The Full Measure

Revelation 6.11 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been. NIV

You know, the plain truth is, some are going to be killed for their faith and that is just the way it’s going to be. And the plain truth is their deaths, at the hands of men, for their faith, has been ordained since before the world was formed – nothing will stop it. And to me, the funny (in the weird sort of funny, not the haha) is that their deaths must occur before the end of all things comes. Future events hinge on their deaths. And what God says will happen will happen; His plan will not be thwarted or altered. It also captures my attention that there is a full number of those who will be martyred for their faith.

How I am to die is something I cannot control: it is already taken care of. Dying an earthly death is something that millions upon millions have already experienced and millions upon millions more will ultimately experience.

But to those in the verse above, they are reassured that their deaths were not in vain and others must experience martyrdom before the end comes. Sure, they ask: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (v 10) But they are assured that vengeance will come and the full measure of those who are to be martyred will be reached. Their martyrdom is necessary and foreordained.

Again, how I am to die is already established and I’m not to worry about that. What happens to me when I die is something I can influence by how I live in these days leading up to my death. Paul said, For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1.21 NIV) And so to live in a manner worthy of my calling is to live for the sake of the Lord Jesus, and when I die it is only to gain all of what and Who heaven has for me. Death is only the means by which I arrive there.

Think today about the dead in Christ and about those who died for their faith. Think about what their lives meant on earth and what their deaths mean in heaven. As I wrote this morning I thought about the famous speech that was given on a battlefield in Pennsylvania where hundreds and thousands of men fought and died for a cause that was greater than the sum of all their lives. I thought about the cause and Kingdom of Christ and how your life and mine are a part of those realities. I thought about what our lives mean on earth as we live for that cause and what our deaths in heaven will mean as a result of our living. Read the following in that light:

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of [Jesus Christ], shall not perish from the earth.”