The Church Where the Lights Went Out

When I was a boy, I was scared of a lot of things. And one childhood fear that stands most in my mind is a fear of the dark. I have a picture in my mind that's as clear as if it actually happened, even though it was just a fear--the picture of being alone in a house with all the lights out and no matter how many switches you turn on, there is still no light but only blackness. To this day, that picture still scares me a little bit. It's a frightening thing to be in the darkness without any light.

And I wonder if that's how the Christians in Smyrna felt. Their world had gone very dark. Across the board, the end of the first century was a dark time for Christians. The church had never had things easy, but by the time of John's Revelation, the Romans government had begun to recognize and oppose the work of Christianity. Rome had instituted the worship of the emperor as a god and insisted rigidly on it as a political necessity and so Christians suffered imprisonment, torture, and death for their refusal to worship someone other than Christ. Even when persecution didn't go that far, Christians could suffer the loss of employment or property for their faith. And of course, the Jews, who had always opposed the church, were still around. That was the situation in Smyrna at the time John wrote. It was a very dark time.

And things sometimes seem very dark for the church today. We too have people that oppose and ridicule and try to stop the spread of the gospel. In America, we have not faced persecution in the sense that the church at Smyrna knew it, but there are still forces that work against the gospel. We do not know what the future holds, but it is not impossible that things for us could one day become as dark as they were in Smyrna.

But as dark as things were for the church Smyrna, they did have a gleam of light, and that made all the difference. As dark as things are for us, we too have the same gleam of light, and that can make all the difference. And that light is our Savior. The light of their world and ours is Jesus. Revelation is the Revelation of Jesus and when Jesus sent His message to this church in Revelation 2:8-11, He revealed three things about himself to the church at Smyrna which acted as lights in their darkness; and those three things can also be lights to us.

“I Know”

Verse 9 begins with these words: “I know.” As dark as the situation in Smyrna was Jesus could still see through the darkness. God might have seemed far away from them, but He was very much present. It should be noted that the address to each of the seven churches begins with these words. They were all different, yet God knew exactly what was going on with each of them. But exactly what did Jesus know about Smyrna? What does Jesus know about us?

He knows our service. At the beginning of verse 9, He says: “I know thy works.” A few words later, speaking of the material poverty of the church, He adds “But thou art rich.” Jesus knew all about the church at Smyrna. And to say “But thou art rich” is His way of praising them for their spiritual wealth. We don't know how big or small the church at Smyrna was. We don't know what kind of people were in the church or what kind of building they met in. But we know that they had spiritual riches.

For some of the churches in Revelation, that phrase “I know thy works” is an unnerving sentence, for their works were not perfect before God. But the church at Smyrna had good works. They were serving God. They had spiritual riches. We don't know what all that involved--but we know that Jesus knew.

Often in life, we may feel that nobody notices or appreciates the things we do. Even our service for God often seems to go unnoticed and forgotten. Many a preacher, many a teacher, many a Christian layman receives no recognition or applause for their work. They live without notice and die without praise. It may often seem that we are working for no reason. Often the things we do seem to come to nothing. But Jesus knows. Just as it was in Smyrna, so it is today. He knows our works. That should be a sobering thought if we aren't living up to the standard we ought. It should rebuke us for our failures. But should also be an encouragement. Nothing that is done for God is ever lost. Nothing ever simply slips through the cracks. 

And He also knows our suffering Again, in verse 9: “I know thy works, and tribulations, and poverty.” I already mentioned something about the dark times through the Smyrnans were passing. We don't know how bad things were exactly, though a few verses later it speaks of suffering and imprisonment and even death. Maybe things hadn't quite reached that level yet, but that was the sort of atmosphere they lived in.

Next to tribulations we have poverty. The Smyrnan church was a financially poor church. Was it simply because the church was composed of poor people who could do little to help the church financially? Or, perhaps, had the Christians suffered impoverishment because of their faith? Obviously, we don't know, but we do know that they were at a low point financially. And Jesus knew. They were in darkness and Jesus knew how dark things were.

Commonly, when we go through dark times, we feel alone and isolated. Even if we have sympathetic friends, they can never fully enter into our sufferings. And often we have to suffer things in silence, things we can never tell others. An old spiritual expressed the feelings of many people in dark times: “Nobody knows the trouble I see.” But the next line of that song is the revelation of our text: “Nobody knows, but Jesus.” If we are God's people, we never suffer alone. And especially when we are suffering because of our faith, then Jesus is with us. He knows and sees our trouble.

And He knows our slander Verse 9 ends: “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not.” Throughout the New Testament times, the Jews were the bitterest enemies of Christianity, long before the Roman government took an interest in persecuting them. And we know that the Jews in Smyrna were especially antagonistic to Christianity. Some years later when the Christian leader Polycarp was put on trial in Smyrna, the Jews were the loudest calling for his death and even helped to gather the wood with which to burn him.

Here it speaks specifically of their blasphemy or slander. Perhaps at this point, they weren't actively persecuting the church, but they were doing everything they could to give Christians a bad name. They were using their tongues instead of kindling to burn up the church. We don't know all that was involved in this, but we know human nature so it's not hard to imagine the kind of things they said, the kind of lies and smears they spread.

But Jesus knew. He knew their slander and that it was slander. Perhaps the Jewish agitators had gained a hearing among the people of Smyrna. Perhaps everyone in Smyrna looked down on the church as something evil and corrupt. Maybe the Jews had convinced the entire population to believe their lies about the Christian. But Jesus knew the truth.

People will say all manner of things against us. If you listen to popular culture, you will hear that Christians hateful, greedy, judgmental, perverted, archaic, and those are some of the nicer things. Sadly, some professing Christians make these charges credible. But what we remember is that Jesus knows. Once again, this should be a sobering thought--we can fool other people, but we can't fool God. He knows where we really stand. But the comfort is this: even when the world is condemning us; even when other Christians are condemning us, Jesus knows the truth. He knows where we stand. And if we are being slandered, if we are being lied about, then He knows the truth.

As dark as things are, one light cuts through the darkness, and that is the knowledge of God. We may seem to be alone, surrounded only by our enemies, but Jesus knows--he knows what we suffer, He knows our service for Him, and He knows the slander made against us. But all that wouldn't mean much if it weren't for the second thing Jesus says in this passage:

“I Am”

Now, you wouldn't find these exact words in this passage, but they are implied. Throughout these verses, Jesus is making a statement about who He is, statements about His nature and position. And those statements gave the Smyrnans hope and they give us hope.

He is the Creator. In verse 8 He says: “These things saith the first and the last.” Jesus is called the First because all things originate from Him. Before anything was created, He existed. Paul put it, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible.” John says: “By him were all things made and without him was nothing made which was made.” He is the beginning for He existed before all things and all things come from Him. And He is called the Last because He is the one who willing bring to its consummation the story of this world. I quoted Paul's words about Jesus creating all things, but Paul ends that verse “all things were created by him, and FOR him.”

Think of a house. When you build a house, there is an architect, someone who designs and plans out the house and puts things in motion for the house to be built. And then there is a Homeowner, the man who commissions the project and who will give the whole project its meaning and consummation by moving into the house when it is complete. The Architect is the Beginning, and the Homeowner is the End. And Jesus is both the beginning and the end. The world was made by Him and for Him. The world finds both its origination and its purpose in him.

Jesus is the beginning and the end. And while that may somewhat abstract and theological, it had a very urgent meaning to the church at Smyrna. It meant that their lives had meaning. Their neighbors might mock and shun them as if they were a bunch of weirdoes. The government might shut them up in prison and forget about them. They might be slain and their bodies thrown to wild animals. But that wasn't all there was to their lives.

They lived for the sake of Him who was the First and the Last. However much trouble there might be in the world, they knew that the world came from Jesus and that it would find its consummation in Him. Their lives might be bitter, they might be short, but they would not be meaningless. 

This world often seems mad. One of Shakespeare's characters says that life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Often it seems as if nothing we do even matters, especially when we are going through dark times. But we remember that we serve the First and the Last, the Creator, and that if we are living for Him, our lives have meaning, they have purpose, they have significance.

And Jesus is also the Victor. Verse 8 again: “These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.” Of course, those words are a reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus had been crucified and laid in a grave. He had fallen under the power of death. He descended into the grave. But though he WAS dead, now He IS alive.

Death spoke an epitaph for Jesus but death did not have the last word. Jesus was killed by sinful men, but sin did not have the last word. Death came into the world through the agency of Satan and it seems that Satan was at work to bring Christ to the cross. But Satan did not have the last word. Jesus is the victor--He was dead, but now He is alive. This world is a battlefield, but the battle is already over.

I'm told that if you kill a snapping turtle, there are a few moments even after its death where it will still snap at you. I don't know if this is true with animals, but it is in the spiritual realm. The Devil is still roaring like a lion in this world, persecuting the church as he did at Smyrna--but it is only the last snapping of a dead turtle. Satan is running around like a chicken but his head is already cut off. Jesus is not going to defeat the Devil; Jesus already DID defeat the Devil.

There is conflict in this world, but there is no question of the outcome. That is why we can have courage and comfort even on the darkest days--because we know that the darkness will turn to the dawning. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. 

Jesus is already the victor. And by the same token, He is the Sovereign. Notice verse 10. Jesus speaks of the things which will happen to the Smyrnans, the persecution they will face, the opposition of the Devil. But notice these words: “Ye shall have tribulation ten days.” I suppose that doesn't mean literally 10 days, but the idea is: they would have a time of persecution but then it would be over. But why? Obviously, it wasn't that the Devil would get tired of fighting them or come to regret his actions. It seems to mean this: that Jesus was setting a limit. He allowed Satan to persecute them, but for only so long and once that time was up, there was nothing more the Devil could do. We see this vividly in the book of Job; God allowed Satan to bring suffering into the life of Job, and yet God set a very definite limit on what Satan could and couldn't do. God kept the Devil on a very short leash. 

The Devil cannot fight longer than God lets him. We may have to suffer physical problems and financial lack and even spiritual struggles and doubts. The time may come when we have to face persecution from the government as the Smyrnans did. We will face the opposition of the world, the flesh, and the Devil--but none of those things can go on inch further than God allows. We may pass through the fire, but God has his hand on the thermostat. We may go through deep waters, but God is always controlling the depth. On a windy night, a little girl looked out the window and commented: “God must have lost hold of the winds tonight.” To the people at Smyrna, that might be how things seemed--that God had lost hold of the situation. But Jesus is reminding them that He is the Sovereign and still has everything under control.

The Smyrnans were going through a dark time, but Jesus is reminding of their light, of Himself, of who He was--the Creator, the Victor, and the Sovereign. But it wasn't just that He is those things in Himself. That had a special meaning to them. Because of who He is, we have the third statement:

“I Will Give”

Jesus wasn't merely passively standing in the background being God. He was actively controlling their situation and though it was darker and growing darker yet He had a promise for them, a promise of what He was going to give them. He was going to give them deliverance. This is a phrase from verse 11 and it is a phrase that is found in all seven of these letters: “He that overcometh.” They were being tested. They were going to go through the furnace. They would be tempted to deny their faith. They would be put to torture and called upon to renounce Christ. And perhaps some of them would fall--they had a free choice. But the point is that some of them would overcome. Some would remain true. And why? Not because of any native strength or power but because of God's grace. We face temptations and struggles, but we never have to give in. God can deliver us so that we may be part of that group “he that overcometh.”

And the time was coming when the trial would be over. I already mentioned that phrase: “Ye shall have tribulation ten days.” The point seems to be the tribulation would not last forever. There was an end in sight. The light at the end of the tunnel is Jesus. That deliverance might not come in the way they expected or wanted. For some of them, that deliverance might be death. But the point was that there would be deliverance. The trial would not last forever. As dark as things were, dawn was coming.

But it wasn't merely deliverance, but victory. Look at verse 10: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”  The people of Smyrna may have looked down on the church. The church wasn't wealthy or powerful. Its members were being treated as criminals and public nuisances. Some, at least, of them were going to be executed and buried. From a human standpoint, they were complete losers of the game of life. They lived with repute and died without honor. But God had promised them a crown. But this isn't just any kind of crown. There are different words for different kinds of crowns in Greek, and the word here refers specifically to the victor's crown, the crown that was given to a champion, to a winner. To the world, the Christians at Smyrna might seem to have lost, but God acknowledges them as victors.

I suppose you could say that deliverance and victory are different words for the same thing, and there's a sense in which that's true. But I want to emphasize this. God was promising them deliverance, but not just that they would barely squeak through, and come limping into Heaven. God had promised victory, conquest. 

To the practical government of Rome, Christians seemed weak and ineffectual, superstitious peasants who suffered death for the sake of their crucified king. But Rome has fallen and its Caesars are a historical curiosity. But the church is still alive and well. Nobody knows or cares about the political leaders of Smyrna who persecuted the church, but to this day people around the world read these words of commendation for the Christians there.

God has a victory for his people, even in this life. It may not be what we think, but it is always there. We may die in the fight, but we are fighting on the winning side.

But it isn't just a hope for this life. The third Christ promised them was eternal life. We already talked about the crown Christ promised to give them, but notice that it was specifically a crown OF LIFE. And, then, at the very end, the promise to the overcomer was they would not be hurt by the second death. They might suffer; they might die. But they had a life which their enemy could not take away from them. They had wealth in a bank that no one could rob; they had an anchor lodged in a point beyond the storms of life. So long as they remained faithful to God, they had this promise--a promise of eternal life.

This is the ultimate hope we have. No matter how bad things get in this life, and sometimes things do get very bad, we know that this world is not all there is. No matter how much we lose, as sometimes we will lose greatly, we know we have a greater treasure that is not lost. No matter how hopeless life seems, as often life does seem, we know there is a hope beyond this life. No matter how much people hurt us, and people will sometimes hurt us, we know there is a limit and end to their power. And even when we die, as we will die, we know that there is a life that cannot die. As dark as this night is, night does not last forever. John Donne wrote of death: “One short sleep past, we wake eternally/And death shall be no more.”

In the days of John, most light came from lamps that burned oil. And they could burn brightly--until they ran out of oil. In the 1800s, Thomas Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb which gave light by running electricity through a filament. And it could burn brightly for a long time, but eventually, the filament would break and the bulb would go dark. Today we have changed and improved the lightbulb, but still, our lights will not burn forever. Given enough time, the stars themselves will go out. One by one, every light will fail in the end.

But there is one light that will never go out. That was what the church at Smyrna learned--that in the midst of their darkness, they had a light, and that light was Jesus. Jesus knew their situation, knew the trouble and suffering they were going through. As bad as things were, he was still in control of the situation. And when the time was right, He would deliver them and give them a crown of eternal life.

That is who and what Jesus is. And He hasn't changed in the 2000-some years since Revelation was written. Jesus still knows his church. Jesus is still the sovereign over his church, and He will still protect and deliver his church. The only question is about our part: will we remain faithful, as part of his church? Jesus is the light--we will come to the light?