HOLY AND TRUE

In times of prosperity we sometimes address the Lord in words whose weight we have not fully measured. How lightly, for example, we can call Him ‘Lord’ yet refuse to submit every part of our lives to His authority. And is it not true that times of crisis bring forth the most intense and sincere prayer? Consider Peter’s ‘Lord, save me’, Matt. 14. 30; the prayer of Nehemiah, Neh. 2. 4; the prayer of the Lord Jesus in the garden, Luke 22. 42. The title ‘holy and true’ is ascribed to the God of heaven in a prayer that rises from the crucible of intense suffering. The prayer is short and heartfelt, the words full of meaning to those who utter them. The first half of the tribulation period is running its course, and those who confess the name of Christ are being slain. Heaven looks upon their martyrdom as a sacrifice, hence in verse 9, ‘I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain’. As the blood of ritual sacrifices was poured out beneath the brazen altar, Exod. 29. 12, so the blood of these saints is viewed by heaven. The full fury of Satan, channelled through the Beast and his godless system, is levelled at those who dare to show allegiance to Christ. Once again in its violent history since the murder of Abel, the earth becomes sodden with the blood of the saints of God. The call of the church to heaven at the Rapture marked a return to Old Testament conditions on earth, so this prayer of the martyrs, calling upon God the Sovereign Ruler for vengeance, is in keeping with the times and the spirit of the imprecatory psalms, Pss. 74; 79; 89; 94.

In diligently searching the Scriptures these saints have read, ‘Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries’, Deut. 32. 43. They believe the Scriptures and thus cry out ‘Until when?’ because the level of atrocity seems to demand divine retribution now. They appeal to the ‘holy and true’ because God’s inflexible holiness demands judgement, and being true to His own word demands vengeance. But when? The answer comes that there is to be yet a little season (the second half of the tribulation period) in which many more martyrs will be slain but, at the appointed time, vengeance will be exacted.