The true disciple fears no one – but God.
“Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father hischild; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”
– Matthew 10.21, 22
Why look on these things with the eyes of your souls asleep? Why listen to such things with the ears of your senses dulled? Scatter, I beg you, the black shadowy fog of the faintness of your hearts, that you may see the radiant light of truth and humility. A Christian not middling but perfect, a priest not worthless but outstanding, a martyr not lazy but pre-eminent, says: “It is now that I am beginning to be a disciple of Christ.”
– Gildas, The Ruin of Britain, British, 6th century[1]
Gildas’ book was a scathing indictment of the Church in his native Britain. Pastors were spineless and worldly. The people lacked true piety or any real Gospel zeal. The whole Christian community had become badly compromised, and everything about life in 6th-century Britain was slumping into corruption and immorality.
Gildas had just quoted an excerpt from one of the letters of Ignatius, the second-century bishop of Antioch. Ignatius wrote letters to seven churches who sent messengers to greet and console him as he was being taken through Asia Minor to Rome for martyrdom.
In the excerpt Gildas quoted, Ignatius declared his resolve to face martyrdom in Rome as a badge of honor for the name of Christ. Ignatius did not fear death because he feared God and loved Him.
Ignatius represented a quality of Christian faith unknown to the comfortable and complacent pastors in Britain, concerning whom Gildas addressed his remarks. He called on all who read these words to throw off “the faintness of your hearts” so that they might “see the radiant light of truth and humility.”
All – including you and me.
It’s only when we’re willing to die for our faith, Gildas insisted, that we can truly say, “now…I am beginning to be a disciple of Christ.”
The Church in Britain and Europe had grown fat and lazy by the time the first Irish peregrini began showing up in their parishes, late in the 6th century. The Church was a ruin of its former glory, and had lost that martyr’s outlook that was willing, if it were necessary, to be hated by all for the sake of the Gospel. Those who came from Ireland proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom to the lapsed Christians and outright pagans of Europe were hated by those whose comfort they disturbed by their preaching and exemplary lives.
They were hated, but they were heard. Over the course of two centuries, those Irish missionary/monks prevailed to bring revival, renewal, and awakening to the ruined churches of Europe.
Are we willing to be hated for the sake of the Gospel?
We hear much talk these days about being mindful of the sensitivities of lost people, making our churches places where unbelievers can feel welcome and right at home, and toning down the rhetoric of our preaching so as not to offend anyone with our language of sin, repentance, and dying to self.
This is where the preachers in Gildas’ day had taken their stand. He questioned the faith of those ministers, insisting they were not true disciples of Christ if they were not willing, for the sake of the Gospel, to be hated by all men.
I wonder what he would say about us?
Read Gildas’ The Ruin of Britain and you’ll think you’re reading a contemporary report on the state of the Church in the West.
The true disciple loves the Gospel more than the approval of the world. Let the world – and perhaps even the “church” – hate us if it will, but let us not shrink back from living and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God to the people we meet each day.
Some will hate you; some will simply roll their eyes.
But some – perhaps only a few – will be eternally grateful to God that you cared enough to take the risk.
Psalm 57.9-11 (Faben – “Praise the Lord, Ye Heavens Adore Him”)
Praise and thanks among the nations I will sing with all my might!
For Your truth and love are stationed far above the highest height!
Be exalted o’er the heavens, let Your glory fill the earth!
To Your Name all praise be given, let all men proclaim Your worth!
Lord, use me as a ladder propped against the City of God, that many may find their way to You. Adapted from Dallán Forgaill, “Amra Choluimb Chille”
We can pray
Gildas had a powerful influence on those Irish peregrini. His counsel greatly inluenced Finnian of Clonard, one of the primary teachers of those early missionaries to Britain and Europe. I doubt Gildas envisioned his meager effort sparking a revival of world-changing proportions. Just as you and I might doubt our meager efforts could be used of God to bring about revival, renewal, and awakening in our day.
We can’t all write stunning books like Gildas did, or train men like Colum, Brendan, Comghall, and others.
But, more importantly, we can all pray. And our prayers should include daily supplications for revival, beginning in our own lives and churches and extending to every nation, tribe, and tongue. God calls us to “not keep silent” and to “give Him no rest” by praying persistently and intently for Him to make His Church a blessing in the earth once again (Is. 62.6, 7).
When we all arrive before the judgment seat of the Lord to give an account of how we invested His time (1 Cor. 3.9-15), will the Lord recognize you as one of those who heeded His call to pray for revival? It may not be fashionable these days to pray for revival, or to urge others to join you in doing so. But when was discipleship ever meant to be fashionable?
Our book Restore Us! can show you how to fulfill God’s call to pray for revival. It explains the need for such prayers, shows you how to begin and how to enlist others, and provides 12 psalms to guide you in specific prayers for revival. We are calling on The Ailbe Community to join the existing revival prayer groups and help us create hundreds more groups of men and women committed to joining together to pray for revival.
Order your copy of Restore Us! by clicking here. Read it reflectively. Start praying for revival in your own soul. Then order more copies. Give them to friends, and challenge them to join you in giving the Lord no rest until He revives His moribund churches once again.
A generation from now, when revival fires are sweeping and refining the world, will you be able to look back and rejoice that your prayers had some part in this?
T. M. Moore, Principal
tmmoore@ailbe.org
All Psalms for singing from The Ailbe Psalter. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1]Winterbottom, p. 59.
