But the more they were oppressed,
the more they multiplied and spread….
Exodus 1:12
Oppression often brings growth. It was truth physically for the Israelites. And it’s true spiritually, as well.
This summer I read The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken. Mr. Ripken shares true stories from countries and people all over the world who obeyed God despite insane consequences.
Over and over I marveled at real-life stories of God working in unexpected ways – to see the Kingdom advance, as the persecution increased.
I loved Dmitri’s story out of Communist Russia.
Because the closest church was a three-day walk, Dmitri began a weekly time of reading and teaching the Bible to his wife and two sons. As neighbors took note, they asked to join in. When the group grew to 25, local party officials paid a visit and accused Dmitri of beginning an illegal church. They warned that continuing would bring bad things.
As the group grew to 50, 75, and eventually 150, so did the consequences to Dmitri and his family. His wife lost her teaching job, his boys were expelled from school, and he was physically beaten. Eventually, Dmitri was imprisoned for 17 years – all for reading and teaching the Word of God.
He was the only believer among 1500 hardened criminals. The isolation from the body of Christ, he shared later, was even more difficult than the physical torture.
He kept his faith strong during those 17 years because of two disciplines:
- Every morning at daybreak he would stand at attention by his bed, raise His arms, and sing a HeartSong to Jesus.
- Whenever he could find any scrap of paper, he would take a piece of charcoal or stub of pencil he found and write all the Bible verses he could remember.
Year after year, the guards would try to make him stop. The prisoners laughed, cursed, and jeered as he sang. They banged cups on the iron bars in protest and would sometimes even throw human waste at Dmitri.
The guards would yell at him for singing and beat him when they found His scripture.
One day Dmitri received a special gift he knew was from God – in the prison yard he found a whole sheet of white paper and a pencil beside it. He filled the page with all the Scripture he could recall. (I wonder…could you and I fill a page with verses from memory?)
As expected, he was beaten and punished by his jailor and this time threatened with execution.
As he was dragged down the corridor…an amazing thing happened. 1500 criminals stood at attention by their beds. They raised their arms and they began to sing the HeartSong they had heard Dmitri sing to Jesus every morning all those years.
The oppression led to multiplication.
Obedience to God brought economic, physical, and emotional consequences – great persecution — to not only Dmitri but also to his family.
Are and I willing to suffer to advance the Kingdom? Would we be willing to read and teach the Bible to our children and neighbors if these types of consequences could result?
How did so many Russian and Ukrainian believers remain strong in their faith through almost a century of communist persecution? How did they learn to live and die like they did? When Nik Ripken asked this question…here was their answer:
“We learned it from our mothers, our grandmothers, and our great-grandmothers. We learned it from our fathers, our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers.”
What are our children and grandchildren learning from us? We live in freedom — no fear of the type of persecution experienced by Dmitri and others like him.
But – have we given up in freedom what Dmitri refused to give up under persecution?
Let’s not wait for the oppression to bring the multiplication of our faith.
Let’s not go looking for oppression…but let’s not intentionally shy away from it either.
The woman of God knows oppression often brings multiplication.
How might God use you to grow His kingdom?
Here’s the link to this week’s teaching lecture – Exodus 1 and 2:
http://fbcsiloam.podbean.com/e/ladies-bible-study-exodus-1-and-2-laura-macfarlan-9-11-14/
