10Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last—salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth—the one who accuses them before our God day and night. 11And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die. 12Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.”
13When the dragon realised that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14But she was given two wings like those of a great eagle so she could fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness. There she would be cared for and protected from the dragon for a time, times, and half a time. 15Then the dragon tried to drown the woman with a flood of water that flowed from his mouth. 16But the earth helped her by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that gushed out from the mouth of the dragon. 17And the dragon was angry at the woman and declared war against the rest of her children—all who keep God’s commandments and maintain their testimony for Jesus. 18Then the dragon took his stand on the shore beside the sea.
Revelation 12:10-18
Many of Jesus’ disciples heard him and said, “This is too hard for anyone to understand.” Jesus knew that his disciples were grumbling. So he asked, “Does this bother you? . . . But some of you refuse to have faith in me.” Jesus said this, because from the beginning he knew who would have faith in him. He also knew which one would betray him. Then Jesus said, “You cannot come to me, unless the Father makes it possible. That is why I have told these things to all of you.”
Because of what Jesus said, many of his disciples turned their backs on him and stopped following him. Jesus then asked his twelve disciples if they were going to leave him too.
Simon Peter answered, “Lord, there is no one else that we can go to! [Only] Your words give eternal life. We have believed and keep on believing in you, we are sure that you are God’s Holy One.”
John 6:60-61, 64-69
There are still some of you precious readers who are troubled by a number of matters which arise from the text in this central portion of Revelation. A portion which includes the most important chapter of Revelation and the following chapter which contains the theological core of the letter. Some of you have written to me in emails as the comments section below was not working, due the bot attack on the website which was countered. Numbers of you are concerned that Revelation is overly focused on doom and gloom; terror and woe. Not only that, but for some of you, your concern is God appears to be breaking His promise to protect the two witnesses from harm when in fact He didn’t. I suggested to you that the two witnesses can perhaps be extended to include any of us. If that is the case then it makes some of you nervous to think you too may be called on to die a martyrs’ death.
Once again, there you have it in a nutshell. “Ian, what do you have to say about that?” A Gem reader
Simply, Hear, hear and amen; isn’t that the point of John’s letter? I deliberately used John words in chapter 6 to answer the challenge of Chapter 12 – What [Other] Alternative do they have? None.
When we stop and analyse the numbers killed in the first three centuries under Roman rule, according to William H. C. Frend, the number of Christians killed under Roman rule totalled 2 million up to 325 AD. i.e. across the length and breadth of the Empire. Around 3,500 were martyred in Rome, 3,000 of whom died in the Colosseum in savage and cruel ways. Two scholars, who have investigated the slaughter during the Crusades, both John M. Robertson and Andrew Holt, put the total at 9 million at most. They claim misery and pestilence killed most, while at least half of the slaughtered were Christians. Consider this, as I laid out for you in the previous Gem, out of 11 disciples and four Apostles plus two Gospel writers, only one died a natural death – John. Eleven of the others were martyred for the stand they took in the name of Christ. They defeated the devil by the blood of the lamb, the Word of their Testimony and the fact that they did not love their lives to the point that when facing death they were not afraid to die. After all, the continuing refrain of this letter is let those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Is it not “Persevere until the end?” Not just in John’s time but on into the future. Was Christian martyrdom only restricted to the time of the Roman Empire? Answer: A Resounding NO.
I covered in the last Gem the situation related to the disciples and apostles. All but one died a martyrs death. I have also spent the time tracing the history of the Seven Churches listed as recipients of John’s letters as well as other prominent churches in the Roman Province of Asia from the 1st Century to the 21st Century AD. Are you aware that there have been 14 million Christians killed for their faith from AD 33 to 1900 according to Johnnie Moore and Jerry Pattengale in The New Book of Christian Martyrs? Those same authors claim that during the 20th Century until now there have been as many as 26 million Christian martyrs. Others suggest the figure is as high as 700 million. Many historians don’t include the total of martyrs who were killed in conflicts that were more nationalistic, ethnic or political in nature as opposed to specifically religious. i.e. killed because they were followers of Christ.
It is staggering to realise that the total number of Christian martyrs over the 20th Century alone amounts to double the number of martyrs for all centuries between 33AD and the end of the 20th Century. Furthermore, statisticians claim the number of martyrs during the first quarter of the 21st Century have increased. The claim has been made that a Christian has been martyred every five minutes since 2,000 until this point in 2024. I personally think it is way higher than that. Those who claim one every five minutes estimate that total to be 100,000 per year. Others claim the numbers are more likely to be between 160,000 and 200,000 per year.
The Commission for International Religious Freedom (2020) lists the following Nation States as perpetrators of severe persecution on religious minorities (primarily Christian): Burma, China, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam. Other have been placed on a special watchlist: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Central African Republic, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sudan, and Turkey are listed because of severe violations. However in recent times there has been a noted rise in Non-Nation States attacking Christian minority groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, Houthi in Yemen, Islamic State in Iraq and Pakistan, al-Shabaab in Somalia, Taliban in Afghanistan (now regarding themselves as a Nation State), Abu Sayyadh in the Philippines and Kachin in Myanmar.
In short there has been an escalation of the likelihood of Christians living in precarious situations most likely to be attacked. Where do they turn? What are the options for them to be safe? This likely scenario fascinates me on behalf of all persecuted people groups. I have been appalled by this worldwide phenomenon. As I told you in the last Gem, I felt God led me to purchase The New Book of Christian Martyrs (The Heroes of Our Faith from the 1st Century to the 21st Century). I will be sharing more in the coming Gems. This Gem has been an overview in my attempt to look at Christians defeating the enemy by the Blood of the Lamb, by the Word of their testimony while facing death, not afraid to die.
What other option do we have? Is the answer to retaliate? Some Christians believe we need to take up the sword, that Jesus response meant “Two swords are enough.” The literal words could mean: “It is enough.” or “That is enough.” or “Enough of that [talk].” Read what I wrote in Gem 1227.
Believe me when I say I have seen and heard many horrific things in my life.
One of the worst things I have ever seen are photos of human heads stuck on every second paling of a long picket fence in Indonesia, after an atrocity committed by a tribal group in response to massacre from a Muslim group who attacked one of their villages and slaughtered the people in a frenzied unprovoked attack. I had never seen anything like that in my life. It shocked me to the core on opening an attachment to an email at the end of 1999, and seeing that I told some people about what I had seen. The response was, “Well, sometimes you have to resort to the sword to defend yourself.” Really, is that true? Well, the act committed by the Christians did end the inter-tribal violence between them. There was no more killing after the converted Christian tribesmen committed that final atrocity and put the heads of their tormentors on the fence palings as a warning.
Allow me to tell you one more true Ian story. I have told this story a few times orally but never written it down. This will be the first time I have committed it to print and posted it.
One night around midnight, while living in an Indonesia village, I was woken and asked if I would accompany a large party of men to a neighbouring village and asked to bring my camera. The headman’s brother-in-law had been murdered in a machete attack. The police were not going to come up from the coast, but they wanted crime scene photos and I was the only one with a camera, so I was the photographer. So we headed off along the trail through the forest by the light of the moon. I was asked to turn my torch off. My companions were carrying hurricane lamps not as yet lit, in order that everyone could see without ruining their eyes by lighting the lamps. It was a nightmare journey for me, stumbling along in the often obscured moonlight.
When we arrived at the village about 7 kms away, the victim was lying prone on his back with blood all over the front porch of a house on stilts. I was then asked to take photos of the body surrounded by lit hurricane pressure lamps. It was an eerie scene but everything was well lit up. Focusing the camera in the bright light in the midst of darkness I was seeing the crime scene in vivid detail. They insisted I take lots of photos. After taking the first series of the corpse and the surrounding verandah, they turned the body over and the head flopped forward. It was only attached by the voice box and the front section of trachea; the back of the neck had been chopped in a V formation like a tree trunk. I felt faint looking at the scene before me and then trying to refocus the camera. I stood for a moment to regain composure but still felt faint [pingsan]. I asked one of the young guys from our village to take the camera and gave him instructions on how to take a good photo. He took the first one and I checked, it was good. I then descended into the chocolate garden to regain my composure. After quite a while my companions made a bier out of bamboo and vines to carry the deceased back to our village.
When we arrived back to the village just before dawn, I was aware they were all storying about what had happened. As I listened to the story I kept hearing the words “ambe’na marissa this” and “ambe’na marissa that”. I came to realise the major thing they were storying about in the midst of this dramatic event was what happened to “Marissa’s dad”, me. They were incredulous that a minor bloody scene like that could make me faint to the point where I had to go down into the chocolate plantation by the house to regain my balance.
“Can you believe it? He was pingsan. Pingsan after just looking at a dead man. Amazing.”
“Surely he has seen a dead man before.” Surely he has seen killing and murder before, even decapitation.”
“We see it all time. It’s common place. Every kid in the village has seen this stuff.”
“What’s wrong with him? What kind of a man is he? Aduh!” [An expression of exasperation and incredulity].
- Is this the only alternative that we have to prevent us all from killing each other?
- Is it true that doing something as heinous as that will bring an end to the killing? “Two swords or machetes are enough?”
- Isn’t there another way? What other alternative do we have as human beings? Don’t miss the next Gem in this series. Ian
The force which marched eastward in the First Crusade were made up of knights, skilled swordsmen, numbering either 217 or 230 and had lost 37% of their fighting force on reaching Jerusalem. (Reduced to 137 or 145 total!)
Andrew Holt
In later Crusades the numbers were swelled to large numbers of fighters, but most were opportunists looking for a chance to rape, kill and pillage.
Ian
Stop and ponder the nature of Roman society for a moment, an empire built on stadia built to observe a bloodbath as innocent people were slaughtered in cruel and inhuman ways to provide venues for the Caesars and the populace conditioned to be entertained with the spilling of blood.
Ian
Pax Roma (Roman Peace) was attained by violence and the threat of violence and depended on the continued oppression and enslavement of almost 95% of the population of the known world.
Allan Boesak
We arrived in Johannesburg late in November 1983. I had a job to go to, at a large bank, in a datacentre in the middle of Bryanston, a wealthy Northern suburb. On our 1st weekend, we went for a drive around downtown, mainly so that I could find my way to the bank’s head office, which I was going to have to visit often in the course of work. The streets were pretty much empty on Sunday afternoon.
We passed a ute with a man lying awkwardly across the bonnet, a policeman was writing notes while talking to the driver, both standing by the driver’s door. Half a dozen men were sitting watching from the low wall across the footpath. After we passed, the family agreed that the man on the bonnet appeared to be dead! Covering the body didn’t appear to be a priority.
Our welcome to (civilized) Africa…
We truly don’t know the blessings He has given us, and we’re busy throwing them away ????