Obstacles to instruments

Series: Why Should I Encounter Persecuted Christians?

I need to encounter persecuted Christians because they show me that God turns obstacles into instruments!

The Persecuted Church teaches us that everyone is either an agent of God's will or an instrument of God's will.
Everyone in this world has only two choices: they can choose to do God's will by cooperating with him, or they can choose to defy God and do his will unknowingly.
"Remember, our God is so great even the persecutors serve him," said a Chinese pastor wryly. He was referring to Mao Zedong, arch-persecutor of the Chinese church who launched the fiercest anti-Christian campaign of the 20th century in the 1960’s called "Cultural Revolution".
He swept away churches, burned Bibles and imprisoned pastors.
Yet all he succeeded in doing was pushing the church deep underground, where it became embedded in the family structure and in Chinese culture.
Three hundred years of evangelism had failed to accomplish this.
From this fire emerged the world's largest revival - where the church grew from 2 million in the late 1970s to over 60 million today.
"We say," said the pastor smiling, "that, thanks to Mao - who thought he was annihilating the church - we have the greatest revival. He thought he was killing the church, but all the while he was doing pre-evangelism. God had the last laugh. Glory be to God - he always gets his will done."

Extremists as God's evangelists
This truth is starting to show up in India. Since 1997, violence against Christians has increased greatly as a result of the election of Hindu extremists.
Yet the effect of the extremism has been to drive thousands of low-caste Hindus into the church. The more Hindu extremists persecute Christians, the more moderate Hindus are drawn into the church.
"God's greatest evangelists in this country are the Hindu extremists," said a Christian evangelist in Bombay.
"By their violence, bloodlust and bigotry, they disgust the lower castes to the point they say, 'Why should we stay at the bottom of the Hindu pile while these dreadful people oppress us? Let's join the Christians instead.'"
Dare one suggest that even Osama bin Laden does the will of God? Many missionaries throughout the Muslim world are reporting that since 9/11, all sorts of new opportunities for conversations with moderate Muslims have arisen.
These Muslims have been shaken by the actions of the extremists, and many are considering the Christian faith as a viable alternative for the first time.
It is a glorious truth to which the persecuted awaken us - everyone ends up furthering the will of God!
Even those who put obstacles in the way of the church serve God, because God just turns the obstacles into instruments.
This means that we must not despair when we think conditions for the flourishing of our Christian lives or our churches are less than perfect.
A Christian in an Asian democracy said: "I used to think that because we had such corrupt leaders there was no chance of God blessing the church here. But when I look at persecuted Christians, I see them rejoicing that the will of God is going ahead even though they are in far worse conditions."
This Christian now looks to see how God is getting his will done through the very people he thinks are destroying the church.
God probably has a chuckle about all this.

Agents or instruments
I remember three university professors telling me they had all become Christians as a result of reading Bertrand Russell's book "Why I am Not a Christian." Russell was a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, and many read the book expecting a powerful case against God to be made.
But as one of the professors said: "That Russell could be so convinced by such paltry arguments only served to show me there must be a thing called spiritual blindness. I believed."
Take your worst enemy or the one feature of your life - society or church - that causes you the most despair, then put your mind into gear and think: How would God work His will through this obstacle?
Are you childless? Maybe God is using that to give you a greater ministry, impossible with the responsibility of family.
Are you powerless? Maybe God wants to show His glory and make you marvel.
We may not get an answer, but it is a thrill to try, because we know everyone is either a willing agent or an unwitting instrument of the will of God.
He's too great, and He loves the world too much, for it to be any other way.
God takes the obstacles, and makes them His instruments!
 
Other articles in this series:

• Achievement or Sacrifice?
• Stop Complaining
• Our Debt to Spiritual Ancestors
• Hope for Hard Times
• The Battle for Religious Freedom Never Ends
• Seeing the Bible through Persecuted Eyes
• Death Loses its Sting
• The Power of Song
• Simple Faith
• Key Ingredients in Hospitality
• The Beauty of Mystery
• Awakening to Struggle
• God is Not Safe
• Deliverance Comes Through Endurance
• Imperfect People Do God's Will