Our Life... No Deposit, No Return

In regards to the last post that points out how all of our misdeeds will be shouted from the roof tops, I was watching a television show that captures sexual predators as they are in the act of seducing a decoy who they think is a minor. In every case, the person is shocked when the television host appears instead of the thirteen year old girl they thought they came to meet and have sex with. They all say the same thing, how they were not going to do anything wrong or how they actually came to the house to give the young lady some fatherly advice.

I can’t imagine how embarrassing it would be to be in their shoes as their wives, children, parents, friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors or employers watch them squirm under the television lights and how we all judge them as bad people caught in something that we would never do. The best part of the show is the self righteous part that we, the viewer, get to participate in, thinking to ourselves that we are bad but at least we are not that bad. The embarrassment and pain suffered by those men and their friends and family is indicative what we will face on the day of judgement without Jesus as our intercessor.

As we continue on in Luke 12:4, Jesus tells us that we should not live in fear of those who wish to kill us. He points out that they can only kill the body, nothing else. That would have been a galvanizing point for me if I was there and the looks on the faces of the followers probably nodded along with everything Jesus said and all of a sudden wanted clarification on that last part and with a snap of the head, asked the person next to them, “Did He say what I thought He said?”

I found the following information on a website at http://www.bpnews.org/bpnews.asp?ID=13546, and you can go there to read the complete article.

In A.D. 165, the Roman Prefect Rusticus encouraged Justin Martyr and his six companions to be sensible. They only needed to swear to the divinity of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and they would go free, unmolested. Threats of a swift beheading at the hands of a centurion did not shake their faith in Christ.

"Do with us what you will," Justin replied. "We are Christians and do not worship idols."

Justin and his six companions, including one woman, were slain by order of the prefect. Today their blood and their confession of faith in Christ cry out to those of us who now believe in persevering no matter the costs.

A more modern day accounting of taking Luke 12:4 literally is found in the example of the captivity of Martin and Gracia Burnham. I found a very good accounting of their ordeal at the hands of a group known as Abu Sayyaf. You can read the complete article that shows the kindness shown to Gracia at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-12-24-burnham-cover_x.htm .

...the couple never had much. But on May 28, 2001, Martin got a surprise. Gracia had arranged a night at a resort on the island of Palawan for their 18th wedding anniversary. Their three children would stay with friends in the village where the family lived north of Manila.

Kidnapped

That night, Muslim rebels from a group called Abu Sayyaf sneaked into the resort and abducted the Burnhams and 18 other people. In February of 2002, after Abu Sayyaf had been accused of links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, U.S. soldiers arrived in the Philippines to help find the rebels and their hostages.

The Burnhams were marched at gunpoint through almost impenetrable jungle. Martin, 42, was handcuffed and tied to a leash. They suffered from various intestinal viruses and developed sores all over their bodies. Both were malnourished. Martin lost about 40 of his 155 pounds.

Eventually all the hostages were released except the Burnhams and a Filipina nurse. (She would also die in the final shootout.) Frightened by gunbattles between their captors and their would-be rescuers, the Burnhams wondered if they would see home again.

Gracia, 43, would start when she heard a twig snap. She often burst into tears. When a Philippine television crew linked up with the rebels and interviewed the couple, Gracia cried: "We've been forgotten. ... We need someone to show some mercy."

If they felt deserted, the Burnhams did not desert God. Martin accepted Jesus' greatest challenge: Love your enemy. "Martin built a relationship with those guys," Gracia recalled recently in a videotaped message to supporters. "Martin said to me, 'Scripture says that if you hope to be great in God's kingdom, you must be the servant of all. It doesn't say the servant of everyone but terrorists.' And Martin was always willing to serve those guys. If they asked him to carry something, he had such a good attitude. ... He'd even volunteer sometimes if he didn't have things to carry."

Martin taught his guards English and shared food with them. They would apologize for chaining him to a tree each night, and he would thank them. The guerrillas' leader was Abu Sabaya. He regarded himself as a devout Muslim, though he was capable of great cruelty, including the beheading of Guillermo Sobero, an American who was seized with the Burnhams.

Most captives would have told Sabaya what he wanted to hear. Martin told him what he thought God wanted him to hear. As Gracia stood in the background and cautioned her husband with a slitting motion across her throat, Martin told Sabaya that although he would one day be judged for his sins, Christ died so everyone's sins might be forgiven.

Martin Burnham was a pilot — not a preacher or pastor. It was as if the sexton stepped to the pulpit and gave the Easter sermon.

Two weeks after the June shootout in which Martin Burnham was killed, Sabaya was ambushed at sea by Philippine marines. His body was riddled with bullets and fell overboard into shark-infested waters. It has never been found.

During their captivity, there were several accounts of how Martin was threatened with execution and his response was always the same, (I paraphrase) “ you can threaten me, but I will die when God tells me to die, not you.” Our faith is easily lived until we are given a choice on giving up on something as valuable as our own lives or the lives of our family, to follow God.

My faith in Jesus Christ was galvanized when I realized that the apostles willingly gave up their lives rather than deny who Jesus was and is. These men who hid in a room together, without a plan and knowing that the authorities were coming for them next, went out boldly after seeing the risen Christ. On our behalf, they spoke to Him, broke bread with Him and even put a hand inside His open wound and with the knowledge that He was and is who He says He is, went into the world and preached the gospel without fear for their own lives.
As I said in an earlier posting, if just one of the apostles had denied Jesus during their torture and execution, they would have been pulled from peril, cleaned up and we would have read to this day how they denied Christ and that they were part of a phony religious scheme. Instead, these frightened followers became emboldened by the resurrection of Jesus and willingly went to their deaths, and their example still inspires believers today.