David: Death threats. In the mail, unsigned death threats, anonymous letters, but nerve-wracking nevertheless.

Karen: So why are we hearing about all these death threats? Often elected officials sort of vote counter to their caucus, and when they do that, they receive death threats. I don’t know if these are an anonymous voice over the phone or they come by way of letter, but they’re not only threatened, but their entire families are threatened, and sometimes there’s sexual innuendo about their wives or daughters that also get communicated. It’s scary.

David: Yeah, it is. Apart from the names of these people, we don’t personally know any of these members of Congress who have received death threats, but we empathize with what they’re going through. How we are processing our personal response to this news of death threats, well, that’s our topic for this visit.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go podcast featuring Dr. David Maines and his wife, noted author Karen Maines. Here’s David and Karen Maines.

David: Karen, I should add that with our podcast, we always have a two-week lag between when we podcast and when it’s aired, and news changes so quickly in terms of our world that this may seem like months ago these death threats came about, but we’re doing the best we can to stay on top of news as it unfolds.

Karen: Yeah, but it opened up a whole line of thinking for us that we had not ever pursued before.

David: Not for a podcast, but for us personally. For us personally.

Karen: Well, there’s one Illinois senator; he’s a young senator we’ve observed and watched him, and he stepped outside of his Republican caucus. This was during the vote on the impeachment, and he voted to impeach President Trump. Now we’re not talking about the political angle here at all, but we watched him make what for him was a moral decision, I believe. And you know, we need people in our world who function according to a moral base and have the courage then to act on that. And so we noticed him right away because he was from Illinois. He’s younger, he’s in his 30s, and he just got married to a beautiful young woman. So we’ve kind of kept our eye on him. And by the way, we have not ever received death threats. We’ve had people disagree with us, and we’ve had station managers when we were on the radio cancel our broadcast because they didn’t like something we were doing, but we’ve never personally had death threats. But hearing about it so much made us really begin to talk together about what the meaning of death threats could be in someone’s life.

David: Okay, I’ve tried to take us to scripture, so I’m going to go into the book of Acts, and I’m going to have you read because that gives me an opportunity to interject my thoughts as you read the scriptures, okay? This is toward the beginnings of the church.

Karen: This is Acts 12. It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. So we have a death threat right in here.

David: Yeah, and this is following death threats that weren’t that far back in terms of the church. John the Baptist is obviously beheaded, and you have Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who was stoned to death. Terrible way to die. Now Herod’s put James—Peter, James, and John, those are the big three in terms of the followers of Jesus—and one of them has already been killed, and Peter’s in prison. Go ahead.

Karen: Okay, when Herod saw that this pleased the Jews, that James, the brother of John, had been put to death with the sword, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that’s a Jewish festival. After arresting him, Herod put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. My goodness. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. So, Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

David: Well, let’s underline that word earnestly because they know this is a serious thing, and Peter knows that as well. You know, his life is in danger, so he’s nervous about this, obviously.

Karen: Now there’s this wonderful record, and it’s a very human record. As we work with these scriptures, we begin to see the humanity in it that sometimes we don’t hear in sermons. The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. So, he’s really under guard. And he’s all alone. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side. I love it.

David: Kind of the elbow in the gut.

Karen: Yeah, elbow in the gut. And woke him up quick. “Get up,” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.

David: This is a good dream. I like this.

Karen: Then the angel says to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals,” and Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him.

David: There’s an urgency, I think, that you’re not capturing.

Karen: Maybe not. “Come on, we got to get out of here.” Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening. Oh, don’t you love it! He thought it was a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. Now Peter thinks he’s having a vision or a dream.

David: Yeah, where did he go?

Karen: Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.” I love this next phrase. When this had dawned on him, standing in the street outside the prison, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. This is so classic.

David: Yeah, they’re serious, and then they’re deeply concerned.

Karen: Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl, so she’s a little kid, let’s say, named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so rejoiced. She ran back without opening it, and she exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” “You’re out of your mind!” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” They could believe it was his angel; they couldn’t believe it was Peter. How many of times have we done this ourselves? But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the brothers about this,” he said, and he left for another place.

David: Beautiful story, isn’t it? It’s an incredible story, and there’s a terror in all of this. I mean, life is in the balance, and obviously, you got James, and now Peter and John.

Karen: The truth is, I think that at that point in time, after all these other executions, they realized as Christians, they were all sort of living under a death threat. It wasn’t just the leaders; it could be any of them who proclaimed the name of Christ and held to that confession.

David: Yeah, well, very soon we’re also going to get the story of Paul, and obviously, the Apostle Paul’s life is under death threat all the time. So, it’s not something that was abnormal to the New Testament. The truth is, of the 12 Apostles, all of them except John, they were all martyred.

Karen: They were all martyred. Oh, my goodness, yeah.

David: And this is also the case in the Old Testament. As you begin to examine the major stories of the Old Testament, these people knew death threats all the time. Many of them were killed, the prophets. Jeremiah, they tried to kill him. They threw him in the cistern, and he’s down there, he’s going to starve to death; there’s no way to get out. Eventually, he’s rescued. Isaiah, the tradition is that Isaiah was literally sawn in half. Even stories like David. I mean, David, a huge part of his early life is all under death threat.

Karen: Right, from King Saul.

David: Esther. A big part of the Esther story is a death threat for all of the Hebrew people. Yeah, Nehemiah. Nehemiah is rebuilding the city, and the enemy says, “Okay, come and meet with us outside of the city.” “No way! I know what they’re intending to do.” Just these huge names, Daniel. You know, we talk about Daniel in the lion’s den, but that’s a death threat, “We’re going to put him to death.” Not only in terms of scripture, Karen, history.

Karen: History of the church.

David: You talk early years, you got Polycarp, and you just name the people. You get to the Reformation, you’re talking about the death threats to people like Luther.

Karen: He had to flee for his life.

David: It just goes all the way down through the years. One of our favorite movies, Karen, is The Mission.

Karen: Yeah. Oh, it’s a beautiful film. It is one of our favorite films. It’s set in South America, and the Spanish had come, the Catholic Church under the Spaniards who were occupying those countries, the Jesuits. And they had set up an ideal community where the nationals, the Native Americans there, had been Christianized. This is a beautiful community that’s been formed, and we have the story of one soldier played by Robert De Niro who has been converted. I mean, an extraordinary conversion. But the Portuguese take over that.

David: International relationships.

Karen: Portugal takes this land now, and they start slaughtering the Christians. So there’s a time when these people in the film, The Mission, the leaders, the priest—

David: Father Gabriel. Jeremy Irons plays that role.

Karen: And then the role that De Niro plays, who is a soldier, Mendoza. They each have a different approach to this encroachment, this danger. One is to fight, and the other is to go peaceably, marching behind the cross, hoping that they would be delivered. Well, they’re all slaughtered, but it’s an extraordinary picture of living under a death threat, and it personifies, I think, what has happened all over the world.

David: Yeah, of course, all of the scriptures lead to the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So, this is not something new to the church. So, what is the Lord saying to David and Karen? You know, as I heard this, all of a sudden, my whole being kind of said, “Wow.”

Karen: When you heard that members of our American Congress, because of their vote or position, had come under death threats, particularly this young Illinois Congressperson, then we started to think about this, and we began, as we have done on this podcast right now, to look at how many times death threats have been a part of the history of Christianity.

David: Yeah, so what does that mean to me? And do I just hear it as another news item, or do I begin—

Karen: To say, “Tsk, tsk, this is awful.”

David: Yeah, I have found, and I’m still in the processing aspect of all of this, but I’ve said, “Lord, I think you’re asking me to pray for these people.” So, I’m picking up names of people that I’ve not really heard or thought about that much. And now—

Karen: These are public figures.

David: They’re public figures who have taken a moral stand in their minds. The whole of who’s right or who’s wrong, none of that has to mean—

Karen: We’re not taking political positions here.

David: No, we’re just saying these are people who are trying to serve the country, and it’s put them into this bind. Now the question is, how do I respond to all of that? And the Lord has said to me, “You need to start praying for these people.” I have begun to do that, and I haven’t again tried to say, “How would I have responded?” I’m just saying these people responded in a way that was their conviction as to what should be done, and now they’re being threatened as far as their lives are concerned.

Karen: And my role is what I’ve heard you say: to intercede for them, to be faithful in my prayers for them, to hold them up before the Lord.

David: I began this in my own prayer life, and then I have drawn you into this, and we have come to the place where we say, “We need to write these people as well and just let them know that we are praying for them.” And now I’ve said, you know, “Yeah, they’re going to get stacks of letters.

Karen: “A thousand reasons why you shouldn’t write.” “Who is this guy?”

David: “Because I’ll work on it; it’ll probably take me half of my morning or half of my day even to write it. I’ll have to decide whether I write it by hand or whether I have it typed.” You know what I’m saying?

Karen: Have it typed. I have to read your writing.

David: Yeah, I’m believing that I will work like the Dickens on this letter, and when it’s all done, you will look at it and say, “Let me take a crack at it.” And you will start all over again. I think it’s eventually going to… it’s a funny thing in terms of Elias, Karen, of all of our grandchildren. Elias was—we have nine grandchildren—he’s kind of in the middle. When he was a little guy, I remember going to Dairy Queen with you and with him.

Karen: Oh, he was just a little guy, I don’t know, four, maybe three or four.

David: He ordered an ice cream cone. It was an ice cream, it was a Dairy Queen, it was a cone. But it melted. It was dripping there. So, you helped him, and you said, “Here, let me do—let me lick around the side,” you know. And finally, he looked at you, and he said, “This is my idea. You eat your ice cream, I’ll eat my ice cream.” So, I kind of feel that way about the letter. I’m going to do it. You write your letter.

Karen: Oh, I think that’s a good… I think that’s a good scheme. I’ll remember that.

David: Maybe they’ll end up with two letters. Anyway, it’s not a laughing subject, is it? It’s a very serious subject, and I’m happy to do that. And then I’ll say, “You know, they probably won’t even see it. Some aide is going to send them a form letter.” All that doesn’t matter. I’m not called on how people are going to respond to me. I just need to be obedient to that nudge. That’s well said. Then I need to be faithful in those prayers. I think that’s a very important thing, so I commit myself to that now. And I’m basically saying to people who listen to us, “I’m wrestling with this. Are you wrestling with this as well?” You know, where is this going? I feel, Karen, like I feel like old Samuel. You know, Samuel’s in his later years, and he can’t continue the pressures of all of what he’s been doing, and now the people have chosen, they want a king. They don’t want God in that position anymore. “We want to be like the other nations; we want a king.” Samuel knows that’s not a good thing, but they say, “Well, at least pray for us.” And Samuel says, “I don’t want it to be that I should sin in all of this and not pray for you.”

Karen: “It’s a sin against God and not to pray for you.” I think it’s really what the phrase is, “that I should sin against God by not praying for you.”

David: So, he will do that. What that’s going to mean for the other people, that’s their business. So, I’m kind of in the position of saying, if nobody else feels the way I feel, I still know that the Lord has laid this on my heart to be supportive in terms of prayer. And Karen, if something would happen to these people, I want to be able to say, “I was praying for them all along,” or otherwise say, “God, I’m so sorry. I said I would pray for them, and then I didn’t do it.”

Karen: I usually wake up about somewhere between 12:15 and 2:15, depending on what time I’ve gone to bed, and so I’ve begun to use this as a time for interceding for our nation. And the most beautiful thing has happened: I have been given a tenderness toward all the people in our government. It’s not up to me to judge their political position, but it is the same thing as for me to pray for them. But what I’ve been directed in praying is to say, “Lord, draw out of them in this crisis time, when there is a death threat, not just from individuals, but our whole nation is under the death threat of COVID-19.” So, we’re all feeling that life is tenuous, particularly at our age. If we came down with this disease, this COVID, we wouldn’t last. There’s no way that our bodies at our age would really get through it.

David: I think that’s probably true. No vaccines yet for us.

Karen: So, I feel like I’m praying, but my prayers are, “Lord, bring out a spiritual longing in their hearts.” You know, you often hear a congressperson, a person in public life say, “My parents were churchgoing people.” Let them now have impact in their lives. So, I’m praying that there will be a spiritual hunger that will begin to grow among our public figures. And because I’m praying this way, my ears are tuned. And I never have heard the Bible mentioned so much or quoted. I mean, the inauguration was, you’re just sort of hitting your head saying, “My goodness.”

David: I think in terms of members of the media.

Karen: Members of the media.

David: I’ve heard people say it’s like they went to a church service.

Karen: Well, they said that about the inauguration, but I’m finding many of them stepping out, whether they have a practical faith or not, but speaking about scripture, or “we’ve been taught a soft answer turn away wrath.” Well, that’s quoting, whether they know it or not.

David: The national news said the other day, “It’s like the Golden Rule. You treat other people the way you want them to treat you.” Where does that come from?

Karen: So that’s what I’m praying for, that there will be this articulation of faith, going back to the Old Testament, to the old paths, walking on the old paths, the truths we knew at another time in our life. That’s—and so it’s fun for me, a delight for me, to begin to see these—what maybe not my prayer is answered, but that hunger beginning to be manifested verbally in all kinds of people.

David: I have never struggled more with a sentence trying to get into a sentence what it is we’re trying to convey in terms of this program. This is the best I can do: “Hearing about death threats to members of Congress should prompt believers to be more active in their prayer support.” Say it again: “Hearing about death threats to members of Congress should prompt believers to be more active in their prayer support.”

Now, as soon as I say that sentence, that’s what got me started anyway. But I’m aware, Karen, now, it’s not just the members of Congress. Our vice president, a black woman. If any people know about death threats, it would be the black community in terms of this country, and I’m sure, as sure as I’m sitting here talking to you, that there have been death threats, and there will continue to be death threats in terms of our vice president. And then that’s just to immediately launch into saying, “I’m sure our past presidents, the present commander-in-chief, death threats are just probably a part of the nature of that office.” And I have to say, I’ve been hopelessly naive. If I just think in terms of the church, and I haven’t thought in terms of our political leaders, death threats are probably something they talk about a lot of times, not in public. But they talk about, and they live lives where they’re constantly in the public eye. And if people wanted to pick them off in some ways, I think that they just wait their time. And it’s happened; it’s a part of the history of the land. So yes, I think that there is a call to me that I’m hearing, saying, “I need to pray prayers of protection for these people.” It’s a very important part of your walk with the Lord.

Karen: So I don’t know what our listeners have been thinking about death threats, if they thought anything about it or not, but I’m going to challenge them to go before the Lord and say, “Are we supposed to be part of the team of intercessors who prays against the death threats through COVID-19 that’s facing our nation, but to those who are in public life, who are trying to serve their country with mixed motives, maybe, but that’s not for us to judge, and pray that God will protect them, that he will put his angels around them, just surround them and keep them safe?” That’s part of the role that we can do as far as serving our country.

David: We’re starting to explore it in new ways because we have been naive, and we’ve been immature, but we’re learning, and we’re growing. And I hope that that’s a part of where you are in your thoughts as well. It’s just something we wanted to say before we go.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address: hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters: hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2021 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois, 60187.