“Thank You for Beating Me”
Jean Hasnip, Area Representative of ‘Open Doors with Brother Andrew’, explains…
The pastor was badly bruised and battered. He had just been savagely beaten up during the interrogation by the “Securitate” in pre-revolutionary Romania. Now the chief of his interrogators was speechless-the man was thanking them for what they had done!
“Let me explain”, the pastor continued, “When you beat me, you did me a great honour. For a Christian, nothing is more beautiful than to suffer for the sake of our Lord and Saviour. I want to thank you for giving me the most beautiful gift you could ever have given me.”
“I know also that truly I am not in your hands but in the hands of my God. You will do to me only what He permits you to do and you will not go one inch further — because you are simply an instrument of my God. Since you first beat me I have been praying for you and your family.”
Today this pastor, with Christians throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, is revelling in his freedom to worship and to share his faith! But in the world as a whole, persecution has not been reduced but is on the increase!
In China a fierce clamp-down by the authorities on the “underground” church (to which 90% of all Chinese Christians belong), has intensified and has led to many arrests; in the Islamic world, the continuing spread of fundamentalism means that harassment, ill-treatment and sometimes imprisonment of Christians is growing; and in many “unexpected” countries from Central America to South-East Asia, believers are suffering persecution including being driven from their homes or even killed.
These believers often have much to teach us about the tender love of God for us in sending Jesus, about what it means to follow Him, and about His faithfulness.
A 73 YEARS YOUNG EVANGELIST
One such believer is Brother Jonah, a native of Shanghai, and an itinerant preacher who has travelled throughout China since 1976. His schedule would exhaust a 20-year-old. He is 73.
We join Jonah in Shanghai, collecting a huge pack of Bibles and spiritual books to take into the interior. The bag weighs 60 pounds, bending his slight frame almost to the ground as he shoulders it. He staggers off to the station where he buys a single ticket to a town in Henan Province. It is the last of his money. He will eat nothing on the 20-hour journey.
Sitting amid the clamour of a third-class carriage, he confides “I received a request to preach the gospel in the village…..Someone who had been converted under my ministry, returned to his home village to find that he is the only believer in 500 people.” As Jonah talks, the people crammed around him try to listen. They all look at him. There seems to be a tension. Is something wrong? A soldier can restrain himself no longer. He leans forward and says, “Old man, tell us why you seem to be so happy.”
Jonah is a master at drawing people out. “What do you think? What would be the happiest thing that could ever happen to you, and I’ll tell you whether that has happened to me.” He addressed his question to all who were listening.
Suggestions came thick and fast. The woman opposite said, “A big house would make me the happiest person in the world.” The younger man next to Jonah said, “I just want to be loved by a beautiful woman.” Said another, “I’d like a passport to America.” and one of the soldiers shouted, “If I had the power to command the People’s Liberation Army I should be the happiest man in the world.”
Jonah grinned. They asked, “Do you have any of these?” “Yes!” Jonah replied, “I have all of them, and more.” They drew back aghast and hung on his every word. “I have a mansion so large that an emperor would be green with envy; I am loved devotedly by the most beautiful person in the world; I have the perfect freedom to go wherever I wish; and I happen to be a very close friend of the most powerful man on Earth.” He went on, “In fact, I have received all this from one person, and his name is Jesus Christ.”
JONAH TALKED ALL NIGHT
There was no visible change of expression at the mention of Jesus; only an insatiable curiosity. It was a night train and Jonah talked all night. He pulled out his frayed Bible and took them through it. Anyone else might have grown weary, but on he went, his audience as eager as ever.
Arriving at his destination, Jonah distributed New Testaments and tracts, shook hands warmly with everyone, and stepped outside. Suddenly he was approached by another man. “Praise The Lord,” he said, “God has answered my prayers and sent you.” Walking out of the station he pointed to some rusty bicycles. “Our transport,” he said cheerily. “It is a five-hour ride to my village.” They finally arrived mid-morning. Jonah did not spend too long wondering how to gather a crowd. He simply banged two pans together and many came running. He spoke for 50 minutes about his Biblical namesake, Jonah, drawing comparisons between China and Ninevah.
The 200 villagers listened with rapt attention. Later, Jonah explained, “All China’s religions, including Communism, affirm that Human Beings are basically good, it’s the circumstances that make them bad. So when a people hear that they are the ones who are bad, it’s a totally new concept that they can hardly take in.” But a quarter of the villagers said a prayer of repentance. The Kingdom of God had at last come to this village.
Jonah spent the afternoon with three converts he had selected to lead the new church. Leaving them with a stock of Bibles, he gave them a crash course in Christian doctrine.
Suddenly, the peace was shattered. Someone arrived on a bicycle saying the Public Security Bureau was looking for an evangelist. Four hours of furious pedalling later, Jonah arrived at the nearest town where he boarded a bus travelling all through the night to one of the major cities of Henan. He had avoided arrest — this time!
This is typical of the life of an itinerant evangelist in China. God is gloriously saving many people and strengthening His Church in China and in many of those very areas in the world where his people are most persecuted.
Yet those who are suffering for their faith in Jesus can feel isolated, cut off from fellow Christians, and forgotten by The Church elsewhere in the world. Often they are without a Bible and therefore unable to “feed” on God’s word and be strengthened.
GOD’S SMUGGLER — 3RD BESTSELLING CHRISTIAN BOOK OF ALL TIME
Over 35 years ago, a young Dutchman on a visit to a Communist Youth Rally in Poland found his heart moved with compassion for so many “lost” young people. He knew that the only one who could really satisfy them was Jesus and he asked in silent prayer what he could do to help. In answer, God called him to commit his life to seeking out and strengthening the believers wherever they were being persecuted for their faith, and promised that He would “open doors” for him that no one would be able to close! As that man, who is now known as Brother Andrew, began to meet the believers, and asked them what they needed, they said, “Our Bibles have been confiscated or destroyed and we desperately want to be able to read God’s word. This is all we really need, please bring us Bibles.”
The story of what happened next has been fully told in the book “God’s Smuggler”, now the third best selling Christian book of all time (after the Bible and “Pilgrim’s Progress”). As Brother Andrew took Bibles into Communist land she saw many miracles. God had indeed gone before him and opened the doors. But as he met more and more believers, he realized that he alone could never meet the need and began to cry out to God to raise up co-workers.
Today, “Open Doors with Brother Andrew” works around the world, wherever the Church is persecuted. Our three main aims reflect the call of God to strengthen and encourage His suffering people by:
- The personal delivery of Bibles and training materials, to build the Church, in the “restricted” countries of the world;
- Providing training for the Church in “threatened” countries, to prepare it for imminent persecution; and,
- Encouraging and enabling the Church in the “free” world to identify with, and assist, the Suffering Church.
In Luke 22:28, Jesus says to the disciples, “You are those who have
stood with me in my trials.” If you would like to know how you can
stand with the Body of Christ through their present trials, or if your
church might like me to speak or show a film about the work, please
write to me at:
‘Sibrion’,
Newton-on-Ouse,
York,
YO6 2BU.
or give me a ring on Linton-on-Ouse426.
NB: This article was written a long time ago and I can safely say those contact details are out of date! Ed.