The Church-worth dying for
The Church-Is it worth dying for?
God Bless America clip?
Memorial Day
- Honor vets/active duty military. Pray blessing
- My childhood…good/bad experiences…respect for US military…Voluntarily offer lives
o John 15:13: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
We’ve been talking about the church-what the Bible-esp the book of Acts says about the purpose of the church.
Definition we’ve come up with through our discussions:
People on a journey to know God, belonging to & believing in Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit. They are dedicated to real fellowship: sharing lives, resources and growing in knowledge of Christ, sharing our stories with others, experiencing the fullness of God’s supernatural abilities…
Pretty good definition
There are some things about this Christian church that we can only really discover and appreciate by taking a look through history and discovering the testimonies-stories-of people who have gone before us.
One of the things you discover is that there are many times when Christians have had that same willingness as our military does to lay down their lives for what they believe in. In fact, many of them have even been eager to offer their lives for Jesus and become what is known as a martyr.
A martyr is someone who is put to death because of something they believe in.
I want to have us take a look today at some of these stories to gain an appreciation for the commitment these people had.
1st Century:
Persecution against the church began right away. We read the first accounts of it in the book of Acts 6-story of Stephen
V8. Great man, miraculous works. Faced opposition, false accusations.
Vv 7:59-60.gave up Spirit to Jesus
Marked the beginning of a split between Jews and Christians Shortly after this we read that Saul (who eventually became Paul-a great follower of Christ) set out to destroy the church. From this moment on, Christianity primarily became a religion on non-Jews(Gentiles) and spread like wild-fire through the Roman Empire.
But the persecution only intensified among the Romans. For the next 300 years being a Christian meant that if you were found out and refused to bow down to other gods you were viciously tortured, and if you still refused, you’d be put to death.
A couple of their stories:
Around A.D. 108-A man named Pliny the 2nd wrote to Emperor Trajan to tell him that thousands of people were being put to death daily, and that none of these people had broken any laws. The charge against them was that they met each week before daylight to pray and worship Christ and share a meal together. These same people also took vows to never commit theft, robbery or adultery; to never lie and never defraud another person. For their commitment to this Jesus Christ and the way of life He called them to, they were put to death.
From the Roman perspective these Christians and the Jews were the only two groups of people who refused to obey their orders to worship other gods…they stubbornly stood firm on their belief that their God was the only True God.
These people were beaten, beheaded, stoned, crucified, burned alive and fed to wild animal among other methods of killing them.
A man named Julian was put into a leather bag with a number of scorpions and serpents and thrown into the sea.
In A.D. 205, A young woman named Perpetua was captured and tried for her “crime” of being a Christian. In her trial, Perpetua refused to deny Jesus as God even when her father was beaten in her sight and her child was taken from her. While in prison awaiting execution, many of the guards were amazed at the attitude and behavior of Perpetua and her companions…and they themselves became Christians.
When they were later taken away to be executed, Perpetua and another prisoner-Felicitas were stripped of their clothing at thrown to a mad bull. Both were attacked and severely injured by the bull, but survived his attacks. The crowds tired of the wild beasts and called out for the prisoners to be put to death by the sword. Perpetua and her fellow prisoners walked with cheerful looks an firm steps to the middle of the amphitheater where guards fell upon them with swords. The man who was to kill Perpetua was a youth who was so nervous he stabbed her in a place that did not kill her, so she herself took hold of his sword and showed him where to stab her.
These are just a couple of the stories from this time period. A book titled “Foxe’s Book or Martyrs details hundreds of the stories from this time period.
During this early period of the church, being martyred for your faith became something of honor. Christians desired to be chosen as a martyr because it gave them an opportunity to declare their love for Jesus..and often times their attitude and courage caused many others to turn to Christ.
Germanicus, a young man, but a true Christian, being delivered to the wild beasts on account of his faith, behaved with such astonishing courage that several pagans became converts to a faith which inspired such fortitude.
In spite of all this persecution, the Christian church became the official church of the Roman empire by the early 300s. This intense persecution ended, but there have been many other times where people have been persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ.
You have heard of Martin Luther who in the 1500s stood up to the church because He read in the bible that Jesus offered us salvation through our faith in Him as the Son of God, and the church at the time was teaching they had to power to determine whether a person had earned salvation by their works and the giving of money to the church. Luther translated the Bible into German so that everday people could read it. The church went through a radical reformation because of Luther’s convictions. Luther somehow escaped being killed, but there were many who wanted him dead.
There were others before Luther saying the same kinds of things he did , who did not escape persecution.
A priest in Bohemia in the early 1400’s named John Huss was calling the church back to Biblical values. He wanted called before a church council and told that he would be listened to. Instead, when he arrived, he was accused of heresy and burned at the stake. Afterward his ashes were thrown into the Rhine river so that none of his remains could be found.
After Luther’s reformation began, more and more people began reading the Bible for themselves. Many of them discovered that the official church had fallen a long way from Biblical Christianity. They rediscovered that their faith in Jesus Christ was the only requirement for the salvation and eternal life God offered us…and they were killed for it. They rediscovered that Baptism was something the early Christians took part in as a way of personally declaring their faith in Jesus Christ…so they began baptizing adults-declaring that people needed to be given the opportunity to choose Christ on their own…
In response, these re-baptizers, known as Anabaptists, were killed-often burned at the stake or drowned. The number of people martyred for taking this stand is estimated to be more than the number killed during those first 300 years of Christianity in ancient Rome. A historian named Cornelius wrote that in the year 1531, oine thousand Anabaptists were killed just in Austria and Germany. He wrote, “the blood of these poor people flowed like water so that they cried to the Lord for help.... But hundreds of them of all ages and both sexes suffered the pangs of torture without a murmur, despised to buy their lives by recantation, and went to the place of execution joyfully and singing psalms."
I’ve given you just a brief overview of some of the major events that have taken place in the history of the Christian Church. Stories of persecution continue throughout the world, today though. I recently met a young woman from Ethiopia who told of the persecution against Christians in her country that only resently came to an end. Christians in many countries..like China…must have hidden meetings or be arrested. Missionaries must often be careful not to openly talk about Christ or either be ejected or arrested and sometimes killed.
Christians throughout history and around the world have known that their faith and their conviction to believe in God’s Word may cost them their lives, and they have willingly given up their lives because of their love for Jesus Christ.
What does this mean for us today?
- Build faith-this is important
- Question own convictions: live in time when many beliefs are tolerated…or not