God’s Plan for Martyrs

Solid Joys Daily Devotional

Desiring God

Joy, Unknown, Devotional, Desiring God, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity, Daily Devotional, 163859, Religion & Spirituality, Solid Joys, Jesus, John Piper

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2023

⏱️ 4 minutes

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Summary

Our sovereign God says there is an appointed number of martyrs. They have a special role to play in planting and empowering the church.

Transcript

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0:00.0	July 29. God's plan for martyrs. They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little
0:11.6	longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to
0:18.0	be killed as they themselves had been. Revelation 6 11. For almost 300 years, Christianity grew in soil
0:30.6	that was wet with the blood of the martyrs. Until the Emperor Trajan, about AD 98, persecution was
0:42.0	permitted, but not legal. From Trajan to Deesius, about AD 250, persecution was legal. From Deesius,
0:53.9	who hated, the Christians interfered their impact on his reforms until the first edict of toleration
1:01.0	in 311. The persecution was not only legal, but widespread and general. One writer described the
1:11.3	situation in this third period, horror spread everywhere through the congregations, and the number
1:19.3	of the lapsey, the ones who renounced their faith, when threatened, was enormous. There was no lack,
1:28.3	however, of such as remained firm and suffered martyrdom rather than yielding. And as the persecution
1:36.8	grew wider and more intense, the enthusiasm of the Christians and their power of resistance grew
1:44.0	stronger and stronger. So for 300 years, to be a Christian was an act of immense risk to your life
1:55.8	and possessions and family. It was a test of what you loved more, and at the extremity of that test
2:05.7	was martyrdom. And above that martyrdom was a sovereign God who said there is an appointed
2:16.8	number of martyrs. They have a special role to play in planting and empowering the church.
2:24.8	They have a special role to play in shutting the mouth of Satan, who constantly says that the
2:31.0	people of God serve him only because life goes better. That's the point of Job 1 9 to 11.
2:42.4	martyrdom is not something accidental. It is not taking God off guard. It is not unexpected.
2:53.1	It is emphatically not a strategic defeat for the cause of Christ.
3:01.0	It may look like defeat, but it is part of a plan in heaven that no human strategist would ever
3:09.5	conceive or could ever design, and this plan will triumph for all those who endure to the end by faith
3:19.8	and in God's all-sufficient grace.
	...

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