Human Rights — Brother Andrew

Channel: Sermon Index

Amazing, you are very prudent people, because the free papers are still there. Now how do I explain that? This is not Scotland, obviously. Because that would have been gone and all the books left. But there is a package there, a dozen or so, and I really want you to take it if you're not acquainted with open doors, because then you can receive our news brief, monthly, and other papers.

This time there is supposed to be little, or not in this one. The first one for the month of November. Persecution updates. And if you really want to know what's happening and want to get involved, please take one of those packets, write to us for a paper which is free, but it may cost you everything.

So there is a risk involved. I know that young people nowadays like risks. So go for it, but you have to run in that corner and one up here. Because tomorrow by this time I'll be on my way to Holland.

The Suffering Church in Restricted Countries

I'll be speaking this morning, of course, about the subject that is closest to my heart, the suffering church in the so-called restricted countries. Believers living behind so-called, falsely called closed doors.

And tonight I want to speak more about that world. I'll show you. If I were an artist, I would paint it in the most beautiful colors, but I'm not an artist. With my feeble words and my limited knowledge of English, I have to paint you a picture of that world and tell you what God's word says about it.

Once we combine what God's word says with the situation in the world, we find ourselves right in the middle to act. And that may be very surprising. A while ago I took my American open-door director to somewhere in the Middle East to visit the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

And we had a house meeting. The room was crowded with people. And I was speaking from the word of God and giving my testimony. There was one particularly, I think, obnoxious guy, big guy, dressed in white.

He was a Sufi. He should have been more philosophical being a Sufi, but he was very hostile toward us. There was one young man on my left. He tried with all his might to convert us, to make us Muslims, to convince us how good Islam is and how we ought to blah, blah.

And I was just witnessing and speaking about Jesus, Jesus in my heart, Jesus who forgave my sin, Jesus who has given me eternal salvation, and I know it, things that they never know, except when they die in the Jihad.

It's the only way for them to know they go to heaven. And then suddenly that young man on the left tried to brainwash us and persuade us. He jumped up and ran out of the room to some place in the house.

And my colleague from America was sure he was going to get his gun and shoot us. So we just waited a little, and then he came back with a stack of papers. There was a correspondence course from Transworld Radio on the life of Jesus that he had been following and filled out.

Answered all the questions. How mistaken one can be. You think it is a guy who is going to shoot us, but all he wants to know is, tell me more about Jesus, I'm interested. That's the world in which you live.

Loving Enemies and Proclaiming Christ

And I want to stress tonight that mission work stops as soon as we see the world or parts of the world as an enemy. Whatever name it has, Islam or communism or terrorism. But mission work stops the moment we see the world that way.

Because the moment when we as an individual Christian see any person as an enemy and we develop an enemy image of that person because of his hostility or his appearance or his religion or whatever. The moment when we see him as an enemy, the love of God cannot flow through us anymore to reach that person.

We place ourselves outside the scope of God's work in that person. Beware. I will speak about that tonight. Because we want to win a world and we don't want to keep talking about closed doors because the problem is our hearts are closed.

Then our eyes are closed. And just like Jonah and Nineveh, he let Nineveh go to hell if it would depend on him. And yet we have to convey the love of God. All that hostility in the world is only a great opportunity to proclaim the message of Jesus.

The First Human Right: Everyone May Know Jesus

Now tonight I want to speak about human rights. There's a lot of talk about human rights. A lot of unrest in the world, including in this nation, is all based on what people perceive as their rights. They're going to get it.

And I have noticed that the more people speak about rights, the less they speak about responsibilities. The Bible speaks about responsibilities. And yet I believe in human rights. I'm also officially a member on a committee on human rights with the Soviet Union and the United States.

I represent my country, Holland. But I have for myself and for using open doors, drawn up my own list of human rights. And I want to go through that list with you tonight. They're very simple. Number one, everyone in the world has a right to know who Jesus is.

Well that should keep us busy for the rest of our lives. And yet we realize that they can only receive that right if we give up our rights. A right to myself. Begin to live the crucified life. Disregard danger and hardship and just go because he said go.

As Pastor Stephen already pointed out, there's no substitute for obedience. There's no substitute for going. Actually not even prayer can be a substitute for obedient going. So everyone has a right to know who Jesus Christ is.

And of course I do base that on the word of God. I don't even have to look at that. You all know that. What verse am I thinking of now? That's a good one. I was thinking about another one. John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave. Was anyone excluded? No, no one. So then why do we make all those distinctions? Who's in and who's out? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

That whoever and wherever and whenever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. That includes the everyone. Every man, every woman, every boy, every girl has a right to know who Jesus is.

That includes all those for whom Jesus died on that cross. And if these through our unbelief or disobedience or sheer neglect and lack of vision would not reach everyone then basically it means that Jesus suffered on the cross more than he should have suffered because his suffering did not cover everyone.

He left them out. He didn't. He did. And I so remember the weekly prayer meeting we had in our Bible school in Glasgow where I was together with Malcolm. Every Friday night there was a prayer meeting.

They called it prayer battery. And we were supposed to attend. And local people would come. And there was one lady I'll never forget. I think she's the only one I remember from that particular group. Miss Clark.

Old, poor lady. Bent over. Short, long, black dress, black shoes. And there she came in the prayer meeting every Friday night. And she prayed with the others. And every prayer, every night, every Friday night, her prayer ended the same.

Quoting from Isaiah 53 verse 11. That he shall see the travail of his soul and be abundantly satisfied. The word abundantly she inserted. That's not in the scripture. It was a good one though. That he shall see the travail of his soul.

Because all our preaching and our ministering is based upon what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross. And if we for any reason leave out the cross in our preaching, we deny the people the entrance into the kingdom of God.

There is no salvation outside of the cross of Jesus Christ. And the moment we begin to compromise because of liberal teaching or our own unbelief or because we're scared of the Jews or the Muslims who don't want to hear about the cross, that moment we're denying them entrance into the kingdom of God.

And I'm here tonight to tell you that the Muslims are open to hear the message of the cross once you have earned the right to their attention. That may need some doing. Because we have not built up much credit in the last decades.

Until the end of the second world war, seven-eighths of all the Muslim countries were colonized by Christian nations. We never made a dent in that situation. Business did, yes. Hollywood did, yes. Technology did.

But not Christian work. And today we're reaping the bitter fruits of that terrible neglect. When you earn the right to their attention, you can and should and must speak about the cross of Jesus. Why is there so much terrorism nowadays?

That fearful phenomena that seems to paralyze the whole world. We haven't found an answer yet. Please don't believe that bombing the Tora Bora mountains or Baghdad brings us one inch closer to a solution.

We haven't found a solution yet to that terrible threat of terrorism, nor to the danger, I call it the challenge, of Islam toward the world and the church of Jesus Christ. We haven't found it yet. So let's look at these people as individuals for whom Jesus Christ died and let us be Jesus to them.

And I guarantee they won't blow you up. And if they do, then it's too late for me to apologize anyway. It only means you get there a little quicker. What is the problem? I spoke this morning about those churches that were blown up by the Muslims through bombs in the church.

And one case that I was recently in Babapur, Pakistan. Half the congregation was killed instantly. You think how awful. Then a few weeks ago, the nightclub disco in Bali was blown up. Hundreds of people killed.

The whole world knew about that one. Very few knew about the churches blown up. And I state here tonight that it is better to be blown up in a church than in a nightclub. So just choose your place next time.

But that's the world in which we live. And the terrorists are so active because no one has yet confronted them with the claims of Christ. That's why they're terrorists. They have no reason for living.

So they found a reason for dying. Not long ago I was in one of our homes. We have a home in the jungle in Colombia in the midst of that rebel area and the drug trade and the shooting and the kidnapping and the killing.

And so many children are being kidnapped, small children. Sometimes we managed to rescue one of the girls with her baby. She's only 13 years old because the rebels let them go or make it easy to escape when they have a baby.

And there's still children carrying a baby. There's one boy, Vladimir, he was now 13, and I hugged him. He was a killer. In order to get into the rebel movement, you have to prove your guts by killing a man.

He had already killed a murderer. Thirteen years. And I hugged him. And I thought, well, if this were my son, and he begged this, he said, they have taught me how to hate. Could you please teach me how to love?

And I could expand that statement to all those terrorists that have been taught to kill and to die. Can anyone teach me how to live and let live? Terrorists. They're reachable today. And I believe if they are reachable, they are winnable.

But we haven't made an effort yet to win them for Christ. And they're so open. That door is so wide open. But start with that basis that I tell you tonight. Everyone has a right to know who Jesus is. It doesn't depend on some overzealous Christians and Evangelicals who apply to join a mission and go into the world.

It's the privilege of the entire body of Christ to get on with the job. Because they all have a right. It doesn't depend on a call. It's our responsibility. Let's be serious about it. And make an impact in this world today.

And tell the people who Jesus is. That's point one. Everyone has a right to know who Jesus is. Point two on my list is that every Christian who suffers for his faith in Jesus Christ has a right to be assisted by the other parts of the body of Christ.

The Second Human Right: The Suffering Church Must Be Helped

Everyone, wherever in the world, who suffers really for the name of Jesus. Not for his nationality or denomination. But for his faith in Jesus. Everyone has a right to be assisted by other parts of the members of the body of Christ.

And I have a verse for that. And that is what the Apostle Paul writes to the Christians and the Koreans. It's a very clear verse. I will read a couple of those verses. In 1 Corinthians 12, at the end of verse 25, it says that the members of that body should have the same care for one another.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Now you are the body of Christ and members individually. They have a right to be helped. And yet how many missions among the thousands of excellent good missions are really reaching out to the suffering church.

How many young people in the Soviet Union, I don't know, I hope there are not many, who have given up their faith in God because in their loneliness the pressure and all the seeming scientific arguments against the existence of God haven't given up their faith.

Because they were not helped. Because nobody came over there to put their arms around them and sit together and share Christ. And then of course a terrible persecution that took place under communism.

70 years of communism. No historian will ever be able to find out how many millions of Christians were killed. And the terrible persecution that took place until just, well not even until 10 years ago, it's still going on in China, in Cuba, in Laos, in Vietnam, in some of the Central Asian republics, even in Russia itself.

Will we ever know why did they fail if they failed? They had the right to be assisted when there was no one. And that makes up the suffering church. They have a right. It says here that we should have the same care for one another.

Years ago I was speaking with Arthur J. Smith about that situation and he had that great one-liner that no one has the right to hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard it once. I love it. I always did.

I love these books. Passion for Souls in those books. I even translated it into Russian. Russians love those books. And we were discussing that and fantasizing a bit and see how we could adopt that statement or change it.

And I came up with a saying. I said, Fr. Smith, would you allow me to change it and use that for our mission? Why should anyone have two Bibles if not everyone has one Bible? He loves it. He said, Andrew, go ahead.

And so I've often used that statement because I have spoken in big meetings, bigger than this one, from the Bible and the interpreter was the pastor and he had no Bible. That made me feel very bad. Why should I have two Bibles?

Did I say two? Do you have two Bibles? I bet you have three Bibles. I bet you have five Bibles. I bet you have ten Bibles. I won't go any further because I asked that question in Holland in the church and I went up to fifty.

There were still some hands raised. Why should anyone have two Bibles when not everyone, especially serving in such a strategic area from where communism and the revolution and terrorism comes where they could do the greatest job in preventing violence and we don't give them the tools.

They don't even have a Bible. There's something wrong with us. We have a right to be assisted. Same care for one another. I see the reports and you can read them. This is the Dutch copy of Open Doors.

It's always about people. When we started this magazine 40 years ago, I said to the editors, there must always be a face on the front page, but never my face. But we are a people-to-people mission. It's people that we want to help.

It's people that we want to reach. In our paper you can read about the work, for instance, that we do in Sudan. It's very risky. Actually, our workers don't want me to go there because you have to walk and march 10 -20 miles a day in blistering heat, bitten by mosquitoes, and they think I'm too old for that.

That's stupid. I'm not too old for that. But that's what they say. We fly in illegally with Russian planes that are there illegally. Filled with Bibles, and other things that are needed. Blankets, medicine, food, for a starving population.

And then you read all those terrible reports about the slave trade. The Muslim armies from the north invade the south, and they raid villages and towns, and they take all the people they have imprisoned, including the children, and they carry them off to the north.

And then the people are sold on the slave market. The girls eventually become sex slaves. The boys, hard labor, chained with iron, chained to the wheelbarrow, just as it was 50 years ago in the Soviet Union.

These are the Christian people in the south. Then it boggles my mind. I read that verse, and I think of my daughters. I have two daughters. And I think, suppose they would kidnap my daughter. Just go along with my line of thinking.

Suppose they would kidnap my daughter and take her to a slave market, and sell her to become a sex slave. What would I, as a father, do to get her out of that? Father, can you imagine what you would do?

Do you have the guts to think that through? I would travel the world. I would work and speak and write and shout and yell and probably rob a bank. Anything. Well, not rob a bank as a Christian, but, you know, as a non-Christian I would.

I would steal. I would do anything. To get enough money and then travel to Sudan and buy my girl back, I would. Wouldn't you, father? You'd do anything. To sell even your own self, if you could, to redeem your daughter.

Then why don't you do it for a black girl in Sudan? Is she not our sister in Jesus? That we have the same care for one another? Are we still scriptural people? Do we still live by the truth of the Bible?

Or only accept selected verses that speak about my blessing, first blessing, second blessing, third blessing, Toronto blessing, every blessing. And we don't take the same care of one another. And then we still expect God to come down in power with his spirit and give us revival?

Forget it. We will not have revival. Until we obey the principles of the word of God. The same care for one another. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Now, there is no clearer teaching in all of the New Testament.

A teaching that is not open to any different way of interpretation than this verse here. Everyone has to agree because it is so clear. If one member of this body of mine suffers, the entire body gets into action to support that one member or to relieve it of the pain and duty and heavy carrying.

The whole body gets into action. Everything in my body. My heart, my blood, my muscles, my brain if I have any. Everything in my body. To support that one part. And the Bible says, well, that's the body of Christ.

What are you doing? They have a right to assistance on the basis of the word of God. The third point. I said the first is everyone has a right to know who Jesus is. As an evangelist, I like that. Second is that everyone who suffers for his faith in Christ has a right to be assisted, helped, supported by other parts of the body.

The Third Human Right: Knowing How God Meets His Suffering People

That's the third point. That's encouraging. Everyone who lives in the so-called free world has a right to know how God meets his people when they are paying the price and the suffering. Again, that's why it's so important that you read our newsletters and our books.

And I write a lot of others, of course, in my books. That God is doing something in those prison camps, in the Gulag archipelago, in the re-education camps in Vietnam, and in the prisons in Saudi Arabia, and in Sudan, and in Peru.

I just visited our brother David in Peru, in prison. He has already started a church in prison because God's word is not bound, although they may bind the preacher. And you go to prisons. I've been in a number of prisons in Colombia, in Rwanda, in Uganda, in Saudi Arabia even, in Indonesia.

And see what God does in those prisons. We ought to know that a person shut up in prison is not immobilized, nor is he beyond reach. We can go there, if you want to. And then you see the mighty works of God.

I want to give you a verse for that too. In 2 Timothy 3, there is a very good verse about that. 2 Timothy 3, verse 12,. And all who desire to live a God-realized increase in Jesus Christ will suffer persecution.

You say, is that encouraging? Yes. Because identifying with the prisoners, and seeing what God does, encourages us to pay the price. And that's why the overall tone in Open Doors, with all the misery that we report, is always one of victory.

The word of God is not chained. God is sovereign. It's one thing to sing it in a meeting hall, where everybody says amen to that. But see it out in the prisons there. See it where the suffering is intense.

See how God, sometimes with a great sense of humor, works among his children, using them. I remember the first time the Lord spoke to my soul about this. I was in a communist country, in the height of the persecution, and I was preaching in a Baptist church.

Now the reason I mention the Baptist so often is not because I want to please you, because this is a Baptist church, but for the simple fact that most evangelical churches over there are Baptist churches.

That's the reason. I love the Baptist saying. And one day, I was having an evangelistic campaign in a big capital city, and there were several other Baptist churches in the city, spread out, and I was not allowed to preach as a foreigner.

So you probably say, well Andrew, how can you evangelize when you are not allowed to preach? Well that's very simple. I was allowed to give greetings. And my, I had greetings. Piles of them. Greetings from my wife and family.

Greetings from my Open Doors team. Greetings from my home church. And I had greetings from the Apostle Paul. And he had kindly written them down for me, so I could read them out to the people. I was only giving greetings, I was not preaching.

Then I suddenly remembered a verse in Peter, that Peter says, complains that Paul's epistles were so difficult to understand. He says that. So therefore, it's clear I have to explain Paul's greetings a little.

Took me about two hours. And, amazing is how many people come forward when you just give greetings. To accept Christ. Amazing. Because you don't have to be preached to communicate the love of God. Anybody can do that.

Greetings. Friendship evangelism. Earn the right of their attention. Offer them a cup of coffee or fix a flat tire as I do for the Muslims that walk over the pavement in my street. Do something that makes you friends.

And it's amazing to see. And then the next evening we would be in another church, but it was not announced because it was illegal anyway what we did. And the people were already standing outside of the church building, blocking the road and that was attracting the police attention, which we were not too keen of.

And so we would not announce where tomorrow night's meeting would be, but it would be crowded again. Evening after evening, crowded. And one evening, the pastor, Baptist pastor, invited us to his home for further fellowship.

And we went there with a dozen or so elders and a handful of pastors. And I remember as I entered that house, everything looked so poor, so totally bare. There was no carpet on the floor, nothing on the wall, no carpet, no cover on the table, just plain wood.

And I was greeting to them because under communism, they were not allowed to touch on subjects like prophecy or Israel or the return of our Lord Jesus Christ or being soldiers for Christ. The hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers, was always forbidden in these countries.

Lots of subjects they knew nothing about. Besides, not everyone had the Bible. So I had my Bible on the table and explaining things. And we were not offered any coffee or tea. There were no snacks, nothing.

Just the Word and us. And then suddenly the door opened and first we were a bit frightened. You know, you always are in those situations. Police? No. There was a friend of mine from another country, even more restricted, more persecution, and I had worked with him before in evangelism, but he was so effective they arrested him and put him in prison for a couple of years.

And we thought he was still in prison, but he came out free and he walked into the room and astonished us by his presence. So we all jumped up and we hugged and we cried. That's what you do on those occasions.

And eventually we settled down and sat again on our chair and they expected me to continue, but not me. Here's a man who had paid a price. I wanted to learn from him, let him speak. But he looked at me, because he hadn't seen me for a few years, but I didn't say anything.

And then at last he opened his mouth and was dead quiet. He said, Andrew, are there any pastors in Holland in prison? I didn't have to think about that one. I thought if there is anyone, it's not a good one.

In his country only the good ones are in prison, not in my country. And so I said no. But I was thinking. I was really hurting him. He did not understand. So I said, why not? Now I got nervous. How can I explain that no pastor in Holland is in prison for his faith?

So I began to say, well, we have liberty. We can preach. Our churches are open. We can shout from the rooftops. We broadcast on radio, television. We have Bible Society. We have Christian bookstores. We have Sunday school.

We have child defense. We have everything. Not realizing that everything I mentioned was totally foreign to them. They have none of that. And yet the church grows and is crowded evening after evening.

And I saw that I had completely lost my audience. So I quit talking. And it was quiet for a long time. And at long last, still looking at me, the guy said, What do you do with Second Timothy 3 .12? And I didn't know.

How do I know what we do with the verses I do not know? Verses about suffering are not our favorite verses. We don't memorize them. We memorize John 3 .16 and Psalm 23 .1 and John 14 .6. But not Second Timothy 3 .12.

Not verses about suffering. And paying the price. So I didn't know what we do with that verse. So I opened my Bible and that verse. And I began to read and blushed. In that setting, I tell you, everybody is staring at you.

And they pin me down on that verse. And they have every right to do so. And I read, all who desire to live a godly life. And you know, the moment you find a verse that you don't like, you turn into an instant theologian to explain it away.

Listen, we do that. And I figured Paul was referring to the early church, you know. But he says, oh, so that didn't work. And I think, well, maybe he meant they might suffer. But he says they will suffer persecution.

And as I had no guts to look up, I kept looking, staring at that verse. My eyes fell on a couple of verses preceding this. And for myself, I began to read quietly and totally convicted. But you have carefully followed my doctrine.

Followed means observed. My doctrine, my manner of life. My purpose. My faith. My long suffering. My love. My perseverance. My persecutions. My afflictions. What's happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra.

What persecutions I endured. And out of them all, the Lord delivered me. But all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. I was still quiet in that room. Everybody stared at me.

At long last, I knew I had to reply somehow. I looked up and said, forgive me. We do nothing with that verse. And I knew there's a whole lot of verses we do nothing with. Then that verse began to live for me.

It became a message. I've read it many, many times because I read through the Bible every year. But it had never become a message to my heart. Somehow, a few words or verses that I pass on to you tonight, that you already knew.

Of course, you know your Bible. But they will suddenly become a message of God to you. I will not let you go until you act upon it. All that want to live a godly life, there's a price. And the more willing we are to pay the price, the greater our joy will become.

Joseph Bondarenko: Evangelism in Prison

One of my great friends in the Soviet Union in those days was Joseph Bondarenko. Have you ever heard that name? We've also written about him in the past. He was called the Billy Graham of Ukraine, Billy Graham of Russia.

Famous youth evangelist, Baptist, of course. And he said, okay, I'm not used to that thing. I may hit it occasionally. And Bondarenko was always preaching. Young, good-looking fellow, full of faith and full of joy.

He just radiated the joy of Jesus and got arrested for preaching. And the first time he was sentenced to three years in prison. That's a long time, friends, for a young man. Three years in prison. And he just continued to evangelize because a change of location does not change your ministry.

He was an evangelist when he was three, so he was an evangelist when he was in prison. And he continued to lead people to Jesus Christ. Until the authorities were so angry with him, they threw him out.

Now, remember that. Whenever they arrest you, you become aggressive. Try to convert them and they'll throw you out. It's the quickest way to get out of prison. Or first it's the quickest way to get into prison, of course.

But then it's the quickest way to get out of prison. I've always done that when they arrest me and they do. Right at the border already. I start preaching at them like mad and they get so scared. I really get scared.

Something wrong, they know that. Wrong with them, too, and I tell them that. So, they never take a big risk with me. So, they threw Bondarenko out. They said, don't you preach anymore or we'll come back to you.

Out. And he left ever so many young believers in that prison. So, he went out and he preached again and we were instantly supporting him. And, of course, he got arrested again. And they took him back and now they made a mistake, those Russians.

They took him back to the same prison. Uh-uh. And as he entered, escorted by a gang of soldiers, the other prisoners saw him and they greeted him with shouts of joy. They said, praise the Lord, you're back.

And he looked at them in bewilderment. He said, praise the Lord. Why? He said, well, when you were here before, you led so many of us to Christ, but we don't know the Bible. You seem to have the whole thing in your head.

We don't know anything about the wonderful stories of the Bible or the doctrines of the church. And so, we all come together every day. We say, dear Lord Jesus, bring Joseph back. Now, what do you say to that?

So he said, well, that being the case, praise the Lord. And he continued evangelizing and many more came to the Lord. And what else does an evangelist want? Preach and see souls come to Christ, right?

We don't speak about the conditions or the circumstances, do we? Well, maybe. Anyway, there was a great result and the authorities were so angry with that mistake they had made that they shut him up in a cell which was in the midst of a cold winter, like here, and it was not heated and ice was on the floor and the walls of that cell and it was very cold.

And they put him in there with a big criminal, 6 '6", huge fellow, cruel, bad-looking, and they put him there and they figure the circumstances and that man will finish off his faith. And Joseph is not a big man.

Let's face it, when you meet a big guy, you are intimidated. I am. Maybe you're not, but I am and Joseph was. So he waited until midnight, dark, and the big fellow was asleep and he would slip out of his bed and kneel on the floor and pour out his heart to Jesus.

One night something went wrong. The big fellow woke up. What are you doing there? Joseph says, I'm praying. To whom are you praying? I'm praying to God. For whom are you praying? I'm praying for you. The big man said, what?

I've been so cruel to you, you pray for me? Yes, Joseph says, because God loves you. Jesus wants to save you, make you a new man. The big fellow jumped out of bed, knelt next to Joseph and within five minutes accepted Jesus Christ and Lord the Savior.

You can do it. And these two became a terrific team in the prison. Joseph quietly speaking about Jesus. The big fellow saying, get on your knees, accept him. Wonderful team. Terrific. So effective. Then of course the soldiers were really mad at them and they were then put in a cell, cold, unheated cell, but there was no bed, no blanket, no food, no water.

They were shut up there to die because the entire prison authority gang and the government were scared stiff of people who loved Jesus more than their own lives. And the two managed to stay alive and stay awake for a while, one day, maybe two days, just walking and holding each other until they couldn't stand anymore.