Revelation 2:8-11 Turning Up The Heat

You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan.

Good morning.

Welcome to Recast Church and Announcements

Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here, and grateful that you're here, gathered together to worship our great God this morning. So thank you for coming in, and there's something that's awesome about Sunday mornings, just.

Gathering together.

We could do a lot of the things that we do here on our own at home, right? How many of you could sing a couple songs on your own at home? You could read the Bible. You could pray. You could do a lot of those things.

But there's something about gathering together that God tells us to gather together with God's people. And so glad that you've taken that extra step of coming in together this morning. Be sure to fill out the connection card that you received when you walked in.

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That.

But we do recommend that you, if you're calling this your church, that you fill that out so that you receive that, so that you know where you can get the information that you need each week. And then if it's your first time with us, there's a free coffee mug for you out on the table out there.

So take one of those on your way out. And again, just our way of saying we recognize that it's, when you check out a church for the first time, it can be kind of intimidating. And so just glad that you kind of jumped over that hurdle and came in to check things out here at recast this morning.

And then any offerings that anybody chooses to give, go in that black box. We don't pass an offering plate. We want your giving to be between you and God, recognizing that he has blessed you. And so that's about your relationship with God and not about your relationship to a plate that goes past you and some guy standing in the aisle looking at you saying give something so, or feeling like he's saying give something.

So we want that to be between you and God. And anything that's marked expansion fund, whether that's on the memo line of the check or actually on the envelope goes towards a special fund dedicated towards our goal of building a building.

Obviously we're meeting in an elementary school right now, but our goal is to build a building on the property that we own out on East McGillan. And so looking into that and thinking through that, don't forget that ballots for the vote on Steve Isham for eldership are due next Sunday.

So please fill those out. And specifically, if you're a member, be sure to fill one of those out and turn it in. You can turn those in after the service to Leah Klein, who's out there at the welcome table or just set it on there upside down if you'd choose to.

You can turn those in at the office, check the posted office hours in the worship folder that you have there. And you can turn those in at any time during the posted office hours. Or if you're like most of us and you like to cut things close to the deadline, you can just turn it in next Sunday morning.

And that'll be the last time that we'll be collecting those is next Sunday morning. But again, through that e-cast, you can actually get a bio of Steve Isham and kind of see who he is and vote accordingly.

And also as we've been working to add to our administrative staff, I'm very pleased to announce this morning that we have hired Jackie Klein as our new director of Recast Kids. So just excited about bringing her on staff.

And I'm grateful for the Lord's leading in our church to provide somebody from within to help take on that significant role. She's going to be taking obviously a month or two to get up to speed. And so obviously she's going to end up being the go-to person for that role.

And if you have questions about our kids' ministry or what's going on or different activities and things regarding that, that's going to be through her. But obviously give her a little bit of time to get up to speed on that.

It's a pretty massive ministry. And everybody is making sure that Jared doesn't fall off the ladder up here. Thanks. Everybody give Jared a hand there. That's a lot of pressure up front in the church.

You know, that's quite a bit. So thanks for taking care of that. So just grateful for the way that God has led though to increase our staff and the help.

That's necessary.

Our kids' program is pretty large. I don't know if you ever walked down that hallway and then upstairs, but there's a lot of kids here at this church. And so just very grateful for having somebody to take that on.

Smyrna and the Church Under Persecution

This morning, we're going to be continuing on in our series, The Lord of the Seven, walking through the book of Revelation. And last week we saw Jesus in a sit-down review, kind of a sit-down audit, if you will, of the church of Ephesus.

And he commended that church for having a tenacious faith. He said, you stand faithful on the truth, you even to the degree that you would look at false teachers and remove them from your midst. They hated sin, and he says that's a good thing.

It's a good thing to hate sin. But Jesus rebuked that very conservative church in Ephesus for their lack of love. He said, you stand really strong on being hard on sin, but you don't love. And without love, you should not be allowed to be called a church.

And if you don't go ahead and turn around and begin to love others, then you are going to, he says, I'm going to come to you and I'm going to remove your lampstand. I'm going to basically remove your status as a church.

Now what he didn't say to them last week is, okay, so you're really solid on the truth. You need to take a chill pill on the truth. You need to water that down a little bit and then add some love into the mix.

He says, I commend you for being true. I commend you for this, but I want you to be loving too. So it's, I mean, I think in our culture, people might hear me, I don't want you to hear me say, well, you need to dumb down the truth in order to be more loving.

You need to be both extremely solid on the truth with strong conviction towards the truth, but equally add to that acts and deeds of love towards others. So that's where we were last week. And this morning, Jesus is now going to turn to another church, a real church that existed during the time of John, the author of the book of Revelation, the church of Smyrna.

And there are only two churches out of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, there are only two that Jesus offers no rebuke to. He doesn't criticize them. He doesn't say anything that they need to improve on.

Those two churches are Philadelphia and Smyrna, the one that we are looking at today. And so how many of you, if Jesus was auditing your church, would love it if Jesus had nothing.

To correct?

He was like, everything is going great.

How many of you would like that?

You would think that would be pretty cool, right? And yet I would say that by the end of this message, if we're honest, we might be glad we're not part of the church of Smyrna. We might be glad that we're not sitting in that audience listening to that message to us specifically because Philadelphia and Smyrna are both the two churches that are not rebuked and equally are the two most beset by persecution.

And I don't think it's by chance that the two that are the most persecuted are the most pure in their faith. The two that are most persecuted are the most pure in their faith. And by the way, when I say we might be glad we're not sitting in Smyrna, we don't know if we're sitting in Smyrna.

We don't really know. Jesus is here declaring these words to the church, he's recorded them for us and we get to sit in and hear these audits of these ancient churches and they are models for.

Us.

They are examples of the way that churches roll and the way that they function and we may well be in the position of Smyrna this morning. We wouldn't know it if we were and yet we need to take these words as from God to us in an understanding of what we need to do with our lives moving forward even for this week, for the next month, for the next few years as a church.

And in my study each week as I'm studying this and I'm trying to work through these texts, I first try to figure out how this message would have struck the first readers. When they were sitting there in the church in Smyrna and this letter came into town and a professional reader got up and read it, how would it have struck them?

But then I also try to figure out, so what does it have to do with us in 2015? What does it have to do with us where we live here in Matawan, Michigan? How do we apply it? And I want to suggest to you that we should never walk away from any reading of the Word of God, whether that's personally in our quiet time in the mornings during the week or any time that we hear the Word of God read or are together on Sunday morning.

We should not walk away from that with a history lesson. Now I love the history. I love to dig in and to kind of pull out the different nuances of what was going on in Roman culture during that time or to describe for you what Smyrna was like or describe for you last week what Ephesus is like, but we should always come away from encountering God's Word with a better understanding of who God is, a better understanding of ourselves, and a better understanding of what God desires of us.

And so let's dig in to find out this morning who God is, who we are, and what He wants of us this week. So open your Bibles if you're not already there to Revelation 2 verses 8 through 11. Do you have a Bible with you or some device to navigate to a Bible?

Revelation 2, 8 through 11. If you don't have a Bible on your lap, I just ask for you, there's a guy back here with some Bibles, and if you just raise your hand, he'll bring you one. We want everybody to have a copy of the Word of God on their lap so that you can read this and follow along and see, because that's going to be the order, that's going to be really the outline for the morning.

So if you don't have a Bible, or you can just get up on your own if that's embarrassing to you, you can get up and grab one off the table here at the connection time so that you have a Bible with you.

And you can take that with you, by the way. We want everybody to have a copy of God's Word even at their home, and so you can take one of those paper Bibles with you if you'd like. Follow along, Revelation 2, Revelation 2, 8 through 11, and this is God's Word to us this morning, Recast Church.

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, the words of the first and the last, who died and came to life, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in music and worship this morning.

Father, I rejoice in your grace toward us, most clearly shown to us in the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He suffered, he was smitten, afflicted, abused, crushed for us in the place where we deserved punishment for our sins, in the place where our blood deserved to be shed, in the place where we deserved to be crushed, he took that for us.

And so, Father, I pray that from that place of joy and forgiveness, from that place of recognizing how deeply we are loved by you, that our voices would cry out in praise to you this morning. Father, that as a people redeemed by you, as a people bought back by you, as a people rescued by you, that our worship this morning and our praise and our songs would rise up to you as thanks and gratitude for the salvation we have in the name of Jesus.

Father, be present in our worship and receive it as an offering to you this morning in Jesus'.

Name. Amen.

The First and the Last, and the One Who Died and Came to Life

Keep your Bibles, though, open to Revelation 2, 8 through 11, and get comfortable. I want to start off by asking you a question this morning and just thinking about this in terms of reality, your real life, like when you woke up this morning.

How often do you consider yourself as being involved in a cosmic battle? Does that happen routinely in the morning? You wake up and that's the feeling and the sense of what's going to go on throughout your day is a big cosmic battle over souls and over people and over your behavior in.

Your life.

Is that the way that you wake up? And I would suggest that probably for the most of us, it isn't. And so, and likely it should be more the case as we think about it. Did you wake up this morning and consider that this very day there would be a battle waging in your soul and waging all around you?

Well, the fact of the matter is this battle is unseen. It rarely delivers physical wounds. It does sometimes, but rarely. It makes little noise, but it is indeed a real battle. Satan and his legion of demons have a genuine desire to bring down his church.

And the church is made up of what? People. We are the church. So he has every interest and every desire in attacking us and bringing us down. And certainly the way that he can get to us corporately is through us as individuals.

And so he has this plan for us. I want to point out though and be careful as we are going to see Satan, him mentioned in our text twice, Satan and the devil both, he is not all-knowing. He is not present everywhere.

He is not all-powerful. But he is indeed a formidable opponent for us as humans. Smyrna, the church that we're looking at here in this text this morning, was caught in the crosshairs of the enemy of God, of Satan himself.

And despite the suffering that they had already endured for Jesus, here he comes to them and tells them that they haven't reached the peak of the fury of the enemy yet. They've already endured suffering.

They've already endured tribulation and he says it's not over. And he comes to them in compassion and says I want to encourage you to hang in there because the attacks of the enemy are about to reach their max here in the next ten days or so.

And just like all of these reviews, Jesus commands John at the very beginning of our text this morning to write to the leader of the church, to the angel of the church of Smyrna, write to the leader of the church of Smyrna, write.

And to this church that's in this beautiful port city, Jesus reveals himself to them as the one who is over all events, over all time. Just as Dave mentioned to us as he was starting off the worship set, that he is indeed the first and the last.

And to the angel of the church of Smyrna, write. These are, or the words of, the first and the last who died and came to life. He is revealing himself to them as the first and the last. Now this is the third time since the very beginning of Revelation that Jesus has revealed himself in that way.

He called himself the Alpha and Omega, he's called himself the first and the last twice. It's a significant title. If Jesus, the Lord over all, is identifying himself by a title, and he does so three times in two chapters, we might want to take note of that and say, this is something he wants you and I to know about him.

Remember this book is called what? What's the title of the book that we're studying right now?

Revelation.

Who is it revealing? What is it revealing?

It's revealing Jesus Christ, right? That's what it's all about, and it's telling us something about him, and he is the first and the last. The significance of the statement really ought to give us great comfort.

Jesus is the one who started it, and he is the one who will end it. And according to many New Testament passages, creation itself was mediated through Jesus Christ. And in the end, creation will be restored to its original order by Jesus Christ.

For the people of Jesus, this ought to give us hope and joy in all circumstances. How many of you had circumstances this week that were difficult? Some of us. How many of you had circumstances this week that were good, that were encouraging, some positive things happened?

How many of you had kind of a mix of those two this week, like it was like, yeah, good.

And bad happened?

I suggest that probably the average week for all of us is kind of somewhere in the middle of that, right? Sometimes you have these really high points, sometimes you have these really low points, but the average week is just in the middle.

But we have all of these circumstances that rage around us. And for the person who understands that Jesus is the first and the last, we can say, come what may, this week, in the end, Jesus. If all the forces of evil are arrayed against us, in the end, Jesus.

Should we lose our jobs? Should we be thrown in prison? If we have our rights walked on, or even lose our very lives for the cause of Christ, in.

The end, Jesus.

In the end, Jesus.

He is the Alpha and Omega. No matter what the doctor's, uh, verdict, that's not the right word, diagnosis, prognosis, whatever you, whatever, no matter what your boss has to say to you in critique this week, no matter how difficult your kids are being because school just started, in the end, Jesus, the first and the last.

Not only that, but Jesus also reveals himself, not merely, not just strictly as the first and last, I can't really say merely to that because that's a really big deal, but he reveals himself as the one who died and has now come back to life.

Not, not, this is not, again, uh, resuscitation, this is resurrection, there's a big difference. There are people who have been resuscitated, but Jesus has been resurrected. He is alive forevermore. Many historians have pointed out that the city of Smyrna had a history that relates to the way that Jesus reveals himself.

Each one of these seven has something unique about it, and it's history that he's keying in on, he's actually using their history to communicate to them in a way. This city, Smyrna, had been sacked and burned and destroyed, and was left without rebuilding for decades until Alexander the Great commissioned the rebuilding of this specific city, Smyrna, rebuilt by Alexander the Great.

This city, this was a city that had a reputation for resurrection, and the myth of the phoenix was often a symbol for this specific city. You know the story of the phoenix that is engulfed in flame and dies, and then from its ashes springs a new bird, and that's the ancient myth that was a symbol for this specific city.

So the theme of life out of death was a theme of the very city that he's writing to here, and Jesus reveals himself to the city as the one who, in the Greek it reads like this, I think it's interesting and unique in the way that he says it, I am the one who became dead and have now been made alive.

Became dead as if it's like, that's, how many of you think of it that way? I became dead once, like, that's weird, that's a weird terminology, but he says it because it's almost like it's an afterthought, like kind of a side note, oh, I became dead, but I'm here, here I am, alive, healthy, well, forever and ever.

The very name Smyrna, by the way, these names always mean something or have some kind of a notion behind them, but the word Smyrna is just a common everyday Greek word that the city was named after, it simply means myrrh, now you're like, we don't use that word very often, but we do around Christmas time because we talk about gold, frankincense, and myrrh, right, that sweet-smelling, kind of strong-flavored perfume that was used primarily for the preparation of bodies for burial during this era in this time, it's likely that it was one of the primary exports of Smyrna during this time, this would be like naming a town formaldehyde, okay, how'd you like to live in formaldehyde, okay, that's, I mean, the notion of death is always about this word Smyrna, the idea in that ancient culture was that this is the notion of death, this is the notion of formaldehyde, of preservation, but of death, and so the name itself was always a reminder of death, but Jesus again reminds this church that's living there, if you will, in the shadows of death, that he is the one who has the power over death, he's been there, he's done that, he's beat it, and he now lives forevermore, that encouraging words to a church as it contemplates and considers going through suffering, going through persecution, maybe some within ten days of the writing of this, some will be in the grave, he declares that, he says you're going to have to be faithful unto death here in just a moment, he says this persecution is going to be massive for this church, but the city was notorious, the city of Smyrna was notorious for a large and hostile and vocal Jewish settlement, secular historians record that the Jews of Smyrna had to be often placated by the Romans, they were such a force and such a large population of them that even the Romans sometimes kind of backed off a bit and was careful with Smyrna, that's historical, non-biblical documents that talk about that as being a unique feature of this town, and the Christians of Smyrna were likely caught between the persecution of the Jews and the persecution of the Romans, the Romans didn't like them, the Jews didn't like them, and so this is a hostile, difficult place to start a church, Smyrna is not an easy going place to be a Christian.

And Jesus saw this persecution, in verse 9 he says I see your tribulation, I'm aware of it, I know you're going through hard times, I know what you're going through, and further he says I see your poverty, and the way that the two words tribulation and poverty in verse 9 relate in the Greek structure is that the poverty is caused by the tribulation or is a result of or is tied to that tribulation, in other words it's not that they were just poor and never worked and didn't have any means to themselves, but it's that through tribulation they have been made poor, and we're talking about real monetary poverty here, that just indicates what we know to be true is that when a culture wants to turn up persecution, wants to turn up the heat against a group of people, wants to turn up the heat against the church, financial persecution is often the first form that that takes, whether that's the loss of a job, loss of employment, discrimination of trade, you know signs and plaques we don't serve Christians here, that kind of stuff, and historians say that's likely the case, that a Jewish shop owner would not sell to a Christian in the town of Smyrna, that the Romans wouldn't do business with you, and so it would be a tough place to find employment, a tough place to make ends meet, and that's what was going on in Smyrna at this time, and if you think, by the way, we might be going okay, persecution, I've done a message about persecution here, like in America, I mean come on, could we skip this one, could we skip this church, and go on to the next, it seems like a foreign concept, until you consider this reality, and whether you agree with her position or not, I'd love to talk with you about that, if you agree with her position or not, there's a woman in Kentucky, I don't know if any of you saw this in the news, but there's a woman in Kentucky who spent much of last week in jail because of her religious convictions, does anybody know if she's out yet, she is out now, okay, so she spent time in jail for her religious convictions, and again, whether you agree with her stance or not is another issue altogether, but she is likely going to lose her job that pays about $80 ,000 a year, because of her convictions, further I've heard many Christians say, well she should just quit then, she should just quit, which if you think about it carefully, is ultimately to say, that there are offices in this nation now that a Christian with certain convictions can no longer hold, or should no longer hold, that's what you're saying, if you think she should just quit, Christians shouldn't be allowed to do that, Christians shouldn't be allowed to be a county clerk if they hold to certain convictions, does that concern anybody?

That's America, that's not Smyrna, that's the society and the fabric of life that we're living in, it's crazy how contemporary this text really is to our life and where we work, it's not merely an ancient issue that there could be economic ramifications coming down the pipeline for you and me if we are going to stand strong on our convictions.

Jesus sees their tribulation, he sees the financial poverty, but he also sees, he says, I see your poverty, but I know you're rich, I see your riches, well what's he getting on about there, if he's talking about seeing their, he says I see that you're poor, but then I also know that you're rich, despite their sacrifice of financial loss for their faith, Jesus correctly identifies this church as rich in the things that matter most, he says you're rich in the things that matter, he's commending them for standing firm on a very strong conviction, I mean standing strong in very strong persecution and abject poverty, that's what their lot is right now.

But Jesus also sees the slander that they are enduring at the hands of those who identify themselves as Jews, there's a group of people there that are saying we're Jews, but they're slandering the church, they're lying about them, slander by the way is a very specific word that has untruth in the midst of it, gossip is a different thing altogether, gossip can be true, slander is false, they're lying about the church, but Jesus says bluntly, they really are not good Jews at all, he's the right one to be able to see what's going on in their hearts, but they are, he declares in what appears to us like whoa, Jesus, chill for a second, he calls them a synagogue of Satan, how many of you think that's pretty harsh criticism to a people group, okay, I am not recommending that you borrow that from Christ in this text as a really good epithet, you know, a good come back to somebody who doesn't agree with you or something like that, well you're just a synagogue of Satan, be careful with that, but let me explain that because I think that Jesus is actually using something technical that we can just be like oh, he flew off the handle, he lost it on him there for just a second, no he didn't, he's being quite technical and he's being extremely accurate in what he says about them, there is a theme all throughout the Old Testament of there being a group called ethnic Israel and a group called the true Israel, the line gets confusing when you consider that the word Jew means two different things in the English language, okay, it is an ethnic group and it is a religion, have you ever thought about that, the word Jew is a group of people that are ethnically connected and then there is another word or the same word but it also means the religion of the people and most people in, I mean the reality is most people in history who belong to that ethnic group also identified themselves with that religion, the religion that worshipped the one true and living God and they were often the object of God's harshest criticism, those people who were born into that group but did not honor God, they were often throughout the Old Testament prophets, they were criticized harshly, even Jesus, even Jesus called a group of Jews who were being wicked and evil to others and hateful to people a brood of vipers and whitewashed tombs, so it shouldn't surprise us that Jesus here identifies Jews who slander and persecute Christians as being tools of Satan, they are not really Jews at all he says but are following their father, the devil, who is the father of lies and slander is indeed a form of lying, Jesus is not tiptoeing through the tulips, he's not trying to be politically correct with his words but equally he's not trying to give us free reign to throw out pejorative terms to people, groups and individuals, what Jesus says is shocking, it's intended to be shocking but accurate and technically true, these Jews who are opposing the church in Smyrna are ultimately a gathering for the cause of Satan, I don't imagine that they had pentagrams on the floor and goat's heads around and dark druidic capes with upside down crosses in their worship and no, but this ought to give us pause to consider that often those who serve the purposes and causes of Satan appear to be religious, appear to be quite religious, Satan is often subtle in his attacks and Jesus identifies that the specific Jews in the specific ancient town are being used to do Satan's work, so far Jesus has identified that the church in Smyrna was under siege, they've already endured severe tribulation, they've endured poverty, they've endured slander and so if I was sitting in the church of Smyrna listening to this letter read out loud for the first time and the reader came to verse 10 and started out with do not fear, now they've already gone through a bunch so when I hear do not fear, I might immediately think to myself, yes, relief is coming, it's on the way, this is the part where we get the good news, right, this is the part where he tells us he's gonna come in and sweep in and win the day for us, we have nothing more to fear he says, so I assume peace is on the way, but then the hammer drops as the sentence is finished, the words of Jesus, do not fear what you are about to suffer, what?

More? Are you serious? More suffering? I mean, if I was living in Smyrna, I'd be like, are you serious? And the next sentence of Jesus begins with the exclamation, behold, check this out, pay attention to this, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you, it's gonna get, the temperature is gonna get turned up on you, a couple of comments to clarify what he says in verse 10, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, this was kind of new, a new concept to me, the concept that the devil throws some people into jail, I mean, is the devil a judge who tries cases?

Like, where's his court? Where does that happen? Does the devil sentence people? I thought he was an invisible angel, so how does that work? But what is clearly stated by Jesus here is that the devil has his people, he has his gatherings, he stands behind persecution, and he can somehow influence even the outcome of human judgments, that is truly an interesting point considering current events in America, it feels like there is a growing and swirling spirit of bizarre, illogical, detrimental, and downright false thinking in the fabric of our society, but in the face of people losing jobs for their faith, or losing their businesses for applying their biblical convictions, or even being jailed for their faith, Jesus says this to the people of Smyrna, do not fear, do not fear, how can he say that?

Well, he can say it because he's the first and the last, and he's been where they're going, he's been there, he's done that, and that's where we can take comfort, right? That's where we can take solace in the words of the one who tells us, do not fear, recast, do not fear, he's the first and the last, he's been dead, and he's alive now forevermore, he has the right to tell us how it's going to go, and he has the right to tell us, be strong and be brave, he who went to the cross for us, he says do not fear, and in the end there is one little easily overlooked sentence that puts into perspective how the devil could possibly be allowed to bring about such suffering to the church of Christ in Smyrna, how could he bring them to poverty, how could he bring them to tribulation, how could he take them to jail, how could he take them even to death itself, and Jesus says this, this is all coming down the pipe that you may be tested, the Christian recognizes that every opportunity of tribulation is a chance to show Christ glorious, every opportunity we have to suffer is an opportunity to show Christ to be enough, to show him to be sufficient for us, but in this specific instance, God sees fit to warn the Christians of Smyrna that the persecution is going to be severe, but only for a short while, he says it's going to last 10 days, it's going to be tough 10 days, guys, it's going to be tough, but it's coming, at the end is insight, and if Jesus knows this persecution is coming, then why doesn't he rescue them?

Anybody kind of got that in the back of your mind? If he knows this is coming, and he's standing by, and he's even warning them it's coming, does he not have the power to stop this thing? Can't he get in the way?

The reason he doesn't rescue Smyrna is stated in the text, it is to test them, it's a test, but there may be many other answers that lie within the the mysterious will of God that we don't necessarily understand, there might be a multitude of different reasons why he would allow us to suffer, but at least we're given one in the text to test his people, we know that sometimes God chooses to heal people, right?

Sometimes he chooses to let us die, sometimes we forget the car keys and are running late, only to find that we would have been in that huge pile-up, and maybe even died on I -94, right? But have you ever noticed how that story ends for the others that were in the accident?

Have you ever thought that through for a minute? Oh, the good things always happen to, no, they don't, for as many people as get up on a in a morning and read their bible and pray, uh, bad things happen to them, bad things happen to us, some of us have just raised our hand earlier in the service and said it's been a tough week, we've had some bad things happen, why do some win the lottery on the same day that others lose their jobs?

The prosperity gospel says that God wants every one of his children to only ever have good, have you ever heard that message before? God only wants you to have good, but Satan gets in the way of that, would be their thought, but that somehow implies that God is unable to save his children from the power of Satan, and I don't, I don't buy that, I don't believe that for a second, that Satan has any power over our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, instead I would suggest to you that at least a part of the reason why bad things happen to God's people is a testing, like Abraham climbing Mount Moriah to offer his only son, life is full of tests of our loyalty to our God, some of us by the end of verse 10 would be considering a move to Ephesus, right?

If you lived in Smyrna, like that's not that far, I can walk, leave my stuff behind, I'm out, right? If we're honest, that would be our thoughts, right? It's only 15 miles down the road, come on, start a new life, kids, off we go, um, now the one, the way that one passes this test in Smyrna, what conquering, what victory looks like is being faithful even unto death, Jesus declares, those who are faithful unto death receive the glorious crown that is life, this is not a literal crown, this is the victory of life, this is not a royal crown, but a victor's crown, there's different words in Greek for different kinds of crowns, it ties into the final concept of the one who conquers in verse 11, the one who conquers, the one who overcomes will get the victor's crown of life, life being the main point there, even though you die, you will gain life, what does this crown mean?