The pastor had been questioned and beaten often, but today the guard took him to a room to talk. He said, “I’m curious about your beliefs and ask you to tell me the Ten Commandments.”

Shocked, the pastor began to share the Commandments. When he got to “Honor your father and mother,” the officer interrupted him. “Stop there. You Christians believe that God chose ‘Honor your father and mother’ as a very important commandment. Please look in the corner.”

The pastor turned to see an elderly woman chained and bruised beneath a pile of rags. She was the pastor’s own mother.

The guard inquired. “Look how much your mother has suffered. If you tell the secrets of the underground church, you and your mother can go free. If she dies from our torture, you will have failed to keep the commandment to honor her, and her blood shall be on your head.”

The pastor turned to his mother who was starting to regain consciousness. “Dear Mother, what should I do?”

Lovingly she replied, “Since you were a small boy, I have taught you to love Christ and his church. Do not betray God. I am ready to die for the Holy Name.”

The pastor looked back at the guard and said with renewed courage, “You were very right, captain…a man must obey his mother.”

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Praise God for Moms….especially those that cherish Christ more than their children.

Matt

story from www.persecution.com

Pastor Li Dexian had preached just a few minutes when Public Security Bureau officers stormed into the house. They dragged Pastor Li outside and beat him, as well as others in the Chinese congregation.

At the police station, the evangelist was beaten again until he vomited blood. The officers beat his face with his own Bible, leaving him bleeding and barely conscious on the concrete floor of the cell.

When he was released seven hours later, he resumed his ministry. The next time he delivered a message to that church, seven PSB officers came in, shouting accusations against the evangelist. When they saw visiting Westerners with him, they left but returned fifteen minutes later with reinforcements. The officers dragged Li out and began to beat his head against a stone wall.

As of 2000, Pastor Li had already been jailed 13 times for sharing the gospel.  Here is an account of some of his time in prison:

Upon arrival to prison Li was immediately put in chains.  Unlike other prisoners the authorities shackled his ankles, not once, but two times.  His ankles were placed into steel cuffs and then cranked down by bolts on either side.  Then a second set of steel cuffs was put on above the ankle near his shins.  After this they then placed a large steel bar in between the cuffs that spread his legs wider than his shoulders.   In the center of this bar there was a ring.  His hands were then shackled and they were brought down to the bar between his feet and cuffed to the ring in the center of the bar.  This left his back in a bowed position.  He was left in this position for three days with no relief.

By the second day his back was in severe pain.  After three days they finally released his hands and he was able to straighten up.  He was thankful that his back was not injured during this time.  With his hands released they then forced him to labor.  He had to start every day at 6 a.m. and worked until 11 p.m. – 17 hours of labor.

On April 26, Li was released with a stern warning not to preach…

Voice of the Martyrs article of June 2000

But preach he does. As he says, “I will preach until I die.”

Pray for Pastor Li and for the Church in China.

The ropes at his wrists and ankles stretched further until Roman Christian Vincent felt his arms pull out of his shoulder sockets and his hips come out of joint.

Decius, the Roman emperor, stood by the rack where Vincent was tied. “You will die in terrible pain,” he told the young Christian.

“No death is more honorable than that of a martyr,” Vincent said to the king with conviction. “I see heaven, and I abhor your idols.”

Furious, the king called for the now-crippled Christian to be tortured even more. Yet they could not rid Vincent of his smile. He told the emperor through his pain, “You destroy only my body, which has to perish anyway. Inside of me lives another Vincent, and over him you have no power. That Vincent cannot be put on a rack and cannot be killed.” Vincent welcomed death with a smile.

Finally, the Roman soldiers pulled him from the rack, but his torments were not over. They stripped him of his clothes and threw him into a cell, the floor of which was covered with shattered glass. Unable to stand, Vincent was forced to lie on the ragged glass. Even there, God’s peace was with him. Guards later reported to the emperor that he rested on the shattered glass “as on a bed of flowers.”

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Those who see Heaven can smile.  Through anything.

Until this light, momentary, bed of flowers affliction becomes an eternal weight of glory-

Matt

story from www.persecution.com

In a sermon entitled, “A View of God’s Glory”, Charles Spurgeon highlights the fact that when Moses asks God to see His glory, God says “I will cause all my GOODNESS to pass before You”.  Spurgeon explains, “The brightest gem in the crown of God’s glory is his goodness.”  He speaks of God’s goodness in creation, and then, here, He gets to God’s goodness towards His chosen people, and he just gets caught up in worship.  I was caught up as I read.  Magnificent preaching.  Join me in worship to our God as you read….

“Now….think of His sovereign goodness toward His chosen people. O, my soul, go thou back into eternity and see thy name in God’s book of predestinating, unchanging grace! And then come down to the time of redemption, and see there thy Saviour bleeding and agonizing. O my soul, there were drops of goodness before, but O, rivers of goodness roll before thee now! When thou sawest the Son of God groaning, agonizing, shrieking, dying, buried in his grave, and then rising again, thou sawest the goodness of God. “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.” I say again, what a panorama! What a series of dissolving views! What sight upon sight, each one melting into the other! Could I stand here this morning, and borrow the eloquence of an angel; could I speak to you as I might wish—but, alas! I cannot break these bonds that hold my stammering tongue—could I loose these lips and speak as angels speak, then could I tell you something, but not much, of the goodness of God; for it is “past finding out.” Since I cannot utter it myself, I would invoke all creation to be vocal in his praise. Ye hills, lift up your voices; let the shaggy woods upon your summits wave with adoration. Ye valleys, fill the air with the bleatings of your sheep and the lowing of your cattle. Ye that have life, if ye have voices, tune his praise; and if ye walk in silence, let your joyful motions show the thanks ye cannot speak. O, ye trees of the field, clap your hands; ye winds, in solemn harmony chant to his glory. Thou ocean, with thy myriad waves, in all thy solemn pomp, thy motion to and fro, forget not him who bids a thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain, and write no furrow on thy ever youthful brow. And you, ye storms, howl out his greatness; let your thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies; let your lightnings write his name in fire upon the midnight darkness; let the illimitable void of space become one mouth for song; and let the unnavigated ether, through its shoreless depths, bear through the infinite remote the name of him who is ever good and doeth good.”

“I never knew what these prisoners were singing until I became a Christian.”

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Soon Ok Lee was a prisoner in North Korea from 1987 to 1992. She did not become a Christian, however, until she escaped to South Korea. When she first received Christ, she was overwhelmed by her memories of what she had seen and heard in prison.

It was the simple things, like the Christians who sang as they were being put to death. At that time, she did not understand and had thought they were crazy. She was not allowed to talk, so she never had the chance to speak with a Christian. She does remember hearing the word, “Amen.”

“While I was there, I never saw Christians deny their faith. Not one. When these Christians were silent, the officers would become furious and kick them. At the time, I could not understand why they risked their lives when they could have said, ‘I do not believe,’ and done what the officers wanted. I even saw many who sang hymns as the kicking and hitting intensified. The officers would call them crazy and take them to the electric-treatment room. I didn’t see one come out alive.”

It was the singing that stuck with her. Perhaps it was the singing of these precious saints that planted a seed in her spirit and eventually led her to Christ.

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It will be the singing that sticks with this world.

It will be the singing that proves our joy is rooted in something Greater.

It will be the singing that the gates of hell cannot withstand.

That you might, in the midst of opposition, darkness, confusion, and suffering….Sing-

Matt

story from www.persecution.com