Black Easter

Nearly 1,000 missionary personnel under the China Inland Mission were trapped in China when the Communists took over in the 1940s. CIM ordered a total evacuation in January, 1951, but was it too late? Communists are not averse to killing.

Arthur and Wilda Mathews applied for exit visas on January 3. Their living conditions had deteriorated to a bare kitchen where, in the corner, Wilda had converted a footlocker into a prayer nook. Days passed with no action on their requests. Meanwhile citizens were executed every day, and from her kitchen Wilda could hear the shots. The strain grew unbearable. “The imagination is what jumps around into all sorts of places it ought to keep out of,” Arthur wrote to his parents.

He was told at last that his wife and child could leave if he would secretly work for the Communists. Arthur refused. Day after day he was summoned and grilled. Day after day he said good-bye to Wilda, wondering if he would ever see her again. Finally Arthur bluntly told the authorities, “I am not a Judas. If you expect me or anyone else in the China Inland Mission to do that kind of thing, you had better not try because we cannot do it.”

Wilda was utterly overcome by fear and doubt. Sunday, March 21, 1951 was, as she called it later, Black Easter. Wilda sneaked into an Easter church service, but when she opened her mouth to sing “He Lives!” no words came out. Returning home, she fell at the trunk and her trembling fingers found 2 Chronicles 20.17: You won’t even have to fight. Just take your position and watch the Lord rescue you from your enemy. Don’t be afraid.… Wilda clamped onto that verse, and two weeks later she wrote, “The conflict has been terrible, but peace and quiet reign now.”

It was two years before she exited the country, and even longer for Arthur who became the last CIM missionary to leave China. But miraculously, all of them got out without a single one being martyred. It was the greatest exodus in missionary history.

II Chronicles 20:17 Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the LORD will be with you. 18 And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the LORD, worshipping the LORD.

Many things in life will get us down such as the weather or storms which come not from the sky but from our own mind. Winter time is prime time for depression. Lack of daylight and less freedom of movement caused by slick roads and the cold play hard on us who are used to going and doing.

With Churches closed and a lack of fellowship it’s easy to feel defeated but remember its all part of the race. Spring will be here in a month or two and the winter will be past. Will we be ready then to march on? Now is the time of preparation. Don’t feel down or trapped. We still have our Cross to bear.

Consider the scripture below and the story of this man whose ministry was halted by horrible circumstances but through it all God had a plan for him. He has a plan for you also. The storms will pass and ministry will continue. God Bless………..Lynn

On This Day                                                                                        February 5, 1812

Matthew 10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Adoniram Judson, who wanted to become America’s first foreign missionary, fell in love with the most beautiful girl in Bradford, Massachusetts. Ann Hasseltine was the daughter of a Congregational deacon, and Judson’s letter asking for her hand is among the most emboldened in church history:

I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter, whether you can consent to her departure to a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and suffering of a missionary life? Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India, to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.

John Hasseltine did consent, and the couple was married in the Hasseltine home on February 5, 1812. The next day they were commissioned as missionaries and soon left American shores. Their new home, Rangoon, Burma, was a filthy, crowded city. The atmosphere was oppressive, the work discouraging. By 1820, there were ten Burmese converts, but at a cost. One Judson child had been stillborn; another died of tropical fever.

When war broke out between Burma and England, Adoniram was accused of being a spy and placed in a death prison. His dark, dank cell was filled with vermin, and Adoniram was shackled at the ankles. Every evening he was hanged upside down with only his head and shoulders resting on the ground.

Ann, pregnant again, visited one government official after another, urging her husband’s release. On February 15, 1825, eight months after Adoniram’s arrest, she showed up at his prison carrying a small bundle, their newborn daughter Maria. No artist can capture the poignancy of that brief union with its intense emotions of sorrow and joy, fear and faith.

Torturous months followed. Adoniram was finally released, but both Ann and Maria soon died of fever. Adoniram suffered a mental breakdown that nearly took both his ministry and his life.

But God wasn’t finished with him. America’s first foreign missionary still had a world to change.

Psalms 92: ¹² The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. ¹³ Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. ¹⁴ They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.

Some Christian workers, facing the sunset years, may retire from official positions and pace themselves more carefully in ministry. But withdrawing entirely from the Lord’s work isn’t an option, for Christians don’t really retire. They just get transferred.

In 776 Rabanus Maurus was born in Germany with a good brain. His parents educated him in the best schools, and he eventually studied in Tours, France, under the great Christian educator Alcuin, who had advised Charlemagne. Alcuin mentored Rabanus with more than book knowledge; he equipped him to teach others. Back in Germany, Rabanus was appointed principal of the school in Fulda, and under his leadership German youth, both poor and rich, were afforded an education. Rabanus painstakingly developed the library into the best anywhere and made his school Europe’s most famous, the mother of scholars and of a score of affiliated institutions. He extended the curriculum to include many sciences, and “reproved superstitions.” His graduates were in demand across Europe.

At the heart of Rabanus’s educational genius was a passion for God’s Word. His academic programs included diligent study of Scripture. He wrote commentaries on almost every book in the Bible, preached regularly, composed hymns, wrote handbooks for ministers, and worked hard for a well-trained clergy — all in an age of darkness, ignorance, and superstition.

Finally in 842, exhausted, he retired. At 66, he longed to spend the rest of his life in quiet study, free from official responsibility. “But he was too valuable a man to be allowed to retire from active life.” Appointed archbishop of Mainz, Germany, Rabanus spent his remaining years preaching the gospel and contending for the faith. He didn’t lay down his labors until February 4, 856 when, at age 80, the Lord transferred him home. What kept Rabanus going? The Spirit’s anointing! In one of his hymns he prayed:

Come from the throne of God above

O Paraclete, O Holy Dove,

Come, Oil of gladness, cleansing Fire,

And Living Spring of pure desire

Let us serve even the more as we come closer to our retirement. God Bless……….LAH