AP

Revelation 19:1-2, 4   After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah!  Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments.  He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries.  He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” … The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell  down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne.  And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!”

What comforting words these are for the persecuted Church – and for those of us whose long-standing loved ones are now part of this ‘multitude’  (Please forgive me for getting a bit personal here, but I wanted to share with you how powerfully comforting it has been to me generally to allow God’s unchanging Word to minister to my aching heart each day since my dear wife, Pat, was taken to Glory by her Lord and Saviour – she, herself, had been a prayer-warrior for the persecuted Church!)

The vision given to the Apostle John of the course of human history does not shield us from the realities of life in a hostile, sin-affected world that rejects God’s authority.  During his earthly ministry, Jesus himself did not shield us from these realities.  “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.  They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.  They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.  I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.  I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. … I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world” (John 16:1-4, 33).

We live in relatively peaceful and comfortable circumstances and so we find it hard to come to terms with the extent and intensity of the present suffering of many of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  As we pray for them, let us be encouraged in the knowledge that God knows all about it, that he is directing all history to its final fulfilment in Christ, that Jesus has already overcome the world, and that “salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments”.  Let us look forward with great anticipation to the Day when we, together with those whose lives have been maimed and lost for the sake of the Gospel, will join in the anthem, “Amen, Hallelujah!”.

Perhaps the Lord took Pat to spare her from such persecution!

– Bruce Christian