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Churches of Revelation#2 - Smyrna
February 2006 • Chris Rowney
These messages are also available as audio podcasts at www.tcfnet.org.au/podcasts
“8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this:
9 ‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
10 ‘Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
11 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’”
Revelation 2:8-11, NAS95.
Letters from Jesus…
Most of the letters say something encouraging about the church in each city, and then have a BUT.. and point out an area of shortcoming..
Two letters have ONLY praise, and the letter today is one of those..
TODAY we look at a church about which only good things are said by Jesus, there is no BUT I HOLD THIS AGAINST YOU!
However that does not mean they had it easy, or that you would have liked being there!
Smyrna was another quite large city, and it is one that still exists today, known as Izmir… It was totally destroyed and abandonded in about 700BC and for more than 400 years was desolate. But then it was rebuilt as a planned new city
It is interesting how to this City Jesus speaks words of being dead but being brought again to life, appropriate in a city that prided itself on that part of its history.
I guess what we can take from that is no matter if your wilderness years seem to be 4 centuries, Jesus brings to life again the things in you that he is building.
Amongst all the various gods that were worshipped in the Roman world, one in particular had spent the previous few centuries growing, and was especially dangerous for the church.
For a few hundred years people had been in awe of Rome, and a cult had grown up honouring the ‘Spirit of Rome.
Smyrna was the first city to build a temple dedicated to this ‘spirit of Rome’ in 195BC,
Over time the ‘spirit of Rome; got identified with the Emporer, with the Caesar, And in AD25 cities competed for the honour of bulding a temple to honour the emporer Tiberious, and Smyrna won!..
At about the time of Revelation, the emporer Diocletian was the first to make emporer worship COMPULSORY.
In effect, who you worshipped now became a question of loyalty to the current governing power, and failure to worship was disloyalty, and even treason.
What they did was to “Sacricfice to the ‘genuis’.. put a pinch of incense on the flaem and say Ceaser is Lord.. get a piece of paper saying you had done so, and go off and do whatever else you then like!.
In a while we will see the trouble this cause the Christians.
The last interesting thing about Smyrna is the name itself.
SMYRNA comes form MYRRH,, and the appropriateness of that as Myrrh is used in death and suffering…
Now Let’s see what Jesus says.. to this church…
“8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this:
9 ‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
Basically, Jesus says, I know things are really tough for you now.
The word ‘tribulation’ means ‘pressure’… lots of pressure from the society they lived in, slander.. horrible things being said and all this has cost them the physical security they might have desired.. They were in poverty because their faith caused others to exclude them from employment or trade.. things were not good.
You might expect that the letter will say something like
“I know things are really bad for you, but DON’T WORRY THEY WILL SOON GET BETTER!
But NO.
Jesus has commended them for the way they have endured the situation they are in.. but then he lets them know that it will soon get even worse!.
Their very lives will be in danger.
10 ‘Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Martyrdom… facing death because of their belief in Jesus was about to become very real.
We know of some of the stories of martyrs in Smyrna.
One of the most famous is a man who would have been a young man at the time John wrote this letter to Smyrna.. It is said that the Apostle John appointed him as overseer of the church here. The early church recorded him as the 12th Martyr in Smyrna..
His name is Polycarp,
As persecution and anger against Christians mounted, some of the church encouraged Polycarp to leave the city, he reluctantly did so.
[By torturing one of Polycarp’s servants, the authorities discover his whereabouts. ]
VII. So, on the day of the preparation, mounted police … found him in a cottage, lying in an upper room. He could have gone away to another farm, but he would not, saying “The will of God be done.” So, hearing their arrival, he came down and talked with them, while all that were present marveled at his age and constancy, and that there was so much ado about the arrest of such an old man. ….
… Accordingly, he was led before the proconsul, who asked him if he were the man himself. And when he confessed, the proconsul tried to persuade him, saying, …“Swear by the genius of Caesar,” “Repent,” “Say ‘Away with the atheists!’ ”(Romans called Christian Atheists because they didn’t worship a God anyone could see! (no idol)!
Then Polycarp looked with a severe countenance on the mob of lawless heathen in the stadium, and he waved his hand at them, and looking up to heaven he groaned and said, “Away with the atheists.” But the proconsul urged him and said, “Swear, and I will release thee; curse the Christ.” And Polycarp said,
“Eighty six years have I served Christ, and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?
XI. Then said the proconsul, “I have wild beasts; if you don’t repent, I will throw you to them.” But Polycarp said, “Send for them. For repentance from better to worse is not a change permitted to us; but to change from cruelty to righteousness is a noble thing.” Then the Proconsul said “If you make light of the wild beasts, I will cause you to be burned alive instead.
. And Polycarp answered, “Why delay? Bring what you will.”
And so he was taken away and burnt at the stake.
Polycarp knew the reality of ROMANS 8:38-39 NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ.
Besides pressure and poverty, they faced ‘slander’ things being said about them that cast them in a bad light…
I think what is interesting is it is NOT the fact they worshipped Jesus that caused them to be on the receiving end of the Emperors wrath.. of the peoples scorn..
But something secondary that led from that, the failure to worship the Emperor. (the ‘done thing’)
In other words they were not politically correct…
That can so easily be said to be true of Christians now as well.
It is not the fact that we worship Jesus, so much as things that follow from worship that cause our persecution.
ABORTION Excursus in Smyrna Sermon
This past week I lost some sleep, and have been troubled by the vote on RU486.. troubled because I don’t want to be troubled by it!..
Standing alone it was an issue that said ‘as abortions are allowed, who should be the one to rule on the safety of any particular method”…
But it is hard to not have that bring up in my mind the whole issue of abortion in general.
And I am troubled… because like the pressured believers in Smyrna, I have felt pressured, because when this issue hits the press, so much comment is thrown around that slanders Christians… NOT because we worship Jesus.. Not because we believe he is the very Word of God in human flesh.. not because of anything in the Creed that Christians have held to for two thousand years.
BUT because for many Christians, the faith that educates their worldview causes them.. it causes me.. to be uncomfortable with the sheer number of abortions in modern society.
It is politically incorrect to look for other answers or encourage unwanted pregnancies to still be carried to full-term…
Yes… there are other issues that you can probably think of that marginalise Christians.. but just a few more comments on this particular one..
What I hate most about this debate, and the reason I have felt pressured, is because to be honest, it is not that Abortion is safe or legal that >> I << object to.. any number of special cases, particular circumstances, hard decisions can be found or imagined in which out of two hard choices, one might have to be taken that is an abortion… in that case it may as well be safe AND legal..
But it most certainly is NOT RARE in society. Accurate statistics are not available, but there is about 1 abortion for every 4 live births, even assuming that some of those aborted may have naturally miscarried, 20% of anything is not RARE!.
HOWEVER the debate nearly always just hinges on safety, legality and maybe accessibility…. And when in the attempt to make it RARER (which I think is a reasonable aim!) when in this attempt Christians move in a way seen to threaten its safety, legality or accesibility.. then Christianity AS A WHOLE becomes the target.
I would like to stop there and get back to my message… but having brought up the topic at all I want to say a couple of things that round out my personal views and opinions, if you want to ask me more grab me sometime… but…
I find this a vexing issue.. There are some suggestions that this proportion (1 abortion for 4 live births) is actually less than it was in earlier decades, and that accessibility to abortion provision has NOT increased its incidence.. I would debate that, for example I am pretty convinced that easy access to firearms increases violent crimes, so easy access to abortions most likely does increase abortions… But, in the absence of hard figures I can’t know for sure, and greater acceptance of unmarried mothers removes some of the societal pressure that led to abortions in past decades..
And there is some evidence that access to contraceptives, and specific sex education has worked in some nations to reduce abortions… SO as Christians should we swallow hard and accept that to get one aim that we want, reduced abortions, we recognise the reality of people’s behaviour and accept contraceptives being encouraged on school campuses? Yet we also want to aim for a Biblical standard of celibacy outside of Marriage, at least for thos that believe in Jesus.. .
Can we encourage the one while also allowing the other?
I guess to finish, I think we would be wise to concentrate on helping people ‘want’ each ‘unwanted’ pregnancy.. so no matter how safe, legal or accessible abortion is.. the parents will feel able to allow the unborn life to be born and for them or someone, to try to love and raise the child, supported and assisted by the community, even if we have to make sacrifices to afford that as a society.
BUT, to make such suggestions goes unheard in the clamour of voices that accuse Christians as a whole of being hateful and uncaring, behind the times and lacking compassion, objects of disdain, disgust and derision.
Now I really should just take a deep breath and get on with what I think are the core values of Christianity, of worshipping God and trying to show and share that love with my neighbour… and not take on the burdens of the world..
But you know, like Smyrna, who weren’t told
“I have seen the pressure you have faced but it will be better soon” But I have seen the pressure AND you are about to suffer more!
I think we may well face worse to come…
Now let me be clear, I am not one who thinks the ‘great tribulation; is just round the corner and everything has to get bad before the end… But it is less than a lifetime ago that Christians in the west faced death for their faith,
Men like Deitrich Boenhoeffer, a Christian in Nazi Germany who spoke against the Nazis, was hanged by the Nazis just before the end of the war.
In his famous book The Cost of Discipleship: he wrote “Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer…”
Less than a lifetime ago, and in ‘western’ countries..… I hope and pray that it will be many lifetimes before we face anything like that again.
BUT I cannot ignore the fact that even now, in parts of our world, Christians have and do face persecution even to death for their belief.
It makes some of the issues we worry about as a church seem very trivial!..
I HAVE SPOKEN about ‘pressures’ (tribulation) not being foreign to us.
What about Poverty?
Jesus saw the poverty of the believers in Smyrna, poverty they faced because of righteous choices they had made.
The type of integrity that Jesus expects of believers can be costly.
When Robyn and I ran our business, we found often that choices we made as Christians, moral choices which did not seem to trouble our competitors, were financially costly.
A lot of our business revolved around owning software, expensive software ($3,000 a copy sometimes) and to be legal, you owned a copy for each computer it ran on.
And we had something like 25 networked computers doing various tasks, and often bought 10 packs of software, where our competitors bought one and then used pirated serial numbers for the rest.
When it come to preparing and paying tax.. buying the CDs you listen to rather than burning someone elses.. or the DVDs, declaring cash income.. Christian choices in Australia might not lead to what we would call poverty, but there is a financial cost to bear.
STORY OF asking the bank about the wrong figures in the offering, ($1161 or $1611)
Amazed we would call as it had benefited us… (end of story the bank was right!, and we did have more money that we thought!
But as Jesus says to the Smyrnans.. I see your poverty, yet you are rich!. Poverty in terms of cash, is not poverty in terms of eternity.
JAMES 2:5
“5 Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?”
James 2:5, NIV.
In Smyrna, they are warned the Devil will work and some will be imprisoned, some will face death..
WHAT IS THE PRICE OF NO COMPROMISE… Sometimes it is suffering.
Story of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego…
We may not see deliverance in the midst of the flames… but those flames are only the first death… and Jesus goes on in this letter to the Smyrnans…
Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Those who are faithful. Even unto death receive a crown (THE CROWN WAS SPECIAL IN SMYRNA!)
James mentions that too..
“12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”
James 1:12, NIV.
And God does not expect of us anything he has not himself done!
FAITHFUL EVEN TO DEATH (as was Christ himself
“8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:8, NIV.
11 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’” Rev 2:8-11
A little later on Revelation uses some ‘word pictures’ to convey a reality of a second, eternal death. (a death for death itself!)
“14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Revelation 20:14, 15, NIV.
“8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.””
Revelation 21:8, NIV.
The second death… I am inclined to say we don’t need to learn about that because we are promised that it will not hurt us…
What we seem to know is that while we still face a physical death.. spiritual death, the second death, a permanent separation form the loving presence of God is not something we have to fear, because Jesus has overcome that and made for us after physical death, not a second death, but a second life, eternal and abundant.
