You Are Rich

Revelation 2:8-11

Let me start off tonight by saying it is honor that I would be asked by Bill Thompson to preach the Lord’s revival! He is way more capable than I am, but I it is a wonderful night to be gathered with you all in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord!

Also, Bro Josh very pointed message last night.........talk about removing the veil before from eyes and exposing the reality of our current situation! It brought me to repentance!

If it is ok I might use some of what you said last night!

Revelation 2:8-11.......small amount of Scripture tonight, we turn elsewhere as we go, we’ll see.

I want to share something with you before we read.......A Bro at our church sent me a video of a man speaking about his trip to somewhere in China as he visited Christians there. I might get some of the minor details mixed up but this a major reality.....

The man said that there was 22 people that came to a hotel room to hear have him teach them the Gospel.

They rode a train 13 hours to get there, they sat on the floor for 8-10 hours a day for 3 days with no a/c while the Gospel was being taught.

They had no Bibles with them.

If they got caught, the preacher would be deported and they would be arrested for 3 years for Jesus’ Name sake.

He asked how many had went to prison because of the Gospel, 18 raised their hands.

He gave them 15 Bibles which would leave 7 without one. This one lady gave hers to someone else.

He asked her why? She said that she had memorized a lot of chapters while she was in prison.

He asked well don’t they take your Bibles when you go into prison and she said yes, but visitors would write Scripture on paper and would give it to them.

She said you have to memorize it fast because they find out real quick and they come and get the paper.

She said they can take away the paper, but they cannot take away what is in your heart!

After 3 days with them, he was going to pray with them, the lady asked him if he would pray that one day that their church could one day be like the American church, to meet openly without fear of persecution.

He told no, he said you rode a train 13 hours to get here to hear the Gospel, sat on a hard floor for 3 days to hear the Gospel.

You hardly have no Bibles, yet you memorize the Scripture. The avg. American home has 2 Bibles.

He told her that he would not pray that their church becomes more like the U.S., but that we become more like them.

Even before I heard that I have thought a lot about the historical records of people’s devotion to the Gospel..........there are so many accounts of total sacrifice for the Jesus’ Name sake that it would be hard to recount all of them...........There must be something greater that they saw than we do!!! Let’s look into one church.........

Jesus is writing to a total of 7 churches in Asia Minor. These churches are on a major postal route, they were very important cities. Out of those 7 churches only 2 were good, the other 5 Jesus had something against them.

Let’s just deal with this church and the passage.........Jesus begins with an intro of Himself......

First and Last......He is the eternal infinite God!

Jesus declares the Gospel in this short title.....similar to Revelation 1:18 “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”

When the messenger would get this letter to the church at Smyrna and they would read it, the God they had worshipped, served, and giving their lives for was speaking directly to them.

Josh talked about True Worship last night......that church meeting there was worship when they read the words of Jesus written right to them.

It is also a confidence or comfort, that He is the One that was dead but now is living.....if we have crucified ourselves with Christ then we will live forever as Jesus does!

Now we move to what Jesus knows........In chapter John saw Jesus moving through the 7 candlesticks which represented the churches! He knows!

Great opening 4 words from Jesus, “I know your works!”

Great or terrifying......if you are a faithful church it is great, but if He has somewhat against you not so great!

He is moving through our lives seeing our works, our lives and what manner of fruit it is!

Their works are tribulation and poverty.....rather their works have produced tribulation and poverty.......

They were poor – they were poor. There are two Greek words for poor – two Greek words. One word, penēs, basically means you have nothing superfluous. You’re not wealthy. You just satisfy your basic needs. You work with your own hands. You have nothing extra. That’s not this word. This word is ptōchos. It means you have nothing at all. You have absolutely nothing at all. Absolute poverty, complete destitution. Most of them must have been slaves. To add to their poverty as slaves – probably abused slaves who did the work and got very little if anything beyond food – more than that, any Christians who had anything would have been robbed and plundered and deprived of what they did have. They were poor because of their faith. They had been robbed and plundered, slandered, accused, imprisoned. This church had every human reason to collapse. Did it not? Every human reason. Every human reason to say, “Who needs this religion? We’ll try another one.” But they didn’t. They just leaned all the more on Jesus Christ and they never lost their first love.

Tribulation........2 Timothy 3:12 “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

That verse always gives me pause.....the majority of the NT Christians suffered unimaginable persecution and this church did as well.

Domitian was the emperor at Rome and over all of these cities, he was notoriously known as evil murderous Caesar.

There was a very strong emperor worship cult there. In fact, they killed people who didn’t worship Caesar. Each year every citizen – get this – each year had to burn incense on Caesar’s altar, after which he was issued a certificate. To be without a certificate, as certainly must have been the case for the Christians obedient to Christ, was to risk discovery and the death penalty. About a half century after John’s time, after the time of the writing of this letter, Polycarp, a man named Polycarp was burned alive at the age of 86 – 86. One writer said it was the twelfth martyr in Smyrna. It happened, of course. He was the pastor of the Smyrna church 50 years after this and he would not bow his knee to Caesar.

Joining hands with the Romans to oppose Christianity was a large Jewish community, and we know that the Jews repeatedly informed the Romans against the Christians and incited the local government to attack them. It was tough. It was the center also of the worship of Cybele, the worship of Apollo, Aesculapius, Aphrodite, and Zeus, and they all had temples there as well as the glorious monument to the great writer Homer who apparently was born there. And nestled in this great city was this little church.

And they were being persecuted for their faith and they had nothing!

That is not the US’s view of a church is it???? What motivated these people?? Before I answer that I do want to say this........

A very important principle, that the church which suffers persecution becomes purged, becomes pure. Hypocrites don’t stick around to be persecuted. False Christians don’t want the pain. They don’t need it. They’re not willing to make the sacrifice. ................ persecution, trials, tribulation, and suffering will always destroy false faith, but those same things will strengthen true faith.

It seems every time the devil troubles a true church, it backfires on him and the church is purges and grows in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Satan is more successful in destroying the church, when he infiltrates the church.

Bro Josh spoke some about that last night, about worship and what it is really about opposed to what man has made it.

I thought about what Charles Spurgeon said about that very thing..... ““If you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming back.”

It seems when that happens the devil is more successful!

How does this church continue to endure, they have nothing financially, they are troubled on every side??

Jesus said to them that He saw the persecution, He saw that they had nothing......but they were RICH!!!

They believed that!!!!

This has nothing to do with the riches of the world, it has nothing to do with life on easy street, but has everything with an eternal/spiritual view/belief rather than an earthly/fleshly belief!

If these folks put all their eggs in the earthly/fleshly view, they would have no eggs!

I get riled up about this, because it seems we base everything on what we see or how things turn out down here, that is false teaching!

I heard a preacher say...... “Don’t you get it? We don’t win down here, we win in the end!”

The Church at Smyrna was not focused on their dire earthly circumstances, they wasn’t having fundraisers, they were focused on the riches of Jesus Christ!

Paul said this in Ephesians 3:8-9 “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;...........

Paul in the 1st ch. of Ephesians gives us a few....Josh also spoke of these riches last night.....

Ephesians 1:7–14: redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, the knowledge of the mystery of His will, the message of truth, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, and the guarantee of our inheritance. These are spiritual riches with eternal benefits, and we cannot fully comprehend them.

This all has an eternal/spiritual view in mind, has nothing to do with the flesh at all!

1 Corinthians 2:4-5 “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

He continues in 1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

The spiritual things is foolish to the man living after the flesh......being in persecution and having nothing the natural man sees that as a negative and wants out of that and devises a plan to get out.

The spiritual man believes that his rich even though he looks poor, and he endures through the trouble not concerned of his exit out but only of the truth of Jesus Christ!

Reminds again of Paul when he had the thorn in the flesh......2 Corinthians 12:7-10.......

When I am weak He is strong!

This is an unreal thought, to me......Why? Because I have lived without persecution and poverty in my own life and within the church!

Yes we have problems, but most of them are not because of Christ........Smyrna was in this place because of their faith!

They had a right view of God, they understood their responsibility to God!

Those commandments that Josh went through with ya’ll, those are not rules, those are the true essence of God’s character and as the Israelites declared in 1 Samuel......”Who is able to stand before this Holy Lord God?”

No one but Jesus Christ!

Understanding this, believing this takes the emphasis off of worldly circumstance and places it on spiritual/eternal circumstance, where we have been disqualified only to be qualified by the Person and the Work of Jesus Christ!

That is what makes us rich! No matter how the world is treating you!

Jesus is a great teacher in Matthew 5, Jesus is teaching on loving your enemies.........Ummmmm

He tells in Matthew 5:45 “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

God causes the sun to rise on the evil and good, also he causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust......

Stop being overwhelmed by your situation and be overwhelmed by the Grace of God through Jesus Christ!

The Gospel....Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

For it is the power of God!!!

Who is really rich? They had holiness; they had power; they had love; they had joy; they had grace; they had peace; they had true friends. They had a divine resource. They had a sympathetic Savior. They had grace upon grace. They were rich. That’s how it is with a persecuted church. Don’t you ever feel sorry for the persecuted church. I will never forget standing down here in front of this row after a service and having a pastor come to me when the Soviet Union was still under communist rule and shaking my hand and saying, “I have read your material in Russian and I come here, and I have experienced your church today. And I just want to tell you I don’t know how you can possibly endure being a pastor in the United States.” And I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “I could never be a pastor here. It’s so much easier in the Soviet Union.” I said, “Why do you say that?” He said, “Because your people are caught up in the world and material things and comfort, and how can you find true commitment?” He said, “I would far rather pastor in the Soviet Union.” I would rather be, I guess, a pastor of a poor rich church than a rich poor church.

I read another quote by Charles Spurgeon that puts all of this in perspective....... “While others are congratulating themselves, I have to sit humbly at the foot of the cross and marvel that I’m saved at all”

In my view that is the true riches of Jesus Christ, I wonder why a Holy God, God of all the universe would save me out of this condition (against Him)! Why?

My Creator, Who I have rebelled against, why would He give me the foundation of Jesus Christ to place my life upon?

The only motivation given for this mercy, grace, this forgiveness, this salvation is love!

Josh quoted it last night Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

I like how John puts in a description of what true love is in 1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Therefore......Hello????? (Josh) 1 John 4:19 “We love Him, because He first loved us.”

Is anyone here in Jesus Christ? Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

How about when all the kingdoms that you have worked to build in your life are tore to the ground and not one thing left upon another?? (Job)

Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: But I will maintain mine own ways before him.”

J