Tuesday night thoughts I think

Does anyone else notice that commercials are getting really dumb. They seem to treat the viewer as if they are of low intelligence and still in freshman year of high school. It is a pattern that has caught my attention way too many times lately. Fluoride in water was used by the Germans to subdue and lower the mental ability of captives. Most of our drinking and bathing water is fluoridated. Perhaps they think it is working. Could they be trying to form a "consensus reality," programing us to dumb down into a more easily managed society? The carefully structured, artificial, society being presented in commercials lets us know that all is right with the world. Not! Forces are at work.

 Here is what I think about this website which is currently being passed around in e~mail by Christians. My mind immediately bypasses what is being projected and looks at Biblical realities in comparison. I think to myself that this is nothing new at all. Why be in "Wake Up Call" mode? I mean even Jesus stated, "that if they hated me they will also hate you," a few thousand years ago.

Let's take a closer look...


The martyrdom of thousands in the first three centuries of the church who were willing to face death rather than burn incense to Caesar or a pagan idol, is the strongest evidence for the truth of the claims of the New Testament. Men who had recently been afraid to be seen with Jesus when He hung on a cross on Golgotha were willing to bet their very lives on the conviction that He was raised from the dead and that His victory had procured their own hope for life beyond death.


And they had it truly bad. Look what they went through in the book of Acts.


The success of the church in its first generation, having established congregations from Ethiopia in Africa to India in Asia, and to Rome, Gaul, and Britain in Europe, unfortunately led others to persecute Christians. Some early Christians escaped the persecutions recorded in Acts with the martyrdom of Stephen and the scattering of the Jerusalem flock, only to find themselves persecuted in the pagan Roman empire.


The people of the Roman empire initially thought this new Jewish sect curious, then bizarre, then fair game for use in sports spectacles in their coliseums , and finally, a threat, as their growth in numbers and unflagging loyalty to Christ made Jesus more beloved and worshiped by more people than the current Caesar.


James the son of Zebedee, the elder brother of John was martyred ten years after the death of Stephen. Herod Agrippa, as governor of Judea raised a sharp persecution against the Christians by striking at their leaders.


Philip suffered martyrdom at Heliopolis, in Phrygia. He was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified, a.d. 54.

Matthew was martyred in Ethiopia, “slain with a halberd in the city of Nadabah, a.d. 60. (A halberd is an ax with a long pointed spike.}


James, the Lord's brother and bishop of the church in Jerusalem, “at the age of ninety four was beaten and stoned...finally had his brains dashed out.”


Matthias, elected to succeed Judas Iscariot, “was stoned at Jerusalem and beheaded.”


Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, “on his arrival at Edessa, was taken and crucified on a cross, the two ends of which were fixed transversely in the ground. Hence the derivation of the term, “St. Andrew's Cross.”


Mark, companion of Peter and author of the gospel bearing his name, “was dragged to pieces by the people of Alexandria...ending his life.


Peter, bishop of Rome, was crucified upside down, because he thought he was unworthy to be crucified in the same way as the Lord.


Paul died at the hands of Nero's soldiers, who, “came and led him out of the city to the place of execution, where he, after making his prayers, gave his neck to the sword.


Jude, author of the epistle bearing his name and “brother of James, and commonly called Thaddeus, was crucified at Edessa, a.d. 72.


Bartholomew, said to have translated the gospel of Matthew into an Indian language and preached it there, was “cruelly beaten and then crucified.”


Thomas, the twin famous for doubting Jesus' resurrection, “preached the gospel in Parthia and India, where exciting the rage of the pagan priests, he was martyred by being thrust through with a spear.”


Luke, author of the gospel bearing his name and of Acts, “is supposed to have been hanged on an olive tree, by idolatrous priests of Greece.”


Simon “Zelotes, preached the gospel in Mauritania, Africa, and even in Britian, in which latter country he was crucified, a.d. 74.”


John was cast into a cauldron of boiling hot oil, but miraculously escaped without injury. He was the only apostle who escaped a violent death.
 
The death of Barnabus, one of the seventy, companion of Paul, “is supposed to have taken place about a.d. 73.”


There were ten waves of persecution in Imperial Rome. It increased the “spirit of Christianity.” The church of the Imperial era considered the martyrs to be instant saints, inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven by virtue of earning the martyr's crown.


So in conclusion there is nothing new under the sun, if they hate Jesus they will also hate you.

John 15:18

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

 

 1 John 3:13

Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.