Voice of the Martyrs

Could you take abullet forChrist? Or take a stand at work for your beliefs that would cause you to lose your job? If the police showed up at your door this morning and told you that either you deny your faith in Christ or go to jail, what would you do? Howstrong are your convictions? The Voice of the Martyrs website reports on persecutions just like these.Martyrs and our ability to stand for our faith is the topic of today’s discussion.

Until September 11, 2001 when four airplanes were hijacked mid-flight by Al-Qaida extremist, America, for the most part, had not experienced outright persecution. Over 2,996 people died that day, not for something they did or didn’t do but because of who they were:

Americans.

In Al-Qaida’s mind, they had the audacity to be Americans and therefore deserved to die.

The 9/11 victims were some of America’s first martyrs. They were killed for their belief in the American way of life.

According to the Voice of the Martyrs website, unthinkable persecutions are happening on a regular in places like Laos, Pakistan, Iraq, and Kenya. Consider just a few of these recent reports:

• Authorities in Laos threatened to both burn down a Christian man’s home and smash him in the head with a hammer, before expelling him from the village. On Jan. 20, 2014, village police told “Chanlai” he should leave so their village could be a model village without the blight of Christians on their reputation. They told him if he didn’t leave, villagers would burn his house down. When Chanlai asked for the proper paperwork to allow him to move, officers told him if he didn’t move, they would bash his head with a hammer. Read the rest of the story on Voice of the Martyrs

• Infuriated by rumors that a Christian couple had desecrated a Quran, an angry mob attacked and beat to death a Christian man and his pregnant wife on Nov. 4. Their bodies were then dragged to a brick kiln and burned. Shahzad Masih and his wife, Shama, were killed in the village of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province, about 40 miles southwest of Lahore, Pakistan. One report indicated that the employer of the couple, who were bonded laborers, had started the rumor at a local mosque because they owed 100,000 Rupees, or $970 dollars. The couple had three children under age 6.

• Asia Bibi was arrested in June 2009 after a heated argument with two of her co-workers. Asia worked for a Muslim-landowner as did many of the women in her village. As one of three Christian families in her village, after being pressured to convert to Islam during the spat, she defended her faith. “Our Christ is the true prophet of God,” she reportedly told the women, “and yours is not true.”….For this crime, in November 2010, she was sentenced to death. It took nearly four years before the courts would listen to her appeal. Having her appeal heard before the Supreme Court will likely take just as long. VOM sources say she could expect to wait months or even years.

I don’t know if the Lord Jesus will allow this type of intense persecution to come to America or not. I hope and pray thatChrist’s second coming will take place before that happens. (Matthew 24: 4-5; 30-31) However, it does make me pauseand really examine myself.Do I have what it takes to take a very firm stand for my Biblical convictions no matter what? Do you?

Consider this program that was aired yesterday on the radio program.In The Market with Janet Parshallis about two pharmacists who live in Spokane, Washington that have not been able to work for 8 years in their profession because they refused to administer the morning-after abortion pill. Also,the family-owned pharmacy in the same state who is in a drawn out legal battle that may ultimately mean they lose their pharmacy license because they took the same stand about the abortion pill. Listen to program

Or consider the story shared not long ago by Chip Ingram, from Walk Thru the Bible fame, who was at a Sensitivity Training Seminar recently and the 80 people in the room were told to stand, and move either to the far right, the far left, or somewhere in between to express if they believed that homosexuality was an acceptable lifestyle. Of the 80 executives there, 77 stood to the far left to indicate they were in favor of and supportive of homosexuality. Only 3, including Chip were on the far right. No one was anywhere in the middle.

What would you do in the above situations? Like I said, I don’t know if the stories shared on the Voice of the Martyrs website will ever happen in America. But I wonder what would happen if it did. These are the things I have been contemplating of late. Do I truly have what it takes?

Do you?

Let’s talk about it.