My Heroes the Martyrs

I've never been one to confront people about spiritual issues. I never liked it very well when someone did that to me and disagreed with many of them anyway. Even so, I have felt compelled to find a way to convey to people what I believe to be the absolute Truth. One reason is because it will profoundly affect their lives. Another is because Jesus gave us a directive to do just that (Matthew 28:19,20).

I like to think I've accomplished this in a non-confrontational manner by writing books containing the message of Truth in fictional stories . In this way there can be no arguing. A person can either read the books or not and they can either believe the message I've tried to relay or not. Maybe this is a cop-out.

Some people are much more bold than I am. I believe those who dedicate their lives to spreading the real Truth in this evil world are doing exactly what God wants them to do. Some brave folks take that one step further and attempt to spread the Gospel in very hostile territory and it has cost many of them their lives. These people are my heroes.

These great men and women number in the thousands, dating from the first century when all of Jesus' disciples were martyred except Judas and John. The fact that these men; first-hand witnesses of Jesus' life, were willing to die for what they believed is evidence of the Bible's Truth.

A great example of more recent heroic martyrdom is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Mr. Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis in 1945 only days before the end of World War II. His crime was his very vocal opposition to the Nazi oppression of the Church and of the Jews. He took that a step further and endorsed the Church's active resistance to the Nazis. He once publicly announced that the church must not only "bandage the victims under the wheel, but jam the spoke in the wheel itself." (David Ford, The Modern Theologians)

Another example is Wang Zhiming, killed by Chinese authorities in 1973 because of his pastoral work and his refusal to salute Chairman Mao Tse-tung's portrait (John C. England Asian Christian Theologies: Northeast Asia). A 21st century martyr is Ri Hyon Ok, a 33 year-old mother of three publicly executed in 2009 for distributing Bibles in North Korea (as reported by CBS News, July 26, 2009). There are many others, of course.

I pray that God grants me and my Christian contemporaries the courage of these great heroes. I fear we're going to need it. And, to the evil dictators of the world (I mean you President Omar Al-Bashir, Senior General Than Shwe, King Adbullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Paramount Leader Hu Jintao, Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei, President Isaias Afewerki, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, and others.)... leave our people alone. What are you afraid of anyway? Is it that you know the Truth and the power behind it? If so, then you know you can't win.