Well, if anyone doubts that the Lord is a sovereign God who does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and there's none that can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? After reading that passage that Brother Al spoke on earlier, It kind of takes away man's reasoning and his consideration of those things that are proper. I'm sure that there's a multitude, and even every one of us, as we read these things, this just goes against everything that we would naturally think. A lot of people don't even know that passage is in the Bible. I remember the first time I ever read it many years ago, I was just taken aback by it, because it really destroyed my thoughts that I had figured out, you know, how God did things.

But God does things the way he wants to do them. And he doesn't ask anybody if it's okay. He just does what he's gonna do. Now, some people say, well, I wouldn't serve a God like that. Well, you might not. But if you wouldn't, then you wouldn't serve the true and living God because he is that one who does all things according to the good pleasure of his will. Now, there's plenty of things in scripture that we can't explain. I wouldn't attempt to explain that except to say that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

You know, just like those men on Mount Carmel when the Lord brought down fire from heaven. And he set that thing on fire and dried up all the water that was in the ditch around it. I mean, there was nothing left to say. But the Lord, He is the God. And whatever you think or whatever you want of me, you can entertain any theory you want about God, what God can do, what He will do, and what He won't do. But you can be sure of this, that He will do according to what he determines to do. And at the end of it all, he'll be right. Nay, but O man, who art thou that replies against God? What can we say? I mean, we can think of a lot of things, can't we?

Why would he send a man down there to tell the old prophet that seemed like he was on the right track, he already was going the right way, but the Lord sent that man. And the scripture says that he sent him. Just like there's another instance where the scripture says that the Lord sent a lying spirit into the mouths of the prophets. Now, you can get mad at God if you want to, or say that's not true, or whatever you want to, but the fact of the matter is that it is true of the God whom we serve.

Now, what can we say about that? Can we, do we get mad? Well, that wouldn't be right. Well, who says what's right? There's only one who determines what's right, and that's God. See, men often say, oh, ain't God good? And what they mean by that is didn't God do something that we liked? God is good, but God's good because he's God. He's not good because he did something we liked. He's not good because he did something we define as good. He's good. He's right. The Lord said to that young man that came to him, he said, why callest thou me good? He said, there's one good, and that's God.

And so, we just fall down before him worshiping, and don't ever come to me and expect me to explain everything to you about why things happen the way they do or whatever, but I will always tell you this, that whatever the Lord ordains is right. We sang that song, whatever my God ordains is right. Holy is will abiding. I will be still, whate'er he doth, and follow where he guideth.

Oh, what a glorious God he is. And he's the one who's walking among these candlesticks here in the book of the Revelation and giving these messages to the messengers of these various churches. And so, We've looked at the message to the church at Ephesus, and we see ourselves there. And I hope that we'll see ourselves in the message to the church at Smyrna. And so we read here in verse eight of chapter two of Revelation, It says, and unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write, these things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive.

I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich. And I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried. And ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

Now Smyrna, as we read a little bit about the history of Smyrna, it was a city not far from Ephesus. It was a city into which Paul had gone. We read in the book of Acts that it says that he preached the gospel throughout Asia, and this is part of Asia. He went there preaching, and we believe by that that this church at Smyrna was one, no doubt, that was established by the Apostle Paul as the Lord sent him to these specific places and with the gospel.

So we don't have any doubt that they were privy to hearing the truth of God. We're not talking about some spurious group of people that started off on the wrong foot. They started off on the right foot. They started off with one that came preaching the truth of God in Jesus Christ.

Now, Paul, I believe, is, the was blessed singularly by the Lord as that 12th apostle. to be a preacher of the gospel to the Gentiles and to the Jews, of course, amazingly, while he was the apostle to the Gentiles, yet at the same time, most of the early believers in these churches were all Jews, because that's the way the Lord saw fit to do.

And so Smyrna's no different. Now Smyrna evidently, according to what I have read about it in a historical sense, was a very wealthy city. It was a capital city of that province. And it was a very, like I say, a lot of commerce and everything was going on there. And so no doubt a lot of these people that were part of this assembly there in Smyrna, many of them, no doubt, had been wealthy people.

And he says there, I know thy works in tribulation and poverty, but thou art rich. Now, he's speaking there, of course, they are rich in spiritual things. But he says, I know thy poverty, because he knew that many of them had come to poverty. Because it was the case that in many instances, when a lot of Jewish people, when they were brought to faith in Christ, they were shunned by the Jewish community in general and their ability to do commerce was done away with. We see that in Jerusalem as the persecution of the Christians there increased so much that they were scattered because they couldn't live there because they were so persecuted and hated And so Smyrna evidently was a place just like that. Now he begins there and he says, these things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive.

Now that's the heart of the gospel. That Christ died, but that he's alive. He's not alive theoretically. He's alive. And if it was possible, for you to be transported to the place where he is, you would see him. Now we know that that's not going to occur until such time as he comes again to receive those who are his back to himself and he shall raise the dead at that time. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. He was dead. Now that's an amazing thing when we consider who he is. Because he's the one who is life itself. And yet the scripture says that he died.

And some people say, oh well that's just foolish, how could it be? How could God die? I don't know. I don't have the idea. You know, when Isaac Watts wrote that hymn, alas, and did my savior bleed and did my sovereign die, would he devote that sacred head to sinners such as I, to such a worm as I? And he says, well, might the sun in darkness hide and shut his glories in when God, the mighty maker, died? For man, the creature of sin. How can that be? I can't tell you. But I can tell you that the scripture plainly says that it's so. And so it is. He says, I was dead. This is the one who says, I'm the first and the last. This is the one before whom John fell down at his feet as dead. He said, I sinned the glory of God. And this one is the one who said, I was dead.

Now, we all know when something's dead, it's dead. That's final. You know, there's nothing more final than death in this realm. You can know somebody and be talking to them one minute, and they can be dead the next minute, and that's the end of the conversation. I mean, that's the final. There's no going back to that. You think, man, I wish I could, but you can't, because that's it. And the Lord Jesus Christ entered into that state in our bath. He said, I was dead. I was dead, but I am alive forevermore.

And I'll leave it to the theologians and the people that have great wisdom to explain how that can be because I can't. But by the grace of God, he's given me a heart to believe it and I can't believe anything else. You can't convince me otherwise. That's not a boast of wisdom, it's just the facts. I mean, when the Lord causes a man to believe something, he can't help it. Can you decide not to believe? I mean, is that possible? That a man can just say, well, I don't think I'll believe. Well, you never believed to start with.

Because when the gift of faith is given to a man, the Lord will sustain that gift of faith and he works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And we can't believe anything else. It doesn't make a difference to me what somebody comes saying. Now, does that mean we don't warn God's people? No, we warn God's people because it's through the warnings and exhortations that he's pleased to deliver his people from the error.

He was dead. He says, I'm the first and the last. He was here before we were. He'll be here when we're gone. He's the beginning and the end. Scripture says he loved us to the end. What is the end? He's the end. He's the one that started it, he's the one that ends it. Now what does that mean?

Does that mean God will cease to be? No, God can't cease to be, why? Because it's eternal. See, eternity in essence, the only reason that we speak of the beginning and the end is because that's the way people think. There's no beginning and there's no end in Christ.

He is the beginning. That's the first thing we can comprehend. He's the end, that's the last thing we can comprehend. But he's beyond that. He encompasses all. What a glorious God He is. And He's the one who has come to bear our sin, to bear our troubles, to bear our problems. He says, I know thy words.

The Lord knows. You know, that can be the most terrifying thing or the most comforting thing. When we, you hear people, and I've said this many times, but you hear people say, oh, well, the Lord knows my heart, you know, and they're saying that like, oh, this is just a, you know, I'm, the Lord really knows what I am inside, and this, and he just loves me, cause he knows what's in me. Well, dear brethren, that's a foolish thing, because if anything ought to cause you terror, it's that the Lord knows your heart.

He knows what you are. You're not hiding anything from Him. You might be hiding it from yourself, but you're not hiding it from Him. He knows what you are. He searches the heart, and He knows what His people are. But He says, I know thee. The scripture says that the Lord knoweth them that are His. Now you know, a mother might get confused about a lot of things, but she knows who her children are.

When I was a kid, we used to raise hogs, and sometimes we would have to alter the pig's gender manifestation whenever they got to a certain age, little small pigs, and we had to perform surgery on the male pigs. We had a pen outside in the middle of the big pen and we would get those little pigs in that pen and all the sows and stuff would be outside and everything was fine until you grabbed one of those pigs and you picked him up and you know he started squealing. And buddy, there'd be an old sow out there, and not all of them. Now, they'd ultimately get all stirred up, but there'd be one that when that pig started squealing, buddy, she was starting to try to get into that place, because she knew something was happening that she didn't want to happen, because she knew her offspring.

The Lord knows them, they're His. They belong to Him. He knows every one of them. He said, I know my sheep. They know me. He said, they follow me. And another shepherd they will not follow. He says, I know thy works. He knows exactly what they're doing.

Now that's a comforting thing at the same time because the Lord does know the troubles of his people. He knows them, first of all, because he has borne those same troubles. There's not a temptation that has taken you, but such is as common to man. But the Lord was tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin.

And so he knows. He says, I know thy works. I know the good things that you have done. These things are not, I'm not passing them by. There's not a tear that one of his children has ever shed that he didn't know. There's not a heartache, there's not a trouble, there's not a persecution, there's not a problem that has arisen in any one of his children's lives that he does not know. He knows what's going on. I know thy works and tribulation.

I know the troubles that you've had and poverty and there was In Smyrna, as in all of these Roman, of course the Romans were in control of all this area at the time, and the Romans of course feared the Christians politically. They feared that they were gonna rise up and they were gonna overcome, but of course they hated the gospel. They didn't love the gospel and say it's all right for you to believe it, because they believed that You know, if these people get all together and they start believing this stuff, they'll put us out of power. Now according to, you know, that was not their purpose. But they didn't know that. And so they were, it was the ordained purpose of God that this persecution come on these believers, why? To make them strong.

And so the Lord said, I know your tribulation. He says, and your poverty, because I know that you are, you've been stripped of your earthly wealth. But he said thou art rich. We have much, do we not? I mean, we're a people that are blessed materially. But God's people are blessed in ways that the world knows nothing of. I mean, you know the poorest of those who have been given faith in Jesus Christ are richer than the richest of men. They have things that the world knows not of. That's what the Lord said.

And I know the blasphemy of them would say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Now, it would appear, as I read this and I think about it, that he's speaking there kind of metaphorically. because the Jews, keep in mind that these Christians were primarily Jews. They were not all Jews, because this was in Asia, and there were a lot of Gentiles there. But he's speaking, you know, the scripture says, he that is a Jew is not one which is one outwardly, but he that is one inwardly, whose circumcision is not of the flesh, but's of the heart. And so he's speaking here kind of metaphorically, he's saying they're not all Jews, that say they're Jews, but many of them are of the synagogue of Satan.

And so he's pointing out the fact that there are those who claim to be followers of God who are not, because they're not believers. Now, a lot of times, you know, men want to, it's natural for men to look at all the different what they call faiths in the world and say, oh, well, these people just believe something different. But they're all our brothers in the Lord. No, if a man does not worship Jesus Christ, he is not our brother.

Now that doesn't mean I go out and try to harm him or I'm gonna do something to him. I'm gonna be kind to him as the Lord enables me to be. But I can't embrace him as a brother because he's not a believer. He hates the one that I love. He is opposed to the one that I serve. You know, how can we be, I know that, you know, men mean well in these things, and there's a outfit called the Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Now that's a misnomer. There is no fellowship between Christians and Jews if you're talking about a Jew being somebody who is in opposition to Christ, which the Jews in the scripture are depicted as those who are.

So there can't be any, there's no fellowship there. Now that doesn't mean there again that we can't seek to help people who are in persecution, whatever the cause of it might be. To help them materially, but we don't have any fellowship. Light and darkness can't have fellowship. I mean, it's impossible. You can't embrace the darkness. and that which is outside of Christ and the worship of Christ is darkness. In some ways, you know, I wish that it wasn't so. You know, I'd like to just embrace everybody, but I can't.

The Lord said he didn't come to bring peace, he came to bring a sword, and he came to separate between even members of families. Because some believe and some do not. And we don't go out seeking them out and trying to do anything of harm to them, to those that don't believe, but we can't embrace them because we have no fellowship with them. We're serving two masters. You can't serve two masters. You'll either hate the one and love the other. So when we come together, we come together as brethren.

We don't come together, you know, another thing that bothers me is when you have groups of people that come together because they're Jewish and they've become believers and they say, well, we're gonna have our little group over here. We're Jewish Christians.

No, there's only one kind of Christian. It's a follower of Christ. It's not Jew, it's not Gentile, it's not barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. Christ is all and in all. We have the same fellowship. You know, it's not one kind and another. It's like the motorcycle church and the Indian church and all this stuff.

Brethren, if we belong to Christ, all that stuff doesn't mean anything. Or the synagogue of Satan, that's pretty strong terms, is it not? I mean, we could go down the list and name a lot of outfits that claim to be this or claim to be that, but I'm telling you this, those that don't follow Christ and trust in Christ alone as the source of their righteousness and hope before Almighty God, they have no fellowship with us, and we have no fellowship with them. You know, if anybody should take offense at preaching Christ is all and then all.

Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ and him dead, buried, and risen again. If a man has a problem with that, then I have a problem with him. He has a problem with me. So may it be that we understand that we're called to stand for Christ. Not embrace the world. We're not of the world. All the religions of men are of the world. We're not of the world. We're of Christ if we belong to him. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Now he's telling them ahead of time that there's going to come troubles.

And there was a gentleman who historically was the elder of the church of Smyrna. even in John's time, by the name of Polycarp. Now, you know, these figures, we just have smatterings of mentionings of these people, but he's a pretty well-known fellow.

And Polycarp, being the leader of the church at Smyrna, was taken by the Romans because he would not swear allegiance to Caesar. Now this was the thing, see back in those days, they wanted people to worship Caesar because in worshiping Caesar, it was the same thing as swearing allegiance to the state. He wouldn't fall down and worship. And so they burned him at the stake. And so many others, he wasn't the only one, but he was particularly associated with this church at Smyrna. And so it is that as he speaks here, perhaps he's even specifically speaking to Polycarp.

I mean, I don't know. He says that you may be tried and you shall have, or I got ahead of myself there, fear none of those things which thou shall suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that you may be tried and you shall have tribulation. 10 days, be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. And so the Lord calls his children sometimes, face tribulation, even as he did Polycarp.

And they told him, look, all you got to do is just swear allegiance to Caesar. And he says, how could I do that? He said, when I have one who has loved me from the beginning. and who has called me and loved me and drawn me and whom I serve with all my heart. He says, how can I give my allegiance to someone else? And because he would not do that was the reason that they put him to death. And that's exactly what he says here. Be thou faithful unto death.

Now brethren, hopefully, and maybe not, Maybe it might be a good thing if we were one day brought to such a place as that. I mean, the Lord means all things for our benefit, does he not? You know, we have it too good. There are plenty of places in the world today where men do have to lay down their actual life, their material life for the cause of Christ. Because they will not renounce Christ. And perhaps we might be called upon to do the same thing.

Now that's a frightening thing to the flesh. No man can bear such a thing in the flesh. I know I've turned tail and run in a heartbeat if I was faced with such a thing as that in the flesh. But I pray by God's grace that I might be faithful unto death if it comes to that. Doesn't make any difference, you know, what happens to the body.

But the Lord said, don't fear those that's able to destroy the body. He said, fear him who's able to destroy both soul and body in hell. He said, you know, that's the one you need to fear. And so it is. May the Lord give us such a thing. He said, you shall have tribulation for 10 days. Now I think that that's put there to show that whatever tribulation the Lord might put upon us is short.

I mean, even to the laying down of our life, I mean, it's short. I mean, our life is short, is it not? If you live to be 100 years old, when you get to be 100, you'll look back and you'll say, man, that was short. Because I look now at the age I'm at and I can't believe it. I've lived my whole life and it seems like that.

It's gone. It's like the psalmist said, our life's as a vapor. It just, it's gone. And so, we may have tribulation, and it may be for 10 days, but that's nothing. That's nothing. I mean, Christ walked upon the earth for 33 years, and he was a man of sorrows.

And he bore our sin. and He carried our woe and our grief. Be thou faithful unto death, and I'll give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. There is a second death. It's the destruction of the soul and the body. And that's a final death. I mean, there's no coming back from that. That's it.

See, but those that have been given a second birth, we have life, eternal life. And it's given to us because of the grace of God. And he will give his people the ability to overcome so that we shall not be hurt with the second death. He'll not abandon us. He'll be with us.

You know, I'm sure in the days that John, the Baptist, the baptizer, the immerser, I'm sure that in the days leading up to his death, that he had many sleepless nights, worries. But you know, when the time comes, the Lord was with him, even as that thief on the cross. He lived his whole life as an outlaw, and now he was at the very point of death, suffering in agony, and yet the Lord was with him. He said, this day you'll be with me in paradise.

He didn't say that to the other thief, but he did to that one. What made the difference? Only the grace of God. the mercy and kindness of the Lord to call His people unto Himself, and to give them grace and faith to overcome. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb. He's our Savior, and we rest in Him. May the Lord give us a mind and heart to stand for Him. If He stood for us, can we do any less than stand for Him? May He give us grace to do so.