While most today are focused on the economy and energy issues, the media hides or at least does not well address, the degree of suffering which is being encountered by real life Martyrs: people, not unlike those you like and love, who are standing for a cause, or for their faith, and facing circumstances, in the 21st century which rivals that of first century Christianity, or of the concurrent persecution of the Jews by Rome. While it is often said that people are still people and do not change, there were truly a few differences back then: first, the early disciples had really seen the events described, and would face horrible deaths rather than return to unbelief, and secondly, death, and even martyrdom was not unheard of: there were many who counted causes, some cause, so worthy as to be willing to lay down one's life for it. The Roman Soldiers then were no less nor more brutal than today though we would like to believe that, and while we think that open crucifixions are beyond us in our 'civility' nothing could be further from the truth: we have every form of torture, horror and sadistic death now as then, and we have even somewhat expanded our horizons with massive occult-tainted deaths.
I read regularly about Christian and Jewish persecution around the world, and free speech issues, and get reports emailed to me about persons who have committed such horrible crimes as teaching about God's love, refusing to bow when passing the statue of an emperor (still now as then), or passing out pamphlets by bike at the Beijing Olympics. One attorney in China recently, was tortured so vilely and violently nonstop for 10 days, that beyond it being a wonder that he survived, it is a wonder that his torturers could bear it. His crime? Defending the free speech and religious rights of his fellow countrymen---not in terrorist attacks, or in seditious activities--- but by the laws and constitution of China. There were burnings and beatings, physical alterations to his body, and indescribable cruelties . Christian attorney Gao Zhisheng was accused of being apart of the 'mob' the term his jailers used to refer to a group named Falun Gong, a large and growing organization promoting 'spiritual exercises', who often meditate in public. Falun Gong is not the mob, nor is it Christianity, but China worries about both, and because both involve disciplined lives, worship and quiet practice, to the untrained eye members of either may be mistaken for one another. The account may be found at ChinaAid.org and there are other accounts of others who have suffered such as 'Pastor Bike', and Harry Lee
(Jaws of the Dragon) [OMS) and more from around the world noted daily by Voice of the Martyrs. In places where great moves of the Church are taking place, almost invariable great persecutions follow: Eritrea Christians , Sudanese Christians, Christians in the Chiapas Mexico area, are a few and recently, notice was given that Extremists had killed over 500 Indian Christians, destroying homes and driving 50,000 into the jungles, with beatings and brutal rapes in the wake of the persecutions. (Gospel For Asia). In Tanzania, young Christian women who convert from Islam are being kidnapped and incarcerated and 're-educated'. Most when they accept Jesus, Yshua, as their Lord and Savior, do not imagine what they might possibly confront for saying, and meaning "Yes, I believe", though they intellectually acknowledge that great suffering is possible.
Over Here, in America
It would be easy to write a modern update of Hebrews 11 based on what is happening to real Christians in today's world: Christians who would not turn back from Love so great and so real, that they could see it no other way. In many countries, to come to faith in the Messiah means to be cut off from family and friends, even exiled, or to receive beatings or even to be raped (male or female) or tortured and killed. Yet they persevere. Some turn back. Some get right back up, regain their health and composure and move forward. Yet here in the United States in our American Church Culture (it is more that than the real Church), we have cultivated an attitude toward belief and suffering that is quite dangerous. It goes something like this, and may be found in the philosophies of Rod Parsley, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, and even a modicum in preachers like Charles Stanley, Hagee ( just to name a few) and other 'moderates', that though they may preach and teach occasionally otherwise, the belief that has been promoted widely and implicitly, is that if you are in God's will and way, you will prosper, avoid suffering, receive blessings, have your life in order, and that people who because they are open about their faith are suffering job loss, persecutions, poverty, slander, lawsuits, or as in the rest of the world beatings, tramplings, rape or even death, are somehow not right with God, or have been disobedient to God, and should not be listened to or heeded.
In America we think we are being persecuted if we have a late night prayer service in a home with rock and roll guitars blaring and someone asks the police to have us turn the volume down. That is obviously not real persecution. There is though in the US blatant and real persecution of those who refuse to proverbially 'throw incense to the Emperor', so to speak. There are Christians and Jews who are being beaten to death for their faith. There are young Christians who have lived a very pure and disciplined life who are cruelly mocked, bullied and worse by classmates who live anything but a pure life, and true walking Christians, such as home-schoolers (though the movement has grown) still have to worry about some Social Worker showing up at their door , clipboard in hand like an ancient saber, ready to defy gravity in finding fault and taking away children from very good and decent homes while returning even badly abused children to the homes that abused. One cannot say the targeting is not ideological at some point. As in other parts of the world, true believers are being cast into mental hospitals for such great crimes as 'over-religiosity' i.e. daily bible reading and prayer, or believing that 'God' or a 'Spirit' is 'telling them something' or given them direction, etc. What's a poor Pentecostal to do? Additionally there is often a violent affect to those who persecute, and very often, there is no appeal.
The Christians we see on TV and in local lukewarm congregations are not the ones out there really taking a stand, obeying the LORD and making a difference: many of those have been driven out of Churches whose main aim is building a new social hall or getting exercise equipment. Often, even the 'Christian Civil Liberties' groups, quick to protest state Capitols over manger scenes and the Ten Commandments, won't even represent street preachers or bloggers, acting the same toward them as the rest of the world: as if they are nutcases, destroying their perfect but precarious perch, where you can say yes to the Lord, but still live your life as you always have. Eventually the wind blows one way or the other. Real Christian suffering almost always ends up solitary.
Surviving Christian Faith
While noting the great degree of persecution that is out there for the faithful, there remains the critical issue of how to confront the "Unthinkable" : the things that happen in the life of a believer, that are real faith-breakers for most people. I am not hateful towards those pastors and ministries I have mentioned, because there are hundreds more, and even in our own walk, we start believing that God will alleviate every suffering, right every wrong, and comfort every sorrow. We take scriptures such as 'I will never leave you nor forsake you" to mean that He will never let anything bad happen. I am not rewriting Yancy's book on suffering, or the dear Rabbi's book on 'Bad things happening to Good People', but I have learned in 24 years of belief, that the one thing more likely to ruin real faith than any other, is the belief that if you believe and walk right, obeying the commands of God, growing, walking in love, and so on, that there are certain things that could never happen.
I have worked, in my lifetime, with migrant farm children in the depths of poverty, families grieving stillborns, widows and widowers, holocaust survivors, and been confronted by indigence, the homeless and the mentally ill. In my own life I have had a daughter who developed Juvenile Diabetes at 6 and a half years old, with three shots a day, and trips to the hospital fighting ketoacidosis or coma, divorce and starting life over, sometimes extreme poverty and unemployment not because I was unqualified nor unskilled but because other people did not like what I believed. I have been criminally slandered, and ostracized to the nth degree, and in recent times far worse although that discourse is for another time, but in sum, I have walked through events in life which almost broke my faith and break most people's faith, including losing everything more than once (and worse). When I gave my life to the LORD, many years ago, I was on my way up, successful in my professional career, becoming well known in my area, speaking at national and international conferences, but when I said I believed, I meant it, and the command to 'follow me' does not take any of us where we expect. I was moved though to write this, to help those who have been through or are now facing unspeakable cruelties, the 'unthinkable', to help them understand that the 'normal' Christian life is not horrible things, but filled to the brim with them, and that it is far more abnormal not to have some real faith-breakers confront you in your life.
The Rain Falls
The New Testament teaches the following:
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. Matt 5:45
A good deal of life happens not because of the designation of that thing by God, though he allows it, but because certain things are the stuff of life. Jesus remarks also when asked about those that died in the fall of the tower of Siloam, that they did not sin more or less than any others to deserve that untimely death. How can we justify then, a totally sovereign God? All things are under Him without question. Yet even God mentions in the book of Isaiah, that trouble will gather that is NOT of Him:
Isa 54:15 Behold, they shall surely gather together, [but] not by me: whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake.
Hosea 8:4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew [it] not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.
Some trouble and heartache we inherit by our own actions: sin and bad choices and lack of obedience, there is no doubt. More trouble and even the 'unthinkable' happen because it is a world that hates God and all that is related to God. Thousands may gather at rallies and sing about the Love of God, but only a remnant really understand. One is just as likely to be done in, turned over to authorities, physically hurt, etc by a fellow Christian or person of like faith, as by an unbeliever. When we come to faith, we essentially, whether we realize it or not become commissioned as infantrymen in His battlefield. We WILL fight the wars He fought, although there were obviously some only he could fight.
The teaching of the "Great Exchange" has been lost in this generation: dying to self, means not just a little self-discipline here and there to do something we don't want to do, but that we have EXCHANGED our lives for His: we are His hands, and eyes, and mouth and feet, we are His to live through as He pleases. And when we do, we are not lost to who we are, or what we are---we do not cease to be ourselves. When we do surrender to that degree, the end product is Joy unspeakable ; we live even now, ahead of time, in His presence where there is rest.
I read recently of Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of Voice of the Martyrs who suffered torture and lengthy imprisonment in Romania, turned in by a fellow pastor in the underground church. Betrayal hurts worse than the suffering. He could not see the forthcoming global ministry he would have attending to the needs of suffering believers. If it had happened in the U.S. there would have been a bevy of Job's comforters (accusers) showing him where he went wrong. Real Christianity though, cannot if we really believe, be brushed aside for prosperity and 'modern' Gospels: there is no such thing as a 'modern' Gospel, only a real 'Gospel'. We just want a Gospel without suffering and to slightly misquote Bonhoeffer, "Discipleship without cost".
During the Orissa, India raid in 500 were killed and homes destroyed, their persecutors raped their women. Christian mothers and daughters, some young girls who had never even held a little boy's hand for the first time. Were mauled and mistreated: It did not matter to the rioters: they had degenerated into almost soulless beings. Yet for many Christians, if that occurred, their reasoning would be "Where was God?" "Why would a good and powerful God, if He loved me, let that happen?". Many in our soft and senseless form of belief, rail against God, with shaking fists against what they perceive as injustice in not allowing their lives to continue without pain. When something outright 'grotesque' happens, many turn away, thinking they were either not real believers, or that God was angry, or that it was beyond their comprehension, and so they give up and cease seeking or following God, figuring they can have the same or less trouble on their own.
Many who hate Christianity and Christians and do not even know why, become even more violent towards real believers than others---They are fighting belief, and the power and presence of God, and though they may not be able to articulate it to themselves, they try persecution, then 'spiritual rape', and then even cruel attacks and lewd attacks to try and get away from how unholy they feel in the presence of real believers. They do not hate the kind of churchgoer whois accusatory, finding fault, condemning all but themselves, but the kind that walk in love and peace and wish harm to none. They want to kill them, to wish them dead, so that the warfare in their own spirits will go away.
Internal Warfares
The internal warfare can be relieved by belief and repentance (turning away) but they will not trust, and so the internal warfare becomes external, directed towards everything that even reminds them of God. What did Jesus, Yshua teach in Israel? What did He teach that bought for Him a death penalty? Overthrow? Blowing up the Roman Empire? Tearing down the Temple or dethroning Caiaphas? While He made His feelings clear about those folks, He advocated no overthrow at all, but wished to establish the normal and natural order of Israel. Did he take up arms? No He gave orders mostly not to, and healed a man, Malchus whose ear was cut by a sword. He healed a centurion's son. Saved a tax collector--the greatest miracle. He healed and they chased him out of town attempting first to push Him off a cliff. In the end, He received the most published account of beating , ridicule and torture known in history. Because He sinned?
A story is told of a mother passing by a Catholic crucifix on an Easter morning and her little girl looked up to the Cross at the bleeding Savior and asked her mother, "What did he do wrong?" "It must have been really bad". The little girl, as do we all equate bad occurrences, horrible occurrences with punishment. To survive this world as believers we have to let go of the idea that when violence or heartache occurs to us it is a punishment. It is not. It is warfare against a soldier who is Christ's hand and in Christ's hand in this world.
Trial and Tribulation
Jesus, Yshua said we would have trial and tribulation. That was a promise. The TV preachers and many local ones, always stop at standing for Christ if there is cost. We can't remove the flag from the altar, two of our deacons are servicemen and it would be 'un-American'. We can't refuse to register as a 5013c corporation, the government would persecute us. We can't refuse to sit on a faith-based initiative board, it would ruin our career, and beside EVERYBODY ELSE DOES IT OUR WAY. That declaration, repeated often was a death knell in the church.
The real reason though for writing this entry, putting aside for the moment issues in Holocaust studies, was that
1. The persecution against Christians and Jews is greatly increasing, just as worship in the two bodies is,
and
2. We can not give up, nor allow our Christian/Jewish brothers and sisters to give up in the face of 'faith-breakers', the unthinkable things which challenge all we believe.
Over the past few years, I have learned a little in surviving some 'outrageous fortune' which confronts the steadiness and trust our faith demands. These are some practical means of survival in the Spirit and are in need of teaching, so that our 'faith fails us not'.
1. Stop believing that horrible things that happen are all judgments of God. Some are, but many more are the normal warfare of the believer.
2. Stop thinking that the worst events of life cannot happen to you even if you read your Bible every day, pray and go to church. Those things may provoke the worst of men.
3. Stop thinking that living a true and pure life excludes you from being confronted with lewd and lascivious people and actions. Those actions which others commit in front of you or even toward your person are not your doing and will not be held to your account. They are occurring all over the world to clean-living people, in part to horrify them. Screaming and yelling is exactly what they want. Withstand it in the name of the Lord.
4. Do not take the death of a loved one, especially who was a believer, as God's wrath. Death is a natural and normal part of life. Old men and infants both die from natural causes which tear the heart out: while God has and exercises His sovereign will over life and death, not all deaths are in any way a judgment of God.
5. Set your face like flint. Here's the apex of faith I have learned: one does not have to think or feel about the horrible incidents of life in any way but the way you choose. Do you ache and sorrow and despair over the horror of the thing? Then cry, and if you like, scream (preferably alone, as most do not receive it well). Later, when you have moments of numbness, realize you can choose your reactions. I am not talking about artificial zen like ethereal stuff, but real choices: "I will not blame God" (for :making it happen, letting it happen, not stopping it from happening etc). You can decide to REFRAIN from making decisions about how you feel about God and your faith until you know more. I am not suggesting hiding feelings ; they should be honestly expressed. Determine in your heart you will not turn back.
6. Suffer, and even mourn, but refuse constant Despair. Those who have been in the throes of despair understand that this is not said superficially---life can deal some hands so deadly, that living a moment further does not seem desireable. Losing meaning and purpose, all that we love, and seemingly the future, blocks out the sun, and if accompanied by torture and pain, most give up the will to live. C.S. Lewis once noted that he thought himself a stalwart Christian as did most of the world, until his wife died, and he compared his faith to a 'house of card's which fell quickly down. The swift reactions to either despair and unbelief or to even hate God for taking what we love from us, but those are infantile screams of desperation and hurt: we can actually chose if nothing else, to refuse to doubt, and only feel the pain and walk through it without erasing the one anchor which will bring healing. It hurts to make it, but it is a choice.
7. Take it all before God, even if you are angry at Him. Someone once commented 'He can handle it'. " Pray without Ceasing"Do not leave off praying because of the hurt, but consciously turn toward God, even if in anger, and work it out. Tell God you do not understand. Tell Him you were not so strong that you could handle what happened. Spend time in His presence and if you have to grit your teeth, praise Him. The Holy Spirit is not called Comforter for nothing.
8. Refuse to receive what the world says about you or the event. You do not have to argue, nor rail back if they claim you deserved it or say all manner of cruelties. When I counseled mothers who had stillborns, many reported horrible things others said such as 'well 'it' would have been deformed' or 'you can have others' or 'aren't you glad it happened now' or 'you must not have taken care of yourself'. Likewise, a person may be in poverty because they were noble, or in jail because they saved lives or stood in the gap for another: one cannot be certain.
9. This is trite, but neither terror nor pain last forever. Sleep will at least for the moment dispel despair, and weariness and sleeplessness can aggravate decision making and hopefulness. Sleep and then decide.
10. Refuse to identify yourself as a victim. If you are arrested and imprisoned for your faith, hold your head high, and maintain your dignity. They will try to take it from you at all counts. If you are incarcerated in a mental hospital, for that is what it is, an incarceration, walk wisely and discreetly, and do not discuss spiritual things with natural minds unless the Lord prompts you to. They are viewing you as insane, so what you say is 'halo-effected' by that---you can talk about the Lord's soon return in Church, or about the parting of the Red Sea, but most of our poor psychologists and psychiatrists are not mature enough to receive it.
Remember that people all over the world are suffering the same outrage as you are, and that you are not alone.
11. Understand that God has not forsaken you: He is in the process of a great work, the fullness of which you may not see for years. A famous hymn says "When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest in His unchanging grace"... Keep praying and staying in the Word: feelings and faith must not be confused. Feeling God's nearness comes with obedience and faithfulness, but when the divine warfare becomes great enough that we cannot sense His presence, we cannot let go of faith, which spans those abysses.
12. Doubt is not losing faith. If you have doubts, and all believers have, even after seeing God's great power, take it before the Lord. Take it into the Word. Search it out. But don't give into it. The apostles saw the healings, loaves and fishes, walking on water and the raising of the dead, the Cross, and the Resurrection, but shortly after, turned back to go 'a-fishing'. Moses' followers saw the waters of the Red Sea part and all Israel saved, and then wondered if God could feed them in the desert. They doubted after some time passed that at Meribah God would provide water. Happens. The response is not to give up, but to lean further into faith.
13. In the middle of the very worst agony which is occurring far too frequently in this world now, refuse to make any decisions about your faith, even if it fails. Chin up, shoulders back. If some monster is going to hurt you, he is looking to devour your spirit also. Don't give it to him. Look in the distance and be somewhere else with the LORD. Recite scripture if you still can (pain can take away the ability for a season). Praise God when you least feel like it. Name the Name above all names. Speak the Words Jesus, Yshua gave "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, No man cometh unto the Father but by me, then " I withstand you" directed toward the real enemy of faith. Might be surprised what happens!
14. This is the hardest point, but for Christians, if you study out the way the early disciples preached, they gave the whole gospel as quick as possible in a nutshell even to brutal soldiers carrying them off to prison or beating them half to death. One missionary family in Korea some years back, was taken under arrest and buried alive, shovel full by shovel full, while they kept singing a hymn. Their little girl died first, then the mother, and lastly the pastor-father. The worst death imaginable, resulted in the coming to Messiah of one who held one of those deadly shovels, who went on to win thousands , the very heart's desire of the couple and their daughter.
Our bitterness comes when we keep looking at the horrors of life as something interfering with our wishes , wants and desires and happiness. I gave into bitterness more than once, even sometimes now, because life just seemed too difficult, too many unhappy, or aggressively confronting, or too much 'danger'. During the time of those high waters, though, I continued the work I was given to do. If it should be gone tomorrow, I will start all over again. Might kick and scream a little if I still can, but I will start over. I once saw that pearl of great price, the truth that could not be undone, and I have seen nothing like it. I have seen the Power of the Name above all Names. I will be returning in the next column no doubt to some phase of Shoah Education, or Ethics, or the church , but even that, though in a slightly more secular vein, is the product of refusing to give up. When the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by the tribes, they were instructed to hold a sword in one hand, a stone in the other, and not to even change till it was done. Tobiah, Sanballat and Geshem fought the wall continually, with letters to the King slandering the work, demeaning, humiliation, then war, but block by block, the wall that remains today was rebuilt.
That is the tenacity required of real Christianity, not going along with Chuck Smith, or Irwin Lutzer, or John Hagee, David Jeremiah, or Chuck Swindoll or anyone else: though there may be good men among the powerful, the Christianity of the Bible prevails against "the way things are ". The real Christians of the World are suffering and the suffering and persecution is intense, awful and increasing. We cannot live complacently with the kind of belief that Jesus said he would 'spew out of His mouth'. We must take the stands for the Messiah He asked of us: love for God with a whole and real heart, and join the ranks of real Christians worldwide. First, we must learn real faith, and how to stand against the unthinkable. We will indeed meet at the Bema seat of Christ, where the questions will be all His.
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