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  THE CHURCH OF SMYRNA
  by Brent Williamson
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Summary: This sermon focuses on the church of Smyrna and their
unwavering faith amidst persecution and suffering. It highlights the
importance of remaining faithful to God even in the face of death,
drawing inspiration from the Smyrna church's example of enduring
hardships with joy and trust in Jesus. The message challenges listeners
to have a deep revelation of God's presence and grace, to be willing to
suffer for Christ, and to live out their faith boldly without complaint
or compromise.

Topics: "Faithfulness in Persecution", "Enduring Hardships with Joy"
Scripture References: Revelation 2:9, Revelation 2:10, Matthew 16:24, 1 Peter 4:13, Philippians 3:8

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon focuses on the church of Smyrna and their unwavering faith
amidst persecution and suffering. It highlights the importance of
remaining faithful to God even in the face of death, drawing inspiration
from the Smyrna church's example of enduring hardships with joy and
trust in Jesus. The message challenges listeners to have a deep
revelation of God's presence and grace, to be willing to suffer for
Christ, and to live out their faith boldly without complaint or
compromise.

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CONTENT
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I know about your suffering and your poverty, but you are rich. I know
the slander of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they
really aren't because there's a synagogue of Satan.

Don't be afraid, verse 10, of what you are about to suffer. The devil
will throw some of you into prison and put you to the test. You will be
persecuted for 10 days.

Remain faithful even when facing death, and I will give you the crown of
life, verse 11. Anyone who is willing to hear should listen to the
Spirit and understand what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Whoever
is victorious will not be hurt by the second death.

Lord, we thank you for being here with us today. It is a privilege and
an honor just to experience the presence of God. We thank you for the
worship, Father.

I pray that you would be, you were adored and reverenced. Father, now as
we break forth the bread of life, I pray again that you would be adored
and reverenced through the Word. Father, I pray that no one would hear
my message or my sermon would be from the Holy Spirit wrought from
above.

And Father, I pray that you would truly speak to our hearts and help me
to speak this word faithfully. I ask as always, Father, you keep me
behind the cross, and I pray you would make this message truly a tragedy
to the devil and that the heavens would be opened upon this hour and
this time that we can hear the voice of God. As many, Father, today know
the Word, but it's time that we know the voice of God through the Word
and help us to hear your voice this morning in Jesus' name.

And the church said Amen. So we have just to be boring, kind of be
boring just for a minute, just to give you some history lesson so I can,
I got to go down. It's like a plane going down the road.

You got to say some things that get off the runway. But as Pastor Mark
preached on the book of the church on Ephesus last week, the city of
Smyrna was 35 miles north of Ephesus in Turkey. Ephesus obviously is 35
miles south of Smyrna.

Smyrna is still there today in Turkey. Now it is called Ismar. And it's
actually the third largest city in Turkey today of approximately 500,000
people.

Back here as we read in the scripture, Smyrna was approximately, the
historians say it was approximately 100,000 people in the city. And it
was and it still is a wealthy city. It was a very wealthy city, very
prosperous city.

It was a very beautiful scenery where they had it, near a sea. And they
had auditoriums and beautiful statutes and pillars. I mean, it was just,
I looked up through some history books and it was just a beautiful
place.

As a matter of fact, back in the day, even back then, they called it the
ornament of Asia. Just a beautiful place by sight. And Jesus in verse 8
describes, and he's always describing in each church in a different way.

He tells himself to each church in a different way, in a peculiar way,
but in a different way. Something I believe and expresses to them, so
something how they're going to understand, he's addressing it to them
anyway. Because he says there at the beginning of the letter that he was
dead and alive.

And I think that expresses two things. I mean, we can have some debates
on what it really expresses, but first and obvious that when he says,
hey guys, to the church in Smyrna, I am the first and the last. I am he
that you're suffering for.

I am the one that was resurrected from the dead. I am the one that
you're doing this for. So it's like a confirmation to them immediately.

Because we know a lot of times, mainly in the scriptures, when they
wrote letters, they signed their name at the beginning, not the end like
we do, obviously. So I am the one, he says, that was dead and alive
forevermore. And it also expresses in that fact that, hey, I understand
that you're going to be facing some death yourself, but look at me.

I'm alive forevermore. In the same context, some of you may be a martyr,
but sometime here in the near future, you're going to be alive with me.
Expresses the second thing I see in scripture.

It expresses that in 600 BC, that Smyrna was actually destroyed. The
entire city was destroyed. It was left desolate.

It was a desert place in 600 BC. No one lived there any further than
after that. And then to about 200 BC, then they came back into the city
and began to rebuild it.

So here, Jesus says, knowing that they came from the dead to alive again
in the city. Again, he says, hey, I'm alive and I'm dead. Now I'm alive.

Again, expressing the same thing that the city went through themselves.
They were dead and now they're alive. And he says, I understand in verse
nine.

I understand what you're going through, but you have to remember it's
for me. It's for me. Jesus has no rebuke.

There's only two churches that really has no condemnation or rebuke from
Jesus. One was Philadelphia, which we'll be hitting on that later on.
I'm not even sure who's preaching on that.

Yeah, I'm preaching. Okay. Says what I know.

So there's two churches and Smyrna was one of them. There's no rebuke
whatsoever. The other five had rebuke and condemnation that Jesus was
against them.

But you know, as I was reading it this week, the thought came to my
mind. I said, you know, we always think about how there's no rebuke to
the church of Smyrna. But when you read the persecution of what they
went through, the suffering they went through, there is a rebuke though.

To those that are comfortable and luxurious, comfortable in their
Christian walk with God, there was a rebuke to them that read it. There
is. The city was utterly filled with idols.

Back then, the historians reported full of Greek gods, full of pagan
worship. And that was the central theme of it all back then. I mean,
Smyrna was just wicked.

Again, just full of wicked idols. And there was a big pack of Jews, a
large accompaniment of Jews living there back then as well. But it was a
very prosperous city overall, very prosperous.

Christianity was very despised. Why was that? Because simply because
their belief of Christians, our belief as a Christian, idol that they
have. So they don't want that around.

They don't want to attend commandments. And they knew the law of God,
obviously, most of them did back then, especially the Jews. But they
were hated.

So Jesus wrote them. I honestly believe Jesus wrote, you know, we can
ask the question, why did Jesus write them? Because I really believe he
actually wrote them to encourage them. Because when you read it, which
we just read, you would think immediately to yourself, there's not much
encouragement right here.

I mean, he doesn't say, good job, guys, keep it up. You're doing it for
me. I mean, there was really no pat on the back, per se, as we read that
text.

But I really believe he wrote it. And I mean, because when I see this,
and how he wrote it, I'm alive and I'm dead forevermore. I'm the first
and I'm the last.

Again, he's just saying, hey, it's me. What an honor. The Smyrna church
can look and look at a letter.

Jesus wrote us a letter. That's an encouragement in itself, that he's
still with us and he's still walking with us. Wow, a letter again from
Jesus.

And he's pleased with our suffering. Well, that's an encouragement,
isn't it? Some of you think about that. He's pleased with our suffering
and the right attitude, though.

So we find that Jesus acknowledges their suffering. He acknowledges
their suffering. He acknowledges their tribulation of what they're going
through, their severe hardship.

But he didn't stop there. I mean, as you're reading this letter, imagine
the church of Smyrna reading this. And he says, oh, he's acknowledging,
he sees our tribulation, he sees our hardship.

But he goes, whoa, wait a minute, there's more. Some of you will be
thrown in prison. Some of you are going to wear the martyr's crown.

There's more coming. Look at verse nine again. I know about your
suffering and your poverty, but you're rich.

I know the slander of those opposing you, etc. And he goes on in verse
10, don't be afraid of what they're about to do to you, about to do to
you. There's more coming.

The devil will throw some of you into prison and test you and persecute
you and so forth and so on. So he acknowledges and he warns them that
there's worse things coming than already what they're experiencing. He's
preparing them.

I think it's a letter of encouragement. I think it's a letter of
preparation too for what's coming in the future. And as I'm speaking
this morning and what my prayer was, I'm going to show some things of
how this can relate to us.

What I really prayed for and want more than anything else, I wanted the
text to minister to us more than anything else. Okay. I just wanted this
just to unpack into our spirits.

I think that would do more than anything else that I could possibly say.
So he prepared them. So what were they going through back then? And what
were they really going through? This tribulation, this suffering.

I mean, Jesus mentions poverty. He says, I know your poverty. Well,
what's that mean? I know your poverty because you're in a wealthy,
prosperous city.

But he says, yet you're rich. But he acknowledged that they were in
poverty. Why? Because the persecution was so heavy and so hot and so
intense that they lost jobs.

They could hardly work because they were so despised back then. They
looked at, I mean, mainly they looked, people looked at them as vile.
And they couldn't work for the most part.

And because they couldn't work, they had a lack of food. They're hungry.
You know, their jail system is not like ours.

Our jail system, hey, it's like the rural Caribbean. In our jail system,
you get cable TV, three meals a day, warm bed, right? And it's free, so
to speak. But their jail system was a little different.

Their jail system, you had feces, rats, and hardly any food fed to you
whatsoever. That was their jail system. The Bible says they were
slandered.

They were slandered, blaspheming, made fun of continually. Again, looked
down as vile and wicked people themselves. But wait, but wait, there's
more coming.

Jesus, isn't this enough? Have you ever asked yourself, Jesus, this is
enough? I can't take any more than already this. I've already got this.
I can't take any more.

This is enough, Jesus. And Jesus says, no, but wait, there's more.
There's more? There's more.

The more, so what was the more that was coming? The more that was coming
was very inhumane. I know this is going to sound gross and grotesque,
and some of you won't be able to stomach some of the stuff, what they
actually did, but it's part of what they went through. These people, to
the brothers and sisters in Christ, for standing up for Christ, and let
me say this too, typically people are not persecuted for being quiet.

I should have more amens than that. The church ain't being persecuted
for silence. The church ain't being persecuted because she's quiet.

So think, they weren't quiet in an atmosphere of wickedness, of vile
people serving all this stuff, and they proclaimed, because Jesus would
have scolded them for that. Think about this. He would have scolded them
if they were being quiet.

So what they did, several things. They would pour tar all over them, all
over their bodies, and put them in to an area in a city where people
could watch them at night burn. You know, there was a movie out called
Paul, which showed some of that, and they called them roaming candles.

So they would pour oil on them, or tar, and light them up, and they were
used as a spectacle for everyone just to watch and to enjoy, like an
arena. Entertainment, that's what it was. It was entertainment for the
crowd.

They would put them into arenas, arenas packed full of thousands of
people, thousands and tens of thousands of people would pack it out just
to come to watch Christians be eaten alive by wild animals. They would
gather around and watch people making a choice, deny Christ, give to
Caesar. If you don't deny Christ, if you don't give to Caesar right
here, right now, I'm gonna cut your baby into pieces right now, and they
wouldn't deny Christ, and they cut their babies in pieces right in front
of the mom and dad.

If you don't deny Christ to the husband, if you don't deny him right
here, right now, I'm gonna cut the breast off of your wife, and he
wouldn't deny him, and they cut her breasts off right in front of them.
This is all written in the Fox Book of Martyrs. This is all written in
history, and during this period of time frame of the first two or three
centuries, the Fox's Book of Martyrs said there was about five million
Christians slaughtered.

Five million. You know, we think that's a lot of people, but I think
we're so blinded by being here in the United States, America, this
blessed country, and our comfortable Christianity, that there's more
Christians today being slaughtered than ever in history. So think about
that when I just said five million.

A lot of you gasp at that, but think about what's going on today. Don't
be a Christian in North Korea today. You won't be seen again if you
start proclaiming Christ in their arenas.

But this is what Hebrews 11.35 stands for. Hebrews 11.35, not accepting
deliverance. I think that's one of the most powerful verses in the
entire Bible, personally, I think so.

Because when the Book of Hebrews names of all, they were hiding in
caves, they were torn in pieces, they were torn in two, they were
tortured, burned, and yada yada yada, and it came down to verse 34, not
accepting deliverance. So anytime that you feel like you're going
through some trials and tribulations, I encourage you to read the
Hebrews 11. I do.

But imagine someone, a little sarcastic side note, but truthful, because
I remember my pastor many years ago that my wife and I were attending
his church, and he gave a sermon illustration, I don't know why I was
just thinking about this the other day, this was like 22 years ago,
someone is a big church of 600 people, and someone called, and the
secretary said, Pastor Curtis, he said, I got someone on the phone right
now, they want to know what you guys, what this church can offer our
family. He said, give me that phone. He said, hello? Well, what can you
offer our family? He said, ma'am, I'll tell you what we can offer our
family.

He said, that's Jesus. That was it, that was it, Jesus. But you know,
people do that all the time now, because of the buffet, of the different
styles, different types of churches today, got the lights, got the fog
machines, got the children, what can you, Jesus.

I want to go to a church that offers Jesus, that gets closer to him than
anything else, that makes him, I don't want a church that gives me 10%
of Jesus, I want a church that gives me 100% of Jesus. Amen? So you
imagine, the church of Smyrna, bringing in kind of, you know, the light
of 2019, of course they didn't have phones back then, someone calls up
the book of, calls up the church of Smyrna and says, hey, what can you
give us? What can you give our family? I did, I thought about that. Oh,
yeah, we'll give you a severe hardship serving Jesus, and we'll also
give you a martyrdom for serving Jesus.

Oh, never mind, I'll go to the church down the road. Wrong church, you
know. I'll look for something a little more comfortable.

That's a little edgy on my end. But you know what, this is the church of
Smyrna. This was it.

And I know it's very strange for us to hear this stuff, because it's
really polar opposite of what the church we experience today, isn't it?
Polar opposite. Jesus said, you're poor, materially, he told him. He
said, yeah, I know you're poverty, but he said you're rich.

And obviously he means by that, you're rich spiritually, you're rich in
my grace. You're rich, your spiritual wealth is more important. John
Bunyan said, the poor man that loves Christ is richer than the greatest
man in the world.

Amen. I love that statement. See, what they were doing, they were
storing up treasures in heaven.

I mean, when you read their accounts of what they went through, man,
their bank accounts were full. There was no dollar bills up there or no
pennies in the bank account. There was no bankruptcy in their bank
accounts.

Their bank accounts were full. I mean, they had the rubies probably all
around, double coated around their crowns when they got to heaven. But
they were storing up, but they were rich, which is the most important
thing for all of us, to be rich towards God.

And that's what Jesus was saying to them. Don't see yourselves as poor.
See yourselves as I see you.

The world might see you as vile and wicked and abnormal and strange, but
I see you wonderful. I shed my blood for you. I died for you.

I see you as rich towards me. Amen. So Jesus mentions the Jews, the
unbelieving Jews.

Now there's several things and there's several debates in exactly what
or who they were or who they were not. But several things that we can
bring out. The Jews obviously wanted to distance themselves from the
church, because basically, I don't want anything to do with that.

You know what I mean? Holy cow, if I started serving Jesus, I'd get to
experience that. I'll just stick with the one true God. And Smyrna was
kind of being cozy with the Jews.

Okay. Smyrna also has some close ties into Rome. So by having some very
close ties into Rome, because Rome, as we all know, Rome was a place
that persecuted Christians heavily.

You don't want to be persecuted in Rome. You don't want to be. Those
people were wicked, what they did to Christians.

But they had some close ties to them. So he mentions the Jews. And these
Jews may have not, they may have been idol worshippers themselves.

So they were pretenders of being a Jew. These Jews, probably most of
them, didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah himself. So ultimately they
were pretenders, faking who they really said they were.

And you will find those, and more and more as I'm seeing, and more and
more as I, you know, as we go through each century, year by year, you
find those who cause you and I the most problems are those within the
church walls. It's true. The most complaints, the most criticized I get,
I don't know about you, 99% of the time, it's not from those with
outside the walls.

It's within. And I'm not speaking generally right here. So don't think,
you know, don't be looking at each other, you know, like Judah's
situation.

Is it an eye? Is it an eye, Lord? But that's true. Pretending to be
Christians and are not, because Jesus was tortured and killed, crucified
by those who attended, quote, church regularly. Yeah.

So when you have such a vicious attack on this church, especially in
Samarna, it was established as the synagogue of Satan. Well, yeah, the
enemy was hell-bent on bringing hell to them, right? He says, you know
what? Be faithful. And I think, you know, be faithful unto death and I
give you the crown of life, and that's, you know, the biggest word.

I told someone the other day that was going through some hardships and
the Lord gave me a word for this particular person. I walked up to him
and I knew they're going through some major struggles. And I just, I
said to him, I said, I think the Lord really wants you to hear this
word.

And it's two words. He said, what's that? I said, be faithful. Be
faithful.

Be faithful to the very end. Endure. Be faithful.

I want that to sink in. Just be faithful. The church in Samarna was
faithful to the very end.

And the apostle John that wrote the book of Revelation appointed, which
leads me on to something else, he appointed a man called Polycarp. He
was a bishop. Matter of fact, he was known as the bishop, keep cracking
with me.

He was the bishop of Samarna. He was known as a very godly man. He was a
man that was full of the scriptures.

He was the man that they called a gatekeeper that kept out the heresy
from the church. He was like the guard for the church at that time that
blocked on false doctrine from coming in. And he knew the scriptures
very well.

Matter of fact, you can read, if you get online, you can get a history
book, you can read. He actually wrote a letter, actually a long letter,
to the Philippian church. Obviously, we know that Paul wrote a book to
the Philippians when he was in jail, but Polycarp wrote a letter also as
well.

And what I like about Polycarp, what for all of us, what intrigues me
most about this, because it was a continuation from the New Testament
church past. It's still the New Testament. So as soon as the scriptures
are done, we can read in history.

We have to get into history books to see a continuation, a track that
things kept moving along and proceeding how they were already. Follow
me? So we can read that stuff. I'm a big history buff.

I like reading that kind of stuff. I like knowing whether or not there
were still healings and still deliverances and stuff like that. And
there was, all through history, there was.

And so important for the church and so important for the young people of
the church, they don't know church history at all. Because a lot of
times what's going on today, I was sharing with someone last night and I
said, you know, we've got these people who are going to these
progressive churches and they're just, they're babies. You know, when I
was selling life insurance many years ago, the headquarters of the
agency did not want established agents already.

They wanted people who knew nothing about selling insurance. They didn't
because they couldn't minister or they couldn't work with the agents
because they knew too much. But if we can get a bunch of newbies, I can
mold them the way I want.

And so we got a bunch of newbies coming up in the progressive church and
saying, this is church. And they have no idea of the history of the
church. In the last 30, 50 years, the church that has done a U-turn in
America, she went, whoop, like this.

And when all you have to do is look at China right now and the
underground church in China and the underground church in China is very
similar to the book or to the church in Samarna. It's a continuation
right now, as I'm talking, they're being persecuted, suffered
tribulations and on and on, being killed and their buildings are being
destroyed. So in order to know truth, we got to know the scriptures,
number one, we got to know the text.

Amen. That's number one. And number two, we got to know church history.

By those two, you should know whether or not the church is doing right.
So again, the Apostle Paul, John, Apostle John, I got off sidetrack. I
do that sometimes.

So Apostle John appointed Polycarp. Polycarp, he was from, he was born
8069 and he died 8155. So Polycarp, long story short, this is the same
time frame that we're talking about here.

The emperor called for Polycarp. He was 86 years old. He goes like, so
these guards come to Polycarp and they were here to take you to the
emperor.

And so Polycarp says, okay, because Polycarp knew what this was about.
Obviously he knew that Christians were being slaughtered and being
destroyed and he knew his life was over. So these guards came to take
him.

I'm not sure exactly how many there was. And he says to them with
humility and the love of Christ, someone that was going to take him away
and kill him, he offered them food. He said, you want a meal before we
go? While you talk about the love of God.

And they said, sure. He said, plus, he said, that'll give me some time
to pray. He said, can you guys give me at least one hour to pray while
you're eating this meal? They said, sure.

So it's kind of like Brent when he gets up and preaches, when he says
he's going to end the sermon and he doesn't, he keeps going on for
another hour. You know, it's kind of like that's what Polycarp did. He
prayed an extra hour longer.

What do you ask for? So I borrow that from him. But the men that heard
him upstairs praying, they said in the history books that he prayed with
such fervor and passion and tears like they've never heard anybody pray
before. They actually repented, listening to him pray, being downstairs.

God got all over them by listening to that man, godly man, pray. But
they still had a duty to do. Even though they repented, they still
brought him before the emperor.

They were still employed. And so they did. And they brought him before
and then the emperor says, I want you to burn incense to Caesar right
now.

And if you deny Christ and you burn incense to Caesar, we'll let you
walk away. And someone wrote notes. It was in the audience, so to speak,
listening to the whole procession.

And I can't go into exactly, but basically Polycarp said in this, he
looked at the emperor and he said, I am 86 years old. I've served, I've
served the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully for all these years. And dare
not I deny him right now.

And they took him away and they whisked him away. And he said, you know
what? Because what they used to do with the stakes, they would nail you
to a stake. He said, you know what, guys, you don't need to nail me to a
stake.

You can tie my hands and keep me up. He said, I'm not going to resist.
You can just tie me to the stake.

And the tradition says they lit it on fire. And I read many reports,
just try to back this up. And every report, every report and every
report all said the same thing, that the fire did a mushroom all around
him.

It wouldn't touch him. God was keeping him safe for a moment. So after
this went on for a little bit and the mushroom went around him, this
blaze of fire, the guard walked up to him and basically said, forget
this.

And took a spear and shoved it into him and killed him. Polycarp was a
very famous martyr back in Smyrna. You can read a ton of history about
him being faithful to the very end, being faithful to the very end.

So Smyrna was known for myrrh. Myrrh. And myrrh is used back then and
they made perfume.

And in order for myrrh to work in perfume, they got it to a spice. They
have to crush it into small little pieces. And so Smyrna was known for
myrrh to get a fragrance.

And we look at 2 Corinthians chapter 2, 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse
2, 14 through 16. Listen to what he says. Paul says, but thank God that
he has made us his captives and continues to lead us along Christ's
triumphal procession.

Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere like a what?
Sweet perfume. In other translations, it talks about fragrance. We are
the fragrance of Christ.

But in order to be a fragrance, in order to have a good scent for
Christ, we have to be crushed, unfortunately. So the prophet says, it
pleased, didn't displease, it pleased the father to crush his son. And
it created perfume and a fragrance for all the world.

So when God crushes us, it's not to be mean or harsh. He wants us to be
a fragrance that others can smell and see the life of Christ in you and
I. Follow me? But he kind of puts into perspective what it says in 1
Peter chapter 2, Kirsten. 1 Peter chapter 2, 2 to 21, it says, for God
called you even if it means what? Suffering.

Just as Christ suffered for you, he is your example and you must follow
in his steps. Wait a minute, I came to this Christian thing, I don't
want, you know, that's not why I came into this. The Bible says, those
that live godly, it's promised by God, those that live godly shall
suffer persecution.

And actually it's a question, why, if you're not suffering persecution,
are you not living godly? Examine yourself. I'm just going by the text,
amen? This ain't preacher talking, this is just the text. Question for
you and me.

Suffering for us. You know, our suffering, honestly, let's think about
our suffering today. Our suffering today really entails, you know, we
say something on social media and they get unhappy and they block us.

Or they unfollow us, unfriend us. And then we call the pastor, pastor,
my feelings are so hurt, they blocked me. I'm going through such
tribulation and trials.

That's true. Because I've heard Christians complain that someone, how
dare they block me? Really? Yeah, really. He says, you know, or, you
know, someone, our suffering also entails, you know, someone, you know,
we see someone in the store and they kind of like, you know, they hide
their face or we see them turn their back and they won't talk to us
anymore.

You know, that's kind of our suffering. I didn't do anything. How can
they talk? Why are they voiding me in the store like that? I was just in
a family function.

What did I do? And we get all tiffied about it. Upset. We hear people
gossip about us, telling false things.

Christians claiming to be Christian, telling others about stuff about
us. That's not true. Well, so they did to Jesus.

And he goes on, he talks about this 10 days, and I'm not too far from
being done, 10 days. And basically what it boils down to, we can talk
about dates and seasons and times, but basically all the theologians
just about agreed that the 10 days that Jesus was referring to is like,
hey, you're going to go through this for 10 days. There's a metaphor for
a very short period of time.

In other words, you can make it. Paul said, Paul talked about, if you
look at what you're going to experience, the glory of what you're going
to experience, this, what we're going through can't even be compared to,
he said, right? If we can get a true revelation of who he is, you know,
I guess he says, if you want to look at it that way, Jesus says you're
not going to experience the second death. And he's basically saying, all
that you've done, this is your reward.

You're not going to go to hell. That's what he says. And you're going to
be with me.

Because Jesus, for the Samaria church, was all sufficient. That's how
they got through this. He was all sufficient.

That's how they did it. Exactly how they did it. They sold him for who
he was.

That's how a friend of mine, who just came back from China, was a full
Timnitus wife, full time missionaries in China right now. They're
undercover as teachers, witnessing, sharing the gospel over there.
They've been there for full time, eight years.

And he came back to Indiana the other day and they take a three week
break. But when he came back, the persecution is so intense now with the
church there. Those of us that are on the news, we've heard about it.

They're taking pastors away, leaders away, church members away, and
they're hiding them. They don't know where they're taking them to. So my
friend Chris had no contact with the secret police of China until he was
on a plane and he got back home and the friends of China called him and
let him know the secret police have been looking for you in your life.

Because they said they're hearing that you're talking about making other
people disciples of Christ. And then all of a sudden I'm reading the
comments, you know, this is social media, and some people said, don't
go, don't go back. Why would you want to go back there? Dear God, don't
go back there.

You're done if you go back there. They're looking for you. Immediately
my mind switches to Paul and what the prophet told Paul, he said, the
person who wears his belt is bound to go to Jerusalem, will suffer, will
suffer great persecution.

And the disciples tried to sway Paul from not going to Jerusalem because
he knew this was going to be a tragedy for him. He says, I've got to go
because this is the will of God for my life. If I'm in the will of God
for my life, I should be the happiest of all.

And that's what Chris said on social media to everyone that was trying
to talk him out from going. He said, this is the will of God for me, for
me and my wife. We know this is the center of it all.

And that's if that is the center of the will of God, that is the safest
place that I could be, scary to the flesh. And Friday he gets on, he got
onto a plane flying back from his three-week vacation, not knowing what
beckons, not knowing what's going to happen while we sit here
comfortable. He's safe right now.

He reported back he's safe, but it still depicts that things of Smyrna
is still going on today in other countries, still going on. So how does
this relate to us? I've shared some things already, and it's not hard,
but it's going to sound hard. But when they went through all of this,
they didn't complain.

They didn't complain. They didn't complain. I want that to sink in
because they did complain.

Jesus would have scolded them for it. Because if we can't resist the
temptation to miss church on a Sunday or a midweek service because we
don't feel like it, how in God's name are we going to face persecution
when it really comes? We are not called to search out persecution. But
don't get me wrong, that's not the job of Christians, right? We're not
called to search it out, but we're also not we're also called not to
avoid it either.

I'd rather be known, and I hope you would too, I'd rather be known as a
radical for Christ than an indifferent disciple for Christ. Amen? I hope
that's your prayer. And in 1 John chapter 1 verse 1, we proclaim to you,
John says this is also the apostle John again, we proclaim to you that
the one who existed from the beginning we have have heard and seen, we
saw him with our own eyes, touched him with our own hands, and he is the
word of life.

They touched him, they saw him, they heard him. And in the context of
that, I realize that's a physical application there, but also I look at
that as a spiritual application. You know, we can't compare our our walk
with God with someone else's walk with God.

We can't. And I see that happening a lot. We compare, well I'm not like
that, so you shouldn't be like that.

I don't raise my kids like that. Why are you raising your kids like
that? Why do you say that? Get off my back. You're not my Holy Spirit.

Amen? So don't let anybody dictate to you how to live your Christian
walk. You obey the word of God and the Holy Spirit. The Smyrna church
can't really put it in the words themselves if you ask them what was
birthed, listen, what was birthed in them.

You can't put that in the words. It was birthed in them. That which is
birthed in you is of the Holy Ghost, the scripture says.

It's around far beyond earthly words. You can't put it in the words.
It's beyond our own thinking.

What was birthed in you by the Holy Ghost? And Jesus even said, I always
do those things what I see my Father do. He's looking to another realm.
We are called to live in the Spirit.

We are called to live in the Spirit and not not what someone else's
opinion is of us. I see that. How we raise our kids and our families.

We start allowing voices. The kids say, Mom, Dad, so and so, you know,
they let their kids do this. Well, they let them, you know, and we're
not them.

I'm held accountable for my kids and you're held accountable for your
kids. You're held accountable for your life. Amen? Not anybody else.

But the further, and again, the further the church drifts away from God
and those of us that hold the truth dear, hold them dear, the truth of
God's Word, we'll be more slandered in the days to come. It's serious.
It's happening now.

The closer we get to the cross ourselves, we're trying to draw near to
him and he'll draw near to us, but the closer we get to God and the
further the world slips away and those that are pretending to be
Christians and kind of drift with the world become more progressive,
stay 10% into the truth, you and I will be looked at as radical, hard,
high and mighty, holier than thou, can I name some more, because it's
here and it's coming. Because when we read stuff in the history of the
church in the 1500s and 1400s and 1600s, I'll look at their sermons.
It's night and day from what we're hearing today.

They had revival. They knew they were suffering for Christ. But beloved,
let's not live a Christianity walking on eggshells.

This ain't eggshell Christianity in Jesus' name. Amen? This ain't
eggshell Christianity. Jesus told his disciples before he was descended
in the martyrs and you translate that, that says, you shall be witnesses
and translates that, you shall be martyrs, i.e., dying ones for me.

That was God's promise to his disciples. But the Smyrna church didn't
cave in, praise the Lord, they didn't cave in. And that's the
encouragement for us, that we can do this.

Because with all the luxury and the prosperity that they had and they
were living for, I mean, they had in the city and everyone else around
them had it all. They were driving the Bentleys. They were driving the
BMWs.

They had the bigger houses and they had it all. And there were poverty
restrictions and they couldn't work and they couldn't hardly eat. And
people are eating at Texas Roadhouse, you know, and they were eating
better then.

And we couldn't hardly get a crumb of food anymore because we're
despised for our faith now. They never caved in. They didn't conform to
the world.

By the grace of God and the Spirit of God, we can deal with that too.
Amen? Because it's not something, you know, we look at the physical
beatings, we look at the tribulation, we hear the sufferings, all that I
talked about this morning already. And, you know, we look at the
physical aspect of the cross, what Jesus did and all that stuff.

But, you know, it's beyond that. It's beyond that because they didn't
think about the beatings. It was about them seeing a revelation.

They had a revelation of the majesty of the Almighty God. How in the
world could someone go through that and not complain without having a
revelation of Jesus Christ Himself? We need visions of God over and over
and over and over and over and over. And how easily, just to encourage
everyone, I am on my last page of notes.

So, I'm not lying. But I'm serious for a moment. I still want to be
serious because this is a serious thing going on right here.

How easily do we, and I capitalize we, how easily we lose our joy over
trivial things living in this nation. Trivial things. Blow up someone,
yell at someone.

And I read this, and I read this, and they didn't complain, but I get
upset over something stupid and carnal and petty. And then I have to
complain, Lord, I'm suffering. You're really suffering.

And he looks at the Smyrna church. Come on. How easily we lose our
tempers.

You know what, though? I was thinking about this. What we have to be
careful is this. We may not come to the forefront of our minds, but in
the back of minds, we might say this.

In the back of our minds, we might say this. We might actually say,
well, if I had a mate, or if my husband, or if my spouse, my wife was a
little bit more spiritual, and they weren't so tempered, and they
wouldn't do this, you know, I'd be a little more spiritual. Come on.

Well, if I would have had, you know, if I had a little more money at
bank, and I could do, I could have a little more joy in my life, I'd be
more spiritual. We might not say that. It's in the back of our minds.

But if he wouldn't, or she wouldn't this way, I would be a little bit
more for God. If I didn't go through all these sexual temptations, you
know, there's sexual urges all the time, you know, I just, I would be a
little bit more spiritual. Some of us think like that.

I mean, I haven't before. You know, a lot of churchgoers, I've said it
once, I'll say it again, but a lot of churchgoers, it blows my mind when
I read the book of Samarna, the church, it really blows my mind. Because
it's just not our church, it's across the board.

Barna Research has shown it over and over, that the majority of churches
now are having one service per week, and we've got to cram pack
everything in one hour and a half. Well, not if Pastor Brent's
preaching, but we'll work with that. But that's the average church
today.

Because we know the majority of people won't show up for the rest of the
week, because it's too much of an inconvenience for us. We're going to
miss our favorite TV show, favorite sport, or sports are taking over the
church today. And I read that.

Jeremiah chapter 12, verses one through five. I'm not going to read
verses one through four, though, because I want to get to this here.
Jeremiah was actually, in four verses, I can hurry up, he was actually
complaining.

He was, it was actually petty stuff. Just murmuring about this, this,
this, and how he's going through this, this, wasn't much. It was just
petty complaints.

And then God shot back at him. And this is what the Lord said to him. If
you're racing against mere men, and it makes you tired, how will you
race against horses? If you stumble and fall at open ground, what are
you going to do in the thickets near the Jordan? Which I just said a
minute ago, if we can't handle this, how are we going to handle that?
That's what the Lord said.

And I close with this illustration. True story. And I got to read it,
because I don't, it's hard to, Adreninus, not good with that name.

I didn't ask my wife before I came up here to say, hey, what's that? How
do you say that? Adreninus. 280 AD, during the persecution that we're
talking about here this morning. And he was employed by the Romans,
which I said already, that's very, they were very strict about killing
Christians.

And Adreninus watched these Christians day in and day out pass by him,
going to the slaughter, being martyred, being burned, being eaten alive.
Every day he watched them go by him. And after so many days and so many
weeks and so many months, it finally dawned on him.

He stopped one of them as they were passing by to go be martyred. And he
says to them, why do you guys have this joy and smiles on your face,
walking to get burned? I don't understand that, he told them. And he
asked several of them, I haven't seen one of you complain.

He said, I haven't seen one of you not have joy on your faces. Every one
of you have this joy. He really wanted to know, how are you taking this?
And they said to him, because of the Lord Jesus Christ, who strengthens
me.

That's what they told him. And they quoted a verse, every eye, no eye is
here, eye is seen. And they went on with that verse, but the reward
coming to them.

And that's what they quoted Adreninus. So Adreninus got so convicted by
them saying that to him, that he wanted to be a Christian. He said, I'm
going to give my life to Christ.

So he runs, ushers off to the emperor, who has a list of everyone that
needs to be slaughtered. And he stands before the emperor. And he
literally says this, write my name down as a Christian, knowing what was
going to befall him.

And they whisked him away. And they tortured him first. And he became a
martyr.

What do people see in you and I, when we complain about trivial, petty
things? Are we not winning this world to Christ? Because they're not
seeing Christ in us. We're not willing to suffer. Get angry so easy.

We get miffed up so easy. I get mad at my wife, I get mad at my husband,
I get mad at my kids. Maybe it's time that we come to the place, you
know, God, I need a work of grace like I've never had in my entire life
right now.

I need to come, please. Y'all stand. And I don't know if there's any
other time to pray than this morning.

As she plays, you can start coming anytime you want. But God, I need a
work of grace. I need a work.

I need a vision. I need a vision of God. Because maybe, just maybe the
kids have gone wayward because we've complained and they haven't seen
Christ in us.

We complain and murmur and yell and get mad at trivial, petty things
continually. Not to say we're perfect. I'm not saying that, guys.

I'm not saying that. And they don't see Christ in us. Our workers don't
see Christ in us.

Can we be the Christian this morning that says, write my name down.
Write my name down this morning. Write it down.

Why? Because he's worthy. Simply, Jesus is sufficient. Paul had a thorn
in his flesh he asked God to remove.

And obviously, God didn't remove it. But what did he say? His grace was
sufficient. Accepted the thorn.

Accepted the suffering. Peter says, I rejoice, 1 Peter chapter 4 verse
3. He said, I rejoice being a partaker in the sufferings of Christ. Are
you a partaker? Let's pray.

And I'm going to invite you to come. Father, as people are coming now, I
pray, Father, that you would help us. Help us to have a revelation in
the vision of your holiness once again.

Help us to have a heart for God willing to count it all but loss.
Willing to suffer and give it all. To pay a price.

To follow in the steps of our master. God, do a work in us. Do a work of
grace in our hearts, God.

Oh, God, we need you, God. We need you more than we've ever needed you.
Persecution is coming.

It's going to get worse. God, prepare us. And I believe you're preparing
us through this message.

Cause us to live. Cause us to live in you. If you want to come, still
come.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/xK-7ozhAZJo.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/brent-williamson/the-church-of-smyrna/
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