What did the church at Smyrna show about believers under persecution?
The church at Smyrna showed that persecution functions like crushing myrrh: it does not destroy the believer’s witness but releases it. The more those believers were crushed by persecution, the more they exuded their testimony. Therefore persecution failed to stop the early church; instead, the church thrived under it.
Les explains that Smyrna actually meant “myrrh,” and myrrh does not exude its fragrance until it is crushed. That is exactly what the church at Smyrna indicated: the more persecution crushed those believers, the more they exuded their testimony. This is why Satan had to give up persecuting the early church—he could not get ahead of it, because the more he persecuted, the more it thrived. He then turned to an inside attack by joining them, and Christianity began to slide. In Revelation chapter 2, the letter to Smyrna says, “I know thy works,” and the next word is “tribulation.”