Brinton 09-03-03
Smyrna
Revelation 2:8-11
1. Introduction:
We started last month to look at the letters written to the Seven Churches in Asia as a series.
The book of Revelation was written by the apostle John whilst he was banished to the island of Patmos in traditionally AD 96 at a time when Christian Churches were being persecuted throughout the Roman Empire possibly under the Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96).
Let’s just quickly summarise the seven churches before going on to look at Smyrna the second of these churches in more detail.
2. Background
1) Ephesus Rev. 2:1-7
It was an orthodox church, with good works, patience, sound doctrine, church discipline and hatred of evil. But it suffered from backsliding and loss of its first love.
Catchword: Loss of First Love
2) Smyrna Rev. 2:8-11
This was the poor, rich church that we are going to look at today. It had spiritual endurance and heavenly treasure and is one of the two churches (the other being that of Philadelphia) to have no reproof.
Catchword: Endurance
3) Pergamum Rev. 2:12-17
It was a church with a bad environment. Its virtues were perseverance in an evil environment but it is reproved for its tolerance of wrong doctrine and heretics.
Catchword: Heresy
4) Thyatira (pronounced Thy’at’ira)
Rev. 2:18-29
Thyatira, the church of the evil prophetess, was commended for its love, spiritual service, faith and patience but reproved for its lax discipline and tolerance of a corrupt prophetess.
Catchword: Lack of Discipline
5) Sardis Rev. 3:1-6
It was the dying church. For most of its members there was nothing to commend it for, though some were commended for purity. It was reproved for extreme formalism, imminent spiritual death and inactivity.
Catchword: Death
6) Philadelphia Rev.3: 7-13
It was a weak but loyal church and was commended for its witness and faithfulness to God’s Word. It received no reproof.
Catchword: Faithfulness
7) Laodicea Rev. 3:14-22
It had nothing to recommend it. On the contrary it was condemned for its lukewarmness, spiritual conceit, no conscious need, spiritual poverty and spiritual blindness.
Perhaps this is the closest church to our churches in England today.
Catchword: Lukewarmness
I believe it is good for us to read these letters so that we can watch for the pitfalls that other churches have fallen into and to take note.
It is also good for us to consider what the Lord requires from his church.
So today we’ll take a look at the Church in Smyrna.
I think that we will understand the letter better when we know something about the city and the people to whom the letter was written.
Background
SHOW MAP
Smyrna is present-day Izmir in Turkey, about 210 miles south-south-west of Istanbul on the Aegean shore.
It is about forty miles due north of Ephesus and had a population of about 200,000 (two hundred thousand)
It was an important seaport at the mouth of the Hermus River for the ancient trade route through the Hermus valley.
It was wealthy and it was a city where learning flourished, especially sciences and medicine.
It was believed to have been the native city of
Homer.
Smyrna was a faithful ally to Rome long before Rome became supreme in the eastern Mediterranean. As a result it had earned special privileges as a free city and an Assize (that is a self governing) town during Roman rule.
During the time of the Roman Empire, Smyrna was famous for its beauty and for the magnificence of its public buildings.
It was also a hotbed of idolatry. Among the beautifully paved streets traversing the city from east to west was one known as “Golden Street”. It was full of with pagan temples.
For example there was a temple to Cybele and another to Zeus at the two ends of the street. And there were with temples to Apollo, Asclepis and Aphrodite in between.
It was also a centre of emperor worship, having won the privilege (from the Roman Senate in 23 AD) to build the first Temple to Tiberius.
Under Domitian (81-96AD) emperor worship became compulsory under pain of death for every Roman citizen as an expression of political loyalty than religious worship.
Yet most Christians refused to perform emperor worship, with dire consequences.
Story: Perhaps a modern day equivalent to the predicament of the Early Church in Smyrna was that of the Christians in Japanese occupied Korea. Things came to a head when the Japanese ordered the Christians to worship their Emperor at the Shinto shrines.
Smyrna was the home of an important Christian community in the first century. The Gospel probably reached Smyrna at an early date, presumably from Ephesus (Acts 19:10).
It may well be that Smyrna and the other five churches to which letters are written in Rev. 2 and 3 were daughter churches of the church at Ephesus where, tradition has it, that St. John was the bishop.
3. The Church in Smyrna Rev. 2:8-11
The Church’s great quality was ENDURANCE.
You will recall that it was one of the two churches, out of the seven of Revelation 2 and 3 that received NO reproof.
The letter is split up into three parts:
3.1 The revelation of God in His power Rev. 2: 8
3.2 . His knowledge of their situation
Rev. 2:9; and
3.3 Encouragement to persevere
Rev. 2:10-11
3.1. The first part of the letter to the church in Smyrna is focussed on the revelation of God in His power – Rev 2: 8
“These are the words of Him, who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.”
3.1.1 The First and the Last
The Lord opens his letter to the church by introducing himself as the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega.
Perhaps God used this term to allude by contrast to Smyrna’s claim to be the “First City of Asia”.
But whatever reason God had, it reminds us of the Power of God.
We read, so often in the Psalms of the Power of God.
Psalm 77: 14
You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
3.1.2 His death and resurrection
But the Lord also reminds us of Christ’s death and Resurrection with the words
These are the words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life again
These words are a stark reminder that we only have a relationship with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul puts it very well in Romans 4,25
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
That is in essence the Gospel in a nutshell.
Story: I remember reading a story from the times of the French Revolution.
A rich aristocrat was sentenced to death, just for being an aristocrat. She was put in prison and was allowed to be served by her maid.
While the Duchess slept her maid (out of a deep love for her mistress) put on the mistress’ clothes. When the duchess’ name was called, the maid went out and was executed in her place.
When the Duchess awoke, she found her clothes gone and so put on the servant girl’s.
The jailer came in and said: You’re free to go , your mistress has just been executed.
The maid died in her place and now she was wearing the servant girl’s clothes.
Christ died in our place to reconcile us to the Father, from whom we had been separated by our sins.
And I would like to suggest that in the sight of God we wear the clothes of Christ.
I’ll leave you to ponder that a bit more.
3.2. The second part of the letter to the Church in Smyrna focussed on Jesus’ knowledge of their situation Rev 2: 9;
“I know your afflictions and your poverty……
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.”
The Lord knew what they were going through.
We read in Hebrews 4:13:
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
and in verse 15:
For we do not have a High Priest who is not unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet without sin.
We too will go through our times of testing.
What will we do. Stand firm for the Lord or give Him up?
God doesn’t want us to love Him for what He gives but for WHO HE IS. It is through times of testing that we really cement our love of God.
3. The final part of the letter to the church in Smyrna is focussed on encouraging the Church to persevere Rev. 2:.10-11
“Be faithful even to the point of death and I will give you a crown of life”
Story: Our love for God should be like a Bordeaux (or Claret) wine. It should mature and get better with age. Its colour should mature.
Perseverance/faithfulness is the key to the Christian life. The church in Smyrna was going to go through persecution:
“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 unto the point of death.”
They did go through persecution. Within about 30 years, Smyrna was to experience persecution in a big way.
The most famous of its martyrs was Polycarp (known as the 12th martyr in Smyrna) who was the bishop of the church at Smyrna.
He refused to worship the emperor, by offering incense at the pagan Temple and was burnt alive, at the age of 86
Polycarp’s last words have echoed through the ages:
Eighty six years have I served Christ and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me.”
We are unlikely to be asked to pay the supreme sacrifice for our faith, but there are other ways that we are going to be tested.
If we are willing to follow Christ by sharing the faith, will we feel embarrassed with our family, friends and neighbours for fear of what they will think about us.
Story: A friend of mine Ieuan was in a very senior position in Shell and the one thing his boss could not stand was Ieuan’s faith.
Ieuan was being considered for a promotion, and had been invited to supper with his boss and the other top directors of Shell. During the evening his boss said:
“Ieuan, I know you go to church but you don’t believe in all those fables in the Bible do you?”.
There was a hush round the table and Ieuan knew that if he stood up for Christ, the promotion was lost.
Ieuan replied: Yes, I do believe what is written in the Bible” and that was the end of his career in Shell. The promotion was given to someone else and he was sidelined.
I wonder what you would have said?
Do we fear being labelled “religious fanatics”.
But that was the label that would sum up Jesus’ single-minded dedication to the will of his Father. He was only interested in pleasing God. When God is pleased with us nothing else matters.
One of my favourite stories illustrates this very well and with this I shall close:
Jonathan Goforth (1859-1936) was a great Canadian missionary in China, who the Lord used to bring many thousands of Chinese to a saving faith. He tells an interesting story:
Jonathan’s father put him in charge of one of the family farms at the age of 15. He drew special attention to one very large field, which had become choked with weeds. Jonathan was told by his father "Get that field clear and ready for planting. At harvest time, I’ll return and inspect it."
Jonathan put a lot of time in ploughing and reploughing, sunning the deadly roots and ploughing again until the whole field was ready for seeding. He then went and procured the best seed for sowing. That summer morning when his father arrived, Jonathan led him to a high spot from which the whole field of beautiful waving corn could be seen. He didn’t speak a word - only waited for the coverted " Well Done".
His father stood for several minutes silently examining the field for any sign of weeds, but there were none. Turning to his son, he just smiled.
"That smile was all the reward I wanted" Goforth used to say, "I knew my father was pleased. So it will be if we are faithful to the trust our heavenly father gives us."
This to me sums up the message of the Church in Smyrna. We are to persevere to do God’s work, because we love Him – and because we have made that commitment to follow Him for the rest of our lives.
