Martyrs

RV122-01

The Fifth Seal

Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross

Altars in Churches

The Soul

For example, we had this word used in Matthew 10:28 in this way: "And do not fear them who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul." So, there is a difference between the soul and the body.

In Acts 2:27, this word is used, again indicating that the soul is something separate from the body: "Because You will not leave my soul in Hades, neither will You allow your Holy One to see corruption." This is being spoken of concerning Jesus Christ, who, while His physical body was dead, His soul was totally alive, and was in the Paradise part of Hades.

Therefore, after the death of the body, the person continues to live, and when he is in that condition, he is called a soul. Revelation 6:9 that we are reading uses that in this way: I saw under the altar the souls of them. These are people whose bodies are dead, but who are alive.

In the Navy, this is a term which is used. A ship goes down, and they say, "So, many souls were lost," and they're talking about human beings who are still alive, but their bodies are dead. They were drowned. They were killed in some way in the course of the ship going down. The term is used specifically to indicate that the people who were lost physically (the military – the sailors) are still alive. The ship lost so many souls, and those people are no longer on the operational roster.

Thus, the soul is used in reference to the real life that is in a man's body. When we read about these souls at the foot of the altar, you must understand that we are talking about real human beings such as you and I know today.

In Luke 12:20, we read, "But God said unto him (this is the rich man), 'You fool, this night you soul shall be required of you. Then whose shall these things be that you have provided?" When he's told that his soul would be required of him, it means his soul would be pulled out of his body.

The Soul is the Life

The Soul is the Seat of our Personality

The Soul is the Person

A Mind

Emotions

A Will (Volition)

So, the word "soul" is used here of bonafide human beings who once were alive during the tribulation, but now, for some reason, have had the soul removed from the body. They are dead in terms of their body; they're alive in terms of their soul; they're standing in heaven; and, John sees them as if they were poured out. Their lives were poured out at the foot of the altar, as was the lifeblood of the animals of old.

Sometimes the word "soul" is used of human beings who are physically alive also. The Bible recognizes that. In Acts 2:41, you have that use of the word "soul:" "Then they that gladly received the Word were baptized, and the same day were added onto them about 3,000 souls." Acts 2:42 says, "And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles." So, here 3,000 people were converted. Their bodies are alive, and their souls are alive, and they are called "souls." So, sometimes the word is also applied to living human beings.

The point to remember is that the soul remains conscious after death of the physical body, and it retains the qualities of mind, emotion, and will. This is demonstrated in the case of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:22-30. As you read those verses, you can see that these people are thinking; these people have emotions; these people are making choices; they're coming to conclusion; they're doing everything that a human personality can do, even though they are separated from the body. So, the soul goes right out into eternity.

So, when people look at a dead body, the person has departed. The person has not died, and it's not really ready to say Mr. So-and-so has died. Only his body died. Mr. So-and-so simply moved out. And if he's a Christian, he went to a better apartment than the one he had. While a Christian's body is in the grave, his soul is with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why, for the Christian, death is not a fearful thing. Death is a matter of a step upward, and it's a point of comfort.

1 Thessalonians 4:13:14: "I would not have you to be ignorant brethren concerning them who are asleep (Christians who have died in the Lord), that you do not sorrow as others who have no hope, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even them who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him." Here you have indicated that God is going to bring those whose bodies have died, who are in the grave, with Him when He comes in the rapture. Jesus is going to bring all the Christians who have died with Him back, and when they come, the Bible in this passage also tells us that their physical bodies will be raised and rejoined to the soul.

Death by Violence

Martyrs

Jesus Christ

Christian Martyrs

In Philippians 2:17, we have this same concept. Paul says, "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all." Paul says, "If in the process of my trying to minister to you, it's going to cost me my life (as indeed later on it did)," Paul says, "I count it a joy to be a sacrifice to the living God.

Also in Matthew 24:9, we again have this concept of a Christian martyr as a sacrifice to God: "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and you shall be hated of all nations for My namesake." Here, the Lord is speaking to the people in the tribulation era – that the time would come when people would think that they are doing God a service by taking believers, and using them as victims of slaughter, and thus, in effect, sacrificing them to God.

So, John sees that these people, whose souls he sees at the bottom of this altar in heaven, have died in a very specific way. They were slaughtered. We have the word "for" which is "dia." This is a Greek preposition, and it tells us "on account of" – here is the cause. The reason was the "logos" (the Word of God). The word "logos" refers to a thought. This is a concept that these people had. They believed something. And the something that they believed resulted in their death. It must have been very important. It would seem that, under the terrible conditions and trials of the tribulation, you might want to change your opinion before you ended up as somebody who was going to be slaughtered in some violent way. And I mean slaughtered in some violent way. The very Greek words tell us that this is not just some kind of: "We're going to take these people out, and we're going to give them a painless extermination through poison gas or something." This was violence imposed upon them. The thinking that they held is what caused their death.

In Luke 7:7 we read, "Wherefore, neither thought I myself worthy to come unto You, but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed." Here's the man who wants a servant healed. He came to Jesus, and he said, "I didn't consider myself worthy to come to you." And he didn't want Jesus to go to the servant. He said, "Just say a word." What was he saying? He said, "Jesus, You just think the command, 'Be healed,' and that's all I want." Here you have a beautiful connection with this Greek word, "logos" ("word"), which means "a thought" – a concept that transformed into an action.

In 1 Corinthians 14:9, Paul lays down a very important principle relative to how God communicates with us: "So, likewise, you, except you utter by the tongue, words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For you shall speak into the air:" "Unless you utter by the tongue thoughts – words easy to be understood (words which convey thoughts that can be understood), you're just talking into the air." And that's why, when the charismatic movement today pretends to be speaking in tongues in the New Testament sense with their gibberish that nobody can understand, and which interpreters pretend to understand, they're being condemned, because God always speaks to us in words that convey intelligible thoughts. So, here again, the idea of what these people died for was something that they believed.

In Hebrews 4:12, we have that tremendous statement concerning the written Scriptures that we refer to as the Word of God: "For the Word (the 'logos') of God is living (the thoughts of God are living), powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You cannot escape the thinking of God.

In Matthew 24:35, the Lord Jesus indicates to us why a knowledge of the Bible is so important. It is because the words of the Bible convey the thoughts of God: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Words shall not pass away." Again the word "logos" is used there for "Words." There it is in the plural: "God's Words." What does that mean? What God thinks is never going to pass away. It's always going to be there.

John 15:20 says that the Word of God is the principle of divine viewpoint thinking: "Remember the Word (the thought) that I said unto you, "The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they had persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also." So, here the Word of God is a principle of divine viewpoint thinking. The Bible is the Word of God because it is the thoughts of God. And let's be careful that you say it that way. Do not fall into the liberal trap of saying that the Bible contains the Word of God. When you see that, red flags should fly up, and you should be immediately on your guard. The Bible is the Word of God. To say that the Bible contains the Word of God suggests that some of it is not the Word of God, and you and I have to weed it out of a mass of misconceptions.

So, what a valuable treasure we have in the Bible. What a tragedy that so few have learned what God thinks from the Bible. What arrogance and contempt we have when we go through life, leaving the Bible untouched, as if it doesn't make any difference. What arrogance it is to go through the week, and never sit down and read what the Scriptures say, because we are so powerfully invested in our life in something that we think is important, and it's really a temporal event in contrast to what comes to us in terms of eternal values through the Scriptures. Those who neglect God's divine viewpoint know enough to stay away from consulting the Bible. Those who are antagonistic to what the Word of God says, know enough that they don't want to bring the Bible in because it will condemn them. They want to minimize the importance of the Bible because they know, indeed, that in it, God has spoken.

So, in the text in Revelation, John tells us that the specific "word" for which they were slaughtered was the Word of God ("theos"). It was not just some cause that they were associated with. It was because they stood up and said, "Hey, I know what God thinks, and this is what He has said upon this subject and upon this subject." They were slaughtered because of the Word of God, and "for." The word "for" looks like this: "dia," which again, is the word meaning "on account of: "On account of their testimony" – their "marturia," from which we get our word "martyr." Those who have a testimony to a certain point even become martyrs for that. This word means their "witness." These martyrs or sacrificed on the altar of God's service, fulfilling the calling that all of us have, that Lord Jesus gave us just before He returned to heaven, and which is recorded for us in Acts 1:8. These people took this duty seriously: "But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you (after the day of Pentecost), and you shall be witnesses unto Me." That is the same word: "You will be My "marturia" both in Jerusalem (then a little farther out), and in (the province of) Judea, and in (then a little farther out to the adjoining) Samaria, and (then beyond that) to the whole world." That is what the Christian life is all about – being witnesses.

These people, living in the tribulation, decided that they had been called to be witnesses, and they intended to do just that. They knew that the only way of salvation is by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. So, they will be standing in the tribulation proclaiming that all other human systems are doomed to hell. Now, that made people mad. That really makes people mad when you tell them that, "Your religious system, if it's in conflict with the Bible (in conflict with the Word of God), and when it's in conflict with the Word of God, it's in conflict with what God thinks. And you are not going to win, because the Word is the mind of God."

So, they're not going to be popular when they tell other religious systems that they're wrong. These people in the tribulation are going to know doctrinal principles, and they're going to call for the application to society. That's what this text tells us. That's why they were killed – because they didn't keep their mouths shut, and because they were not going to sit back and be a silent majority. They're going to not even be a silent minority as they will be in that case. They are going to stand up, and little as they are; few as they are; and, weak as they are, they're going to say, "There are principles that all of us will account to a living God for, and we will not escape, and they apply to our society; to our government; to our morals; to our education; to religion; to economics; and, to entertainment," and they will not be ashamed of knowing the score.

That's the problem. That's the difficulty with Christians. It is not uncommon for Christians to refuse even to lay a little word of warning to somebody who is on the path to destruction, and who is on the path to a lot of religious nonsense and confusion, because they don't want to embarrass the person. They feel that it's none of their business. But the Word of God says, "No, I've called you to be witnesses." I am not ashamed of the fact that I know the score. This is what Paul said in Romans 1:16. He said, "I don't care what else can be said. I just want you to know that I'm not ashamed of the fact that I know the gospel. Why should I be ashamed of the fact that I can tell you how to have eternal life and escape the terrors and the torments of hell forever? Why should I be ashamed of that?" Most Christians are. But Paul understood that he had no cause for apologizing that he happened to be in the know.

You young people who grew up in a home where you have been informed concerning the Word of God should not be ashamed of the fact that you're smarter than your peers; that you're ahead of them; that they are fools in what they think and what they do and, that you should pity them. When you get to the college level, you should not want to emulate them, but you should stand as a beacon of light and be a witness against what they have received.

Godly Parents

The apostle Paul says, "I'm not ashamed of the fact that I know the truth." And these people in tribulation are not going to apologize for the fact that they are privy to what God thinks. So, these martyrs are going to be seen as distinct and separate from Satan's world system, and they do not seek anybody's favor and honor. As a matter of fact, they're going to be point-blank in saying, "You should be ashamed of yourself of what you're doing." You can see how that's going to enrage the tribulation society – to say, "You should be ashamed of what you are doing," because what people are going to be doing then is going to be without any restriction on the very vulgar, obscene, debased, lewd things that people do now. There, though they will no longer have any restriction.

We are told that these people had been slaughtered for the Word of God and for the testimony which they held ("echo"). That is the word that means "to possess." They had some thinking that they personally held as convictions. This wasn't just something such that they said, "Well, down at my church, this is what they think. And my preacher thinks this. And well, my grandmother thinks this, and my parents think this." And that's to sort of imply: "I'm not sure I go along with that." These people "echo" this. They held it. It was a personal conviction. It refers to the biblical convictions of the martyrs.

In the Greek language, this was the imperfect tense, which means that, in the past, a thing occurs again and again and again. Constantly in the experience of these martyrs, in their past experience, they held to these biblical convictions. It's active. They personally held these beliefs. It's a statement of their faith.

So, what do you imagine these people are going to be sounding off about? I try to imagine the projection of our society into the tribulation world. What is offensive to us as Christians who know the mind of God now? What would be even more offensive out there? What will these martyrs be sounding forth about? Well, I think that they will proclaim that God exists as a living, absolutely holy Creator who is in charge of mankind. They're going to make that simple statement: "There is a God out there; He is alive; He is in charge; and, He is absolutely holy. He is not an impersonal force." They're going to proclaim that anybody who thinks that God is an impersonal force is mistaken – that that's a lie. They will say, "No human being can possibly become a God. You can tell a Mormon, "You are extremely deceived. You have believed a Luciferian lie when you think that, someplace along the line, you are going to become a god yourself." They are indignant about that. In the world of the antichrist, Hinduism will be the religion; God will be an impersonal force; deity will lie within every man; and, it will be the pursuit of coming to your own godhood.

Well, these people are going to say, "That's baloney," and they're not going to be welcome. They're going to proclaim that this God has spoken to the human race, and has laid down the laws governing human society in the Bible. You know how mad that makes people today. I don't care what realm you discuss: whether it's political; religious; economic; or, social. If you say, "God has spoken in the Bible and laid down the rules, and we know what they are, and you are countering them, and you're wrong. You're building a house of cards." And that's what this nation is doing now politically. It's building a house of cards that's going to come crashing down.

These martyrs will be insisting that the Bible was the Word of God indeed, and that it must be applied to society and to its laws. They are not going to be intimidated by somebody who comes and says, "Boy, are you ever simplistic." This is the way to get Christians to be inactive – to take a problem, and say, "This is so complex that we just can't deal with it." That's what they like to do with abortion: "Oh, you can't talk about abortion, because first you must decide if this is murder, then how do we deal with this in terms of capital punishment? How do we deal with this matter of capital punishment for those who have had an abortion?" This is a device of Satan to take a simple truth that the Bible speaks on, and make it so doggone complex that you throw your hands up and say, "Oh, I don't know what to think about this." Young college people are suckers for that. But the Word of God speaks simply indeed, but it speaks very specifically.

Bring Back the Ten Commandments

So, now I'm amazed how we're reading about bringing back the old principles of morality, but they're not attaching them to the Bible. They're just attaching them to the fact that this is a good thing to do, because they don't want to stand up and say, "Yes, the Bible is true. And if we're going to stop crime, and if we're going to stop violence, then we must subscribe to the way God designed human society to work." That is because once they admit that the Bible is true, then the whole fabric of liberal disillusion will come down.

Martyrs are going to tell these people that one day they will have to account to God for pretending that the Bible could be disobeyed. If you want to make a person angry in his evil, you just tell him, "Someday you're going to count to God for your evil." I have found Christians who become enraged when I have a difference of discussion with him and say, "Well, one of the things I love about God's program is the Judgment Seat of Christ. You and I both are going to stand there, and one day we're going to find which one of us was right and who was wrong." I've had the response of, "Well, that's an awfully arrogant thing for you to say." I'm arrogant? That's dumb to begin with. Why do they make the accusation of being arrogant? Because you're standing there like you know what's what. And as long as you speak on the basis of the Word of God, you do know what's what, and you can declare that this is what God thinks, and you can stand there and say, "Yes, you're going to find out I'm right, and you're going to find out how wrong you are, and you're going to have all of eternity to regret it, as a Christian."

These tribulation martyrs are going to refuse to cooperate with the antichrist's universal religion, and they're going to declare it to be a human viewpoint evil in violation of Scripture, because it'll be nothing but updated Hinduism. These martyrs are going to condemn all kinds of illicit sex, and they're going to warn people that God's judgment upon the immorality is imminent. They will declare that what people do in these acts of illicit sex to be shameful.

Phil Donahue this past week had a program, just so you know what's going on in the big world out there. It had prostitutes in the background in the dark, and they were high-class type – an escort service for traveling businessmen and business women who might get lonely away from home. Finally, one lady in the audience stood up, and she expressed their disappointment over the fact that she had been waiting for weeks and weeks to get a ticket to get to one of the Donahue programs, and when she gets there, she was so disappointed. She said, "We are sitting here discussing and listening to this degrading subject, which is shameful and not fitting even to talk about. The blacked-out panel was glorying in their acts of shame, and Phil Donahue was giving them national exposure. The Bible says that you should not even speak about what people do in secret of this kind of vileness.

Donahue pressed her: "Well, what's wrong with it? These are the sorts of things that some people find useful." This lady pointed out and said, "The thing that's wrong with it is like the Ten Commandments. God forbids it. God condemns it. And therefore, we are not to do it." Now she was right on. She came into a biblical authority. What she was saying was, "It applies to our society, and you people sitting up there, we can't see your faces, you're blacked out, but you're going to account to God for it, because God has spoken, and you are out of line in what you do."

Well, they had a psychologist who was there, a guy with a doctorate, which, of course, makes him really smart. The biggest dummies in the world get doctorates, especially those that have them given them to them and never earned them. But in any case, this cocky, smart-mouthed psychologist on the program, who was explaining and defending all that these women were doing, spoke up and sounded off and said, "You can't say that the Bible condemns what these women are doing. You can't say that the Bible condemns prostitution. If it hadn't been for Rahab the harlot, the Jews wouldn't have gotten into the Promised Land." Hot dog, he's quoting the Bible back. We had a real Bible discussion going here now. And this lady, tried to talk, and pick that up, and he kept right on: "It's ridiculous to say that the Bible is against this. The whole structure of the Bible has prostitution all the time," and he kept hitting on this Rahab thing. And this lady was trying to get a word in edgewise.

What she was probably trying to say is the fact that Rahab was a prostitute, and hid the spies as they were reconnoitering the Jericho location on the eve of battle, had nothing to do with the Jews going into the Promised Land. The fact that she obeyed God and hid those men and protected them when they departed, in all likelihood, indicated that she had become a born-again harlot and had discontinued what she was doing. As a matter of fact, there can be no doubt that she was a born-again woman because she ended up in the lineage out of which the Lord Jesus Christ was born. She ended up marrying into the family line from which Christ was descended. So, this woman changed what she was doing. She was doing a shameful thing, and she was doing a thing that the Word of God condemned, but that had nothing to do with this story. She could have been a plumber, and still got those people out safely. What she was personally had nothing to do with getting those spies out with the information that they had.

So, I waited for Donahue to say, "Now, just a minute. Let the lady talk. Let's exercise a little good manners." But no, the smart-mouthed doctor of psychology kept ramming home and arguing. I know the debater's technique. When you're on a spot, and you think that your opponent has something, then just talk him into the ground. Don't let him get a word in edgewise. Try to make him look like a fool, and intimidate him. Of course, this poor lady here in front of all this high-powered stuff just finally sat down, and she was squelched. Donahue did not say a word – zilch. He just stood there and let her be browbeaten back to her seat.

It is clear that the world hates it when we say, "The Bible does apply, and you will account to God for it." That's what the martyrs are going to do in the tribulation. They're going to let it be known that the Bible condemns abortion; that it is brutal murder; and, that it degenerates and degrades and turns the woman who is guilty of it into an animal level. It is not an insignificant thing. They're not going to stand up, like even some Christian publications do, and say, "There is some discussion about whether abortion is wrong or not." As per the Bible, there is no discussion about that. God makes it very clear that He knows our secret parts from the moment of our conception; that we are destined by His plan; that we have been formed by Him; that He supervises our development; and, that He has called us into being from eternity past. We were in his mind then. That abortion is the terminating of a life that God has brought into existence through His plan, regardless of the particular circumstances of that conception.

So, these people are going to stand up and say, "You're wrong." They're probably going to get their signs, and they're probably going to form a picket line around abortion clinics. It's not entirely wrong for Christians to do that, as long as you don't try to keep people from going in: to stand there; to sound forth that this is an evil, and that God is going to judge this; and, to seek to dissuade women who are disoriented and about to make that terrible mistake. They're going to point out that the condemnation of socialism in the Bible, and that even a modest amount of socialism eventually makes government a god. Even a modest amount of socialism as we have in our country, which is not so modest anymore, results in gradual loss of freedom until government becomes supreme, and poverty reigns everywhere. The Bible says that the production of goods is not exploitation, and the Bible says that welfare is not compassion. Yet, how many Christians are standing up and saying, "I'm mad. I am mad, and I'm not going to take it anymore. I am not going to take political actions that impose upon me a non-biblical viewpoint as if I am some kind of animal who does not know the Word of God. I do know the Word of God, and I am going to sound forth and tell you that I know it. And someday we're going to find out whether indeed God has spoken or whether I am a false prophet.

All socialist societies in the past, without exception, have always been totalitarian. Never in the history of the human race has a country become socialist without becoming totalitarian. As it became a little bit socialist, it became a little bit totalitarian; and, as it became more socialist, it became more totalitarian. The two must go together. Socialism creates agonies, and when a government decides to mail out checks to people, that creates agonies. The Bible condemns it, and it's wrong. Therefore, politicians today are so disoriented that they openly campaign for socialist programs that the Word of God condemns.

These people in the tribulation are going to proclaim salvation by grace for a man who is totally depraved and cannot save himself. They're going to condemn everybody's good works in the tribulation as filthy rags. They're going to condemn all groups who are teaching a false road to salvation. No doubt, they're going to condemn the feminist movement, and they're going to exalt the traditional family. They're going to point their fingers at mothers, who have preschool children, who are working and say, "What you're doing is wrong. God has given you the queenly role of being the influence to rear your children, and you're passing them off to a daycare center. That's wrong, and influences are being instilled in your children that will bear their bitter fruit in one way or another in their lives."

The problem I've noticed over the years is that little children are controllable. So, you don't think that evil influences are being instilled in them until they come to the age where you can't control them anymore. Then it all blossoms out. And you look back, and you make some stupid statement like saying, "I wonder how come he ended up like that? He was such a sweet little boy. He never was that sweet to begin with, because you were poisoning his thinking process and value system.

They're going to point their fingers at fathers who are absent from the home – fathers who are the kinds of idiots who do not come home in a fragmented society. At least when we were an agricultural society, the father was there; the kids worked with him; and, there was that constant interrelationship. Now these people are going to point their fingers at the fathers who are not there and say, "That's wrong because that undermines the family more than anything else.

They're going to point their fingers at all those undisciplined children, and they're going to say, "You're a shame, and you're a disgrace to your parents, and your parents are at fault. It's going to be tough to rear children in the tribulation when there is so much evil surrounding them. But it is because these martyrs are willing to stand up and proclaim the views that are compatible with the Word of God, but which are not popular with society, that they are going to come under that condemnation.

From the end of the verse, we know what's on their heart. They cry out, and the Bible uses the same word in describing how Jesus cried out on the cross. They just yell out, "O, Lord, how long? How long? How long are we going to be the garbage heap? How long are we going to take the offense and the attack and be made fools of before You come in as the Holy and True God, and You exercise righteous judgment?

Next time, we're going to take up that question. How long? How long, O, God, are you going to let us take it on the chin? And God comes in with His gentle, comforting hand, and says, "Yes, I know. The politicians are making fools of you. The educators are laughing at you. They're clarifying the values of your children to immorality. The entertainment world thumbs its nose at the Word of God. The economic world rides high on its capacity to take from producers and give to non-producers. Take note of everything that I have condemned in the Bible. I condemn inflation, but the governments sneer at the Word of God, and say, 'We'll do it anyhow.' I know that you sound like fools when you stand up and talk. The sophisticated get up, and they talk in a way that makes you sound like you're idiots, and most of the society agrees with them. So, you're a little minority. I know."

But the Lord comes and says, "Just wait a little while longer, and then you will see what I'm going to do."

There's the principle: the day is coming when we're going to find out who's right and who's wrong. Worse than that, we're going to see the consequences to the positions and the attitudes that we took. That's where the real rub will come.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1984

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