Revelation 2:8-11
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Revelation chapter two, beginning at verse eight and
ending at 11. This is one of the seven letters
to the seven churches. This is the second letter from
Jesus who walks among the lampstands or the churches and to the church
at Smyrna. says to the angel of the church
in Smyrna write, the words of the first and the last who died
and came to life. I know your tribulation and your
poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who
say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 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 for 10 days, and you will have
tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I
will give you the crown of life. 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. Amen. Somewhere down north of
Mooresville, maybe in the China Grove area, China Grove, Mooresville,
kind of below Statesville, below Mocksville, east of Salisbury,
out in that country that’s maybe 77, 85, and I-40 surrounded by
those interstates. There’s a series of churches
that I have passed. I think they’re old Presbyterian
church, U.S. congregations. And there’s a
Smyrna. There’s a Thyatira. I don’t believe
there’s a Pergamum, but there are several churches named after
at least the halfway decent churches listed in the seven letters to
the seven churches. Smyrna is one of the two churches
that doesn’t get taken to the woodshed, as it were. You’re
gonna see, I think it’s in a couple, the churches coming
up, there are churches that really get taken out back by the Lord
Jesus, but Smyrna is not one of them. But I remember riding
through the country there, seeing those congregations, thinking
how interesting it was that they took up those names. In our studies
in Luke’s gospel, we have looked at Jesus, his birth, his early
life, and his ministry, and then his suffering, death, and resurrection
are to come. But we see in Luke’s gospel an
account of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Luke,
the beloved physician who is a student of Jesus’ ministry,
also chronicles for Theophilus, that’s who Luke’s primary audience
was, he writes also for Theophilus a chronicle in the Acts of the
Apostles of the expansion of the kingdom through the church
by the apostles. And it begins with the apostles
electing Matthias to replace Judas. who fell, as the word
tells us, headlong in the field after his betrayal of Jesus.
And it continues by showing us that the Holy Spirit falls on
the early church after Jesus’ ascension, and they began to
do what Jesus told them would be their task, which was to preach.
And remember this morning, preaching, kerutzo, is a specific word in
the Bible. They begin to preach, they begin
to evangelize, the U.N. galitzo verb in the New Testament. They begin to preach or be heralds,
they begin to evangelize or proclaim the good news of the gospel in
Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to all the ends of the earth.
And you’ll remember from your studies of the missionary journeys
of Paul and the works of the apostles, that they would first
go to the synagogue. They would first go to where
Jews, who because of persecution and other difficulties in Jerusalem,
the Jews were scattered or dispersed. We refer to it sometimes in ancient
Near Eastern history as the diaspora. They would scatter around the
Roman Empire and they would establish a synagogue. in that foreign
country where they resided. And so it was the practice of
Paul to go to the Jew first and then to the Greek. And that helps
us understand about 50 years after the Apostle Paul’s ministry,
it helps us to understand the reference made to the synagogue
in the letter to the church at Smyrna that we find tonight in
the early portion, the middle portion of chapter two. It was because of difficulty in the
synagogue there that the people of faith, the Christians at Smyrna,
were going to endure even more hardship. In fact, what Jesus
is saying in these few verses of chapter two, he’s saying that
the synagogue rejected the message of a crucified Messiah. and that
these Christians, who had come to faith in Jesus and had been
affiliated with the synagogue, were beginning to separate themselves
from the Jews, the unbelieving Jews, maybe ethnic Jews, but
as we understand, not believing, not circumcised in heart. And
so the true Christians stood out and were about to endure
hardship and persecution. They would meet persecution from
Rome and ultimately, they will taste death, the first resurrection. But as the promise comes at verse
11, they will not taste or be hurt by the second death. And
so the message of the Lord Jesus, the message of the Lord Jesus
that we began to look at at the end of chapter one and at the
beginning of chapter two, Jesus is the resurrected Christ. He
is the one who has the keys of death and Hades. He is the one
who walks among the lampstands. He is the one that sends the
angels to these churches with these letters. He holds the seven
stars in his right hand and he gives a message to the church
at Smyrna and he says, of himself, I am the first, I am the last,
I am the one who died, and I am the one who has come to life. And before he even begins to
speak to them about their tribulation, their poverty, and the blasphemy
they are experiencing, the slander, he prefaces his message with,
I have died and I have risen. And that’s gonna be a very important
message to the church at Smyrna. Now I wanna stop and say something
to us before we proceed into the meat of his message. And
it’s this, y’all have it easy. You get that, right? As Christians,
you’ve got it easy. I mean, the worst you have to
endure is maybe some left-winger saying to you, in God we trust,
do you believe that? Or are you one of those wackos
that believes, you know, that God made the world in six days
and blah, blah, blah. That’s the worst you get. You
have it easy, right? You know about persecution. And
we know it often is somewhere else and toward others. And so
you understand that when Jesus gives this message to the Smyrnan
Christians, they have already undergone a lot of difficulty. Their hearts are troubled, their
spirits are vexed. And so when Jesus speaks to them
and begins by saying, I have died and have come to life again,
I have been resurrected, that means way more to them than it
could ever really mean to you. Right? I don’t want to offend
you by saying that or offend myself by saying that, but we
don’t get it. Right? I’m just affirming what’s true.
We don’t get it. But these people are at a point where when Jesus
says this, it means something to them. I mean, you got up today
and you drove to church and you didn’t think on your way. There’s
not going to be some radical. There’s not going to be some
body saying, no, no, no, you can’t worship. The government
is not bulldozing our building as has happened to our brothers
and sisters in China. We came freely and we’ve accomplished
that which we set out to do today. It’s come so easy for us. And
so I want you to think about how these folks might have perceived
Jesus’ message. I am, he says, the first and
the last who died and who came to life. And he says to them,
I know three things, your tribulation. I know your poverty. I know the
slander you have experienced. The word Smyrna, literally means myrrh. And what
is myrrh? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh,
remember the offerings to Jesus? Myrrh was a burial spice. Myrrh
was a spice that covered up suffering. It made suffering not smell bad,
right? That’s a good way to think of
it. It covers up suffering. Smyrna was literally a city of
suffering. And the people of God were under
tribulation or under pressure. They were under pressure and
Jesus says, I know about it. They’re also experiencing poverty. When they scattered these Christians
or they became Christians in the city of Smyrna, they attached
themselves to the synagogue because that was the thing most like
them. And there was hope that maybe
these Jewish people who were in Smyrna in the midst of the
Roman Empire, they might accept these Christians and even let
them worship. You know how sometimes we’ll
see a church building, maybe a United Methodist Church, and
you’ll see their sign, worship at 11, on and on, but you’ll
see a little sign underneath for a church plant that’s meeting
in their building. We worship at 9.30 or at one
o’clock. They’re using the building. That’s
maybe what was going on at the church at Smyrna. And what is
taking place is, well, the Jewish people don’t want to be associated
with these Christians. The government’s cracking down
on them. And so to be associated with those who call on the name
of Christ is not good for the ease of these Jewish folk. And so they Maybe run the Christians
out of the synagogue. You can’t rent our building anymore.
No more Christian worship here. And it’s even hurt them economically.
It’s ostracized them in the city. They are unable to do their work
and make their trade. And so he says to them, I know
your poverty. And then he gives a third thing,
I know your slander that you have been blasphemed. Maybe it’s
people from the Jewish synagogue, also the Romans, they are singling
out these Christians and they have blasphemed them, they have
slandered them. We’ll come back to the little
statement in just a moment. I know your poverty, yet you
are rich. We’ll look at that in a moment.
But he acknowledges these three things. I, the one who has died
and risen, I know your tribulation, I know your poverty, and I know
your slander. Isn’t it comforting to us sometimes
when people just acknowledge our pain? They can’t do a thing
about it and we know that. But isn’t it nice when we get
a sympathy card? I know you’ve experienced death
in the family. I know you’ve experienced suffering
through health. I know you’ve had a loss or a cross. And just
to have that acknowledged by another person is a wonderful
thing, but how much more would it be to you to have the one
who died and has come to life to say, I know your poverty,
I know your tribulation, and I know people speak evil about
you. Why is that important? Because
Jesus has experienced poverty. Jesus has experienced tribulation. Jesus has experienced blasphemy. And so he knows. And he makes
a pronouncement about this synagogue. He calls it a synagogue of Satan.
Sometimes we, maybe we don’t like a church across town and
we think they’re doing things unbiblically. And so sometimes
in our reform judgmental way, we say, oh, they’re a synagogue
of Satan. Well, that’s like the super-duper malediction, right? We want to be careful with that.
I mean, some people aren’t doing things biblically, but maybe
they’re doing a lot of things right, and we want to be a little
careful. But what is God pronouncing here? He’s saying these people
are ethnic, Jews, but they have rejected the Messiah. They are
not my people. They are not my people. In fact,
they’re a synagogue of Satan. In fact, this congregation of
Jewish people, they have so persecuted the Christians. that they have
become of use to Satan and not to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so he wants to comfort them. He wants to comfort them in the
fact that they are under pressure already. But hear this, more
is about to come. Jesus, who is the first and the
last, the Alpha and the Omega, the one who died and the one
who comes to give life. He’s delivered a message. I know
what you’re going through. He’s evaluated the Jews. Don’t
you think it would be a little bit comforting to say, I know
those people are wicked? I mean, isn’t it good when Jesus
affirms what we feel? Makes you feel less crazy when
something that we feel is true is affirmed by a good outside
authority. I know they’re a synagogue of
Satan. But this last message Jesus gives us, the nitty gritty,
he says, do not fear. Verse 10, do not fear what you
are about to suffer. Behold the devil who has recruited
the synagogue to be a synagogue of Satan. 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’s giving them a heads up as
it were. The tribulation you’ve experienced
is about to get worse. It will land some of you in prison.
He speaks about 10 days, a short term. Probably in the Roman system,
it was this way. You were arrested, you were held
for a very brief amount of time, and you were either banished
from the country, which was to escape with your life, or you
were, well, you get the picture. You were sent elsewhere, never
to return to this world. again. And so he’s trying to
assure them it’s going to be OK. Fear not. Fear not. You will be tested.
You will be tested. And he says to the one who conquers,
the one who passes the test, you will not be hurt by the second
death, but you will be tested. There will be prison. There will
be judgment, maybe most likely for many of you, probably probably
death. And Jesus gives a promise. Be
faithful unto death. Be faithful unto death, and I
will give you the crown of life. You know, in the late 1800s,
the early 1900s, modernist movement hit America.
And the modernist movement hit America, it took God out of the
picture. We think the 1960s and 70s and
80s was when all that took place. But it began, though, 100 years
or so before. And modernism hit the church big time. And particularly
in our Presbyterian circles, some of you ask about this. Why
do we have the Southern Church? Why do we have the Northern Church?
Why do we have the PCA? Why do we have the OPC? And where
does the ARP fit in all this? In our Presbyterian history,
we as ARPs, we go all the way back to, what, 1782. We’ve existed
as immigrants came from Scotland and formed the ARP in Philadelphia,
and so we’ve never split. We’ve never broken apart. The
Northerners did separate from us for geographical
reasons in the early 1800s, and they went with the United Presbyterian
Church, which eventually folded into the Northern Presbyterian
Church. But we have continued, we have stayed strong and by
God’s grace true, but the mainline Presbyterians split before the
Civil War. You have the Northern Church and the Southern Church.
And the Northern Church went liberal first, and in the 1930s
you had the Orthodox Presbyterian Church form out of the Northern
Presbyterians. And it took a little while longer
for us Southerners. We’re slower. We’re more conservative
sometimes. We’re busy. Picking our tobacco
and whatever that we don’t have time to get liberal like the
northerners do maybe but but the PCA in the 1973 exit came
to be but but how did it come to pass that they had to leave
the mainline church? Well, it was modernism. It was
removal of the supernatural. It was removal of the authority
of scripture It was removal of things that were tried and true
for centuries and that were reinstated at the Protestant Reformation
well modernism said No, there’s really not a God. He’s really
not in control. His Bible is not true. And all this wacky
stuff about men and women and marriage and children and church
and faithfulness and all that. No, that’s not in the Bible.
Well, and so you get to where we are today. Well, J. Gresham
Machen, who had taught at Princeton Seminary, who was also a member
of the Northern Presbyterian Church, he saw the rising tide
of liberalism. and he formed an alternate missionary
society that was different from the Presbyterian church in the
USA in the north. He was put on trial by the Presbyterian
Church in the USA. He was declared a heretic, and
so he would go on to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
He would go on to help form Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, where
he taught for a little while, and then he died. He died suddenly one
winter. But on his tombstone are these
words, be faithful unto death. Now you can imagine the fight
against liberalism was difficult. It may not be the same sort of
persecution that is felt by our brothers and sisters in China,
or our brothers and sisters in Eritrea, or our brothers and
sisters in other parts of the world, where maybe they face
outside persecution from governments, but he faced this persecution
from his own Christian community. His fellow Presbyterians, I mean,
this was an intramural battle. And can’t you imagine all the
hardship he faced And at his death, his friends who respected
him, put this wonderful passage from the book of Revelation on
his headstone, be faithful unto death. The one who conquers will
not be hurt by the second death. I will give you the crown of
life. You see, you see God is promising two things. He’s promising
trouble, but he’s promising after the trouble, there will be blessing.
there will be great blessing. You will receive the victor’s
crown. When you run the race, you keep
the faith. When you complete the course, there is laid up
for us in heaven, as the apostle Paul says, a crown of righteousness. In Smyrna, where this letter
was written, there was an old man who probably was taught by
John, who was trained by John. His name was Polycarp. Some of you have heard of Polycarp,
the Bishop of Smyrna. Some of you have probably read
the little history book about him. And Polycarp was 86 years
old. He was 86 years old when he was
taken to the fire to be put to death for following Jesus. And
one last time it was put to him, you, you just tell us that you
don’t believe in Jesus anymore and we’ll let you live. And Polycarp
says, these 86 years that I have lived, Jesus has been faithful
to me. Why would I now turn my back on him? And he went to his
death. Isn’t it interesting, this passage
gives us what we call a paradox. It gives us things that don’t
seem to make sense. Jesus says, I know you are poor.
But notice the parentheses, yet you are rich. I know your poverty,
yet you are rich. All these people around you,
including the Jews of that Jewish synagogue, which was a synagogue
of Satan, they may be prospering economically. The world around
us may be prospering economically. And we in light of their wealth
may be for sure in poverty, but we are rich. We have all the
riches of heaven at our disposal. We are joint heirs with Jesus.
As Peter says, we have been raised up to an inheritance that will
neither spot nor fade nor be eaten by moth. It is kept in
heaven for us. And so yes, we might be poor
in the eyes of the world and we might experience poverty because
of our faith. We may be passed over for a job
promotion or even a job at all because of our faith, but we
are rich. But there’s another paradox here.
Jesus promises that some of them will die, and not just die a
natural death, they will die a martyr’s death. Be faithful unto death, he says,
and I will give you the crown of life. 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. In the book
of Revelation, death is portrayed in two ways. There’s the first
death, there’s the second death, There’s also the first resurrection
and there’s the second resurrection. And these are for Christians
and not Christians. Those who are not Christians experience
the first death. They really die. The wages of
sin is death. But they also experience the
second death, which is life forever without God. It’s hell. That’s
what the second death is. The first death is Our regular
death, or their regular death, the second death is hell forever. But it also speaks of our first
resurrection for those who believe. When we die, what does our catechism
says? The soul, so believers are at
their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into
glory. You see, our death is really our resurrection. It’s
our passing into glory and our bodies being united to Christ
do rest in the grave until the resurrection. And so those who
are not Christians, By the economy of the book of Revelation, they
experienced the first death and the second death. But we who
are in Christ, we experienced the first resurrection and then
the second resurrection. And he gives a promise, the one
who conquers. And the one who conquers here
in the eyes of the world is really losing. Why is that? because
he dies, she dies, but it says you will not be hurt by the second
death. The evil that has killed you
may think they have won, but you are raised up in glory and
your body united to Christ, even if burned at the stake, will
be raised up in glory at the last day, at the resurrection.
And why is this true? It’s because Jesus, who is the
first, Jesus, who is the last, he is the one who has died and
he has risen to life. And if we have faith in him,
yes, we will experience persecution. But if we have faith in him,
yes, we will also be with him in his glorious presence forever.
Let’s pause and give him thanks. Our Lord, we are grateful for
this, this word of encouragement. It has some hard things in it,
but it has some glorious things in it. And we think of our brothers
and sisters who around the world, across the world, are facing
such hardship for you. While we’ve sat peacefully in
two services today, some have not been able even to gather
with saints. And so we remember our brothers
and sisters. We are united to them in Christ, and we think
of their persecution, their hardship, their poverty. Remind them that
they are rich and that the second death will have no power over
them. Remind us of these things. Remind us especially as we sit
here of our great position in life and help us not to think
too little of our privileges because they come easy to us,
show to us. your love for us and help us
to think of others and their hardship. We ask and pray your
blessings in the name of Christ. Amen. We want to sing together
number 172. Speak, O Lord. And as we do,
think of chapter 2, verse 11. He who has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the churches.