The Christian Digest [#4] Presents IS LIFE SO DEAR?--When Being Wrong Is Right!
From the book by Brother Andrew
(New York: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985)
(Brother Andrew is an evangelist in lands where being a Christian is dangerous. He is the founder and president of Open Doors, a ministry to those who live in countries that do not allow freedom of worship or witness. His book "God's Smuggler" was an international bestseller, with over 10 million copies in print. Open Doors with Brother Andrew has branches in Australia, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Canada, and the United States.)
PREFACE
I dedicate this book to those Christians who throughout history have wound up on the wrong side of the law. Literally untold thousands of Christians have been arrested, imprisoned, tortured, deprived of possessions, or executed for their witness. The vast majority of them were not being punished for having done something against God--for having broken His law. Most had only broken the law of some human government.
The fact is, Christians can in all righteousness break certain laws. Otherwise, how did so many of our heroes of the faith wind up in prison? The list of martyrs beginning with Hebrews 11 has an appendix to it that extends through all the apostles; many of the church fathers; great men like William Tyndale, who made the Bible available to us; and John Bunyan, who gave us the powerful and deeply spiritual work, Pilgrim's Progress. It extends through missionary pioneers like Adoniram Judson, and modern leaders today who dare to put God first.
Why were there believers in prison at the time the New Testament was being written? And why have Christians been imprisoned throughout the history of the church until this very day? Because these believers decided to obey God rather than Man. They decided they would obey the laws of their countries only up to the point at which those laws transgressed the Will of God.
Most Christians suffering today really are keeping God's law! And the church itself is now living in a time in which we may all have to break the law in order to continue to worship and obey God. In fact, we may have to break the law of Man and of governments in order to keep the law of God.
I was deeply moved when I first read the words of Patrick Henry, the American Revolutionary War hero, who said, "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"
He was calling for political revolution. We call for a revolution of love. We need to know that spirit of uncompromising obedience that will say, "We hold not our lives dear unto death!"
OUR ORDERS ARE CLEAR
Imagine that you are a soldier. Your commanding officer has ordered you to invade enemy-held territory, and you plan your attack to catch the opposition off guard by striking when and where he least expects it. But as you move forward, you discover that his fortifications are well-constructed. What's worse, he has somehow learned of your plan, because, suddenly, guns open fire and you are blasted into retreat.
When you report back to headquarters your commanding officer asks: "Well, did you capture that position?" "No, sir," you reply. "The enemy won't let me."
Do you think you could get away with that answer? That isn't what warfare is all about. When a soldier receives an order, he is bound by his oath of allegiance to fight to the death to fulfil it. He won't let himself be stopped simply because the enemy is entrenched and armed to resist! He knows that before he starts on his mission. His commander knows it too. That obstruction must be overcome if the battle is to be won!
Exactly the same principle of allegiance and obedience applies to spiritual warfare where we may have to disobey civil authorities in order to obey the Lord's command. Yet a lot of Christian soldiers seem to be saying to their Commander, "We can't advance because the enemy disapproves of our objectives and is not willing to let us succeed."
Isn't that ridiculous! Of course the Devil disapproves; that's what makes him an enemy. Of course he fights against the Lord's army; that's what an enemy does! Why then are so many Christians amazed, even immobilised, by the least sign of resistance to the Gospel?
The most basic principle for any Christian work is this: The Lord Jesus Christ, Who crushed Satan and conquered death, commands us to invade this enemy-occupied World and reclaim it for God. We march under His exclusive authority. We make no deals with the foe. No compromises with evil authority. No concessions to godless governments. And no excuses to anybody.
What's more, the Lord has given His assurance that Hell's own gates will not hold up against the ultimate advance of Christ's church. The Devil's maneuvers and power-plays are just his last-ditch resistance to the overwhelming forces of the Lord.
Just days after He had died on the cross, Jesus faced the disciples. It was the day of His ascension, the day on which He was going to take His rightful place on the throne of God. He had something astounding to say to them, the most important statement ever made in this World. He was going to send them into enemy territory!
He knew, as no one else could, that the Devil, the prince of this World, would do everything he could to stop believers from spreading the Gospel of Christ--because that message would reclaim men from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light.
Thus, Jesus sounded a battle cry. He made the breathtaking statement: "All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me" (Mat.28:18).
By this assertion of authority, Jesus defined the battlefield for us and set the goals of spiritual conflict. He has sent His followers into enemy territory to claim people who are held in sin by Satan, behind whatever barrier--whether it be cultural, linguistic, or even governmental.
We must act! And if we are arrested, we must remember that interrogation is an excellent way of communicating new ideas! A Christian can clearly present the message of Christ in his responses. But we have to face the fact that the governments of this World simply are not for Christ.
The apostle Peter found this out very quickly, as we see in Acts 5. Right there in the beginning of the church's life and public ministry, the Jewish authorities disagreed with its message and its methods--and with its leaders. So the legal government, the one to which the Bible says you must submit, arrested the apostles.
In Acts 5:28, the high priest said, "We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us."
Look closely at the reply Peter gave for himself and the apostles: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).
That's it. Here again is the main issue: Jesus said we must take the Gospel into every country. If any of those countries resist--whether through the police, the government, the army, the culture, or even the religion--we still have the commission to go, regardless!
WE HAVE DUAL CITIZENSHIP
As citizens of some nation here on Earth, as well as citizens of the eternal Kingdom of God, we have dual citizenship. This description of our position in this World echoes the phrase contained in the honor roll of heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11: "These all died in faith ... having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the Earth" (v. 13). This was the basis for their suffering, as an example for us.
The apostles were also confronted with the question of whether or not they should submit to the earthly authorities--or whether they should accept the obligations of their Heavenly calling. Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrin (the duly established religious authority for the Jewish nation), arrested for ministering in the name of Jesus, and forbidden to "speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus" (Acts 4:18). To this, the apostles replied: "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20).
The apostles persisted in their activities. Once again they were brought before the Sanhedrin and given strict orders to cease teaching in Jesus' name. Their response: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).
How can we account for this defiance of authority? The key lies in the priority of allegiance. God was first, the government second. When commands of an established earthly authority conflict with divine commands, the Christian is obligated to follow the commands of God.
Scripture abounds in examples of times when loyalty to God was primary. Hebrew midwives spared the lives of the male children in violation of the edict of Egypt's Pharaoh (Exo.1:15-20). The mother of Moses hid her child contrary to Pharaoh's order (Exo.2:2-3). Daniel disobeyed the royal decree by courageously continuing to kneel in prayer--before an open window--three times daily (Dan.6). The question was not, is it legal? But rather, who has the right to declare that obeying God is illegal?
In Acts 5:28 the authorities tell Peter that he cannot preach and teach anymore in the name of Jesus. Do you think Peter replied, "Yes, I happen to be a citizen of this country, so I submit myself to you and your rules"? If he had done so, how many of us would be Christians today?
Peter said, "No, I have a higher allegiance; I must obey God rather than men."
Romans 12:1 makes it clear what God wants from us: "I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
Then Paul adds, "Do not be conformed to this World." Don't bother about it. Don't get involved in it. Work for the Kingdom of God. Be a radical, or even a fanatic for it! Someone once said it's easier to cool down a fanatic than to warm up a corpse any day! Jesus said, "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth" (Rev.3:16).
As William Penn said in 1681: "If we are not governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants."
AUTHORITIES: CREATED BY GOD, RESPONSIBLE TO GOD
When a government--local, national, or international--limits the church in its activity and curbs the witness of Christians, or perhaps persecutes them, it has gone beyond the purposes of the God Who ordained it. Thus, we are no longer under obligation to observe its regulations with respect to witness and worship.
In Acts 9:23, Saul was in Damascus when the Jews plotted to kill him. This plan was not the action of an individual; it was from the government. The Jews had an official warrant of arrest probably similar to the one Saul had been given for his mission to persecute the church in Damascus. Saul was in trouble because, instead of persecuting the church, he was now witnessing for Jesus Christ after his wonderful encounter with the Lord.
We read, "But their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night" (Acts 9:24). Who was watching? The government; police and soldiers (2 Cor. 11:32-33)! But his companions helped him get away at night by lowering him in a basket down over the wall.
Saul committed an illegal act by avoiding border controls and fleeing arrest. Shouldn't he have submitted to the government? Didn't it have the power of God?
No! Saul believed that to fully observe the commandments of Christ, he must not let the authorities control his activities. Inasmuch as he had already received the commandment to evangelise, he could not be bogged down by government decrees.
In fact, he didn't even accept punishment if it came his way unjustly. For Paul did not consider that the word he used for our relationship to government, subjection, required him to accept an immoral judgment from the state. If the command of a government was unlawful, then the penal sanction attached to it was also unlawful. If one could resist the former, then he was equally justified in resisting the latter.
The apostle Paul frequently did not accept the established procedures and punishments prescribed by magistrates as is shown by Scripture (see Acts 17:6-10; 19:38 20:1). He simply disregarded some of the rules that people who are not in his business of preaching the Gospel should observe. That is why Paul was so often in prison. It was not for doing legal things, but always for doing illegal things.
Another time, in Thessalonica, Paul had to hide because local citizens had attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring him out so they could take him before the local government. The rioters couldn't find him because he had concealed his mission--he had gone "underground" (Acts 17:5-6). He was not going to allow his work and witness to be destroyed by the enemy. He was not going to submit to what people would call the legal government.
Let's consider Peter too. All we need to do is look at Peter's life to see that he did not believe governments always need to be obeyed. One confrontation Peter had with the authorities is recorded in Acts 5:17. Here, the apostles were under pressure from a government they were to honor and obey--a government that was supposed to punish the bad and praise the good--but one that had put them in prison.
The Scripture says an Angel from the Lord opened the prison doors. Highly illegal! You can't just open prison doors like that; they were closed and guarded by order of a government put there by God! Yet God identified with the men who defied the government. God Himself takes the apostles out of prison; and what's more, God doesn't say to them: "Now, disappear, go underground." No! He says, "Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life" (Acts 5:20).
Doesn't that strike you as humorous, really? God is not afraid of a confrontation with the powers of evil; we are the ones who are afraid because we don't know the real issues.
In Peter's case, when the authorities catch up with the apostles again and warn them: "We strictly charged you not to teach in this name [an official government decree], yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us" (Acts 5:28), he replies: "We must obey God rather than men."
THE TARGETS OF SATAN'S ATTACKS
I believe it is important for Christians undergoing persecution to realise the attack they are under is actually directed not at them, but at the life of Jesus in them, a life which they have the power to transmit to others.
Satan will make every effort to discredit you, to frighten you, and to silence your witness in order that the new life in you stops with you. Sometimes Satan overreaches himself, just as he did at the cross, and sends a believer to a martyr's grave, but that life lives on in other believers who continue to bear witness more gloriously and triumphantly than ever! That the church not only survives, but grows under such persecution has been demonstrated beautifully by the church in China. After missionaries were expelled in 1950, and all ties were cut with the rest of the body of Christ, believers were put through the horrible experience of Mao's cultural revolution. Christians were killed or imprisoned, Bibles burned, and the remaining believers scattered all over China. The attack was clearly on the life and name of Jesus as manifested in believers' lives.
As these sufferers scattered, they took the life of Jesus with them, and just as was the case with the early believers in Jerusalem, "Those who were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word" (Acts 8:4). Only now are we beginning to see the harvest in China, as millions of Christians are identified, meeting together for fellowship and worship in remote provinces.
It's time we use Holy Spirit boldness to see the nations as God sees them. If we are true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will go into all the World because He sends us. We need no welcome, we need no invitation, we need no permission from the government, although we are, as Christians, naturally prepared to respect normal procedures whenever that means we can be granted official permission to carry Bibles in and witness in a country. We need no red-carpet treatment, we need no VIP reception--unless it means Very Important Prisoner for Christ's sake!
We must have the courage, the Holy Spirit boldness, to live a life that is more revolutionary than that of any non-Christian faith. The Lord will give us the courage to work like commandos if we want Him to, but we must go and carry out His commission.
WE SHOULD EXPECT SUFFERING
The possibility of suffering is not a happy prospect for many Christians. As a matter of fact, however, it should be regarded as an integral component of the Christian life.
One of my favorite books, an all-time best-seller, is Pilgrim's Progress, written by John Bunyan. Bunyan was a tinker, a mender of pots in the village of Bedford, England. He was a very humble man, but once he came to know the Lord he was an earnest preacher of the Gospel.
During his time, England was not favorably disposed to such independent evangelists, and Bunyan was imprisoned for preaching the Gospel. With the exception of a few days, he spent nearly twelve years in the Bedford jail, until he was finally freed by the Declaration of Indulgence. "As the law stood, he had indisputably broken it, and he expressed his determination, respectfully but firmly, to take the first opportunity of breaking it again. `I told them that if I was out of prison today I would preach the Gospel again tomorrow by the help of God.'"--From The Life of John Bunyan, by Edward Venables.
Bunyan recognised the truth that the apostle Paul also preached: There is a price to pay for being a Christian. And many non-believers respect true Christians for those beliefs and convictions.
Once while traveling in Eastern Europe, I was arrested and taken to the secret police headquarters for interrogation. Whenever I am arrested, I preach as powerfully as I can to those who interrogate me. I reason that they'll be afraid I might convert them all, so they will kick me out. This time I said, "Sir, listen to me. You know that I am doing a good work in your country. And you know that the Christians in your country are the best citizens. They are the best workers in your country. They are the most honest people in your country. It's all because they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ."
That secret police officer actually helped me to get out of the country! He knew that what I said was true. In every country I know of, Christians are the most productive, honest citizens there. Today's authorities show a deep inner conflict, just as the authorities did in Paul's day. While they often dislike the message you're preaching, they like the results in your life and the lives of those who hear and receive the truth!
OUR UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD
When Paul and his evangelistic group proclaimed Jesus as Lord in Thessalonica, the city council was told: "These men who have turned the World upside down have come here also" (Acts 17:6).
That statement was not really true. The Devil had turned the World upside down, and these men had come to put it straight again! People willing to live that radically for Christ are, of course, resented by those responsible for governing this World. The whole World is in the grip of the evil one, so it's not unusual for its rulers to be in his grip also (1 John 5:19).
For the student of God's Word, hostility toward the church of Jesus Christ should come as no surprise. The Bible makes it clear that the nations of this World simply are not for Christ. In Luke 21:12, in speaking of the Endtime with its earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and other signs from Heaven, Jesus says: "But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for My name's sake."
Jesus warns us that religious persecution will be carried out in the name of authority. We see again how upside-down this World can become! Surely it's time we carried out our commission and put it right.
Two signs of the Endtime are persecution and World evangelism.
Persecution will come from political and religious opposition (Mark 13:9). Real opposition will always be against the person of Jesus Christ and all that He stands for. When Jesus speaks of wars and revolution, He says: "Do not be alarmed ... the end is not yet" (Mark 13:7). Then He mentions natural disasters but warns that they, too, are only the beginning of birth pains (Mark 13:8). The prelude to the fiercest possible persecution will come when the love of many (not few, but many) will grow cold (Mat.24:12).
This will happen simply because all nations will hate those who follow Jesus. I think that will include nations that up until now have seemed tolerant of Christians (Mat.24:9). Wickedness will increase so terribly that many will not be able to stand the pressure. A sense of personal failure born of not being able to impart morality and spirituality to one's children will be followed by putting the blame on God: "If He is a God of love, how can He let this happen to us?"
Consequently many will turn away from the faith and instead of obeying the command to love each other, they will betray and hate each other (Mat.24:10). No, not the atheists, but fellow Christians will do this. "And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child" (Mark 13:12).
But in both accounts of this most terrible persecution recorded in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, the middle section of both Chapters states the Gospel will be preached, and the Gospel must be preached before the End comes (Mat.24:14 and Mark 13:10). The Great Commission is still the watch-word for Christians; not a word of it has been withdrawn. It may well be in prisons and concentration camps that the common man will hear about Jesus. It may be that during trial proceedings those who never bothered to go to church will hear the Gospel. "You will stand before governors and kings for My sake, to bear testimony before them" (Mark 13:9).
The New Testament shows that interrogation rooms and the courts, not to mention prison cells, have been eminent platforms for the proclamation of the Gospel. Some of the most effective sermons recorded in Scripture were given in such surroundings.
Look at these examples:
* Peter and John before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:8-20; Acts 5:29-32).
* Stephen's speech to the Sanhedrin (Acts 7:2-53).
* Paul's defense speech in Jerusalem (Acts 22:1-21).
* Paul's testimony to the Sanhedrin (Acts 23:1-6).
* Paul's reply to Felix (Acts 24:1-21).
* Paul again before Felix, now joined by his wife Drusilla (Acts 24:25).
* Paul to King Agrippa (Acts 26:2-29).
Last, but not least, Paul could say he fully proclaimed the message to all the Gentiles, including his most cruel persecutor, Nero (2Tim.4:17).
In his running battle with the government, Paul must have had always in front of him the specific promise of Jesus found in Luke 21:17-19: "You will be hated by all men for My name's sake .... But there shall not an hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls." Today we do see many of these signs coming to pass, but be of good courage. If we stand up for Jesus and boldly proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, soon the End will come!
ACTION TRIGGERS MIRACLES
One Sunday, just before I was leaving on a trip to East Germany, I spoke at a large church in Holland and asked for prayer for my journey. After the meeting, a slightly agitated lady approached me.
"Andrew, I know you are going to Germany," she said. "Now I have a matter that has been weighing on my conscience. I wish you could help me."
I was puzzled. "Tell me about it," I said.
Obviously under deep conviction of sin, she told me her story.
During, and just after World War II, she lived in the eastern part of Holland near the German border, and used to entertain American officers there in her home. They would often bring textiles to her home. Such cloth was very valuable and especially hard to get in Holland at that time. Because she suspected the officers had stolen it, and also because it was such expensive material, the kind used to make men's suits and linings, she kept it stored away.
The supply increased until she had quite a big box full, but she never used it. Then, for more than twenty years following the war, she worried about it, wondering what to do with it. On that Sunday morning when I spoke in her church, the Lord got through to her and she decided to resolve her problem once and for all.
"Andrew," she asked, "can you please take this to Germany and just give it to someone? It will relieve my conscience to know that to the best of my knowledge it has gone back to where it came from."
I told her I would do that. The next weekend, I loaded my station wagon with all the things I wanted to take across the border. Then, without thinking it over further, I simply put in the big box of cloth she had delivered to me.
When I came to the West German border, an officer asked, "Do you have anything to declare, sir?"
That cloth had great value, but since I was in Germany, I replied, "No, sir," because the cloth had originally come from there and should not need to be declared.
The next morning I arrived at the East German border. Again, that same question from the guard: "Do you have anything to declare?"
"Yes" I answered. "A lot!"
I opened the rear of my station wagon. "Here," I said, "is a box full of cloth that I want to take into the country."
"What are you going to do with it?" he asked.
"I will give it away."
"To whom?"
"I don't know."
Well, that really brought the question marks to his face! So I added, "I can explain it to you, sir."
I gave him the story of what had happened the previous Sunday morning, but I extended it a little so that it became a full-fledged sermon on salvation and the need for a clean heart. I also put in something about God's forgiveness being available to all men. Of course, I used the story of the lady, but I made it just a little longer to get the Gospel across to the officer at the border.
All this time, he had a deeply puzzled look on his face. He turned to me. "Sir," he said, "I'll have to talk it over with my bosses inside the office. I have never had a case like this before."
He went inside and twenty minutes passed before he came out again. He had talked to all his superiors in the office and had still come up with no answer.
"Tell me again," he inquired, "to whom are you going to give it?"
"Honestly," I said, "I don't care." Then I asked, "Do you want it?"
"Oh, no, I can't take it."
"Well, all right, I just want to give it to somebody."
"Where?"
"I don't know," I said. "I want to give it back to somebody in Germany. I am going to be traveling all over the country. Listen, if you don't know what to do and I can't pass with all of this, you may seal it; and I'll just take it into West Berlin and give it away to someone there. But this lady did receive it from Germany, and she wants me to give it to someone in Germany. That's all."
Again, he had that deeply perplexed look. He went back into the office and phoned, probably all the way to East Berlin. He didn't know what to do. After a long, long time, he came out to me again and just shrugged his shoulders. "Sir, just take it, go, and give it to anybody you want."
He never asked me if I had anything else to declare, but I had told him the truth when he asked if there was any thing to declare. So I did not have to declare my books and Gospels. I had truthfully shown him one box of cloth that had to be declared. He became puzzled by my lengthy explanation, but maybe something I said may have been used by God to work in his heart anyway.
So he let me pass. They had never had such a case before. Usually, if you have so much as a dollar's worth of goods you have to declare it. I had hundreds of dollars' worth and no written declaration, and he let me take it in to give it away to whomever I chose.
I call that a miracle!
Later in the afternoon, I drove into the city where I would spend the night and went to the home of a tailor with whom I usually stayed. There I found a young Hungarian lady named Anna. She was the daughter of a Baptist pastor who had served as my interpreter in Hungary. I had put the two families, one in East Germany and the other in Hungary, in touch with each other.
"What are you doing here, Anna?" I asked in surprise.
"As you know," Anna explained, "my parents are very poor. So my mother has sent me to East Germany to find some cloth to make a suit for Daddy."
Well, I thought I was in heaven! Such clear guidance! I had worked a great deal with her father, who ministered among Gypsies in Hungary. He was a real man of God, thrown out of the ministry because he distributed Bibles to the troops of the Russian army. His lack of a regular occupation brought great poverty to the family.
Because I was in the house of a tailor, I could cut off just enough of the cloth for this man's suit, and the rest I could still give away to other people who needed it.
Now every little detail was in place, truth prevailing and God's power so evident. Guidance given to everyone involved--the woman in Holland, the border guards in East Germany, the tailor, and the fine Baptist pastor in Hungary! And to think this girl arrived at this very time on the opposite side of the very same errand that had brought me to this home. It was marvellous!
I want to emphasise yet another principle of spiritual warfare that the Lord has called us to wage in His name. Because He holds all authority in Heaven and on Earth, and because His hosts surround us with their power in the invisible world, we who are obedient to Him can expect that our Almighty God will bring His purposes to pass through nothing less than miracles.
On one occasion early in my ministry, I was headed back home from Berlin through the one hundred mile Russian-occupied zone of East Germany. I had been working in the refugee camps with a fellow Dutchman named Anton, giving out Scriptures to people from different countries. We had some Bibles left over which I was taking back with me to Holland where I could repack them and send them with other teams to the specific Eastern European countries that could use them.
I had not hidden the Bibles; I just had them in cardboard boxes. So far I had never encountered any problems going through the East German border into West Germany. This time though, as I stopped at Helmstadt, on the East German side of the border, an officer came up to my car and pointed to one of the cardboard boxes. "What's in there?" he asked.
With a very big smile, I said, "Sir, there are Bibles in that box."
He frowned. "Take the box into my office," he ordered. So Anton and I carried the heavy box into his office and filled three tables with New Testaments, Gospels, and complete Bibles, mostly in Eastern European languages.
He checked every book to see where it had been printed. I was lucky none had been printed in New York, since anything printed in America would have been more suspect. But they were all from Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland.
"Do you have anything else?" he asked.
Again I smiled, and said, "Yes, sir, I have a lot more."
He marched us back to our vehicle, right to the back of my Volkswagen and pointed to a box. "What's in there?"
"Flannelgraph stories."
"What's that?"
I have developed a habit of making very long sentences, so I can present the Gospel at every opportunity. I launched in.
"Well, sir," I responded, "they are illustrated stories that teachers use to tell children about the Lord Jesus Christ, because even children can believe on Him; because when a child is old enough to love his parents, he can love Jesus Who came into the World to save sinners so that children as well as grown-up people, by simple faith in Him, can have eternal life and go to Heaven when they die."
That was my sermonette in a sentence!
He left the box right there, but then he pulled out one of the folders and opened it. I was embarrassed because it was a map of the Mediterranean with the travels of the apostle Paul marked with dots and lines, all the countries, seas, and islands identified. It looked like a proper spy map!
Looking at me very closely, he said, "Aha! You said it was for little children."
"Yes, sir," I interrupted, "it's just a map of the travels of the apostle Paul, the first to come to Europe to tell about the Lord Jesus Christ so that we in Europe should hear about the great message of Jesus Christ; and if Paul had not come here, we would still be barbarians living without God--practically as atheists."
That was my second sermonette!
He really got cross with me then. "Take that box into my office!"
We saw that the office was full of soldiers, picking up those beautiful books we had laid out on the tables, trying to read the Word of God in these different languages. When I put the box down, more people flowed into the hall, Red Army soldiers and officers.
The officer pulled another folder from my box and, again, it was the worst possible one he could have chosen. It was the story of Ephesians 6, the chapter on the whole armor of God! When he opened it, out fell the sword and the helmet and all the rest. The situation looked dangerous to me.
Again an angry look appeared on his face as he mumbled something more about "children."
"Really, it is!" I insisted. "Let me demonstrate it for you."
I asked my friend Anton, who is six-and-a-half-feet tall, to hold up the cloth background. I took a figure of an undressed boy and stuck it to the flannel background, and began to tell the story.
"Here is a man in the World, unprotected from sin and demons, and sickness, and darkness, and disease. He needs protection. Man cannot live without God..."
I put on him the helmet of salvation.
"You've got to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved and know that you have eternal life."
Then I quickly put on the breastplate of righteousness.
"...because you have to live a righteous life, and all these godless people in this World make a mess of it and murder people..." I gave the story of Hitler's Germany. "...and now we can't allow that to happen because people living without God bring the whole World into bondage."
Then I put the shield of faith in the little figure's hand and said that with faith we are protected. "No matter what happens in the World, if we have personal faith which results in a new heart, we can live a holy life and have the shield of faith, so that all the onslaughts of the enemy, all his attacks, can be thwarted right here with the shield of faith."
I was just going to grab the sword and put it on the flannel board and go on to speak about the Word of God, when it dawned on the officer that I was preaching to them! I surely had a captive audience; the office was filled with soldiers and officers!
"Now, stop this! Put it all back in your boxes and take it to your car and go!"
"Yes, sir," I said. "But I would first like to give each of you a souvenir. I've enjoyed my time with you."
I got out a pile of John's Gospels and tried to hand them out, but the soldiers couldn't possibly accept them. They put their hands behind their backs and marched away, leaving Anton and me to take the Bibles and flannelgraph stories back to the car.
This incident illustrates the point that with God working miracles, we don't have to outsmart the guards at border crossings. But we do have to go prepared in prayer, assured that we are in God's Will. If I have my car loaded with Bibles as I arrive at the Russian border, I just beam at the guards. I have already prayed hard before I left that they won't ask, "Do you have any Bibles?" Sometimes I pray something will distract their thoughts and attention. It is remarkable how the Lord just arranges for "little" things to happen at the border.
For example, one of our teams went to Bulgaria with a load of Bibles in a huge pick-up van. Since it was summer and we travel just like other tourists--which we are in a way because we enjoy the sunshine and scenery, the swimming and all the rest--the two fellows had an inflatable canoe with them for recreation. They had been lazy that day and after canoeing somewhere in Yugoslavia, they didn't bother to let the air out of the canoe. They just squeezed the whole thing into the back end of the van and drove off to the Bulgarian border with their seven hundred Bibles.
At the border they gave their papers to one of the officers while another officer, blissfully innocent, went to the rear of the van and opened the door.
Bang! The canoe shot out the door right onto his head! He stood there for a moment, completely befuddled. Our boys were helpful; they ran to him, lifted the canoe off his head, and together they pushed it back into the car, locked the door, and that was the end of the inspection. You could never arrange for that to happen a second time.
Another team went to Czechoslovakia with Bibles. Just before they reached the border, they stopped for a last prayer meeting before crossing. Being Dutch boys, they made themselves a cup of coffee and opened a tin of milk. But, also because they were boys, they forgot to put it away properly, leaving the open tin on a box partly filled with Bibles, partly with tools.
While they were in the office at the border-crossing having their papers checked, one of the officers opened the van to check the luggage. Somehow he knocked over that tin of milk and spilled some on the floor. He jumped out of the vehicle and ran to his office, got a cloth and ran back and began to wipe up the spilled milk. He apologised profusely and was ever so sorry--and there was no more checking whatsoever! A tin of milk did that. It's often something small like that that God uses in a big way.
WE STAND BY AND DO NOTHING?
There is no way to avoid involvement in spiritual warfare. If we say nothing and do nothing, our very default becomes a major contribution to the triumph of godlessness. On the other hand, if we act aggressively in obedience to Christ's command and in reliance on the mighty spiritual resources which God makes available, we can see the very gates of Hell give way!
Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He shall reign forever and ever. What a destiny is ours to be marching in His train across the battlefields of this World!
Because the early church realised what the real problem and the real issues were, they reacted in the right way when the apostles were flogged and released and came to report what the chief priests and elders had said to them (Acts 4:23).
They began by praying, "And now, Lord, look upon their threats, and grant to Thy servants to speak Thy Word with all boldness" (v. 29).
In other words, Lord, help us to step up our efforts. We are not going to be intimidated because persecution and pressure could force us to go underground. We are not going to be pressed into hiding because they persecute and kill us. Help us to be more bold.
They also asked for power in their public ministry, "while Thou stretchest out Thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus" (v. 30).
One of the last literature distribution trips I made in Eastern Europe was to Czechoslovakia, when the Soviet army invaded in 1968. A week before the Russians moved in, I had a strange feeling that somehow this would happen and predicted the invasion to a friend before it actually occurred. I was in my office in Holland when my children burst in, shouting that the television news was on with reports from Prague. I turned on the TV just in time to see a live report from Czechoslovakia describing the Soviet invasion.
When I heard the news, I didn't need a prayer meeting to tell me what to do. I figured if the Russians were coming to meet me half-way, I'd better get moving!
That afternoon I loaded my station wagon with Russian Bibles and drove from Holland to the Czech border in one day. I didn't even bother to hide the Bibles, counting on the confusion which I knew I would find to get me past the border without a vehicle search. When I got to the border, there was a line of cars over a mile long coming from the other direction, thousands of Czechs waiting to get out. As I had expected, the harried Czech border patrol didn't even ask for a visa, much less check my car. He just looked at me as if I were crazy, slowly shook his head, stamped my passport, and waved me through.
Six miles past the border I almost literally ran into the Soviet army. I rounded a curve and saw two huge tanks blocking the road. A Russian soldier came to the car, a frown stretched across his face, and asked to see my papers. As I handed them to him through the car window, I prayed the prayer that I had prayed so often before: "Lord, in my luggage I have Scriptures that I want to take to Your children across this border. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see." And once again God honored the prayer. The soldiers didn't even look inside the station wagon. They let me through.
Several miles farther I encountered another army division in the town of Pilzen. Somehow I got in the middle of a long column of Soviet tanks rumbling down the main street. It was a strange experience, and an embarrassing one, because thousands of people lined the streets and squares of that town, all shaking their fists angrily at the Russians. But they were a quiet crowd, dead quiet, except when they saw my station wagon with Dutch registration plates; then they began shouting and cheering. I thought, "Oh, please, don't do that. This is no time to give a warm welcome to a poor Dutchman! Not with a Russian tank five yards behind me!"
Gradually, I pulled past the tanks and was on the open road again. Every time I stopped, people warned me not to go on to Prague, which was completely occupied by that time. I arrived there the second evening.
The city was a mess. Czech citizens had turned all the road signs around and had painted over all the street names and house numbers to confuse the Russians. Hastily-made signs taunted the Russians and pointed the way to Moscow.
When I preached in church that first Sunday morning of the occupation, tanks were still grinding through the streets and sporadic shooting could be heard in the distance. Yet the church was packed with a standing-room-only crowd. During that sermon, I stressed that if you do not go to the heathen with the Gospel, they will come to you as revolutionaries or as occupying forces.
I challenged the people in the church that morning to seize the opportunity to evangelise the Russian soldiers, and dumped my load of Bibles on a table in front of the church. They took them and went out to give the Soviet troops the Scriptures.
The Russian soldiers were an unhappy lot. They had been told they would be received warmly as liberating friends by the Czechs. Instead they found hostile, bitter citizens who cursed them, threw rocks at them, even tried to set fire to their tanks. They were scared stiff and totally demoralised.
Then suddenly that Sunday morning, smiling Czech people came to them, saying, "Ivan, Jesus loves you. Here's a book that tells you about it!" And they gave them Bibles in their own language. "We love you because Jesus loves you," they told the Russian soldiers. This happened not only in Prague, but in other cities to which we had sent teams. Can you imagine the impact this had on them? Only Heaven knows how many were converted by this.
I foresee the total collapse of organised religion in our Western World. The only thing that will remain will be true Christianity. I think that's what has happened in the People's Republic of China. A true Christianity has emerged today from the collapse of the church system. For this true church, there are few buildings, few pastors, few Bibles and no prestige. But the Christians there are the true salt of the Earth.
EPILOGUE
If we realise what Jesus Christ did for us on Calvary, then our "sacrifices" for God are only giving back to Him what He has given to us.
However, there is always a risk involved if you take a determined stand. No change comes the easy way. You can ask any revolutionary today, any guerrilla fighter--whether in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. Revolutionaries are people with ideals. They want a different World, a changed World, and they want it quickly. They also know they will have to pay a price for it. But they believe in something they are willing to die for. That should be our level of dedication too.
Once we begin to understand God's blueprint for this World, we will know that we've got to pay a price if His plans are to become reality. That's why we speak about the need for "a revolution of love." That's why we speak about being "soldiers for Christ." It is a fight. It is a struggle. Let's take a stand for the Lord Jesus Christ. We have His Word; we'd better take it seriously.