Throughout this year, all of our path has been strewn with mercies, and we desire this morning to record, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits. Psalm 103:2 We thank you now in the retrospect for all the trials we have endured. Some of us have been brought very low with physical pain and mental weariness, and others have been sorely smitten with bereavement and losses and crosses and persecutions, but there is not one out of all of our trials which we could have afforded to have been without. Amen Daily Prayer: Charles Spurgeon
Jesus promised “not peace but a sword” Matthew 10:34, and ever since he uttered those words, committed Christians have been targeted relentlessly…crucified, burned at the stake, tortured on the rack, hunted in mountain passes, forests and caves, starved, beaten, brainwashed and tormented.
Only a devil could brew the consummate evil that has been meted-out to Christ’s humble disciples over the centuries, reaching a horrendous climax in our own bloody era. Is suffering a waste or can it be redemptive? How should Christians respond? Jesus said, “Love your enemies” Matthew 5:44 – but can you love the devil incarnate in another human being, evil personified?
I would like to propose that today’s Christians in repressive countries can provide a model for those of us in the free world.
Christians in the West often quote the text, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13, giving it a positive spin. But, in context, Paul had just said that he had learned to endure all things – humiliation, hunger, and want, as well as the satisfaction of his needs. Persecuted believers take Paul’s words as a promise that Christ will strengthen them to endure suffering, because they know a Christian can’t escape tribulation.
For example, I think of a young girl in our Romanian underground whose activities were discovered by the secret police. She had been guilty of secretly distributing Gospels and teaching children about Christ. To make her arrest as painful as possible, they decided to wait a few weeks for her wedding day. When she was dressed for the event every woman looks forward to, the police suddenly broke in. Anticipating their intentions, she held out her hands, which they handcuffed roughly, looked lovingly at her groom, then kissed the chains, saying, “I thank my heavenly Bridegroom for this jewel He has presented to me on my marriage day. I thank Him that I am worthy to suffer for him.” She was dragged off to prison, leaving behind weeping Christians and a weeping bridegroom. Five years later she was released, haggard, broken, looking 30 years older. She had remained faithful. Her bridegroom had waited for her.
A soviet prisoner who was mocked unmercifully said, “Many fear suffering: in the past, I too feared. But the presence of the Lord in jail has given me so many happy experiences that I would not have changed them for years of easy living in freedom.”
How impressive is the prayer of a woman in a Siberian camp: “O God, accept all my suffering, my tiredness, my humiliations, my tears, my nostalgia, my hunger, my suffering with the cold, all the bitterness accumulated in my soul… Dear Lord, have pity also on those who persecute and torture us day and night. Grant them, too, the divine grace of knowing the sweetness and happiness of your love.”
How do the persecuted view their torturers, who often take fiendish delight in inflicting maximum pain? Many are able to look at them with love, knowing that without Christ they are eternally lost. Believers exemplify what Jesus preached. “Love your enemies… pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you… Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Once when I was in prison, a pastor was thrown into our cell. He had been horribly beaten and was covered with blood. Some prisoners cursed the communists. Half dead, groaning in pain, he said, “Please don’t curse them. Be quiet! I want to pray for them.”
Do Christians ever resent their sufferings and blame God? I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit that there were moments of doubt and that under extreme pressures some became Judases. May God have mercy on their ravaged souls!
Once I was in the same cell with a man I had brought to Christ. He left behind a wife and six starving children. I asked him, “Have you any resentment toward me bringing you to Christ and for the fact that your family is in such misery?” His reply typifies the attitude of so many martyrs down through the centuries, “I have no words to express my thankfulness that you brought me to the wonderful Savior. I would not have it any other way.”
In Ukraine, the Christian, Terelva, was put in a psychiatric asylum. The sadistic psychiatrist, Bultevitch, told him, “The fact that you call yourself a Christian shows already you have a serious and irremediable sickness. Faith in God is mass psychosis, a kind of schizophrenia.”
But instead of brooding about his suffering, Terelva brought many officers of the secret police to Christ. They provided him with paper and pencil and smuggled out a whole notebook of his joyous poems, praising God.
“Out of the mire of suffering grows the lily of the joy in the Lord.”
Christ died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. 2 Corinthians 5:15
Richard Wurmbrand 1909-2001
After being trained in Marxism in Moscow, Richard was placed as a paid Communist leader and community organizer in his native Romania. However, in 1938 he converted to Christianity due to the witness of Christian Wolfkes, a Romanian Christian carpenter. Richard, Jewish by birth, was ordained as a Lutheran Minister. In 1944 the Soviet Union occupied Romania, in the first step to establishing the communist regime. At that time Richard began a ministry to Red Army soldiers. When the Communist government attempted to the control churches, Richard immediately began an “underground” ministry to his people. Richard stood up in a gathering of church leaders and denounced the Communist government’s control over the churches. As a result he was arrested on February 29, 1948. After years in prison, in 1965, he was ransomed out of prison for the sum of $10,000. After his release Richard moved to the U.S. where he started the global ministry: The Voice of the Martyrs.
All stories of persecution found at the end of each chapter were taken from The Voice of the Martyrs monthly magazine. To learn about Voice of the Martyrs go to vom.org.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! I n his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:3-7
Return to The Letter of James.