096 | In the Margins: Smyrna — He Has Never Done Me Wrong

What would you say if, after 86 years of walking faithfully with God through poverty, suffering, and the constant threat of death, someone finally offered you a way out? But there's a catch: it will cost you was everything.   What would it take for you to say those words — He has never done me wrong — after eight and a half decades of following Jesus through pain and pressure and the kind of quiet, grinding faithfulness that history rarely remembers?   In this episode of God's Power Stories—in our series In the Margins—we're in Smyrna, which is modern-day Izmir, Turkey. This is one of the most layered, storied cities in all of human history. But before we get to the ancient streets, we have to talk about the hotel. After two solid days of travel, John and I arrive completely depleted, and what should be a simple check-in becomes something else entirely: a silent, bathrobe-clad companion in the elevator who clearly would have preferred to ride alone; a room key that blue-lights but refuses to open; another key that also fails; a man yelling from behind the very door we've been trying to enter — and a stylized number "4" that looks just convincingly enough like a "6" to send us to the wrong room entirely. Even our celebrated tour guide, Sinan—guide to such renown figures as George and Laura Bush and Madeleine Albright—could not read that room number correctly. We laugh about it now. We were not laughing then. But once we step into the city, everything shifts. Smyrna holds nearly 5,000 years of human history beneath its streets. By the time of the early church, it housed close to 100,000 people and stood as one of the greatest port cities in all of Asia Minor, rivaled only by Ephesus. It was a city deeply loyal to Rome, which made being a Christian here an act of extraordinary, daily courage. Lydians, Persians, Alexander the Great, Rome, Byzantines, Ottomans...empire after empire rose and fell over this city. And yet the church of Smyrna is still being talked about. Still being visited. Still changing people. Of the seven churches in Revelation, Smyrna is one of only two that received absolutely no correction from Jesus. No rebuke. No, "but I have this against you." Only this: I know your tribulation and your poverty...but you are rich. Like the ancient spring at the heart of the city, whose source no one has ever been able to find—water that has sustained the city for millennia, a stream that Homer supposedly sat beside while composing the Iliad and the Odyssey—there was something flowing through this church that couldn't be traced by outward measure.   And then there is Polycarp. Appointed bishop of Smyrna by the Apostle John himself, who may well have been present when that letter from Revelation was first read aloud in this very city. Polycarp led that congregation for decades through suffering and the constant shadow of persecution. When the Roman authorities finally came for him as an old man, they gave him the same choice they always gave: curse Christ and live.   His answer stopped me completely: For 86 years I have been his servant, and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who saved me? They sentenced him to death by fire. The historical account, written by his own church, states that the flames did not consume him. Instead, the witnesses smelled incense where they expected smoke. Polycarp died with a look of joy on his face.   Then Jonathan Cahn taught right there in the city about the menorah, on what it means that the official seal of Israel and the symbol of the church in Revelation are the same image, on what it means for those who are born again to be, in the Spirit, children of Abraham. He said something I haven't stopped turning over: We are the light of the world. And we shine especially when it gets dark. Polycarp proved it. The church of Smyrna proved it. And maybe the thing that is pressing hardest against you right now is the very thing you were made to shine through.