Fruits of Persecution in the Church in China ...

Chinese Christians imprisoned for their faith are memorizing Scripture passages smuggled to them on small pieces of paper because prison guards “can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,” one former prisoner revealed.

In a recent sermon, Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, shared an experience he had on a trip to China, where the church went to train leaders.

The pastor shared how 22 Christians from the Hunan Province took a 13-hour train ride to attend the leadership training held at a 700-square-foot hotel room. Out of the 22 Christians present, 18 had been imprisoned for their faith, the pastor revealed.

“If we get caught what will happen to me?” Cordeiro began by asking.

“Well, you will get deported in 24 hours, and we will go to prison for three years,” the Chinese Christians responded.

After beginning his lesson, the pastor realized he only had 15 Bibles to pass around, so seven people went without.

“I said, 'turn to 2 Peter 1, we are going to read it.' Just then one lady handed hers to the person next to her, and I thought ‘hmm interesting,'” he recalled.

As the Christians began reading, he quickly realized why she had given her Bible away: she had memorized the whole book.

“When it was done, I went over to her at a break and said, ‘You recited the whole chapter,’” he said. She replied, “In prison, you have much time in prison.”

“Don’t they confiscate the Bible?” he asked.

She said that while any Christian material is indeed confiscated, people smuggle in scripture written on paper and hide it from the prison guards.

“That’s why we memorize it as fast as we can because even though they can take the paper away, they can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,” she explained.

Following the three-day training session, one Chinese Christian man asked Cordeiro, “Could you pray that one day we could just be like you?”

“I looked at him and said, ‘I will not do that,’” he replied. “You guys road a train 13 hours to get here. In my country, if you have to drive more than an hour, people won’t come.”

“You sat on a wooden floor for three days. In my country, if people have to sit for more than 40 minutes they leave. You sat here for not only three days on a hard wooden floor, in my country if it’s not padded pews and air conditioning, people will not come back.”

“In my country, we have an average of two Bibles per family. We don’t read any of them. You hardly have any Bibles and you memorize them from pieces of paper.”

“I will not pray that you become like us, but I will pray that we become just like you,” he concluded.

China has seen explosive growth in the number of believers over the last several decades. Estimates have even suggested that China is on track to have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030.

About 30 million Christians in China are estimated to attend state-sanctioned churches while many others attend illegal underground house churches that are not registered with the government.

In efforts to stunt the rapid growth of Christianity, authorities throughout China have shuttered a number of prominent house churches and arrested Christians for worshiping without the approval of the government.

Previously, Crazy Love author Francis Chan said he believes the reason the underground Chinese church has grown so large is that Chinese Christians "actually believed they could make disciples and start these gatherings because Jesus was enough."

"I started to think, 'This is what made the underground church in China unstoppable. If you have a group of people that actually embrace suffering, how are you ever going to stop them?'" he asked during the "Rethink Church/Rethink Mission" event at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia, in October.

Chan argued that the problem with churches in the West is they are "so stoppable the moment it gets too difficult."

"What if you actually go, 'I want to suffer for Christ?'" Chan asked. "Will you suffer to obey these things? Will you actually sacrifice? Because it's a lot easier to come somewhere and be fed than to love [others] as much as Christ loved you, as much as the Father loves the Son, and to break bread with [others] thinking, 'Christ was tortured for me; would I do that for [others]?'"

The pastor urged Christians in the West to embrace suffering for the glory of Christ "because the Church is that beautiful and that important."

The works of men

An old man was sitting in his cell and a voice came to him which said, "Come, and I will show you the works of men." He got up and followed. The voice led him to a certain place and shewed him an Ethiopian cutting wood and making a great pile. He struggled to carry it but in vain. But instead of taking some off, he cut more wood which he added to the pile. He did this for a long time. 

Going on a little further, the old man was shown a man standing on the shore of a lake drawing up water and pouring it into a broken receptacle, so that the water ran back into the lake. 

Then the voice said to the old man, "Come, and I will shew you something else." He saw a temple and two men on horseback, opposite one another, carrying a piece of wood crosswise. They wanted to go in through the door but would not because they held their piece of wood crosswise. Neither of them would draw back before the other, so as to carry the wood straight; so they remained outside the door. 

The voice said to the old man, "These men carry the yoke of righteousness with pride, and do not humble themselves so as to correct themselves and walk in the humble way of Christ. So they remain outside the Kingdom of God. The man cutting the wood is he who lives in many sins and instead of repenting he adds more faults to his sins. He who draws the water is he who does good deeds, but mixing bad ones with them, he spoils even his good works. So everyone must be watchful of his actions, lest he labour in vain." 

Someone asked Abba Agathon, 'Which is better, bodily asceticism or interior vigilance?' The old man replied, 'Man is like a tree, bodily asceticism is the foliage, interior vigilance the fruit. According to that which is written, "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire" (Matt. 3.10) it is clear that all our care should be directed towards the fruit, that is to say, guard of the spirit; but it needs the protection and the embellishment of the foliage, which is bodily asceticism

Will I go to Heaven ?

                                     

Last week a couple of acquaintances, a brother and sister, were found to be COVID -19 positive, although fortunately asymptomatic thus far. Faced with the sudden possibility of death people often have a change of outlook, re-evaluate their lives in the light of a realization of their mortality. 

My thoughts went to the children of Fatima and particularly Jacinta and Francisco who died very young during the last global pandemic of Spanish flu a century ago. As I recall the story, Our Lady had told them that she would be taking them soon and they asked if they would be going to heaven. The answer was ‘yes’ but in Francisco’s case he would have to ‘pray many rosaries’. 

What is interesting is his wholehearted response. He stopped schooling and rid himself of all trivial pursuits even the play natural for children, and devoted himself to prayer and making sacrifices. It is hard to imagine someone that young having much to atone for – how much more for those of us whose lives have been many times as long as his already! The need for atonement and sanctification must be very great indeed. 

Another thing that makes Francisco’s witness very compelling is that the children had all seen Heaven, Hell and Purgatory in a vision and I imagine this too must have prompted such a resolute response. 

In the last few months more than half a million people have died of this virus, I bet none of them expected to die this year anymore than the ones who will join them between now and December do. If we can draw a lesson from the pandemic I think it’s to ‘be prepared,’ take a moment to reassess the important things in life, consider what happens if … and focus on making atonement for our sins and through prayer to seek the sanctification we need.

 

God’s purpose is revealed

It’s not often that the Lord ‘tips His hand’ and allows us to see things from His perspective and what He has in mind. Perhaps it’s an occasional reward for faithfulness or more likely when an intimate ally is ready to see it, when their heart has been prepared. 

There is a wonderful story about a seminarian Mang Eui-Soon , (not sure of his denomination) from Seoul in South Korea at the beginning of the Korean war that gives an insight into this. He was a man of prayer, barely in his twenties and had a particular fondness for ministering to the sick in the hospital attached to his church. 

The invasion of south Korea was fast; the north Korean army overwhelming the South by sheer weight of numbers and in days many found themselves behind the lines. Mang Eui-Soon and his companions hid and tried to make their way south through the countryside to safety. 

Their journey was not easy; first they were captured by the invading army and tortured for days as suspected spies. After being released they continued their journey only to be captured again and pressed into service carrying munitions and cooking for the North Korean army. They escaped and pushed south where they eventually met with the South Korean and American forces who arrested them and sent them to a Prisoner of War camp assuming they were NK spies. So he was placed with the captured NK soldiers and later their Chinese allies. At first he tried to convince them otherwise (as did many of his south Korean acquaintances outside the prison camp) but then he began to realize in prayer what the purpose was. 

As North Korea and China were both atheist countries, cut off from the world behind the iron curtain, he began to see God’s purpose. As he put it “they are not enemies invading our country with rifles, but sheep that God has driven along” He realized that “God had started the work of salvation on billions of Chinese… we have to sow the seed of the Gospel in their hearts” 

For years then he worked tirelessly in the camp and its hospital to reach out to the NK and Chinese prisoners and brought the Gospel to them, even constructing a church inside the camp. He had to dodge his own release even after the allies sought to set him free so he could remain with those he was evangelizing. Before the end of the war, after which the POW’s were to be repatriated to NK and China, he died in the camp and most attended his funeral. He brought so many to God by his persistence and kindness and then they returned to North Korea and China, no longer combatants but as evangelists, sowing the seed in their home countries where it continues to grow in secret.