To the Church of Smyrna

Revelation 2:8-11

Immanuel – 11/28/21

Today we come to the second of Christ’s messages to the seven churches. We come to Jesus’ epistle to the church of Smyrna. And it is a message we desperately need to hear! Blessed are all those who hear, and who keep what is written in it (Revelation 1:3).

Purpose

Jesus identifies Himself according to the needs in Smyrna.

We have the same needs.

Read Revelation 2:8-11

Remember, when we read the introduction to each of these epistles, we should be understanding it to say: “To the pastor of the church in Smyrna write.”

It makes little sense to send such letters to angels, unless the angels appear before the churches and speak the words of Christ. But pastors already held the position of messenger: which is what the Greek word for angel means. Additionally, the Greek word for preach means to herald, proclaim, to announce what the king has spoken. Yes, the letter to the church of Smyrna was sent to the pastor of the church; and that pastor was expected to proclaim it to the people.

In these seven epistles Jesus offers words of encouragement and words of warning. The words of warning usually have to do with the sinful behaviors practiced within the churches; cracks of wickedness that threatens to break apart the churches. Last week we saw that the Ephesians had forgotten to love one another, thus abandoning Jesus – their first love. Jesus warned the Ephesians that if they did not repent, He would come in judgement.

But two out of the seven churches do not receive such warnings. Christ does not confront any sinful behavior in Smyrna and in Philadelphia. These two churches were not in need of repentance. They were faithful citizens of the kingdom, living in obedience, loving one another, grounded in the truth.

Even still, Christ did have a warning for Smyrna. Their tribulations were going to get worse. Already they face poverty. Already they face the persecution of slander. But in verse 10 Jesus says things are going to escalate; their suffering will grow exponentially: tribulation, imprisonment, and as you will see, death.

But the faithful church of Philadelphia receives no such warning. In fact, Jesus says, “I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.” -Revelation 3:10

I’m not going to get into it today, but Jesus is talking about a great tribulation that will fall upon the Jews; and its rumblings will be felt by Christians all over the known world. It is from this tribulation that Jesus will protect the Philadelphian Christians. And it is the fires of this tribulation that will scorch the church in Smyrna.

Jesus keeps some from those fires, and others He casts into the fire. It has nothing to do with the faithfulness of those Christians involved. It has everything to do with the sovereign will of Him who is the first and the last!

Read vs 8

Identity of the King

In each epistle Jesus introduces Himself in a unique way; and it follows the chiastic pattern that I mentioned last week. These unique elements of Christ’s identity are exactly what each church desperately needs to remember. In fact, the way that each church will overcome their respective issues is to throw themselves fully upon the identity of the King; and for the church in Smyrna, that means wholly trusting that Jesus is the first and the last, who died and came to life.

As we saw a few weeks ago, when Jesus calls Himself the first and the last, He is unequivocally pronouncing Himself to be God.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen. Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” -Isaiah 44:6-8

Jesus Christ is God, the first and the last! He knows the beginning from the end. The future is before Him as the present is before us. Not only does He know the future, He knows all possible futures.

And He doesn’t just know the future, He shapes it. God does not peek down the corridors of time. perceive what will happen, then adjust His plans accordingly. He tells the future where to go and what to do. We are molded by time; He is the molder of time. He, and He alone, can declare the things to come, and surely they will happen.

Therefore, the Smyrnan church, and we in this church, need not fear. Because if the power of the future is wielded by the First and the Last, then we can trust in His word entirely. We can trust Him with our future, because no matter what happens we know God is working our future into something glorious and good.

We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. -Romans 8:28

The First and the Last – Jesus Christ – is God. He is working all things together for our good. And if you truly trust Jesus with your future, it means you sacrifice your control for His. To trust God with your future is to indeed love God; and to know that you have been called according to His purpose. He, therefore, works all things together for your good.

In verse 8 Jesus also says of Himself that He is the One who died and came to life. See the symmetry? This is what Jesus said to a terrified John.

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys to Death and Hades.” -Revelation 1:17-18

The first and the last is a title for God. The One who died and came to life is a title unique to the Son of God. Ah, the mystery of the Trinity. Jesus is God and He is a distinct person within the Godhead: the only One to have become a man, to have died, to have risen from the grave.

When Jesus rose victorious, death was thrown down into the grave. Just as He rose, so also will every man and woman who loves Him. It is the ultimate good that the First and the Last is working all things towards: the resurrection of our bodies and our life eternally with Him.

These graces are founded in the glorious identity of the King. These are exactly the truths that the church in Smyrna urgently needs.

Read vs 9

Present Tribulations

You can see that the Smyrnan Christians already know tribulations: poverty and slander. Jesus is fully aware of their trials and tribulations. And Jesus knows their tribulations personally. He knew poverty. Indeed, He was homeless (Matthew 8:20). Jesus knew slander; and He was constantly reviled by false Jews (Matthew 12:24). He knew the tribulations of the Smyrnans because He experienced them personally and because He saw what the Smyrnans were living through.

Though the church of Smyrna was poor, Jesus declares that they were actually rich – fabulously wealthy, unimaginably wealthy.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”

-Matthew 5:3

Though the church in Smyrna possessed little in this world, the whole kingdom of God was theirs – like Israel’s patriarchs, who possessed little but were promised everything. In fact, Scripture teaches that everyone who places their faith in Jesus becomes an heir of those promises and an heir of God (Galatians 4:7); meaning, everything that God possesses He shares with us.

He has life eternally; He shares it with us. He has brilliance of glory; He shares it with us. He overflows with wisdom; He shares it with us. He knows perfectly satisfying love; He shares it with us. Everything in the earth is His; He shares it with us. And on and on that list goes.

Though they were poor, in reality the Smyrnans were unimaginably wealthy. So it is for all who realize they are spiritually bankrupt, look to Christ for forgiveness and life, and find their treasure in Him.

All the combine wealth of Musk, Bezos, and Gates cannot buy a single additional day of life. But those who are poor in spirit are flush with days. Every dollar those billionaires own, we have in days – that and 10,000 more. And when that number of days have been lived, our time has only just begun.

Not only were the Smyrnans poor, they were being slandered. Verse 9 says they were being slandered by false Jews. Here is the situation. Like many of the other seven churches, Smyrna had a large Jewish population. And as I discussed in week two of this sermon series, Smyrna (like the other six churches) was primarily comprised of Jewish Christians.

Jews that did not regard Jesus to be the Messiah were accusing the Christian Jews of abandoning true Judaism. They were calling the Christian Jews heretics/false Jews. All over they went slandering the Smyrnan Christians in this way.

But the ironic reality is that they were the ones who were false Jews. For to reject Jesus is to reject God.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.” -John 14:6-7

They called themselves true Jews. Today we call them Orthodox Jews. But from beginning to end, Scripture testifies that to reject Jesus is to reject God. There are not many paths to God. There is only one, and Jesus is the door to that path. He is the way that must be traveled. He is the life that is found there. To reject Jesus is to reject the Father.

Synagogue of Satan

Any Jew who rejects Jesus worships at the same synagogue spoken of by God the Son: the synagogue of Satan. But this is not just true of apostate Jews. It is also true of all who reject Jesus. Everyone who does not worship Jesus as Savior and Lord is a devil worshipper.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning since the beginning. -1 John 3:8

To be of the devil, as John writes, is to be a devil worshipper – is to belong to the synagogue of Satan. It is to be spiritually dead and face the wrath of God.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air (Satan), the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. -Ephesians 2:1-3

It is not just Jesus-rejecting Jews that fill the synagogue of Satan. Everyone that turns away from Christ, choosing instead to follow their own passions and desires, worship there also. Said in another way, everyone who follows their heart is lead directly into the synagogue of Satan.

Satan’s congregation is enormous: all of mankind. And for such devotion to Satan, all of mankind will face the wrath of God. All those, that is, that Christ has not rescued from such bondage, that Christ has not transferred from the domain of darkness and into His marvelous kingdom of light.

Just one more note about rejecting Jesus. This is outside of our text, but it has much to do with many of our perceptions of Revelation. The apostle John is the only Biblical author to use the word antichrist, and the word is used only four times. Each time it is used it has to do with rejection of Jesus.

Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

-1 John 4:3

Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. -1 John 2:22-23

There is a spirit of antichrist. Anyone who denies Jesus, and thus denies the Father, is gripped by the spirit of antichrist. The people in my life that I love dearly, who reject Jesus as Lord, they are possessed by the spirit of antichrist. The apostate Jews in Smyrna, they were likewise possessed by the spirit of antichrist. Those that are gripped by such a spirit worship at the synagogue of Satan.

But those who go out deceiving, spreading their rejections of Jesus, they are antichrists.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

-2 John 1:7

Though many antichrists were active in the first century, as they are active today, there was a great antichrist, a deceiver of the whole civilized world. We would commonly refer to him as “The Antichrist;” and he was alive and in the world when John wrote. And this was a proof to those Christians that they were living in the End Times.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

-1 John 2:18

More than any other single individual up to that point, the antichrist rejected Jesus and vainly attempted to place himself in the position of God. He called himself god. He called himself the king of kings. He called himself the savior of the world. His name was Nero. And upon penalty of imprisonment, and even death, all the civilized world was commanded to worship Nero as a god. And when the Christians did not worship him, he was the first to wield the powers of state to persecute them. Many other Caesars would follow in the bloody and arrogant footsteps of this antichrist.

Future Tribulations

I go into all of that because there is a link to our text today. Certainly the church in Smyrna faced persecutions from apostate Jews. But the Jews did not have the power to imprison anyone – just as you or I do not have the power to throw people into prison. For that the government would have to get involved.

And the fastest way to get the government to throw these early Christians into prison is by testing their loyalty to Nero – who was Caesar when Revelation was written. If the Christians did not confess Nero as Lord, as the king of kings, if they claimed that Jesus had an authority greater than Caesar, at the very least it meant imprisonment. At most it meant death.

Read vs 10

Jesus said a tribulation was coming to Smyrna. It is the same tribulation that Jesus declares to the church in Philadelphia: the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world (Revelation 3:10). It was not a tribulation coming thousands of years in the future. It was coming upon them.

The persecutions of false Jews were only going to intensify. It is my assumption that these false Jews, as they slandered the Christians, stirred up the local government and the Roman authorities against the church. It’s what happened to Jesus. I imagine it’s happening to the Smyrnans.

But behind the Jews, behind the authorities, there is Satan. Jesus was letting the church know that the synagogue of Satan would successfully summon their master; and the result is a terrible tribulation for the church.

But Jesus promises that the tribulations will only last for 10 days.

It is a little challenging to know if we should think of 10 days as 10 actual days, or a symbolic 10 days. Like the number 7, 10 is used all over Scripture to symbolize completeness, fullness, entirety. Think of the 10 plagues in Egypt as the fullness of God’s judgement on that land; or the 10 Commandments as representing the completeness of God’s law. 10 days could mean that the Smyrnan church would face tribulation for some period of time Christ had preordained; and that time would be the symbolic 10 days of completeness for their tribulations.

Indeed, we know that Smyrna’s troubles did not end in 70 AD, but continued for some time. Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John and eventually the pastor of the Smyrnan church, was hunted down by the Romans in 155 AD.

When he was finally caught, his captors said to him, “What harm is there in saying ‘Lord Caesar,’ and offering a sacrifice, and saving yourself from death?”

Polycarp responded with, “Eighty-six years I have served Him, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme the King who saved me?”

“You threaten with fire that burns for a short time and is soon quenched. You don’t know about the fire of the coming judgement and eternal punishment that awaits the wicked. Come, do what you will.”

And as Polycarp burned alive he worshipped the one true King in a loud prayer, until the flames brought silence. He was faithful to the point of death.

In the last sentence of verse 10 we see the phrase, Be faithful unto death. Another rendering could be: Be faithful to the point of death. For us in 2021, the church of Smyrna gave us Polycarp; a living and then dying example of what it means to be faithful to the point of death.

Polycarp is just one of the Smyrnan martyrs we know about. Certainly there were others: in the days before 70 AD and in the days after.

But whether or not 10 days means 10 days, or some preordained period of tribulation, Jesus – and Jesus alone – determined exactly how long the tribulations would last. He is the ultimate author of our trials.

10 days of tribulation is a light and momentary affliction compared to reigning with Christ for 1000 years.

The pre-70 AD church in Smyrna was facing tribulations so grave that some of them would face death. Perhaps it was quietly dying in a prison cell. Perhaps, like Polycarp, it was a public execution. Either way, these Christians who refused to call Caesar “lord” faced the ultimate test of loyalty.

Message for Today

I wonder, are there ways we compromise the lordship of Jesus? If Jesus is Lord over our bodies, do we worship Him with our bodies? If He is Lord over our minds, do we worship Him with our thinking? If He is the Lord of our resources, do we honor Him with what we have?

And if you cannot honor Jesus as Lord in times of comfort, what will you do if your body faces imprisonment or flame? Peter once said that he would be faithful unto death, but in a matter of hours he was cursing and denying Jesus.

We might not deny Jesus with our mouths, but do we do it with our lives? Do you know what the verdict will be on judgement day?

“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” -Matthew 7:22-23

Those that do not submit to the lordship of Christ, who do not trust and obey Jesus, they worship in the synagogue of Satan. They are gripped by the Christ-denying spirit of antichrist. They will know tribulations without end.

So how does anyone escape this terrible fate? How is it possible to leave the synagogue of Satan and escape the wrath of God?

Just as Jesus began with the church in Smyrna, believe that Christ died and came to life. That His resurrection is resurrection for all who believe.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” -John 11:25-26

Know that Jesus is the first and the last and love Him for it. He holds your future and is working together all things for the good of those who love Him. And if you love Him, it means that He has first loved you (1 John 4:19).

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:38-39

Yes, brothers and sisters, we must remember the person of Jesus. We see what He has done and we love Him. We gaze upon His glorious and sovereign identity, and we trust Him. Get on your knees today, seek first His kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you!

The church of Smyrna desperately needed to know that their tribulations were not in vain, that there was purpose behind them. So Jesus reminds them that He is the first and the last. And when Satan casts them into tribulation, the Sovereign King is unfolding His far greater purposes. Gold is being refined (1 Peter 1:7) to the praise of the Father.

Though some will face death, or the death of a loved one, they desperately needed to remember that Jesus’ life has defeated death. He will defeat their death too. They need not fear.

And just as He commanded the church of Smyrna, we also need not fear. Thiers was a terrible tribulation of poverty and persecution. Ours is the suffocation of materialism and entertainment and comfort. We all face tribulations of some sort. But to all in the church, all throughout history, Christ extends the same promise.

See it in verse 10?

“Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

As I was writing this sermon, I couldn’t help but see so many areas that still need to be submitted to Christ, so many areas where I have not surrendered to His lordship, so many times where I go peeking through the doors of the synagogue of Satan. Sometimes it feels like this tiny slice of the kingdom (which is me) is all in tatters, constantly at war. Not because Jesus is unable to conquer it, but because my flesh is constantly rising in mutiny. Again I must cry out, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

And even though it feels this way, and even though I must constantly surrender and ask Christ to increase my faith, I know that He will finish what He started.

I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. -Philippians 1: 6

Christ is Lord, even over my struggling faith. He will have victory in this heart, just as He will have victory over the whole world. Lord, I believe it, help my unbelief!

Believe and join with the church of Smyrna – wealthy beyond all imagining. Not in dollars, but in endless days. Days upon days to enjoy Him who is the First and the Last.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.” -Revelation 2:11