IS MARTYRDOM FOR YOU? (LIBERATION 102)
Things look bad; – things are going to get lots worse; – the end of the World kingdom is near; – there won’t be any recovery of a World civilization. That’s the Truth!
To call our times troubling would be an understatement. Is there anyone among our people who does not feel some anguish, confusion, frustration, and concern for the coming months? The tension is in the air; we feel it but don’t know what to do about it. The easiest solution to this problem is denial, and many, perhaps most, are doing that. Each person might admit that things are going to get much worse, but then justify denial by turning to worldly responsibilities of job, income, housing, family, health, food, debts, etc. There is little time left for serious attention toward solving a problem which isn’t clearly defined.
So, each day passes, bringing us ever closer to the events which will probably destroy us. We can see clearly that our destruction is planned and in progress by the criminal syndicate which rules over us with its invincible military and technological might. And each day, each of us must eat some food, perform essential tasks, get some sleep, and attempt to live unto another day. And each day, one’s dollar buys less, the economy approaches collapse, secure housing seems less secure, and the enemy grows ever nearer.
Many welcome television as a tool of numbing the mind; many use alcohol or drugs as a tool for the same purpose. We have been conquered and we lie powerless in the streets with no recourse. The constitution which guaranteed security of our homes and our persons has been subverted, scorned, and cast aside. We have no legal protections, no representatives, and no reason for confidence that tomorrow might be better. We are crashing. It is a tedious, dragging, belabored, slow process of destruction. Like a nightmare, one feels unable to move an arm for any positive gain. Doomsaying is merely a statement of reality.
Friends, that is the way I see things at this moment. Am I wrong? I struggle with questions of how I might best prepare for tomorrow, and even if that is possible. I wonder what others, like you, might be doing or what you are thinking. We are being assaulted from every possible direction. Like the last man in a foxhole, with enemies approaching from all directions, it is easier to close one’s eyes than to take futile action. Truly, we Christians are not even a defensive element; we are powerless, taking no action at all. I sit here at the keyboard attempting to define the problem and hoping that my fingers might point to something positive. It doesn’t seem to be happening? My question is what can be done without giving up; certainly one can always do something as long as there is breath.
The analogy which comes to my mind is that of learning of a huge asteroid approaching our planet, one so big that it will destroy all life on earth. What can you do? Option one is to tremble in fear and panic with adrenalin overwhelming the body until it nearly shakes itself apart. A second option is to welcome the event as part of God’s design; be grateful for living at the moment when you can watch the thing approach. That gives you a little time to pray and reflect on your relationship with your Father. You can acknowledge that you are a Spirit Being for whom this flesh body is only a tiny moment in time but the real you lives on forever. By meditating on this, you might welcome the asteroid as a liberator from a worldly life that warn’t much fun. Surely, your Father has other plans for you after the asteroid, as always. Two options. Which will you choose? The Bible speaks of men’s hearts failing them for fear.
What I am trying to do with such a description, as above, is to prompt you to think realistically about the coming destruction of our civilization by our enemies, a destruction which is part of God’s design. It WILL happen, just as surely as that hypothetical collision course with an oncoming asteroid. God’s children CANNOT prevent it from happening. We can’t pray for peace or chant OOOOM to alter God’s plan. You have a chance to decide what you will do in anticipation of your tomorrow.
From the time of the crucifixions and stonings of some of Jesus’ disciples, such as Peter being hanged upside down on a cross, Andrew on a diagonal cross, Mark dragged thru the streets and then burned, James stoned, Paul beheaded, Jude crucified, Thomas speared, Luke hanged on an olive tree, — there was a continuous persecution of Christians for nearly 300 years, until Constantine. Countless thousands of Christians were martyred because they would not recant their belief in Jesus as Savior. Many walked willingly into arenas where lions, bulls, tigers, or bears tore them apart. Thousands were burned at stakes, often after being terribly wounded by flaying the skin, tearing the flesh with hooks, heated spikes putting out the eyes, hands being severed, etc. Only a very rare person recanted in order to save his or her life.
Have you ever pondered what kind of faith they must have had? Have you contemplated what kinds of terrors they felt as they approached the reality of their deaths? Have you ever yet pondered how you might act during the next months or couple years when it might well happen to you? Will you sing a hymn as the moment approaches? or recite a Psalm? or forgive your enemies? or repent of your failings? or ask Jesus for mercy on your soul? During the inquisitions of the dark ages, when many millions of Christians were tortured and burnt to death by the Roman Catholics, many used their last moments to read aloud Psalm 51, known as the Psalm Miserere. The 17 year old Queen, Lady Jane Grey, whom Bloody Mary ousted in 1553 read it before being beheaded.
I ask you to think for a moment about the reality of such cruelty toward millions of Christians who’ve gone before us. Millions! Many millions!!! One million is a thousand times a thousand. That is a LOT of people! How can one even imagine such a reality? Yet, it was real. It happened. More recent than those dark age inquisitions, about sixty million northern European Germanic Christians in Russia were killed by the Stalin regime, by the man FDR admired as "Uncle Joe." Then after WWII, General Eisenhower had large prison-fenced fields created, into which millions of innocent German families were herded. Eisenhower ordered that there should be no food or shelters for them. They died lying in cold wet mud and excrement. During my lifetime!
Americans don’t know of such things. We haven’t had war on our soil for nearly one hundred fifty years. We can’t imagine such horrors; it is easier to avoid such thoughts. Yet, right now, across America there are over 800 such concentration camps ready for prisoners, already staffed. Through past history, it has always been the Christians who were persecuted, and its always been done by the same cabal of despots who have stranglehold control of the world today. What’s more, we can read their own writings which tell what they have planned for us Christians. So, wha d’ya think? Reckon it will happen, or is this just nonsensical doomsaying?
I’ve been wailing for many years that it will happen. Now, in 2009, the weblogs are flooded with people warning that it is coming soon, perhaps even this year. Jesus said when one sees these things happening he should flee to the mountains. I’ve been pleading with people to respond to Jesus’ warning for years, but I only know of one person who actually did it (besides my wife and me) for that reason.
Step back a moment and think about this: First: God is directing the play; whatever happens can only happen because it is in the script. Second: God’s children have free will to turn toward Him or away from Him. Third: Turning toward Him means accepting His direction. Fourth: He wants His children to yield to Jesus’ demonstration, namely the lesson that we must die to this world, even physically. The truth is that one cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven with a flesh body; it must be released and then replaced with a glorified body like Jesus did.
So it is that, one way or another, we must each die. Suicide is a copout, so one needs a liberator. Guess what. God is going to provide liberators for us. You get to choose how you will handle that experience. Oppose it and you will suffer a nightmarish terror. Welcome it and you will join with the many martyrs of history who saw Jesus with outstretched arms to welcome you. Everyone dies, but those who die with a homesickness for Heaven will find a joyous reward. Pain is temporary, a brief terror, hardly a moment in time. The option of welcoming your liberation actually contains two further choices; you can sit idly awaiting it, or you might prefer to die in battle.
Most of those early Christians, and many of those millions of the dark ages and even of the 20th century, went willingly and even singing hymns to their deaths. They released their physical flesh bodies and yielded to the unknowable God who had given them promise and hope. O blessed Martyrs! In England, Feb of 1556, one lady, Agnes Bongeor, wailed heartrending cries when two of her fellow prisoners were taken to be burned at the pyre, not because they were taken, but because she was left behind. She had even turned her nursing baby over to another in expectation of martyrdom. (from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs)
The word "martyr" in Greek means "witness or testify." When the liberators come for you, what will you witness? In Greek, the prefix "a" negates the word, so, while the Greek word "amartia" is translated into English as "sin," to the Greeks it meant a missing-the-mark, missing-the-truth, failing to witness of truth. In other words, sin means failing to witness. In 1555, Queen Mary I (Roman Catholic Bloody Mary) had countless Protestants burned at the stake, tortured to death, or beheaded. Some of the martyrs testified at the councils that they would seal their statements of their beliefs in their own blood. One man wrote out his statement with ink made of his blood. Another cut his hand to sign his indictment with his blood. They testified boldly.
Friends, most people watch the economic and political disintegration from a point-of-view that times will get more difficult and painful before the recovery begins. We need to get one fact clear: there won’t be any recovery. The kingdom of world is ending; civilization will crash and most people will perish. The final end-moment will happen with the electro-magnetic field of the planet reverses its polarity, as described in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. The World kingdom will never recover, but the new kingdom of God will begin. Most of God’s children will have perished. But St. Paul does speak of a mystery – that some will not die but their bodies will be changed at that moment (I Cor 15:52). Paul says in a previous sentence that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
We need to understand clearly that our flesh bodies cannot pass into the next kingdom, that all will end soon and we cannot escape that final moment of this pageant. There will be no recovery in this world. Once you accept that fact, then you can prepare to deal with the coming period of tribulation and you can prepare yourself to be liberated from your body. Knowing this ahead of time might enable you to greet your liberators with a blessed joy rather than fear. You’ve played with the World long enough; the game is ending. It’s that simple. You can get on board God’s train and enjoy the knowledge of what is truly happening. Any other choice is not to be recommended!
What you can do right now is to separate yourself from mainstream society as much as possible. Sure, Jesus commanded that you move to the mountains, but rare few are really willing to listen to that. Right now, the digital TV future promises a psy-ops technological connection to you that permits total mind control over you. Let me share this with you, that you can actually have a life outside TV. I have not watched TV since November 4th, 2008. I find that I have time to live a life which I had forgotten. I get adequate news from radio or internet. But most importantly, I feel significantly better mentally and health-wise. It is amazing how much better I feel. Lisa and I will not get a digital TV or a conversion box. We will not look to that idiot box for anything at all, except to watch old classic movies we have collected.
The end is truly near. If God wants you, He will beckon you through that death door to Himself. If you are attracted to Him and desire to follow our Lord’s path, then you can be joyfully confident of your heavenly reward. If, instead, you fear death and cling fiercely to this World, then you are preventing God’s Spirit from working within you to make your death a blessing. By rejecting God’s Spirit, you can live in fear and despair and you have no reason to be joyfully confident of a heavenly reward. Your choice is to be a Martyr for God or just another fatality. Isn’t it wonderful to know the facts ahead of time so that you can prepare for it. Jesus came to reveal the truth and to show us the way. Like a Lamb to slaughter He went. A Martyr!
Christ’s witness,
Roger Hathaway