AS WE READ and hear the accounts of present-day Christian persecution and martyrdom throughout the Middle and Far Eastern regions, the great possibility of it becoming a reality on our own soil unsettles many believers. This is something we have to seriously consider and evaluate in light of Christianity’s future here in the United States of America.

“I count not my life dear unto myself” Paul stated. Here was a man who died daily. David Davies (missionary to the Congo) said, “You need to be in a position of danger to appreciate that. I remember standing in front of rebels, who were drugged and drunk, they had guns, they had spears, they had bows and arrows and they had machetes. And they said, ‘White man, you’re going to die today.’ That shakes you. You measure up your faith; you measure up your hope for heaven; it all flashes into your mind at that moment.”

He went on to say, while speaking to our church on ‘Commitment’ (and I quote him verbatim), “My wife and I were caught up in the Samba rebellion in 1964. We were held by them for four months and at home (Wales, UK) they were talking about having a memorial service because the story had come out in the newspapers that we’d been killed – and we were expecting to be killed any moment, day or night, for these four months and you can imagine the tension building up. Now, we were not so concerned about dying. We can say this honestly. We faced death many times and we’d come to the place where death was heaven – praise the Lord, we were glad of that. But, what worried us was the process; what was entailed, because terrible things were happening. I don’t want to go into the horrible details; they were horrible. And I found, that quietly, they were building up in me a psychological fear – not of death, but of torture. We knew what our other missionaries had suffered. Many of them had been killed. What I was fearing was for my wife because a young pastor had told me, ‘If the rebels come in the mission station again, the first thing they’ll do is, they’ll take your wife, take her to the forest. You can imagine; there’ll be rape and there will be torture and so on. They’ll come back and they’ll take you, they’ll torture you and then they kill you.’ Well, that was happening; I knew it and I must confess, I was in fear. My problem was: how to get rid of that fear. Now, how do you get rid of it? You think it over. I knew it was possible to get rid of it because David said in the Psalms, ‘This man cried and the Lord delivered him from all his fear’ – I knew that, but I couldn’t shake it off. So, I thought, I’d better do some work – you know, ‘throw it off’. So I went to the carpenter’s shop and I joined the carpenter; got his plane…working there. It was no use; I knew if the rebels came in, they’d be down the entrance, past the carpenter’s shop, down to the house (where my wife was) before I could get there. I gave in, so I came back – and I could take you back now to the steps in front of our little bungalow where I got through [the fear] – and I stood there and measured it this way: the will of God is good, perfect and acceptable. So, I went through it logically; if it were the will of God for the rebels to come in again on the mission station, if it’s the will of God, it’s good,  perfect and acceptable; I couldn’t see how it could be, but that’s what the Word says. So, I went a bit further; if it be the will of God that the rebels come in and take my wife – Oh! terrible thing, but if it be the will of God, because Peter talks about suffering in the will of God…and then of course I applied it to myself: if it be the will of God that they come and torture me and kill me, if it be the will of God, it’s good. So I gave in and I said simply, ‘Lord, with all my heart I embrace Your will; Your will be done.’ It snapped; the fear went. It lifted. I got such a cloud of peace on me, I felt invincible – you know, where Paul says, ‘death, where is thy sting?’, you felt you could really face it and I never lost it…”

Unaccustomed to such scenarios, we can speculate and state all we want that such realities never disturb us but until we’re in such a situation, we are wise to remain silent with the prayer for God’s grace to be given us – to either live or die well for His glory. We can be so blasé, knowing all the right answers, but knowing NOTHING of its experience. David Davies was a godly man, a person who really knew God and who witnessed an authentic awakening and revival in the heart of Africa (to download the free audio of his account of the Congo revival: http://sermons.christiansunite.com/David_Davies.shtml). He was heavily associated with WEC (World Evangelisation Crusade), founded by C.T. Studd in 1913. I had the privilege of spending time with David and have yet to personally meet another man of his spiritual calibre. To sit under his preaching brought a sense of the majesty of God; you were conscious of how real God is – a vital element that is lacking in much of today’s preaching. Needless to say, I still gain tremendous encouragement while relishing those fond memories of his godly counsel as I occasionally read over the letters he had written to me fifteen years ago.

Many professing Christians are full of bravado, just like Peter who proved to be a coward when put to the test of remaining unconditionally loyal to the One he followed for three years, but afterwards, when the Holy Spirit transformed him, instead of cowardice, boldness became a main characteristic; when the Holy Spirit descended upon him, he was as a lion and nothing deterred him when he proclaimed Christ.

We cannot naturally pluck up courage in the face of satanic opposition; we may as well put up our hands in defeat now. Fearlessness to stand in the day of opposition only comes by being endued with power from on high, no matter how confident we feel and no matter how dogmatically competent we are in our doctrine. None of us can outmatch Peter’s self-confident zeal – “Lord, I am ready to go with You both to prison and to death.”

Christians, God has to be more real to us than the entire outward world; the unseen world must bear a greater reality to our mind and heart. This is the conviction that enabled the early church to triumph through the violent persecution led by Rome’s Emperor, Nero, otherwise a mere adherence to the doctrines of faith will never sustain us in the hour of trial; we will love the preservation of our lives over and above Christ. We must intimately know the God of the doctrine’s we so proudly proclaim to withstand the devils wiles. The uprising and increasing persecution will prove many, who profess to be called and chosen in Christ, to be true or false; it’s in the crises where our true loyalties lie: to ourselves or to Christ.

If we are regenerate, we will not only desire to know God but will actually know Him and ever increase in the knowledge of Him. No man or woman will stand loyal to Christ at deaths door if they lack a deep and profound personal knowledge of Him. The cords of Christ’s love, shed abroad in the human heart, will prove to be stronger than death’s threat and blow.

It is not pseudo cocksureness but a holy boldness that is the overflow of a close walk with God; it is the spiritual fibre of the one who knows God is real and embarks on all the promises of God; boldness is the inevitable attribute of an abandoned soul to God: “they loved not their lives unto death” wrote John in Revelation.

Is our persevering contingent on our efforts; do we begin by grace only to end in law? Of course not! The fact that we persevere and remain in the faith is evidence of a true work of God in our hearts. Perseverance of the saints is Biblical doctrine, but that gives no excuse to be complacent in our faith but to rather work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because God will not allow His work in us to return unto Him void.

We may not feel strong at this hour to face what our minds and the gruesome realities our media projects in regards to severe Christian persecution, but it is not our strength that enables us to withstand all that hell would throw at us, but Christ upholding us in each moment of our trial.

‘The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!’

God does not give us tomorrows dying grace today, but as we continue to know the God of all grace in the present, we will know His grace for our tomorrows whatever God’s perfect will be for us.

If we are in Christ and have been transformed by the power of His grace, we will prove our loyalty to Him in the crises.