Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.  He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  The one who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.  Rev. 2:10, 11.
 
    Polycarp was the elderly bishop of Smyrna around A.D. 155.  A crowd in the stadium clamored for his arrest.  But when mounted police arrived at his cottage to arrest him, he served them a banquet, requesting an hour of prayer before they took him away.  The officers marveled at his graciousness and lamented that they had to arrest him.  As he marched into the stadium to the roar of the crowd a voice from heaven said, "Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man."
 
    The procouncil (governor), out of respect for his age, tried to persuade Polycarp to avoid death by offering a simple way out.  "All you have to do is say, 'Away with the atheists.' "  The crowd had earlier used the phrase to refer to the Christians, calling them atheists because they wouldn't worship the community's idols and had no shrines of their own.  Polycarp waved his hand toward the pagan crowd in the stadium and said, "Away with the atheists."  Not satisfied, of course, the procouncil said, "Just curse Christ, and I will let you go."
 
    "Eighty and six years have I served him and he has done me no wrong," the bishop replied.  "How then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?"
 
    When the procouncil then threatened him with fire, Polycarp responded, "You threaten me with a fire that burns for just an hour, because you don't know about the fire of judgment that will come upon all the ungodly.  But why do we delay?  Bring what you will!"
 
    When they had placed Polycarp on the wood they waited to nail him to the stake, but he said, "Let me be as I am.  The one who will help me endure the fire will also help me stay here, even without nails."  When they lit the fire it formed a vault around him, looking like an oven.  The bishop stood in its center, unconsumed.  The crowd, not able to bear their defeat, prevailed upon the executioner to reach in and kill him with a dagger.  And so Polycarp died for his faith.
 
    The threat of death for Christians is not an issue in much of today's world.  It may be easy to consider texts and stories like this irrelevant to our daily lives, especially if we live comfortably in the suburbs.  But we have still much to learn here.  The martyrdom of our brothers and sisters in the past and even in the present challenges us to count the cost of our faith.  How would we fare if placed in similar circumstances?  Can our faith grow and mature without such challenges?  How much is Jesus truly worth to us?
 
Lord, help me to count the cost of faith.  I want to embrace the little challenges now so I can face whatever may be in store for me.

   Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, to test you, and you will suffer affliction for ten days.  Be faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life.  Rev. 2:10.
 
    Daniel and his friends experienced 10 days of trial in Daniel 1.  The church at Smyrna would also experience 10 days of testing.  But faithfulness in it would prepare them for glory.  Like Daniel and his three friends, we prepare best for future challenges by passing the tests we encounter in the present.
 
    The game was on the line.  As the ball was snapped, Mike, the defensive end, charged into the opposing left tackle with his right shoulder, freed himself for a spin move with his left forearm, and dropped the scrambling quarterback with an ankle tackle.  The quarterback fumbled the ball and Mike's teammate recovered, ensuring victory.
 
    While all this happened in three and a half seconds, the play itself was years in the making.  Lifting 80 tons of weights four or five times a week gave Mike the arm and leg strength to free himself from a clutching offensive tackle.  Hundreds of tennis matches and agility drills created the ability to change directions quickly.
 
    Thousands of 40-yard dashes and wind sprints meant he could keep going in the fourth quarter when his opponents were gasping for air.  Hundreds of hours in the film room taught him that a particular tackle always leaned back a bit on pass plays, or that a certain quarterback would always pump-fake with the ball or scramble to his left whenever an opponent was about to tackle him.
 
    In the span of about three and a half seconds Mike made a great play that turned the game around.  A great deal of suffering went into the strength, the agility, the speed, and the strategy he employed to defeat his opponents.  None of this was fun, except for the tennis.  But each exercise would enable him to be a bit faster, a bit quicker, a bit stronger, and a bit more agile than he had been before.  It all added up to small advantages on the football field.
 
    The sum total of Mike's success was determined less by what happened on the playing field than by what happened in the training room.  The "victory crown" of life (Olympic gold medal) that Jesus promised the Smyrnians was not a casual result of their behavior.  God used the grievous things they had suffered to prepare them for the ultimate victory of human existence--eternal life.
 
Lord, help me to remember that the difficult issues in my life today are not obstacles--they are opportunities to prepare for the ultimate battle of human history.

    Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.  Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, to test you, and you will suffer affliction for ten days.  Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.  Rev. 2:10.
 
    Jesus says, "Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer."  Why?  Because "there is no fear in love....Perfect love drives out fear."  And "we love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:18, 19, NIV).
 
    Those who fear God have placed themselves in His control and do not let anybody else worry them.  They have learned to trust Him in all situations, because He knows all circumstances.  He permits nothing that wouldn't be for our good in the long run.  And He allows nothing that we can't handle if we are in a relationship with Him.
 
    Sometimes we get into situations that overwhelm us.  But we still don't need to be afraid.  Do you remember the story about the time I was snorkeling near Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef?  I had injured my leg the week before and was getting a little tired.  I decided to rest from my snorkeling by standing up occasionally and keeping my nose above the water while I rested.  But as I carried out my plan I discovered that the water was not five-feet but seven-feet deep and that the shore was 400 yards away.
 
    Realizing that I did not have the strength to make it back, I began to panic.  Convinced that my life was over, I began to swallow ocean water.  A rock suddenly appeared in the sand below, barely large enough to balance on.  Then my wife swam over and was able to help me stay upright.  Professional help arrived, and I was on my way safely toward shore.
 
    The overwhelming thought in my mind as I reached the beach was that I must be alive for a purpose.  God had a reason for me to go on living and had intervened to accomplish that.  What is most pertinent to our text today is that the incident has taken away my fear.  I know that God is in control of my existence.  You could say that I am already on borrowed time, so I really don't need to be afraid anymore.
 
    A year or so later I was strolling where tourists don’t often go--through a deserted Muslim section of the old city of Jerusalem.  Some of my students saw me walking alone and hid around the corner.  When I passed by they came roaring out and hollering as if they were going to kill me.  I didn't know who they were, but I did not react.  To my surprise and theirs, I was not afraid.
 
    Now, I don't intend to be stupid and go places where I don't belong, but if God is in control of my life, I don't have to be afraid.  If He is with me and it's time, then so be it.  I don’t have to worry about when.  Fear is no longer in control.
 
Lord, thank You for those times that I instinctively live by faith.  Increase my faith.

 I know your affliction and your poverty; nevertheless you are rich.  I also know the blasphemy of those who call themselves Jews.  They are not real Jews; they are the synagogue of Satan.  Rev. 2:9.
 
    It appears from today's text that the church's relationship with the Jews of Smyrna was at risk.  The church faced a perilous situation.  By the second century the Roman Empire expected everyone except the Jews to venerate the emperor.  The authorities exempted Jews out of respect for the antiquity of their religion.  Since the Romans usually identified early Christians as Jewish, they often escaped unnecessary persecution.
 
    The Jews themselves, on the other hand, had reason to be cautious about any association with Christians.  Twenty-five years earlier Jewish apocalyptic excitement had provoked the Romans to destroy Jerusalem and its Temple, leaving behind thousands of dead.  It was loud and clear that Jewish status in the empire could get revoked at a moment's notice if Christian talk of the Messiah created Roman suspicion against the Jews.
 
    At the time John wrote Revelation the Jewish community was finding itself in some difficulty with the local leaders of Smyrna.  When Christian Jews talked about Jesus the Messiah and the end of the world, it only made things even more difficult.  So we should understand the word "blasphemy" in our text in terms of "slander."  Historical records suggest that the following scenario may have occurred a number of times in first-century Smyrna.
 
    Let's say Jason was a Christian member of the synagogue.  Theudas, a non-Christian Jewish neighbor, never liked him.  His "crazy ideas" embarrassed the Jews among their pagan neighbors.  One day Theudas discovers that Jason's goats have escaped their enclosure again and munched and trampled his prized rhododendrons.  In a fit of anger he "informs' the local authorities that Jason was an enemy of the emperor and the state but stayed "under the radar" by masquerading as a Jew.  Then he gives evidence of Jason's "un-Jewish" ideas.
 
    Roman authorities at that time would rarely seek out Christians, but when faced with a specific charge, they would have to investigate.  It would not do to have potential revolutionaries multiplying undetected.  When they interviewed Jason's neighbor they soon discovered that he was a no-show at civic events.  If the Jewish community did not like him and supported Theudas' contention that Jason was not a real Jew, execution was the likely fate.
 
    After such incidents, it is understandable that Christians would begin to think that Jews such as Theudas were not real Jews, but tools of Satan.
 
Lord, reveal Your presence to all Christians who face slander and persecution in Today's world.  Show me ways that I can encourage and support them.

 I know your affliction and your poverty; nevertheless you are rich.  I also know the blasphemy of those who call themselves Jews.  They are not real Jews; they are the synagogue of Satan.  Rev. 2:9.
 
    I have a friend named Ted who used to fly combat missions in a fighter jet for the United States Marine Corps.  Shortly after a practice landing at an Air Force base, he overheard a pilot radio the tower that he was descending through 70,000 feet.  Seventy thousand feet?  Descending?  How high can this guy's plane fly? my friend thought.  After making inquires, he discovered that it was the top-secret (at the time) SR-71 reconnaissance plane, able to travel at un-heard-of heights and at extremely fast speeds.
 
    His appetite whetted, Ted pushed his way through a bunch of "red tape" to get permission to look the SR-71 over for himself.  Finally his superiors allowed him to walk past the security detail and observe this awesome technological achievement inside a hanger.  Its great size and sleekness impressed him.  But as he got up close he was stunned and disappointed.  The thing was leaking all over the floor.  A number of drip pans dotted the floor under it.  It looked as if this "bucket of bolts" was ready to fall apart!  Then he found out it was being readied for takeoff.  He asked what was the matter with it.
 
    "Nothing," the ground crew told him.  It was in great shape.  It was just right for flying at high altitudes and airspeeds.  What Ted didn't realize was the incredible stresses the plane's makers had designed it to withstand.  Once the plane got up to speed and reached its cruising altitude, its skin would expand, and the resulting heat would cause the dripping to stop.  Not only that, but much of the plane consisted of titanium, a metal that actually gets stronger as it heats up.
 
    This story helps me understand the text.  How can Christians be poor and rich at the same time?  How is it that we should welcome suffering and affliction as riches (James 1:2)?  I think Christians are a lot like the SR-71.  In ordinary life they don't stand out at all--they may even look like a bigger mess than the average secular person.  It is when the trials and stresses of life show up that the real Christian begins to shine.
 
    God doesn't permit His people to go through trials in order to find out what they are made of.  He already knows.  But one reason He allows trials is so that we can discover what He has been remaking us to be.  As we learn to stay close to God in trial He redesigns us so we can fly higher and faster than we could possibly have imagined.  If our lives were easier we might never discover the rich fulfillment that comes from soaring at God's altitude.
 
Lord, You know how to fit us for the kind of life You had in mind when You designed us.  Help me to resent the "training" but to see eternal riches in life's setbacks.

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These things says the First and the Last, who died and came to life.  I know your affliction and your poverty; nevertheless you are rich.  Rev. 2:8, 9.
 
    Commentators widely agree that the poverty in this passage is literal, while the riches are spiritual.  The Smyrnians were poor in this world's goods, but they were rich in the goods of the gospel, wealthy in the things of the Spirit.
 
    In practical terms, a big difference exists between poverty and riches.  People born rich have an entirely different mentality than the average person.  For most of us, financial limitations affect nearly every decision we make.  We choose inexpensive restaurants for lunch and buy our clothes at Wal-Mart or Penney's instead of Neiman-Marcus of Gucci.  In our free time we go to a public beach instead of a tropical vacation at Club Med.  Our lack of unlimited money shapes every choice we make.
 
    Compare this lifestyle with that of the megawealthy.  If you want to go skiing, or even shopping, in the Alps at a moment's notice, drive to the airport and grab the next available first-class seat.  If the weather is too cold, head for the tropics or the other hemisphere.  Should you not feel like washing clothes, just hire someone to buy a new designer wardrobe for each day.  Want a new speedboat or sports car?  Then hire someone to purchase it and deliver it to the place of your choice.  While most of us are limited in our daily decisions, the superrich have the world at their fingertips.  They can do anything and be anything they want whenever they desire.  And the rest of us tend to watch enviously from a distance, thinking of everything we are missing out on.
 
    But the church at Smyrna discovered a different kind of riches, one that the rich rarely attain (Matt. 19:24).  Those who know Jesus are liberated from enslavement to money.  They realize that we find the true riches of life in loving relationships.  To have a clean conscience, to be able to forgive and to be forgiven, is to be truly rich.  It is far better to know the Word of God than to be able to rush from one empty round of entertainment to another.
 
    The truth is that the wealthy have a hard time with relationships.  They never know when they can trust.  Everyone wants to "be their friend," not because of personal qualities, but because being a friend of the rich is a path to wealth and power of one's own.  The rich avoid a relationship with Christ, sometimes because they are too distracted and busy and sometimes because they fear the call to "sell all you have" more than poor people do.  The truest of all riches are found in Christ, not in material wealth.
 
Lord, turn my affections to the true riches You offer in Christ.

He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To the one who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.  Rev. 2:7.
 
    God offers the overcomers in Ephesus a special reward.  They will eat from the tree of life, now located in the paradise of God.  If it takes deep repentance to eat from that tree, it will be worth it.  The reward is far greater than the sacrifice along the way (cf. Rev. 22:2).
 
    Nearly everyone knows the story of Gideon, how he defeated the Midianites with 300 men bearing torches and trumpets.  Most have never heard of the rest of the story.  After the battle the people asked him to become king.  But he said, "I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you.  The Lord will rule over you" (Judges 8:23, NIV).
 
    Gideon had 70 sons from various marriages.  He had at least one other, Abimelech, as a result of an extramarital affair.  After Gideon's death, Abimelech plotted with his mother's relatives to murder all the other sons of Gideon and proclaim himself king (you can read the story in Judges 9).  The only son of Gideon to escape, Jotham, disrupted Abimelech's coronation ceremony by taunting him from a distance with the following parable:
 
    "One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves.  They said to the olive tree, 'Be our king.'  But the olive tree answered, 'Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and men are honored, to hold sway over the trees?'  Next, the trees said to the fig tree, 'Come and be our king.'  but the fig tree replied, 'Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?'...Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, 'Come and be our king.'  The thornbush said to the trees, 'if you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade' " (Judges 9:8-15, NIV).
 
    The sting in this parable is in the nature of the "thornbush" (Hebrew: atad).  Most trees are an asset to the environment.  Animals feed off the fruit and rest in the shade.  Birds nest in the branches of the tree.  The organic matter that drops from the tree nourishes other plants.  So in the ancient world a healthy tree represented the caretaking role of properly constituted authority.  But when I saw one of these "atad" trees in the area where Jotham made his speech, nothing--absolutely nothing--grew under that tree, not even a weed!  Jotham was satirizing the cruel and abusive nature of the kingship Abimelech would exercise.
 
    The reign of God will not be like that of Abimelech.  Instead of a "thorn tree," Revelation depicts it by a "tree of life," which enhances every life that encounters it.  There the overcomer will find an abundant life that never ends.  And we will never regret yielding our lives to the rule of God. 
 
Lord, I surrender my life to You again today.  Help me to trust Your directions.                                  

Remember, therefore, the place from which you have fallen.  Repent and do the first works, but if not, I will come to you and remove your lamp from its place, if you do not repent.  Rev. 2:5.
 
    In 1995 I led a group of students from Andrews University on a tour of Turkey, the modern-day nation that includes the locations of Revelation's seven churches.  Our local tour guide, Murat, was a secular Turk of Muslim background who had taken an interest in the Christian heritage of his country.
 
    One day road signs reported that we were nearing the city of Konya, in a section of central Turkey where Paul had worked during his first and second missionary journeys.  Murat told us that Konya was a city of more than 500,000, but only three or four of them were Christians, and Murat knew them all personally.  When he also told us that Konya was the Turkish name for the ancient city of Iconium, I realized that this city had been the site of a flourishing Christian community founded by Paul (Acts 13:51-14:6).  We then learned that the whole area of the seven churches of Revelation shared a common condition.  Ephesus is now Kusadasi, Philadelphia is Alashehir, and Christians are nowhere to be found.
 
    When John wrote his book, Christianity was strongly established in central and western Asia Minor.  In fact, many scholars believe Christians were more numerous in first-century Asia Minor that anywhere else in the world.  But through the centuries these churches gradually declined, until Islam virtually eradicated them.  The regions where the early church was once strongest (including Syria and North Africa) are now overwhelmingly Islamic.  As Jesus warns in our text above, lampstands can be removed from their place.
 
    Yet it was not Islam that destroyed the church.  In North Africa doctrinal and ethnic controversies weakened Christianity.  Christians in the Middle East failed to engage the local culture, leaving the way open for Muhammad's more contextualized faith.  During the middle Ages the European church leadership sought to revitalize Christianity in the Middle East.  But they misunderstood the gospel and chose a method (the Crusades) that made things even worse.  It was the church that destroyed Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean.
 
    Such history should be a warning to us.  Where the gospel once flourished (including Europe, North America, and Australia), it is now in decline.  Yet regions that hardly knew the gospel two centuries ago (Africa and Asia) are rapidly becoming the center of the faith.  You and I dare not take our role in God's plan for granted.  If we abandon our mission, the Lord will raise up others to fulfill it.  Lampstands can be removed from their place.
 
Lord, rekindle the clarity of my mission today.  Keep my lamp trimmed and burning.

Remember, therefore, the place from which you have fallen.  Repent and do the first works, but if not, I will come to you and remove your lamp from its place, if you do not repent.  But you do have this: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  Rev. 2:5, 6.
 
    Given Jesus' analysis of the Ephesus church, what counsel would He offer to them?  The first thing He says is "remember."  In the original Greek the word is a present imperative.  This means that they have not forgotten their former level of relationship with God.  But the church needs to internalize a sense of growing loss, to be motivated by the fact that they are in decline.
 
    The next thing He tells them to do is to repent.  The form of this word is different, reflecting a one-time action.  Here He is commanding them to get started.  Their repentance is to be a one-time decisive turnaround.  While the church is used to remembering, it has forgotten how to repent.  It needs a fresh start and to bring its actions in line with its intentions.
 
    Third, He counsels them to do the things that they did at first.  This is also something that they must start doing.  Revive the earlier circumstances that caused your love to blossom in the first place.  Go back in your mind to a time you were truly close to the Lord and renew those thoughts and actions.  "Repent and do the first works."
 
    Marriage counselors will tell you that a couple who has fallen out of love needs to go back through the steps that bonded them together in the first place.  Nearly every married couple was in love at one time.  No matter what is going on between them today, they were once attracted to each other.  If that happened before, it can occur again.
 
    A couple that is fighting and angry needs to start over.  It can be good to back off sexually and go back to square one in the relationship.  Go out on dates--if possible, to the places where your relationship got its start.  Rekindle the joy in holding hands, kind words, and gentle attention.  Take time off from work, reduce the pressure, and act young again.  Restore the bonds that have weakened or broken.
 
    The same principle can apply to spiritual life.  If you have fallen out of love with God, go back to the things that bonded you to Him in the first place. Where were you when you first felt His presence?  What kinds of things did you do to respond?  We don't have to take the initiative in restoring our relationship with God.  The gospel tells us that He has already done that.  We love God because He first loved us.  He is the initiator.  Our task is to respond to what He has already done.  We love Him because He first loved us.
 
Lord, I remember the fires of our first love, and I choose to respond to You in the way I have done before.

 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.  Rev. 2:4.
 
    The church at Ephesus is largely faithful to Jesus, but it does have a problem.  It has "left [its] first love" and has taken that first fateful step down a slope to disaster.  No one but Jesus may have been aware of it.  Ephesus itself may not have realized what it was doing, at least until the book of Revelation arrived.  The first step in spiritual decline are usually quiet ones.
 
    One time I was in Kruger National Park, South Africa.  People there can drive along roads occupied by lions, giraffes, elephants, and much more.  You could say that the animals roam free in Kruger, while the people find themselves restricted to four-wheeled cages (their cars)!  Visitors are expected to spend the night in fenced-in "rest camps" for their safety.
 
    Late one day we were about 15 miles from the next rest camp.  We needed to be safely inside by 6:00 in the evening.  At the moment we had just stopped at a spot where someone had seen a leopard in the past half hour.  When the leopard failed to return, we decided we had better get to camp.  As I pulled out of the parking stop I drove over some small bushes.  A loud thumping sound came from under the car, louder than small bushes should make, but nothing seemed wrong, so I drove on.
 
    After a few moments later I noticed that the battery gauge had slipped from 16 to 14 (don't ask me what the numbers meant).  The car's owner thought that that meant the alternator was no longer charging the battery.  Having only a limited stretch of time before the engine would die, we decided to stop at no more water holes but head straight toward the rest camp.  The thought of being stranded in the African wilderness at night was not a welcome one.
 
    Can you remember a time when your gas gauge read empty with no gas station in sight?  Then you will understand a fraction of the concern that gripped our stomachs as the needle on the battery gauge moved from 14 to 12 to 10.  When the gauge reached 8, the fence of the rest camp appeared on the horizon.  As we approached the entrance the engine began to stutter.  I worked down through the gears, trying to keep the vehicle moving.  The engine kept hesitating and finally died 100 feet from the gate.  We rolled in with a silent engine and came to a stop at the fuel station just inside the entrance!  Our gratitude to God knew no bounds!
 
    It is easy enough to know when our cars break down, but how is it with our spiritual lives?  In the easy comfort of a consumer society, it is easy to think that all is spiritually well, when in reality our spiritual batteries have been running down for quite some time.  To us the words of Jesus come home with considerable force: "You have left your first love."
 
Lord, don't hold back.  I need to know the truth about myself and receive the remedy only You can give.