The Church in Smyrna….

Preached on this Church on Sunday night at our ‘Hub’ evening congregation….

What an amazing Church. No rebuke from Jesus, just gentle encouragement that the Lord is coming…and to keep going. Which they have, even 2000 years ago there is still a church there.

But Polycarp suffered for his faith.He was an early Christian leader in Smyrna who refused to acknowledge ‘Caeser is Lord’ and was thus charged with atheism, and eventually killed for his faith.

“He was escorted to the local proconsul, Statius Quadratus, who interrogated him in front of a crowd of curious onlookers. Polycarp seemed unfazed by the interrogation; he carried on a witty dialogue with Quadratus until Quadratus lost his temper and threatened Polycarp: he’d be thrown to wild beasts, he’d be burned at the stake, and so on. Polycarp just told Quadratus that while the proconsul’s fire lasts but a little while, the fires of judgment (“reserved for the ungodly,” he slyly added) cannot be quenched. Polycarp concluded, “But why do you delay? Come, do what you will.”

Soldiers then grabbed him to nail him to a stake, but Polycarp stopped them: “Leave me as I am. For he who grants me to endure the fire will enable me also to remain on the pyre unmoved, without the security you desire from nails.” He prayed aloud, the fire was lit, and his flesh was consumed. The chronicler of this martyrdom said it was “not as burning flesh but as bread baking or as gold and silver refined in a furnace.”

The account concluded by saying that Polycarp’s death was remembered by “everyone”—”he is even spoken of by the heathen in every place.”  (Source)

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