This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day three of our look together through Revelation chapter 2. We're
looking again at verses 8 to 11, the church at Smyrna, what Jesus says to a
suffering church. And yesterday, you remember, we began by looking at five
specific things that Jesus says to this church.

The first two of them, Jesus said, "I know. I know what you're going through. I
understand.

I understand. I have suffered also. " And Jesus said, "Do not be afraid.

" And how do you not be afraid? You focus on who He really is. He has three
other things to tell us in the midst of the suffering that you and I face.

The third thing that He tells us is, "I tell you. I tell you what you're going
to face. " In verse 10 and a little bit in verse 11, Jesus tells the church in
Smyrna what they were going to face.

Let me read for you the first part of verse 10 where He says, "Do not be afraid
of what you're about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you into
prison to test you, and you'll suffer persecution for 10 days. Be faithful even
to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

" Jesus tells us you're going to face suffering in this world. In heaven, no. In
this world, all who are faithful in Christ, Jesus, are going to face some
suffering.

He's told us, so we shouldn't be surprised, as if I did something wrong. I made
some mistake. What's wrong with me that I would have to face some kind of
suffering?

Jesus told us in advance you're going to have to face some suffering, some tough
times. We're not left to struggle with suffering and persecution in darkness.
Jesus tells them not only that they're going to face suffering, that it's on the
way.

He also gives us some insight into these verses about the suffering that we
face. Insight can help sometimes. Look at these verses and the light that they
can bring.

These verses talk about four specific kinds of suffering. In verses 9 and 10, he
talks about poverty and slander and prison and death, four specific kinds of
suffering that they were facing because of their faith in Jesus Christ. In verse
9, he says, "I know your afflictions and your poverty, yet you are rich.

" They were suffering. They were in a rich city, but they were poor. Why?

Because they were believers. They didn't get to be a part of the best business
deals. Some of you are suffering in that kind of way for Jesus Christ.

They were suffering slander. He says in the last part of verse 9, "I know the
slander of those who say they are Jews and they are not. They are a synagogue of
Satan.

" They were suffering slander because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Some of
you are suffering that kind of way. In fact, these first two, poverty, the loss
of income, slander, the presence of ridicule, those are the major ways that
suffering is faced in America, that we face persecution.

Around the world, there are these other two ways that many, many people suffer.
He talks about prison. The devil is going to put some of you in prison.

Now, it wasn't Satan who literally came, but he motivated the prison sentence
for these who are just simply believers in Jesus Christ. People all over the
world are thrown into prison just for their faith because the powers, the
authorities don't understand their faith or because they want to reject their
faith. They don't want to live that kind of way.

They don't want to hear that message, so they try to lock it up behind a door,
which always makes it more powerful, always makes it louder. And then he says,
some of you are going to suffer even to the point of death. Be faithful, he says
in verse 10, even to the point of death.

If I die for my faith, I don't want to die for my faith, I want to stay on this
planet as long as I can to serve and to love my family and the people in my
church, but if I die for my faith, I want to do this. I want to be faithful even
to the point of death. I want to be a man of God who recognizes that I'm looking
forward to the eternity of God.

Now as he talks about suffering in these verses, Jesus very literally tells
them, you're going to suffer for 10 days. Some people ask, what does 10 days
mean here? I mean, the book of Revelation, every number has to mean something.

I think it means 10 days. When the literal meaning makes sense, let it make
sense. Literally they were going to suffer for 10 days, have 10 specific days of
a localized persecution where they would be able to share their faith in Jesus
Christ through the way they responded to suffering.

Now as you read through these verses, what Jesus tells them here, he also gives
us some insight into where persecution comes from. We always want to blame the
carrier of the persecution and never look to the source of it. It's good for us
to remember what the source is.

Why is this happening? He talks about four specific sources, the powerful, the
culture, the jealous, and the evil one. He talks about the powerful.

In their day it was the government. In our day, it may not be a country, it may
be a business, it may be an entertainment conglomerate. The real power centers.

You have to realize that there are those who don't want to follow the ways of
Christ, who want to live their own life, and if they get to be in power, they're
going to want to quench that message because they don't want to hear that
message. The people who tell the news have more power than those who make the
news because they're the ones who get the message out. You and I have to realize
that the powerful sometimes want to keep the message from getting out and so
they will persecute the church.

That's where persecution comes from. It also comes from the culture. Smyrna was
a culture that was ripe for persecution.

In 195 BC, a temple to Dioroma, the Roman god, Rome personified as a goddess,
was built. And this city, Smyrna, had a reputation for its patriotic loyalty to
the empire. Around 25 AD, when the Asian cities were competing for the right to
build a temple to the emperor Tiberius, that privilege was granted to Smyrna.

It was a cult of empire and emperor worship that was very important to this
city. And in the midst of this, it's like, "Hey, Christians, get with the
program. This is what we're all like here.

" I mean, it's like you're the only ones who don't understand we worship the
emperor here. You can worship Jesus, too, if you want to, but you've got to
worship the emperor if you're going to be a citizen of the city of Smyrna.
You're an embarrassment to us.

The culture creates persecution. A third source of persecution is the jealous.
Now, in this case, Paul says it's a group of people who called themselves Jews,
but were not.

They were jealous of the attention that the Christians were getting, and that
jealousy caused them to persecute the Christians. And then Paul brings it all
down to the reality, when he says it's the evil one. The evil one's the one
that's going to put you into prison.

The ultimate source of all suffering, of all persecution, is Satan. He is the
evil one. He's the one who motivates all of these things.

Now, these three things that I've just talked about, they're echoed throughout
scripture in three phrases, the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world is
the powerful and the culture. The world means the world's way of thinking, the
powerful way of thinking, the cultural way of thinking.

The flesh means what I want. That's the jealousy that comes out. That's the envy
that comes out.

I get what I want. I get what I want because I want it. And the devil is
obviously the evil one.

That is where persecution comes from. That is where evil comes from. And the
truth to remember as we go through this is that we don't have to face some of
the persecution and suffering that we're talking about here, many of us, that
even much of the world is facing today, but that you do face persecution and
suffering.

Satan is at work everywhere, sometimes in a more subtle way, sometimes in a
very, very devastating way, very clear way. Don't let your guard down. We are
still behind enemy lines.

We are still facing this in our lives today. Jesus says, "I tell you, in this
world, you're going to face suffering. You're going to face persecution.

" Jesus has a fourth thing to tell us. He says, "I know. Don't be afraid.

I tell you. " And then he says, number four, "Be faithful. Be faithful even to
the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

" How can I be faithful in tough times? Willpower? That's not enough.

The only way that I've found to be faithful is to focus on the faithfulness of
God. If you don't believe that God is faithful to you, you will not be faithful
to him when the tough times hit. If you do believe, if you do know that God is
faithful to you, no circumstance will be able to move you from your faithfulness
to him.

There's a great story of this related to this letter to the Ephesians, the story
of Christian in the second century, probably already a member of the church when
this letter was written. Some think he was the pastor of this church to which
this letter was written. On the 22nd of February in AD 156, he was tracked down
in a hiding place outside of the city because of a persecution, and Polycarp was
brought before the procouncil at the amphitheater and told to recant his faith
and to worship Caesar.

His answer is one of the most famous statements in Christian history. Polycarp
looked at the government, the authority, and he said with humility, "Eighty and
six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong. How then can I
blaspheme the king, my king, who saved me?

What's it been for you? For me it's 30 and six years have I served him because
of his love for me. How could I blaspheme the king who has saved me?

Be faithful because he has been faithful to you. " Then there is a fifth thing
that Jesus says to this church, to us when we face suffering and persecution. He
says, "I will give you.

Be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. "
I want you to hear Jesus saying that to you right now, knowing that he's right
here with you right now. I will give you what?

A crown of life. That is what is in the future for us as believers. That is what
we have to look forward to.

Ultimately, the only way to understand God's faithfulness in the midst of
suffering in this world is to look ahead to the next. If this world is all there
is, it doesn't make sense, but this world is not all there is. This world is not
the end, and one day he will give you a crown of life.

James 1-12 says, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when he
has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to
those who love him. " As these believers in Smyrna walk down that golden street
that celebrated the greatness of that city, they must have felt inferior. But
one day, we'll walk down a different golden street, and we'll wear a different
crown, and we'll recognize that all the honor is due to him.

Let's give him that honor now. Jesus Christ, thank you for what we have to look
forward to. You know us.

You see us. Sometimes all we can see is the suffering that's around us or the
suffering that we're facing. Even though that's all we can see, help us to see
with different eyes right now, with eyes of faith.

Help us to see who you are, and help us to see what we have to look forward to.
Help us to look up. Help us to look ahead in faith.

And Jesus, thank you that you are faithful to us. In your name, amen.