A Model Church

“I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich!” – Revelation 2:9

 Afflicted, dirt poor and slandered. It was just another day for the Christians in Smyrna.

 Although the ancient city of Smyrna was the most beautiful city in the Roman Empire, it had some really ugly stuff going on inside city limits. You see, Christianity was outlawed. So, it was open season on followers of Christ. But in Revelation 2:8-11, Jesus sends a little message to the Smyrna Christians, and He praises them for patiently enduring three things:

1. The Smyrna Christians endured afflictions. Christians were persecuted in every one of the seven cities in Asia Minor, but the persecution against the Christians in Smyrna was particularly cruel. In the city of Smyrna, everyone was expected to worship the Roman Emperor. Refusal to do so was treason. So, if a resident of Smyrna neglected their patriotic duty to worship the emperor, they were discriminated against. They were kicked out of the local trade guilds—leaving them unemployed. And many vendors in the marketplace wouldn’t sell them food. So, starvation was a real possibility. Many of them endured torture. It was stifling, even crushing, and Jesus knew it.

Remember, Jesus is not oblivious to our pain and suffering. He KNOWS what we’re going through, and He knows what it feels like: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering…. He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and … afflicted” (Isaiah 53:3-4). In Revelation 2:9, Jesus says to the Smyrna Christians, “I know your afflictions.” And He means it. He’s been in their shoes. He’s felt the crushing weight of persecution for the sake of the Gospel.

2. The Smyrna Christians endured poverty. The Christians in Smyrna were dirt poor. They had nothing. Under the persecution of the emperor, these Christians had their homes and property confiscated. They lost their jobs when they were kicked out of the local trade guilds. And many Bible scholars believe that since Christianity was illegal in Smyrna, the Christians had their smaller possessions looted by both Jews and the Romans. So it’s remarkable that Jesus tells them in verse 9: “You are rich.”

But Jesus isn’t as shallow as we are. In 2 Cor. 6:10, the Apostle Paul says, “[We are] sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, poor, yet making many rich, having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” How was it possible for Paul and his fellow missionaries to have nothing, yet possess everything? The short, sweet answer is: Because they had Jesus. Anyone who has Jesus is rich. Forgiveness, grace, love, eternal salvation, adoption into God’s family, peace, purpose and joy: All of these riches and so many others are ours in Christ. As far as material possessions go, the Smyrna Christians had nothing. But they actually had the greatest Mother Lode of treasure that money can’t buy. So, Jesus tells them in verse 9, “You … are … rich.”

3. The Smyrna Christians endured slander. Sadly, much of this slander came from people who called themselves “Jews.” The Jews in Smyrna seem to have practiced their religion only to the extent that it made their lives easier, while ignoring God’s commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The Jews jumped on the bandwagon and slandered Christians’ good names. They accused Christians of having orgies at their church services, and of eating human flesh and drinking human blood when they took the Lord’s Supper. They called the Christians “cannibals.” Was any of it true? Of course not! But that’s one more reason why the Smyrna Christians’ endurance was so remarkable.

If you’ve been a follower of Christ for any length of time, you have probably faced discrimination and persecution for your faith at one level or another. And when it comes to endurance, the church at Smyrna is a model church. Like the Christians in Smyrna, we need to remain faithful to Christ and endure, no matter what the world throws at us. When we are afflicted, we must faithfully endure. When our Christianity costs us our jobs, we must faithfully endure. And when we are slandered for the name of Christ, we must faithfully endure. And with Christ’s help, when the heat is turned up in the kitchen, we will do just that: We will faithfully endure. And as Jesus promises at the end of His message to the Smyrna Christians, every bit of endurance for Christ will result in a heavenly reward. 

Dane Davis is the pastor of Impact Christian Church in Victorville. His new book, “Buoyed Up: Jesus’ 8 Steps to an Unsinkable Life,” is available on Amazon in paperback, e-book and audiobook. Join us at Impact for Sunday services: in person at 9 a.m., or online at 10 a.m. on Facebook Live or YouTube. For more information, visit www.GreaterImpact.cc.

The Difference Between Doubt and Unbelief

"All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right.... But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves."- Luke 7:29-30

A cocky young science professor began teaching at a small Midwest university. On the first day of class, it took his students less than five minutes to figure out that he was a strong atheist—and proud of it. He told the class: “Unless you shake off old-fashioned views and act for yourself, the world will leave you behind. Putting your faith in God won’t get you anywhere. Take rain-making. When the farmers prayed for rain, what did they get? The Dust Bowl. Now all they do is send up a plane, drop some chemicals on a cloud, and it rains. No question about that, is there?”

To the professor’s surprise, a farm boy sitting in the back row spoke up. “Professor, there’s still one question: Who gives us the cloud?”

The cocky professor hadn’t figured on that simple piece of evidence, and my guess is he wasn’t thrilled to have a student come along and poke a big hole in his argument. Did he take this new element into account? My guess is no—the professor had a big case of unbelief, and he would be in no hurry to part with it. On the other hand, many a committed Christian deals with doubt—even one as fervent and devoted as John the Baptist.

When John the Baptist had his moment of doubt while in prison and sent a message to Jesus, we read in Luke 7 that John’s disciples returned to John with Jesus’ answer. That reply showed that Jesus was a clear fulfillment of at least three different Old Testament prophesies. After John received that message, all indications are that he persevered in his faith. From his prison cell, John served Jesus faithfully until his dying day.

And for people who believed the truth about John the Baptist—that he was the promised prophet and the forerunner to the coming Christ—it was natural for them to believe the truth about Jesus. Even the tax collectors who had been baptized by John acknowledged that John was the promised forerunner to the Christ, and that Jesus himself was the promised Christ (Luke 7:29). But as we read on in verse 30, “the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.”

In other words, the religious leaders who didn’t believe in John rejected John’s call to repent and be baptized in preparation for the coming Messiah. And since they rejected his call to get ready for Jesus’ coming, it shouldn’t surprise us that they weren’t willing to believe in Jesus when he came. God had great plans for the Jewish religious leaders, but when they rejected John the Baptist, they rejected God’s plans for them. And once they started down the path of unbelief, they wouldn’t stop until Jesus was dead with his blood on their hands.

In verses 31-32, Jesus compared the religious leaders to a bunch of brats throwing a tantrum because the other kids aren’t playing by their rules. “For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners.’” No matter what John the Baptist or Jesus did, it wasn’t good enough for the Pharisees. So, they did what virtually every unbeliever has done over the past 2,000 years: They attempted to rationalize their unbelief by criticizing and even slandering God’s chosen leaders with accusations pulled out of thin air.

 Bottom line: The religious leaders’ hateful criticism of John and Jesus stemmed from their stubborn unbelief. And their unbelief was literally insane. Their refusal to accept the clear, observable facts about John and Jesus was insane. Their slanderous accusations were insane. And their jealous, vengeful drive to murder Jesus was especially insane. They refused to see the clear truth that John was the forerunner, and Jesus was the Christ. God had made sure that there was plenty of evidence to substantiate these two facts. As Jesus said in verse 35, “Wisdom is proved right by all her children.”

In Luke 7:18-23, John the Baptist struggled with doubt. In verses 7:24-35, Jesus talks about the religious leaders who were plagued by unbelief. And there’s a big difference between the two. Doubt is a matter of the MIND, but unbelief is a matter of the WILL. It’s one thing to doubt God’s goodness and plans because we can’t wrap our minds around it. It’s quite another thing to stubbornly refuse to believe His word and obey His word when the evidence is right in front of our faces.

Doubt is often nourished by physical and emotional strain, such as John’s when he was in prison, but unbelief is nourished by a stubborn heart that refuses to accept the evidence. Unbelief puts our circumstance between us and God, but faith—even doubting faith—puts God between us and our circumstance. May we always put God between us and our trials.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of First Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.YourVictorvilleChurch.com and join us for worship Sundays at 10 am.