The Difficult Days

Revelation 2:8-11

Introduction

If you’ve ever had to be the bearer of bad news, you know how awful it is. Whether it’s telling your kids that despite the snow blanketing their yard, they do, in fact, have to go to school, or telling a coworker that they have to redo a project they worked hard on, or an employee that they are fired, it’s no fun to tell people what you know they don’t want to hear.  In the letter to the church in Smyrna, John lays out some pretty bad news, and he does not sugarcoat it. 

As we progress through these letters in Revelation, examining each church, certain recurrent themes emerge, which means that while we look at each church individually, we should consider that the message is to the universal church, all of us. In order to see some implications for contemporary Christian faith and practice, we will zero in on the persecution that the church in Smyrna suffered or was expected to suffer at the hands of their opponents. If Ephesian endurance seems to have persisted over time aga…