Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #9 of Revelation 2, and we are going to begin by reading Revelation 2:8:

And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;

God had just finished addressing the “angel” at the church in Ephesus, and this is the second of the seven churches addressed in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3. That is why some of the information given to the angel of a particular church has to do with repenting, and the Lord said that if they did not repent, He would remove their candlestick, and so forth.  But that would not apply to the true believers, but it does apply to the corporate church, which during the church age consisted of both the elect and non-elect.  That is, there were true believers and those who simply professed to be true believers, so there were both “wheat” and “tares” in the churches.

So God is writing to the messenger of the church in Smyrna.  The word “Smyrna” is Strong’s #4667, and the spelling of this Greek word is identical to Strong’s #4666, which is the Greek word translated as “myrrh.”  Myrrh would associate with the Lord Jesus.  It was one of the things involved in sacrifices, and so forth.

Again, it says, “And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write…”  I did not mention this last time, but it said back in Revelation 1:2: “And unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write…”  When we look at each of the seven addresses to the each of the seven churches, God uses the word “write” when He speaks to the angel of the particular church.  In other words, seven times God commands the angel to write, and this would indicate that God was adding to the Word of God, the Bible.  And this is another illustration of how the Bible was written.  Each time the Lord addressed one of these churches, He commanded the messenger to “write.”  This is following up on the command that was given to the Apostle John in Revelation 1:11: “What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches…”  This reveals how God wrote the Scriptures as He moved prophets to record these things, and this is the Word of God.  It was dictated by God to the prophet, and the prophet simply wrote it down.

Let us go back to our verse in Revelation 2:8:

And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;

Again, this is a reiteration.  It is something that the Lord has already said.  He said it in different ways, but He used these very words in Revelation 1:17-18:

… Fear not; I am the first and the last: 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.

Then not too many verses later, He said, in Revelation 2:8:

…These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive;

Do you think that God knows we do not remember things too well?  Is this the reason why He constantly reminds us, and calls us to bring these things to remembrance?  Of course these truths are enormous.  It is not a light thing that Christ is “the first and the last,”  and it is certainly not a little thing that He “was dead, and is alive.”  These are incredibly enormous truths that Jesus is Eternal God.  He is from everlasting.  He is the Great I AM.  He is the One who rose from the dead to be “the first begotten of the dead,” and the “firstborn Son of God.”  He is also the first in the sense that He is the Creator, the One who brought this world into existence, as well the One who will destroy it and bring it to an end.  Therefore, He is the “last” concerning this creation, as well as being the eternal God who inhabits eternity, and His existence reaches into eternity future.  So these things are not small things.  They are not things for us to simply acknowledge: “Yes, we know that.  We understand that.  We can just check this doctrine off and file it away as part of our database of knowledge.” 

God does not just want us to “know” things like we would know the answers to math problems or grammatical problems.  He does not want us to simply have an answer ready and to recognize that we know these things.  God wants us to know these things intimately, and that is why He keeps repeating them because we can be “very dull of hearing,” and we are still in our physical bodies that are in corruption, so we have many obstacles to learning the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.  God knows this, so He continually drives these points home, emphasizing and reemphasizing something all through the Bible. 

When we look at the parabolic nature of the Scriptures, and we are looking for the deeper spiritual meaning, the deeper meaning is often something related to Christ, the Gospel, or to other points of God’s salvation plan.  The wonderful thing is that He continually teaches these same truths in different ways so we never get bored or tired of it.  It is always exciting.  It is always a delight.  The fact is that God wants us to know certain truths, and to know them deeply so that we are not just acquainted with them like “today’s quiz question,” but He wants us to have a personal understanding of what He is saying.

So again, He says, “These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive.”  There cannot be any greater or more wonderful truth than that the Lord Jesus was dead.  Eternal God, the Great I AM, the ever living One, took upon Himself the sins of His people and died for them before the foundation of the world.  He died as He paid the penalty, the wages of sin, and He satisfied the Law’s strict demand for death for the sins of His elect, and yet He did not remain dead.  He rose from the dead.  He resurrected, and He came out of the grave (death) to live again.  And He is alive.  He is living, and He is living proof that justice has been served and the Law’s demand has been met, and His people are free from the eternal consequences of suffering eternal death for our sins.  They have been satisfied and taken care of by the Lord insofar as the necessary punishment, and we are now free from these things, and we can rejoice in God’s salvation.

Let us return to Revelation 2 and move on to Revelation 2:9:

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.

Here, God is speaking to the churches, and within the churches throughout the 1,955 years of the church age (from 33 A. D. to 1988 A. D.) there were both the saved and the unsaved.  And in this one verse, it is as though the Lord is looking out upon the masses of people that profess to be Christians as they sat in the pews throughout the centuries.  He saw His chosen ones, His elect people, and He says, “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich),” and that would have to apply only to the true believers because it is only the true believers that are spoken of as being “poor,” but actually being “rich.”  To demonstrate this, God reverses it in Revelation 3:16-17:

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

God is reversing the situation, and He is referring to those in the churches that say they are true believers, but they are actually not true believers.  They claim to be rich in spiritual things.  When someone says, “I am a true believer,” they are basically saying they have wisdom, understanding, and all the other spiritual attributes that God gives His people.  But in reality, they do not.  They lack these things.  They are not wise but foolish.  They are not men of understanding, but they are ignorant.  That is why the Lord says, “You are rich, but you do not know that you are wretched, miserable and poor in spiritual things because you are not a true child of God.” 

On the other hand, the true child of God is brought low, and God causes him to take the lowest seat, and he looks at himself and sees a sinner.  He sees his spiritual poverty.  He realizes, “Lord, I do not have any wisdom.  I do not have any understanding.  I lack all those things.”  And he turns to God again, and again, as a poor beggar, beseeching the Lord that He might give wisdom, and so on.  And for these people, these are the ones the Lord was viewing as He looked upon the congregations throughout the New Testament church age, and He said, “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty…”   He is not referring to physical poverty, but their spiritual situation, and how humble and lowly they view themselves, and He adds, “but thou art rich.” 

The actual situation with the child of God is far different than you may know yourself.  You are like Lazarus the beggar, and you have the glorious riches of the kingdom of heaven, and they are yours, even though you are in a lowly state while you live in this world.  Although men may look down upon you and disdain you, and you are reproached and reviled for the Gospel’s sake, yet you have the tremendous spiritual riches that are unspeakable.  They cannot be described because they are so glorious.

It says in 2Corinthians 6:8:

By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;

And now the Lord is going to contrast this with the actual spiritual reality, as we go on in 2Corinthians 6:9-10:

As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

The true believer is looked upon by the Lord Jesus Christ as being impoverished, as He said in Revelation 2:9: “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich)…”

Let us back up a little bit and look at the first two things Jesus said that He knows: “I know thy works, and tribulation…”  Jesus is acknowledging His people for their good works.  Of course Christ is intimately aware of our good works.  Why?  It is due to the fact that He has prepared them for us. 

You know, when a child of God is faithful and doing things as we ought, we are doing our duty.  We are doing what we are called upon to do as a servant of God, and it is nothing special or great.  We realize that especially as we are involved in any good works, whatever that might be…and good works spans across the spectrum of things like reading our Bibles.  If we go back far enough in time, we see the example of the “good work” of Abraham in offering up his son Isaac.  All are good works because the definition of any “good work” is simply obedience to a command of God.  And God does tell us, “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” And He commanded Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac…and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering.”  So our obedience in reading the Bible, in loving our wife, or in raising our children, or the offering up of Isaac, are not things that could ever save us.  

The child of God understands that.  God has taught us well, as He taught Abel that we have good works in the sense that the only work that saves us is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are justified by His faith as the Lord was perfectly obedient to the will of the Father, thereby providing salvation for His people.  And we understand that God gives us His Spirit, and He gives us a new born-again soul, and He indwells us, and He moves in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.  So anything we do in response to a command of God is an act of obedience that therefore qualifies as a “good work,” and, ultimately, it would be credited to God Himself as He moves in us to accomplish His purpose.

We also read in Ephesians 2:6-9:

And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

God is putting His finger on that last point, as He would never have us think for a moment that anything we could ever do has anything to do with why we became saved.  That was all done by the work of Christ, so He first tells us that we are not saved by works, lest any man should boast.  Then He tells us in Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

This is really quite remarkable, and God is revealing a great deal about the Christian life.  First of all, in speaking of the elect children of God, He says that “we are his workmanship.”  And God does liken Himself to a potter who forms vessels – some to honour, and some to dishonour.  And the elect would be typified by “vessels of honour,” and we are in the Potter’s hand as God through the work of Christ has saved us.  He created us anew, making us new creatures in Jesus, and we were “created in Christ Jesus unto good works.”  That is, after salvation (after Christ had done that work), we are examples of His glorious workmanship.  We were in Adam in the original creation when God created Adam from the dust of the ground, and He created him in His image.  And now He has created us anew, and now we are a new creature created in Christ to do “good works,” or to obey God.

Remember in Ezekiel 36 after the Lord speaks of putting a new Spirit within us, He also says that this will cause us to walk in His statutes.  And that is the idea here.  We will obey God, more and more, as that desire is placed within us in the new soul we have been given.  We want to do the will of God.  Whatever God has in store for has before been ordained.  We can think about our efforts in getting out the Gospel concerning the warning of May 21, 2011.  The Lord had foreordained that we would first be saved, and He would open up our ears to understand the things He was revealing (from His Word), and then He would stir us up to follow His commandments, and to be watchmen to blow the trumpet and warn the people, and so forth. 

That is how God works, and these things were before ordained.  When were they ordained?  We would have to say that it was when God predestinated us to salvation before the foundation of the world.  God worked all these things out far, far in advance of our being born into the world and living our present lives.