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During the years of the USSR there was a charismatic movement in a particular country within the State Church called the “Army of God.”  It was quite a renewal movement, returning a massive number of people back to God and the Bible, away from hollow religious ritual.  Sadly, as is true in many persecution environments, the established church and the government joined forces to attempt to harass those who wanted to spiritually color outside of the State religion lines.  Many of those in the Army of God were persecuted, with leaders often imprisoned.

But the persecutors made a big mistake. 

They put Constantine in prison for his faith.  They would have been better served to have left him free and away from the creative pressures that persecution often provides as a traveling companion for believers in prison.  The persecutors would have been better off to have left Constantine in his job without the time to reflect upon the kingdom of God, bringing his gifts to bear upon the kingdom.

I met Constantine in a small, one-room, upstairs apartment.  He was in his late 80s and his wife has already made her short trip to eternity with Jesus.  One could still see the remnants of the powerful man Constantine had been during his younger years.  One could hear in the timbre of his voice the power of the songs he was able to produce as the Holy Spirit sang through him during his younger years.  I took in all of the possessions that were his in this tiny apartment, possessions that probably were not worth $500 in any market.

Yet I met a man whose creativity through song and faithfulness was priceless.  The persecutors would have done well to have left him alone.

Fearing his growing influence in the Army of God they arrested him and incarcerated this leader for many years in prison.  In the crucible of persecution Constantine began, as did Paul and Silas in the Acts of the New Testament, to sing.  Beaten-he would sing.  Denied food-he would sing.  Placed in solitary confinement-he would sing.  Whatever pressures the persecutors brought upon this man of God there was always the same result.

He would sing!

Before, for generations the songs sang in formal worship, especially worship established and approved by the State, were songs borrowed, transliterated from the outside, Western world.  They were songs which were suited for orchestras, maestros, and professional singers who were more concerned with the quality of the product sung than its spiritual content.  These State Church songs had become the norm of the church for many generations.  Sung with such frequency, these songs became a distant reminder of a faith which had long passed away more than a faith which powerfully burned with the Spirit of God today.  These were the songs approved by the State, and used by the State, as a weapon to control and emasculate the singing soul of the Body of Christ.

They should have left Constantine alone, untouched, free, and sitting quietly in his pew.  But they made a big mistake when they arrested this man of God, this leader in the Army of God, and placed him in prison.

As a result, Constantine began to sing.

Through the years he was incarcerated he created and committed to memory over 600 hymns and choruses of his HeartSongs to Jesus.  These songs began to escape through the bars, windows, and cracks in the concrete blocks of the prison.  The songs escaped inside of the hearts of those who were released from prison.  Guards fearfully caught themselves singing the songs they heard created inside of the cell and inside of the heart of Constantine.  Various governmental persecutors and church officials sought to suppress the growing influence of the songs multiplying themselves from within the heart and soul of one man, but spreading nationally.  They tried to silence him using any covert and overt persecution they could imagine.

Still Constantine sang.

By the time the global power of the former USSR was reduced to embers, Constantine had created over 600 songs and choruses to Jesus.  By his release, the songs had spread throughout the churches of his country.  Birthed by the adversity of pressure and in the crucible of persecution, these songs reflected the soul of the true church in his Eastern European country.

Today they still sing the songs of the Holy Spirit which came through the creative mind and voice of Constantine.

I sat with this man of God, a shell of his former self, in an old apartment as aged as Constantine himself.  His voice trembling, his hand shaking-one could still imagine the physical and spiritual presence this man of God had been for decades.  It was a glorious five or six hours to listen to this man of God revel in the retelling of his persecution and how he became such a musical tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit.  He stated confidently he would have never been used of God to create so much of God’s Word through music unless he had been honored with suffering for Christ for those many years.  It was as if I was sitting at the feet of King David writing the Psalms for his Lord and God, songs still sung in churches internationally today.  A little afraid but inspired, I asked Constantine if he would sing one of those songs, perhaps his favorite, which he had composed through the Holy Spirit during those long years in prison.  He looked at me, smiled at the request, and then gave to me a gift for the ages.

 Constantine sang.

A leader in East Africa approached me, asking if we would provide training for about 35 Westerners who desired to share the Gospel with Muslim people.  There was only one problem; none of them had ever met a Muslim before coming to the African continent!  They offered to meet with us for one day so we could orientate them in their efforts to reach out to Muslim peoples.

One day!

My brain was frozen in trying to discern how to reduce all that we knew about ministry and Islam into a one-day drive by shooting teaching opportunity?  I tried to negotiate for more time but was unsuccessful.  Today I would probably refuse to participate in such a small slice of training because, as my father used to say, “They know just enough to get themselves hurt.”

But from somewhere within the spiritual realm, inspiration struck.  I agreed to meet with them for a full day, but instead of instructing them concerning the tenets of Islam and ministry, I engaged the assistance of three brothers who were followers of Jesus from a Muslim background.  I informed those we were teaching that I would simply interview these three brothers on stage concerning their cultural settings of their families, their faith, and their persecution in order that we might use this teaching opportunity to its fullest.

It was a fantastic day as these 35 Westerners listened, often in shock, to the stories of their brothers from Muslim backgrounds that live daily in the grips of persecution and the possibility of being killed for their faith.  It was such a holy time the participants were reluctant to take breaks or to eat lunch, as they wanted to soak up as much knowledge and expertise possible.  These three brothers described faith in environments that can only be described as biblical, mostly Old Testament.  At the end of the day the leader of these 35 foreigners posed a very discerning question.  He asked,

“If you have accurately described what your world is like, what is the role of the Western worker?  What can we possibly do which will aid the development of faith while not causing you to be persecuted simply due to our presence?  What can we do to help?” One of the believers from Muslim background proposed a suggestion that rocked the very core of my being.

He said, “We live with trials and persecution every day.  Here is what I would suggest to you.  If you can come, and walk alongside of us, then come.  If you cannot come, then send someone on your behalf to encourage us.  If you cannot come, nor send anybody in your place, please write us a letter, send us an email which describes your love and support for us.  Write to us possible suggestions on how we should live out our lives in the midst of an Old Testament environment.”

Lightning flashed through my brain as I listened to this brother’s reply.  In a few short sentences he had captured the entire relational ministry of the apostle Paul in the New Testament.  When he could go-he went.  When he could not go himself to visit new believers and churches-he sent someone on the behalf of himself and the Gospel.  When he could not go nor send anyone he would write them letters of encouragement and instruction.

Our brother, a first generation believer from a Muslim background, captured a large portion of the life of Paul in a few sentences.  I will never forget hearing him say,

“If you can come, come.

If you cannot come, send someone to walk with us.

If you cannot come yourself, nor send us someone, then write us a letter of encouragement.” It captures the relationship of one believer with others who also follow Jesus in tough places.

This is not brain surgery.  Any one of us can fulfill these requests.  This is the relational essence of the New Testament and evidence of how the Body of Christ provides care for one another.

The table in his one-room house is still imprinted on my mind after many years.  There was a low wattage bare light bulb hanging above the table.  On the table’s surface was a well used metal plate, a large spoon, and a knife.  Covering most of the table above these utensils was a huge family Bible; opened, well used, with all the margins filled with hand written notes in Chinese characters.  There was a small closet which held one change of clothes, a pair of sandals, and a box of papers filled with his rambling thoughts.

He had been imprisoned for 31 years.

What went into prison was a healthy man with a wife and children.  In prison, because he refused to deny his faith in Jesus Christ, his persecutors forced his wife to divorce him and sent his children far away to be adopted by communist-friendly families.  They never charged him with any crime but locked him away in prison for three decades…just because they could.

They had used him up.  He was just a shell of a man.

There is an inclination in the West to dress up persecution; make it palatable, as we remember the faith that sustains our brothers and sisters in persecution more than imagining the blood and the tears and the separation and the psychological abuse.  Frankly speaking, persecution is very hard and we should never treat it lightly.  Thirty-one years later, having never charged him with any crime, they released him without explanation.  Having nowhere to go, almost everyone he knew were dead, he was now living in a one-room apartment just three blocks from the prison.  He had sent for me to visit him at one o’clock in the morning allowing him to tell his story; recalling his persecution and his faith.  I discovered that his week was well ordered.  Every day he went to the prison and demanded that they apologize for imprisoning him without cause, reminding them that they had cost him his wife and children.  Every day the prison officials laughingly refused to apologize.

He would fast four days of each week spending most of those days praying and reading his well marked Bible.  It became evident to me that he was more comfortable talking to God than to his fellow human beings.  He would share long narratives of his life with me and then, seemingly, forget that I was even in the room.  After 30 or 40 minutes he would look at me and say, “Oh are you still here?” and then continue his life story.

He taught me so much about suffering and about communicating with God as one’s best friend.  As I watched and listened to him I had a mystical awareness that what I was seeing in the middle of the night, inside a one-room apartment, were the remnants of a man.  He had suffered so much, had been dependent upon only God for so long, that he was a shadow of a man on the Earth, becoming more solid each moment in heaven.

Don’t let anyone ever deceive you; persecution is hard.  Yet God does often use persecution to begin a process of making us more like citizens of heaven than sufferers on Earth.

“If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the LORD. But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I bow there also-when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant for this.”  “Go in peace,” Elisha said.

2 Kings 5:17-19 NIV

Imagine that you are the first believer in your family, your people group, or your country?  Additionally you are Naaman, the General of the Army, the strong right arm of the king of Rimmon.  It is a thrilling story as recorded in 2 Kings 5 denoting how the leper Naaman was eventually healed through heeding the advice of a young Israelite girl taken into slavery and placed within his household.  Because of her testimony, Naaman traveled a long distance to seek advice from the prophet Elisha who commanded him to bathe seven times in the small and insignificant Jordan River.  After some heated discussions with Elisha and his servants, Naaman obeyed Elisha, bathed seven times in the Jordan River and was healed.  In expression of his thanks, and his new faith, he offered expensive gifts to Elisha, which Elisha refused.

Naaman prepared to return to the service of the King of Rimmon. He knew his brand new faith in the God of Israel and his service to the kingdom of Rimmon, with its idol worship, would result in an acute conflict for his new, one-person faith.  Therefore he suggested, recalled in the verses above, an ingenious compromise that would allow him to honor his newborn faith while apparently worshiping in the Temple of a false god.  Understandably he tried to get Elisha to approve this creative compromise.  Yet Elisha neither said “yes this is okay” nor did he say “this is a terrible idea.”  He simply said, “Go in peace.”

In environments of persecution exercising one’s new faith is tough.  It is hard to be a brand-new, flickering light from God in an overwhelming, Old Testament darkness.  Many workers from the West encountering new believers who are the first to accept Christ within their family, city, religion or country rush to solve all of the new believer’s problems.  After hundreds of years of believing in Jesus we think that we have all the answers for problems that we have never encountered.  I wonder what advice we would have given Naaman if we would have been Elisha?  With years of religious experience; churches, Bible colleges, seminaries and field savvy, we might be tempted to tell Naaman exactly what to do? We would solve his problem from our vast experience of being from “Christian” countries which entitles us, we think, to know all the answers to the Old Testament problems which we have never encountered, nor lived in.

Naaman knew not bowing with his King in the pagan temple could result in his no longer being the General of the Army and could result in the death of himself and his entire family.  What was the prophet’s advice to Naaman? “You are the one living there brother and you need to live with the tension of new-born faith within a pagan environment.  Work out your own salvation.  Trust God and his Holy Spirit to lead you to embrace faith and the possible persecution that often accompanies new faith in God.”  Elisha did not have all the answers for every new set of problems.  He left the decision in this potentially life-threatening situation up to the free will of the one who had to live out his faith as the only known believer within his culture. “Go in peace,” said Elisha, neither agreeing with Naaman’s solution nor condemning him for being a coward.  The prophet allowed Naaman to live within the tension of his new faith while standing beside the king. What advice might you give Naaman? What advice would you have willingly received?

But let’s not forget the believing ,Israeli slave girl whom God had planted inside of Naaman’s household!