January 1956, the Cover of Life Magazine highlighted the story of five young missionaries who were slaughtered in Ecuador. Four young students from Wheaton College and their pilot fell at the hands of the Auca Indians. These young missionaries were following the calling of their lives, carrying the Gospel to the indigenous tribes of South America. For their leader, Jim Elliot, he would die following the maxim of his life, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
The history of the church is replete with stories of men and women who have made a stand for God, for the cause of Christ. The disciples gave their lives one by one in the service of the Gospel. Some became Martyrs (Witnesses) for the faith.
In the first century Polycarp went to the stake refusing to recant his faith. Two centuries later Athanasius, then a deacon, stood for the faith even against what seemed to be the whole of the known world. (Athanasius Contra Mundum) In a dark and dank prison cell John Wycliffe wrote the first English Translation of the Bible. In defense of the word of God, Martin Luther went to the Diet of Worms proclaiming, “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. May God help me. Amen.” Luther along with other reformers staked their lives on the belief in the purity and the sanctity of the word of God.
Through the past two plus millennia believers have been fed to lions, killed in the coliseum, burned as human candles, tortured, and persecuted. Since the moment that Jesus proclaimed,” Upon this rock (on the proclamations of the faith) I will build my Church.” It has been necessary for believers to stand up in defense of the Gospel. Even today when we as a world have become so civilized, sarcasm only vaguely intended, people are giving their lives, being thrown into prison, and being disowned by their families because of Christ.
In the United States it’s different, in the US there is no one dying for their faith. There is no one going to prison for their faith. There is no one being thrown out of their homes because of Christ. In the United States, it is easy to be a Christian and yet we have the same mandate that every believer has. Stand up for your faith, stand up for Christ. Luke 12:8-9 “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” When was the last time that you told someone about Jesus? When did you defend your faith or even tell someone that you were a Christian? No one is asking you to forfeit your life, at least not yet. Jesus died for you; can you at least live for him?
Jim Elliot’s dream did not die with him. Though he never saw the fruit of his labor, Christ would be known among the Auca Indians of Ecuador. The logical thing would be for the families of the murdered missionaries to return home calling the experience a failure. The widows of the slain men stayed in Ecuador and ministered to the very people who had killed their husbands. Betty Elliot, wife of Jim Elliot, was able to see two of the men who murdered her husband as well as many of the Auca people come to Christ. She stood for Christ when many would have turned their back on this brutal tribe. Standing for God was just that important, and it still is.
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