The Insanity of God

    

      In the years that the communists ruled in Russia they were very hard years for Christians. In a small village in central Russia lived a man named Demitri, along with his wife and two sons. The communists had destroyed many of the churches and the family had a 3 day walk to get to the closest one. That meant they could go to church only once or twice a year. Demitri and his wife determined that the only way their sons could learn about the Bible was for him to teach them. So that is what he did. Once a week he would read and they would also sing the traditional songs of the faith and pray together. Nothing can be kept secret in a small village, so soon others found out and asked if they could come and hear the stories and worship also. The group grew to 25 and the authorities threatened to make life difficult for him and his family if he continued. When the group grew to 50 they made good on their threat. He was fired from his factory job, his wife was fired from her teaching job, and their sons were expelled from school. When it grew to 75, people were packed in like sardines and others listened at the window.

   One night an officer and soldiers busted in, grabbed him threw him against the wall, and slapped him around. The officer said that if they met again he would do much worse things to him and started to walk out the door. Just then a grandmother stepped in front of the officer and declared: “You have laid hands on a man of God and you will not survive.” That was on Tuesday evening. On Thursday night, the officer dropped dead of a heart attack. The fear of God swept through the  community and at the next meeting 150 people showed up. The authorities could not let that continue and sent Demitri to a prison 1000 kilometers away for 17 years.

   Demitri entered a prison of indescribable horrors. It housed 1,500 prisoners, none of which were Christians. He determined that he would do two things to keep himself faithful to God. He would rise every morning, face the east, and sing his heart song to Jesus. When he did, all the other prisoners would yell at him, curse, him, and throw refuse his way from their cells. Next, every time he found a scrap of paper he would try to write down all the Scripture or songs he could remember and then stick that piece of paper on a wet wall as an offering to God. Each time he did that the jailer would beat him.

  After many years of hard labor and regular torture the prison officials told him that his wife had died and his sons had been taken over by the state. He broke. He said that he would sign a piece of paper denouncing Christ the next morning. They said that they would release him if he did. That night Demitri’s brother met with his wife and sons and they all sensed that Demitri was in great distress and that they should pray for him. They gathered around the chair he had taught from and cried out to God. In his cell 1000 km away the Lord allowed Demitri to hear the prayers of his family. The next morning when the guards came back Demitri declared: “I am not signing anything. Last night the Lord allowed me to hear my family praying for me. My wife is alive and my sons are with her. So I am not signing anything!”

   On another occasion Demitri found a whole sheet of paper with a pencil next to it in the prison yard. He rushed back to his cell, filled up both sides of the paper with Scripture and placed it on the wall. He was beaten severely and then they grabbed him and told him they were going to execute him. As they were taking him down the corridor of the prison, all 1,500 prisoners stood at attention and started singing Demiti’s heart song. The guards stopped in their tracks and asked him. Who are you? “Demitri straightened his back and responded: “I am a son of the living God and Jesus is his name.” They took him back to his cell and released him a few days later. ) (The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken, pp.151-158. A portion of this book, including the story of Demitri, has been recently released as a full length movie!)

    

Are you going through hard times now. We do not have persecution in our country right now but thousands of Christians around the world are being persecuted for their faith and we need to be praying for them.

Pray:

1.     Pray that we, and our families will be as strong as Demitri and his family in the good times and bad.

2.     Pray that our country will return to its Christian roots and uphold God’s standards in our government and our courts.

3.     Pray that I will never forget how blessed we are to have the freedom to worship and read the Bible in our country.

4.     Pray that the glory of Jesus Christ will become our greatest passion and pursuit.