A few readers will inevitably mistake this essay for resignation. They will read “it may not get better” as passivity, withdrawal, or a theological excuse for injustice. That misreading says more about our formation than it does about the text. Quietism is what happens when suffering is denied or spiritualized away. Revelation does neither. The letter to Smyrna does not tell the church to stop resisting evil, stop witnessing, or stop naming injustice. It tells them the truth about the cost of doing so. It does not sanctify oppression; it unmasks it. It does not bless empire; it exposes Satan as an organizing force that works through systems, institutions, and even religious legitimacy.