Sabbath-Sunday Reading: Please note...we will continue our Study on the National Sunday Law book next weekend. Dearest Brethren in the Faith our Dear Yehovah Elohym(Lord God), Im truly thankful to our God when I think of you all and how weve met, built up a relationship(or are just starting to build one up) and how weve affected/ are affecting each others lives to the Glory of our Dear God and Saviour. This week we are reading the first chapter of a Book that will become known to you as Cherishable. We will look at the Disciples of Christ from the first Century into the 17th that endured much trial and Tribulation and even stood fast and held to their faith come-what-may. This faithfulness is what our Dear Yehovah will expect to see in us when He comes back for us to take us to Heaven with Him. He wants to find Faith on the earth.....and very real and sincere Faith, tried by fire and yet shown to be immovable. By His Grace these Brethren stood fast to the end of their lives, and by that same Spirit of Grace have we all that have received Christ been given the Authority to not only have the Victory over this worlds ploys; but to be more than Conquerors through He that has loved us.Amen. I will add in Scriptures where the Spirit leads me to, to first off exhort YHWH in these writings, and secondly so that we can taste of their experience the more as the Spirit bears witness(Martyros) to the Word of God, and their Testimony of life and death- all for Christ.Amen. The Foxes Book of Martyrs The Persecution of the Early Christians Part 1 Christ our Saviour, in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, hearing the confession of Simon Peter, who, first of all others, openly acknowledged Him to be the Son of God; and perceiving the secret Hand[Deut.3:24] of His Father therein, called him (alluding to his name, Peter/Petros- little stone), upon which Rock (Petra:Granit rock, Jesus Christ Himself, 1Cor.3:11)upon which Rock He would build His Church so strong, that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. Matt.16. In which words three things are to be noted: First, that Christ will have a Church in this world. Secondly, that the same Church should be mightily impugned, not only by the world, but also by the uttermost strength and powers of all hell. And Thirdly, that the same Church, notwithstanding the uttermost of the devil and all his malice, should continue. Matt.24:13. Which Prophecy of Christ we see wonderfully to be verified, insomuh that the whoel course of the Church to this day may seem nothing else but a verifying of the said Prophecy. First, that Christ has set up a Church, needeth no declaration. Secondly, what forces of princes, kings, monarchs, governors, and rulers of this world, with their subjects, publicly and privately, with all their strength and cunning, have bent themselves against this Church! And Thirdly, how the said Church, all this nothwithstanding, hath yet edured and holden its own! What storms and tempests it hath overpast, wondrous it is to behold: for the more evident declaration whereof, I have addressed this present history, to the end, first, that the wonderful works of God in His Church might appear to His glory; also that, the continuance and proceedings of the Church, from time to time being set forth, more knowledge and experience may redound thereby, to the profit of the reader and edification of Christian faith. At the first preaching of Christ, and oming fo the Gospel, who who should rather have known and received Him than the Pharisees and Scribes of that people which had His Law? and yet who persecuted and rejected Him more than they themselves? What followed? They, in refusing Christ to be their King, and choosing rather to be subject unto Caesar, were by the said Caesar at length destroyed( in A.D. 70). The like example of Gods wrathful punishment is to be noted no less in the Romans themselves. For when Tiberius Caesar, having learnt by letters from Pontius Pilate of the doings of hist, of His miracles, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, and how He was received as God of many, himself moved with the belief of the same, did confer thereon with the whole Senate of Rome, and proposed to have Christ adored as God; they, not agreeing thereunto, refused Him, because that, contrary to the law of the Romans, He was consecrated(said they)for God, before the Senate of Rome had so decreed and approved Him. Thus, the vain senate (being contented with the Emperor to reign over them, and not contented with the meek King of Glory, the Son of God, to be their King)were scourged and entrapped for their unjust refusing, by the same way which they themselves did prefer. For as they preferred the Emperor, and rejected Christ, so the just permission of God did stir up theri won emperors against them in such sort, that the senators themselves were almost all destroyed, and the whole city most horribly afflicted for the space of almost three hundred years. For first the same Tiberius, who, for a great part of his reign, was a moderate and a tolerable prince, afterward was to them a sharp and heavy tyrant, who neither favoured his own Mother, nor spared his nephews nor the princes of the city, such as were his own Counsellors, of whom, being of the number of twenty, he left not past two or three alive. Suetonius reporteth him to be so stern of nature, and tyrranical, that in one day he recordeth twenty persons to be drawn to the place of execution. In whose reign through the just punishment of God, Pilate, under whom Christ was crucified, was apprehended and sent to Rome, deposed, then banished to the town of Vienne in Dauphiny, and at lengthe did slay himself. Agrippa the elder, also, by him was cast into prison, albeit afterward he was restored. After the death of Tiberius, succeeded Caligula, Claudius Nero and Domitius Nero; which three were likewise scourges to the Senate and the people of Rome. The first Commanded himself to be worshipped as god, and temples to be erected in his name, and used to sit in the temple among the gods, requiring his images to be set up in all temples, and also in the temple of Jerusalem; which caused great disturbance among the Jews, and then began the Abomination of Desolation spoken of in the Gospel( of Matthew 24 and in Daniel 11)to be set up in the holy place. [This ofcourse, was a prefigure of the AntiChrist who would inevitably put himself in the place of God in the latter end. 2Thess.2:1-13.] His cruelty of disposition, or else displeasure towards the Romans, was such that he wished all the people of Rome had but one neck, that he, at his pleasure, might destroy such a multitude. By this said Caligula, Herod Antipas, the murderer of John the Baptist and condemner of Christ, was condemned to perpetual banishment, where he died miserably. Caiaphas also, who wickedly sat upon Christ, was the same time removed from the high priests room, and Jonathan set in his place. The raging fierceness of this Caligula had not thus ceased, had not he been cut off by the hands of a tribune and other gentlemen, who slew him in the fourth year of his reign. After whose death were found in his closet two small books, one called the Sword, the other the Dagger: in which books contained the names of those senators and noblemen of Rome, whom he had purposed to put to death. Besides this Sword and Dagger, there was found also a coffer, wherein divers kinds of poisons were kept in glasses and vessels, for the purpose of destroying a wonderful number of people; which poisons, afterward being thrown into the sea, destroyed a number of fish. But that which this Caligula had only conceived, the same did the other two, which came after, bring to pass; namely Claudius Nero who reigned thirteen years with no little cruelty: but especially the third of these Neros, called Domitius Nero, who succeeding after Claudius, reigned fourteen years with such fury and tyranny that he slew the most part of senators and destroyed the whole order of knighthood in Rome. So prodigious a monster of nature was he (more like a beast, yea rather a devil more than a man), that he seemed to be born to the destruction of men. Such was his wretched cruelty, that he caused to be put to death his mother, his brother-in-law, his sister, his wife, and his instructors, Seneca and Lucan. Moreover, he commanded Rome to be set on fire in twelve places, and so continued it six days and seven nights in burning, while that he, to see the example how Troy burned, sang the verses of Homer. And to avoid the infamy thereof, he laid the fault upon the Christian men, and caused them to be persecuted. And so continued this miserable emperor till at last the senate, proclaiming him a public enemy unto mankind, condemned him to be drawn through the city, and to be whipped to death; for the fear whereof, he, flying the hands of his enemies, in the night fled to a manor of his servants in the country, where he was forced to slay himself, complaining that he had neither friend nor enemy left, that would do so much for him. Gal.6:7-8, 1Tim.1:6-10.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 10:34:47 +0000
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