Thousands of Heart-Rending Stories

Thousands of heart-rending stories about persecution exist and untold thousands are known only to heaven. Here are just a few, given in chronological order:

¢ Stephen, the first martyr—Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their
ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him.
And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. (Acts

757-58)

1 < www.persecution.org >

« The Apostles. According to ancient traditions .. .

© James the son of Zebedee was beheaded in Jerusalem, the first of the apostles to die, during the Easter season in about the year A.D. 44.

© Matthew was slain with the sword in a city in Ethiopia.

© Mark was dragged through the streets of Alexandria until he expired.

© Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece.

© James the Less was thrown from a pinnacle or wing of the temple.

0 Philip was hanged up against a pillar in Phrygia.

© Bartholomew was flayed alive.

© Andrew was scourged then tied to a cross where he preached to the people for two days before dying.

© Jude was shot to death with arrows.

© Thomas was run through the body with a lance.

2 Simon Zelotes was crucified.

° Peter was crucified upside down.

0 Matthias was stoned and beheaded.

© John was exiled to the penal island of Patmos and later became the only apostle to die a natural death.

¢ Polycarp—On February 23, c. 155, a Roman military officer publicly demanded that Polycarp, disciple of the apostle John and the aged pastor of Smyrna, renounce Christ. The old pastor’s famous reply has echoed through history: “Eighty and six years have I served him and he has done me no wrong. Can I revile my King that saved me?’

“Tl throw you to the beasts!” shouted the Roman. Polycarp told him to
bring them on. ““Then I’l] have you burned,” the man warned. Polycarp replied,
“You try to frighten me with fire that burns for an hour and you forget the
fire of hell that never goes out.” An hour later his body was ashes, his soul

with Christ.

¢ David Hackston, Scottish Covenanter, preached the Gospel openly, though
warned against it by the Scottish authorities who eventually dragged him to
the scaffold. There they hacked off his hands with an axe, pulled him into the
air by a rope around his neck, dropped him gasping back onto the platform.
Then, while he was still living, they sliced open his chest with a knife and cut
out his heart. The executioner picked up the heart on the point of his knife
and held it up to show the people. Witnesses claimed that it was still fluttering
on the point of the knife.

¢ Obadiah Holmes—Visitors to America’s Boston Commons with its graceful
swan boats might be surprised to learn what once happened there to Obadiah
Holmes. In 1651, Holmes was arrested for preaching Baptist doctrine in nearby
Lynn, Massachusetts. He was taken to Boston Commons, stripped to the
waist, and tied to a whipping post. He later wrote: As the man began to lay the
strokes upon my back, I said to the people, Though my flesh should fail, yet God would
not fail. So it pleased the Lord to come in and fill my heart and tongue, and with an
audible voice I broke forth praying unto the Lord not to lay this sin to their charge. The
suffering wasn’t wasted. The whipping of Obadiah Holmes deeply impacted

164. VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS/PERSECUTION

Henry Dunster, president of Harvard, and led to the organization of Boston’s first Baptist church.

¢ Gideon Akaluka—lIn late December 1994, a Nigerian Christian named Gid-

eon Akaluka was accused of desecrating the Koran by using its pages as toilet paper. Although the local court found no evidence to convict him, they detained him anyway—for “security purposes.’ He was imprisoned in Bompai, in the northern city of Kano. On December 26, the guards at the prison were overpowered by Muslim fanatics, seeking vengeance for Akaluka’s alleged blasphemy. The mob forced its way into the prison and dragged Akaluka out of his cell. As the prison guards watched helplessly, the terronsts beheaded him. After hoisting his severed head on a spike, they paraded it around town, ending their march at the residence of the emir, the local Islamic spiritual leader.”

¢ Roy Pontoh, fifteen, was among one hundred fifty members of Bethel Church
in Indonesia attending a retreat on January 20, 1999, when a Muslim mob
attacked. Roy was asked, “‘Are you a Christan?” Armed only with his Bible,
the teenager proudly replied, “I am a soldier of Christ.” The attacker then cut
Roy’s hand with a sword and asked again, ‘“‘Are you a Christian?” Once again,
young Roy bravely replied, “I ama soldier of Christ.” Angrily, the Muslim
attacker stabbed Roy in the stomach and killed him.’

« Cassie Bernall, seventeen, was in the library at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, studying the Bible as she did every day
at lunch, when she heard shooting erupt. As the gunman entered the room,
Cassie reportedly knelt and prayed which angered the attacker. He approached
her, asked her sarcastically if she believed in God. She paused, then said one
word: “Yes.” The gunman asked her ‘‘Why?” but Cassie had no time to answer
before she was shot to death. Cassie, who had been a Christian for two years,
was known for carrying her Bible to school every day and wearing a “What
Would Jesus Do?” bracelet. Three days before the shooting, she had skipped
her prom to help with a Denver Area Youth For Christ banquet.

‘‘She is a martyr, the best martyr,” Pastor George Knisten told two thousand mourners at the memorial service. “Cassie died a martyr’s death. She went to the martyr’s hall of fame.” And at that service over seventy-five kids made first-time commitments to Christ.