II. Faithfulness unto Death

Next, the Lord Jesus addresses the second local church, the church in Smyrna. He refers to the persecution of this local church by the “synagogue of Satan” and tells these believers, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life,” (2:9-10). These verses make it clear that the local churches will suffer persecution. Witness Lee comments:

In the second epistle, the one to Smyrna, the Lord speaks of persecution. "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" (Rev. 2:9-10).

The more we love the Lord Jesus, the more we will be persecuted. And the persecution does not come from the Gentile, heathen world, but from the synagogues. A synagogue is a place where people worship God. The persecution to the lovers of Jesus is not from the heathen world, but from the religious people of a synagogue system. This is the synagogue of Satan. If we only love Jesus and do not care for anything religious, we will surely be persecuted by the synagogue of Satan….If we mean business with the Lord for the local churches and love Him more than everything else, we will suffer persecution and many evil reports….From this epistle, we can see that the second requirement of the Lord for the local churches is that under persecution they be faithful unto death. If we are faithful to the Lord as a pure lover of Jesus alone, we must be ready to suffer persecution. But, praise the Lord, the suffering of persecution is another sign that we are the local churches. The local churches must suffer persecution, because they can never go along with anything of the system of religion. Why does the synagogue of Satan persecute the lovers of Jesus? It is simply because the lovers of Jesus will not go along with their religious things. Under this kind of persecution, the Lord requires us to be faithful unto death. (67-68)

Witness Lee points out that the second requirement of the Lord upon the local churches is that while under persecution, they be faithful to the Lord unto death. The church in Smyrna was persecuted by the synagogue of Satan simply because the lovers of Jesus in that local church would not agree with or participate in the contemporary religious system. Even today, the suffering of persecution is a strong confirmation that we love the Lord supremely and stand with Him for His pure testimony.