We are focussing on the seven letters that were written to each of 7 different churches in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. Written by a man called John whilst imprisoned on the Greek island of Patmos over 1900 years ago the letters contain challenges and encouragements.
What might it have to say to us today?
To Smyrna
Write this to Smyrna, to the Angel of the church. The Beginning and Ending, the First and Final One, the Once Dead and Then Come Alive, speaks:
“I can see your pain and poverty—constant pain, dire poverty—but I also see your wealth. And I hear the lie in the claims of those who pretend to be good Jews, who in fact belong to Satan’s crowd
“Fear nothing in the things you’re about to suffer—but stay on guard! Fear nothing! The Devil is about to throw you in jail for a time of testing—ten days. It won’t last forever.
“Don’t quit, even if it costs you your life. Stay there believing. I have a Life-Crown sized and ready for you.
“Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. Christ-conquerors are safe from Devil-death.”
Revelation 1:8-11 (The Message)
The Christians in the church in Smyrna were being picked on. The people in the city who belonged to the synagogue and who were called Jews didn’t like the fact that some of their friends were becoming Christians. To start with they started with name calling and then they moved on to not doing business with them so they couldn’t make a living and then they started telling the roman authorities that these people weren’t following all of the roman rules. As a result a good number of the Christians were put in jail or executed.
That’s very different to the country we live in. We are free to come to the bridge, to talk with our friends about we believe. It’s very unlikely that we will be thrown into prison for coming to the Bridge.
But in the rest of world there are countries where Christians of all ages are attacked, thrown into prison or killed because of what they believe. Often the persecution would stop if the person was just willing to say that they didn’t believe in Jesus or that Jesus wasn’t the Son of God.
It can be very difficult to try and imagine what it must be like for these people. It’s also hard to know whether we would be able to be as brave if we were faced with the same kind of treatment.
Let me tell you about 10-year-old Hyun Joo who lives in North Korea. She believed in God and trusted Him. (The picture of Hyun Joo was taken at her Bible class. Her face is covered to protect her identity.)
Hyun Joo’s parents were also Christians. Many North Korean Christians do not talk about God with their children. If the children mention God outside the home, government officials might punish the whole family. The government wants the citizens to honour the country’s leaders, not God. But Hyun Joo’s parents wanted her to know Jesus. They prayed that God would use her to change North Korea.
Hyun Joo’s family secretly left North Korea to attend a hidden Bible class in another country. It was a risky trip. But the police did not catch them. After two weeks of Bible training, the family quietly returned home.
Hyun Joo continued to believe in God, and she worked hard at school. She was happy when she came home from school one day. She told her mother, Hee Sook, that she had prayed ―inside her heart at school. She said that her teacher had asked her, ― How did you get such a good grade on your test? ―By God’s grace, Hyun Joo had answered. The teacher had become very angry and dragged Hyun Joo out of the classroom. Then her family disappeared. The government no doubt took them away. No one has heard from them since.
North Korea is still the most hostile country in which to live and practise the Christian faith, there are reports of many Christians arrested, with at least 25 per cent of Christians believed to be languishing in labour camps for their refusal to worship the country’s leader Kim Il-Sung’s and his cult. Half the population lives in the north, close to China, where family-based networks of house churches exist in significant numbers. Roughly ten million inhabitants are malnourished, with thousands eating only grass and bark.
Kim Jong-Il died in December 2011 and North Korean Christians are asking Christians around the world to pray for real change in their country.
http://www.kidsofcourage.com/?p=971
Father, we pray for real change in North Korea that includes freedom for all its people, so that they are free to live how they want and allowed to believe what they want. WWee want those prison camps to open up so that our fellow Christians who have suffered there in terrible circumstances will be able to worship you freely. We pray that Hyun Joo and her family will enjoy that freedom too.
We pray for those who persecute your people; may their hearts be turned towards you through the faithful witness of those they persecute. Protect members of the families and church communities of those who are persecuted and bless the work and ministry of those organizations that support the suffering and seek to be a voice for persecuted Christians.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The background to the persecution in Smyrna was the conflict between the Jews in the local synagogue and the Christians (many of whom would have been Jews too) who were claiming that Jesus was the fulfilment of all of the ancient promises to the Jewish people. It was made more so by the fact that the members of the local synagogue not content without their own rejection of Jesus, were actively blaspheming Jesus. The text calls the synagogue a satan-synagogue because the people there were literally accusing the Christians of wickedness and in a city where the Roman imperial presence and influence was everything then the Christians would have been alienated from the rest of society in the city. Hence the comment about poverty, the Christians were unable to earn their living.
Interesting, God does not criticise the church in Smyrna for anything in this letter, his main purpose is to warn them that fierce persecution is on its way. But the warning is surrounded by promises that God will not forsake them. In fact God goes further and tells them that the first death i.e. physical death may be what they are facing, but that they will not face the second death, i.e. what happens to entire personality or soul after physical death. Just as Jesus died the first death but overcame the second death so too will they – if they remain as followers of Jesus, worshipping the one true God.
Those same promises are there for God’s people today. We have probably found some of the stories and pictures tonight abhorrent. Stunned that the persecution we heard about earlier takes place in 2012 because people aren’t free to believe what they want to. Over 200 million Christians in at least 60 countries are denied fundamental human rights solely because of their faith.
And yet there must be more to it just being a principle of freedom.
This promise of not facing the second death, of being with Jesus in eternity along with the knowledge that Jesus died because he loved them was enough for the 176,000 Christians who were martyred from mid-2008 to mid-2009. That’s one every three minutes. And those numbers don’t include those who are imprisoned or tortured or beaten up.
But that message of Jesus’s love for them is enough. They choose not to deny their faith, they choose to keep meeting together in small groups to study the bible, they continue to pray and expect God to be at work in their lives. They do not give up on their faith.
In our country we worry about what people might think of us if they know we think about our faith, or go to church or explore what the Christian faith is about. It’s seen as a private affair and that people should be free to believe what they like so long as it doesn’t impinge on others.
Maybe we only pay lip service to the promise of eternal life and knowing the depth of Jesus love for us?
One every three minutes, in our hours meeting that means 20 people have been executed for their faith.
Lord God, heavenly Father, give us the courage of the martyrs to bear witness, without flinching, to Your great love for us. Give us their confidence in the resurrection of Your Son, Jesus, and give us that same power and reassurance of the Holy Spirit as You give them, so that we too may fearlessly bring Your good news to a needy world.
This we ask in the name of Jesus who was crucified for us and who called us to take up our crosses and to follow Him.
Amen