Walking the Hard Road – My Continuing Testimony Born Out of Babylon

Wang Ming-Tao, a man who loved truth, who is said to be the father of the Chinese House Church Movement, sat in a prison cell for his counter-revolutionary preaching. He was sentenced for 15 years for sharing the Good News. Even his wife was locked away. Eventually, he succumbed to the promise that if he would use his gift of influence to preach the government’s communistic agenda, then he would be released. And, for a period of time, the desire to be free by deception overrode his desire to stand for the truth of which he had preached all of his life. He had always hated lies, but found himself doing what he had always hated just to be ‘free’ from the horrific persecution and suffering imposed upon himself and his wife.

One day, the realization of what he had done in order to preserve his own life and the life of his wife, caused him to start down a dark road of hopelessness. He no longer could preach the lies of which his heart was made broken. He and his wife were re-arrested. This time, he would serve a life sentence. He had come to the end of his rope, walking about hopelessly, muttering the same words over and over, “I am Peter, I am Peter!” However, it was the conviction that he alone had sinned against Elohim (God) that ultimately brought himself to the decision that he would rather undergo the most severe persecution, and die because of it, than to live a life of freedom gained from deception.

“Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause, and executes judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.” Micah 7:7-9 KJV

It was this passage that floated into the memory of Wang Ming-Tao as he sat in a Chinese prison that caused him to stand up bolder than ever to denounce what had once given him freedom. He knew that the greatest trial in his life came to test him in the very thing he thought he would never denounce. Sometimes it is the very thing that we are so adamantly for or against, that Yahuweh (the Lord) uses to test our loyalty to Him. For Wang Ming-Tao, that was telling lies. For the offer of freedom, he found that he was willing to sell out forty-one years of speaking the truth fervently. How much do we really love Him? Peter was asked this three times.

The test will come for us all one day. Will the intensity of physical, emotional, and psychological suffering cause us to throw away everything we have firmly stood for in times of peace? The things we thought we were firmly established in?

The cruelty of such a place as a communist prison cell is a place best forgotten for those who have suffered inhumane treatment. “And yet the lessons of the place are not meant to be removed from the memory. The saints that emerge from its horrors have faces that gleam like the morning sun. Their spirits have been set free from the yoke of worldliness. Their hearts are untouched by fear. They have lost everything. And they have gained heaven.” (Walking the Hard Road, pg. 43) In the margin next to this quote, of the little paperback book, I wrote, “Oh Father, may I be like them.”

It was this book that I grabbed to take on my journey to ‘Ancient Babylon’. I didn’t know why, but now I do. It was Father who chose this book for me. After my arrival, sitting in my room one evening, after reading not even a 1/3 of the way, I wrote, “tonight, my life is changing before my very eyes, as though the reality of this walk has been etched permanently within me. Take the chaff away Father, take the chaff away,” as I sat crying to Him.

Here I am just a short distance from the very place where Daniel pleaded for mercy in Daniel chapter 9, and where Ezekiel was sent to call the House of Israel to repentance. So much history has occurred here. I knew I was chosen to come here. I was given the opportunity, and I volunteered to go. This is not about my work assignment I believe, as much as it is about my decision to go back to the place I was once delivered from, to have the eyes of my understanding opened to how much of what I left behind still resides within the deep recesses of my heart.

Oh, I cry out with the Psalmist, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Even now, I wipe away tears to continue writing.

Yes, like Wang Ming-Tao, and every other believer who has chosen to walk the well beaten path of the cross, the well trodden hard road of that timber blood stained tree, there is a decision to be made to beat the temptation, the thought of walking away from the faith to experience life free from pain and suffering.

The fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar burned seven times hotter because Daniel’s three friends refused to bow to the kingship of another. Long ago, in a place not far from here, their loyalty was tested in the fire. One would think that it was enough of a test to refuse to bow to the image, but the real test came with fire. Emerging purified and proven, they were made useful for the Master’s will.

People say all the time, “nobody is perfect, we can’t be perfect!” Nonsense! Why do people say that? Because there isn’t enough suffering and time in the crucible to purify what we desperately hold onto. For the instant it gets hot, the head beliefs and surface convictions within people become ‘too close for comfort’ and they bail out. The reality of the test is replaced by the imaginative thought, “I am ok the way I am, after all, nobody is perfect.”

There is an exchange that must take place; the cross of suffering for the crown of life. People in the West fear the thought of physically suffering for their faith as much as people in the East do. A human being is a human being, and no one enjoys suffering. What is the difference between those in the East who will choose death rather than deny their Savior and those in the West who complain because the air conditioner at church is broken? What is the difference? The reality of the cross of Yahushua (Jesus) made personal.

For many in the West, the ease of life and luxury clouds the reality of the cross, and where there is blurriness of vision, the people perish. It is only in walking through adversity that the vision clears and we see the brutality of what the cross stands for. Death is reality every so much as is life. The fear of giving in under stress must give way to the fear of denying such a great salvation, no matter the cost. Why did the Master call us to pick up our stake (cross) and follow Him? Because He wants us to see with eyes wide open, what He went through to rescue us from the crushing weight of sin and then make a decision, with every step of the way, that were going to that place called Golgotha and die because we want ALL of Him and none of us.

Daniel did not have the teachings of Sha’ul (Paul) about crucifying the flesh, yet He lived blameless before His Elohim (God). When we come to the point of our walk that we desire more of Him than to do our own desires, then it means nothing to lay it all down to receive the reward of the crown of life.

People it hurts. I’ve gone through such hardships in having to face the fact that I am not always right. The affliction that grates against my flesh has been too much to bear at times. Yet, when I fall I get up only to get slapped down again by His revealing power that my flesh is still alive. It is then I cry in agony, ‘it is too much to bear!’ ‘I am Derek of the Well Trodden Road,’ I thought, and yet, I have nothing to offer anyone unless I am willing to join in unity with that tree of affliction, with a one way ticket to the grave; never my flesh to rise again.

Humility is a lonely road. This season in Babylon, both physically and spiritually is changing me. ‘WHY? I scream, WHY can’t I have a rest to recover from the beatings of your hand my Master?’ Because He loves me. Because He knows that I cannot have any useful part in His Kingdom if I still have chaff enwrapped around me. ‘Free ME, and gather me into Your barn I cry!’ The curse of ease and the pop-a-pill lifestyle I’ve lived has taken it’s toll. Why does suffering hurt so much? Why does there have to be pain in this walk to live a righteous life? Why do I have to endure trial after trial after trial? ‘WHY?, I cry out to Him!’

And He softly said to me this: “because I want you to choose Me in the end.”

At eighty years of age, Wang Ming-Tao was finally released from prison. I want to leave you with this quote from the book that was used (and is being used) to change how I view suffering and adversity for the sake of the Name.

From “Walking the Hard Road, pg. 94 and 95,” I share:

‘Many beginnings, few endings. ‘So the old man had said. For the Christian believer, that Chinese saying bears a sobering message. Wang Ming-Tao had chosen to follow Jesus. In the face of adversity he had turned back. Only God’s forgiveness had restored him to a new beginning. When confronted with pain and probable death, Wang had failed. So often we are simply confronted with life. Death or life. Which is more terrifying?

I thought of him, sitting victoriously there in his little apartment. He is a totally free man. He has nothing on earth to lose. Today, in the mind of Wang Ming-Tao, there is only one thing to fear – DENIAL.

As I left him, I had turned and asked a final question. ‘Uncle, do you have any precious lessons to share with the Christians in free countries?’ I can still see him, framed in the simple doorway, his nearly-blind eyes focused on my face. He nodded, beginning to close the door as he answered me. ‘Tell them,’ he replied, a gentle smile at his lips, ‘to walk the hard road.’

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And these are the words I wrote down in the back of that book after my tears soaked the bed, pondering the question in my heart; why is the road so hard?

“As I laid here reading those words, I broke down in tears and remembered – ‘because that’s the road Messiah took.’ He took the hard road for me, and He asks me to follow Him as I pick up my stake to do so. The hard road…it’s lonely, painful, long and weary, but it is the only way that leads to life.”

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“And yet the lessons of the place are not meant to be removed from the memory. The saints that emerge from its horrors have faces that gleam like the morning sun.”

This excerpt from the quote I shared above, reminded me of what one of my students said to me yesterday after the rest of his classmates went on break. Remaining behind, he came up to me, and with the biggest smile he said, “you look illuminate today, like the sun.” I smiled back at him with joy in my heart and said, ‘thank you.’

Humbly I speak, that though I am not in the same category as those who have suffered the horrors of persecution in prison cells, maybe I am, at least, finally beginning to catch a glimpse that suffering produces the light of His joy within me. And for that, I choose to embrace it all.

Come what may, I travel my journey home,

Derek