What should we learn from Christian martyrs?

The martyrs have ever testified to wonderful, upholding, sustaining grace in the hour of their need.

Martyrdom is the supreme test of the Christian. From Stephen onward the record has been thrilling and abundantly full of proof that God is able to sustain and give holy triumph at the stake, or in the torture chambers of the Inquisition.

Man had not yet learnt the truth of the proverb, that "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." In the case of the first and the noblest of martyrs, the proverb was fully verified. But all these eighteen hundred years, men have been slow to learn, or believe, this plain historical fact. Persecution, generally speaking, has advanced the cause which it sought to repress. This will be found true in the main, under every form of opposition and persecution. Resistance, decision, and firmness are created by such treatment. True, timid minds may be driven to apostasy for a time by persecution; but how often have such, with the deepest repentance, and in order to regain their former position, endured with cheerfulness the keenest sufferings, and displayed in their last moments the greatest fortitude! But persecution, in one form or another, is to be expected by the followers of Jesus. They are exhorted to take up their cross daily and follow Him. It tests the sincerity of our faith, the purity of our motives, the strength of our affection for Christ, and the measure of our confidence in Him.

Read Hebrews 11 for a “cloud of witnesses,” or “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” for more. They loved not their lives unto the death. The truth of God and the honour of Christ were more to them than all beside. They were bold. We are compassed about by such a cloud!

So I must begin at once. I think that next to the Bible stories, which I never tire of listening to, the stories that interest me most are those mother tells me in the quiet hour on Sunday evenings before the lamps are lighted. Some of these stories are sad ones, for when she tells me about the Spanish martyrs, who laid down their lives rather than deny their Lord, her voice is very low and sad, and more than once I have seen by the firelight that tears were in her eyes; I felt ready to cry too, but she kissed away a tear that was just ready to fall, and said, "Do not weep, Mayken, but rather rejoice, as they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the Lord they loved; their sufferings were quickly over, but their reward is eternal." "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more . . . for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Rev. 7:16-17.)

And thus was a happy believer set free from the pain and sorrows of earth, to pass into the paradise of God. Fire was but the gate of entrance � the flame only snapped asunder the last link with earth. Our hearts go back with pity when we think of what those martyrs endured, yet let it also be with hearty thanks-giving. For, surely, we may truly thank God that He kept them "stedfast, unmoveable," as only divine power could. It is easy for us to say it now, but may we not also thank the Lord that men have been honoured to die for Him? Even face to face with death, many a martyr felt it a holy, happy privilege thus to shew to the world that Christ was dearer than life.

"The fires of Smithfield" bear to us even now an awful meaning, for we know that many a precious one was there committed to their mercy. But oh, to those who lived in those days, what a scene of dread and suffering would the very words present! Those who were faithful to God and His word, must often have trembled when the possibility of such a death came before their minds. Yet, when the moment arrived, the weakest believer found that an unchanging God was on his side. The calm peace, and even cheerfulness and joy, manifest in such circumstances, shewed that the source of all was not of earth. The apostle Paul wrote, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" and, quoting David's words, he adds, "For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Those early martyrs knew something of that condition, and yet they could have said with Paul, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us."

But there was another, and much more unexpected way in which the Apostle's imprisonment had turned to the furtherance of the Glad Tidings. I doubt not the great enemy had thought when he got Paul imprisoned, that then the less bold would fear to take a stand, or speak for Christ, in case it brought them like troubles. The exact opposite was the result. The Apostle writes: "And the most of the brothers in the Lord, being confident by my bonds, more abundantly dare to speak the Word fearlessly." (Verse 14). There is nothing stirs the hearts of true servants of Christ to fervour and boldness, like a fervent, fearless, bold servant of Christ, who is ready to suffer for his Master. How often have those who have witnessed the death of a martyr, become followers of the martyr, and of his Master! Indeed, the word "martyr" is merely the Greek word for a "witness." In suffering and death, many a martyr has borne a more powerful witness to Christ, than ever he could by his life. May it not have been the fervent, fearless martyr Stephen who was the first link in the chain that caused Paul to be the bold and fearless witness for Christ that he afterwards became.

Our Lord does not offer us an easy pathway down here: on the contrary he says: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, (say "No" to himself), and take up his cross, and follow Me." (Matt. 16:24). He says again, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (2 Tim. 3:12). And again: "Suffer evil along with the Glad Tidings." (2 Tim. 1:8: New Trans). It is not the sight of Christians living in ease and luxury that stirs the heart to follow Christ, to be confident, and to more abundantly dare speak the Word fearlessly: No, it is the fearless servant of Christ, who for Christ's sake is ready to suffer for the One he loves and follows, it is such a one who stirs my heart to go and do likewise. And this was the unexpected result of Paul's chain. Instead of one mouth to tell the Story, now "most of the brothers" are telling out the Glad Tidings.

The martyr too is buried by devout men, who without being as yet Christians, are penetrated with the sense of the mockery of all justice in his cruel death, and are thus brought into indignant opposition to the heads of their own nation. We may see in them how the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church, as after-generations have proved abundantly. Here too God is working: defeat is victory, and the dead are workers still. They have not failed, who have fertilized the soil of the gospel with their life-blood. The Church is scattered; and those who are thus sent abroad proclaim, with all the emphasis of their suffering undergone for Him, the value to them of the Christ to whom they testify. Who could bribe these tongues to silence, when the Spirit of glory and of God rested upon the confessors of His Name, the more endeared to them? How could the "glad tidings of the Word" find better evangelists?

Happy testimony to the power of the Spirit working in the heart! When this is so, everything becomes testimony to others. They see that there is in Christians a power of which they are ignorant, motives which they have not experienced, a joy which they may scoff at but which they do not possess; a conduct which strikes them, and which they admire, although they do not follow it; a patience which shows the impotence of the enemy in striving against a power that endures everything, and that rejoices in spite of all his efforts. What can we do with those who allow themselves to be killed without becoming less joyful, nay, whom it makes more so; who are above all our motives when left to themselves, and who, if oppressed, possess their souls in perfect joy in spite of all our opposition; and who are unconquered by torments, finding in these only an occasion for bearing a stronger testimony that Christians are beyond our power? At peace, life is all of it a testimony; death, even in torture, is still more so. Such is the Christian, where Christianity exists in its true power, in its normal condition according to God — the word (of the gospel) and the presence of the Spirit, reproduced in the life, in a world estranged from God.