"Prosperity Gospel" Preachers Hate This Verse In Revelation

Most of the time Christians are praying for God to remove their suffering. But what if I told you that prayer was actually backward? What if the trial you're begging God to remove right now or come to an end is the very thing that God is sending into your life to make you more like his son and to strengthen your faith? I know that sounds uncomfortable and we need to prepare ourselves because when Jesus speaks to the church of Smyrna in chapter two of Revelation, he's going to talk to a bunch of Christians who are being crushed economically, socially, physically, relationally. They're losing everything. And instead of Jesus saying, hold on, I'm about to rescue you, he says something that really completely catches them off guard and it's gonna catch us off guard as well. I'm gonna unpack these words from Jesus and it may just be the most encouraging thing you're gonna hear today. ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪ Welcome back to Get into the Word. My name is Robbie Gallaty. Today, we're in the second of the seven churches of Revelation, the church of Smyrna.

What Jesus teaches this church gives us a theology of suffering that the American church desperately needs to hear right now. So I want you to stay with me through this video because what Jesus says at the end is going to change how you view hard things in your life that are presently happening. Now, before we read this letter, we need to understand the city because the context of a city always transforms the text. Smyrna was one of the most breathtaking cities in the ancient world. It was actually called the Crown of Asia, and it earned that title. Great writers and poets were born there. It was a city of culture. It had beauty and prestige. Into that city, a church was planted. And John, the same John who's writing Revelation from the island of Patmos, had discipled a man who then became the bishop of Smyrna. His name was Polycarp, and we're gonna come back to him at the end so you don't wanna miss that. I wanna show you how he was martyred, which I think will speak to all of us today. What he did at the end of his life is going to encourage everyone,

regardless of where you are, regardless of the pressure you feel. But first, before we get into it, we have to understand the city. It was under Roman law. Jewish people, because of that, held a special exemption. They did not have to worship the Roman gods or confess Caesar is Lord if they were Jewish. The earliest Christians were largely Jewish, and the Roman authorities allowed them to worship like they wanted. So for a time, Christians in Smyrna, get this, essentially shared the same exemption because they were associating with them, so they were exempt as well. But then a group of local Jewish community members start to appeal to Rome, and they say, hey, listen, these Christians are not like us. They're not Jews. In fact, they're worshiping some false messiah. Remove them from our protection. And so the Romans did that. And overnight, everything changed for the Christians. Christians in Smyrna could no longer purchase food from the farms. They couldn't buy clothing or essential goods to live. They couldn't find employment. Many of them couldn't work. The entire economic infrastructure of the city

was, in a sense, closed to them. They were being slowly starved out, deliberately, systematically, and legally. This is where we find ourselves when John writes this letter to the church of Smyrna in Revelation chapter two, verse eight. Let's read it together. Write to the angel of the church in Smyrna. Thus says the first and the last, the one who was dead and came to life. I know your affliction. I know your poverty. But you are rich. That's interesting. You're poor, but you're actually rich. I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Jesus, tell us what you really mean about these Jews in this city. Don't be afraid of who you are, what you're about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to throw some of you in prison to test you. And you will experience affliction for 10 days. So be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. Let anyone who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Did you catch what Jesus did not say? Jesus didn't say, hey, I know your tribulation,

but I'm about to fix it. He didn't say, I know the pressure you're under. I'm about to remove it from you. He says, don't be afraid of what you're about to suffer, because it's going to get worse, actually. Now, that is the opposite of what we would expect Jesus to say. And the gap between what we expect God to say and what he actually says is where we get a theology of suffering that applies to our life. The very first thing Jesus does in this letter is identify himself with the language specifically designed for a suffering church. What do I mean? He calls himself, don't miss this, the first and the last, the one who was dead and the one who came back to life. He's not presenting himself as the almighty. be on the throne separated from eternity or humanity, no. He's presenting himself as the one who walked on earth through death and came out the other side. He's saying to the church that may be dying, I know this road, I walked it before you, I know what your affliction's like, I know what it's like to be poor, I've been there. That's what the word affliction means in the Greek. The word thalipsis in the Greek describes not just the ordinary bumps of everyday life, it means a crushing pressure. The image behind the word is actually one

of being squeezed or pressed or actually smothered, pushed down, like a vice closing around one's chest. And that is the word Jesus decides to use here. He's not dismissing what they were going through, he's naming it with precision. I know you're under crushing pressure, hang in there. Because even though you may feel poor, you're actually, don't miss this, rich. Come on, Jesus, really? What are you talking about? They don't have anything. There's no income, there's no food, no security, no marketplace access, no jobs, unemployment is skyrocketing, no acceptance by the community. Jesus looks at them and he looks at us today and he says, you are wealthy, why? Because what they possessed cannot be measured by the Roman Empire or through Roman currency. They had a faith that was being forged in a fire that most people would essentially run from. They don't want that. Is there something right now, if you think of your own life, that feels like that's the kind of pressure you're going to? Maybe you feel like the world is closing in on you now, financially, relationally, medically. Your health is declining. Something that keeps you up at night, something you think about early in the morning. Here's what Jesus wants you to hear, coming close. He sees you, he knows you, and he's with you.

He's not distant from your situation, he's not scrambling to figure out what to do, it's not catching him off guard. He has already been to the darkest place a human can ever go, and he did not stay there. He conquered death, hell, and the grave, and that is the God who sees your suffering today. But he does not promise to remove it right away. He does something even better. He says, listen, don't be afraid, I'm gonna be with you in the suffering. Don't falter, why? The devil's about to throw the book at you. It's gonna get worse, and you're going to go to prison as a test. I don't know about you, that's not very encouraging words from Jesus, but the key phrase here is the little word to. In the Greek, this is a purpose clause. You're gonna love this. What grammar experts call a hina phrase, or a hina phrase. It expresses direction. There is intentionality with this phrase. The devil is about to throw them into prison in order to test them. And the word test can also be translated as to prove, you're gonna love this, to improve, to make better, to level up. Here's what God is saying. I'm allowing this in order to improve your faith.

I need to stop here and address something because right now, some of you are looking at your American life or your American church, and you're thinking, wow, that's not the Christianity I've heard growing up. There's a version of Christianity today being preached all over the country that goes something like this. Give your life to Jesus, and everything will be comfortable. It'll be a bed of roses. Give your life to Jesus. You'll never be sick again. You'll never want again. Follow Christ, and everything will be smooth out there. And this teaching of health, wealth, and prosperity is leaving people completely blindsided when the trials come. Because here's what Jesus is actually saying to believers. If you choose to follow me, brace yourself, it's probably gonna get harder. You may be embarrassed. You may be punished. You may lose something real. But don't give up. Hang in there because I have a reward waiting for you that nothing in the world can take away. Here's an illustration I have lived with personally. After I left rehab years ago, some of you are familiar with my story of how I got addicted to drugs and alcohol

as a result of a car accident years ago and spiraled out of control, heroin, cocaine, alcohol abuse. And I went to rehab, and I came back and went to live with my sister in Mobile, Alabama. Started working at a gym, powerhouse gym. And I learned something there I have never forgotten. And I started to train people, selling memberships. And here's what I've learned. The only way you can build muscle is by tearing it. Most people trying to gain strength should probably quit right away because they get to the point of tearing, the point of exhaustion, and they stop. They get to the place of discomfort, and they stop. I tell my son Ryder, who I work out with a lot, I say, son, you could probably go tap many people at the local gym on the shoulder and say, hey, listen, I don't know what you're doing. Maybe it makes you feel good, but you're not ever gonna grow muscle. You're never going to get bigger or more tone, because you're not pushing through the pain. If you push through the tear, the muscle breaks, but then rebuilds itself stronger. It starts to rebuild, too, in place of one. Every time you do this, coming close, suffering works the same way. Did you ever ask God to make you stronger before? Or maybe you said, God, increase my faith. Bring me closer to you. Give me a fortified belief system. Make me more like Jesus.

Use me, God. I want to change the world. Have you ever considered that maybe your present suffering might be God's answer to that exact prayer? Jesus says the testing is going to last for them 10 days. Now, in Revelation, we've already learned that almost every number carries symbolic weight and has double duty. It's drawing upon the Old Testament. We said this before, 500 plus references in the 400 verses in Revelation. The number 10 is no exception. And so I want you to think, where in the Old Testament do we hear this number 10? Where else have we seen 10 days of testing? Let's turn our attention to Daniel chapter 1, verse 11. Daniel chapter 1 says this, verse 11. So Daniel said to the guard whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hanaiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for how long? 10 days. There it is. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating at the king's food and deal with the servants based on what you see. Daniel was in a foreign land under enormous pressure to bow down and conform to the imperial worship of the day, but he refused. And here's what he said, test me, try me, put me in the crucible, and at the end of 10 days, see what God does. And what does God do? We know the story. God vindicated him. Jesus in Revelation 2 is drawing from the same line of the Old Testament, and he's teaching the church at Smyrna.

The number 10 doesn't mean that the suffering will last an exact amount of time of one week and half. No, 10 represents completeness. You're gonna love this, totality. Jesus is saying your suffering will be complete. How do I know this? 10 commandments, the totality of the law, 10 fingers, the totality of your hands, 10 toes. You don't have 11. You don't have nine. Jesus is saying your suffering will come to its full measure, and then it will end because I'm sovereign even over the testing. Friends, I said this before, but let me remind you. Testing is never meant by God to break you down. Testing is sent by God to build you up, to make you stronger for the next task at hand. Someone said it this way, if you never bump into the devil and your life is a bed of roses and easy, it may be because you're walking in the same direction. If you're truly living for the Lord Jesus, trouble will find you. And that trouble is not evidence that God has abandoned you. In fact, it's the opposite. It is the evidence that you have switched teams and the other team does not like losing lottery picks. They don't like losing team members. Whenever you leave team Satan and you're born again in the team Jesus, the devil doesn't let you go easily. But Jesus closes this letter with two promises, and I don't want you to miss them. He says, be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. Let's go back to this again. Notice how it ends. Be faithful to the end, and I'll give you the crown of life.

And then he says this, to the one who conquers will never be harmed by the second death. The Olympic Games were not held far from these very cities that we read about in Revelation. When an athlete would win one of the games, he received a laurel wreath. It was a wreath sometimes woven of olive branches or palm branches or pine straw into the form of a circlet that went around your head. It was a temporal thing that faded and died. The greatest symbol of winning the games was earthly achievement with an earthly crown. And within days, if you put that crown on the shelf, you know this, when a plant doesn't get watered, it begins to die and wilt. Within a week, it's dead and it crumbles. Jesus said, I will give you not a crown that wilts or falters. I'm going to give you a crown not of leaves or shrubs. No, I'm going to give you a crown of life. And that crown does not fade, does not falter, does not end. Now, let me tell you about the man who read this letter, preached it to his congregation, and then had to live it out in front of the entire city. I mentioned it earlier, but stay with me. His name is Polycarp. Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna. Eighty-six years old is when he was martyred on February 23rd, 155 AD. It was during one of the public games, and a voice cried out from the crowd, Away with the atheists. Let Polycarp be found. Now, atheists back then were Christians because they didn't believe in the Roman gods, and so they were called atheists because they didn't believe there were other gods, but there was one God. And so Polycarp could have run away. He knew the city. He had options. He knew it like the back of his hand. But he chose to go back to his church, and when the soldiers came for him, he welcomed him in. He said, Hey, let me feed you a meal. He asked for them to stay an hour to pray with him. He stood there, and he prayed actually two hours. The soldiers who came to arrest him reportedly didn't know what to do because they were witnessing a man who loved the Lord, and it was impactful to them. They arrested him and took him on the road to the arena.

City leaders made one final appeal to them because they knew him. They said, Polycarp, listen, just say Caesar is Lord. It's just a small sacrifice. Save yourself. Why is it so hard? Oh, man, just save your life, and Polycarp responded. I wonder how many, by the way, of us would have given in, but not Polycarp. He looked back, and he said, There's only one Lord, and his name is Jesus. He was thrown in the arena around a cheering crowd, and he said he had reportedly heard a voice, and the voice said, Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man. Basically, be the man I know you to be. The pro-council gave him one last chance. Renounce Christ and live or deny the Roman authorities or the Roman gods and die. Polycarp's last words were these. He stood before the crowd and yelled this out. Eighty and six years I have served the Lord Jesus, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me? The pro-council threatened to burn him alive. Polycarp's response, You threaten me with a fire that burns for a time and is quickly extinguished. But you do not know the fire which awaits the wicked in the judgment to come. Do what you will with me. They tied him to a post and lit the wood beneath his feet. As the flames rose, he thanked God that he was counted worthy to die for the name Jesus Christ. He was the twelfth martyr to die in that city of Smyrna alone. The Bible speaks of two deaths. One is a physical death, which comes for all of us without exception. I'll give you one statistic you can take to the bank. Every person watching this video will die one day a physical death. The question is not whether you will die once. Everyone will die once. The question is whether you will die twice. Think of it this way. Everyone who is born once dies twice and everyone who is born twice dies once. If you've only experienced physical birth in this world, which everybody does if you're here watching, if you've never been born again spiritually, then you will face what Revelation calls the second death. An eternal separation from God. Not because God is cruel, but because you asked for it. You told God all of your life, God, I don't want you. Leave me alone. I don't want anything to do with you. And at the end of time when you stand before the Lord, if you have rejected and rebelled against God, here's what God says to you. You have your request. You asked me to leave you alone your whole life. You get your answer. But if you're born twice, born physically at birth, and then born again by the Spirit of God through faith in Jesus Christ,

then you only die once. One physical death and then you step from this life into eternity. Your last breath here is your first breath there and you receive a crown that doesn't fade in the presence of the one who conquered death, hell, and the grave. You see, the church at Smyrna proved that the promise of God was worth everything. Polycarp proved that it was worth everything. And so let me encourage you today, if you're in the midst of a trial, don't throw in the towel. Not now, not ever. Not when the pressure is at its worst. Not when the fire is at its hottest. Because the same God who was with Daniel in the lion's den is the same God who was with the three young men in the furnace. The same God with Polycarp who was burned at the stake. He is with you right now in whatever you're walking through. And His fire never goes out. He's with you. Hang in there. If this video helped you see something new in God's Word, do me a favor. Subscribe to the channel now. Share it with someone who may benefit from it. Make sure you hit the thumbs up button. It'll keep you updated on upcoming videos. Until next time, get into the Word until the Word gets into you.