The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Php 1:14). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
It seems rather counter-intuitive. Why? Because it is! People shouldn't be emboldened by seeing others suffer, nor encouraged to do whatever the suffering people did to bring on the suffering. Right?
Recently...this last Fall, I was in India. I went to work with IET (India Evangelical Team) and Global Infusion. I was one of the Headline speakers for one of their annual pastor conferences. It was an amazing experience in so many ways. God really moved. But I want to share how God illuminated Paul's comment through my experience in India.
I traveled from Kyiv (the city formerly know as Kiev) to New Delhi, India. There I rendezvoused with Jonathan Haward of Global Infusion, and some other pastors he brought with him from the States. From there we flew to an Eastern State of India that I won't name. And then we traveled 8 hours in Jeeps on "roads" to the village that would host the conference. Before the conference began we were invited to speak at some "local" churches. Let me define local. Local is anywhere within a two hour jeep ride through monkey and tiger infested jungles. After one such ride we arrived at the village I would be conducting service in. No one in it had ever seen a Caucasian before.
The meeting was held in tarp covered area the size of a double-wide car port, butted-up against the pastors house. There was no floor and no back wall...but it was a holy place. The Lord had given me a special word for the Church that morning as I prayed, and He confirmed it supernaturally through two of my brothers on the trip. I knew what the Lord wanted to say and I delivered the message without fear or hesitation. In short the message was this...
33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
Are you willing to give your lives so that others may here the Gospel, just as other people gave their lives that you might hear it?
It was a small gathering with about fifty people in attendance. The only people who didn't stand when I asked them if they were willing to give their lives for the gospel to be heard, were the ten who were already standing to give their hearts to the Lord. The people even the new converts wailed before the Lord pledging their lives for the gospel.
It wasn't new for me to see people pledge their lives for the gospel, but it was new for me to see such a response percentage wise. Yet even this wasn't what inspired this testimony. Rather it was what I discovered after we were back on the road. The regional pastor informed me that two weeks before I had preached, a Hindu man from the village grabbed one of the Christian Sisters in the village, hacked her up with a machete and spread her body around the village as a warning to other Christians to keep to themselves. And yet in the light of that, these humble and yet passionate people, stood to their feet, and shouted with all their might, "We will give our lives that others might be saved!"
I have never seen the like. I was moved to tears I felt so emboldened in my faith and witness as I have never been. Now I know how Paul could say what He did, for I was encouraged by my brothers' and sisters' suffering to preach the gospel more boldly. I hope you are too.
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