
2. There was in Smyrna a large Jewish community and a well established synagogue.
a. We should not be surprised at this, for, at the risk of sounding anti - Semitic - there was money to be made in that city.
b. And where there is a thriving commercial community almost invariably, as freedom allows there is a thriving Jewish community.
3. These Jews were guilty of the blasphemy in the Lord’s sight.
a. blasphemy = “slander”
b. These Jews were slandering the church and by their slander, and accusations they had brought misery upon God’s people.
c. Of course Satan is the accuser or slanderer of the brethren, and so the Lord ties in their deeds with His and without mincing His words He calls them the synagogue of Satan.
(i) When you attack the bride you attack the groom.
(ii) Slander the church, slander the Lord of the church.
4. These Jews had made life miserable for the Smyrnian Christians and they weren’t finished yet, there was more to come.
5. But the Lord told them not to fear.
a “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28).
6. Their trial was by no means over, but the Lord was with them in it, and the very worst that could happen was to be transported to glory.
C. See their suffering on a satanic level - mystery.
1. “Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison.”
a. Oh how I hate the devil!!
2. You know when things are difficult Satan doesn’t let up. He adds to the burden, he inflicts us with greater problems, he casts his fiery darts our way.
3. That God would allow this, is to us a mystery, though we see something of his reasoning in verse 10.
a. Why was God letting the Jews at Smyrna away with their slander? Why was he permitting Satan to afflict the church further? “That ye may be tried.”
b. This trial was no a trial of flesh alone, but a trial of faith, thus the Lord says “Be ye faithful.”
c. Do you remember what the Lord said to Peter on the night of His arrest?
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that THY FAITH fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” (Luke 22:31-32).
d. Years later Peter was to remind the church that they would tried as gold by fire, but the believer’s faith is much more precious than gold that perisheth.
(i) See 1 Peter 1:6-7
4. Is God allowing Satan to test your faith? Then be thou faithful.”
D. See their suffering on a Divine level - ministry.
1. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days.”
2. Every trial has its limit.
a. As hard as it may be to believe it when we are in the valley there is an end in sight.
b. We will step unto the mountain top again, There will be better days.
c. At Smyrna the trial had only ten more days to run and it was to be spent.
(i) Much debate surrounds what is meant by ten days - but it matters little, the point is that there was to be a limit to their sufferings.
(ii) The devil may well have been allowed to cast some into prison, but he could not go a day beyond the Lord’s ten days.
(iii) Even when man and Satan are doing their worst - God is still in control.
IV. The Award to the Saints (Verse 10d-11)
1. “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10).
1. Crowns meant a great deal to the people of Smyrna - they had their crown of Smyrna sitting proudly upon Mount Pagos.
2. Their goddess Cybele wore a crown in the form of a city wall, so did her priests as they celebrated her festivals. Crowns featured large in the civic and religious life of Smyrna.
3. Faithfulness also meant much to the Smyrnians - they were proud of their loyalty to Rome, of their willingness to sacrifice to further her Imperial borders.
4. Now the Lord Jesus combines those concepts and say “I have a crown... the crown of life... and it is the reward of all those who remain faithful in suffering.”
2. When you are facing suffering the easiest thing is to compromise your faith or quit it altogether.
1. For Daniel it meant simply going without prayer for a day, for Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego a simple bending of the knee, for the Smyrnian Christians a pinch of incense in honour of the deified Caesar would have saved them from poverty, bonds and death.
2. The Lord said “Be thou faithful unto death.” But what does it mean to be faithful?
a. Faithful = convinced.
b. To go through the trial you must be convinced of the Lord in the trial.
a. Rev 19:11 the Lord is called Faithful and True, thus the faithfulness of the saints lies in their being convinced of the faithfulness of the Saviour.
3. And they were faithful.
a. History records the last words of their Pastor Polycarp as he faced execution for His faith. When he was urged to recant he replied “Eighty and six years have I served Him and He never did me wrong. How can I now speak evil of my King who has saved me?”
b. At that they tied the old man to a stake and burned him to death.
c. Polycarp secured the crown of life. He was not hurt of the second death.
Conclusion: There may be some among our number here this morning and you are suffering a great deal. To you the Lord says “I know all about it. I feel your hurt, I sense your need, I understand the kind of pressures you are under. To your church He says I “I know ... your discouragement, difficulties, distress.” Not only does He know & understand, but he holds out a hope, that is that our trials will not last forever. He is Lord of our tribulations also and He has limited their duration.
To you who are hurting & suffering this morning he holds out a reward that is peculiarly yours, the crown of life. I expect every Christian wonders from time to time if he will have any crowns. But if you are suffering and remain faithful in your suffering, rest assured there is a crown for you.
“Be thou faithful” commands the Lord. Will you? Will I? Will we? Will we trust Him in our trials. Will be convinced of Him in our troubles. Will we be faithful as He is faithful. Will we be true. May God
