Light Your Lamps!

“Gird your loins and light your lamps...Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.” Luke 12:35-37

Very little is required of many of us I think. We are not part of a persecuted church, we are free to worship, and fellowship, even if we do it virtually at present.

In the book I am reading, one man in a Communist country urged: “Don’t ever give up in freedom what we would never have given up in persecution! That is our witness to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ!” After Nik Ripken left his mission of feeding the hungry in Somalia, he felt very frustrated that he was not able to bring Christ there even after so many years. He then visited Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe to find out how the Christians there kept their faith strong after decades of communist oppression. In his book, The Insanity of God, Nik recounts many amazing stories the believers told him. “Why don’t you write this in a book?” he asked in awe. One man took him to the window to see the miracle of the sunrise. “Do you ever bring your son to see the sunrise? Persecution happens all the time.”

One man, Dmitri, said he had been raised in a believing family and his parents had taken him to church as a child. But over the decades, Communism destroyed most of the churches and many pastors were either imprisoned or executed. One day he told his wife that he would like to teach his young boys about Christ even if he had no religious training. With his wife’s eager consent, Dmitri started reading from their old Bible once a week, and explaining the stories, and praying. Since nothing can be hidden for long in small villages, with the houses so close together, and windows open, their neighbors asked to join in. A small group gathered, and more and more came, eager to discuss the Bible and sing and pray. The authorities noticed and threatened Dmitri again and again, but the people kept coming, hungry for the word of God. 

When the group grew to one hundred fifty people, Dmitri was forcibly brought to jail. There, he was the only believer among fifteen hundred hardened criminals. How did he survive seventeen years in jail with his faith intact? Every morning Dmitri would rise at dawn, face the East, and sing what he called a heart song to God. The second discipline was that whenever he found a piece of paper he would fill it with the word of God, and place it high up on a column in his room as an offering to God. He would get beaten for it, but he continued to do it. 

One day after 17 long years, after being tortured, Dmitri was dragged from his cell. The fifteen hundred criminals who used to taunt him when he sang, simultaneously faced the East, raised their arms, and began to sing the heart song that they heard Dmitri sing to Jesus every morning. The jailers immediately released their hold on Dmitri and demanded, “Who are you?” He responded: “I am a son of the Living God, and Jesus is His name!” Soon after that, Dmitri was released and was able to return to his family. 

“I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God.” That is what Jesus says in Luke 12:8. Let us continue to acknowledge Jesus as our Savior in good times and hard times!