{"id":4946,"date":"2024-05-17T13:16:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T13:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/?p=4946"},"modified":"2024-05-17T13:16:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T13:16:50","slug":"cole-richards-their-blood-cries-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/cole-richards-their-blood-cries-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Their Blood Cries Out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Insights From Cole Richards, President Of The Voice Of The Martyrs, On Our Call to martyrdom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The following reflection is written by\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/bios\/cole-richards\"><strong>Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs<\/strong><\/a><\/strong>. In this insightful passage, he dives into the call to martyrdom every Christian has received from Christ.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Persecution has been part of the experience of serving and following God from the beginning of human history. Abel, the second human born into God\u2019s new creation, was killed for his faith and obedience by his brother Cain. In response, God told Cain that his brother\u2019s blood was \u201ccrying to me from the ground\u201d as a testimony against Cain\u2019s sin (Genesis 4:10). Only a perfect blood sacrifice could redeem the sin of mankind, and the writer of Hebrews points out that the blood of Christ declares a better testimony than that of the blood of Abel (12:24). Abel\u2019s blood cries out for justice and vengeance, whereas the blood of Christ cries out for forgiveness and redemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our Lord\u2019s death is the completed work of our salvation: \u201cIt is finished!\u201d (John 19:30). He bled to save us from our sins, and we cannot add anything to what he has done to set us free. However, we are called to sacrificially serve Christ and glorify God by bringing this message to everyone, everywhere \u2014 at any cost. Any sacrifice we make, including shedding our blood, will not add to Christ\u2019s work on the cross, but he has ordained that we must sometimes spill our blood to proclaim his message to a lost world.<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n\t<div class=\"wp-block-vom-subscribe-ad\">\r\n\t\t<figure>\r\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.persecution.com\/stories\/wp-content\/plugins\/vom-custom-block-subscribe-ad\/assets\/magazine-cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>\r\n\t\t<\/figure>\r\n\t\t<div class=\"text-button\">\r\n\t\t\t<p>Request your free magazine<\/p>\r\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/free-magazine\/?_source_code=VSTORYM1\" class=\"wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"Subscribe to our free magazine\">Subscribe<\/a>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\r\n\t\n\n\n<p>In his work Apologeticus (ca. A.D. 200), the early church leader and author Tertullian wrote, \u201cThe oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow: the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.\u201d This paints a powerful picture of reaping during a harvest. Persecutors cut us down as a harvester takes a sickle to grain, but our blood is seeding the church\u2019s future growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The word martyr has overwhelmingly taken on the meaning of its second biblical usage: those who have been killed for their faith and witness (note Revelation 6:9). But the word\u2019s first use in Scripture simply means \u201cwitness.\u201d Christ instructed his followers to be his witnesses (martyrs) \u201cto the end of the earth\u201d (Acts 1:8). We can synthesize the Scripture\u2019s teaching to understand that we are all called to be Christ\u2019s faithful witnesses and to pay any price necessary to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Christ\u2019s disciples, we are not extremists who seek death. Rather, we seek to faithfully obey Christ Jesus our Lord. We do not seek to die for him, but rather to serve him at any cost. We do so with the assurance that if we must suffer or even die, our blood will cry out as a witness to the blood he shed for us and for our persecutors. The martyrs in this magazine are precious to the Lord; they are a treasure to us who are inspired by their examples; and they are crucial to drawing the lost to Christ. Their blood cries out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Insights From Cole Richards, President Of The Voice Of The Martyrs, On Our Call to martyrdom The following reflection is written by\u00a0Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs. In this insightful passage, he dives into the call to martyrdom every Christian has received from Christ. Persecution has been part of the experience of serving and following God from the beginning of human history. Abel, the second human born into God\u2019s new creation, was killed for his faith and obedience by his brother Cain. In response, God told Cain that his brother\u2019s blood was \u201ccrying to me from the ground\u201d as a testimony against Cain\u2019s sin (Genesis 4:10). Only a perfect blood sacrifice could redeem the sin of mankind, and the writer of Hebrews points out that the blood of Christ declares a better testimony than that of the blood of Abel (12:24). Abel\u2019s blood cries out for justice and vengeance, whereas the blood of Christ cries out for forgiveness and redemption. Our Lord\u2019s death is the completed work of our salvation: \u201cIt is finished!\u201d (John 19:30). He bled to save us from our sins, and we cannot add anything to what he has done to set us free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[104],"class_list":["post-4946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-field-stories","tag-presidents-letter","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Their Blood Cries Out - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We can synthesize the Scripture\u2019s teaching to understand that we are all called to be Christ\u2019s faithful witnesses.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/cole-richards-their-blood-cries-out\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Their Blood Cries Out - 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