Topic: Unto the end of Life
Text: Rev. 2;8-11
By Ptr. Jack Segismundo
Jesus is Lord Church
To the Church in Smyrna
Rev.2:8 “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write the following:
“This is the solemn pronouncement of the one who is the first and the last, the one who was dead, but came to life: 2:9 ‘I know the distress you are suffering and your poverty (but you are rich). I also know the slander against you by those who call themselves Jews and really are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 2:10 Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. The devil is about to have some of you thrown into prison so you may be tested, and you will experience suffering for ten days. Remain faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown that is life itself. 2:11 The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will in no way be harmed by the second death.’
Introduction:
I would like to start this sermon by one particular illustration. A Christian railroad engineer was speaking to a group of fellow workers about heaven. He said, “I can’t begin to tell you what the Lord Jesus means to me. In Him I have a hope that is very precious. Let me explain.
Many years ago as each night I neared the end of my run, I would always let out a long blast with the whistle just as I’d come around the last curve. Then I’d look up at the familiar little cottage on top of the hill. My mother and father would be standing in the doorway waving to me. After I had passed, they’d go back inside and say, ‘Thank God, Benny is home safe again tonight.’ Well, they are gone now, and no one is there to welcome me. But someday when I have finished my ‘earthly run’ and I draw near to heaven’s gate, I believe I’ll see my precious mother and dad waiting there for me. And the one will turn to the other and say, ‘Thank God, Benny is home safe at last.’”- Source unknown
One of the worst thing we hate about is the end of every story. As we watch the television or even watch a movie we are always hopeful that there would still be more of the story. But there is always the ending. As every book has its end so as the life of everyone who has ever live on the face of the earth has its end.
To the most that we wanted to hold on to everybody whom we have cherish a lot, they were now gone. But that’s the reality of life. We cannot set aside it or forget it doesn’t exist. But as life is as real as we could see it so as death which dawn to each men.
Life has its end here on the face of the world. But there are those who end their life miserably and there are those who end their life joyfully. And here is where the christians are different from every people in the world. They all die joyfully because there is hope.
How you see your afterlife today, will determine the kind of lifestyle you live on this present days.A man without a hope of a better tomorrow lives a life of misery while a man who lives with his finest hope lives joyfully. There would always be good ending of life and bad ones. But to every christian, we all die with great hope.
I would like to share to you the truths of what we have read today in Rev.2:8-11:
I. The One who made the promise is true.
Every promise has its parameters, a set of boundery to the recepients.
John 3:16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
A. It is God gave the promise –
“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
Numbers 23:18-20
B. The Promise was intended only for those who believe in Christ
“But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
John 20:30-31
C. The promise was a lasting, eternal life
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
John 6:39-41
If this promise does not convince you what more can convince you. As we trust the One who made the promise we could always say that He is truthful. He never lie to His promise. He was never a liar nor He shall ever be. He always keep His word. If God could not keep His promise, He is no God at all. A true God keep His promise. And God is able to keep His promise that no one can stop Him in fulfilling His promise. And that is the kind of God we have as a christian.
He Never Fails
He never fails the soul that trusts in Him;
Tho’ disappointments come and hope burns dim,
He never fails.
Tho’ trials surge like stormy seas around,
Tho’ testings fierce like ambushed foes abound,
Yet this my soul, with millions more has found,
He never fails; He never fails.
He never fails the soul that trusts in Him;
Tho’ angry skies with thunder-clouds grow grim,
He never fails.
Tho’ icy blasts life’s fairest flow’rs lay low,
Tho’ earthly springs of joy all cease to flow,
Yet still ‘tis true, with millions more I know,
He never fails; He never fails.
He never fails the soul that trusts in Him;
Tho’ sorrow’s cup should overflow the brim,
He never fails.
Tho’ oft the pilgrim way seems rough and long,
I yet shall stand amid yon white-robed throng,
And there I’ll sing, with millions more, this song—
He never fails; He never fails. - J. S. Baxter, in Explore The Book
II. To the Recipient of the promise, Courage is required.
The promise of God will always be challenge. There would always be opposition to every story. A villain. And that is the devil and his cohorts. And he will make every effort to destroy the recipients of the promise by his lies and his deception. The devil knows he cannot challenge God. For he is not equal with God. But he can distorts the promise of God in the minds and heart of those who were called according to God’s purpose.
A. Christians will suffer persecution
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-11
B. Christians will be an outcast of this world
“But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,”
Phil.3:20
C. Courage is required
One summer morning as Ray Blankenship was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the floundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water. Blankenship surfaced and was able to grab the child’s arm. They tumbled end over end. Within about three feet of the yawning culvert, Ray’s free hand felt something—possibly a rock—protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. “If I can just hang on until help comes,” he thought. He did better than that. By the time fire-department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for shock.
On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard’s Silver Lifesaving Medal. The award is fitting, for this selfless person was at even greater risk to himself than most people knew. Ray Blankenship can’t swim. - Paul Harvey, Los Angeles Times Syndicate
III. The Call to Remain faithful unto the end of life – Rev.2:10
The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of Judgment Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to gray and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And as some men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Colonel Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: “The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought.”
Winning the New Civil War, Robert P. Dugan, Jr., p. 183
At the end of life God requires faithfulness - the demand to trust Him - even at the end of life. The command of God is not too hard for us to do. And there is always a reward that awaits the faithful. Amen.
