183. The Church of Smyrna (Part 1)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 183 the letter to Smyrna part one

Well, hello everybody and welcome back to the podcast. My name is

Kendall and I'm so glad that you are here I just want to say right off the bat man.

I am I've missed you guys we've been gone from the show for about a month so far and It's been crazy busy here at the

Shepherd's Church in Massachusetts And I just want to give you a little bit of an update so that you can be praying for us

So why have we been gone for a month from this show? Well, we've been looking for a building for a very long time and as you may imagine buildings in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and the greater

New England area are very Expensive and we're currently renting a little space here in the town of Chelmsford and and it's small and we're running out of room and we're running out of storage and we've just kind of had it on our heart for a while that we're supposed to find a place a permanent home for us to establish roots and to dig deep and to share the gospel and to build a kind of base of Operations so that we can do ministry for the next hundred years, right?

well a By the fact that there's just not a lot of buildings buildings are very expensive and we haven't found the right fit

Well recently we found a wonderful building that we are that we're currently pursuing that is listed as 1 .2

million dollars we're hoping that we can get that down to roughly a million dollars or just a little bit north of a million dollars and Then we'll be able to pull the trigger and we'll be able to have finally a building

This is a former church building. That's been that's recently been used as a daycare

So it already has the use case for us in mind. It would be a Fantastic place.

It is in New Hampshire. It's in the town of Londonderry, New Hampshire It's 40 Mammoth Road, Londonderry, New Hampshire So I want to ask you to pray pray that that we would receive this building that we would get this building that we'd be

Acquire it and also pray that we would be able to raise the money because we're a small little church in New England We're we don't have unlimited resources.

So I'm asking you to pray Also, if you'd feel led to give and to help make sure that we can secure this building

Then I would say go to www .theshepherds .church And click on the give tab and when you do that make sure that you click on the building fund all

Gifts that go to the building fund will go straight to this project so that we can have a permanent building in New England And maybe you're asking yourself

What why would I want to give to your church when I have a local church great question? You should only give to this church

Under a very narrow set of circumstances. Number one. You are currently tithing to your local church.

That means giving Faithfully 10 % of your income to your local church and if you're doing that and you believe that this ministry has blessed you and that and that the discussion of Postmillennialism and eschatology and culture and politics and all of that has been helpful to your walk with God Then great help us by supporting us get a building so that we can do more stuff like this in the future and so that we

Can get the gospel out to more people and help more people find freedom in the hope of Jesus not in a defeatist mentality but in a

Dominion mentality where we Understand that we're moving forward with the gospel.

So that's a little bit of the update That's where I've been for the last four weeks now as far as today's episode goes we are in the middle of a series on the seven churches of Revelation and we've been walking through each letter

We've only done one so far But these letters exist in chapters two through three of revelation and our plan is to go through these churches one at a time over several weeks and to examine them now the last time we were together we looked at the church of Ephesus the church that had done everything right except for the most important thing and that Was that they had lost their first love

Now if you haven't seen that episode I would encourage you to go back and to check it out because that episode is gonna be helpful for you to understand this episode and I would even say if you're new here and you

Have not seen any of the episodes that we've done on Revelation chapter 1 or Matthew 24 go back and check out those episodes because they're gonna lay the

Interpretive foundation for everything that we're doing in this series on the book of Revelation Just like you wouldn't start a book in the second chapter

Don't start this series in chapter 2 go back to chapter 1 look at the videos that we did there

They will make everything in today's episode land with a lot more force and a lot more clarity

So I commend that to you now this week We are gonna be looking at the second church out of seven and that church is the church of Smyrna And I want to tell you up front that this episode is one that I've been looking forward to for this entire little series on These seven churches not because it's the easiest letter it isn't

It actually is one of the hardest But the reason that I've been looking forward to it is that once you understand the world that this church was living in and once You see the city that they woke up in every morning and the pressures that they were

Navigating every day that they were at work and doing their life And once you see what Jesus says to them, it's gonna go from being an interesting letter to an absolutely stunning gospel declaration now today

We're gonna look at it by doing two very important things first we're gonna spend some serious time in the city itself and we're gonna look at its geography and its history and its mythology and its relationship that it had with Rome and we're gonna be looking at the very

Specific reasons why a faithful Christian there would not just experience social social awkwardness

But they would actually experience danger because it was dangerous to live there as a believer in Jesus We're gonna try to understand the argument that Smyrna was making about reality

Before we hear Jesus speak the gospel into it and that's gonna lead us to our second

Thing that we're gonna try to do today and that is we're gonna hear from Jesus directly how he

Speaks to the city of Smyrna and we're gonna watch him introduce himself to this church in a way that addresses every single thing that they're suffering in the city and Everything the city believed about itself and we're gonna be doing that with two phrases that are gonna

Absolutely Dismantle the entire civic theology that one of the most powerful cities in the

Roman world Believed about itself and that's what we're gonna accomplish today the rest of the letter what he says about their poverty and their accusers and their suffering and the things that are coming and All of that.

Well, that's gonna wait for the next two episodes We're gonna do three episodes on the city of Smyrna and the church that existed there and by the time that we're done today

You're gonna understand exactly Why every word of this letter hits as hard as it does and with that?

it's time for us to jump in and we're gonna do that by opening up our Bibles and Looking at Revelation chapter 2 verses 8 through 11.

This is what the Word of God says And to the angel of the church in Smyrna, right?

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 and the blasphemy by those who say they are

Jews and are not But are a synagogue of Satan do not fear what you're 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 ten days, but be faithful until death Erase that But be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life

He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches and he who overcomes

Will not be hurt by the second death and that leads us to part one

Welcome to Smyrna Now before we can understand what Jesus is actually saying to this church

We need to understand the world in which this little church was living in and the moment that we do that This letter is gonna go from like I said before Interesting to absolutely stunning and to do that We're gonna do a little bit of a geography lesson and I promise you that it absolutely matters

You see the seven letters in Revelation chapters 2 through 3 aren't arranged randomly

They actually follow an exact route that a first century mail carrier would have walked in order to deliver them starting at the port city of Ephesus and then heading about 60 miles north up the coastline until you arrived at the next major city

Which is the city of Smyrna. So when Jesus dictates these letters, he's not just picking out random cities out of a hat

He's actually following the postal route that he knows that the the mail carrier is gonna be carrying these letters

John's gonna write them John's gonna send them by boat to Asia Minor and then a mail carrier is gonna first go to Ephesus then to Smyrna and then to the rest of the city

So Jesus is doing this intentionally because he knows exactly where these people live

What's what their streets look like and what their city actually believes about itself and what it's costing them to follow him in a city like Smyrna Now Smyrna was a city that set on the western coast of Asia Minor Which again is modern -day

Turkey and it was a city that had a harbor that opened up into the

Aegean Sea And it had trade routes that connected it to everything worth connecting to in the

Roman province of Asia You see by the time that this letter was written Smyrna was one of the three greatest cities in the entire region and it competed with both

Ephesus and Pergamum for prestige and for population and for power and as far as we know ancient estimates put this city and its population somewhere between a 150 and 250

Thousand people which means that it was not a small town by any stretch of the imagination

Especially in the ancient world This was a global city with a thriving church and a church that was under serious and sustained and even organized

Civic pressure to conform to the patterns of life instead of believing the explicit gospel now

Here is something that should stop us in our tracks Because of the seven churches in the book of Revelation of the seven churches that received letters directly from King Jesus there's only two of them that get zero criticism from Christ Zero the the other five letters all receive some version of you did this you did this

But I have this against you but not Smyrna and not Philadelphia those two churches receive letters that contain nothing but acknowledgement of their righteousness and preparation for what they're about to face and Promise for the future and when you find out what the church in Smyrna was actually enduring

Then you'll start to see that the silence that Jesus gives about repentance here is is

Actually pretty astounding it becomes one of the most theologically loaded silences in all of the scriptures

This letter like I said is not a correction for anything that Smyrna is doing wrong

It's a letter of preparation for the evil that is about to be perpetrated against him

Jesus is not writing to a church that has wandered off course and needs to find its way back.

He's writing to a church That is walking exactly the road that he called them to walk and that road is running straight to the epicenter of pain and trial and Martyrdom and suffering you see the church in Smyrna even though it's living in a rich city is poor

They're being slandered there. They're about to be thrown into prison. Some of them are gonna die for their faith

And what Jesus does here is he looks at all of that and he says I see you.

I Know you and you're actually richer than you could ever dare dream

That's the frame for everything that follows and it matters Enormously because most of us if we're being honest have been quietly trained under this

American sort of system to think that Suffering is a signal of guilt that if things are going really badly

Then it must mean that God is displeased with us that hardships means that you've done something wrong

You've sinned so that now this evil has come upon you The disciples struggled with this as well when they saw the blind man

They asked Jesus who sinned his mother his father so that so that this would have happened to him and Jesus says no one this

Happens for the glory of God You see hardship doesn't always mean that you've done something wrong

This church is a truly blessed church Jesus doesn't correct them for any sin.

So how could it be? It's their sin that's causing them to suffer see, they're truly a blessed church and a blessed church doesn't mean that they always look successful by the standards of the world

Smyrna Doesn't just challenge that assumption it actually demolishes it from the ground up Sometimes the most faithful people in the room are the ones who are having and taking the hardest hits

Sometimes pressure is evidence of spiritual health not spiritual failure Sometimes Jesus writes to his church not to rebuke them but to simply make sure that they're ready for what is about to hit them and That's exactly what this letter does and the only way to hear it properly is to understand the city that it was sent to a city with a very

Specific story about itself about death and burial and resurrection and crowns and glory because as we're about to see the city of Smyrna thought that it had everything all figured out and Jesus is about to tell them that they don't have anything figured out and Jesus is going to Destroy them totally for what they do to his bride and persecuting his faithful people.

He's gonna prepare them for suffering he's gonna prepare Smyrna for destruction and that leads us to part two a city built on death

Now here is something that most people don't know about the ancient world And once you know it, you'll never actually read these letters the same way again

And that is cities in the first century Weren't just places where people lived and moved and did their stuff and where they worked and where they did their business, right?

They cities were actually arguments for worldviews every single temple every coin every festival

Every public building was making a claim about reality about who the gods were

About who was in charge About what history actually meant how people worked and how you were supposed to live your life in accordance with these facts

And if you walked through a first century city with your eyes open you were being preached at Constantly the architecture was a sermon the coins in your pocket were accreed the festivals on the calendar were your creeds

And catechisms a city wasn't just a collection of streets and markets It was a theological system that you were walking in and around and every

Every single part of it was telling you something about Who it is and who you are supposed to be in light of it

Think about it this way if someone from another country landed in Times Square in New York City Then they're gonna look around and they're gonna figure out a lot about what

Americans believe not just from the billboards and the advertisement, but the buildings and the crowds in the city itself would be communicating a worldview of who we believe we are as Americans and sadly, it's not a great story if you go to Manhattan Well first century cities would have worked the same way except they would have been much more intentional about what they were communicating than we are a whole lot less

Schizophrenic than Manhattan is a whole lot less of the random materialism and more about the what they actually viewed themselves as more about what they believe and Smyrna was one of the cities that proclaimed its legacy

Louder than any city in the Roman world and the core Argument that the city itself was making was that death is not the end of Smyrna That Smyrna has a kind of everlasting

Quality that Smyrna is the kind of city that can't be killed that the suffering that they've went through led to glory the

Loyalty that they have for Rome was gonna earn them crowns and all of it was guaranteed by the

Empire Now if you're paying attention to the text of Revelation 2 8 through 11

All of this should sound familiar because Jesus is about to speak into a city

That believes these things about itself and he's going to dismantle their theology

Peace by peace what Jesus says is not random. He's interacting with what Smyrna believes about itself

And in order to see that we have to understand the argument that Smyrna is making because the more clearly that you see

What Smyrna actually believes about itself? Then the more stunning Jesus's words to that church are gonna become and this begins with their geography

The physical layout of the city was important because in the ancient world Where you were built said something about who you are

Smyrna was built around a prominent Mountain called Mount Pagos and the city's most important public buildings were its temples and its government buildings and its grand colonnades that wrapped themselves around the base of the mountain and actually looked like a crown and That detail matters because ancient writers when they looked at the city of Smyrna from a distance they repeatedly

Described the city using a single word They all said that Smyrna looked like a crown that is sitting on top of a head

The mountain was the head the crown was the city that was sitting on loft it They said that Smyrna looked like a city that was crowned like it had a royal diadem a headband or a crown it

It was sitting atop its head and the hill was the head The buildings were the crown and Smyrna loved the fact that they had this image

The city's official coins the ones that were passed through thousands of hands every single day

Depicted the city's patron goddess wearing a crown because they believe that they were a royal city

They had this kind of crown imagery everywhere It showed up in their art in their architecture and their official self presentation in their public celebrations

It was sort of Myrna's official logo if you will It would have been like the

Empire State Building is synonymous with New York with a crown would have been synonymous with Smyrna But here's a critical detail that you have to understand in the ancient world a crown was not just a petty piece of headwear

And it wasn't just a like, you know The British crown is a kind of perfunctory performative role that really doesn't have any power a crown

Symbolized a verdict when someone was crowned it meant that history the gods and the powers

That be had to look at that person or that city and declare them of value and of worth

Crowns weren't decorative. They were judicial. They said that this one has been

Evaluated and Elevated above others and it's been approved. It's a one who's earned honor.

It's a one who's been Legitimized so when Smyrna plastered its crown imagery everywhere.

It wasn't just showing off It was making a theological claim about its authority in Asia Minor It's saying that we are the lead city of Asia Minor We are the ruling city of Asia Minor and through all of this it was making a theological claim

There they're saying that we're the ones who've been recognized we're the ones that have been set apart for rule we're the ones who have the chief city of the

Asia Minor and we're the ones who are Vindicated and we're the ones whose glory is deserved and the question that you might be asking yourself is vindicated from what?

Recognized because of what set apart for what? Why would they come to the conclusion that just because they built some colonnades around a mountain that somehow they have a right to rule?

why would they come to that conclusion and the answer to that question is where Smyrna and Its history becomes genuinely dramatic.

You see around 600 BC that's six centuries before John is writing the book of Revelation Smyrna was invaded by a

Lydian king named Eliades the second He was from the Lydians and they were a powerful kingdom in Asia Minor 600

BC time frame and Eliades was not the kind of conqueror who simply occupied a city and kept it running he completely dismantled

Smyrna Completely destroyed it burned it to the ground not just damaged it not just looted it not just pillaged it not even occupied it but utterly

Dismantled it so the great city of Smyrna, which was alive and well in the 6th century

BC Was dead and buried by Eliades of the

Lydians and Ancient writers even describe this event as a death and as a burial and for roughly three centuries the site of where Smyrna was

Formerly occupied sat in ruins almost like a corpse lying in a coffin the city that was once occupied is now only a symbol of death and ruin and it only

Existed in the fading memory of what used to be there and the people who used to talk about the city that used to be

There if you had visited Smyrna in 400 BC All you would have seen is a pile of rubble and you would have probably wondered to yourself

What happened here? but then

History turned in Smyrna's favor in the late 300s BC Alexander the

Great perhaps you've heard of him he swept through the entire region one of the most remarkable military campaigns in all of human history and Alexander himself

Reportedly had a vision on Mount Pagos the very hill that Smyrna was built around Encouraging the city's restoration and then there were people who began working on it

And after Alexander the Great died and his vast Empire was divided among his generals one of those four generals again, the

Empire of the Greeks was divided into four sections and those were the four great generals of Alexander the

Great and one of those generals a man named Lysimachus actually oversaw the physical rebuilding of the city of Smyrna in about 290

BC the city that was dead was raised now When Smyrna began to tell the story of its history

The word that they reached for to describe the events that happened in 290

BC was not Restoration it was not renovation. It was not rebuilding

The word that they used in the interpretation that they gave of what happened in 290 was resurrection

The city had died But they said in 290 and this is all in the record.

The city that died is the city that was raised They believed that the city had come back to life. They believed that the city had a resurrection and that is exactly how

Smyrna Chose to understand itself was they were the city that was dead, but they were the city that had a glorious resurrection

That was Smyrna's identity. It was the story that the city told about itself It was the story that they stamped upon their coins

It was the story that they celebrated in their festivals and it was woven in their fabric of how every citizen

Understood what kind of life they were living. We are living in the resurrection city So that by the first century

AD 290 years after its rebuilding Smyrna was pointing to its own past as proof that the gods favored it

Yeah, we were the city that was killed but the gods refused to let us die. So they raised us from the dead

This is why we're the crown city. This is why we have all of this pomp and circumstance and power and authority

This is why we're the chief city in Asia Minor because though we were dead we were raised by the gods

We were shown favor and honor and glory and vindication Because we're the city that overcame death so the city

Believed it had already experienced something like a resurrection and that made it special and that made it chosen and that made it blessed and that made it destined for Civic glory now when you layer that on top of the city's relationship that had with Rome You get a little bit a smattering of what

Smyrna's theology was when it was fully fleshed out and where it starts to collide directly with Christianity because Rome at its height was the most powerful empire in the

Western world and I think the most powerful empire that the world had ever seen

It controlled territory stretching from Britain to North Africa to the edges of Mesopotamia and Like all empires it needed its subjects to obey and it needed its subjects to believe in its power so that they would be afraid to challenge it to genuinely accept that Rome was in charge was to legitimize you and that Caesar's authority was actually sacred and that Roman order was a source of peace and prosperity and itself

Empires don't just conquer with their armies. They conquer with their stories and Rome was very

Very good at telling its own story. So what's gonna happen with Smyrna who believes that it's special when they're intersected with this unbelievable and unstoppable army of Rome and that's where things get interesting because part of the story of Smyrna is their adoption of the imperial cult the formal worship of the

Roman emperors as divine figures and gods And at the time in the first century, this was not a fringe belief.

This was mainstream. It was officials public practice It was interwoven into the particular religion of whatever region that you are part of the temples were built for the emperors

They priests were appointed to serve them sacrifices were offered in their honor festivals were celebrated in their name to participate in the imperial cult was to publicly affirm that Caesar was

Lord and that Rome's power was unmovable and unstoppable and that the Empire was the guarantor of every blessing worth having so Smyrna Came to this relationship

Not reluctantly actually They ran towards it as Far back as 195

BC. That's a hundred years after they were rebuilt more than two centuries before the events of Revelation occurs

Smyrna built a temple to the goddess Roma so here you have the city that was literally resurrected and one of the most politically savvy and Calculating moves that they foresaw in order to protect them from being

Redestroyed a second time was they gave themselves fully to Rome even building a temple to the goddess

Roma the divine personification of Rome itself Before almost anyone else in the

Providence had done this they did it They were the early adopters of the Roman religion because Roman religion fit perfectly into the story of Smyrna They were the city that had been raised and they certainly didn't want to be raised in a different way

They didn't want to be leveled to the ground. So Smyrna adopted the imperial cult early and Rome rewarded them supremely

Rome was the kind of place that crowned its faithful supporters with all sorts of blessings

Rome could take a defeated city and Restore it back to glory and it was the same story as Smyrna's resurrection

Just now wearing an imperial toga and Rome notice

Smyrna's allegiance in 80 26 the Roman Senate held a competition that they were gonna allow one city in the province of Asia to build a new temple to the

Emperor Tiberius and they had these cities in Asia Minor compete for that glory and Multiple major cities competed and Smyrna was the one who won and with that victory came the title of neo

Kouros which is a Greek word that literally means the temple warden So by the first century this crown city now in bed with Rome has become the most prestigious city in all of Asia Minor even having the title as Temple warden of the

Imperial Cult of Rome to be neo Kouros in that time meant that your city had been officially entrusted with a

Temple of the Imperial Cult of Rome and it meant that you were gonna be the liturgical Center of the

Roman world which meant Roman favor and Roman blessings. It came with economic benefits. It came with political clout

It came with status it came with a very clear signal that you and your city stood at the top of the social hierarchy as it relates to the

Empire and It meant that you could call in favors from Rome when you had

Rivals or when you had things that were happening in the region that you needed protection from because you've already signaled your loyalty to Rome They would protect you.

So for Smyrna winning the neo Kouros title was not just a

Political victory and not just for their status. It was a theological Confirmation that they were the city that was special.

It meant that Rome looked at Smyrna and recognized it and its loyalty and crowned That's that word again it with honor and in this way the city's ancient mythology and its imperial

Present merged into one seamless story. We are the ones who suffered we are the ones who died

We are the ones who are restored because we're the ones who are loyal and now we get the crown and all of this

According to the city of Smyrna is what life looks like when the gods and when Rome and when everything is on your side

Emperor worship in Smyrna was not just experienced as a burden or as a compromise

It was celebrated as a civic virtue the whole city. It's mythology.

It's architecture. It's economy It's religion. It's civic pride We're all pointing in the same direction and all telling the exact same story

Smyrna had the whole package it had the ancient pedigree the religious narrative the

Resurrection story the imperial favor the crown of glory and a thriving economy for everyone who played along which tells us exactly

Why the city of Smyrna was so particularly dangerous? to early

Christian believers and a part of that now I need to introduce another concept on top of this is

Because of the trade guilds that existed in the city because most Modern readers are gonna skip right past this and miss something absolutely essential about why

Christians in Smyrna were poor in the first century and in the

Roman world if you wanted to work in virtually any skilled trade whether you were a metal worker a cloth merchant a shoemaker candle maker

Baker a Builder or anything else then you needed to belong to a trade guild a trade guild was kind of like a modern -day

Union, it was like a professional Association a social club and a religious fraternity all rolled into one

They were the ones who set the standards. They were the ones who provided you with the connections they're the ones who offered you the community and they're the ones that held regular feasts and Gatherings that were all central to the professional social and civil life of the city

Now here's the problem for Christians. You're living in a city that thinks it's special You're living in a city that is utterly dedicated to Rome and you're living in a city where the social

Contract is you have to participate in these guilds in order to have any level of economic prosperity at all

So the problem for Christians was those guild feast almost

Universally involved the worship of pagan gods Meat that had been sacrificed to idols was served at every single table in the guild toasts were made to the gods and to the

Emperor Participation in the religious ceremonies was not optional If you wanted to be a part of the trade guild, you had to go along with the religion

It was the price of admission to the guild and therefore it was a price that Christians could not pay

This was not a great area for early believers in Christ You could not participate in idol worship and worship

Jesus Which meant that you could not fully participate in the guild which meant that your professional standing in the city was

Compromised your business connections were limited Your social network was fractured your income took a serious hit and on top of all of that civic advancement in the city a city like Smyrna Required public

Demonstrations of loyalty to Caesar which a Christian could not honestly make and on top of that the

Jewish community in Smyrna Which had legal protections under Roman law that exempted them from all of this was apparently actively hostile to the

Christians and were using their clout in the city in order to make the situation even worse

For the church at Smyrna So put all of that together and you get a picture of a Christian community that was poor because they couldn't work

They were they weren't poor because they were lazy or unlucky or bad with money They were poor because they could not actually participate in the guilds

Because faithfulness to Jesus would have very concrete consequences and a very measurable economic cost

Their empty wallets were a direct consequence of their full heart for Christ Every Christian in Smyrna who struggled to pay their bills was bearing the financial consequence of covenant loyalty to Jesus and in that Everything that we've learned so far comes together and I want you to feel the full weight of this before we move on a

Christian living in Smyrna in the first century was just by Existing faithfully unto the

Lord making a public argument that contradicted everything that the city stood for not because they were trying to start any fights or be contentious or cantankerous or persnickety or any of that it wasn't because they were trying to be provocative or aggressive

It was simply because of the exclusivity of believing in Jesus which caused them to refuse to play the game now

They refused to offer incense to Caesar which meant that they were publicly denying that Caesars Lord When they refused to participate in the imperial cult it meant that they were publicly questioning whether or not

Rome was the source of all true life and blessing and then as they insisted that Jesus the

Nazarene a Jewish man who had been crucified by Roman authorities had genuinely raised from the grave

They were saying that the only true Resurrection was not the one that happened to the city of Smyrna through its mythology and its historical retelling

But it was what happened to a Jewish Messiah figure in Jerusalem Under the oversight of Pontius Pilate Jesus was the only one who had ever been raised from the dead

Smyrna had built its entire identity on a lie That When they claimed the resurrection of Christ, that is what they were saying to the city of Smyrna they were saying that your story of resurrection is a shadow of the true story and in that way you didn't have to wave a banner or Organize a protest or or be loud and crazy in order for people to notice you if you were a

Christian your Presence by itself was a declaration of the city's error and heresy

Your refusal was a counterclaim Simply being a Christian in Smyrna Being a follower of Christ meant you were taking your life in your own hands and your life was a theological argument against everything the city believed about itself and loved about itself and Worshipped about itself a city that had built its entire identity on its resurrection narrative could not comfortably coexist with a people who claimed that the only genuine resurrection was

Jesus Christ and That collision was not clean. It was ugly

Smyrna was ideologically economically religiously and politically

Configured in such a way that would make everyone who denied their resurrection and attested the resurrection of Jesus miserable and this tiny poor

Slandered threatened beautiful faithful little church was living in poverty.

They were living under persecution But they were living faithfully and that's why the Lord doesn't rebuke them and that leads us to part three

Christ self identification to Smyrna Every single one of the seven letters in Revelation follows the same basic structure

Jesus identifies himself with particular Language and then he speaks directly to the church and the way that he identifies himself is never random

It's never generic every time he selects specific titles and descriptions that are

Calibrated with surgical precision to the exact city and to the exact context that he's addressing

He knows the city's history that he's talking to he knows their mythology he knows what the city believes about itself and what it worships and what it fears and then he

Introduces himself in a way that speaks directly into that Contexts astounding.

So when Jesus opens his letter to Smyrna He doesn't offer a general greeting to a general city he says something that to the first century person who was living in Smyrna would have landed like a lightning bolt on top of their head this is what he says these are the words of the first and the last who was dead and Has come to life

You've got two titles there Packed with so much theological meaning and together they don't just comfort the church in Smyrna they systematically dismantle all of the competing truth claims that the

Smyrnian culture was making about time and authority and death and glory and For a moment

We need to look at these titles that Jesus gives himself because each one of them deserves its full due now

We're not gonna be able to cover like I said everything today, but we are gonna cover how Jesus addresses himself

And the first way that he addresses himself is the first and the last he's the first and the last

Jesus calls himself this particular title, which is not him being poetic

Jesus here is making a very direct and a very deliberate Theological claim about himself and to understand why it's so loaded.

You actually have to understand where the phrase comes from It comes from the book of Isaiah specifically from chapters 41 and 44 and 48 a section of scripture where God is making the case that he and he alone is the one true

God and That every other false claim to divinity is a fraud in Isaiah 44 6 for instance.

God says I am the first and I am the last apart from me There is no

God in Isaiah 48 12. He says it again. I am he I am the first and I am the last

Which is God's way of saying I've existed before Everything literally everything and I will exist after all things have been turned back into the dust

See everything that exists between God's eternality on both sides of it

Exist in time, which means that it is less ancient than he

God is saying that I will exist after everything is foiled and everything in between Exists because of me and is held accountable to me

There is no corner of time. No chapter of history No moment past present or future that falls outside of the knowledge of this

God and of his authority So when Jesus says I am the first and the last

He is saying I am God eternally past present and future

God This is a divine claim. This is a claim to divinity.

This is Jesus saying I am God a Statement that in Jewish scriptures belongs exclusively to Yahweh So when

Jesus takes that phrase and he applies it to himself He's doing the unthinkable he's saying that I am that I am

I am God. I'm the one that Isaiah was talking about I'm the one who stands at the beginning of creation and the one who will be still standing at the end of history the one

Who besides whom there is no other? now Here's where it intersects directly with Smyrna and you can understand why the

Jews were angry because Jesus is making claims like this But here's where it intersects with Smyrna Remember what we've talked about How in the first century age

Legitimacy if you were old then you had more standing the older that the city was the the more tradition you had the more the more religious

Ceremony that you had the more valid and the more trustworthy you would be considered

Smyrna was obsessed with this kind of appealing to the ancient

It was a city that constantly marketed its ancient origins as proof of some kind of divine favor

Yeah, we existed in the 6th century BC. What about you? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah first century build.

Okay Well come back to us when you're 600 years older That's the kind of thing that Smyrna would do now to be fair Smyrna is twice as old more than twice as old as the

United States of America So it has some kind of legitimate claim to being special at least in the sense of time

It had been there for centuries by the time that John wrote his letter and to think about it this way Smyrna had

Outlasted the Persian Empire The Greek Empire the Seleucid Empire and was now still going during the

Roman Empire Smyrna was ancient and ancient meant in that time period that it was special that it was approved that had status it had weight that its significance had glory and Jesus doesn't argue against it.

He doesn't say that Smyrna isn't old. He doesn't say that Smyrna He's even isn't even a special place

But Jesus does is far more decisive He makes Smyrna's antiquity completely irrelevant by asserting that he's eternal there's a massive difference between a city that's been around for 600 years and the ancient of days who's been around for Eternity, I mean think about it.

How can you boast in being ancient? When you're being compared to that, which is eternal

Eternal means that it goes past time itself Eternal means that it's not even inside of the domain of space and material

So Jesus is saying that I was there before The very first second the very first Adam Smyrna you existed in 600.

Well, you want to talk about a claim to being ancient? How about that? Did you exist before the foundation of the world?

Oh, no. We'll come back to me when you have that By Jesus saying that he's the first and the last he's confronting their arrogance of their own ancient status

He's saying oh, yeah, you think you've been around for a while, huh? I go back to before time was made

I'm older than you And I'm gonna last far longer than you because as we know from history

Smyrna would exist for a few more centuries before eventually fading into the ruins that Archaeologists now have to dig through in order to find them

Jesus Was eternally older than them and will last eternally longer than them

Even as Smyrna today as Special as it was in the first century lies as Nothing more than a footnote of history in dust and ashes

And what about Rome? Well Rome felt like in the first century person's mind that it was permanent and unshakable

It was what Smyrna bet everything on them at the farm that Rome was gonna be around forever

So because of that we need to be careful not to violate anything. We need to love

Rome and to worship Rome We need to we need to get Rome's favor so that we can last forever

Well Rome exists also in the exact same way that Smyrna does Rome exist in the dust today

Everybody thought that Rome was gonna exist forever and yet Rome Does not own time and does not own even history

Rome does not determine outcomes Rome does not write the ending of their own story The one who holds the beginning and the end of all things is not

Caesar Jesus is saying he is the crucified the one who holds all time and space is the one who is the crucified and the risen

Jesus who dictates these seven letters to these seven churches in Asia Minor and while his people are being thrown in prison and dragged before courts he reigns and For a congregation living under Roman and Smyrnian and Jewish pressure this was not abstract for them

This wasn't something that they just filed away for later. This was the most Immediately practical thing that Jesus could have possibly said to them

That he's the first and the last why? Because it means that the Empire that is threatening to kill them is not going to last longer than him

The rulers who are sentencing them don't control outcomes because he's the one who's in control of all things

The city whose mythology is crushing you does not have the final word in space and time because the eternal one is king

They would have saw in Jesus saying that he's the first and the last that he's the king of history That the ending as well as the beginning belongs to him

So when Jesus gave this title He's encouraging the Church of Smyrna not to lose heart because these foes that are opposing you

Will actually become nothing more than dust in the course of time and that is exactly what happened now

Jesus also says that he is the one who was dead and who has come to life

Which is astounding and I'm sure you're already picking up on why this is so important Because Jesus calls himself the one who was dead and who raised

And I want to be very clear about something before we go any further Jesus is not just being metaphorical and he's not just appealing to an event that happened in Judea He is saying that there was a historically verifiable resurrection that occurred that happened in physical space and time and it's such that it confronts

Smyrna's own Existence Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under the

Roman governor Pontius Pilate around 30 AD He was beaten He was nailed to a wooden cross and he was left to die in public in Front of a crowd of witnesses outside of the city walls of Jerusalem.

His death was confirmed by Roman soldiers It was testified by Roman writers like Suetonius and Tacitus and Josephus His body was taken down dead wrapped in burial cloths placed in a sealed tomb.

He was actually physically genuinely and historically dead and then

Three days later. Jesus is the one who walked out of the tomb and the New Testament writers are absolutely

Intent upon this point that the resurrection was bodily physical material

Historical and real The tomb was empty The grave clothes were left behind He ate fish with his disciples in order to prove to them that he wasn't a ghost or an apparition

He was the one he was dead. But now he lives. He's the one who Tom it says my lord and my god

Why does this matter so much in the

Smyrna context specifically in Smyrna? Well what we talked about just a little bit ago

Smyrna's identity was built entirely upon their resurrection narrative the city had been destroyed and rebuilt and it called that Rebuilding a resurrection it used that story as the proof text for its divine favor

And it pointed to its own history and said look We're the ones who died and we're the ones who came back to life.

We are the ones who are Significant and weighty and worthy and special Jesus is not denying

The very interesting details of Smyrna's history. He's pointing out

That Smyrna's resurrection was a city that was merely being rebuilt by a

Hellenistic general with a really good construction crew and some good funding, but that's

That's about it It wasn't actually a resurrection What actually happened outside of Jerusalem was a resurrection real death real burial real?

emerging from the grave real Overturning of the physical effects of death happened in the life of Christ Smyrna's story again is a rough sketch on a napkin compared to what

Jesus gives us and Here's why it matters so profoundly and so Practically for the

Christians who were living in Smyrna at the time who were listening to this letter being read aloud

You can imagine they're well -versed in Smyrna's history and they read that Jesus is the first and the last

Overturning Smyrna's ancient claim and they read that Jesus is the resurrected one overturning

Smyrna's Mythical history and they would have been deeply encouraged by that They would have seen that the greatest threat

That Rome had was death the Empire's ultimate instrument of control would be undermined by death and this

God who is the one who overturned death is the one who can keep people alive or dead

So that if the Roman Empire was opposed to Christ Christ would crush it and put it down Jesus is saying

I went into the belly of death itself. I didn't go around it and go past it

I didn't even go through it. I came out of it And I came out of it on the other side holding the keys to life death is not a wall that I couldn't get past death as a door that I walked through and Conquered and now

I'm standing in front of a church that is looking very Much like it's going to face death and execution very soon at the hands of the

Smyrnians and of the Jewish Persecutors Jesus is saying I know

I've been to death and I've come out of it and all who follow me To live as Christ and to die is gain.

You're not this is not gonna be your end By Jesus saying that I've been to death and I've overcome it means that if you are killed for your faith as a

Christian in Smyrna Okay So what? If you're killed for your faith you serve the

God who conquered death If you're murdered for your beliefs, so what you serve the

God who Has life in his hands to give You serve the

God who actually performs resurrections So what happens if they kill you nothing you get a new body?

what happens if they torture you and beat you and then you Expire your last breath and mortal suffering what happens

Jesus resurrects you from the dead Though the Roman Empire and though the city of Smyrna would limp along in their pride for a couple centuries after this the

Church of Jesus Christ is still here 2 ,000 years later and those two are utterly gone a

Footnote in history because we serve the God of life Who puts to death all who challenge his

That's not a pep talk from Jesus. It's not just motivational language like Tony Robbins designed to make a frightened people feel better it's a statement of established fact delivered by the only person in history who actually the only person in the universe who

Actually could have made the claim the one that who's telling these Christians not to fear that death is already been defeated by him and That changes everything about what his words mean.

He is not offering them hopium from a comfortable distance He's offering them testimony from personal experience that he has conquered death and he alone not

Rome Is the one who can give life which tells us so much about why all of this matters, right

I Don't want you to miss this fact because it actually reveals something very beautiful about the way that Jesus operates

He tells the church in Smyrna who he is Before he tells them what he is asking them to do the self -identification

Of Christ comes before the command and the promise of Christ and that is not an accident

It's not just a nice rhetorical structure, it's theologically essential to everything that Jesus is saying

Because commands that are coming the do not fear the be faithful until death

Would be completely unreasonable demands if they were not anchored in who Jesus is.

I want you to think about this if Death were the final boss and no one could defeat it when

Jesus says be faithful until death Would have been one of the cruelest things that you could have ever said to a suffering

Church You you would have in fact said we're all gonna die. We're all gonna go to Hades You should just compromise compromise so that you can get into the trade guild compromise so that you can get a steady income

Live your life now because you're gonna you're gonna die eventually anyway, so live it up That's what hedonism says if Rome actually controlled the outcome of history

Do not fear would have been naive at best and delusional at worst That's why he leads with his identity first before he gives the command

He leads with the foundation first before he builds the structure He says here is who

I am. I am the first and the last I am the living one I'm the one who was dead and now I'm raised.

That's who I am Which means that I'm the one who governs all history from beginning to end

And I am the one who personally conquered death and brought about life now I want you to hear what

I'm asking you to do. And what I'm asking you to do is in light of who I am

The call to faithfulness is not a demand that Jesus makes from a distance It's a call that he issues from the other side of the very things that he is calling them to walk through He's gone ahead of them

He's walked through death so he can call them to walk through death and follow him and because he has come out of the other

Side of death alive. He's telling them listen come to me walk to me Follow me in death because you're gonna come out in life, too

He's not asking them to go somewhere that he's never been before He's asking them to follow him where he's already been where he's already defeated where he's already won where he's already triumphed

And that reframes everything that the Christians and Smyrna were being asked to do

They weren't just being asked to be brave in some kind of weird Generic sense they were being invited to walk in the very footsteps of the

Lord of glory who overturned death Because he's already turned the very worst thing in the world they could ever happen to anyone into life

He'd already turned the old creation in a new creation He had already turned death into resurrection

Smyrna of all places thought that they knew the mystery behind death and resurrection. They they had their myth

They had their civic religion. They had their stories. They had their metaphor. They had it all stamped on their coins

But Jesus had an empty tomb on a Sunday morning With a whole city witnessing it and because Jesus is the eternal one the first and the last the one who was alive

There's nothing Smyrna nor Rome nor anyone could ever do That could take away his power and could take away his ability to give life to whom he chooses his church and Smyrna Is the one?

His church and Smyrna case in point Now in the weeks ahead We're gonna look at what the church and Smyrna is gonna actually go through and why

Jesus is giving this self -identification To encourage them, but I want you to remember That Jesus is not saying these words for no reason

He's saying them because they're getting ready to face death and he wants them to remember that he's the

God of life He's the God of resurrection that he's the God that can raise them from the grave

He's the God who will destroy the city of Smyrna and make it an ash heap of history He's the

God who will make the Roman Empire completely crumble from within He is the God who will crush his enemies and elevate and raise up his righteous ones and that should give us great confidence today because We live in a world that's sometimes scary

We live in a world where politicians lie to us. We live in a world where the most utterly

Incomprehensible evil occurs. I mean you take for instance all of the stuff that's been coming out with the

Jeffrey Epstein debacle and there's not enough time even in this

Calendar month in order to go into all of the wickedness that we see going on around us

But brother and sister you serve the God of life You serve the one who was dead and is now alive

Smyrna claimed something but they they've demonstrated that they it meant nothing. They're dead and they're still dead

Jeffrey Epstein He if he's not already dead I'm not weighing in on that he will be dead

Bill Gates He doesn't repent will be dead Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton all of them if they do not repent in turn of the

Lord Jesus Christ they will be dead but Christ is ever alive and if you follow him you will be alive too and with that I want us to end today and I want us to hang on until next week when we come back to this particular letter and we're gonna look at two

Additional aspects of what's going on in the city of Smyrna. I hope you were encouraged. I hope you were strengthened

I hope I hope that you have the confidence to live boldly for Christ I actually hope that you go take over your city council.

I hope you become mayor of your city I hope you take over for Christ because what's the worst that the world can do kill you?

Okay, you get a new body What's the worst they could do take your life? Okay, Jesus is gonna resurrect you and what's the worst that could happen to them?

If you don't they die apart from Christ So you literally have nothing to lose go and serve your

King go and be ambitious go and take over Go and win the arts and the sciences back to Christ Every ounce of energy that you have for the advancement of the kingdom of Jesus knowing that they can kill your body

But they cannot kill your soul. All they can do is is Put you in the grave, but the one who conquered the grave will get you out

So be bold this week serve faithfully this week and we'll see you again next week on the podcast