Sunday service, Erlo Stegen, 28 February 2016
Colossians 3:1
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
The French Huguenots were fiercely persecuted in France, but they gave their blood for heaven, for the One who rules in heaven. Many a time they were placed before the choice to deny the faith for their freedom, but they refused.
Many Afrikaners are of the French Huguenots. They considered it the greatest privilege to die for the faith, but nowadays people are afraid of being mocked. They say that one should not be dogmatic about your faith, and that you are free to say and do what you want.
We must go back to the original church. Can one even compare today’s Christians with the calibre of the early Christians. One’s heart breaks when one looks at the children and grandchildren of the French Huguenots.
These Christians counted the cost and signed it with their own blood. They didn’t care, for they gave their lives for the One who gave His life for us.
Is that the life you’re living today, Afrikaners, in the footsteps of your ancestors?
One such preacher being martyred for his faith so faithfully bore the punishment, that the Catholic priest that urged him to recant, himself got converted and became a preacher of the Gospel.
Many observers have said that the persecution of the Protestants in France was the greatest mistake they’ve ever made. Those Christian martyrs weren’t even allowed to bury their dead, because the Catholics considered the cemeteries holy. The Protestants simply dug a hole in their own garden and would bury the corpse there, and then plant a tree in that spot to remember where the person was buried, and to prevent their enemies from finding the corpse again, because it was buried under the Cypress tree. Those Cypress trees there today carry a very important message for us today. The Cypress tree has an important symbolic meaning. These trees are always green. Till today in that southern area of France one can still see those green trees. We as Christians must also bear fruit in and out of season.
These trees are also perfectly straight, and become very tall, as if reaching into heaven. Death is not the end, but the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, and of hope for the future.
These people are the ancestors of many Afrikaners, but it’s a shame that many of their descendants today are fallen into smoking, drinking, and using drugs! It’s a terrible state today among many Afrikaners!
How do we compare today with those Christians? We know how God used even Paul’s handkerchief, and what the demons said of Paul (Acts 19:12; 19:11-20).
We read in Revelations 7:13-14, “13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
14 I answered, “Sir, you know.”
And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
May people drink of the Living Water from our lives. Woe to us if we do not take this to heart.
Translation
Choir