Martyrs

Jimmy Donaldson, also known online as MrBeast, has become a benevolent YouTube star for his provocative brand of philanthropy. He’s given away homes, cars, a private island, and lots and lots of cash. Usually, it comes with a dark twist: Once, he offered a man $10,000 a day for each day he was willing to live in a grocery store without leaving. In his most popular video, “$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!” 456 people competed in a game show inspired by the dystopian Netflix drama “Squid Game.” (In the Netflix show, down-and-out contestants play deadly versions of children’s games to win $38 million.)

In March of 2024 MrBeast announced “Beast Games,” and thousands of people jumped at the chance, posting on Reddit threads about the application process and waiting hopefully to be accepted. The prize: $5 million.

Familiar with MrBeast’s content and with the lengths to which those who appear in his videos must go in order to win, many expected outlandish and even potentially risky challenges.

During an intake process this year, several contestants told The New York Times that they had been asked whether they would be willing to be buried alive or travel to outer space. One contestant recalled being asked if she would be able to swim to shore if thrown overboard from a boat. “I understand that such activities may cause me death, illness, or serious bodily injury, including, but not limited to exhaustion, dehydration, overexertion, burns, and heat stroke,” read a line in a contract that applicants were required to sign. (Such language is commonplace in reality television contracts.)

In screenshots from a group chat, some of the contestants appeared unbothered by the experience. They had signed a contract that they were willing to die for this.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Martyrdom; Money, love of; Risk – Throughout history, many people have given their lives for causes they felt were noble and worthy. Others have risked their lives for personal gain or glory. The question is, what are you willing to give your life for?

From boyhood, Davy Lloyd dreamed of nothing else but dedicating his life to the orphanage his parents had operated in Haiti since 2000.

He had grown up in Haiti, spoke Creole before English and had helped his parents run their mission, which had grown into a bustling operation that educated 450 children, with 50 living on the compound in Lizon just north of Port-au-Prince.

“He had said from the time he was little that someday he was going to be a missionary in Haiti,” his father, David Lloyd Jr., recounted in a phone interview from Oklahoma. “He just knew that that’s where he was supposed to be his whole life, trying to make a difference in some people’s lives who needed a lot of help.”

So, when Davy and Natalie Lloyd, then Natalie Baker, married in June 2022, they decided to make a life together in Haiti—even as the country of 11 million was descending further into political dysfunction and gang violence. … That notion was shattered in May of 2024, when two gangs breached the compound in succession, killing the young couple, along with the Haitian director of the group, Jude Montis.

Davy Lloyd’s father said, “We felt that in our hearts that’s where we were supposed to be and what we were supposed to be doing with our lives. I just kind of felt that with us being there it gave the community some hope because we hadn’t cut and run.”

Before he met Jesus, Ravan worked as a paid assailant for the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organization in India. For seven years, Ravan relished his role as a hired thug. After the death of his father when Ravan was 15-years-old, he was ripe for the RSS’ recruitment to persecute Christians. The RSS trained him to find Christian farmers, beat them, and hand them over to police. Ravan says he felt powerful and happy for the sense of purpose, national pride, and camaraderie.

But the Lord was preparing his heart for a much deeper purpose. His mother, who had become a Christian years earlier, earnestly prayed for her son to meet Jesus. Ravan said, “Ever since I was small, I used to tell her to pray quietly. Sometimes I would wear headphones to drown out the sound of her praying.” But after a near-fatal motorcycle accident, his RSS friends abandoned him. His mother was the only person who stood by him. When his mother invited him to church, he balked, especially considering the suffering he had caused the Christian community. But the pastor surprised Ravan with gentleness and love.

Ravan soon trusted in Jesus, married a Christian woman, and together they planted a church. He said, “I saw how I had been in my old life and how I lived now. I felt a burden within me to do something in return for God.” Six months after his newfound faith in Christ, his former RSS friends started persecuting him.

Ravan expects more persecution in the future, but he also says,

There’s a lot of zeal within me that no matter what comes. We face a lot of persecution, but when I read the Bible and pray, I have experienced God speak to me. I have learned that persecution is a part of the Christian faith. But I am determined to never turn back from my ministry. God gave me new life, so it doesn’t matter even if I die.

Michael Nnadi was a Nigerian, whose face projected a nearly supernatural joy. Michael was one of 270 students studying at the Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna State. On the evening of January 8, 2020, his world was upended when an armed gang, disguised in military fatigues, breached the gate of the school. They snagged four seminarians, including Michael, and made their escape.

By the end of the month, three of the four boys had been freed, but not Michael. A few days later he was found dead, his body dumped on the side of a road, massacred by his kidnappers. Michael’s twin brother, Raphael, spoke to the Nigerian press the week he and his brother would have turned 19. He saluted the path of faith and service that his brother had selected. “Michael was so much committed and loved the things of God. … My consolation is that he did not die in vain, pursuing things of the world, but rather he died in the service to God, training for the [ministry].”

It remained a mystery why Michael had been killed while the others had been freed. The same negotiators had been working on behalf of all four abductees. Some Nigerians, as well as local and international authorities, thought that he may have been disposed of as a negotiating tool to increase the ransom for the others, but no one knew for sure—until April 30, 2020.

That’s the day the murderer, Mustapha Mohammed, was interviewed in prison by Nigeria’s newspaper. So why did Mustapha kill Michael? He openly and even brazenly told the press, “He did not allow me any peace; he just kept preaching to me his gospel. I did not like the confidence he displayed [in his faith], and I decided to send him to an early grave.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a sobering story about persecution. Sometimes Christians are persecuted because they have not acted very Christlike. But Jesus also said that we would be hated for his name’s sake. In other words, we would be persecuted for our very Christlikeness.

In the film Of Gods and Men, director Xavier Beauvois tells the story of a small group of mostly French monks living in Algeria during a time of civil unrest. These monks live a life of quiet fidelity dedicated to prayer and work in the rural part of the country near a small village. As part of their work, the monks run a small health clinic and also provide necessary physical supplies like clothing and shoes to the people in the village.

Early in the film, word reaches the monks that a group of Muslim radicals is on the move and will soon be in the town adjacent to the monastery. The monks will be in danger as soon as the radicals take the town. However, they are given a choice. Because the radicals have not yet arrived, there is time for the monks to leave the monastery and move to a more secure place.

In a pivotal scene, the monks speak with the members of the village, most of whom are Muslim, about the decision. One monk says that they are all like birds on the branch of a tree, uncertain whether or not to fly away or stay. A woman from the village corrects him. “You are the tree. We are the birds. If you leave, we will lose our footing.”

The monks make the brave decision to stay. The monks were later kidnapped and beheaded; their bodies were never found.

Philip Yancey writes about a 2019 visit to Beirut, Lebanon:

Christianity had its beginnings in this part of the world, and biblical reminders abound. Solomon purchased cedars of Lebanon to build his temple. To visit the refugee camps, we drove along the “Damascus Road,” near the site of the apostle Paul’s conversion.

Christians who work in Muslim countries speak of “MBBs” (Muslim Background Believers), their abbreviation for people raised Muslim who decide to become followers of Jesus. Some keep their new identity secret, continuing to faithfully attend the mosque. Others declare their new allegiance, which often leads to family shunning and sometimes violence. Local pastors tell of murder threats against converts. Or, a woman may have her children taken away, and be held in a kind of detention, forbidden to leave her house.

In one city, I visit a church service that includes many MBBs. The pastor says, “Please don’t take pictures. The danger to Muslim converts is real.” I ask, “Why do they take such a risk, if it’s so dangerous?”

The pastor replies, “There are two main reasons why they become Christians. Many have visions or dreams of a man in white beckoning them, and they then discover the man is Jesus. I hear this story over and over from converts. The second reason is simply love. Not so long ago this city was besieged by the Syrian army, bombed every day. Six thousand died, with many more injured. You can understand why not many volunteered to help at the Syrian camps right away.”

He leads me downstairs, to an underground parking lot:

“Once our church got to know the refugees, though, we felt compassion for them. They have lost everything, and live in a kind of limbo, people without a country. So we converted this indoor parking lot into a school that now educates 650 kids. Not all our neighbors approve—we’ve been to court many times. But Jesus' love wins.”

Recently Pastor Ronnie Floyd shared the moving story of Missionary Howard Borden on Fox News:

In the early 1900s, 16-year-old William Whiting Borden graduated from The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania—a prestigious boarding school known for sending its alumni to Princeton University. He was an heir to the Borden family mining fortune, and had a clear path to wealth and success set before him.

But before Borden began his Ivy League education at Yale University, his parents sent him on a yearlong trip around the world as a graduation present. Earlier in his life, Borden had come to Christ, and while traveling the world, something happened that no one expected: he was moved by the spiritual and physical needs of people around the world.

Borden wrote a letter to his parents and informed them he wanted to spend his life as a missionary. One of his friends remarked that becoming a missionary would be tantamount to throwing one's life away.

Upon his return, Borden went on to Yale and graduated. He then studied and graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary. When his ministry preparation was completed, he boarded a ship to Asia to serve among Muslims in China's Gansu province. Along the way, he stopped in Cairo to learn Arabic and study Islam. In Egypt, Borden contracted spinal meningitis. Less than a month later, he was dead. He was only 25 years old.

Borden had walked away from his fortune to take the gospel of Jesus to the nations of the world. Most regarded his death as a tragedy; however, God took the tragedy and did something far greater than Borden could ever do himself. When young men and women read Borden's story in the newspapers of America, it inspired them to leave all they had and give their lives to reach the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's rumored that at key points in his life, Borden wrote a series of phrases in his Bible. While he struggled with his desire to become a missionary against his father's heavy disapproval, he wrote: "No Reserves." Toward the end of his time in Yale, where he had started a Bible study attended by three-quarters of the school's student population, he wrote: "No retreats." And as he lay dying of spinal meningitis in Cairo, he wrote: "No regrets."

Possible Preaching Angles: At a surface level, his life and death may seem like an unfortunate mistake—some may even consider it a waste. But God had other plans. God used Borden's life and death to call thousands and thousands of young men and women to leave all they had and give their lives to reach the nations with the Gospel. God did greater things through Borden's story than he may have ever done with his life in China.

Mark Batterson tells of a modern day martyr in his book Chase the Lion:

With his hands tied behind his back, missionary J. W. Tucker was beaten and then with sixty of his Christian compatriots he was thrown into the crocodile-infested Bomokande River. It wasn't ISIS or Al-Qaeda who claimed responsibility. The attack took place on November 24, 1964, at the hands of Congolese rebels.

Our natural instinct is to feel sorry for Tucker, whose earthly life was seemingly cut short. But life can't be cut short when it lasts for all eternity. A holy empathy for his wife and children, who survived the terrorist attack, is biblically mandated. But heaven gained a hero, a hero in a long line of heroes who trace their genealogy back to the first Christian martyr, Stephen.

In the grand scheme of God's good, pleasing, and perfect will, eternal gain infinitely offsets earthly pain. God doesn't promise us happily ever after. He promises so much more than that—happily forever after.

It was that eternal perspective that inspired J. W. Tucker to risk his earthly life for the gospel. Tucker didn't fear death because he had already died to self. It wasn't an uncalculated risk that led J. W. Tucker into the Congo during a civil war. He counted the cost with his missionary friend Morris Plotts. Plotts tried to convince his friend not to go. "If you go in," he prophetically pleaded, "you won't come out." To which Tucker responded, "God didn't tell me I had to come out. He only told me I had to go in."

Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, once referenced what he called the "counter-intuitive phenomena of Jewish history"—a phenomena that applies to Christians as well. "When it was hard to be a Jew," Sacks wrote, "people stayed Jewish. When it was easy to be a Jew, people stopped being Jewish. Globally, this is the major Jewish problem of our time."

Geologist Dr. James Clark recounts visiting the Soviet Union a few years after Communism dissolved. He was asked to preach at a small Russian Baptist church that lived through a long season of persecution. Some in the congregation had been in prison because of their testimony in Christ. Others had husbands or relatives that had suffered or had even been killed for their faith. Dr. Clark decided to use the following geological illustration:

Clay is actually composed of many microscopic clay mineral crystals, which not even a light microscope can see. But under pressure the clay minerals are not crushed or made smaller. Rather, they grow larger. The minerals change into new larger biotype grains forming slate, found on many homes. With even more pressure, the minerals become even larger. And some are transformed into garnets, which are semi-precious gems.

Clark said:

I explained to the congregation that this geological process illustrates how pressure and suffering can be used to refine, purify, and mold a person into a more beautiful soul. I will never forget what I saw when I looked at the congregation. It seemed like the whole congregation was sparkling. The babushkas' (old women) eyes were gleaming bright with tears recalling past suffering. What makes a gem so attractive? It's the reflection. And these dear women and men were reflecting God's glory through the suffering they had endured.

The metamorphic rock story doesn't end there. With even more pressure applied, a new mineral forms called staurolite. The name is from two Greek words meaning "stone cross." The twin variety forms deep under high mountains in the shape of a cross. A reminder of Christ's ultimate suffering for us all.

In the nineteenth century, missionaries went to give the gospel to African cannibals. Some missionaries were eaten. When Bishop Hamington was devoured in Uganda, his two sons went to replace him. Eventually they baptized and gave communion to men who had digested their own father's flesh. These men told the sons that the bishop, while being led to his death, repeated unceasingly Jesus' words, "Love your enemies."

James Guthrie, the Covenanter, woke up in the condemned cell on the morning of his execution. His servant was weeping, and he said, "Stop that at once. This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." This is what Perpetua said when they took her out into the arena to be killed by the beasts: "This is my day of coronation."

Kim Duk-Soo will never forget November 20, 1950. That was the day Communist troops found him hiding with his father in a root cellar.

Kim, now the administrator of Presbyterian Hospital in Taegu, has difficulty telling his story. He is not alone. Hundreds of thousands of Christians made up the human wave escaping the North for the free South. And each has a similar story of deliverance from a regime opposed to religion.

"When we heard the soldiers coming, I was sure we would be killed," says Kim, his eyes filling with tears. "My Daddy told me we could not tell a lie to save our lives."

Kim's father had pastored the same church for 42 years. He had helped his wife hide their children by covering them with rice bags and dirt. But after two days of hiding, Kim uncovered himself. Just then, Communist troops approached the house. Kim and his father ran to the back yard and hid in the root cellar.

"I told God I would serve him all my life if I got out of the root cellar alive."

The soldiers found Kim and his father and took them off to a makeshift prison. They were to be executed the next morning. That evening, a captain approached Kim. "Are you a Christian?" he asked. For a fleeting moment, life for a lie seemed the only logical way to go. But the young boy remembered his father's instruction.

"I am a Christian," Kim said.

The captain drew closer, and whispered, "I am a Christian too. I used to be a Sunday school teacher before the war. You must escape tonight. I will help you." Kim fled that night, having to leave his father under heavy guard awaiting his eventual death.

The young Kim reached an American army base, and while "hanging around" there discovered an organ and began teaching himself to play. An American he remembers only as Captain Shoemaker learned of his musical interests and ordered a spinet from the States. For the next ten years, Kim played that organ for chapel services at the base.

It is Mother's Day at First Presbyterian in Taegu. "A Mighty Fortress" reverberates from 2,000 Korean voices. As he has done for 30 years, Kim plays the organ. "I should have been killed after the Communists found me, but God sent that Christian guard to help me escape. When I play the organ at church. I am doing it for God."

No man knows what he is living for until he knows what he'll die for.

Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means, whether I am visibly delivered or not, I will stick to my belief that God is love. There are some things only learned in a fiery furnace.

Clarence Jordan, author of the "Cotton Patch" New Testament translation and founder of the interracial Koinonia farm in Americus, Georgia, was getting a red-carpet tour of another minister's church. With pride the minister pointed to the rich, imported pews and luxurious decorations. As they stepped outside, darkness was falling, and a spotlight shone on a huge cross atop the steeple.

"That cross alone cost us ten thousand dollars," the minister said with a satisfied smile.

"You got cheated," said Jordan. "Times were when Christians could get them for free."

The example of noble deaths such as the Spartans and others hardly move us, for we do not see what good it is to us. But the example of the deaths of Christian martyrs move us, for they are our members, having a common bond with them, so that their devotion inspires us not only by their example, but because we should have the same. ...

The history of the church should more accurately be called the history of truth.

The greatest criticism of the Church today is that no one wants to persecute it: because there is nothing very much to persecute it about.

It is estimated that more people have been martyred for Christ in the past 50 years than in the church's first 300 years.