8 And to the angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Smyrna write: These are the words of the First and the Last, Who died and came to life again:
9 I know your affliction and distress and pressing trouble and your poverty--but you are rich! and how you are abused and reviled and slandered by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
10 Fear nothing that you are about to suffer. [Dismiss your dread and your fears!] Behold, the devil is indeed about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested and proved and critically appraised, and for ten days you will have affliction. Be loyally faithful unto death [even if you must die for it], and I will give you the crown of life.
11 He who is able to hear, let him listen to and heed what the Spirit says to the assemblies (churches). He who overcomes (is victorious) shall in no way be injured by the second death.
Even with the church of Smyrna Jesus never tells them that He has given them a spirit of faith and power to not fear, 2 Timothy 1:7. I hope you see what is actually being said to these two bodies of people so far? There were in all likelihood, several truly saved people in each of these churches. These saved believers had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. Jesus was confirming to these people what they probably already knew and He showed them what was going to happen. So when John wrote: endure to the end, they rejoiced, because they knew that Jesus would cause them to endure until the end. They had seen physical examples and heard personal testimonies of Jesus doing it for His Bride several times. The physical church may have been failing, but the true body of Christ endured, they endured because they were called and chosen before the very foundation of this world, and they received their crowns of life before they ever even had life! Our Father knows the beginning and the end and He knew His children before we were even in our mother’s wombs, Galatians 1:15.
Our Father is no respecter of persons, Acts 10:34. I honestly believe that throughout every age, Jesus always shows His true chosen ones what is going on. If He didn’t what kind of Husband would He be? Jesus will use whatever means needed to get through to us. We are all different, we’re like snowflakes, we are all made of the same things and yet each of us is unique. Jesus knows this and He knows how to deal with each of us; just as our head knows how to deal with our heart or our hand. We are every bit as much Jesus’ friends as the Apostles were. So if Jesus told them what was going on, He will tell us.
The second death is a reference to those who are cast into the Lake of Fire in Revelation 20:11-15. Those who are cast into the Lake of Fire are those people who have committed Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the only unforgivable sin, Matthew 12:31. Jesus is writing to the leaders of these seven churches. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a sin that is committed by leader of a group of believers who teaches and attempts to lead the group to trust in their own power or something else's power and not the power of the Holy Spirit working through them. This is why Jesus told the leaders it would be better to tie a millstone around their necks than to teach a little one to stray, Matthew 18:6. The Bible also teaches us that teachers will be held to a higher standard, James 3:1. Jesus never really threatened the common people with such harsh punishments, yet He repeatedly threatened the religious leaders. Jesus told us to beware of the religious leaders who were wolves in sheep’s clothing and the leaven of the Pharisees. The second death is a person being judged and found guilty of committing this unforgivable sin and then being destroyed for it. This is an extremely difficult sin to commit and the Bible tends to say that only one person ever will commit it, Matthew 22:11 & John 17:12. The Jewish leaders who lied about Jesus, were jealous of Him, and who had Him killed were forgiven, so they didn’t even commit it. The called and chosen, or the Bride, the saved, are empowered by the Holy Spirit to hear the Truth and therefore we have no fear of being thrown into the Lake of Fire; we have no fear of the second death.
Let’s review here what Jesus showed us with these first two churches: one church had left its first love and the second church was poor and abused and their people are being killed. Sound like Churches today? So many churches in the world have left Jesus and those in the poorer countries are finding Him, and they are being killed for it. To me if these seven churches represent seven different church ages, they are all still in action today. As I am sure they were all in action years ago.
Also, here would be a great place for you to go and read the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Luke 16. In Jesus’ parable we are never told that Lazarus was a faithful or a righteous man. We are never told that he was even a believer. We are only told by Jesus that Lazarus suffered his whole life and when he died he instantly went to paradise. Doesn’t that sound exactly like what Jesus is telling the people of the church of Smyrna? Our Father seems to be telling us that those who are poor and suffer wrongly on this earth are instantly rewarded upon their death. They may not be called to be the Bride, because we aren’t told that Lazarus believed, but we were told that he was rewarded instantly. Lazarus did not need to go to Hades, as the rich man did. Yet Jesus never tells us that Lazarus was a believer or had faith. I just think that the church of Smyrna and Lazarus show us a wonderful Truth about our Father and His mercy.
Now back to our Revelation study, when I hear that these seven churches represent seven distinct periods of our history in Christ, it just doesn’t seem to make any sense. What makes more sense to me is that these are seven specific church types, and they have always existed. Like the parable of the ten virgins, five were of Jesus and five were not. Here we see seven churches, one is of Him and six are not. You might say that two of the churches are of Him, Philadelphia as we will study, and Smyrna. But with Smyrna we don’t see Jesus as being the active force in them, as we will see that He is in Philadelphia. Jesus tells Smyrna to endure, not that He will cause them to endure as He tells the Church of Philadelphia.
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