The Suffering Church (The Church Of Smyrna 2 Of 7)

All he had to say about the church of Smyrna he was able to cover in just four verses.

However, we must not think less of this church, or feel they were insignificant just because there are less verses given to them.

Why?

Because there were only two of the seven churches that the Lord did not have words of condemnation for –

• The church of Philadelphia,

• And, you guessed it, the Church at Smyrna.

The church at Smyrna was a tremendous church, and the Lord did not have one bad thing to say about this church!

Illus: If the Lord was grading the First Baptist Church we would hope He felt the same about our church.

However, the scripture tells us that the church of Smyrna was going through some very difficult times.

The Word of God teaches us so many things about life, such as, there is a time and place for everything.

And when someone is suffering that is not the time to add to their sufferings.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The church of Smyrna is known as THE SUFFERING CHURCH.

When people are suffering, they do not need words of CONDEMNATION, they NEED WORDS OF COMFORT.

The Lord knowing this, had nothing harsh to say about them.

People need to think before they speak.

Illus: Dr. Odell Belger tells how his dad was known for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

For example, he said my oldest brother had OPEN heart Surgery and I took my dad to the hospital to see him. When we got there MY BROTHER had tubes sticking out of him in several places.

And needless to say he was in a lot of pain.

After my dad said greeted him, My dad said, I was up here last week to see so and so and he was in the same bed, in fact, he died with the same thing you had, actually in that bed with a heart attack!

When a person is flat on their back you have to be careful what you say to them.

There is a TIME AND PLACE for everything.

Eccleastes doesn’t say this but implies this, there is a time to talk and there is a time to SHUT-UP!

The Lord Jesus is writing this personal letter Himself, and using John as the "postman" to deliver it to them to encourage them to continue fighting the good fight of faith.

Everything about the life of Christ is a lesson to us.

From this letter that Christ sent to that suffering church, we can learn a great deal about how to treat people when they are suffering.

As we study these FOUR verses that deal with the church at Smyrna, we can see why they needed comfort.

Let's look at...

I. THE CONTENTS.

In our study of the church at Ephesus we established:

• That Ephesus was one of the most exciting places on earth to live at that time.

• But, Smyrna was one of the most lovely places to live.

• If you lived in Smyrna, you lived at the top of the social totem pole.

• In the letter to the church of Ephesus it was mentioned that Ephesus was the "Queen city" of Asia.

• But, there are those who feel that Smyrna was the "Queen city," and the people of Smyrna felt that way.

Illus: In fact, archeologists have found coins from that area upon which the words, "The first city of Asia”, were inscribed.

We can best get the picture of the competition between the people of these two cities, when we compare them to two football teams that consider each other to be rivals.

The people of Ephesus claimed their town was number one, and in many ways Smyrna was number one.

I do not want to LINGER to long on this, but for you to understand about this great church in Smyrna I need to tell you somethings about the LOCATION OF THIS CHURCH.