If you guys have your Bibles, open them up to Revelation chapter two, and I'm gonna read verses eight through 11. I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna ask my friend and yours, Pastor Mike Tonks, to come up and preach Jesus to us. This is Revelation two, and we will begin in verse eight. It says, and to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, The words of the first and the last who died and came to life. I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say that they are Jews and they're not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And for 10 days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. Let's pray. Father, as we come to your word, we want to understand what it says. And we don't want to understand what it says just so we can have a lot of information in our head. We want to understand what it says so we can grow deeper in our love for You, deeper in our relationship with You, and therefore, God, be light to a world that is in desperate need of You. And so I pray, God, that Your Spirit would work in our hearts tonight. Open up our eyes to see what You have to say to us through Your Word. I pray that His might comes and proclaims Your Son to us. I pray that Your Spirit would fill Him and control Him and use Him so that Your words would come out of His mouth and not His own. I pray, God, that we would leave this place encouraged and challenged and convicted and repentant and excited and expecting You to do crazy work because that's what You do all the time. And so we ask God that you would bless this time for your glory's sake and for our good, we pray. Amen. I really, really appreciate it. I was driving over here and I saw a guy drive next to me expressing emotion. I'm not going to tell you which emotion if you're watching the game, but he was expressing emotion. I looked at Les and I go, oh, I can't believe this guy. I can't believe he's doing this to me. He's killing me. but it's good to have you guys out here. There's a bigger crowd than I thought was gonna be here. To tell you the truth, I thought it was gonna be my wife and Josh here this evening, but it's good to see everyone here. So if you'll turn with me to Revelation, we're gonna be in Revelation 2 as we continue on with these postcards in the New Testament. We're gonna be looking at the church at Smyrna. this evening. Josh talked last week about Ephesus, and Ephesus is a church that he was saying represented and looks a lot like Santa Rosa Bible Church at times. I would agree with that. And as I was looking at this church at Smyrna, as we look at Revelation 2, verses 8 through 11, It's my prayer that the Church of America would look like the church at Smyrna. That we would turn our hearts towards Jesus, be more like Jesus, have a passion for Jesus, treasure Him above all, love Him more than any other, so that the church in America would be like the church at Smyrna. So I'm pretty fired up about this passage of scripture because I see faults in America in an American church that Smyrna did not have. Smyrna is really the next point in the road to these seven churches. It's the logical next step to go. It's north of Ephesus, northeast to be precise. It's right on the water. It was called the crown jewel of Asia, a beautiful city. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. And he says in verse 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. The reason why I love these seven passages here, these seven letters to these churches, is because we see these pictures of Jesus. We see these glimpses of who Jesus Christ is. And I love it. Every single one of them is amazing. And to tell you the truth, I think this is the best one. This is the one I enjoy the most. It's the picture of Jesus. He is the first and the last who died and came to life. I don't think Smyrna could have heard a more encouraging message than that. This church, as Josh was reading, It was noted for tribulation, poverty, slander. Some of them were getting tossed in jail for 10 days. How many of you guys were like, yeah, I want to move there. That sounds like a good place to go to church. Let's do that. I can tell you the American church is far from all of those things. that America would have a good dose of tribulation and slander and poverty, it would probably draw itself closer to Jesus Christ. This church at Smyrna, he gets this message, the word of the first and last. Isn't it good to know that Jesus Christ is the first and last? It's encouraging for a church that is going to be experiencing tribulation and poverty and slander to know that Jesus Christ is the first and last. If you were going through a hard time, wouldn't you want to know that Jesus Christ is the first and last? That he has always been there and he always will be? When there's uncertainty going on in your life? When your life is turned upside down to know that Jesus Christ is the first and last? I love John. I love his introductions. I talked about this before. In the Gospel of John chapter 1 verse 1 it says, in the beginning was the Word. What it really means here is at any beginning you can find Jesus Christ. You can go back to the day in the minor prophets. In the beginning was the Word. You can go back to Noah in the flood. In the beginning was the Word. You can go back to the creation of Adam and Eve. In the beginning was the Word. You can go back in the creation of angels. In the beginning was the Word. thousands and thousands of years past that. In the beginning was the Word. Jesus Christ has been eternal. Isn't that encouraging? He is the first. He is the first. He's also the last. We look at this book of Revelation and we're stopping at the end of chapter 3. But it would be encouraging to continue on, wouldn't it? As we look at this story unfold of how He is the last. We have the end game here. The 49er game is delayed out to Hawaii by a couple hours. Did you know that? because everyone would be sleeping, basically, sometimes when the 49er game is going on. And so they delay the game on the broadcast so that people could wake up and get going and moving. But you know what? You could find out the score, couldn't you? You could go online and you could find out the score. and you could watch the game later on knowing exactly what's going to happen, exactly what's going to take place. There could be a fumble, an interception. It's okay, I know the Niners are going to come back and win it. Right? You know that. This is why when I saw the emotion on that man standing next to me in the car, I was freaking out. I didn't want to know anything. I didn't want to know a single thing. But now I do know, and as I watch the game for those first couple innings, I'm gonna know. I'm gonna know, I already know, because I saw his emotion. Good or bad, I'm not telling you guys anything. But that's what the book of Revelation is like. We know the end game, we know what happens. At the end of Revelation 22, He declares that we will worship God. It's gonna happen. It's going to happen. He is the first and the last. It's unstoppable. I'm not a fan of roller coasters. Don't call me a sissy, please. I might cry. But I started riding them. And you know why? So that my daughter would not be afraid of them. And I found something out about roller coasters. When you start going up the track and it goes... You can't call time out and say, can I get off now? It's gonna happen, right? You're going up over top of that hill and down. And you really hope that there's a screaming little girl in the back so that it'll mask your screaming little girl noise. It's gonna happen. We know that because of the book of Revelation, what is going to happen. And we can stand confident in this. This church at Smyrna. This beloved church. Tribulation and poverty and slander and just persecution after persecution being thrown into jail. And to know that Jesus Christ is the first and last. How valuable do you think that is to this church to hear those words? How crucial. Let's move on in verse one. Who died and came to life. Literally in the Greek where it says who died It says, who became dead? Who became dead? So we see Jesus Christ is the first and last. What's that saying? He's God. That's what it's saying. Who became dead, literally. He is not only God, he is the son of God. And he is now the son of man who died and paid for your sins. who became death so that you might not taste the second death and came to life. This shows that he conquered death. He didn't stay in the grave. He's not there right now. We know exactly where he is because of the book of Acts and the book of Revelation. He is at the right hand of God the Father. Living to this day and we see that he will always live because he is the last The words of the first and last who died and came to life Verse 9 says this I know your tribulation and your poverty But you are rich and the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not but are a synagogue of Satan I love verse 9. Those first two words, did you catch them? I know. How reassuring is that? I know. We don't serve a God who doesn't know. We don't serve a God who doesn't know what you're going through at this very moment. We serve a God who knows. We serve a God who cares and is concerned. I know your tribulation and your poverty and the slander. I know it. Of these seven churches here, we see that he says, I know in every single one of them. After he shows a picture of himself, we see that he says, I know. And in five of those churches, he says, I know your works. In Pergamum, he says, I know where you dwell. And in Smyrna, he says, I know your tribulation and poverty and slander. It's good to know that we have a God who knows. It's good to know that we have a God who is not aware of our current situation, who knows the innards of our church and our soul. I know your tribulation, he says. Your tribulation. Polycarp, some of you may have heard him, is a man of God who was persecuted. He was from this church. John put him in charge of this church and he was told that he needed to worship the emperor. Smyrna actually, every time they entered a war, was always on the winning side. Isn't that interesting? Every time they entered a war, they were always on the winning side. So they actually became the headquarters for emperor worship. This is where people would come and bow down to the emperor and praise him as God. You can see where the dilemma might be in the church. All you have to do is put a little incense and you'll be satisfied. They will give you a sheet of paper and you can walk around with a sheet of paper declaring that you have made your allegiance to Caesar. I know your tribulation, he says. I know that in the place where you worship me, there are people that are telling you not to worship me, but to worship Caesar. And this man, Polycarp, would not bend his knee to Caesar. and they pulled him aside and they arrested him one day, and they told him, if you will just make an offering to Caesar, we will let you go. How tempting would that be, right? I mean, in all reality, how tempting would that be? One little offering, bow the knee to Caesar, you walk away with your life. Would you do that? Polycarp did not. They dragged him into the Coliseum. They told him that they were going to burn him alive if he did not renounce Christ. They built a wood box around him. They started putting kindling around him. They gave him one last chance. And he said this, 86 years, Christ has been faithful to me. Why should I fail him? Why should he fail me now? For 86 years, he's been walking with Jesus Christ and he has never let him down. Why should he turn his back on Christ now? You know what they did? They torched him. They set him ablaze. He died that day. Legend is that the flames would not even consume him. that they would swirl around him as if there was a wind within and around him and the flames were just going around and they actually had to order a guard to go up and stab him to kill him off. This church knows tribulation. This church knows what it means to be persecuted. He goes on to say, I know your tribulation and your poverty but you are rich. Like Josh says, I pastor a church on the other side of town. We actually had a homeless man come into our church last week. He was sleeping outside, wanted some coffee, told him we had some coffee inside, he came on in, and he wept during the whole sermon. We were like, yeah, dude, you were preaching, come on. Joshua said that's what he was thinking. But the man wept. Why? Because though he was poor, he was rich in Christ. Right? There is no discrimination here. There's a doctrine that's going around the United States right now. I hate it. Hate it. Live it. My blood boils. I've been entrenching myself trying to listen to this doctrine. So I go to YouTube and I listen to messages by men who preach this kind of doctrine and I see their services and it just, I've had to turn it off because I get so mad. And it takes the gospel and it says that if God has called you to this, he has also called you to wealth and health. My blood boils when I hear this. because it takes the gospel and it shreds it apart. What does Jesus Christ say about this? He says, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. It doesn't matter if you have wealth or health. Your riches are found in Jesus Christ. We can look to Matthew 13, 44. It's a one sentence parable. A man comes into a field and he finds a treasure. What does he do? He goes in his joy and he sells everything he has and goes and buys the field so that he could have the treasure. Our treasure is found in Jesus Christ and in him alone. If you come in and put gospel and money together, it's not the gospel. If you put gospel and health together, it's not the gospel. It's a lie. And this lie is going to Africa, and Asia, and the Philippines, and they fly in on their jets, and they go in, and they present the gospel as this. If you give money, Good things are going to happen to you. Your crops are going to be fine. Your animals won't die. Your wife will be healthy. And people come in, in their poverty, and they throw money at their feet. I hate that gospel. Because the gospel is Jesus Christ. The gospel is Christ, nothing else. Look at the disciples. How many of them had wealth and health? Paul's saying they're making a tent so that he could continue ministering. He gets his head lopped off. Does that sound pretty healthy? Let me tell you, no one's ever going to come to Christ because you live in a nice house or drive a nice car. They're going to come up to you and say, hey, did Jesus Christ give you that nice house? A nice car? I want Jesus. I'll take him. We are so rich in America. Even in our economic downturn, we're still rolling in money. It says, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. This word slander is actually the word blasphemy. It's the Greek word blasphemy. These Jews are coming in and blaspheming the Christians. They're tearing them down piece by piece. I think America would do good to have this happen to them. To have tribulation and poverty so that we could have Christ. Verse 10, do not fear what you are about to suffer. That's some statement, right? It's like, hey man, can't get any more rosier around here. This is great. Don't fear about what you're about to suffer. I was playing basketball one day, and there was this guy I really wanted to play basketball with, but he didn't play very often. He was a tall guy, I really enjoyed him. I was out in Wyoming, and he was a good basketball player, and so it was the first time I was able to play with him. And I said, hey, great. So I wore the shorts on, got the shoes on, ran out there, played with him. But what happened is I was running down the court, And I tried to do this weird pass, and I went right behind my back, and I heard a pop. And my knee had popped. And I felt this immense pain in my knee, and I dropped to the ground. And they didn't have much to do out in LaGrange, Wyoming, so they actually called the ambulance, and they strapped me down to this stretcher, like literally my head strapped down. I'm like, this is the most embarrassing moment of my life. I can't believe they're doing this. I thought I was dying. It ended up being my ACL and my meniscus. But later on, I came back out to California, got the advice from some doctors, and they told me what they were going to have to do to start preparing me for surgery. And they were talking about drills. You know, you never want to hear that, do you? It's like, hey, we're going to have to take a drill to your knee. That's how we're going to perform the surgery. And I said, oh man, that's going to hurt, isn't it? That's not fun. And so there was this date set for this surgery and it was like two months out. And the entire time I'm sitting there thinking, man, I'm, I'm going to get hurt here. This is really going to be painful. And Jesus Christ tells them, do not fear for what about is about to happen. You're going to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested for ten days. You will have tribulation." Something to look forward to, isn't it? These guys are going to be tested. They're going to be thrown into jail. They're going to endure more persecution. These 10 days here, I'm not too sure what it is. I'll tell you the truth. I've looked around at commentaries. I've seen a wide array of explanations, anywhere from these are 10 emperors over the next 10 generations or whatever that are gonna be persecuting the church to who knows whatever. I'm just gonna take it literally and say that there's gonna be some guys going to jail for 10 days. And for 10 days, Listen to the tense here. You will have tribulation. It's going to happen. It's going to occur. And he goes on to say, be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. That's a tough thing to swallow right there, isn't it? Be faithful. Be faithful unto death? Man. He's telling him to be faithful in tribulation, in poverty, in slander. Be faithful in that. Continue on in that. Continue on going on. This is a church that had nothing bad to say about it. There's nothing negative in this passage of scripture to be said. And he tells him, be faithful unto death. This gives me a picture of marriage. It gives me a picture of marriage because it says, be faithful unto death. I've been faithful to my wife, and I'm going to be faithful to my wife unto death, right? That's how faithful I want to be. I want to continue on. She asked me the other day, can you clear out all the plants and bushes that are in front of our house? She didn't like them. And there was this big yucca plant. You ever see those yucca plants? They look like a porcupine on steroids, and they have razors everywhere. And she said, I want that thing gone. I'm like, thank you for picking the hottest day of the year for me to go out and do this, honey. I appreciate that. And I started going to town on this yucca plant. I'm cutting off the leaves, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting. And my arms are getting cut up, bleeding all over. She comes out and she gives me these goggles to wear so I don't poke my eye out. I'm like, thanks, son. Appreciate it. And I continued on and I finally got this big hole in this yucca plant and I threw my saws all in there and I just dove in head first and started going to town with my saws all. And I finally got this yucca plant out. Now if it was me, the yucca plant would still be there because I don't care. But my wife does. My wife does care. And so I wanted to be faithful and finish this job for her. I wanted to be faithful even though I was getting cut up and poked and my girls were laughing at me and thought it was really funny. I wanted to be faithful in finishing this job for her. Because I love her. Because I care about her. Be faithful unto death. Go all the way. Don't stop. Continue on. Life is hard. God is good. God is better than any persecution that you will endure, any tribulation, any poverty. You have Christ. and notice what he will be given. And I will give you the crown of life. There's only two times in the Bible where the crown of life is mentioned. It's here in James 1.12. He talks a lot of, in scripture, of the crown of righteousness, the crown of glory, things like that, but the crown of life, In 1 Corinthians 9, we see that athletes would run for a wreath, and they would place that wreath upon their head. And it was a mortal wreath, that that wreath would eventually die and wither up. But he tells us in 1 Corinthians 9 that we need to be working for a crown that will not perish. That crown is the crown of life. We need to be faithful unto death, and he will give us the crown of life. Verse 11, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. It says this in every passage, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. We need to be listening. We need to pay attention to what God's word says so that the church will flourish and we will give him glory. We will grow in him, be more like him. I told you a couple of weeks ago that Turkey has 45 million people in it today and that there are roughly 2,500 to 3000 believers in the whole country. Is that America in the future? We do not heed God's word. We need to be careful. In Smyrna, there are four and a half million people in that city today. It's called Ismar Turkey. There are roughly 200 believers in that city. 200 believers. There are two churches in the whole city. Four and a half million people. Think of the Bay Area. four and a half million people or whatever, 200 believers, two churches. We must listen to God's word. We must listen to what the spirit of God says. And here's encouragement. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. I love that word conquers. I wonder if these people felt like conquerors, being persecuted and poor, being slandered all the time. Think they felt like conquerors? How is it that they were conquerors? Let me read a passage in Revelation 5, verse 5. Let me go up a little bit further, actually. I'll start with verse 1. break its seals and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look in it and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look in it and one of the elders said to me weep no more behold the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David has conquered Notice the tense is there. Jesus Christ past tense conquered, us present tense conquer. The only reason that we are able to conquer, to continue on through tribulation and poverty and slander is because Jesus Christ has conquered. To the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. We're all facing death, aren't we? I looked at our wedding picture, which is a little over 10 years ago. I'm facing death. You know why? Because I'm missing more hair. It's amazing. I look older. It's been 10 years. Every day we get older. Every day we're going to face that first death, aren't we? It's getting closer and closer and closer. And it seems like the older I get, the more imminent it seems. We've gone through a string of deaths, it seems like, at Santa Rosa Bible Church. It seems like it's just all around us. We're going to face it. It's going to happen to each of us. What does he say? The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death. There's a second death? Most people don't even want to face the first death, let alone a second death. Look with me to Revelation 20, 14. It'll give us a little insight on this second death. Revelation 20 14, then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. We conquer the second death because he conquered it for us. Jesus Christ paid the penalty of death on the cross that we might not taste the second death. We're all bound for the first death. It's gonna happen. 100% of us will face that first death. Not all of us are going to escape the second death, I'm assuming. I'm assuming that in this room, that there are some here that will taste the second death. I'm assuming that there are someone in here who will taste the second death, that sting that will be tossed into hell in Hades. Let me point you to Jesus. Because he is the first and last. He is the one who died and came to life so that you might not taste the second death. I'm asking you today. Believe in that Jesus that is great. Believe in that Jesus who is the first and last. Believe in that Jesus who died the death for you, that you might not taste that second death. Christ is great. We see this picture of who he is. He is the first and last. He is the exalted one. In Revelation, just like the roller coaster, we can't stop it. He is going to be worshiped one way or another. Let me pray. God, we thank you and love you. God, I pray as we continue to worship you in songs, God, that we would be pointed to the one who has tasted death that we might not taste the second death. I thank you and love you that we are present tense rich, that we are rich in you. Thank you and love you in Jesus name. Amen. This message has been brought to you by the Santa Rosa Bible Church. Our purpose is to lift up the Lord. by living out the word, loving one another, and leading others to Christ. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.srbible.org or come visit us in person at 4575 Badger Road, Santa Rosa, California 95409. You can also give us a call at 707-538-2385.