By: Earnest Costilow
Three Minutes to Go
THE BRAINWASHING had been going on for weeks, up to fourteen hours a day, forty- eight hours straight on one occasion. Yet the man held his ground. He would not yield. The place: a Communist prison camp in China, in the early 1950s. And the man: a radiant Chinese Christian. Finally, after repeated grilling, mockery, and torture, the Christian told his oppressors: “You are wasting your time, sirs. My faith is rooted deeper than any torture you might inflict upon me. It is rooted eternally in God’s Son, Jesus Christ.”
Furious, the Communist indoctrinator slapped him across the face and screamed, “Drop to your knees! Drop to your knees and pray! Because, in three minutes, we’re going to put a bullet through your head!” While the indoctrinator, an armed guard, and fifty more of the man’s fellow prisoners looked on, he did as he was told. “Lord,” the man began to pray, “ I thank you for the peace that is within my heart. I thank you for the faith which makes it possible for me to believe that, in spite of my oppressors, my heavenly Father sits upon His throne, able at any moment to silence forever the lips of these who blaspheme His Name, Lord, at this moment, You are able to prove your power to these two men. You are able to show yourself to be God. In a Moment, Your power could strike these men dead and –” But he didn’t get to finish his prayer; for gasping with pain, the two communists, indoctrinator and guard, fell simultaneously to the floor. In a few hours, bot of them were dead. The Christian was set free and, at last report, some years ago, continues to live unmolested in his home with his wife and children.
No Communist had dared go near his door. YOU, TOO, dear reader, may one day be required to stand before communists or other godless men, to confess your faith in Christ, at the threat of your life. You many lose your life for your stand, as have thousands of other heroic Christians. But, BE SURE OF THIS: God has not been taken by surprise. Eternal happiness, in the presence of the saviour, awaits every believer, no matter what earthly life holds in store for him. Today may seem to belong to the powere of darkness, but tomorrow always to God! “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. For when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly,”