Tabernacle Keys Revival - Fire and Ice Ministries River of Life ...

THE GATE
A martyr is first a martyr in his heart before he dies in the body. What will it
be like for you, if one day you are in heaven and there is a young man is
sitting next to you named Titus? You ask him to tell you his story and he
says, “Sure, I had a difficult life. I grew up in Rome. My family all served Je­
sus. We heard of him through a man that was going door to door telling peo­
ple about Jesus. One of my neighbors was healed of tuberculosis as this
man prayed for him. It was a few years later that my mother was captured by
the Roman guards. The poured oil on her and I watched her be burned alive
on a wooden stake because Jesus was her God. When my father came
back home from business he heard the news and wept bitterly. The guards
came and took him away as well. I was forced to watch him be put in a coli­
seum and lions ate my dad. The guards then took me and beat me trying to
get me to renounce Jesus, but I couldn’t do that! He was everything to me. I
was then placed in that same coliseum the next day. I saw doors being
opened on every side. Lions came out of every door. I was never so afraid in
all my life. I died that day and was carried by angels to be with Jesus here.
Now that I have told you my story, what is yours?” Oh friend, we need to
have a story. Not all of us have the honor of dying for the gospel in the body
as a martyr, but we must have a story of totally selling out to Jesus. Some­
times it is harder to live for Jesus than to die for him. What the Lord is look­
ing for is obedience and death to self. We must be fully committed to him in
obedience to the call even if it costs us our lives. I heard a Middle Eastern
woman that is a pastor’s wife say, she was not afraid of the terrorists be­
cause they could only kill her once. I love that.
160,000 people where martyred in 1996 for the cause of Christ. Persecution
is rising with each year. How ready are the American Christians to this kind
of persecution? I would have to say many would abandon the faith if it came
down to their life. The eleven disciples all gave their lives for the gospel.
Andrew was killed in Greece on an X shaped cross feeling unworthy to die in
the same way as his Lord. Bartholomew died preaching in India. He died a
martyrs’ death being flayed alive with knives. James the elder was martyred
first. He was slain by Herod Agrippa having his head cut off. James the
lesser was crucified in Egypt. His body was cut into pieces. John the revela­
tor was spared from death by a chalice of poison someone gave him. He
died of natural causes on the Isle of Patmos. Jude was shot by arrows on
Mt. Ararat. Matthew became a missionary and disappeared during his la­
bors. Peter was killed crucified upside down, because he felt unworthy to die
as his Lord had died. Philip died by hanging. He requested that his body be
wrapped in papyrus and not fine linen, because he was not worthy for his
body to be treated as the Lord’s body was. Simon the zealot died on the
mission field as a martyr according to tradition. Also, according to tradition
Thomas was commissioned to build a palace for the king of India. He was
killed with a spear as a martyr.
Here is another story about Andrew. “When Andrew, through his diligent
preaching had brought many to the faith of Christ, Aegeas the governor
asked permission of the Roman senate to force all Christians to sacrifice to
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