No Compromise
This is a very graphic testimony of the power of grace and perseverance in the midst of severe torture and persecution. In the year A. D. 290, three men, Tharacus, Probus, and Andronicus, were brought to prison before the tribunal, and questioned. While being tortures on the rack, they suffered beyond measure for the name of the Lord. By faith in Jesus Christ they were dreadfully tormented, questioned and finally put to death by being thrown alive to wild beast.
All these events occurred in Tarsus, which is the birthplace of Paul. Ancient Tarsus is located in what is modern day Turkey. Through it all, these men left a remarkable witness of God’s grace. All along they focused all glory on God.
The complete story can be found on page 146 in the Martyrs Mirror. A word of caution is needed--the torture described here is very gruesome. May the Lord use these painful testimonies to crack through our modern day, pampered lives and prepare our hearts with a non-compromising devotion to Him May we be ready if we are called on to witness for our Lord Jesus Christ as they were.
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Parenthood A Sacred Trust
Selected from a 1905 writing by Ella Kellog
Revised and edited by Rachel Weaver
Part I
No occupation, profession or mission in life is of so great importance, no privilege so high and holy, no calling so full of wonderful possibilities as that of parenthood. We are entrusted, in a great measure, with the working out of God’s ideal for each child in our family. To the extent that this trust is fulfilled, these individual characters shall be rounded out in fullness of noble man- or womanhood, or dwarfed by neglect and deformed by sin.
It is a blessed privilege to give a careful start to the little pilgrim just entering upon life’s journey, and to develop with reverent care the image planted there by God, the Creator. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to so accustom the child to a pure and holy atmosphere that he cannot breathe freely in any other. If we neglect these very impressionable first years of our child’s life and let them slip by unimproved, no matter how hard we work in later years, the result will never be as perfect as it might have been if we had carefully trained them early in precept and principle.
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Dying and Resurrecting with Christ
Just as no living man can be buried with a dead man, so no one who is still living to sin can be buried together in baptism with Christ, who has died to sin. Therefore, those who are hastening to baptism ought to take care as a matter of first importance that they should first die to sin. And in this way, they can be buried with Christ through baptism, so they might say, “Always carrying around the death of Jesus Christ in our body so that the life of Jesus Christ might be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
Now the manner in which the life of Jesus Christ is manifested in the body, Paul himself makes known when he says, “But no longer do I live, but Christ lives in me.” This is the same thing the apostle John also writes in his epistle when he says, “Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Surely in that passage it is not the one who shall have spoken these syllables and pronounced them in this common confession that shall seem to be led by the Spirit of God, but the one who has fashioned his life in such a way and has produced the fruit of good works, such that he has demonstrated by the very devotion of his own works and thoughts that Christ has come in the flesh and that he is dead to sin and alive to God.
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