The most important decision you will ever make in life is how you want to die! The saints at Smyrna wanted to die in Jesus.Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, was martyred2 on Saturday, 23rd February, A.D. 155. It was the time of the public games; the city was crowded; and the crowds were excited. Suddenly the shout went up: “Away with the atheists; let Polycarp be searched for.” No doubt Polycarp could have escaped; but his whereabouts was betrayed by a slave who collapsed under torture. They came to arrest him. He ordered that they should be given a meal and provided with all they wished, while he asked for himself the privilege of one last hour in prayer. Not even the police captain wished to see Polycarp die. On the brief journey to the city, he pled with the old man: “What harm is it to say, ‘Caesar is Lord’ and to offer sacrifice and be saved?” But Polycarp was adamant that for him only Jesus Christ was Lord.
The proconsul gave him the choice of cursing the name of Christ and making sacrifices to Caesar or death. “Eighty and six years have I served him,” said Polycarp, “and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” The proconsul threatened him with burning, and Polycarp replied: “You threaten me with the fire that burns for a time, and is quickly quenched, for you do not know the fire which awaits the wicked in the judgment to come and in everlasting punishment. Why are you waiting? Come, do what you will.”