China became a Communist nation in 1949. Within a few years all missionaries were expelled, church buildings were closed, and thousands of Chinese pastors were imprisoned. Many lost their lives. My mother saw the missionaries leave Nanyang in the early 1950s. She never forgot the tears in their eyes as they headed for the coast under armed guard, their ministries for the Lord having abruptly come to an end.
In just one city in China, Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province, 49 pastors were sent to prison labour camps near the Russian border in 1950. Many were given sentences of up to twenty years for their "crimes" of preaching the gospel. Of those 49 pastors, just one returned home. 48 died in prison.
In my home area of Nanyang, believers were crucified on the walls of their churches for not denying Christ. Others were chained to vehicles and horses and dragged to their death.
One pastor was bound and attached to a long rope. The authorities, enraged that the man of God would not deny his faith, used a makeshift crane to lift him high into the air. Before hundreds of witnesses, who had come to accuse him falsely of being a "counter revolutionary", the pastor was asked one last time by his persecutors if he would recant. He shouted back, " No! I will never deny the Lord who saved me!" The rope was released and the pastor crashed to the ground below.
Upon inspection, the tormentors discovered the pastor was not fully dead, so they raised him up into the air for a second time, dropping the rope to finish him off for good. In this life the pastor was dead, but he lives on in heaven with the reward of one who was faithful to the end.
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This excerpt is from 'The Heavenly Man', a deeply motivating book in which Brother Yun, a Chinese believer, unrelentingly kept the faith in the midst of fiery trials and persecutions. Stay tuned to #Quotidian as we bring you amazing stories from this blessed book by Liu Zhenying with Paul Hattaway.
You'll be stirred to labour more for the Gospel!
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#Quotidian...grow daily!
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