Faithful Unto Death.

If Jesus is the resurrection and the Life, why does part of the church teach the fear of death so much in the West?

Revelation 2:10

“Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer (persecution, torture, suffering, martyrdom). Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested (refined, matured, to be a witness [martyr]), and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death (yes, literal death of the body… martyrdom), and I will give you the crown of life (for He is not the God of the dead, but of the Living).”

• Because our God is ‘not the God of the dead’ but ‘of the Living’, why do we fear death, or martyrdom so much? Because in the Western world, we have been taught so much about prosperity, goodness, comfort, supposed ‘freedoms’ and that ‘God is only love and never judges, corrects or refines His people’, we simply believe in things like a pretrib rapture where those ‘left behind’ will face horrific things (including the Jews, but not the Gentile church for some reason, which doesn’t sound antisemitic at all). And worse, that God is somehow ‘incapable’ of preserving the saints in the midst of persecution and torture… which is literally what He does all throughout the scriptures AND history even up to today.

• For those of us alive at the end of the age, the very real CHALLENGE will come to every single soul that professes the name of Jesus with their mouths and lives. They will be placed into the position to DENY JESUS or DIE. They will be seen as the ENEMY OF THE WORLD because they choose to stand with Jesus and the least of these His brethren (Matthew 25:31/46). We will be treated as the SCUM OF THE EARTH because we choose to stand with the KING of kings.

• At the end of the day, if you were to ever face imprisonment and torture for Jesus, even to the point of death, would you trust Him and remain faithful until your final breath? Jesus has asked other brothers and sisters to do this throughout history, and they did not demand that He ‘rapture’ them out of it. They experienced the same hardships as the early church, and the same feelings of desiring that it be ‘finished quickly’, while not expressing these griefs, but remaining faithful as commanded by their Lord and King.

• The same challenge is coming to each of us at the end of the age if we are alive, and at this point, we will need to know what Jesus actually means to us. Because if He is only worthy to follow in comfort, convenience, joy and happiness, then we will deny Him.

“They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony…”