The Church at Smyrna
Tom Shrader studies Jesus's letter to the church at Smyrna from Revelation 2, a church facing intense persecution, poverty, and opposition from local Jews. He explains that Jesus identifies Himself as the one who died and came to life, emphasizing His understanding of their suffering. The message encourages believers not to fear coming trials, promising a crown of life to those who remain faithful even unto death.
“I'm praying to a God who is a sympathetic God, a sympathetic Savior who says I understand this, I experience this and I can do something about it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: What Christ Says to the Church (Revelations)
Recorded: 2010
Duration: 47 min
Themes: persecution, suffering, faithfulness, courage, death, poverty, trials, hope, facing persecution, experiencing poverty, enduring trials, new believer, struggling with fear, church member, opposition from family, young adult
Scripture: Revelation 2:8-11, Acts 8, Acts 13, Acts 14, Acts 17, 1 Corinthians 1:26, 1 Corinthians 10:13, 1 Corinthians 13:7, 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, James 1:2, James 1:12, 2 Timothy, Mark 15, John 3, John 19
Theological Themes: christology, divine attributes, resurrection power, eternal rewards, crown of life, spiritual warfare, martyrdom, eschatology
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of Revelation, chapter 2. If you need a Bible, raise your hands really high, both here and in the conference center, and the guys will work their way around the room. They'll give you a copy of the Old and New Testament. Go to the back of the book, and you work your way to the left. You'll come to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation.
Jesus is appearing to John. This is John the Apostle. John is exiled on the island of Patmos. It's just into the Mediterranean Sea on this little island. It's about six miles long, four miles wide, and the book begins with the words "of the Revelation." The word means to unveiling or to disclose. So in this book, Jesus is going to unveil, reveal who He is, talk about His deity, His desires, His thoughts, and ultimately His return. That's how the book is broken down.
The Structure of Revelation
In chapter 1, John talks about this vision. Chapter 2 and 3, John writes and communicates to seven actual churches the very words that Jesus has for them. Then chapters 4 through 22, through the balance of the book, are about things that are to come.
We had a map up on the screen a couple of weeks ago. As you get bored here in a second, you can go ahead and look at them yourself if you'd like. They're in the back of your Bible, and if you get one of the maps that says Paul's missionary journey, sometimes you can find this. As you come from Patmos on land, you'll come to Ephesus, and there are seven churches there, kind of an oval shape. There's actually a highway that connects all seven of them, and it goes from Ephesus to Smyrna to Pergamum and then heads a little bit east to Thyatira, south to Sardis, and then southeast to Philadelphia and Laodicea.
Jesus communicates to each of these churches. There's a general pattern to His communication, some exceptions, one of them's today, but a general pattern where Jesus identifies the recipient. He also kind of autobiographically identifies Himself, and then He'll mention a strength in that church and then a weakness and then an action, a call to action and then a promise. That's a general pattern, again, some exceptions along the way.
Churches for All Times
We said that for us as a church, it's probably a healthy activity to look at as Jesus speaks to each of these churches and say, which of these represents us? Most scholars would say these seven churches describe churches with characteristics for all times and in all ways. Also, they describe, really, people.
So we saw the first week, when Jesus writes to the church at Ephesus, He says, "Boy, here's what I know about you. You work really hard, you persevere, and you're really discerning." Those are good things. And especially if you're a Bible church, those are kind of the characteristics you look for: hard working, discerning, persevering, lots of activities. But He said, "I got this against you, you've lost your first love." You've lost that sense of relationship with Me, and maybe it's motivation, or maybe it's even the reality that our faith is not just about knowing a scripture, but about knowing the God that it points us to, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This week, He writes to a church that's suffering. We said the first week, if love is the universal language I believe that it is, suffering is the universal experience. It's not really an elective, and it's not really an elective for anybody. If you live for any length of time, you're going to experience all sorts of suffering, and pain, and hardship.
The Intensification of Suffering
Let me digress just a bit, because I didn't know if I was going to say anything about it, but I decided to first hour, so I don't want to deprive you from it either. But now we live in a way where I think suffering, in many ways, is more intensified, because it can be even more removed.
Let me tell you what I'm talking about. It was the young man last week that was at, I believe it was, Rutgers, and he was having a sexual experience with another man in some of the, I think it was his roommate or a friend, videoed it, streamed it live. So now that goes around the world, and when the young man found out about it, he really couldn't cope with it, so he killed himself. It's funny for me, I had a hard time getting rid of that story, and I think the reason is, the pain that's inflicted in such a haphazard, careless way. I cannot imagine the anguish that his parents are going through. And I assume those that set up the little prank, although it's much more than a prank, probably didn't anticipate what happened, though they could have. I imagine they feel sick about it.
What it reminded me is how fragile we are to one experience or to exposure to things. And we talked about it, I taught it again in PL this week, but we talked about it in here when we went through the book of 1 Corinthians, and I've come back to it about every six months. It is at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, when he's defining love, in verse seven he says, "love bears all things, love believes all things, love endures all things, love hopes for all things."
Love Protects, Not Exposes
And I just simply read you a couple of paragraphs from John MacArthur's commentary, and I was struck, as he talked about that, he said, you know, one of the gross sins within the church is gossip. And he said, what makes gossip so bad is that there's so many willing listeners. And he was talking about love, he said, here's what love does. Love, even when somebody sins, doesn't expose the sin, it protects the person. It's not to condone the sin, but if God's dealing with it, and there's repentance there, the idea is not to expose it, love doesn't expose, love protects.
And I don't know, there's something about that incident, there's something about the internet, I'm a big internet and Google, and all the advantages. Larry used to have a quote from the Minnesota Juvenile Delinquency
Revelation 2 - The Church of Smyrna
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Commission or something, and I couldn't find a copy. I went online and typed in the phrase that I remembered and in like 0.5 seconds, there it was. That's an amazing tool. But the harm that it does, just to Google something true or untrue, does so much damage. That's exactly the opposite of how the body of Christ should work.
I get that the world works this way. I shouldn't even know about that even if it happened. What's the point of that? What's the point of O'Reilly talking about that, or Fox News talking, or anybody talking about it? But we just love to get into people's sin. That's all those shows that come on at 6:30. It's all those shows that we watch with all the stars and famous people.
Well, they're suffering enough. You don't have to create it. There's suffering in the world, suffering in your life. So when we talk about love, it's the universal language. When we talk about suffering, it really is universal life experience, isn't it?
Let's read this letter. It's verse 8, 9, 10, and 11. It's the shortest of these seven letters.
"And to the angel of the church at Smyrna write, the first and the last, who was dead and has come to life, says this, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. The blasphemy of those who say they're Jews, they're not, but are of the synagogue of Satan. Verse 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 10 days. Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life. He who has ears to hear, let Him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death."
There's the pattern and it holds obviously at the beginning. It's to the angel at the church at Smyrna. That angel would be the messenger. It's the one who's going to receive the letter and read it. Here's what we think. We think we know who the angel of the church at Smyrna was. I'm going to come back to that. I'll be a little rest of the story at the end.
Jesus Identifies Himself
Then Jesus identifies Himself and whenever He identifies Himself in these letters, He's highlighting an attribute or a characteristic of Himself and that generally applies to either the problem, the strength, the weakness, the action. So here's how He identifies Himself: the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. It's the one who knows all things. It's the creator, the sovereign one, the one who spoke the world into existence. That's who this is.
The City of Smyrna
Look at Smyrna for a second. It was founded in 1000 BC. It was called the Crown of Asia, the safest of all the harbors, which always means commerce and this city flourished in that. It was a city of prosperity and wealth. It was a beautiful city. It was called by Alexander the Great the most magnificent of all cities and he determined it to be the first kind of planned community, paradise of municipalities.
It had in it a huge library, one of the largest theaters. It was the home and birthplace of Homer who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. It had a magnificent transportation grid that allowed people and horses and livestock to move through town in an orderly way. It had a wonderful asset that had one little flaw in it.
Aristides writes the wind blows through every part of the city and makes it fresh as a grove of trees. It was a constant westward wind. It had one problem. Here was the problem: when they designed this magnificent city, they dumped all of the sewage onto one end. So when the westward wind blew, the smell permeated the city. Things haven't changed.
It was a harbor so prosperous it was a free city. Cicero speaking of Smyrna said Smyrna is one of our most faithful and our most ancient allies. In 195 BC the first temple ever built to the goddess Roma was built in Smyrna. In 26 AD they had a contest among the cities to see who would bid and be awarded the bid and privilege of building the temple to the god ahead Tiberius and even against the wealthy city of Ephesus, Smyrna is the city that won.
The Religious Climate
What becomes really important in our study today is it had an active and involved Jewish population. They were involved in civic affairs. As I said, it was a free city. So Rome didn't have a constant presence there. The Jewish population was involved and active in city affairs, city government. They were prosperous.
Consequently Smyrna was a city that was hostile to the Christian faith. Pagan, highly pagan city. In that city they worshiped Zeus, Hermes, Apollo, Mercury and the chant that was most heard in terms of worship was this: Caesar is Lord. So that's the backdrop. All you got to do is know a little bit of that and go okay, I see where the suffering is going to come from, the persecution.
The Sympathetic Savior
Again the latter part of verse 8, Jesus identifies Himself as the first and the last. He's supreme. He's sovereign. There's nothing outside His control and then He adds this: it is me who was dead but came to life. Jesus is going to talk about suffering and He immediately draws to their attention, I'm the one that was beaten. I'm the one that was spit upon. I'm the one that was humiliated. I'm the one who was crucified.
I'm not going to talk to you about suffering in a theoretical way. I'm not going to give you a message or sermon on suffering as somebody who has observed it but never experienced it. I'm a sympathetic Savior. I understand your pain. I don't just feel it. I've experienced it. That's what I want to hear. I know it.
And to me the thing that weighs heavy in all of this for me is that God cares and He can do something about it. That's what's important to me. I care and I can do something about it. When I pray, I pray with that knowledge in my mind. I'm praying to a God who is a sympathetic God, a sympathetic Savior who says I understand this, I experience this, and I can do something about it.
Now, our process is typically this: I know you can do something about it, so will you remove it? And He said, "Well, I don't know that that's what I'm going to do about it. I may or may not remove it. But this is what I can do: I can join you in the midst of this, and I will provide you a comfort beyond anything that you can imagine."
I understand. That's what we want to do if our kids have a problem. My tendency is to want to remove that problem rather than ask, "Wait a minute, what's God teaching us in the midst of all of that?" Sometimes we learn that lesson very quickly and that pressure needs to be relieved. It needs to go away—we shouldn't live under that stress necessarily, in that pressure. Other times where God is just working out His own plan in this.
Jesus Knows Our Tribulation
So look what He says in verse 9: "I know three things. I know your tribulation"—and again, it's not just a factual thing, it's an experiential thing—"and I know your poverty," but then He adds parenthetically, "you really are rich." And then He says, "I know the blasphemy of those who say they're Jews; they're not, but are the synagogue of Satan."
Here's where He begins. He said, "I know your tribulation." That word means to be crushed beneath a weight. It's a constant pressure. One of the ancients writes, "Nowhere in the first century could the life of a Christian be more difficult and dangerous than in Smyrna."
Smyrna also means myrrh. Interestingly, myrrh is not like a flower that you pick—a rose that you just smell and get a fragrant aroma. Myrrh was used for perfume and for medicinal purposes, in some cases to relieve pain, and in some cases to embalm or prepare the body of a dead body for burial. But for myrrh to be activated, it had to be crushed. For that aroma to be released, it had to be crushed, and it's not just a blow—it's a crushing constant pressure.
So think not necessarily of a fight where a boxer delivers a left hook and knocks someone down and it's over, but think of a wrestling match where there's a submission hold—there's a constant pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. That's what's going on here.
Remember when the kings came to visit Jesus, they brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Jesus hung on the cross; someone brought a sponge that was dipped in what Mark calls in Mark 15 a sour wine. I think myrrh was part of that to kind of be an anesthetic that would take care of the pain. And then in John chapter 19, Nicodemus, the one who came to Jesus by night in John chapter 3, comes and he brings a mixture of myrrh and aloes—a hundred pounds weight of spices and oils—as they are going to prepare the body of Christ after His death and for burial.
A Sympathetic Savior
He says, "I know your tribulation." So here's what you need to hear today: You're here, you may barely be hanging on. It could be economic, it could be a relationship, it could be physical. You could be under so much pain and constant pain.
My observation of someone in our congregation—and it's been intense in the last year, really intense in the last six months—it's just pain. Constant pain, unrelenting pain every day. Some days worse than others, and she knows the rhythm of it now. She had chemo Thursday, and they give her some steroids and some stuff with the chemo, which means Friday and Saturday are okay. The last of those is this morning. So beginning tonight and tomorrow and Tuesday and Wednesday, those will be just brutal days for her.
Maybe that's you. My intent here is not to put anyone on a pedestal at all. My intent is to say I know what some of your feelings are and I know what you're going through. My intent is to say I know what some of you are feeling in terms of that intense pain. There's no end to it. She wakes up most days and knows this is likely the best she's going to feel for the rest of her life.
You may be in a financial situation like that. Here's what I think: you have a sympathetic Savior. He may use that pain and just take it away. So why would you suffer? What are the sources of suffering? How do you respond to it? We'll talk about it in a minute.
Poverty Yet Rich
He says also, "I know your poverty," then adds quickly, "but you're really rich." What He's saying is, "I know what your bank statement looks like. I've seen it. In fact, you don't even have a bank statement."
There are two words for poverty. One is like the working poor—people who are just scraping by. Two Greek words: one is just scraping by, barely hanging on. Some months a little bit left, other months nothing left, and it balances out to barely. That's not the word He chooses.
The second word means absolutely impoverished—own nothing at all. It's the picture of a bond slave. Some slaves—remember when we use the word slave in the Greek-Roman experience—there were different categories of slave. Some were very much like people who are working off debt or people who were paid a salary, but they were under the ownership of a master who would pay them. They'd have their own house, they'd freely come and freely go; there were different categories.
But the bond slave is one who owned nothing. The very clothes that they had were owned by their master, and they had those clothes only because the graciousness of their master allowed them to have it. That's the word He uses.
It's a word, frankly, that's identified more and more with the church, especially the early church. When Paul writes to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1:26, he said, "Consider your calling, brethren, there are not many of you that are wise according to the flesh, many mighty, many noble." Here's what he's saying: As I look around this church in Corinth, there aren't a lot of people
with a lot of money. In fact, James, when he writes his epistle—and I think it's what we're going to study after the first of the year—is dealing with the fact that in the church, they didn't have much. Consequently, when somebody would come who was wealthy, he would show preference to them, and James would say, "Well, you shouldn't do this." These people that are in the church at Smyrna have nothing.
He says, also, "I know the blasphemy." Now, when we think of blasphemy, we think of accusations against God Himself and how we blaspheme Him. But here's what Jesus says: "I know the blasphemy of those who say they're Jews. They're not. They're of the synagogue of Satan." That word synagogue means assembly or congregation. It's not that they're necessarily saints and worshipers. It's that they are in opposition to the one true God.
John Wesley wrote about witnessing to an atheist, and at the end of this, as the person rejected the gospel, Wesley writes, "Your God is my devil." That's the idea here.
The Pattern of Persecution From the Beginning
It's been a constant theme from the very beginning of the church. Let me just make a note of it. In Acts chapter eight, here's what's happened. Stephen has been stoned. We have to be careful—words change their meaning over time. What we mean there is a form of capital punishment where they throw rocks at him with the intent to kill him. That's what we meant by stoned.
Stephen's been killed, and they're making provision for his body. Acts chapter eight, verse one, tells us that persecution then broke out in the city. It says it this way: "Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death, and on that day, great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem. They're scattered throughout the region of Judea, Samaria, except the apostles." They stay in Jerusalem. "And some were devout men that buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began ravaging the church."
In Greek literature, the word that's translated "ravaging" would speak to describe a wild animal as it tears apart its prey. Saul begins to tear apart the church, entering house after house and dragging off men and women and putting them in prison. So from the very beginning, here are these groups of, in this case, Jews who come in opposition.
They kill Stephen. Saul, who becomes Paul—Saul's the one who's leading this charge. And then he has this experience where God exposes Himself, Christ exposes Himself to Saul. Instead of persecuting the church, he becomes really the number one advocate of the church. What happens then is Paul begins to experience that ravaging that he himself had inflicted on the church.
Paul's Experience of Persecution
Look at chapter thirteen of the book of Acts. Paul and Barnabas have set out on the first missionary journey, and they're in Antioch. Chapter thirteen, verse fifty: "But the Jews aroused the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas. And they drove them from their district." They didn't drive them far, by the way. They just drove them to Iconium.
In chapter fourteen, verse two: "The Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren." So here's the constant threat on that church. In verse five, "there's an attempt made, both of the Gentiles and the Jews with the rulers, to mistreat and stone them." They drive them now out of Iconium. They land in Lystra.
Chapter fourteen, verse nineteen: "The Jews came from Antioch and Iconium." So now it's not enough to just drive them out of the city. They're now pursuing them. They come to Lystra. "Having won over the multitudes, they stone Paul, and they drag him to the edge of the city, to the outer parts of the town, and they believe he's dead."
That was what stoning was. It was a form of capital punishment. They thought at this point, the Jews and the Gentiles all rallied against him. They came from Antioch, and they came from Iconium. They're in Lystra. So now these three cities, their leaders in this mass of mob comes against him, and they stone him. They think he's dead. He's not. Paul gets up. What's he do? He goes on and continues to preach.
The Relentless Opposition Continues
Chapter seventeen, verse five: he arrives in Thessalonica. He begins to preach. You would think maybe the word would spread—there must be something going on here, because this guy's enduring a lot of stuff. But what happens is the Jews become jealous. He begins to preach, and they see how perhaps this is threatening them, threatening him in the pocketbook, threatening him theologically.
"Become jealous and take along some wicked men from the marketplace. They form a mob, and they set the city in an uproar, and come upon the house of Jason, and they're seeking to bring them out to the people." So now what they're looking for is Paul, Barnabas, Jason, any that are with them, and their intent is to kill them again.
Well, that was forty to fifty years before what we're looking at, and that persecution continues and continues and continues.
The Accusations Against Christians
By the way, the charges—I'll give them to you quickly. Most of them fall into six categories. The Christians were accused of being cannibals because they ate the body and blood of Christ. They were accused—which is ironic, from the heathens who had sexual encounters as part of their religion—that these agape love feasts were really orgies.
There was an accusation that they were ruining families, which to some degree was true, in the sense that families were splitting over the person of Christ. Father against daughters, daughters against moms, siblings. Much of you have experienced this.
I looked down and there was a piece of paper that is probably an internal piece between facilities and some of the staff talking about Christmas parties, their schedules, what we need, tables, and all that, and I thought, oh my golly, we're in that time of year. So for some of you, I love that. I love Thanksgiving—that's my favorite holiday. But I'm getting more and more, so I like Christmas. It's always been hard for me, because there's kind of a component to it, I don't know.
But what I do know is that many of you are coming up on a time when you're going to have a lot of intense family issues, and some of them are about your faith. And so you're going to see families split. So many of you, God has saved, and now as you begin to share with your family about what He's done, all of a sudden, and I totally get it, your family's kind of going, wait a minute, is that a rejection of us? Not just our faith, but us? And so you have to be very wise in the midst of that. Very careful.
They're accused, ironically, of atheism, because they didn't burn candles and make images and statues. Politically disloyal—that's easy to see—because they refused to say Caesar was Lord. And of inciting rebellion, because they thought that indeed Jesus would come again, and He'd be a king who would return as a conquering king. They would say, see? See what they're doing? They're festering, all this is festering up, and it's going to explode one day.
Jesus' Message to Smyrna
So that's the backdrop in verse nine. He says, I know this. I know your tribulation, I know your poverty, I know the suffering and pain, the hardship. But now He goes in verse 10. He said, here's the action. Do not fear. Don't be afraid.
He's not saying this in some Pollyannish way, by the way. He's not saying, oh, happily ever after. Because look what He says. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. It's eyes wide open. Jesus is not in any way saying, it's not going to hurt, there's not going to be suffering, there's not going to be pain. He says, it's coming, but don't be afraid of it.
Go back to those same, I'm the Alpha and the Omega. I'm the beginning and the end. I'm fully aware of this. I'm in control. There's not a maverick molecule. This somehow all works for your good and my glory. And because of that, I can say, Jesus say it, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid of those things you are about to suffer.
Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you, won't be all of you, so that in and of itself will raise questions, because they're going to go, why them, not me? Why me, not them? Some of you into prison. Here's the reason, you'll be tested, and you'll have tribulation 10 days. 10 days is not a literal 10 days there. It describes a brief and finite period of time. But be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.
The Reality of Christian Suffering
So He said, here's what's happening. Here comes pain and suffering. Don't gloss over it, it's real. It's the same with you today. Don't for a second think that because Jesus is your Lord and Savior and Master, that you aren't going to have hard, difficult times in your life. It all of a sudden when you come in repentance of faith put a bubble over you and protect you from the rest of it doesn't.
We say we know that but when suffering comes we have a tendency to say really how come I'm going through this don't you just go ahead and say yes because that's true you just do you go really I understand when I was lost and I was out there and I was raising Cain and I was awful and I was doing all this I understand if you zap me then but why now well for at least part of it it's to test you talk about it more in a moment.
The Crown of Life
You'll get this victor's crown so in the games at Athens and Corinth and in Smyrna the one who won an event would get a victor's crown it was a picture of victory it was a picture of joy a public official that served a complete term of his office in many instances received a crown of recognition He said that there would be that crown of life that will come to you.
James writes of it in James 1:12. He said blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he's been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. That's what awaits.
That's what Paul writes about it in Second Timothy. Paul says the time for my departure is clear it's current it's now it's coming I fought the good fight I finished the race I kept the faith and there is on that day be awarded to me that crown of life that crown that victor's crown but then he adds not only me but all who loved Him in His return.
Four Sources of Suffering
Let me give you some practical stuff—will take about 10-15 minutes now—kind of application to this whole idea of suffering. Let me give you the sources of suffering, the reasons for suffering, and how to respond. So if you're a note taker and if you're an anal retentive type a person, this could be a tough exercise for you, but you'll get it for sure.
The four sources will be easy. Four sources of suffering: satanic activity, ungodly people, the world system, and our own sin.
So we have an enemy. One of the sources of suffering is satanic activity. Our fight, our war is not with flesh and blood, it's against spiritual realms. So you have Satan, Lucifer, the devil who comes after you, and he has legions of demons. There's a spiritual warfare you're in the midst of this.
You'll also suffer secondly from ungodly men, women, people around you like we just saw in Paul's life. So here this group that comes after him in Antioch and Iconium and to Lystra and they never stop. There'll be ungodly people who inflict suffering on you.
Third is from the world system, the system itself. There's different values. God's value system, the world's value system. They're in collision. So you don't see things as God sees them in the world system.
And then the last thing is our own sin. Our own sin can cause suffering. Well, why would God allow you to suffer? I did not do it, but my suspicion would be you could go home and Google why Christians...
The Purpose of Suffering in the Christian Life
Let me highlight a couple key points about suffering. First, suffering reveals the fruit of joy, patience, maturity and righteousness in our lives. You don't know if you're patient until you're put in trying situations. This is simple - I love this because it's my own life. I don't know if I'm a patient driver if all the lights are green. I don't know if I'm a patient driver when traffic is moving. I don't know if I'm a person who really has joy and endurance until I'm put in difficult circumstances. Then those circumstances are going to show me what's really there. It's the best teacher we can have - suffering teaches us.
If we start over here and go around the room and say "talk about a time when you saw God work in your life in a real way, talk about a time when God really made Himself evident to you," most of us will talk about a time of difficulty. Most of us will talk about a time of suffering.
How Suffering Transforms Us
Here's what suffering does: it purifies our life. It's like taking gold and putting it in the fire time after time after time until I have that pure gold. It makes us like Christ. It glorifies God - everything that comes into our life is for our good and His glory, especially in suffering. It's a wonderful opportunity to reveal Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to the people around you.
This is my favorite - it reveals ourselves to ourselves. It allows me to see who I really am. I may think I'm an absolute Christian superstar, and along comes difficulties and I just fold like a cheap suit. Or I'm going "you know what," I can look around - maybe you've done this - you look around at people and go "I could never do that, I could never do that, I could never do that." Then God brings it in your life and indeed you realize no, you can't, but He's in you and He's giving you great strength. In fact, it becomes a powerful display of how He really is working in your life.
Suffering and Prayer
I'll tell you this - it helps your prayer life. For about the last six months, there's been three things that I've been praying for consistently. When I say consistently, I mean six to twelve times a day every day - almost the first thing in the morning, almost always the last thing at night, and all sprinkled throughout the day. This morning as I was taking a shower and praying through these things, I was saying "God, are You sick of hearing about this yet? Are You tired of this yet? Because I've got 180 days - let's say it's ten times a day - You've heard about this 1,800 times from me. You're tired, God! I keep saying kind of the same thing, so I'm going to try to say it a little differently." But God, these are just three things and I desperately want to see them in my life, and they all revolve around some level of either hurt or pain or suffering.
Boy, it really improves your prayer life. Let me ask you - okay, you're a salesperson. Do you pray when the deal makes or when the deal blows? Don't you tend to pray more when it doesn't happen? There you go.
Suffering Qualifies You to Minister
It qualifies you as a counselor. You may say "oh no, not me, I don't ever want to counsel." Here's what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 1: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of mercy and God of all comforts, who comforts us in our affliction" - okay, listen now - "so that we will be able to comfort those who are in affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves have been comforted by God."
All of a sudden I may not be... you may be in a circumstance in your life where I can say... A man came up after the first service and said "I had a son who committed suicide in August." I don't even try to say "I understand how you feel" - I don't have a box for that. But all of a sudden he starts talking about how all these things, just this whole litany of things, how he's seen God work, how it's increased and drawn him closer to Him, how it was something beyond anything you can imagine, but how he can see the living Spirit of the Living God indwelling him and giving him strength and now giving him opportunities to share with other people. Where I say "I can't relate," he says "I can."
It furthers the witness of the gospel. It draws you closer to God. It shows His sovereignty.
Proper Reactions to Suffering
Let me give you some reactions to suffering. Number one: don't be surprised by it. Expect to suffer. "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials" - they're inevitable. You're going to have just the trials of life. You're going to have loved ones that die, people that get sick. The more people that are involved in your life, the more opportunities there are in your life for suffering and pain and hardship. If it's just you living by yourself, there'll be suffering and pain, but the minute you add a second person to it - we call it marriage - the minute you add a second person to it, you double the opportunities for that. Then you have kids, and then you have grandkids, and the opportunity for pain and affliction and suffering. Then you're in the world, you're in the economic condition you're in, the political... just expect it. It's going to come.
Here's the second thing: commit to God at the beginning of the suffering. "God, I don't know what's going to happen, but God, I know You. I'm trusting You in the midst of this."
It leads me to the third thing: don't try to understand it. I'm not talking about intellectual suicide. I'm just saying rationally I can't always see what God's doing. I don't know why He's working that way. I don't know why He'd cause that. I don't know why He'd allow that. So when I start asking questions that begin with the word "why," it's almost fruitless at the front end of it. Sometimes as time goes on I'll see God work and I'll be able to go "oh, I see what He did. I understand why He'd allow that to happen."
Realize other people suffer. My tendency is always to think, boy, no one's really suffered like this. Nobody's ever hurt like this. First Corinthians
Responding to Suffering with Faith
He won't tempt you or try you or test you beyond that which you can endure, nor is that temptation or test unique to you. Pray. Don't despise it. One of the paraphrases, I think it's the Phillips, takes James 1:2 and says, welcome the trials and the tribulations and the suffering, welcome them as friends, not as intruders. Why? Because God's gonna work through them. Don't faint. Be patient.
Here you go. Thank God for your suffering. So we're gonna get to Thanksgiving, and we're gonna go, thank you for the house, thank you for the food, thank you for Mom who prepared it, thank you for the turkey. Good for us, bad for him. Thanks for the dressing. We're gonna go through that whole list. How often do you stop and say, thank you for this pain in my arm that's so intense, I can hardly endure it? Or thank you for the hardship that we've had at work? Why can you say thank you? Because you know He's working His purpose in you and the circumstance around you. Not because you've got it all figured out.
Don't suffer needlessly. You don't need to go out and create suffering circumstances. They'll come to you. That would be dumb.
Weighing Suffering Against Coming Glory
Here's the third thing: weigh your current suffering against the coming glory. So it's 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. Don't lose heart though, the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. Momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
So here's what He's saying. If I take a scale and I put all this suffering on one side and then I put the eternal weight of glory and what God's accomplishing in eternity on the other side, it goes like—you can't compare them. Now, I get it because I'm like you. I get it at a time when it comes, it absorbs everything. That's why He, Jesus, comes to him and says, don't be afraid of this. Why? I'm the Alpha and the Omega. I know this. I know that pain. And He's saying, I felt it. He said, I know all of that.
Not to scare you but to say, listen, you gotta line up these promises. I'm not gonna test you beyond that which you can endure. I don't know myself why I'm in the midst of it that God does. Again, it's not a bumper sticker. It's something for me to grab onto and hold onto. I know whatever the circumstances is, it's for my good and for His glory. He'll be manifest in that.
Suffering as an Answer to Prayer
If you take those reasons and reactions and you just put them together, those reasons for suffering, so you're praying, right? Let's say you really do love God. You're praying, God, use me, soften me, draw me closer to You. I wanna enjoy You. I wanna have an intimate relationship with You. I wanna know You in a vibrant, real way. I don't want it to be theory. I want it to be intense. He says, perfect. For us to get from here to there, you're gonna have to suffer. So in that case, this suffering is really an answer to prayer.
The Call to Overcome
Here's how He closes it. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear. Let him hear what the Spirit says to the church. He who overcomes. Jesus uses that phrase in chapter two, verse seven, eleven, seventeen, twenty-six. Chapter three, verse five, twelve, twenty-one. The idea of overcoming is simply the reality that God has persevered and preserved you. It's not you hanging on to Him, it's Him hanging on to you.
Polycarp: A Living Example
Here's who we think the angel of Smyrna was. We think it was Polycarp. Polycarp was born in 69 and died in 155. Tradition says that he was in Smyrna, probably taught by John himself, and was heading that church.
In February 23rd, 155, there were these wonderful games that were being played, public games, athletic games and festivals, times in Smyrna. A crowd grew big, and crowds got excited, and a mob formed, a riot formed, and they were calling for the persecution of the Christians. Polycarp was a visible figure in the community, loved not by just the Christians, but the Roman leaders loved Polycarp. But it became clear that they were gonna have to now act, and they were gonna begin to kill Christians.
So they came to Polycarp, and they said to him, just say Caesar is Lord, just say it. You don't even have to mean it, just say it. And he went away, he said, let me go pray. He went away and prayed for two hours. He came back, and he prepared a feast for them. He fed them, and then said, listen, I can't do that.
Polycarp's Final Stand
In fact, here are the formal words: "Eighty and six years I've served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and Savior? You threaten me with a fire that burns for a time and is quickly quenched, for you do not know the fire that awaits the wicked in judgment to come and the everlasting punishment. Why are you waiting? Come and do what you will."
And he refuses again. And they're saying again, just say Caesar is Lord. He says, no, no, no. And they came, and they prepared, and the way of killing him was to burn him at the stake. So they gathered the wood together and a stake in the middle, and they took him, and he said, don't tie me up. Again, his words are recorded: "Leave me as I am, for He who gives me power to endure the fire will grant me the power to remain in the flames."
Isn't that interesting? It wasn't just theoretical. He said, listen, I know. He brought those flames. He'll give me the power to endure those flames, because it's about Him and His power. It's not about me and my suffering.
Don't Be Afraid
Maybe you're here today, and you're barely hanging on. Here's what He says. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Oh, I know some of you are gonna suffer. I know the tribulation, the poverty. I know the slander. I know how much you hurt. But only for a time, and only for your own good. And only for My glory. I love that truth. Now let's ask Him to apply it in our life.
Father, thank you for these amazing, wonderful truths that you work in our life. God, I thank you for not sugarcoating things, for telling me the truth. God, we know and now we can expect that we will suffer. We pray in the middle of it, in the midst of it, that you won't test us, as you promised me, only that we can endure, but you give us strength. Father, give us eyes to see things as they are. God, thank you for those amazing truths. Father, use us, we pray in Christ's name, amen.