On this International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, please pray for those who cannot worship freely.
As we remember our brothers and sisters around the world today on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, I want to share about one special man who was a giant among men of faith and who had an incredible impact on my life.
He was threatened, beaten, and tortured for sharing the gospel, but he never wavered in his devotion to Jesus Christ.
I was eager to meet Pastor Lamb, one of China’s well-known house church leaders. I had traveled to Guangzhou, a city of more than three million, where he lived in a tiny apartment under house arrest. He endured more than 21 years in prison for his faith all because he refused to register his church with the Chinese government. Fifteen of those years, he did hard physical labor in a coal mine as punishment for trying to make a copy of the New Testament.
When I arrived at Pastor Lamb’s house for the first time, his house church meeting had just dismissed, so I had to wait outside while hundreds of Chinese believers made their way down the narrow staircase and filed past me into the night. I’ll never know how that many people fit inside that small apartment. I had to push past armed guards to make my way up the stairs. When I reached the third floor, I met my hero for the first time.
Pastor Lamb was short; I towered over him. With a contagious smile, he invited me to come in. The first thing I remember seeing was a long table with about 20 young Chinese people writing feverishly. Nearly 80 percent of the pastor’s congregation was comprised of young people who were hungry for the Word of God and eager to share it with their friends.
I asked Pastor Lamb what they were doing. He matter-of-factly explained, “They are making handwritten copies of the …
Continue reading…