The Seven Churches - Smyrna

Revelation 2:8 And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

Smyrna, the city has very much relevance about resurrection as the city itself was a great place of trade because of myrrh which was exported to Egypt and other important kingdoms. When the Lydian kingdom exploited the city around 550 BC, the city became a pile of ruins. Around 300 BC, Alexander wanted to build the city with some leaders and it grew back again. Around 130 BC, the city was taken over by the Romans with Pergamum as the capital.  From the name we can understand that the plant myrrh was crushed to produce fragrance which is expected of this church.

When Jesus introduces Himself, He is the first and the last and who died and came to life. Here, life is not followed by death but death is first. The primary message to this church is that you should be faithful until death (v 10). Jesus wants those who are chosen for tribulation to know that He knows what suffering and death is. In every event of our troublesome life, if we start deciding on things by knowing that Jesus has already done this, we will be a lot encouraged. Jesus had experienced every kind of humiliation in the world. He was called an associate of the devil or Beelzebub, a person who He personally trained had complete love for money more than the Lord Himself. The worst thing is that when Jesus personally was teaching, Peter had not grown up even a little bit. The Lord had to enter Peter’s heart as the Holy Spirit for him to actually work. Jesus was clearly rejected in his own town. But in spite of all these problems, He could be 100% successful as so we are expected likewise.

Even though Jesus had been through this, there is an assurance that He knows what we are going through. Even if the volume of pain Jesus had was very much higher than what we would experience, He still claims to know our pain. This is a father’s heart. A father will have so much pain, but a son’s little trouble will break Him apart. This love is the second confidence we get from Jesus.

Jesus knows the church’s tribulation, poverty which is the lack of good resources which stops the church from growing well. This means that churches do not get to have everything they need. A church being poor is something to understand. The truth is that the church is rich but remains poor. It means that you chose to be poor because you did not compromise. A church showing off its richness is not appreciated at all.

Blasphemies in the church are treated as tribulation. Not just when the government or police hinder us, even when people who call themselves as Jews come forward and proclaim that we are not called to serve God. They will label our perspectives as wrong and call us to be without anointing or the power of the Holy Spirit. God clearly says that these people belong to the synagogue of Satan.

Going forward, the Lord says that there is suffering but do not fear about it. God wants the church to receive suffering with happiness and pride and not out of choice and fear. We cannot see this as a human expression of false hope, but it really means that there is nothing to fear in suffering for a church.

The devil will create excuses to throw the church into prison and there will be testing for 10 days and will lead to death. The church is already in trouble internally and had chosen poverty, but Jesus speaks about prison which is lack of freedom completely. 10 in the bible speaks about authority like the Ten Commandments and Daniel and his friends accepting tests for 10 days etc. But you shall hold your faithfulness until death. The death should happen and only then there will be reward of crown of life. The crown is the largest of all jewels and the best of life will be received to those who give themselves to suffering.

Concluding the message, the Lord says that the person who conquers like Smyrna would not be hurt by second death. When the second death occurs during the final judgment, there will be nothing to even hurt the church.