"Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive." (Acts 25:19)
This is Festus, a Roman official, telling King Agrippa about the charges brought against Paul. This official of an emperor-worship culture at least had gotten "the message." While Festus "bought into" the prevailing claim that Jesus was, "....a dead man...," he had heard the claim of Paul very clearly: "....Jesus...was alive." Paul ultimately would die for such an assertion, and millions have since. In fact, more people have suffered for the Name of Jesus than have lived what the hedonists claim to be "the good life."
Most humans fight to stay alive, endless drugs, surgeries, sleepless nights worrying about dying. I don't criticise here; I'm no "hero." Yet the reality is that only one generation will escape death, the generation alive when "the Trumpet of the Lord shall sound." Other than that generation, you and I will go the "way" which the Bible describes as, "the way of all the earth." Most gatherings of Christendom and books and conferences in Christendom do not speak of this; people think it too depressing. Yet the early martyrs and others through the ages faced death in what is just so alien to most in churches today.
Polycarp, one of the great "fathers" of the Church, died at the hands of the Romans in the mid Second Century AD. He refused to affirm, "Caesar is lord," and rather kept affirming, "Jesus is Lord." He also refused to burn incense to the Roman Emperor and was sentenced to be burned at the stake. While he was tied to the stake, Polycarp said to his captors, "You threaten me with fire that burns for a season, and after a little while is quenched; but you are ignorant of the fire of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked." His last words were, "I bless You, Father, for judging me worthy of this hour...." It is reported that the fire could not kill him, so they had to pierce him with a sword.
In late 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been transferred to the Gestapo Prison on Prinz-Albrecht Strasse in Berlin. He was increasingly isolated from the outside world with fewer and fewer "privileges. It was becoming more and more obvious to him that his death was imminent. Yet in the face of death, he wrote the following poem in the form of a hymn to his family and closest friends:
"By gracious pow'rs so wonderfully sheltered,
And confidently waiting come what may,
We know that God is with us night and morning,
And never fails to greet us each new day.
And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
With bitter suffering, hard to understand,
We take it thankfully and without trembling
Out of so good and so beloved a hand.
Yet when again in this same world you give us
The joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
We shall remember all the days we lived through
And our whole life shall then be yours alone."
Father, in Jesus' Name, "For all the saints, who from their labors rest...Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever praised...." Amen.
This is Festus, a Roman official, telling King Agrippa about the charges brought against Paul. This official of an emperor-worship culture at least had gotten "the message." While Festus "bought into" the prevailing claim that Jesus was, "....a dead man...," he had heard the claim of Paul very clearly: "....Jesus...was alive." Paul ultimately would die for such an assertion, and millions have since. In fact, more people have suffered for the Name of Jesus than have lived what the hedonists claim to be "the good life."
Most humans fight to stay alive, endless drugs, surgeries, sleepless nights worrying about dying. I don't criticise here; I'm no "hero." Yet the reality is that only one generation will escape death, the generation alive when "the Trumpet of the Lord shall sound." Other than that generation, you and I will go the "way" which the Bible describes as, "the way of all the earth." Most gatherings of Christendom and books and conferences in Christendom do not speak of this; people think it too depressing. Yet the early martyrs and others through the ages faced death in what is just so alien to most in churches today.
Polycarp, one of the great "fathers" of the Church, died at the hands of the Romans in the mid Second Century AD. He refused to affirm, "Caesar is lord," and rather kept affirming, "Jesus is Lord." He also refused to burn incense to the Roman Emperor and was sentenced to be burned at the stake. While he was tied to the stake, Polycarp said to his captors, "You threaten me with fire that burns for a season, and after a little while is quenched; but you are ignorant of the fire of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked." His last words were, "I bless You, Father, for judging me worthy of this hour...." It is reported that the fire could not kill him, so they had to pierce him with a sword.
In late 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been transferred to the Gestapo Prison on Prinz-Albrecht Strasse in Berlin. He was increasingly isolated from the outside world with fewer and fewer "privileges. It was becoming more and more obvious to him that his death was imminent. Yet in the face of death, he wrote the following poem in the form of a hymn to his family and closest friends:
"By gracious pow'rs so wonderfully sheltered,
And confidently waiting come what may,
We know that God is with us night and morning,
And never fails to greet us each new day.
And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
With bitter suffering, hard to understand,
We take it thankfully and without trembling
Out of so good and so beloved a hand.
Yet when again in this same world you give us
The joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
We shall remember all the days we lived through
And our whole life shall then be yours alone."
Father, in Jesus' Name, "For all the saints, who from their labors rest...Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever praised...." Amen.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
Hebrews 12:2
Hebrews 12:2
