Are we willing to be courageous for Christ?

By Pastor Ron Bridge

The black-clad Khmer Rouge soldiers had visited the village of Siem Riep before. Haim, a teacher, knew this time they were coming for him and his family. They were “the old dandruff!”, “enemies of the revolution!”, “bad blood!” They were Christians. The soldiers rounded up the entire family, tied them up and left them to spend the night on the wet grass under a stand of trees. Like Jesus in Gethsemane, they prayed all night.

In the morning they were led to the killing fields and ordered to dig a large single grave. The killers gave Haim permission to ready his family and father, mother and children knelt, linked hands and prayed. Haim began to exhort the Khmer Rouge and those looking on from a distance to repent and believe the gospel. In a moment of panic one of the youngest sons leaped to his feet and bolted into the surrounding bush and disappeared. With amazing coolness Haim convinced the soldiers not to pursue the boy but allow him to call him back.

To the astonishment of the Khmer Rouge, the onlookers and the rest of the family kneeling by the grave Haim called to his son: “What comparison my son,” he said, “stealing a few more days of life in the wilderness, a fugitive, wretched, and alone, to joining your family here momentarily around this grave but soon around the throne of God, forever free in Paradise?” After a few tense minutes, the lad returned, weeping, and walked slowly back to the grave and took his place with the kneeling family. “Now we are ready to go” Haim told the Khmer Rouge.

Few of those watching doubted that as each of these Christians’ bodies dropped silently into the grave they had prepared with their own hands, that their souls soared heavenward to a place prepared for them by the Lord. (Don Cormack, Killing Fields, Living Fields: An Unfinished Portrait of the Cambodian Church - the Church That Would Not Die [Crowborough, England, Monarch Publications, 1997], in Taste and See, by John Piper, Multnomah, 2005).

Few, if any, of us will ever be called to martyrdom. Fewer still entreated by their father to come and die. And yet, that is what Jesus’ calls each of his disciples to do (Mark 8:34-38). Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him, ‘come and die.’” We may not suffer physical death or torture because we are Christians, but we must ask ourselves if we are willing to suffer any kind of loss at all? It would seem by the state of apathy in the typical Evangelical church in America that few are.

What kind of thinking is it that justifies a person into believing that in heaven they will stand next to people like Haim and his family, when they themselves never say a word for Christ because it makes them feel uncomfortable? What kind of distorted message are they preaching to themselves that allows them to think they will be safe in eternity, when worshipping, praying and studying with the saints is not their first priority, or second, or third? Does our brand of Christianity really cost us anything? Are the boundaries of our Christianity set by the word of God, or by our own comforts, safety and pleasures?

In his hymn: Am I a Soldier of the Cross, Isaac Watts asks a question of Christians everywhere: Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause or blush to speak His name? Must I be carried to the skies on flow’ry beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas? Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God? Sure I must fight if I would reign -Increase my courage Lord! I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by Thy word.

Probably none of us is so naturally courageous as to be able to face the loss of life or even all our possessions for the cause of Christianity. The great news is that should we be called to suffer for Christ, He will give us the courage to do so: “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear or be afraid...for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you” (Deut.31:6), “...for He Himself has said: I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5b). We can be certain that the Lord was very much in attendance and supplying each with courage when Haim and his family knelt by their own grave. We can be equally certain that He will be with us should the time come when we are called to pay the price of being identified with Him.

The Psalmist wrote:

“Thy people will be willing in the day of Thy power” (Psalm 110:3).

With such a promise, are we willing to be courageous for Christ?

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