Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-14-14

“Both life and death are part of the same Great Adventure,” Theodore Roosevelt said, through tears but with pride, after he received word that his son Quentin had been shot down and killed in a World War I dogfight. This is no less true, and what I believed TR meant, not just in our lives but in all particulars of the Christian walk.

Jesus Christ was God who chose to live among us; He died to take the punishment for our sins upon Himself, that we might live. We must die to self. We can be Born Again. The cycle of life and death, life and death – with, for God’s children in Christ, eternal life as the final state.

One of the super-logical confirmations of Jesus’s existence, who He was, and what He did – against those say the Gospel accounts are legends, or are ready to believe in “Passover Plots” – is the fact that all but one of the Disciples were murdered for their faith. Believers were scattered after the Resurrection. Rome harassed Christians. Jewish leaders stoned them. The Disciples could have kept quiet, or been secretive. If they had a sliver of a suspicion that Jesus was a fraud, or that their faith was in vain… would they have endured prison, rejection, exile, torture, humiliation, poverty, stoning, and cruel martyrdom?

No. They chose death. Yes, in order to live eternally, but also because they witnessed to the truth.

“Here I stand,” said Martin Luther, threatened with excommunication and death if he did not recant his faith; “I can do no other.”

Early believers in Rome were persecuted by Nero. Murdered Christians were immolated, impaled on stakes, and set afire, lighting streets where citizens, including Christ-followers having to face choices, walked. Christians persisted. And died. Followed by others who persisted.

Stephen, an early follower in Jerusalem, refused to renounce his faith, and was stoned to death; his last words were asking God to forgive his tormenters. The future evangelist, Paul, was in that crowd. Death ironically (to us) led to life.

The story of the church’s first three centuries is the story of uncountable martyrs. The slaughter of Christians in pagan Gaul made Rome’s horrors seem tame, according to the histories of Eusebius.

The cruel sanctions, torture, and murders of reformers in Europe – so many, that their names are now dim to Christians, from Jan Hus in Prague onward for centuries – are mighty testimonies to those who were willing to die for Christ.

The Twentieth Century, withal, contained more martyrdom than the combined deaths in all previous centuries combined. Specifically: those who were persecuted AS CHRISTIANS, for BEING CHRISTIANS, for refusing to refute THEIR FAITH, who paid the price for CONFESSING CHRIST. For choosing – even when given an “out” – to die for Christ.

We remember the stories of students, in the 1999 Columbine massacre, being asked if they believed in God, answering yes or continuing to pray, before being killed.

If you have eyes to read, you know that it is now daily news, not a random story once a decade from some unknown place, not even merely once a month any more, but daily news of Christians around the world being persecuted or killed for their faith. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani Minister for Minority Affairs. Asia Bibi, in a Pakistani jail for refusing to convert to Islam. Wenxi Li, owner of a Christian book store in China. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy, for confessing Christ. Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor jailed in Iran for refusing to convert to Islam.

China. India. Pakistan. Burma. North Korea. Iraq today, where Christians, once relatively comfortable even under Saddam, have been slaughtered or exiled; and are now as a church practically an extinct species in the “country the U.S. saved.” Syria, where there had been co-existence with the Allawites, a similar situation – some of the oldest Christian communities, being slaughtered by the ISIL Sunni hordes. Egypt, where, similarly, churches founded a generation after Jesus are, today, being razed and their believers killed. Nigeria, where hundreds of girls have been kidnapped, for being vulnerable girls, but also as hated Christians. Somalia. Afghanistan. Indonesia. Columbia.

Christians are suffering horribly. Christians are dying. People are willing to die for Christ.

And then we might think about attacks on the church, restrictions on believers, prejudice against Christianity, in… the “West.” In Western Europe. In Canada. In the U.S. In our states. In our courts. In our schools. In our theaters and TV shows; in our “entertainment” and in magazines. In politics. In our towns. In our homes. Horribly, sometimes in our denominations and “churches.”

Yes, it must be a glorious burden but a hard, hard thing to die for Jesus.

But is the church in the West, as we react or don’t react, telling the world that it is, somehow, a harder thing to LIVE for Jesus? Think on this. God forbid.

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Click: I Have Decided to Follow Jesus

3-7-11

The assassination this week of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister of Minorities in Pakistan, is a story that garnered some attention in the news, but for the most part was subsumed by other reports on related issues from the Islamic world.

Shahbaz was the only Christian in the national cabinet, a brave advocate of religious freedom before world forums and in his own land. The news that crowded his murder from the headlines included other assassinations; street protests; Christians being arrested; Muslim factional hatred; Christians fleeing their homelands; government crackdowns; Christian churches being invaded; piracy, kidnappings and murder; and Christian martyrdom, from lowly believers and pastors to prominent officials in several countries.

According to the BBC, “Mr Bhatti, 42, a leader of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), had just left his mother’s home in a suburb of the capital when several gunmen surrounded his vehicle and riddled it with bullets, say witnesses.” He routinely had been receiving death threats for urging reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. “Pamphlets by al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab, a branch of the Taliban in Pakistan’s most populous province, were found at the scene.” Tehrik-i-Taliban told BBC Urdu they carried out the attack.

Four months ago, Shahbaz said in a video, “I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ who has given His own life for us. I know what is the meaning of [the] cross. And I am following… the cross.” He continued, “I am ready to die for the cross,” speaking these words calmly and with confidence. He knew he was reciting his own epitaph. Shahbaz was not a supernatural prophet – he surely knew the dangers to his life – rather he was a humble servant, an obedient follower.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross (Matthew 16:24).

Shahbaz correctly pinpointed the center of our world’s coming crisis – not economies nor resources nor pollution; not even religion – but the cross of Jesus Christ. And the persecuted church, in so many of the world’s fiery corners, understands this. Despite the horrible treatment of uncountable Christian martyrs, now approaching one a minute, every day, around the world, that persecuted church is being purified, like gold in a fire.

Some Christians in the West concern themselves with the “Prosperity Gospel,” and debate universalist theories that everyone is going to Heaven, “if there is a Heaven.” But Christ-followers and missionaries and martyrs elsewhere in the world work to “know Christ and make Him known.”

The “crown” is the exclusive focus of too many Christians. Christ promised an abundant life, certainly; but He offered, and warned, and promised, the burden (mysteriously, a glorious burden!) of the “cross.” Plausible Christianity is that the Crown awaits us in Heaven; and the Cross is our lot here.

“It is one thing to kneel at the foot of the cross for forgiveness; it is quite another thing to get on that cross to follow Jesus in His death. But it is the only way to live the resurrected life. This is what it means to be His disciple. When we live the crucified life, nothing can truly harm us. You can’t hurt a dead person.” So wrote a friend, singer/songwriter Becky Spencer, this week. “Our churches are filled with bored, dissatisfied Christians. Not because our God isn’t enough, but because most of them have only visited the cross once for salvation. It is meant to be embraced every day.”

I did not know Shahbaz Bhatti. Three of my close friends did, but I cannot say that I would speak his mind here. However, his murder this week has me thinking more than ever about the persecution of Christians, and our proper response as believers ourselves – response not alone to the situation of martyrs, but response to Christ’s commission. And it all has to do with the Cross, the Cross.

Jesus came to save us from our sins, but not necessarily from the effects of our sins; nor the world’s persecution; nor evil, punishment, or sickness; all because there is sin in the world. And as He offers forgiveness from sin, it might be said that He did not come to grab us from hell or push us into Heaven. His ministry was to keep hell out of people, and put Heaven into us, so to speak. We are to do His work while we are here.

Christians often think we have to “close the deal” and assure that people have eternal life. But all we can do is quote the Promise. To presume that we can do any more might be to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, whose work this really is. Believers, by responding to the invitation to believe on Jesus, have a say in that; and God, of course, is the Judge.

So what is left? To servants like Shabaz Bhatti, and to missionaries in heathen areas (including – think about it – you and me, right in our neighborhoods), our work is to do Christ’s work. Here. And now. Working to keep hell out of people and planting a little Heaven – by sharing belief in Jesus Christ who has given His own life for us, as Shahbaz testified; that He is not just one way, but the way to God – this must be our mission. And our privilege. And our Cross.

Jesus frankly said that the world will hate that message. It hated that message when He spoke it, and He was crucified on the cross. It hates that message when we speak it, and the world will likewise and therefore hate us. To take up the Cross and follow Him is not an option. It is as much of being a Christian as confessing Jesus as Savior.

The Book of Revelation tells us that to add or subtract a word from scripture is anathema, yet I would venture to say that in Heaven another verse has been added this week to Hebrews, Chapter 11. That book is “the Hall of Fame of Faith,” listing great heroes and martyrs of the faith – many of whom did not live to see the fruits of their service and sacrifice. “By faith, Shahbaz…”

God bless you, brother. None of your countrymen will come closer to the Truth through the motives of a dozen cowardly murderers. But I pray that millions will see the Truth through your martyrdom, your purity of faith, your service to the cross of Christ. And He will be glorified. Amen.

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In honor of Shabaz Bhatti and persecuted Christians worldwide:

Click: Anthem of the Persecuted

I want to acknowledge the words and wisdom of three friends who were privileged to know Shahbaz — Hope Flinchbaugh, Marlene Bagnull, and Dan Wooding, for whom this week has been trying; Becky Spencer (“sure you can quote me – the Holy Spirit doesn’t copyright inspiration!”); and insights I gained this week while researching a book, from messages by Lyman Abbott.