Matthew 5:14 You are the light of the
world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
When
Stenley got off the boat on the remote Indonesian island, he felt the spiritual
darkness. The people practiced a combination of witchcraft and oay44 Islam.
Stenley was fresh out of Bible school and ready for the work to which God had
called him, reaching these island people for Christ.
Stenley
preached boldly, calling people to tum to Christ and then to bum their idols
and die relics of their old life. One Muslim burned his idol, but inside it was
a scroll from the Koran. When radical Muslims heard of the burning of the
Koran, they reported Stenley to area officials. Stenley was immediately
arrested. Although Stenley was horribly beaten and lay comatose, his mentor
from Bible school, Pastor Siwi, came to see him and witnessed tears streaming
from his eyes. Soon after, Stenley died from his injuries.
But even
death could not end Stenley's ministry. When his story was told in his home
village, eleven Muslims accepted Christ as Savior. Fifty-three villagers made
the decision to attend Bible school, seven of whom asked to be sent as
missionaries to the very village where Stenley had died. Hoping to extinguish
the gospel fire, village officials snuffed out Stenley's life. But even in the
midst of their violence, God's hand was at work. Today the flames of the gospel
bum brightly In that village.
The woman
was one month away from graduating from Bible school along with her daughter.
It was the same Bible school where her son, Stenley, had gone before he went to
another Indonesian island as a missionary. Stenley was killed for carrying the
gospel, but his testimony had prompted many others to go to Bible school and to
accept God's call to share his love.
When they
had completed their training, the woman and her daughter planned to go to the
very village where Stenley had died. She hoped for a chance to show Christ's
love, even to the men who had beaten her son to death. A visitor to the Bible
school, hearing of her plans, was surprised. "Are you not afraid to
die?" he asked her.
The woman
seemed confused by the question, as if it was not. something she had thought of
before. "Why should I be afraid to die?" she answered simply. Her
faith in God's goodness was complete. If he chose to use her in the village ··
where her son died, so be it. And if he permitted her to die there, she would
accept that call as well. Her death would bring her into the presence of the
Christ she loved. Death was not an obstacle or a punishment, merely a doorway
into the eternal presence of God.
1 Corinthians 15:15 Where, Oh death, is
your victor? Where, Oh death, is your sting?
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