Be Faithful Unto Death

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

So, the messenger has gone out from John on Patmos Island, and he’s carried it across the ocean from the Isle of Patmos, and he’s landed on the mainland, and he’s gone to Ephesus, and he’s delivered the letter there. And that letter’s been read on the Lord’s Day as the church gathered together for worship. It would’ve been given over to the minister, and the minister would’ve read it to the church and explained different aspects as they went through it. And then the messenger, uh, on, on Monday, would’ve taken up the letter and then head off to the next town.

And as he leaves Ephesus, if you remember, that jewel of Greece and Rome which was starting to show signs of decay, he would’ve drawn eventually into the City of Smyrna. And as he journeys into Smyrna, he sees that Smyrna is built on a hill a- and the hill has, uh, a big mount on top of it, Mount Pagus. And Mount Pagus is called The Crown of Smyrna. And upon The Crown of Smyrna are 2 temples, Dea Roma, which is a temple built to create a goddess out of the City of Rome. And next to it is a more recently built temple. The first one was in around about 195 BC. The second temple was built more recently, around 25 AD when the Emperor Tiberius gave Smyrna the privilege out of all of the Roman cities. They had to apply, and Smyrna was given the right of making a temple for him, a temple for his worship. Because, of course, the emperor is the divine god, as we all know, right? The emperor himself is god and deserves to be worshipped and praised.

And so, as the messenger draws into Smyrna, he sees this mount, this crown standing before him, and he draws into a city which is one of the most committed cities to emperor worship. You see, because emperor worship is the life of a Roman citizen. And so, as he walks up the main road, everywhere he looks he sees signs of it. He sees and smells incense burning to pictures of the emperor. He sees people walking past statues of the emperor and, and bowing briefly. And every time they walk past a statue, they pause, bow, and carry on in their worship of the emperor.

And as he gets into the, the main harbor upon the Coast of Aegae, he sees there a bustling harbor, one of the largest in the Roman Empires, a bustling harbor filled with ships and trade and goods. And everywhere he looks, he sees people exchanging goods and doing worship. As they trade, they burn incense. As they trade, they use coins of the Emperor with his mark upon it. As they trade, they bow to statues in their glorification of the God of the universe.

And as he travels into the s- city center, he, he sees the guilds, the blacksmith guild and, and the leather working guild and the horse-shoeing guild and as he sees all these different guilds, he notices that as they trade, they have special symbols and tokens that they pass between them. And before a contract is signed, both parties must due, do due worship to the Emperor.

And as this worshiping center plays out, the messenger of Smyrna, with this precious package with him, turns up a side alleyway. It’s dark, it’s dingy, it’s dirty, it’s beaten, and as he draws up the side alleyway, he comes into a quiet little building. It’s more like a beaten-up shack than a building. You imagine the slums in India. And he draws into a home, and in a home is a little church gathered together. They’re quiet, because they don’t want to be heard. They’re fearful, because of the situation they’re in. And, and there is the minister to great you, Polycarp. Polycarp, the minister, he’s probably around about 27 years old, and as you walk in the door as the messenger, you give Polycarp the letter, and he takes it up and he reads. And he reads through chapter one, and he reads through Ephesus, and, and the church hears of that, that harsh but loving word of Jesus Christ, “I have this against you. You have forgotten your love.” And then he says, “Dear Smyrna.” And of course, if you’re in the church, your ears prick up, don’t they? “Oh. What will our Lord say about us?”

And he writes to them, and the Lord says to the me- to John and then the messenger and then to Polycarp, “Write to them from one who is sovereign and from one who suffers and yet lived.” Have a look. He says in Verse 8, “These are, these are the words of the first and the last. They’re the words of a sovereign Lord over all things, an eternal king of kings, and they’re the ones, the words of someone who died.” And better translated, “Who died and lived.” Past tense. “Who died and lived,” highlighting not so much that he’s alive today, though that’s true, but that he suffered and laid down his life, and yet he still lived as a result of it, which is gonna be very meaningful for the church.

And so they receive a message from this sovereign, almighty king, and yet a king who knows what it means to suffer and die, to lay down your life for the sake of the word of his testimony. As Paul says to Timothy, “Make the good confession, like Jesus, who boldly made his confession before Pilate and died for it.” And so this king writes to a church surrounded by Roman worship, surrounded by enemies, on their tiptoes, because if they stepped out of place, they would incur the wrath of an entire empire. And he writes to them to bring them comfort.

It’s striking that this is one of 2 churches, out of the 7, that receive no rebuke, no chastisement, no correction, only praise and comfort.

And so, what does he do? How does he comfort this church?

Jesus writes to them, and he says firstly, “I, the king of life, I know. I know what you’re going through.” Have a look. First he says, “I know your present and past suffering.” He says, “I know your tribulation, and your poverty, and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. I know your present pressure, the pressure you’re under in the situation you’re in.” He mentions 3 things, doesn’t he? Firstly tribulation. It’s the word of severe affliction, severe affliction that puts you in a state of pressure. So, it’s not necessarily physical suffering, but it can involve physical suffering. But it’s more living in a state where you everything causes pressure for you. You know? So for them, every day of their life was a day of walking on eggshells, because if they stepped out of place in society, in one area or another, they might suffer. They might lose their job. They might be beaten. They might be killed. They don’t know. A- every time they gather together, they do so in pressure.

I’ve, I’ve seen this in the church. My wife and I traveled through China and visited the church there. And it was striking, sitting down with them at a meal around a table, and, and time came to pray and bless the meal. I, I trust that when you go out for lunch somewhere, you sit down at the table and okay, maybe you don’t belt out your prayer and intentionally offend everybody in the whole cafe, but you pray for your food before you eat. You give thanks to the Lord, though the people around you think you’re a bit strange. But you do so with a relative freedom. Well, there, they couldn’t pray openly because they risked being immediately reported to the officials. And so we were sitting there, and we were expecting a, “Let’s pray.” And all of a sudden, someone sort of says, “Ah, well, it’s good for us to talk with our Father, isn’t it?” And then he just start H- his eyes open and he’s looking around the table, and it just feels like a conversation is happening. He’s talking about his father, and how grateful he is for the way that Dad loves to prepare food for us and give us a meal to eat, and Why? Because they knew there was this pressure, this weight upon them. And so, too, in Smyrna.

But it’s not just a pressure they’re facing. It’s also poverty, isn’t it? He says, “I know your tribulation and your poverty.” I’m not sure poverty is a strong enough word to capture the picture. The Greek word is, is a word used to describe someone who’s in such dire straits that they’re almost brought to begging, so it’s a beggardly person. They’ve lost everything.

Now, the- there’s 2 ways in which we understand this poverty. Firstly, become poor by believing in Christ. I think that’s definitely part of it, because in Smyrna, if you believe in Christ, you don’t get to take part in the business guilds. You lose most of your customers. If you’ve run a business in your life, you know what it’s like when, all of a sudden, you see a downturn in customers. What happens when your customer base get slashed to 10%? What happens when you lose your job because your boss finds out you’re one of them? And that’s exactly what the Smyrna-ites are going through. They’re losing everything, because they’ve named the name of Jesus Christ, because at lunchtime, the boss says to them, “Well, before we eat lunch, boys and girls, let’s all make sure we come up and burn some incense first.” And there’s the one guy in the lunchroom who refuses, and very quickly he is ostracized and forced out of the workplace. Loses his pay, and no one wants to hire him because his CV has written on it, “I’m a member of the Church of Smyrna.” And in every interview, he can’t help but inform them that he can’t work on the Lord’s Day because he has to gather with his brethren and he delights to fulfill the Sabbath. It’s a costly business being a Christian in Smyrna.

But there’s a second way in which they have been forced into poverty, and that’s what we get an allusion to in Hebrews, what was happening to the Hebrew Christians. In Hebrews 10, I think it’s 34, we’re told that the, that they rejoiced when they were plundered. You see, this is what happened in the Roman Empire. If you reported a Christian for not burning incense, the authorities would come and take away them and take them to prison. And the law was, they’re effectively no longer a citizen with rights, and the reporter has first dibs to plunder the house. Now, that’s an effective system, isn’t it? I mean, talk about motivation to report all the Christians. “The more people I report, the more plunder I get.” And that’s exactly what would have been happening in Smyrna. You’re quietly going about your business and all of a sudden 3 guards turn up and take you away, and when you return, there’s nothing. Uh, I don’t know if you’ve ever been robbed. I remember when our brother and sister, the Georges, were robbed. They came here one Sunday, remember, in the morning, spent the morning with us, went home and found their house pillaged. Could you imagine coming home after suffering for your faith to find an empty house? True poverty.

And then lastly, they were suffering slander. Jesus says, “I know the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.” Now, this, this thing about Jews but not, it’s not saying they’re not of Jewish descent. It’s, it’s not saying they’re actually Gentiles who are pretending to be Jews. No, no, by descent, they are physical children of Abraham. But Jesus’ point is, they’re not true Jews. Why? Because, as Paul says in Romans 2, “A true Jew is not one outwardly merely with physical circumcision, but it’s one who has a circumcised heart.” In other words, it’s one who’s believed in the Messiah. It’s one who’s believed in Christ. And these Jews, they have not believed in Christ. They have outrightly rejected him. And this is why, from the earliest time in the Church of Christ, we have recognized that there is one true Church, one true Israel, from beginning to end, and it’s not a physical nation called Israel. It’s not the Israeli state that you see in Palestine today. It is the people of God under Christ Jesus their King. And we look forward to the day, according to Romans 10, when the Gentiles will be ingathered and the Lord will bring in the Jews. But until that happens, these people are people that hate Christ and hate his people.

So what do they do? Well, the Jews know that they’ve suffered heat recently. Under a previous emperor, they had all been kicked out of Rome, and they don’t wanna suffer. So what’s the best way to avoid suffering? But make someone else suffer, right? And so the Jews intentionally are seeking to turn the wrath of Rome against the Christians because they think Christians are heretics, because they worship Jesus and they call him God. And so, the Jews, who are not really Jews, but are a physical synagogue of Satan, meaning they learn from their father, the devil. Remember the words of Jesus in John 8? The people say, the Jew leaders say to him, “We are children of Abraham!” And he says to them, “You are children of your father, the devil. He is a liar from the beginning, and so are you.” And so here we see that these Jewish leaders were going out of their ways. The Jews were going out of their way to try and draw the wrath of Rome upon the believers through slander, through lies, through falsehood.

And so, they suffered physically. They suffered pressure. They suffered in poverty. They suffered with the attack of the tongue. And what’s most terrifying about that last one is that, sadly, so often in the church today, the sharpest attacks against the church in the West is not from pagan authorities, but from those who claim the name of Jesus Christ. Isn’t that true? Isn’t it true that faithful churches who seek to stick to God’s word without compromise will suffer the most from other people that say they are Christians? They will slander them. They will malign them. They will tell everyone how they’re not true churches, how their ministers are not true ministers, how their sacraments are not legitimate, and they will heap shame upon them. And sadly, it is from the quarters of people who call themselves Jews today, Christian believers, and yet who are not.

And just as aside, I think this is a big challenge for us to be very careful how we use our mouths. We do not know the hearts of other believers and other churches. Some of them may be in error. Some of them may be misguided. But let us not be slanderers of the brethren. Let us not be tools of the devil in slandering the people of God. If someone names the name of Christ, we must be like Jesus says of, to John and James, remember? “We saw some guys casting out demons in your name, so we told them to stop.” And Jesus says, “Anyone that’s for you is not against you. Don’t stop them. You’ve gotta deal with Roman emperors. You don’t have time to be fighting among yourselves.” So, let us guard our tongues, brothers and sisters.

And so, we see the suffering of this church, and, and you might think to yourself, “Well, what kind of comfort is this? You know, I know your life’s hard. Thanks! That’s really helpful.” What kind of comfort is it to know, to know that Jesus knows? I mean, we know Jesus knows everything. You know, it’s reminiscent of a, of a stunning verse in the Book of Exodus. In the early part of Exodus, the people of God are crying out to God in their suffering, and, and the Lord appears and, and it says, he lists his plan to redeem his people, and the last word in the Hebrew is, “I know.” And it’s just, it just stops mid-sentence. It’s really strange. But what Moses is telling us is that the Lord has not forgotten his people. He is keenly aware of every suffering person of God. No matter how deep the dungeon or the type of attack, he is never ignorant of your or my suffering.

But you might say, “But that doesn’t help me,” and so Jesus continues on. He doesn’t just say, “I know,” but he says, “I am the King of Life who cares. I don’t just know, but I care.” You see, He says to them, “You’re rich. You’re rich, even though you’re filled with poverty.” And you’ve gotta wonder as this, as a Smyrnaite who’s struggling to find a loaf of bread to eat, “What do you mean by that? I’m not rich. I’ve got nothing.” And I guess we, we’d reply and say, “Well, it entirely depends on perspective,” right? It depends where you’re looking. Yes, you’re poor physically, but spiritually, you are rich. Why? Because in their uncompromising devotion to Christ, they had done exactly what Jesus told them to do. They had set their gaze above and sought to store up riches in heaven, not on this earth. And so they are rich in graces, as the fruit of the spirit is manifested in their life. And they’re rich in their communion with Christ because anyone who suffers discovers very quickly the preciousness of Christ. And they are rich in a heavenly reward that is coming. And they’re rich in the fellowship of God’s people because they’ve left the world. And they’re rich in their heart’s devotion because of the things of this earth, they’re not gonna help me. But face to face with Christ will make a difference.

And so in this suffering, Christ says to them, “In your present suffering, you are actually rich. I care, and so I am using these things, this present suffering” As he, as Paul says, “To bring about a weight of glory that far surpasses any of the suffering.” A day is coming when all of your affliction, all of your pain that you are presently going through will be 100% worth it. And you will see indeed that you were rich, you were strong when you were weak. You were rich when you were poor. You were wise when you were foolish. This is the Lord’s way of not just knowing, but caring for His people. He’s telling them, “It’s all worth it.”

But it’s not just in their present suffering that He knows and cares. He says to them, “I know that more suffering’s coming.” Now you might, you might not think that’s a very encouraging thing to say. “I know you’re suffering. By the way, it’s gonna get worse.” That’s effectively what Jesus says. Have a look at the text, verse 10. “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and for 10 days, you will have tribulation.” He tells them that they are going to suffer physically more than they have right now. Some of them, the devil himself is going to take and cast into prison, which means they’ll lose all their pro- their property, as we’ve talked about. But not only that, some of them will, will give up their life. They will die. This is what’s coming, Smyrna.

And I wonder if you’re tempted, as I said before, to think, “Well, I mean, I’m not sure that really encourages people. I, I don’t know if it’s a great way.” I mean, can you imagine you’re dealing with a husband and wife who are at odds with one another, and you say to them, “I know it’s been really hard, but it’s only gonna get way worse.” It’s like, “Well, that’s not very encouraging. Thanks, counselor. That’s done me wonderful good.” How, how is this helpful, Jesus? I mean, why don’t you just deliver me? Why don’t you just smite the Romans and set me free? Why must I go to jail? Why must I suffer and die?”

Jesus says, “I know, and I do care, and I will care for you.” And notice a couple of hints about this. Uh, the, the, the Greek is a little bit vague, but it says in verse 10, “The devil is gonna throw some of you into prison that you may be tested.” Now, it’s not entirely clear how we should interpret the word, translate the word tested. Should it be understood as the devil testing the faith of the believers? A little bit like when Jesus says to Peter, “Satan has asked, asked to have you, to sift you like wheat.” In other words, to chuck you in the top of a sifter and make you pop out the bottom and faith stay up the top, so there’s nothing left. That’s what the devil has asked for. So, it could mean the devil is asking to try and squish faith. This is what he’s gonna try and do. He’s gonna chuck you in prison. He’s gonna kill you to try and strip you of your faith.

It could mean that Jesus is going to test you or prove you like fire refines silver. And of course, the answer to that is yes. Why? Because you may not realize this, but Je- that You may not realize this, but Satan is in the business of sanctifying saints. You heard me right. Satan, the devil, is in the business of sanctifying saints. He just doesn’t realize it. And so, Satan is gonna come, and he’s gonna cast these men and women into prison, maybe children. He’s gonna throw them into prison, and some of them will be executed. And do you know what Christ is gonna do with that? He is going to use it to affirm and strengthen and embolden their faith, that their love of Christ might grow, that their faith might be strengthened, that their graces might be built up, and that they might delight in their God all the more than this world. It’s gonna be exactly like the persecuted church in Russia, Soviet Union, when Richard Wurmbrand would say that when we were tortured, we experienced the richest communion with Christ we’ve ever known, to the point where we didn’t even feel the torture any longer because we were enraptured in bliss with the presence of our Savior. Now, humanly, we have no idea what that even means, but I have no doubts that it’s true, because Christ delights to reveal Himself in power to His persecuted church, and this is why they’re so rich.

This is why it was the deepest treasure for my wife and I to go to China and visit the church there. And that I, with my degrees, and my freedoms, and my lifetime of Christianity felt ashamed when I sat with simple brand new Christians in China, because their love for Christ far outstripped anything I had. Because God loves and cares so much for the church in Smyrna that He won’t withhold persecution from her, because He wants His children to be beautiful.

But notice the other caring thing we see here. We’re told that they’re gonna suffer for 10 days. Now, this could be literal, a literal 10-day outbreaking of persecution, and that did happen in those times. Frequently, it was just outbreaks of persecution that happened. But it could be understood metaphorically. In the Old Testament, 10 days is often metaphorically used for a l- a limited period of time. A- and the reality is that’s what’s being communicated here, right? Jesus is saying to His church, “Yes, worse things are coming. Yes, you’re gonna be imprisoned. Yes, you’re going to suffer. Yes, you’re going to die. But I have sovereignly put a placeholder on day 10. There shall be no day 11 of suffering. I don’t care if it’s the Emperor of Rome or Satan himself, I give no one the authority to persecute my church on day 11. I have said, ‘You may go this far and no further.’” Because the devil and every enemy of God’s people is on a leash in the hand of Christ. And so, all of the suffering of God’s people are perfectly under the sovereign hand of Christ. And so, the dying of the martyrs today, all of it, like Job, is sovereignly in the Lord’s hand. And so, He says, “I will not let them go beyond anything you’re able to bear up under.” The devil may want to sift you and take your faith, but he will not succeed. Like he says in Matthew 24, he says, “If those days were not shortened, if those days were not shortened, even the elect would lose their salvation. But I have shortened them.” Why? “So that they might be saved.” So, that’s what he’s saying. “I won’t let you suffer more than you can bear. I care for you and your salvation so much that I have shortened the time.”

And so, he loves them, he knows them, he cares for them, and he also spurs them on. He doesn’t leave them to work it out. He spurs them on. And so, if you have a look at the text, he says to them, in verse 10, “Don’t fear,” and then at the back half of verse 10, “Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.”

You know, the story’s told in Richard Wurmbrand’s book that after suffering for 14 years, he was in a church one day and a stranger arrived. They smuggled in an American, an American missionary got smuggled into Communist Russia in order to visit the persecuted church. And, and he writes in the book that the most wonderful thing of this visiting missionary was the knowledge that they were not forgotten and they were not forsaken, and that there’s a church out there praying for them. And you know what? This just emboldened the courageous witness of the Russian Christians and the Romanian Christians.

And so, Jesus here comes and this, this knowledge and this care, this love is meant to drive them further into their testimony. And so, he says to them, he gives them 2 commands. He says, “Don’t fear. Don’t be afraid.” Why? Because they, they can kill you, but they can’t damage your soul. Remember the words of Jesus in, I think it’s Matthew 10? He says, “Don’t fear the one that can kill your body, but fear the one who can kill your body and cast your soul into hell.” J- Jesus says to them, “Don’t be afraid. What’s the worst they can do?” Well, the worst they can do is kill you. You might say, “Well, that’s pretty grim. I mean, there’s not much worse anyone can do to me.” And yet, death is a promotion. It’s a promotion to glory. It’s a promotion to the presence of our Savior. So, don’t be afraid.

The second command he gives is to be faithful unto death. That doesn’t mean be faithful until you die. It means be faithful even to the end of dying, if that was required of you, and everything in between. It doesn’t mean, you know, when death comes, make sure you’re faithful. It means in every element of your life, whether it’s slander, persecution, whether it’s hatred, whether it’s rejection, whether it’s death, in all of it, remain faithful to your King. Remain faithful to your testimony. Let the light of Christ burn brightly in you when people hate you.

And so he roots these 2 commands then in a promise. He says, “Don’t fear, be faithful.” Why? “Because I will give you the crown of life.” And second promise, “The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.” And this crown of life’s really intentional. I’m not sure if you remember, but when we worked through Smyrna, there was a mountain, and upon that mountain was what? The crown of Smyrna. And upon the crown of Smyrna were false temples, and Jesus now takes up the imagery of that thing that- that so dominated every area of their life, and he says, “You will no longer have a crown of Smyrna. You will have a crown of life. You will have eternal life upon your brow, and no one will ever take it away from you. And secondly, you will be safe from the second death.”

Now, you might say to yourself, “Well, you can only die once, Logan. What’s a second death?” We won’t turn there, but in Revelation 19:21-22 I think it is, it talks about the second death and it’s speaking of hell. It’s speaking about eternal damnation. You see, everyone must die once and face the judgment of Christ, but only those who reject Christ will face a second death, and their death will not be a cessation of existence. It will be an eternal damnation of the judgment of Christ and the unmitigating wrath of God so that you will plead in thousands upon thousands of years for peace, and you will never get it. And Jesus says, “Be faithful, and you will not be injured, harmed or suffer in the second death.” Why? Because you won’t enter into it, because you’ll have the crown of life.

But I guess the question is, how do we do this? It’s fine to say, “Be faithful, don’t be afraid,” but what does that look like? What does the Church of Smyrna need to do in order to be faithful in the midst of some very intense persecution, starvation, and physical death?

I wanna suggest 3 quick things to you. Firstly, they need to trust their suffering and sovereign King. They need to trust their sovereign and suffering King. You see, they look to a King who knows what it’s like to suffer and knows exactly what He’s doing. And because He knows, and because He cares, because He loves, Smyrna must learn to trust their King as knowing what’s best, as knowing what’s right, because there’s the temptation when difficulties come to say what? “God, why are you doing this to me? I know better than you! This isn’t what I need!” We’re being called to trust Him, to trust Him in His perfect wisdom.

We’re also being called to treasure the King. You see, if you’re going to become poor, you need to have a greater treasure, don’t you? You remember that wonderful parable Jesus tells of the merchant who finds a treasure in a field? He goes out one day, and he’s plowing the field maybe, and as he’s plowing, he hears a donk, and the plow sticks. And he digs up and finds a treasure beyond his imagining, and so he buries it and sells all that he has with joy. He becomes poor with joy because he’s found something which is worth far more than all that he ha- that he has. You see, you must find a greater treasure if you’re going to rejoice in your poverty. And Christ standing before us is the chief treasure, right? He is the delight of the soul. And so we’re called to treasure Him so that when we face poverty and suffering, we won’t turn with envious eyes towards the things of this world, but will be content. I spoke with a fellow this week—who’s in a hard place of trial. And he said to me, “I have learnt to be content in a very hard trial.” And my heart erupted for joy, and I thought to myself, “Oh, to have that contentment.” Well, it only comes from treasuring Christ.

But then the third thing they must do is they must obey. They must obey their king, who leads them forth into the suffering. He said to them, “You’re gonna suffer.” What do they need to do? They need to obey. Why do they need to obey? Because the constant temptation is if I, if I compromise just a little bit, what? My suffering lessens. Yeah, just a little bit, not lots. I don’t need to give up my faith, but if I just give a little bit of ground, if I just draw the line in the sand at the bottom of the hill instead of the top of the hill, then no one’s gonna harass me. We saw this during COVID, didn’t we? Church has said, “Ah, well, we wouldn’t want to offend the people around us. No, we wouldn’t wanna upset the neighbors. We wouldn’t wanna endanger the old people in the rest home.” And so we’re not gonna obey the command of Christ to gather with his people. Then the question is, will we obey him? And not on the convenient things, but on everything, on every command, even the ones we don’t like. And when we’re hard-pressed and pushed and sifted into the wheat sieve, will we keep our face towards the king and obey him with all of our might?

Because let’s be honest, brothers and sisters, let me use the example of a workplace. When you’re in the lunchroom and everyone’s encouraging you to enter in their sin, it’s really hard to not join with the pagans, right? I remember I worked on a factory, a printing press, and, and the, the conversations in the lunchroom were enough to make your hair curl. And the women were worse than the men, and, and they knew I was a Christian because I would read my Bible. And I, I would sit outside on the deck with the smokers because they were far more polite than the people inside. I gave thanks to the Lord for the smokers outside the lunchroom, and, and every time I came back inside, they would, they would make fun of me. People would put up signs, crosses with slanderous remarks on them around the area of the printing press I worked on. They would write messages to me and hide them in places that only I would find them. And the question is, will I compromise to escape, or will I stand firm for the sake of Christ?

And that’s a challenge for all of us, isn’t it? It’s a challenge in our friendship networks. It’s a challenge in our hobbies. It’s a challenge in our homes. It’s a challenge as we go to Christmas and meet with family, and they, they, they don’t want your strong witness. They don’t wanna hear your testimony. And so the temptation is, “I’ll just keep my mouth closed, and then that way we’ll just have a nice family Christmas.” Because Uncle Bob, in my case, and Uncle John have said to us, “They don’t wanna hear about this Christian stuff. And you talk about it, and we’re not interested, so don’t ruin Christmas by bringing up Jesus.” Well, who will we obey? Uncle Bob and Uncle John, or our king?

That was the challenge for Smyrna, and it’s the challenge for you and I. Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Smyrna? It is one of the churches I’m maybe a little glad I’m not in. Must be hard being in Smyrna, and yet we all face the same temptation. We all face the same difficulty.

And so when Jesus writes this letter, he writes it to you and me, doesn’t he? Because he writes and he says, “Let the churches hear. Let him who has an ear, hear.” This is written for you today. And so the question for you and me is, will we trust the King? Will we treasure the King? Will we obey the King? It’s not actually about Smyrna anymore. Do you know why? ‘Cause they’re all dead, 2,000 years ago, and in the presence of the King. But you and I stand here as the witnesses of Christ. This letter is for us, and so we must learn, like them, to embrace poverty. Like them, we must learn to embrace slander, embrace suffering, and embrace heaven, a treasure that Jesus says, “Which moths can’t eat, rust can’t destroy, thieves can’t steal.” And when you embrace heaven and are heavenly minded, none of this is actually a huge problem, because you realize we’re a pilgrim. “A pilgrim was I, and a wandering” And we’re all going to a better home.

And so you can imagine Polycarp, can’t you? Reading the Book of Revelation, rolling up the scroll, giving it to the messenger to take through to Pergamum. And then he looks at his congregation, 27 years old, and he’s just been told that some of them are gonna die. I love you guys to bits. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to hear that people in his congregation are gonna get put to death by the Romans. Must have been heartbreaking. And yet, do you know Polycarp would seal this very reality with his own blood? At 86 years old, an old man. Not 86 today, 86 back then, which was a lot older back then. At 86 years old, he was brought into the Roman authorities, and he was told very simply, “You’re really old, and we don’t want to kill you because you’re really old, and I’d feel really bad killing a really old person. And so all you need to do is say, ‘The emperor is lord,’ and we’ll let you go free.”

Can you imagine the Letter of Smyrna radiating in the heart of Polycarp as he hears that challenge? His reply, to shorten it, was, “Christ, my Lord, has done me no harm in six and 80 years. Why would I deny him today?” Do you know what they did to him? The Jews, who were a synagogue of Satan, rushed out, we’re told, with exceeding energy, to collect the faggots in order to light the fire. The so-called Church of the day, like the Catholic Church of old, rushed out with vigor to burn the old man alive, and they did. He said to them, “You don’t need to tie my hands, because the Lord will give me grace to stand.” And he stood, and he breathed out his last, and he received the crown of life. The minister of Smyrna.

What will we do? May God grant us grace to suffer, be slandered, be made into poverty for the sake of Jesus Christ.

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