Jesus Praised This Church (But Their Life Was Hell)

I believe with all my heart these letters apply to some aspect of the church globally. There is a message for us personally in every single one of these 7 churches. Smyrna was one of the most dark cities in Asia Minor. This city was steeped in pagan worship, and it was devoted to the worshiping the goddess Cybele. It was self-mutilation. It was frenzied, bloodied rituals. Smyrna was known to carry an eerie atmosphere. The theater hosted many pornographic performances, actually in real time. Their massive stadium was the site of multiple massacres of believers, and it included wild beasts. 5 of the 7 get really severe rebukes and corrections from Jesus. This is one of the two that does not. He said, I know about your suffering and your poverty, but you are rich. Tribulation is a real part of Christianity, and it's something that we just don't like talking about in the Western church. They probably think the worst is past, right? Jesus is saying the worst is actually ahead of you. Whatever our path is that he's called us to walk, we've got to trust that he's given us the grace to walk through it. Hey everybody, welcome to the John Bevere Podcast. I'm John Bevere, joined with my son Arden. Arden, it's good to see you today.

Good to see you too.

Yeah, I'm excited about what we're doing. We're talking about these 7 churches in Asia Minor that Jesus spoke to personally right out of his mouth in the first or the latter part of the first century. And gosh, you know, I just want to say to everybody, I have had the most intimate times with the Holy Spirit going through these 7 church letters in my own life. I just pray the same is happening with you. We have talked about the history in 2 podcasts ago. We talked last podcast about the Church of Ephesus. Now we're gonna move to the Church of Smyrna. I'd love to read to you what Jesus says to this church in Revelation 2:8-11 in the New Living Translation. Here's what we hear. Write this letter to the angel, of course this would be the bishop, the pastor, of the church in Smyrna. This is the message from the one who is the first and the last, who was dead but is now alive. I know about your suffering, your poverty, but you are rich. I know the blasphemy of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan. Don't be afraid of what you're about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for 10 days, but if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life. Anyone with ears to hear, must listen to the Spirit and understand what He is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious will not be harmed by the second death. I believe with all my heart these letters apply to some aspect of the church globally. I believe with all my heart there is a message for us personally in every single one of these 7 churches, because the Word of God is alive. It is powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and it is the— listen to this— the discerner of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. Wow. And so I said this last podcast, and it's worth repeating: this is the only place in all of the New Testament you're gonna find all of these words in red because they're directly from the mouth of Jesus, with the exception of two. One verse in Acts which says it's more blessed to give than to receive, and and what God said to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power works best in your weakness. These are the only words you're going to find in red outside of the Gospels. Now let's talk about some of the historical facts. Are you ready? Smyrna was one of the most dark cities in Asia Minor. I mean, this city was steeped in pagan worship and it was devoted to the worshiping the goddess Cybele.

Yeah, we could be saying it wrong, but it's—

I totally might be saying it wrong.

C-Y-B-E-L-E.

All right. So how good's your— what is it, phonics?

Yeah.

Help me. Hooked on Phonics. How would you say?

I mean, I would say Cybele, but again, I know.

I'll go— let's go with it.

We'll go with that for the rest of the program.

And please, if we're wrong, you know, have mercy on us. Okay. And so this patron goddess of Cybele, which was involved with This worship of this god was one of the most grotesque forms of worship in the first century paganism. It was self-mutilation. It was frenzied, bloodied rituals. Smyrna was known to carry an eerie atmosphere. I, I'll never forget when I went to one particular city in the world. I don't want to name the city. I felt the same thing because this city had so many goddesses and gods, and it was eerie. Yeah. And so I really can relate to the fact that they reported this was an eerie atmosphere with idols basically lining the street, and this city that I went to in the world basically had the same thing. Yeah. The theater, which was one of the largest in Asia, hosted many pornographic performances actually in real time. So they did it in front of people right there in the theater. Yikes.

Yeah, so it's a dark, dark place.

Really dark place. Yeah, because it was a port city, many sailors, soldiers, and merchants availed themselves to its thriving prostitution industry.

It's kind of, kind of what Pompeii was, where Pompeii was this like destination for the wealthy to be able to go and indulge.

And do you remember, did you tour that city with me?

Yeah. No, not with you. Christian and I, we went and toured it.

So yeah, your mom and I, we went through it as well. And what I couldn't believe is how many brothels there were. Yeah, they were like on every street corner, and you basically pointed the pointer— do you remember that— to the sex you wanted. What? Oh, it was so— I don't even want to talk about it. Oftentimes their massive stadium was the site of multiple massacres of believers who were dying for their faith and hosted by many gladiators and included wild beasts. So this was a pretty dark city. Perhaps some of you were wondering, how in the world does John know about these ancient 7 cities, the 7 churches that Jesus speaks to in Revelation? I do it effortlessly by going to my Logos Bible software. In fact, I can get so much information, accurate information, so quickly with just a few clicks. I've been doing it for years. I've written almost every single book using it, and we have a special. So Arden, how do they get this?

All they got to do is they got to jump over to Logos, so Logos.com/Bevir, and they'll be able to access up to 60 days free. So if you even want to go deeper onto the 7 churches, you can utilize Logos Bible Software for absolutely free. But there's also something else. They have combined up to 190 books that you can get that's normally costing over $3,000 that you can get 90% off. So go take advantage of this special offer today. Go over to Logos, L-O-G-O-S, and dive deeper into these 7 churches of Revelation.

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Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment, but first I want to thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages, so thank you. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com/patreon. Patron. Now let's get back to the show.

But I was just going to say, but I love that the church is right there inside. Yeah, because I do look at— obviously you look at Pompeii and you see obviously there was not the influence of the church there. And what was the result in the judgment of Pompeii was just pure destruction. And then yet you have this city where all this is going on and yet Jesus is saying, my church is still in there.

Now, you know, what's interesting is you've got 7 churches here.

Yeah.

And in Asia that Jesus is speaking to. 5 of the 7 get really severe rebukes and corrections from Jesus. This is one of the 2 that does not. And so we heard, and I'm gonna repeat this, the Navy SEAL who spoke to our team a couple weeks ago, he said, "It is hard to serve Jesus when it's easy, and it's easy to serve Jesus when it's hard," referring to the persecutions he went through for being a believer, amongst the warriors, the hardships that they had to go through as warriors. He said, "It was so much easier for me to serve Jesus passionately in those hard times." This is a church that obviously, it became stronger because of the darkness of the city. So let me say this to you. If you're in a situation where it's dark in your family, dark in your school, dark in your workplace, use this as, fuel to cause you to really press in even that much harder. And to be honest with you, it will actually cause you to do it. I find when I travel all over the world that people that are in persecuted countries, their phones are being tapped, where they're being tracked, where the police can come into their house at any time and do a search, where they're being arrested for their faith. These believers are so passionate about the kingdom. The kingdom is so ever-present to them So in America, if you're in a Western church and you're serving God passionately like this, I just want to say thank you so much for having a heart for Jesus, being able to serve him passionately the way people that are persecuted, even in times where you're not being persecuted and you have so much luxuries and conveniences and you have so much distractions that are available. So let's just go through this verse by verse. Yeah. Jesus says this message is from the one who is the first and last, who is dead and is now alive. Now, I want to first of all talk about the one who is dead and is now alive. I wonder if he says this to this church knowing the intense persecution, because there were so many Christians martyred in this city. And I wonder if Jesus actually used this aspect of introducing himself to remind them, hey, I was dead and I came back to life. I was brutally treated. I was brutally murdered. And I'm back to life, and guys, you're gonna go through some suffering, but you're gonna come back to life because you're my faithful witnesses.

[Speaker] Yeah, I love that, 'cause it's the beautiful imagery of just, they're surrounded by darkness, and they're just feeling like, look, there's no, there's not really feeling like there's any kind of hope, and I love this quote from C.S. Lewis that says, if you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, The great men who built the Middle Ages, the English evangelists and evangelicals who abolished the slave trade, all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. So understanding is Jesus. I think it's exactly that of saying, showing his death and understanding like the one who was dead and has come to life. It's just that reminder for them. Because they probably needed just eternity to look at and not from a, I can't wait to get to eternity. And I think this is even the reminder of what he continues to keep going on to. But it's more of a, hey, look, look at eternity. Understand that the tribulations, the things you're going through right now is—

it is very temporary.

It's temporary. And it's also purposeful so that there is a light within this community so that his grace and his mercy can be shown.

So let's move on to the next verse. Verse 9, and I want to play— I want to continue what you just said as we get further into this, because I really think this is something that needs to be said. He said, I know about your suffering and your poverty, but you are rich. I know the blasphemy of those opposing you. They say they're Jews, but they're not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan. I know the suffering. Now there are two Greek words that describe suffering. And one means basically, you know, you just don't, you're struggling, right? I'm struggling to make my payments, I'm struggling to pay the bill. But then there's another Greek word for suffering that means you're homeless, you have nothing. This is the word Jesus is using. I'm actually wondering, and so do a lot of Bible scholars, they had what's called guilds. They were trade guilds back in those days where this was a big thing in these Asian cities. And these trade guilds actually became and morphed into what we know to be today our unions, our workers' unions. Now, workers unions actually started out really good in America, but it ended up going really squirrelly in the '80s, '90s. I mean, really bad. Well, I think the same thing happened here. What happened here was the fact that if you, you know, this, this, this, um, what do I want to say, union or guilds ends up that if you're not worshiping their pagan gods, if you're not practicing in their pagan practices, You now are excluded, and the way to make money was to be in this group. So these guys started getting excluded, and they were losing ways of being able to bring in income because they were ostracized. And so, you know, this could happen. I mean, it could happen in any moment. It could happen in America. It could happen in England. It could happen in Australia. It could happen in Canada. This is something that we've got to face. What are we going to do if we face something like this? You have to ask yourself that question. Are you going to compromise? Because the way they would get people into these guilds is say, all right, offer, offer sacrifices to this pagan god. Do, do what Sibyl— Sibyl? Sibyl?

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. We want you to cut yourselves and, and throw your blood on the wall on this because on given days they would cut themselves and all this stuff. And so Of course, these believers are going, no way. So they're suffering the consequences of it. And so tribulation is a real part of Christianity, and it's something that we just don't like talking about in the Western church because we don't like being uncomfortable. But yet I look at what Peter says, Arden, and he said, as Christ suffered for us in this, in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind. 'For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his time for the desires of men, but for the will of God.' Now there's a whole lot in that. As Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself. Now think about who's armed and who's not armed. I look at a commercial airline pilot. You know what they do? They put those guys into flight simulators every 6 months. You know what they do in those flight simulators? They throw every catastrophe they can think of at those guys, right? And from wind shear to hail to lightning strikes, losing engines, and those guys have to get the plane down in the simulator. So in tragedies, I was on a plane recently where people start going, ah, but I can't imagine being on a plane that's like lost an engine or is diving, and I have been told that the hysteria of the passengers, 'cause they're not armed, but the pilots are like, hey, feather the engines, check, put the flaps down, check, do this, because they're trained, they're armed, right? So I look at a Christian who's not armed to suffer, and when they encounter hardship, when they encounter, what they do is they react. Now, if they're not armed, they might react in a way that doesn't glorify God. I mean, let's just talk about general persecution, I mean, general tribulation. You know, let's say we go through a hardship, something happens that we're not expecting. Do we respond with shock? Do we respond with bewilderment, amazement, or do we act? You know, how many times you hear people going, oh, I'm going through this. Well, Have you fought the enemy with the word of God? Have you prayed about this? Well, they're so overwhelmed they haven't done it. I love it when I see believers in our United States and they get a report, let's say, about cancer, and the first thing they do is they get out communion. They start praying, they start speaking against it. That's, they're armed. Other people go, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? Okay, what's the protocol? And they think everything except Hey, let's battle this in prayer first. Okay, that's a minor form. I mean, these guys in a city like this, they know what they're about to face. They know they could get arrested and beaten just in a heartbeat. So—

Can I ask the question? 'Cause I think there's a lot of people that probably would compare their lives and their suffering to other Christians. So understanding, like, especially in the Western culture is, you know, you might have people that are experiencing hard times and feeling like, well, I look at this and then I look at someone else who's also a Christian, and I feel like they're getting blessings and this. Like, what advice would you have for that person that feels like I'm feeling like I am faithfully following God and I'm just feeling like I'm not catching a break? Like, I've done one thing after another thing. I'm not getting promotions at work. I'm not able to find a good job. My kids are struggling, like, whatever it is. 'Cause I do think we live in a culture where you have a lot of comparison and just to kind of feel like it's like Christians are supposed to, you will have tribulation, but then they see, I don't know, and maybe this, you can't ever compare your tribulation to someone else's and maybe that's the solution, but you just see a lot of differences and a lot of gaps there.

Well, let's answer it through this church. And that's a really good question. If you look at this church, and I'm gonna go back to the top again. Listen to what Jesus said. They probably think the worst is past, right? It can't get any worse than what we're going through. I mean, we've been ostracized from the community because we're not part of the guilds, 'cause we're not worshiping pagan gods. But yet Jesus says, "The devil's about to throw some of you in prison to test you. You will suffer for 10 days." So in other words, what Jesus is saying is the worst isn't behind you. The worst is actually ahead of you. Now let's compare that to let's look at the church Sardis. Now we're gonna get to Sardis. Sardis was very, very wealthy.

Yeah.

Sardis had many gods, but people didn't care if you worshiped their god or somebody else's god or what god. So the Christians in Sardis didn't get persecuted. Now it'd be really easy for these people in Smyrna to look at the people in Sardis and go, Jesus, this isn't fair. Yeah, I mean, Sardis, they're, they're not, they're not bothered at all by persecution. We're going to get thrown in jail for about 10 days.

Yeah.

Now if you start comparing, it's kind of, it's kind of like when Jesus looked at Peter and he said, you know, when you were young you went where you wanted to, but when you're old somebody's going to tie you up, your hands, and take you to a place you don't want to go. Yeah. What was Peter's response? What about him, John? And Jesus said, what is it to you if he remains until I come back? You follow me. Yeah. So history shows Peter was crucified. And he was so honoring of Jesus. He said, I cannot be crucified the way my Lord and Master was. So they turned him upside down. All the blood went to his head, and he died a very, very horrible death. But God gave him grace to get through it. And I love that Jesus was saying to Peter, what you tried to get out of that you failed in. I'm gonna give you another chance and you're gonna have the grace to get through it. But this was Peter's first reaction. What about him? John is the only one of the 11 that didn't die being martyred. He died of natural causes. One of the worst things that we can do is compare ourselves with others.

Yeah.

And I don't know why God chooses certain paths for each of us, but he does. And he knows what he's given us. He knows the grace he's given us, the personality he's given us, the calling he's placed on us. Yeah. And whatever our path is that he's called us to walk, we've got to trust that he's given us the grace to walk through it. And I look at these guys, he said, even Jesus said, you're poor. You know, you are poor, but you're rich. Yeah, he said you're rich. So what does James write? Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith?

Yeah.

So in other words, it's kind of like when it's hard, it's easy. When it's easy, it's hard. Yeah. Now that's not to say somebody who has substance, who has means, that doesn't mean they don't have great faith.

Yeah.

I mean, if you look at David, David writes in the Psalms, this poor man. Wait a minute. David lived in a palace. What do you mean this poor man? He was utterly dependent on God. If you look at Joseph of Arimathea, the Bible says he was a rich disciple of Jesus, yet his faith was strong. He had, he was the only one with guts to be able to go to Pilate in this very dark hour and say, I really want the body of Jesus. And so he had rich faith. So it doesn't mean if you're a person of substance, you can't have rich faith, but it means God has chosen the people that are poor in this life to be rich in faith. Yeah, Smyrna was rich in faith.

Yeah. Can I ask this question? Because I think this would be something that we could talk on that's really good, is obviously when I'm looking at this and I'm looking at darkness all around these people, I think in modern terms you see a lot of people, and that might be representative, in depression and feeling depression, anxiety, and navigating those things. What about that in terms of processing through? Because I do think we, we live in a culture that's very obviously, you can be very isolated and to yourself and looking at these things that are going on and feeling like I'm weak in faith and you're furthering your despair. I'm sure there's people that deal with that. And so looking at this, what's a good reminder from that to fight through those depressions and understanding? Because I think that's even a great blessing of of understanding, but you are rich. But yet, you know, we've seen people in our life that have succumbed to depression and taken their own life.

I look at David. I mean, you think about it. David's gone through 12 years, 12 long years of having his boss, King Saul, try to destroy his life. As a result, he's got to live in the land of the Philistines. He's got to live in caves and deserts and wildernesses. Yeah, he couldn't go home. To home to his family. So 12 years, he's out in isolation, can't go to his own family. What about the friends he grew up with? He can't see them. And then God brings these disgruntled, offended men, about 400 to 600 of them, out to the wilderness, who he doesn't really know that well. Some of them maybe. But those men are with him, they stay with him. And then David goes to try to fight with the Philistines, the people he's living with, and they reject him. So he leaves and comes back to Ziklag rejected. And when they get back there, they find out the Amalekites had invaded that city, taken all their wives, all their children, taken all their valuables, and left. Now the Bible says, this one really gets me, his men spoke about stoning David. Okay, these are like the last people that are for you on planet Earth, and literally planet Earth for David. And this last couple hundred men now wanna kill me.

Yeah.

Because I made a bad leadership choice. I can't imagine how alone he felt at that moment. But what does the Bible say he did? He encouraged himself in the Lord. And you know, Arden, all of us meet these times where we go through deep, deep, dark times of fighting depression, okay? I have had to face times in my life where I remember one time I was fighting depression so strong. Now, I wasn't succumbing to depression, I was fighting it.

Yeah, that's good.

And there's a big difference. People that succumb to depression don't get out of bed, They isolate themselves. They stop reaching out. People that are fighting depression have the thoughts bombarding them, but they don't submit to them. Yeah. So I was fighting depression and I remember I was at the place right now where quoting the scriptures wasn't even feeding me because it was 18 months of this. I mean, my boss was trying to destroy my life and I had no plan B. I knew I was called to travel and preach the gospel, but it looked to me like it would never happen. Nothing seemed to be going right in my life except I had a wife who believed in me. That was one thing I had that, you know, David didn't have anybody believing in him at the time. But I remember I was sitting down and I was just like, the promises aren't speaking to me. And I remember I just started saying, God, you're faithful. And I remember when I said it, it put a spark in me. And I said it again. I said, God, you're so faithful. And it put another spark in me. I said, God, you're faithful. You're faithful. You're faithful. And I kept saying it. And the more I said it, the more it fed me. And it got me through the next couple of days. And I remember a few months later reading Psalm either 34 or 37. David makes the statement when he's in a really dark time, feed on his faithfulness. I thought, oh wow, that was the only thing that was feeding me at that point. And all of us have to learn to get to that point where the only one we can really turn to for our help is Jesus. And we turn to him by help by speaking what he says, speaking his word, reminding ourself of what he's done in our life. So the Bible says they overcome by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and they loved not their life even unto death. One of them is the word of their testimony. I have to start reviewing, okay, what did God do for me here? What did he do for me here? And I started reminding myself of it. The faithfulness caused me to think of prayers he had answered previously because it looked like he wasn't doing anything for me at the time when I know he was. He's actually saying, son, I need you to build your strength a little more. Yeah, I need you to build up your spirit. David encouraged himself, built himself up in the Lord. And so I don't— I want to say this, and, and I hope you don't get angry at me, but if you have succumbed to depression, you're in a bad place. And I want to say that you need to treat it like you'd treat adultery or murder. Depression, think about this. In righteousness, God says, you will be established and you will be far from oppression. So I kind of looked at it when I was fighting that depression. God, you said I'd be far from oppression, but I had to search and dig, dig deep to find out how to get out of it. And it only happened when I started encouraging myself in the Lord. God, you're faithful. I fed on his faithfulness. This is what David had to do. And it gave him the strength to say to his men, bring the Urim and Thummim here, bring the priest here. And he said, Lord, should we go after them? And God said, go after them. We'll recover. You'll recover. And so they went and they recovered all and more. Now he's a hero in his men's eyes, right? But yet just a couple of days earlier, they wanted to stone him. So you're gonna go through times where you're gonna feel like God's abandoned me. He's not abandoned you. He said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Jesus is reminding this church, hey, be faithful, have patient endurance, because I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Forsake you.

Did I answer your question?

No, I think that's good. I just think there's— I think it was an important thing just to touch on, just because seeing that imagery of this church surrounded by darkness, I just know there's people out there that feel like that. They're in that place. So I think that's such a great encouragement, and I love that. So thank you, Dad.

So, I mean, I felt like it brought on something very important for this podcast. I agree. I mean, so Jesus said, you know, They're blaspheming you, right? These people who call themselves Jews, they're really— their synagogue is the synagogue, and they're blaspheming you. What I love— this, our producer was able to mine this for us— the word blasphemy in the Greek is the Greek word blasphema. It doesn't mean to speak irreverently about God or spiritual matters. It actually has a broader meaning, and it refers to any type of debasing, derogatory, nasty, shameful, ugly speech or behavior that is intended to humiliate somebody. So now, I know this to be true because Paul made this statement in 1 Timothy 1:13. He said, when he described himself, he said, "Although I was formerly a blasphemer." Hey, wait a minute. He greatly had a reverence for God because he is putting Christians to death thinking he's doing God a service. So he was debasing, he was humiliating, he was murdering people that loved God. So I would imagine if these people are of the synagogue and they call themselves Jews, they're not blaspheming any other way other than debasing these people. And Jesus said, hey, I know they're doing this with you, but stay faithful. And then he says, some of you are gonna be thrown into prison for 10 days. Actually, the Bible historians believe these are actually the 10 periods of very intense persecution the church went through, and it was under 10 emperors. And so, I mean, I've got them. I don't want to list them. I don't think everybody's really interested in hearing the names of these, but there were time periods. I mean, Nero was the first one. He was 64 to 68. Then Domitian, remember, Domitian is the one that sent John to the Adrianus, and then it goes right down and there's 4. Marcus Aurelius is the one that we really should talk about. He was the emperor that actually martyred Polycarp. Now, Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna.

Cub, interesting.

And Polycarp's, uh, martyrdom is one of the most well-documented, famous martyrs of, of the early church. He was basically 80 3 years old when he was brought before this emperor, okay? When he was brought before the proconsul, the Roman proconsul, and it wasn't the emperor himself, I think it was one of his underleaders, he was pressured to renounce his faith, swear allegiance to Caesar, and curse Christ. Polycarp famously responded, "86 years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong." 'How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?' The authorities threatened him with death by fire, but he did not comply. Polycarp remained resolute, stating, 'You threaten me with fire that burns for a season and after a while is quenched, but you are ignorant of the fire of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked.' What a response. Yeah. Refusing to renounce Christ, Polycarp was sentenced to death by burning. Witnesses recorded that when he was tied to the stakes, this is amazing, flames formed all around him but did not consume his body. Eventually, the executioners resorted to killing him with a sword. So here he was, burned just like John, put into a boiling vat of water, of oil, and coming out praising God. Polycarp's got flames all around him, but he's not being burned. So the guys actually thrust a sword right into him. His martyrdom became a symbol of courage, faith, and unwavering devotion of Christ, inspiring Christians for generations. Polycarp's death reminds believers today of the cost of faithfulness, the power of standing firm in truth, and the eternal hope found in Jesus Christ. So if you look at Jesus, he says, but if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you— this is what Jesus says— the crown of life to this church. That word, the crown of life, it is so amazing. It means this. It means the crown given to the athletes when they were victorious. And you remember Jesus says to the church, to him who overcomes, he's actually saying to him who's victorious over the battles they face in this life, I will give them the crown of life.

Which I think is interesting too, that he's using that terminology because what we talked about is this, what it had one of the biggest arenas.

Yes.

So I love that he's even using that imagery for them of taking the moments of darkness that they probably experienced in relation to that and say, no, I'm going to give you the crown of life.

So he concludes with this: Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. Whoever is victorious or overcomes will not be harmed by the second death. Second death is very important to note. And my friend Rick Renner says the phrase second death comes from the Greek phrase, and I'm not gonna pronounce this phrase because I am not Greek, which literally means death of a second kind. It refers to eternal punishment for those who did not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior in this life, as their Lord and Savior. This was Jesus's message to the believers in Smyrna. Even if they died physically for their faith, he joyfully promised that eternal death would never ever touch them. And that is his promise to every single one of us as believers, that the second death will not harm us if we remain faithful to the end. So I love this church because I realize that it could, it could, you're already gonna be persecuted for your faith. You're being persecuted for your faith in your schools, at your job, You're being persecuted in your neighborhoods. If you really are walking with Jesus, you are going to be persecuted. Paul said, all those who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. If you're not being persecuted, ask yourself, am I really standing out? Am I really a witness for Jesus Christ? Okay, so it's a promise. Those who live godly in Christ— godly in Christ is the key— you will suffer persecution. So we know, and I know I'm speaking to many people in the Western church right now, but I know also, you know, our podcast is being watched by people in Eastern Europe, in Asia, in places, you know, Middle East, where there is great persecution. It doesn't matter what the persecution is, if it's verbally, if it's socially, if it's physically, stay faithful to Jesus. He will give you the grace to come through it, and you will not be harmed or touched by the second death, and He will give you the victor's crown of life. What a promise. And this is something that lasts for eternity. Remember, this life is but a vapor. This life is nothing compared to eternity. Stay faithful to Jesus, whether you're in a good atmosphere. What I mean by good is you're not being physically persecuted like some people are in the world, or whether you're in a bad atmosphere, you're being physically persecuted. Either one, stay faithful to Christ because the reward is so great. Until next time when we talk about, oh my goodness, these next two churches, Pergamum and Thyatira. When we talk about these on the next podcast, there is so much to glean for the Western church in these next two churches coming up, actually the next three churches coming up. And I still believe there's something to glean from every single one of them., but boy, these next 3 are big. Until then, this has been the John Bevere Podcast. Art, it's been great being on with you. I wanna remind you again, You Are Called, the book can be gotten on Amazon, and the book that I believe is the foundation of everything we do on this podcast is The Awe of God. If you've not read it, please go to Amazon. There it is, there's a picture of it. They usually have it on sale. Get The Awe of God and read it. Until next time, this has been John Bevere Podcast. We've loved being with you. Thank you for listening to us, and God bless you.