tuesday martyr: the thundering legion

The "Thundering Legion" is a name attributed to a part of the Roman army. The name is under some suspicion about whether it came from a battle or was used a hundred years previously. The story of the battle is most certainly true, but the name Thundering Legion being given in tribute to the soldiers is uncertain. I'm not debating the origin of the name, I'm simply telling the story of a group of a couple of groups of Christian soldiers who have been called the Thundering Legion.

Around 174 AD a Roman army was surrounded by enemies and trapped without water. There was little hope for survival. A group of Christians among the soldiers began praying earnestly to God for help. God answered with rain to quench the thirst of the Romans and hailstones and lightning to kill their enemy. Whether they were part of the Thundering Legion or were named after the event, it was the same battalion that was to be martyred nearly 175 years later.

Around the time that Constantine declared Christianity to be legal, a governor named Licinius increased his persecution and declared that all soldiers must make an offering to the Roman gods. Forty men from the Thundering Legion refused.

After many attempts to persuade them, by threat and promise of reward, a man named Camdidus spoke, "You offer us money that remains behind and glory that fades away. You seek to make us friends of the Emperor, but alienate us from the true King. We desire one gift, the crown of righteousness. We are anxious for one glory, the glory of the heavenly kingdom. We love honors, those of heaven. You threaten fearful torments and call our godliness a crime, but you will not find us fainthearted or attached to this life or easily stricken with terror. For the love of God, we are prepared to endure any kind of torture."

After this, Licinius ordered that the men be stripped naked and placed in the middle of a frozen lake to suffer hypothermia and die slowly. For hours they stood and encouraged one another. After a time, one of the men succumb to the torture and ran to one of the warm places the governor had set up to tempt the men.

Seeing the one man abandon the group, a soldier who was set guard to watch the troop threw off his clothes and joined the men on the ice declaring "I am a Christian."

By morning all the forty were dead.

May we live such lives as those 39 that even facing death our lives bear testimony to Christ and some might be saved.

-joe

Info gathered from Jesus Freaks, Tactical Athlete, and The New York Times. Picture from Roman Officer Art.

lest we drift away

"Therefore, we must pay much closer to the things we have heard, lest we drift away from it." - Hebrews 2:1

More than any verse in the last year, this one has been burned into my mind. In recent months I have been caught repeating it over and over again. I have prayed over it, meditated over it and been confronted with the enormity of my sin of complacency.

And I'm not talking about my inaction within the church or in life (although a good case could be made for that), I'm talking about my apathy towards this "great salvation" that Hebrews speaks of so highly.

The first chapter of Hebrews is a Christ exalting hymn of praise. God spoke to us by His Son, the heir of all things, creator and sustainer of the world, God made visible and mightier than angels. Therefore, we should pay attention to it. Because it is a great and awesome thing that God has come down to save us. PAY ATTENTION because it is worthy of all attention.

And then the sober warning, "lest you drift away from it." What a terrible thing, to drift. So subtle. So easy. So deadly. It takes no energy to drift away from something. It's not like taking an oar and working to pull yourself away from Christ. It's not doing all the impure things of this world. It's simply refusing to pay attention. That's easy. And I do it all the time.

And the scarier part is that you can be drifting and still doing things that look good. You can still be evangelizing, helping the poor, teaching in the church, and faithfully tithing. You can be the first to volunteer for every event and the last to leave. You can be, outwardly, a great Christian and still be drifting away from Christ.

So, I encourage you with the writer of Hebrews, to "take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." (Hebrews 3:12-13)

-joe

tuesday martyr: missionaries to the aucas

Many of you know their story (or at least heard their names): Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming and Rojer Youderian.

In the mid 1950's they attempted to reach out to the Auca indians of Ecuador and were killed by the tribe. You can buy the book Through Gates of Splendor here and the movie, made a few years ago, End of the Spear here.

Here, instead of the story of these men, I will give you a taste of their passion for Christ and the unreached people of the world. (Taken from Through Gates of Splendor.)

Jim Elliot wrote

"'He makes His ministers a flame of fire.' Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul--short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him. 'Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God'"

From Pete Fleming:

"I am longing now to reach the Aucas if God gives me the honor of proclaiming the Name among them...I would gladly give my life for that tribe if only to see an assembly of those proud, clever, smart people gathering around a table to honor the Son--gladly, gladly, gladly! What more could be given to a life?"

And (thanks to Adrian Warnock) a challenging quote to put your faith into practice from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

". . . The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans and Methodists was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it. Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it. He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there. It is a plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics. The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all, and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love. The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy type of man can do in a century. God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself. Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive must ever be the love of Christ."

May we all be filled with the holy zeal of evangelism because we are so enraptured with Christ and His call on our lives that we cannot help but comply.

-joe

almost back

I know I said I'd be back up and ready today, but I'm not quite ready yet. This month has been great, being away from blogs (with the exception of a few friends) and I'm excited to be back.

I've got a bit of reading to catch up on (though I'm not going to read the estimated 1500 posts I've missed.)

See you all soon with a new, updated version, of the Tuesday Martyr next week.

-joe

what's been goin on in my head

Some folks have been asking why I haven't been blogging lately. Well, the truth is, I haven't had much good thinking going on lately. I mean, I worked on my last sermon for about 4 weeks and still didn't have it ready the night before.

Thankfully, I've had my youth lessons worked out for a couple of months...but they ran out this past Sunday. God will need to do some serious creative work in my head over the next week if I'm going to succeed in producing a sermon for Sunday and youth lessons for the rest of the school year.

In His providence, He has given me something to kick that creative gear on...enjoy:



-joe

(And, yes, that place exists. And, yes, that was really a commercial when I was growing up. "Feed the deer, ride the pony, feed the deer and ride the train...")

closing up shop for a month

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in nearly a week (and didn't even do my martyr post for the last two weeks.)

I've decided to take a break from blogging (including reading blogs).

Sometimes you gotta strip away some things to really get a good look at what drives your life. For me, the blogging world is taking too much time away from time with Christ.

I will resume posting on Tuesday, March 3rd with a post on a martyr.

I leave you with the Scripture God used to convict me:

Hebrews 2:1 and 3

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it...how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

May we all heed these words and seek Christ so that we do not drift away.

-joe

hebrews 1

Here is my sermon from this past Sunday. It is on the first 3 1/2 verses of Hebrews.

These verses continually push me towards worship. I hope they do the same for you.

(You can also click here for a downloadable version.)

May God be gracious and keep us from drifting.

-joe

trial

i'm trying out a banner at the end of my subscription advocating for action against abortion.

-joe

the fine line

Kary Oberbrunner was my pastor for most of my senior year in high school. I remember him being a passionate guy and, oddly enough, basically the same age I am now. He is a gifted pastor, speaker and author and he recently wrote a book called The Fine Line.

It's a book about relevancy. How can we live in the world and not be of the world. The book covers a lot of ground in a very short space. He writes quick and to the point. For you visual learners out there, he makes use of several good diagrams of the information he's presenting. (I remember him doing that years ago, too.)

I'm always nervous when I hear about a book on relevancy. Most of what is out there is about how to be culturally savvy. How to watch movies, TV, use the internet, listen to music and do everything the world does in order to "reach" them. Kary doesn't do this. He says this is the polar opposite of how we should strive to be relevant to the world. It is not about doing what is hip at the time it is about two simple things: Love for God and love for man.

He does this by first giving us some basic groups within Christianity, people he calls Separatists and Conformists. Separatists are law-following and world-hating people who become irrelevant because they refuse to speak to others where they are. Conformists are world-loving and law-abusing people who become irrelevant because they refuse to stand on truth. He calls the middle ground people, the fine line people, Transformists.

By using those groups he is able to speak to people on both sides of the fence. People like me who lean on the Separatist side and others who lean on the Conformist side. He breaks it down for both of us by telling us what it means to be relevant is to simply follow Christ.

Two quotes from the book:

This is (in my opinion) a great summary of the whole book. He's talking about Paul and how relevant Paul was (all things to all people):

After his conversion, Paul didn't pursue relevance. Instead, he pursued Jesus. But by pursuing Jesus, he naturally became relevant. And as long as he kept following Jesus, he was relevant.

And, one of my personal favorites out of the book because it speaks to me and my reluctance to be humble and honest before God:

But when it comes down to it, we don't feel safe opening our hearts to a God who killed his own Son. We'd rather have a God we can manage and control.

Kary really did a great job with this book. It is an easy read and, at the same time, extremely convicting and challenging. If you don't believe me just read the chapter called "The Girl Bashers." You'll hang your head in shame.

I recommend the book to you. You can pick it up on Amazon for $10.


-joe

tuesday martyr: nicolas ridley

Nicolas Ridley was a reformer in England and was considered to be among the most learned and well-taught of the group. He, for a long period, considered transubstantiation to be a viable teaching, but later in life after more careful study of both Scripture and the ancient fathers of the faith concluded it to be false. After this, he spent much time, along with Thomas Cranmer, teaching the people of England about the false nature of the doctrine.

I found this line of his short biography most challenging for myself (I am one to put forth radical change with short bursts of teaching rather than a long-haul approach.):

"But this opinion of the real presence having been so generally received in England for three hundred years [referring to transubstantiation], these eminent reformers went to work with great caution, and by gradually proceeding in their public discussions, afforded time for the people to consider the subject more leisurely, and of course more effectually."

All accounts of Ridley show him to be a kind, gentle and noble man who took care to correct false doctrines in a loving manner. He was not the brute force of Luther, but he (along with Cranmer) convinced the Church of England that the body and blood of Christ was not contained in the sacraments. The bishops of the Church then drew up a 5-point document to show this to be the case.

After the death of King Edward, the terrible Queen Mary came to power. She quickly stole back all that the reformers had worked for and had many of them put to death. Ridley was among the first, supposed to be an example in order to stamp out the reformer movement. He died along with another man, Latimer, and the protestant movement grew immensely under her persecution.

May God grant us the patience to correct in order to properly build the church.

-joe

(Most of this was taken from A Puritan's Mind)

the right to life

I couldn't not say something about the right to life and our future President today. But, since I am often a little too haughty in speech, I'll let others do my talking.

First, my friend, Talia, is going to the Right to Life march in DC this week. Hopefully the voice for the voiceless will be heard and our nation will begin repenting for our horrible acts against unborn children.

Second, the pastor of Immanuel Baptist has written an open letter to President-elect Obama that you should take a look at.

And finally, if you can stomach it, go here and watch a video on the hideous nature of abortion in America.

May God grant us the strength to repent of this crime, no matter the time it takes. It has taken more than 200 years for us to realize that, indeed, all men are created equal before God by electing a black man as President; hopefully we'll get this one straightened out sooner than that.

During the time it took me to write this another baby's life was taken in the name of "women's rights" and denied its right to life.

-joe

18 words: the devil

I know its a couple of days late, I apologize.

In his chapter on the devil, Packer gives reason for the state of the evangelical church today. Specifically the "spineless, powerless, unevangelical state...as compared with what they were a century ago." That "collapse" is in large part due to our reluctance to believe in and talk about the devil. He has become a myth and has gone unnoticed for many, many years.

The present state of the church does two things: "it fools men, by keeping from them the knowledge of their danger as objects of the devil's attacks, and it dishonors Christ by robbing the cross of its significance as a conquest of Satan and his hosts."

To right this problem we must get a firm grasp on who God is, because if our portrait of God is false, then likely our portrait of the devil will be fallacious as well. Scripture is clear that Satan and his demons "are of quite unimaginable badness--more cruel, more malicious, more proud, more scornful, more perverted, more destructive, more disgusting, more filthy, more despicable, than anything our minds can conceive."

And, so, the devil is active in this world and God is allowing him this temporary power in order to execute judgments against us for a time. But, the Christian has hope that the world does not. We have Christ.

And so, in order to withstand the wicked and evil nature of the devil we must, as Paul says, put on the whole armor of God and prayer at all times, taking confidence that He has won and will win every battle and that we will have the power to resist the devil. James gives a similar promise chapter 4 verse 7 "resist the devil and he will flee from you."

We have an enemy, we have a weapon and we have a promise. Go and fight.

-joe

the terrible temple and the throne of grace

God is a god of glory. Unbelievable, immense, awe-inspiring glory that makes your hands sweat and your heart race and your knees quiver. To think that standing before God would do anything other than make us burst at the seams is to think of the wrong god. God's very presence is enough to make a mountain shake (Exodus 19.)

This is the same vision that we get in Isaiah 6 in the year that Uzziah (the king) died. First, a little background on Uzziah from 2 Chronicles 26 and 2 Kings 15.

He was, for the most part, a good king. He did a lot of things right but then his pride took over and he decided to enter the temple and light the holy incense instead of letting Azariah and the priests handle it. He went in and desecrated the earthly temple of the Lord God and was stricken with leprosy until he died. He messed with something declared holy on earth and God was angry enough to curse him with disease and shame.

Now, in the year that Uzziah died, Isaiah is swept up in a vision to the very throne-room of heaven. He is put in the very temple of God in a place that is not declared holy, but it is holy because it is where God is. And Isaiah knows that on earth, if you enter the temple of God unclean, you are usually cast out of Israel, or even killed for some offenses. So, now Isaiah is in the heavenly temple and is, rightfully, scared out of his mind. Trembling in fear. Sweat pouring off his hands and face. Finding it hard to swallow. Fighting back tears.

And he cries out "WOE IS ME! WOE IS ME! I'M A MAN OF UNCLEAN LIPS AND I LIVE AMONG A PEOPLE OF UNCLEAN LIPS!" He is afraid because he knows he is guilty and is standing in the presence of a righteous and holy God.

This is the God that rules the world. This is the God of Christianity. He is still seated on his throne and his robe still fills the temple. The seraphim still call in loud voices that he is "holy, holy, holy" and their voice still shakes the temple thresholds of heaven. He is to be feared. He is great and powerful and mighty.

Then, after Isaiah declares his own guilt, God mercifully sends a seraph to cleanse his lips so that he can endure the voice and presence of God.

In the same way, Christ has done this for anyone who believes in Him, that he died for their sins so that they can stand in God's presence without fear of death. In Hebrews 9 and 10 we read that Jesus spilt His blood as an eternal sacrifice to purify us of our sins and evil conscience. His sacrifice gives us confidence to enter the most holy place of heaven without fear because we are wiped clean and look righteous in God's eyes.

Therefore, we should have a full assurance of faith because He is faithful. He died for us to save us from Himself. To save us from our certain death in His presence because of our sin. Because He has done that, we can draw near to Him in faith. He is gracious. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved from the terrible temple of God so that you can enter boldly the throne-room of grace.

And, if you are a believer and have tasted the sweetness of His salvation, then declare it boldly to save others from His presence. This is what Isaiah says when, after reading off many prophecies of Christ and many condemnations of God's justice, he says in chapter 12:

Give thanks to the Lord,
call upon his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples,
proclaim that his name is exalted.

-joe

(this is the first lesson of a series I am doing called "The Mission of the Gospel: A Call to Evangelism." I hope to reduce the lessons into a readable format each week so that you can be spurred on toward a greater diligence to preach the Gospel.

tuesday martyr: john frith

John Frith was one of the first in England to preach against the ideas of transubstantiation (that Jesus is physically in the Lord's supper) and purgatory. He wrote a few books on the subjects and argued that neither were found in the Scriptures or among the early church fathers and that the monks of later years added them so that they could gain power of the people.

He wrote against a man named Thomas More and quickly found himself in trouble. He had, before this, been under surveillance for some time, but his writings against More caused the roman church to go after him with more diligence.

One of his supposed friends, William Holt, turned him over to More and Frith was taken to be tried and finally, burnt for his teachings. When the two archbishops came to take him, they wanted nothing more than to help him escape because they believed him to be a righteous man and knew that he would be killed for what he taught. Frith, however, said that it would do an injustice to God's truth to stand aside and not proclaim it before the council and the world, so he cheerfully went and was cheerful even in the flames of his fire. He called for the forgiveness of those who burned him and did not seem at all to be pained by the flames until he was finally consumed by them.

He died in 1533 and was a student of William Tyndale.

(Much of this was taken from a Puritan's Mind.

-joe