Just say no!
Revelation 2:8-11
Michael H. Koplitz
In this letter, we have to the church at Smyrna we do not have any opening words of compliment to the church. Instead, we have one particular message that Christ was sent to the church. That message is that Satan is still alive and well and is active on the earth and that Satan can infiltrate the church of Jesus Christ. This kind of message was given to this church and to us that causes people not to like the book of Revelation. We like to think that Satan cannot affect us because we are now believers in Jesus Christ.
After all, why did Christ die if not to free us from Satan?
Jesus Christ's death freed us from the sins of the world created through the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden caused by Satan. Before Christ's death, Satan had a very strong claim upon all of God's people. With Christ’s death, Satan's claim was abolished. However, with the freedom from sin, we are given a choice. We are given a choice as to whether we want to follow God and His laws and commandments, which we find in the Scriptures, that is from the double-edged sword from the mouth of Christ, or we can decide that we would rather follow Satan. We are given our choice, and if we choose Christ, we will be forgiven for all sins, and Satan can not touch us.
However, even as baptized members of the faith who proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we do have to remember that Satan is still out there. Satan will try to take us away from Christ and bring us into his fold. There's the message of this letter. Satan will continue to test us and try us, just as described in the book of Job. It is how we will react to those tests and what decisions we make that will determine whether we will follow God through Christ or follow Satan into hell.
This was a difficult letter for the church at Smyrna and for churches today to accept. The theology is that when Jesus died on the cross, he descended into hell for three days to fight the final battle against Satan. Jesus won that battle and was raised by God the Father on Easter Sunday in triumph. However, in the United Methodist Church today, we don't talk much about that part of the Easter vigil.
Please pull out the hymnals, the blue ones, in front of you and turn to page 881. You will note that I had you turn to the Apostles’ Creed. Inside the paragraph that talks about Jesus Christ, you will find the words “crucified dead and buried” and that there is a footnote after that. If you look at the bottom of the creed, the footnote says that the words that are missing are “and descended into hell.” That is the part that we have decided as a church to leave out.
The theology of Jesus fighting the final big battle against Satan is not part of Methodist doctrine, or I should say it's not a strong piece of Methodist doctrine. If Jesus had fought the final battle, then Satan would not be active in the world. We all know that Satan is active in the world; therefore, the church has elected to remove that part of the creed.
I ask you this morning that all true believers in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ stand right now with page 881 of the hymnal opened and come together to proclaim our faith in the risen Christ by saying the Apostles’ Creed together followed by our final hymn and during the final hymn those of you who wish to share in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can come forward for a time of prayer and communion.
I believe...
