Saint Telemachus

Saint Telemachus

The story of Telemachus comes to us from church history, first recorded by Bishop Theodoret of Syria in the early 5^th Century – contemporary with the incident.  His story has been told throughout the history of the Church, including being repeated in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and even told by President Reagan in 1984 during the National Day of Prayer.

Telemachus was one of the hermits of the early church.  Once Rome became a Christian empire and the persecutions ceased, many Christians felt the Church had become ‘watered down’.  Many of these people withdrew from society, wore distinctive old clothing, and spent their lives in solitude.

Living a life of self-deprival and contemplative prayer, Telemachus was little-known outside his own little group of hermits in Asia Minor.  During a season of prayer, he felt God strongly prompting him to leave his enclave and re-enter the world.  He did so, eventually traveling to Rome. 

In Rome, he saw something shocking to him, the games of the Gladiators.  Despite Rome being now a Christian empire, and having the godly Emperor Honorius on the throne, Rome still held these ancient, blood-thirsty games.  In these games, the combatants would fight to the death with a variety of weapons, to the great delight of the cheering, frenzied crowds.  Horrified that Christians would slaughter each other is such violent ways, Telemachus went to the stadium, entered the arena where two Gladiators had swords drawn on each other, and stepped between them and shouted, “Do not [return] God’s mercy in turning away the swords of your enemies by murdering each other!”  

Furious that their sport had been interrupted, the crown began shouting at him.  Many had stones they threw at him, and it is possible the gladiators struck him with their swords.  Either way, Telemachus died in the arena that day.  As the scene settled and the people realized what had happened, they realized by his dress that they had killed a man of God.  Foxe says that he “turned the hearts of the people: they saw the hideous aspects of the favorite vice to which they had blindly surrendered themselves.”  Some accounts have the crowd leaving the arena in silence and shame.  From that moment onward, the bloody games of the Coliseum were no more.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160306175629/http://prayerfoundation.org/favoritemonks/favorite_monks_telemachus_coliseum.htm

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/foxe/martyrs/files/fox103.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus

Elizabeth Dirks

Elizabeth Dirks – Martyr

Elizabeth Dirks grew up in a convent in East Friesland, in the Holy Roman Empire in the mid-1500s.  As a nun she learned to read, both in her native German and in Latin, and became a devout student of the Bible and, in reading it, she was convicted that her monastic lifestyle was not Scriptural.  Seeking to leave her convent, she switched clothes with a visiting milkmaid and walked out wearing that simple disguise.

Elizabeth became a follower of the Anabaptist Menno Simons – the man from whom the Mennonites take their name.  Her knowledge of the Scripture placed her in high esteem with this group of Believers.  Such was her familiarity with Simons that, when she was arrested by Catholic authorities in 1549, they initially thought she had married him.  As it was, they caught her with a Bible – that being the chief indication of her status.

At her interrogation, they initially tried to get her to take an oath.  To this she refused, saying that Christ commanded that her “Yes should mean yes, and her no should mean no.”   She was threatened with torture if she refused to name those whom she had taught.  She replied, “No, my Lords, do not press me on this point.  Ask me about my faith and I will answer you gladly.”

Moving away from naming names, they hoped to corner Elizabeth on her beliefs.  Her answers were full of Scripture, countering every argument they made against her.  She declared that church buildings were not the house of God, but our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  Asked if she were saved by baptism, she said, “All the water in the sea cannot save me.  All my salvation is in Christ, who has commanded me to love the Lord, my God, and my neighbor as myself.”  She insisted that only Christ has the authority to forgive sins, not priests.

Persisting in her refusal to name names, she was taken to the place of torture.  They placed screws on her thumbs and fingers until blood spurted from her fingernails.  She did not give up her friends, but cried aloud to Jesus for relief from her agony.  Next, they lifted her skirt to apply larger screws to crush her shins.  She pleaded that she had never allowed anyone to touch her body and the torturers promised to respect her.  Tightening the screws until her shin-bones were crushed, the torturers realized they would get nothing out of Elizabeth.  Rather than burn her at the stake, as was customary, they tied her in a bag and drowned her.

The testimony of Elizabeth Dirks shows great courage, determination, modesty, and faith.

https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1501-1600/elizabeth-dirks-drowned-as-anabaptist-11629978.html#google_vignette

Joseph Hart

Joseph Hart

Born to Godly, Calvinistic-minded parents, Joseph Hart was born in London in 1712.  His parents were well-to-do, and ensured he was educated in the classics.  He loved literature, and was often seen in his early life browsing bookstores, looking for volumes he had not yet read.  He went on to teach the Classics of literature.

At the age of 21, he began to have doubts about the state of his soul.  He tried fasting, self-deprivation, and strict observance of religious duties in order to gain favor with God.  This proved, ultimately, fruitless.  He then tried the opposite tack, frequenting taverns and theaters and associating with friends of low repute.  After several years he, in his own words, began to “sink deeper and deeper into conviction of my nature’s evil, the wickedness of my life, the shallowness of Christianity and the blindness of my devotion.”

At this time, the Methodist preachers John Wesley and George Whitfield were upending the nation with their evangelistic preaching.  Hart still called himself a Calvinist, and was doubly incensed with not only the Christian teaching, but that of the Methodists – decidedly not Calvinistic.  In 1741, after a very popular sermon of Wesley’s was published which declared his belief in the universal opportunity for redemption, Hart published his own book entitled ‘The Unreasonableness of Religion.”  In it, he argued that human reason expects that God would accept us on the basis of our own good works, while Christianity as taught by Wesley and Whitfield teaches that our acceptance before God is on the basis of work done by Another, freely given to a person without any basis of their own merit or worthiness. 

He even began to mock Christians, declaring that he was more faithful than they were since he sinned more, giving God even more opportunity to forgive him.  He later confessed, “I committed all [types of] uncleanness with greediness.”  While still a lover of and teacher of the classics of literature, the Bible remained off his reading list.

In 1751, he made the decision for sobriety.  Again, he saw his own action as being ‘good enough’ in the eyes of God.  In 1752, he married the daughter of a Baptist preacher.  Hart finally resumed his reading of the Scriptures, but still remained is his state of unbelief.  Two years later, a friend of his who had become converted under Whitfield’s preaching was asked to fill a pulpit at the London Tabernacle.  Hart attended, and later went back to hear Whitfield preach.  Whitfield’s preaching was searching and convicting and caused him distress.  Desperately, he cried out to God for some sort of conviction in his heart.  For five years, he struggled before eventually coming to faith at church on a Sunday in 1857.

Remembering his conversion he wrote, “I was hardly home when I felt myself melting away into a strange softness of affection, which made me fling myself on my knees before God.  My horrors were immediately dispelled, and such light and comfort flowed into my heart as no words can paint.”  He continued, “Tears ran streaming from my eyes.  I threw my soul willingly into my Savior’s hands; lay weeping at His feet, wholly resigned to His will, and only begging that I might, if He was graciously pleased to permit it, be of some service to His church and people.”  He was later asked to take a pulpit, a task he was eager to accept.

Joseph experienced trials in his life.  His oldest son suffered from sporadic fits of seizures.  Another son died at age 3. Later in life, his wife became ill and an invalid, requiring constant care.  God used these trials to mold and shape him.

He began writing hymns and verse.  His attitude toward suffering is captured thus:

Gold in the furnace tried

Ne’er loses aught but dross;

So is the Christian purified

And better’d by the Cross.

 

And when undergoing suffering…

 

If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress;

If cares distract, or fears dismay;

If guilt deject; if sin distress;

The remedy’s before thee, Pray!

 

Joseph Hart wrote many hymns which were often sung in his day.  One we will recall:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;

Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity love and pow’r

 

Chorus:

I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms;

In the arms of my dear Savior, O, there are ten thousand charms.

 

Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God’s free bounty glorify;

True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh.

 

Let not conscience make you linger, Nor of fitness fondly dream;

All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him.

 

Come, ye weary, heave laden, Lost and ruined by the fall;

If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all.

 

 

 

https://www.evangelical-times.org/joseph-hart-1712-1768/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Father Daniel Nash - mighty in prayer

Father Daniel Nash

Before there was a Billy Graham, or a Billy Sunday, or a D.L. Moody, there was Charles Finney.  Rev Finney is often credited as one of the chief catalysts of the Second Great Awakening in the United States, in the 1790s to the early 1800s.  He preached a Gospel of personal conversion and called out sin – often naming people by name.  He had a great ability in his preaching to show love while at the same time calling out specific sins.  His revival services were used by God to impact entire communities for the Gospel, and many thousands were led to Christ.

Enter Finney’s friend, Father Daniel Nash.  Father Nash was an Episcopal priest, 17 years older than Finney, who had been run out of his little parish.  Charles Finney was at a prayer meeting when he first heard Father Nash speak.  Nash was still broken from his rejection, but his eyes darted back and forth among the crowd as he spoke.  However, it struck Finney that, instead of preaching, Father Nash was actually praying.  Finney later wrote, “He was full of the power of prayer.”  The two met and they both strongly felt that God was leading them into an evangelistic ministry.  They agreed that their calling was to go to the places where there were few or no churches, and refused to reach out to established churches unless the churches first reached out to them.

Their established practice was like this.  They would pray about where God would lead them to preach next.  When they felt established about a place, Father Nash would quietly slip into town, rent a boarding-house or basement of a home or even a grove of trees, and find two or three people to covenant with him in prayer for God to move within the community.  Father Nash would pray with this small group, and Nash would send word to Finney when he felt impressed that the time was right, often 3 or 4 weeks later.  During the meetings, Nash and his recruited partners would remain fervent in prayer throughout the revival – and God blessed with great success.  One person wrote of Nash, “With all due credit to Mr. Finney for what was done, it was the praying men who held the ropes.  The tears they shed, the groans the uttered are written in the book of the chronicles of the things of God.”

In one New York town, after the revival, it was observed, “The whole community was stirred.  Religion was the topic of conversation in the house, in the shop, in the office and on the street.  Practically everyone in the city was converted.  The only theater in the city was converted into a livery stable, the only circus into a soap and candle factory, and the grog shops (bars and taverns) were closed.”

Finney was in awe of his friend and his prayer life.  He felt that the real work of the revival was done by Nash in prayer, bringing the Holy Spirit to fall on people.  At that point, he had little to do but point them to the Lamb of God.

Finney’s revivals led to an estimated 100,000 conversions.  Even more remarkably, it is estimated that 80% of those who professed faith were solid Christians, active in their churches many years later.  By way of comparison, the same number for D.L. Moody is estimated at about 50% and such revivals today trend at about a 20% rate of faithfulness to the Gospel over the course of their life.  What made Finney so unique?  He had a personal prayer warrior. 

In 1831, as Father Nash was on his deathbed, his main regret seemed to be that his pain made it difficult to focus on his prayer as he had done for so many years.  He was found dead in his room, with an open map, as he had been praying for the countries of the world.

Today, if you drive in upstate New York, almost to the Canadian border, in a neglected cemetery along a dusty road, you will find the grave of Father Daniel Nash.  It reads simply, “Daniel Nash, Laborer with Finney, Mighty in Prayer, Nov 17, 1775 – Dec 20, 1831.”

Less than six months after the death of his friend, Charles Finney left the evangelistic trail and accepted a pastorate in New York City, and later became the professor of Systematic Theology at the newly formed Oberlin College in Ohio.

https://www.hopefaithprayer.com/prayer-warrior-charles-finney/

https://dwoj.org/daniel-nash-the-great-charles-finneys-intercessor/

https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/daniel_nash_prince_of_prayer.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Grandison_Finney#Abolitionism

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel Lamb

Lin Xiangao (known in the West as Samuel Lamb) was raised as a believer, born the son of a Baptist pastor in 1924, in the mountains overlooking Macau, China.  Following in his father’s footsteps, he preached his first sermon at age 19, shortly before Mao Zedong’s full-scale persecution of the Church.  Lamb was first arrested in 1955, accused of being a counter-revolutionary. 

He served 18 months before his release, and was arrested a second time in 1958, this time sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.  He served his sentence in a coal mine, where his task was to couple coal cars together.  He worked underground in low light and in very hazardous conditions, and continued to teach as he was able.  Working like this killed or severely injured many men, but Lamb emerged from his sentence in 1979 unharmed.  His wife died a year before his release, but Samuel was not allowed to attend her funeral.  He said later that her death “was like an arrow from the Almighty, until I understood that God allows the pain, the loss, the torture; but we must grow through it.”

Lamb was targeted mainly for his refusal to merge his house church with the Three Self Patriotic Church (TSPC), the state-controlled church.  The TSPC forbade the teaching of the Gospel to children under 18 years of age, denied many fundamentals of the Christian faith such as the Virgin Birth and Christ’s literal, physical resurrection.  China’s control of the state church led to their teaching principals geared more toward government support rather than Christian beliefs.

In 1979, Lamb resettled in Guangzhou, where he began to teach English and converted many of his students to Christ.  He soon restarted his house church, which quickly grew and had to move to a much larger building.  The church continued to grow, and began to occupy multiple buildings and had meetings several times per week.  According to the Open Doors organization, his church was a conduit for many thousands of Bibles and other Christian literature smuggled in from the West – Open Doors numbered the pieces of literature at over 200,000.  Even so, he adamantly taught his congregation that they should submit to the authorities in all things, except for when doing so directly opposed the teachings of the Scripture.

Suffering was a frequent topic of Rev Lamb’s sermons.  “I can understand Job’s victories and Job’s defeats,” he often said.  “It taught me that grumbling does not help.  Not against God and not against those who persecuted me.”  He taught what he called the “Holy principle of persecution”, which was that persecution has only one outcome: more growth for the church.

His church was raided again in 1990.  Lamb was arrested and his congregants were admonished not to attend services any longer, but Lamb was released the next day.  Though many in the church were intimidated into not coming the following week, Lamb and a few brave souls met the following Sunday without incident.  Soon the church was larger than ever, numbering over 5,000 regular attendees. 

Even though his congregation was still illegal, Samuel Lamb’s church was not bothered again, up to his death in August, 2013, at the age of 88.  Even so, he was prepared for more suffering.  He kept a bag packed with a change of clothes, shoes, and a toothbrush – prepared in the event of his arrest so he could just pick it up and go.  At his death, over 30,000 people spontaneously crammed the streets of Guangzhou to pay him homage.

His church was raided again just before Christmas, 2018, as part of the Communist Party’s new crackdown on Christian worship.  Since 2016, the Communists have sought an ever-increasing dominance over everyday life.  The government has banned online sales of the Bible, burned crosses, demolished churches, and forced many places of worship to close.  Many church members have been instructed by the authorities to sign letters stating they no longer believe in Christianity.  The church has, in many cases, again been forced to move underground and meet in secret.  If Samuel Lamb’s “Holy principle of persecution” is to be believed, we should be excited for the long-term spiritual growth of the church in China.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/death-of-pastor-samuel-lamb-leaves-hole-in-the-chinese-church-says-open-doors-usa.html

https://www.christianpost.com/news/chinese-police-raid-childrens-bible-class-shut-down-underground-megachurch.html

https://www2.cbn.com/news/news/china-strikes-again-shuts-down-third-underground-church-weeks

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/december/china-churches-early-rain-rongguili-wang-yi-samuel-lamb.html

Mitsuo Fuchida

Mitsuo Fuchida was a Captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, who planned and led the initial wave of attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941.  His was the plane that sent the signal back to the Japanese fleet that the attack had been a complete surprise, “Tora! Tora! Tora!”  He remained over the target until the second wave had completed their mission.  Upon returning to his carrier, he found that his plane had 21 large flak holes and his main control wires were nearly severed.  The successful attack made him a national hero and he was granted a personal audience with Emperor Hirohito.

Later in the war, Fuchida led an air raid over Darwin, Australia, and led a carrier-based attack against the British Eastern Fleet Headquarters in Ceylon, a moment Prime Minister Churchill called “the most dangerous moment” of the war.

On June 4^th, 1942, Fuchida was on the bridge of the carrier Akagi, recovering from an emergency appendectomy, during the Battle of Midway.  He narrowly escaped death after American attacks, and during evacuation an explosion knocked him to the deck where he broke both ankles. 

He was assigned to the staff of Vice Admiral Kakuta, who was stationed in Guam.  Just prior to the American attack, he was recalled to Tokyo.  Had he remained there, he would have participated in the ritual suicide with Admiral Kakuta as defeat loomed.  Recalling this, he later mentioned to a reporter, “Again, the sword of death had missed me only by inches.”  He spent the rest of the war as a Staff Officer in Japan.

In early August, 1945, he was attending a military conference in Hiroshima when he was recalled to Tokyo for an intelligence briefing.  The day after he left, the world’s first nuclear weapon used in combat was dropped on Hiroshima.  Fuchida was assigned to lead a delegation to assess the damage.  All the members of his team died of radiation poisoning, but he showed no symptoms.  Decommissioned, and returning to his family farm after the war, he later recalled, “Life had no taste or meaning…I had missed death so many times and for what?  What did it all mean?”

Fuchida was compelled to testify at the war crimes trials, related to treatment of prisoners of war.  He felt the trials were a farce, and bitterly sought evidence to prove the Americans treated Japanese POWs just as badly.  It was in this quest that he was reunited with his former flight engineer, whom he had presumed to have died at Midway.  In speaking with his friend, he learned that rather than abuse and torture, he had been treated very humanely, and even with kindness.  His friend told him of a young American woman named Peggy Covell, who treated him and his fellow prisoners with kindness and dignity – even though Japanese soldiers had killed her missionary parents in the Philippines.  The code Fuchida knew not only permitted revenge, it demanded it.  This woman, however, instead offered compassion.  Fuchida became obsessed with finding out why anyone would treat their enemies with love and kindness.

In the fall of 1948, he was given a pamphlet which described the testimony of Jacob DeShazer, a Staff Sergeant participating in the Doolittle raid, who was captured and imprisoned by Japanese forces.  DeShazer, by this time a missionary to Japan, told of his imprisonment and torture by Japanese forces, and how this led to his own spiritual awakening while a POW.  This pamphlet led Fuchida, a practicing Buddhist, to acquire a Bible and read it.  In 1949, he became a Christian.  He wrote later, “Looking back, I can see now that the Lord had laid his hand on me so that I might serve him.”  DeShazer and Fuchida became close friends, even collaborating in some missions endeavors.

Fuchida wrote a book of his journey to faith, entitled “From Pearl Harbor to Calvary,” and spoke all over the United States and Asia as an evangelist, leading many to Christ.  He authored many books, some faith-based, some of his experiences in the war.  He was offered American citizenship, but declined.  He died in Japan in 1973.

 

https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/mitsuo-fuchida-christian-evangelist/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida#Postwar_activities

Betty Greene - Mission Pilot

Betty Greene – Missionary Pilot

Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Greene was born in Seattle in 1920 to a Christian family.  When she was seven years old, Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic.  A year later, Amelia Earhart made her famous flight.  Flying fascinated her, and when she was sixteen was given a sum of money from an uncle, she spent most of it on flying lessons.

Flying became a passion, as did service for Christ.  When she voiced these two passions to an elderly lady in her church she advised to combine the passions.  "Of course, dear," the woman said, "think of all the time — and sometimes lives — that could be saved if missionaries didn't have to spend weeks hacking their way through jungles."

This lady’s advice gave her direction for her life.  Betty returned to school to study for missions work and continued working to get her pilot’s license.  Interrupting this was World War II.  She signed up as one of about 1,100 WASPs (Woman’s Air Force Service Pilots).  Since women were not allowed on the front lines of combat, these WASPs took on the jobs of testing and ferrying planes from factories as needed – with the attitude of freeing men for combat roles.  She learned to fly all kinds of planes, from fighters to bombers to cargo aircraft.  She also served as a high-altitude test pilot and towed drone aircraft for live-fire anti-aircraft gunnery drills.

During wartime, she wrote a couple of articles for a Christian publication suggesting the benefits of the use of aircraft for missions work.  A Navy pilot named Jim Truxton contacted her and suggested a collaboration to begin an organization to serve missionary families when the war ended.  Betty and Jim, along with two colleagues, began the organization that was eventually called Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF).  Betty became the mission organization’s first paid employee.

Acquiring their first plane, a little red Waco biplane, Betty began flying in Mexico at age 25 to help Wycliffe Bible Translators with their remote jungle training camp.  Flying in to the dirt airstrip in that camp took her 1 hour and 45 minutes, while hacking through the jungle on foot took 10-14 days.

Bush flying was very hazardous.  Betty flew without a copilot or navigator, obviously without GPS or autopilot, and found her destination by tracing roads or natural landmarks below her.  Weather was unpredictable and weather forecasts unreliable.  Coupled with the unusual occurrence of a woman pilot in her early days – she was often mistaken for a stewardess on some flights – and the prejudice sometimes shown her, made her a true humble hero in her work.

Betty never married, despite having some romantic possibilities.  She felt her calling was incompatible with the burdens of marriage.  All told, she flew over 4,800 hours with a perfect safety record – and attributed that to God’s providence and gracious hand.  She knew many colleagues who were killed in the line of service.  She brought medical supplies and food to mission camps, ferried missionaries and their families to and from the field, and took the sick and injured to hospitals in critical times.  She served in 12 countries around the world, including Mexico, Peru, Africa, and Indonesia.  She was first woman to fly over the Andes Mountains in South America and was the first woman to land a plane in Sudan – the latter requiring a literal act of the (then-) Sudanese Parliament.

In 1962, Betty retired from field work and worked administrative duties for MAF – with occasional flying ventures.  She did this for many years, retiring to her hometown of Seattle in the latter years of her life.  She died there of Alzheimer’s disease in 1997. 

https://www.christianwoman.co/faith-heroes-betty-greene-the-pioneering-ministry-pilot/#:~:text=B%20etty%20Greene%20was%20a%20pioneer%20missionary%20pilot,and%20her%20brothers%20up%20in%20the%20Christian%20faith.

https://www.mnnonline.org/news/first-maf-pilot-honored-for-wartime-service/