The Church in Smyrna in the first century was extremely poor.
They were also faltering in the face of persecution. And that's when they received an encouraging and comforting letter from the risen Christ. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explores that letter to find out how God produces usefulness out of weakness and riches out of poverty. To the angel of the Church in Smyrna write, these are the words of him, who is the first and the last who died and came to life again, I know your afflictions and your poverty yet you're rich.
I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you're about to suffer. I tell you the devil will put some of you in prison to test you and you will suffer persecution for 10 days. Be faithful even to the point of 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.
He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death. And then in verse seven of chapter three, to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia write, these are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews, though they are not but are liars, I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on earth.
I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God.
Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God, and I will also write on him my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. There's hardly a week passes for me in the States when somebody doesn't come to me and say, do you miss your home? And when I tell them that I do, they always want to know why.
Sometimes I give them a sensible answer, and sometimes I'm tired of sensible answers, and so I just play with their mind a little bit. From time to time, I tell them that I miss certain things. For example, I miss Dad's Army.
Now, that then usually closes them down, because not being willing to say, what's Dad's Army, but wanting to seem like they really are comprehensive in their understanding of the world, they say, mm-hmm, and then just move off down the line. But for those of you who are of a similar vintage to myself, the younger people here haven't a clue what I'm talking about, but for those of you who were born a little earlier, you may miss Dad's Army as well. And I confess that whenever, in some remote place in the colonial lands, I hear that familiar tune, I dive for the remote control button and bring it up, just to see Captain Mannering once again, just to hear that fabulous wee song as the program goes out, you know. Let's sing it together, shall we? Ah, they've gone. Okay.
Well, there'll maybe be another year. But Mr. Brown goes off to town on the 831 and half past 21. See, I told you you're a very intelligent group.
And half past three, he's home for tea and ready with his gun. There's something very endearing about that program, especially, I suppose, those who had lived through the difficult days of the war. The idea that somehow or another, a ragtag group of characters, such as was assembled there, could never be responsible for giving a sense of confidence to the community that if ever there was an invasion, they would be able to run to the south coast and, with a variety of broomsticks and bits and pieces, be able to withstand the advances of the evil one.
And we were supposed to go to bed at night feeling, I suppose, a little more confident that if ever this was to happen again, at least we would have this group ready for action. You say, well, so you finally decided, one, to take your jacket off and then two, to give up on Bible exposition. Now you're just going to take us on a tour of the BBC archives. Is that it?
No, actually, no. There is, at least in my own strange mind, a peculiar link between Dad's army and Smyrna in Philadelphia. Because when I read and reread the description of the people in Smyrna and Philadelphia, they look a lot like a kind of ragtag group, a sort of Dad's army. If you see the factors that are described, their poverty and their lack of strength and their living, as it were, under the gun of persecution, we might be forgiven for thinking that a group like this or places like this presumably have little prospect of doing anything significant for God in their day. But of course, when we're tempted to think that way, it is because we're thinking far too much of ourselves and far too little of God. We've fallen into the trap of thinking that God is roaming the earth, looking for the strong and the powerful and the mighty, whom somehow he needs in order to set forward his purposes in the world.
And in actual fact, the reverse is the case. For when you consider your calling, brethren, not many were mighty, not many were noble, not many were of striking importance. We discover that with us, as in Smyrna, as in Philadelphia, as in Corinth, as throughout the world, God has chosen deliberately, purposefully the weak things of the world to confound the strong. He has chosen the foolish things to confound the wise.
And he has given us a message, which in itself is apparently total foolishness, so that when people are gripped and changed by it, their faith may rest, not on the coercive arguments of the facile abilities of a man or a woman's mind, but may rest in the very power of God. And it is surely strategic and good that we end here in these two churches, before many of us return to circumstances that we may feel are similar, not in terms of the extent of persecution, but in terms of looking around at our congregation and saying to ourselves, you know, we look a lot like Dad's army here, to tell you the truth. Have you considered the possibility that your personal weaknesses and the weaknesses of your congregation may be the very key to your usefulness in the hand of God? I'm not talking about sin now, but I'm talking about our falterings, I'm talking about our personalities, I'm talking about our sense of weakness and poverty of spirit and so on.
And we're tempted all of the time, you know, to try and make out that we're different from what we really are. Because if we could present a good front, you know, then maybe people will be impressed with that and drawn to listen to the message. But the fact of the matter is, we want them to be drawn to Christ, and nothing exalts and magnifies Christ more than the awareness that came to the Apostle Paul, despite all that he'd known of the dramatic revelations of God. My strength is made perfect in weakness, therefore, he says, more gladly will I glory in my weakness, that Christ's power may rest upon me, for when I am weak, then I am strong. And I hope that will ring through as we consider these two churches. If you noticed, as we read them, Jesus has no words of condemnation for them. In identifying their circumstances, he issues no complaint, he confronts no problem.
He's done that in each of the other messages, as we've seen. But even in his confrontation of problems and his issuance of warnings, I hope we've understood that the Lord Jesus comes in his warnings as an expression of his grace, as an expression, if you like, of his pastoral care over the flock. Because we must keep in the forefront of our minds as we consider the things that Christ is saying to the churches, that as Paul tells the Ephesians, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. I'm reminded of a book by Michael Griffiths some years ago that was entitled, on the church, entitled Cinderella with Amnesia. It was a fabulous title.
I'm not sure anybody had a clue what it was about when they looked at it, but it was still a great title and a wonderful book. And the thesis was that the Lord Jesus comes to us as we feel ourselves to be like Cinderella, sitting among the ashes and uninvited to the ball and inferior to the fancy sisters that are around us. And he comes and picks us up and fashions us into the beautiful bride of his purposes. Now as you look at the text, consider how he introduces himself, the Lord Jesus does, to this fellowship here in Smyrna.
Once again, the designation fits with the opening vision in chapter 1. What you have here is essentially in verse 8, a repetition of verse 17 in chapter 1. These are the words of him, who is the first and the last, the one who died and came to life again. He introduces himself as the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is from everlasting to everlasting.
Kingdoms rise and fall, dynasties crumble, rulers fade away from the stage of world history, the wind blows over their grave and remembers it no more. But the Lord Jesus is without beginning and without end. He was there before we were born, before the hills in order stood or earth received its frame, from everlasting thou art God to endless years the same. And unnumbered blessings on my soul, your tender care bestowed, before my infant heart conceived, from whom these blessings flowed. For he precedes us and will follow us. When they walk through the graveyard of the local church and they see our names on a stone and they say, I can't really remember that person, the Lord Jesus will be as real and as alive and as vibrant and as committed to the ongoing of his kingdom and the building up of his people as he was on the days when we had the privilege of treading these pathways. One of the features of growing old is that we can become a little morose, you know. We can begin to start singing Abide With Me and not just at the final of the FA Cup, you know. We're having our morning coffee and looking out, and we just watch the news or read the paper, and we're starting to sing, Change and decay in all around us here. And our wives say, oh, shut it up, would you please? And we just become miserable and mournful and always looking over our shoulders. Oh, it was terrific back then, you know. Those were the days, you know, I remember when.
Well, memory's good we said that, but don't allow it to be a chain for you. Because it is right for us to look around and say, yes, we do see change and decay, but the point of the hymn is, O thou who changeth not, you abide with me, walk with me today, talk with me today. I want to live with you today. I want to know your companionship. And that, of course, is the promise that is here in this self-designation. I am the first and the last. I am the beginning and the end. I was before you and I will come behind you. The psalmist says, you hemmed me in behind and before. You've put your hand upon me.
Psalm 121, you watch over my coming and my going from this time forth and even forevermore. And the reason that the Lord Jesus designates himself in this way, presumably to the beleaguered people in Smyrna, is because this, more than any other part of the designation from the opening vision, is a truth that these dear folks in Smyrna needed to hear. This was something that they could, if you like, cozy up to and derive comfort from.
It was an encouragement to them to know that he is the resurrection and the life, faced with the prospect of suffering, even to the point of death. The Smyrnas. Incidentally, I just invented that word last night because I was thinking of the Smurfs when I was reading this. And then I said, I'm going to call these people the Smyrnas.
Like Glaswegians, people from Glasgow, Smyrnas are people from Smyrna. So the Smyrnas, and you heard it here first, were strengthened then by this great Easter truth. They would have been happy with our hymn. Death cannot keep its prey.
Jesus, my Savior, he tore the bars away. Jesus, my Lord, and up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph o'er his foes. They didn't appear to be triumphing. Indeed, the kind of thing that was coming home to them and back to them, even through their children as a result of the calumnies within the community was such that they felt themselves to be anything other than triumphant. If they took a hat out that had different names on it, there wouldn't be many mornings that they would say to their wife, hey, give me that hat that has conqueror on the front of it. You know, I'm going to wear my conqueror hat today because most of the time they would be going around feeling much different from a conqueror. Therefore, to know that they had been included in Christ, to know that he, who was from the beginning to the end at all points in between, who had been dead and who was alive again, that he was their Savior, their companion and friend, would make all the difference to their day and all the difference to the challenges they faced. Tempted they may have been to saying, nobody knows the trouble I've seen. But then they'd catch themselves and say, yes, but Jesus knows all about my troubles.
And we will fight till the day is done. For there's not a friend like the lowly Jesus. No, not one.
No, not one. Now it is this Lord Jesus who identifies their afflictions there. I know your afflictions. Living in an environment of persecution, the enemies of their faith came not only from the Roman authorities but also from the Jewish community. Their daily lives would have been filled with little and large expressions of antagonism, an antagonism that came their way primarily because they refused to bow the knee to Caesar.
They were living as aliens in a strange land. And you will notice that he mentions four dimensions of their trials. I'll just draw your attention to them. First of all, poverty, he says. I know your afflictions.
I know your poverty. It's quite striking because Smyrna was a very prosperous city. Its inhabitants were apparently proud of its abundance. Somehow or another, these believers were not sharing in the abundance of the commercial opportunities of their community. Now presumably it was because, given that they were prepared to take their stand for the Lord Jesus Christ, they would then be bypassed in some commercial ventures. I remember my father, when I was a very small boy, having those conversations with my mother when they did the washing up. They closed the kitchen door so you couldn't hear them, and you always went up to the kitchen door so you could hear them. And I never really fully understood what it was about, but it seemed to be a time of tension and of difficulty in his life.
Even when you're a small child, you pick up on those things, don't you? Later on, when I was more mature and my father and I communicated about everything, he was able to tell me that when he worked in Ayrshire, he found it impossible amongst the farming community to get any business at all, because he didn't shake hands the way the Ayrshire farmers shook hands. And his boss told him that if he would become a member of a secret society and learn to shake hands properly, that he would get all the business that he ever wanted. And he said, give me another territory that is an inferior territory, and I'll get more business out of the inferior territory, shaking hands the way I shake hands, than in this potentially vibrant territory, shaking hands the way you want me to.
And it's quite interesting that the fellow didn't just give him his books and send them up the street, but he thought my dad would fail. My dad told me that he got on his knees and he said, Lord Jesus Christ, you are stronger than all of these forces. Therefore, if it please you and for your namesake glorify yourself in the production of business in this territory that nobody's been able to make a go of before. And let it be clear to me and to everybody else that, Lord Jesus, you are able to produce riches even out of poverty. And God did.
God did. Well, let's just notice that they were poor. Particularly a word of caution for the American church, I think. The people from Smyrna, if they were to come back in one of the Doctor Who telephone boxes or whatever it was and drop down into the average scene in the States, and perhaps it would be true here in the UK, they would be rubbing their eyes in mystery, looking at the people as the words came out of their mouth, selling to the folks a gospel of wealth and a gospel of prosperity and a gospel of if you will follow Jesus, everything will fall in line for you and you'll get all these things. Last week before I left and reading in the New York Times, I discovered that in Africa, the vastest growing congregations are congregations where they have bought in to this name it and claim it wealthy philosophy that has been promulgated out of the American context. And Africans are coming in their droves to these congregations in the hope that they may become like their self-styled pastors who have been able to give evidence of the fact that God wants you to be prosperous and to be strong and to be mighty. Well, it wouldn't have sold in Smyrna, you know, and it would have been hard for the apostles to get a hold of it. And the idea of a Galilean carpenter with 12 young ragtag men somehow doesn't fit that message, but still we're tempted to live the lie that if we can show the world that we are strong, that we are powerful, that we are mighty, that we can make an impact, then they will listen.
No, they won't. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And indeed, the problem in one of the other communities was the very problem that they were rich. They regarded themselves as in need of nothing. They didn't need anything to see.
They didn't need any clothes. They had everything they needed. They were living with the curse of complacency.
Not in Smyrna. Jesus wanted them to know that even though they were poor, they were actually rich in the things that really matter because a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. That same message of comfort and encouragement from Jesus to the church at Smyrna still applies to us today. Jesus knows our present afflictions, and he promises eternal rewards when we persevere in faith.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. If you'd like to share the comforting message of the gospel with others, we recommend a book called Mere Evangelism, 10 Insights from C.S. Lewis to help you share your faith.
In many writings by C.S. Lewis, he explains that his path to conversion was slow, gradual, and marked by a great deal of intellectual debate. He related his own experience to others when he later began to share his faith. The book Mere Evangelism examines what made Lewis so effective at leading others to faith in Jesus. In the book's 10 Insights, you'll learn more about how he used clarity, how he made an emotional connection, and how he was prepared for opposition to compel others to seriously consider the truth of the gospel. Request your copy of Mere Evangelism when you give a donation to support the teaching you hear on Truth for Life. Click on the picture in the app or visit us at truthforlife.org. By the way, if you're interested in purchasing additional copies of Mere Evangelism to share with others, you'll find them along with many other quality books in our online store where they're available for purchase at cost. Visit truthforlife.org slash store.
I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for joining us. Hope you have a great weekend and are able to worship with your local church. Have you ever been tempted to soften the gospel in order not to be offensive to other people? On Monday, we'll be back in the book of Revelation to see why that's a dangerous tack to take. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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