Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Revelation 2:8-11

The reading of God’s word. Revelation 2:8-11. And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna, write these things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty, but thou art rich. I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation 10 days.

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord God, that it is like any other word that your spirit takes this word and writes it upon our hearts, takes it into the inmost of our being.

Help us, Father, to understand then. Help us to have big ears open wide today to hear what your word has to say. And help us, Lord God, to hear with the intent of doing that we may open our hands and prepare our hearts to live our lives this next week. An appropriate response to you and to your providence no matter what you cause to come to pass in our lives. We ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit then during this time in Christ’s name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated.

Start it all over again. Don’t you? I do. It’s a song that’s very energetic. And the last, the concluding song today will be likewise based on Psalm 57. The offering song is slow, also speaking of the need to suffer patiently under God. So there are these aspects to it.

Well, did all of you get all dressed up this morning preparing to meet God in worship? You all dressed up? Got your perfume on?

A lot of the ladies, I’m sure, perfumed up, ready to come to church, meet with God. The other people wanted their husbands to think they smell good. And you know some men wear that kind of stuff too. I usually don’t. Probably should.

The church at Smyrna. Smyrna means myrrh. It’s what the word comes from. And it’s interesting, you know, myrrh has a lot of usage in the scriptures. Among which of course is the anointing of people for perfuming of people.

Queen Esther, the queens of that particular king. The way they prepare for the marriage with the king is they would soak for a year in myrrh and then in different perfumes. I mean the pores would—I take baths these days once or twice a day. I have this scratching. I do the bath opens up the pores. The medicine gets in better. So you soak for 12 months in a series of stuff including perfumes and myrrh, and I mean you have that in you, you’re going to reek this nice smelling fragrance for the king.

And in the Song of Solomon, most of the usages that I found there were for men. So, you know, it’s not bad. Cologne, good thing. You know, maybe some of you little boys, you think it’s sort of silly these girls putting this sweet smelling perfume on, but you know, it’s all over the Bible. That’s what God’s bride does. She wants to smell good for her king. And the king wants to smell good for the bride in the Song of Solomon.

So, men, that’s okay too.

Now, children, I prepared two outlines, one for the adults and the other just a series of questions. You have to write in the answers so you don’t have to. But it might be useful for you to begin to learn how to take notes. I’m sure you are in your own homeschool anyway, but kind of keep your attention at least the first half of this sermon by writing in the answers to the questions.

And I’ll try to point out to you as we move through the adult outline which question we’re talking about so you can write in the right answer. That’s kind of what I’ll return back to this question of how well we got dressed up in preparing to worship God today.

Now, first I want to review where we’re at. We’ve had series of interruptions. I was gone and then we had different people and we had different things when I preached that election day sermon. So we’re kind of gotten out of sequence here. Remember, what we’re doing now is going through the seven letters to the seven churches.

Now, what I’m planning on doing is I’ll intersperse as we go through these next month or two of steady sermons on Revelation. I will intersperse some historical stuff so that next week, for instance, we’re not going to talk about the third letter yet. We’re going to talk about Balaam and Balak because that’s referred to in the third letter and you’re supposed to understand what it means. So I want to spend some time next week talking about that. We’ll talk about Jezebel in a couple of weeks. So we’ll intersperse some historical stuff, but all these next few sermons will be focused on these seven letters.

So we’re talking about these seven letters to the seven churches. And what we said is that by way of review, we said that the flow of the entire book of Revelation, and I think with the seven letters themselves, can be seen the flow of the seven days of creation.

Okay. So there’s your first question on your little kids sheet. There, or the older, the adults can fill them in to be good for you to know these things. You know there were seven creation days right? And so if you look at the book of Revelation you can kind of break it up and see correlations between these seven creation days.

So in Revelation chapter one, Jesus is the light. He comes and manifests himself. In the first day of creation, God made light. Well, what did God make on the second day of creation? God made the firmament and he divided the waters above and below the firmament. So he places the firmament. He brings some kind of division and order through division on the second day of creation.

And so in this section, the seven letters, there’s this division which Jesus goes through and looks at the churches. Each letter says I’m coming to you and I’m going to say you’re doing some things right and some things wrong and some churches are going to stand and others are going to be cast off. So he brings this separation or division. So it sort of correlates to the firmament structure.

Now we also said that another way to look at Revelation in the same sevenfold pattern is that there are seven feasts listed in Leviticus 23. That should be question three for the kids.

Leviticus 23 says—it’s very important for us as Christians to know the Bible. And really it’s tough because it’s a real big book and there’s lots of details, but God also gives us some very big patterns and makes it quite easy for us, really. And you know I would hope that by the time our children are, you know, teenagers or whatnot they’d be able to quickly rattle off the seven days of creation, think through what they mean, quickly rattle off the seven major feasts of the Old Testament because they’re all based on the same thing and they teach us stuff about Jesus’s work.

So in Leviticus 23 there are seven feasts. The first feast is the Sabbath, which is kind of the end of the creation week, but in a way it’s the beginning too, isn’t it? Our Sabbath is both the end and the beginning of the week as it were.

So on the Sabbath, God comes to be with his people and he sheds forth the light of Jesus. So in Leviticus 23, first feast listed is the Sabbath feast. And in Revelation 1, when does John receive this revelation of Christ? He receives it on the Lord’s day, what we call the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day.

And then the second feast in Leviticus 23 is Passover with unleavened bread. Passover, remember, God comes in, he visits the children of Israel in Egypt, and he says, “If you’ve got blood on the door, you’re going to be delivered tonight. And if you don’t have the blood on the door of your house, if you’re not covered by the blood, you’re going to be killed tonight.” And so he comes through and he makes this division like the firmament thing again.

He’s creating a people for himself, a heavenly people.

Okay. So in the same way the Passover in Leviticus 23 is the second feast, and the second part of Revelation after that Sabbath day appearance of Jesus in chapter 1—the second part is chapters 2 and 3. These seven letters. Jesus says I’m coming around. You covered by the blood or not? Are you faithful or not? And if you’re covered great, I’m going to give you the crown of life.

And if you’re not, I’m going to take you out. You’re not going to be a church anymore. Okay? If you don’t have the blood on the door, and I’m going to tell that by the way you act and how well you respond to what I tell you to do.

So see these correlations are real obvious for the most part. So I’ve given you an outline reminding you in terms of the review structure here again that what we’ve got is we’ve got seven churches that are receiving seven letters.

And so one way to outline the book of Revelation is this sevenfold pattern like I just mentioned, and I give you that on here. The second portion of that being the seven appearances or seven letters to seven churches. And kids, that’s question number five.

Another way to look at it, a little simpler if you get a little lost with sevens: the Bible also talks about fours. It’s kind of interesting. I understand that you can’t really look at seven dots and see seven immediately. You got to kind of add them up somewhat. The researchers tell us. I don’t know. But four you can. Four is real easy to think of four things. Boom. You see four dots, you know it’s four. See seven dots, you got to kind of put them in groups, four and three or whatever.

A lot of people So anyway, a simpler outline here for you to look at is that, you know, we’re talking here about this four-part outline where you’ve got seven letters and they’re introduced by Jesus first in the first chapter. Two and three is seven letters. And after that, in chapters six and seven are these seven seals on this book that Jesus receives. Chapters four and five, you got Jesus there, too. So you got Jesus coming with seven letters. And then in chapters 4 through 7, you got Jesus ascending to heaven to get the seven sealed books. That’s like the second section.

Third section, the seven trumpets. At the end of the seven trumpet section, there talks about the woman and it talks about the dragon and the beasts and the saints of God get harvested. You know, thousands of Christians were martyred leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. That song we sang about the host of Radiant White that came out of the great affliction. What was the great affliction? Well, I believe the scriptures tell us the great affliction was the horrendous persecution that came upon Christians between, oh say, 65 and 70, leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem. And Rome was persecuting the Christians.

So the end of the trumpet section, a lot of Christians get killed, but they’re not really killed. They’re harvested and they’re taken up to heaven and that produces more evangelism on the earth. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. You might have heard people say that, and it’s true.

So you got seven letters, you got seven seals, you got seven trumpets and then finally at the end of the book you got seven bowls. Judgment poured out and that bowl section—again, like the trumpet section had that, the implication of the trumpet for the woman and the dragon and the serpent and the church. The end of the seven bowl section, we see the beautiful—we see some talk about how the dragon and the woman are judged and then the church is made beautiful, but that’s really part of the bowl section. It’s that seventh bowl angel that shows John the beautiful city come down out of heaven.

See, it’s part of that same section.

So, you know, it’s real easy to think of the book of Revelation if you think of this four-part outline where you’ve got these seven letters, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls. And we’re in the seven letter section, the opening section of the book.

Okay? And just like we started with the book of Ephesus, we are going to start again today by talking about some of the—in terms of turning to the text and leaving a review—general, structural, and literary observations.

Seven letters give it, give us a model of how to “one another one another.” Remember I said that this is real important: Jesus coming to his children to discipline them. And it gives us an example of how we’re supposed to do that. In each of these seven letters to the seven churches, he comes first and says, “This is who I am. You need to hear this. I’m the measure.”

Okay? “I walk among the seven lampstands cuz I love them. That’s what’s implied. How well do you love each other in Ephesus? You see?” And he tells them then, I see who you are. I know certain things about you. I know some good things about you. He begins with those usually. But I have this against you. You got some bad things going on, too.

And parents, I said that it’s real important. You know, we’re all so prone—because of the problems of the busyness of our schedules, etc.—to just always be telling our kids what they’re doing wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And you know, we want to put it in the context of who they are. These are the children of Christ. And these are his brothers and sisters, and these are ones that we want to remind them of what they’re doing right. “I know you’re doing this good. I’ve seen you do this, child. Now, this area, you got some problems in.”

See, so we bring the measure of the Bible, who Jesus is, to our discipline, to our one another and othering one another, particularly in the context of the family, but also in the context of other relationships.

So here to the church at Smyrna, he does the same thing. The second letter is sent to the city that is called Smyrna. It’s the letter to the church at Smyrna. That’s what we read in verse 8. “Unto the angel of the church in Smyrna, right?”

And then he’s going to say who is—they begin with this greeting. As I said, the word Smyrna means myrrh. M-y-r-r-h. Spice, Christmas time, right? Remember the three kings, three wise men rather, and they brought frankincense, gold, and myrrh was one of the things they brought. So Smyrna means myrrh.

Jesus comes and he says he’s the measure. “These things saith the first and the last. These things say he who was dead and is alive.” His measure of his being alive through death, his resurrection, is what he’s calling the church at Smyrna to attain to: be faithful unto death to receive the crown of life. You see, so Christ is the measure.

And then he says, I know some things about you. He says, “I know thy works, thy tribulation”—that means intense pressure, difficulties, pain. “I know your poverty.” The word means really, really poor. There were two words for poverty. One just sort of meant kind of poor and this one meant really, really poor. These Christians were under persecution. They probably weren’t allowed to work. They probably had a lot of their lands and property confiscated by the Jews working with the Romans. They were under a lot of difficulty, strain, and persecution, affliction. And as a result, they were poor.

But he tells them, “You’re poor, but you know, I know you’re rich.” And we’ll get to that in a couple of minutes.

“And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” The word blasphemy there probably means slander is a better way to say it. I know you’re being slandered a lot too by these Jews. They run off to the Roman officials in this big capital town of Rome. You know, competed with Ephesus for being the most important Roman city in the world at that time.

And they run off to the Roman officials. “You know what those Christians are doing over there? Or they’re eating their babies over there or they’re saying they hate Caesar. They’re doing this and that or the other thing.” That’s what the Jews perpetually did here. The Jews would work up the Roman government against the Christians and they’d come to the churches and they’d take them out and they’d beat them and kill them or they take their property, whatever it was.

And it got a lot worse as we move toward AD 70.

So they were being slandered by them that say they are the Jews, the false church, right? But they’re not really Jews or the synagogue of Satan. See, there’s no neutral. There’s no middle ground here where we want to think of the Jews who aren’t Christians as good people somehow. People of the Old Testament. No, he says those that call themselves Jews, who cling to the Old Testament and reject what the Old Testament taught—Jesus—he says, don’t think of them as Jews. They’re the synagogue of Satan. Satan’s in there with them. Satan’s the accuser of the brethren. They’re acting like Satan. They’re devils. Martin Luther’s words. These are devils that come after the church because they slander the church. That’s what Satan means, the accuser of the church.

Jesus says on the measure: And I know some things about you. And I know some other things, too. He says, “Fear none of these things which thou suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison. You’re going to jail.” That’s what I got to tell you. Jesus says, “That you might be tried and you shall have tribulation 10 days, tough times. But be faithful unto death.” You’re not just going to jail. You got to be prepared to die. And a lot of you are going to die. That’s what he’s telling them.

“Be faithful unto death. So he tells him some things about himself and then he gives him the reward.

Notice what’s absent here though from what we saw in Ephesus. Remember in Ephesus, “I know you’re doing good. You got these you trying the heretics. You’re keeping them out, but I have this against you. You left your first love.” Here there’s nothing. There’s no criticism of the church. So here in one another in this church, Jesus comes as the measure and all he does is commend them. He doesn’t chastise them at all.

He just encourages them to faithfulness. There’s no sin that he addresses.

Now, that’s another example to us, isn’t it? Parents, we don’t want to wait till our kids are doing something wrong to come to them and encourage them, particularly if we know that there’s going to be trials or tribulations. There could be a stumbling block in front of them. Whatever it is, we want to see this as a model to us as well to go to our children and commend them and to commend one another, to commend our wives and husbands, not just always talking about what we’re doing wrong.

Okay. So, then in this one anothering situation, then Jesus comes and then tells them things that he knows, what Jesus has seen. Then he says what they must do. What do they have to do? At the center of this section is “fear not.” And then he tells them, “Persevere, be faithful unto the end.” So they don’t have to make any corrections. They just got to keep holding on. They just got to keep doing what they’re doing.

They’re doing great. Things are going to get even worse, though. And he just wants them to continue to do what is right. And then he gives them promises. What Christ will do then? What will he do? Well, he’s going to give him the grace to do this. He is the resurrection himself. And he tells them that if they’re faithful, he’ll give them the crown of life.

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”

So if they’re faithful, what Jesus will do, he points it out to him. We’re going to give you the crown of life. You won’t be hurt by the second death. So he gives these great rewards out there if they’re persevering and faithful even unto death.

Okay? So that’s the way to one another, one another. That’s the way to bring correction and discipline to each other. And that’s what Jesus does to this particular church. And it’s different from Ephesus because there’s no common condemnation. They weren’t doing anything wrong that we know of.

Okay.

Now, we’ve also said that these seven letters all reflect the creation week. We talked about that just a little bit a couple minutes ago. But here we’d say that Smyrna would reflect the second day of the creation week if the pattern works, which is the day that God created the firmament.

And in the Old Testament, God was creating a heavenly people. Can’t spend a lot of time on this, but if you look at the way the people of God were encamped around God, for instance, in the wilderness, even the census numbers can reflect the heavenly astral images, the stars and the constellations. Now, if that’s weird to you, don’t worry about it. But believe me, I’ve got tapes and if you want to listen to them, other people do as well, because they’re a heavenly people.

You see, they’re a firmament people. There’s a sense in which the firmament kind of mediates heaven to earth. You know, you got heaven and earth and the firmament dividing them. And the firmament people, God’s people, us too—Ephesians says we’re seated in the heavenlies and we mediate God to the earth. We’re bringing heavenly images to earth. We pray that things might be done on earth as they are in heaven.

And then we work. We’re the vehicle that God uses as his firmament people to bring that to pass.

Kind of an example of this: when we were back east one of these trolley bus tours, they said that these had these churches with one of these rounded tops of the Eastern Orthodox churches. They have these rounded tops kind of a spiral fashioned up. You probably seen them pictured in Russia in the USSR, which is Orthodox. It’s kind of a spinning circle with a pointed top. And they said the what that really means is what’s being displayed there is that earth is being turned up into heaven. So everything on earth is kind of being taken up into heaven.

I don’t know. I heard it on a trolley tour. It must be right, right? I don’t know. But it’s a nice image, if it’s right or wrong, because what it is true is that God’s people, the church—not that we’re escaping earth, but we are bringing heavenly things into earth and seeing earth from a heavenly perspective.

Okay. So that kind of relates, and I put on your outline here that the people of God particularly in the Old Testament through death and resurrection—that’s what’s being pictured in Smyrna with Jesus—are constituted as the firmament people meeting between God and the world.

Now the third thing we’ve said is that these seven letters also review the past history prior to AD 70. So what part of the Old Testament do we think that this particular letter refers to, or reminds us of, I guess is another way to say it? And the answer to that is the patriarchs. Patriarch. P-A-T-R-I-A-R-C-H-S. Patriarchs. Patriarch. Pater—fathers, the old fathers of the Old Testament. And we think of Moses—we think of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

And in each of those examples of their lives, there is this picture, as there is at Smyrna, of death and resurrection, you know, culminating in Joseph.

But you can see it earlier. Noah—you know, I’m sorry, I said Moses, I meant Noah. I’m going to mess little children up in their church history forever by getting it out of sequence. Moses is later. Noah is who I meant to say is the first church father—they’re the patriarchs.

Noah has to go into a boat, right? And the whole world dies and he kind of goes into the belly of the boat and then he comes back out resurrected. It’s a death and resurrection theme. The New Testament tells us that’s what it is.

Abraham—how is Abraham dead? Well, he’s also poor, isn’t he? You know, one of the things that the Old Testament church was to confess once a year was, “My father was a wandering Aramean.” Oh, Abraham, he had nothing. He was just told to go out to a land that he knew not. Now, we think of Abraham as rich. Well, he did become rich, but he didn’t start rich. He started rather poor. Wandering Aramean, you see? So he went from poverty to riches, which is what Jesus tells Smyrna. They’re going from poverty, but they’re really rich.

Okay? But Abraham had a wife and Abraham, the scriptures tell us, was dead in his lines, as it were. Couldn’t have children. And his wife was barren. And then, as I said in the scriptures, it specifically tells us this is a picture of death. Romans 4 it says that Abraham was not weak in faith. He considered not his own body now dead when he was about 100 years old neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

Romans 4 says he is dead, but he comes back to life and Sarah comes back to life as it were. She conceives a child long past when she should have been able to have children and long past when Abraham could have had good seed. So it’s a picture of death and resurrection.

Isaac. Well, hey, he was going to be killed, right? Abraham’s going to take Isaac up according to the command of God and kill him up there on that mountain. Now, Abraham knew Isaac was going to come back to life. The scriptures tell us that—in the book of Hebrews—that he wasn’t, not that he didn’t know that Isaac wouldn’t come back to life, and he took Isaac up to offer him.

And Genesis 22, he tells his servants, he says, “You stay here at the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and we’ll come back to you.” “We’ll both come back.” That’s what it reads in the Hebrew. Well, God told him Isaac was going to die up there. What does he mean? We’re both going to come back? Well, Hebrews tells us what he meant because Hebrews 11 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was tried offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Now listen, accounting rather—accounting—Abraham believing that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.

See, he—whatever happened, if he pushed the knife into his chest or whatever happened up there—he knew Isaac was coming back. He knew God was going to raise Isaac up. So Isaac’s a picture of death and resurrection.

Jacob, same thing. Great persecution, struggling with his brother. And his—Isaac’s bride is barren. Jacob’s bride is barren. These barren women, dead wombs. What Romans 4 says about Sarah and implication the rest of them. And they all come back to life.

Joseph is the big picture though. Joseph is the big picture of this. Remember Joseph? He’s thrown into a pit into the earth. He’s buried and he’s brought back up out of the pit. He’s thrown into prison. Picture of death. Comes back out of prison to rule the world. See death and resurrection. Joseph’s brothers tell his dad. They send back some blood and they say, “Hey, you know, on his garment, Joseph was killed. Joseph died.” And Joseph is a picture of that going into the pit first, being brought back out, going into prison, being brought back out.

So Smyrna has the—the letter to the church at Smyrna has these references to the patriarchs and particularly, as I said, to Joseph as the culmination of all of those.

So we see that this is the period then that this letter has significance to—the second period of Old Testament history, which was the patriarchal period. We start in the garden. We start in Ephesus. We want to be able to eat in the paradise of God. But we sin. We leave our first love. God brings us back to life and he constitutes us a kingdom during the patriarchal period culminating in Exodus.

Okay? They’re moved out of the garden. They’ve been restored back through death and resurrection. They’re constituted a kingdom people. And then they’re going to go out and conquer. And when we talk about Balaam and Balak next week, they’re on their way to conquer Canaan when they’re met with Balaam and Balak. That’s the next period of history. See? It’s the conquering period.

So this period is the period of the patriarchs.

Okay.

Four on the outline now. And now we’re on to, if you’re for the children, question number 10 will be addressed in this section. The seven letters emphasize church discipline. Remember we said that, and both the beginning and ending churches are faithful churches, but they’re compromised. Okay, Ephesus was faithful, but it was compromised and it’s got to clean things up.

We get to the next three letters—letters 3, four, and five—they really go downhill in terms of how well they’re doing keeping the church pure till by the end of those three churches, the church is basically dead and Christ is going to take them out.

Okay, but so discipline is obviously important to these seven letters. Well, what sin does Jesus discipline at Smyrna? Well, the answer is no sin. As I said earlier, he doesn’t mention anything wrong in this one at all.

What sin of the church of Smyrna does Christ tell them about? Nothing. What does it mean? It means that in terms of church discipline or exhortations, some churches don’t need to be told, “Straighten up your act. Return to your first love. Deal with Jezebel. Deal with the Balamites. Deal with the enemies you’re letting be in the church.” Some don’t need to hear that. What they need to hear is just keep on keeping on. Keep doing the right thing. Hold on.

And there are times in our lives, hopefully a lot of times in our lives, and that’s what we need to hear.

See, it’s true of the church, but it’s also true of us as individuals. God is always coming to us chastising us. He’s coming to us frequently bringing us through trials and tribulations, but not for any sin. This church has tremendous tribulation, probably the worst of any of the churches. And yet they’ve got no sin that he says resulted in their tribulation.

You see, just because you’re going through tribulation or trials doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Now, you start there. You think you ought to be sensitive. “Am I sinning, God?” But God says, “No, you’re doing okay. It’s just going to be tough for you. Might be tough for, you know, a couple of years here for you. Just hang on. Maybe you’ve got an illness, a perpetual illness throughout your life. And an aspect of your life is going to be tough rest of your life. It’s the way it’s going to be.” God says, “Just hold on. Just be faithful.

I’m not chastising you for sin. I’m just going to bring it to correction.”

Now, next Sunday, churches across the world have decided to focus on November 16th praying for churches that are persecuted. So in the providence of God, right in the middle of this talk on Smyrna as we approach this Sunday next week a special prayer for the persecuted churches of the world. God’s been very good and providing us lots of materials through the Voice of the Martyrs. They have a special issue just on the prayers for this coming Sunday. They have other issues where they talk about the persecuted churches.

You know you read this epistle. Well, we’re not too much like this church. We’re not being having our lands taken away. We’re not being killed, not being thrown into prison for the faith. But there are places in the world where they are. And they don’t—you know, we don’t—when we see a church or a series of churches in another country being persecuted, don’t always think that’s cuz they’re sinning.

They just need to hear the message. And we’re going to pray next week that God would just strengthen them in their resolve to keep on keeping on, to be faithful in the work for the Savior in spite of great persecutions.

So sometimes that’s all churches need.

Fifth, the first three of these letters describe assaults on the saints. Last week in Ephesus, he said that you got these Nicolaitans. Nike—you know those shoes? You know why they call it Nike shoes? Because it means victorious or conquerors. So if you wear Nike shoes, you’re going to win the basketball game. Nike. Nicolaitans. It’s the same thing. It comes from Nike and Laos. You know the country Laos. It just means people. People. So it means Nicolaitans were people conquerors. They won. They conquered people. That’s what Nicolaitans were.

This in this letter to Smyrna, the enemy of the church at Smyrna are called Jews. Okay, that’s what they’re specifically told as who are the big enemies to the church in Smyrna? Question 11. They were the Jews. And then in the next letter, the letter to the next church, to Pergamum. The big enemy there are called Balamites. Balaam is the same as Nicolaitans. No, it doesn’t sound the same, but it is cuz Nicolaitan is Greek. And Balaam comes from two words meaning to eat people. Am Baal. Am—it just means people in the Hebrew and Baal refers to eating or food.

So you got people conquerors, Jews, people eaters. And what we’ll say next week in more detail is the next couple of weeks is that basically these are all the same enemies. The church had the same basic enemy. Smyrna’s big enemy was the Jews. The big enemy to all the churches during the time leading up to AD 70 was not Rome. It was the Jews. Now the Jews would talk to Rome and get Rome and the government worked up against the Christians.

But the problem was not the state. The problem really was the false church.

The problem for Isaac rather was Ishmael, the false brother. The problem for Jacob was Esau. You know, the problem in the opening pages of the scriptures in Genesis 1 is the bad brother. And so here it’s those that claim to be Jews that really aren’t.

So the enemies to the church are pictured. So what’s the big enemy for us today? If this is true, if this is a pattern for how history works, our big enemy isn’t Washington DC or Salem. Our big enemy is the false religion of the people that keeps telling Salem and Washington DC to do more and more things to hurt God’s people. And ultimately the problem is the liberal church. The church that doesn’t believe in the Bible.

I’m talking about churches that you know that are somewhat wrong in the law or predestination. I’m talking about churches that just don’t believe the Bible anymore. And for you know, United Presbyterian Church, the for the most part the Episcopalian Church, major denominational churches which used to be good came out of the Reformation. They’ve gone bad and they’re the ones who are trying to get the government to do things more and more to control more and more people’s lives.

So the big enemy for us today is the false church, not the state.

Okay.

Then six, the first four letters prefigure the major enemies of Christ and described in chapters 2 through 18 of Revelation. So Revelation has these various enemies of the church throughout the book. And here at the beginning of the book, it’s kind of like a table of kind—little you know, this play will contain these particular roles in it—and we see the roles sketched out for us right at the beginning in these first four letters.

In Ephesus there are false prophets and apostles. So they’re persecutors. They’re trying them. That’s good. The church is they’re throwing them out, but they got these enemies of false apostles and prophets. Today it’s false Israel. And throughout the book of Revelation, particularly in the seven seal section, the Jews are the ones that are false Israel as the opponents to Jesus Christ.

In Pergamum we’re talking about the king and prophet. Balaam and Balak. He’s the prophet. Balaam. Balak is the king. So the false king, the false prophet is talked about in that third letter.

In the fourth letter, Jezebel, the great prostitute, which also is a major figure in the book of Revelation.

Okay.

Now, that’s basically all the questions, kids, on your little thing. And what I want you to do now is just have big ears to hear these concluding fairly simple points of application from this text.

Looking at the big stuff. And now we’re going to look at more individual—or these are still big themes, big themes that are not common to all the letters but to this particular letter. And I’ve just got two points basically with a series of subpoints under number one.

So specific observations on verses 8-11. I think I had 1 through 7 on the outline. That’s incorrect. I did. Sorry about that.

See in bold type toward the bottom: specific observations on 2:8-11, the letter to the church at Smyrna. What’s going on? We read through it, a little saw how Jesus sees what’s going on with them, how he portrays himself to be. But what’s really kind of—what can we say in summation? What does this letter have to say to us today?

Well, I think generally speaking, one thing I want—and this is for little children, teenagers, adults—you all can get this. One thing that I think is being said is that things are not always as they seem. Things are not as they appear. The eyes that we see things with, the obvious things we see, are not always right. In fact, they’re frequently wrong. God’s truth requires a little more digging to see what’s really going on.

Things are not as they seem.

First of all, we’ve got this resurrected city of Smyrna, but opposed to that, we have the resurrection and the life. What you talking about, Dennis? Well, Smyrna was a resurrected city. Smyrna, oh, five, six centuries before Jesus came—before this letter is written—they had died completely. They were completely sacked as a city. And then about a 100 years later they were completely rebuilt. So the city itself—Smyrna—the providence of God went through a death and a resurrection and it was a beautiful city. It was the most beautiful city of the whole world maybe at that time. And it was one of the very first, if not the first, planned city. When it was rebuilt, it was rebuilt according to a civil government’s plan.

You know how in Portland they’re trying to take a city that began not as a planned city and make it into a planned city through the Tri-Met? Or not Tri—the metro. Thank you very much. The three counties working together, trying to plan out everything. How big should the houses be? Where should the roads be? Every mile and a half we need a road, etc., etc., etc.

Well, this city was built that way from the get-go. It was a status city in its resurrection form. Okay? And it had this beautiful golden street. It was known as a resurrected city.

And so it portrays itself—and if you go to Smyrna during this time, you see this beautiful city and you say, “Wow, this is really resurrection, isn’t it? This city went from death to life.” And Jesus says, “No, I am the one who is dead and is alive.”

Jesus told the woman at the well, I am the resurrection. See, Smyrna had this mythology about it in terms of some death and resurrection. They had weird religious practices. There—remember, like at Ephesus, the prophet, the people that worked at the temples would be castrate themselves. They wouldn’t be men anymore.

Well, at Smyrna, they went a step further and actually wear long hair and wear female clothes as well. The men would. So total emasculation in service to the political state is what the planned city ran in terms of how it kept itself going. It believed that only through the sacrifice of emasculation, okay, could the new, neutral earth receive the kind of injection it needed to grow up a beautiful city like Smyrna.

So you get this false picture of how life comes, and contrast that—Jesus come and says I tell you the church in Smyrna, this supposed resurrected city: I am the one who was dead and sprang back to life. And that’s what it means in the Greek. The emphasis when Jesus says “I was dead and I’m alive now”—it says I was a corpse and I sprang back to life. I’m the resurrection life.

The historical reality of Christ’s death and resurrection is portrayed in distinction, in opposition, to the idea the civil state emasculating men for the great mother goddess can produce life.

Now, that’s a pretty contemporary theme for us, isn’t it? Because we look around and we see a culture in our day and age that thinks the same thing. Maybe hasn’t gone quite that far literally, but we’re certainly moving that way politically and otherwise. And by the way, political action was big to this people in Smyrna. Men would emasculate themselves in temple worship and then they’d really work hard in the political arena to bring this resurrection to pass.

And we don’t want to get sucked into thinking that way. We don’t want to get sucked into thinking that somehow it’s political action that’s going to bring resurrection life to Portland. We got to do some of that stuff, but it’s the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the preaching of Christ, not the ballot box, that determines whether this city comes back to life. He is the resurrection and the life. There’s no resurrection of life apart from him.

Apart from him, Smyrna is a big dead hulking corpse. It doesn’t look that way. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Things are not as they seem. The city seemed like it had everything going, but it didn’t. City was pagan. City had rejected Christ. And Christ came.

Now, Christ also says, “I’m the first and the last. I am eschato—eschatology is what Jesus is saying. I’m the endpoint of everything.” And in Smyrna—it’s going to stay Smyrna. It’s the church at Smyrna. We’re not changing the name, he says, but it’s going to—it’s going to—with the advent, as it were, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ through the church of Jesus Christ and Smyrna being faithful and being witnesses to him—eventually that city will be converted.

I’m the first and I am the last. I’m the endpoint and I’m what Smyrna will move toward, and I’m going to—so I’m the end and I’m also the means by which that end is attained. I am the resurrection life. And as you, the people of God, move in the power of resurrection life, then Smyrna will truly be a reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection power. Doesn’t look that way now. He says, but it that is, that is really what it is about.

Secondly, look at the outward poverty of the myrrh church as opposed to the actual great wealth. He says, “I know you’re poor. You got nothing. Your bank accounts are empty. Probably not eating real well. Maybe getting kind of thin because you’re not eating much food, but you’re rich. You’re super abundantly rich.”

We look around and we think, you know, gee, we don’t have much money, but hey, God says you’re rich. Think of the blessings that he has poured out on you. I thought about this sermon just talking about all of you individually from up here. I decided against it, but which is probably a good thing. But you know, think of every one of you and think of tremendous ways that God has blessed you in these last few years. Don’t think of yourself as poor. No matter what your bank account looks like, you’re rich toward God.

And on the other hand, the scriptures warn us over and over that if you think you’re rich because you’ve got money, forget it. He’ll tell that later to another one of these letters to the other church. He said, “You think you’re rich. You’ve prospered. You’re doing real good. You got that interest rate going for you. But forget it.” He said, “You’re poor. You’re naked. You’re destitute. You’re starving.”

And our culture today thinks it’s rich, but it isn’t. Things are not as they seem. And maybe you are starting to think, hey, I’m doing pretty good financially. I’m doing all right. No, don’t start thinking that way. Be rich toward God.

Timothy was told to exhort the rich people in the congregation not to rely on these riches, but rather to be rich in good works toward God.

The church at Laodicea, he says, “You’re naked and miserable and poor. And I advise you to buy from me gold and to buy from me garments.” And as I said, Timothy was told by Paul to tell them that they do good, that they be rich in good works.

I thought this section we could call this a good get-rich quick scheme here. I’m going to tell you about. And it’s true. You want to get rich? Start doing good works for God. Start helping your brothers and sisters at home. Start helping your wives. Start helping your husbands. Start helping other people at the church.

Get up every day. You know, the Jews do this some today. I’ve heard Michael Medved on the Rush Limbaugh show say that they try to do a mitzvah every day, a good deed. And we don’t want to do good deeds to earn salvation. We want to do them because we love Jesus. We want to return to our first love and then do good deeds. And I’m telling you, if you get up every day thinking, “How can I help someone today in the name of Christ?” you’re going to start building a bank account quickly with God.

Be rich toward God, congregation of the Lord. May we all—I know the adults here. I know you’re all rich. I know your deeds and your works. But I know that we need to teach our children that. And we need to teach our children that the true wealth comes from loving God and doing things every day for the people of God, for your brothers and your sisters, patiently suffering, going out of your way to help them.

Do some small thing today for someone else at this church. And we become rich toward God.

Things aren’t always what they seem. Might seem poor, but this church was absolutely—they were so wealthy he couldn’t even bring one charge against them. They were that wealthy toward God.

See, the successful synagogue of Satan, the Jews, versus the true church in Smyrna. There was a huge Jewish colony in Smyrna and they had a big bunch of synagogues. They were a real successful church, but they’re the synagogue of Satan. Jesus says it’s the church of Smyrna that’s the true church of God.

So things aren’t always as they seem.

A persecuted church is not necessarily persecuted because it’s sinning. We think that, see, but things aren’t always as they seem. Jesus, for all his own particular purposes, just wants to keep some churches small and struggling and suffering because he’s got plans for them. And we’ll talk about that at the end—what those plans are.

D. We who try others also got to be tried. In Ephesus, they did a good job. They were trying all the heretics, doing a good job of church discipline. And we say, “Yeah, that’s what we like to do. We want to try other people, you know, see if everybody’s doing what’s right.”

Well, guess what? That begins with: Are you being tried? Uses the same word here. You’re going to be thrown into prison so that you can be tried or assayed or tested. Your metal, how what you’re made of is going to be tried first here in the context of this church.

Things aren’t always as they seem. We know the church rules, but it doesn’t mean that we are not tried. Indeed, we are tried by God. Jesus isn’t just the end point of history. He’s also the means—his death and resurrection. God sees fit. Most important point here, and this day and age when the church so often today in America teaches prosperity—you know, and name it and claim it and you can be wealthy and all.