Doing Missions When Dieing is Gain!

Have you ever been a missionary or on a missions trip were half the town in which you shared the Gospel believed and the other wanted to kill you?

Imagine with me that you are on a missions trip. You and a friend enter into a city you have never been before. You both have left friends and family to tell those who have never heard the message of Jesus. As you begin to preach Jesus the people of the city seem to be responding. You find some fellow believers and they welcome you into their home.

One day the city is up in arms, a riot is about to breakout. The town is divided, half believe Jesus and the others do not. All because of the message you brought. What kind of thoughts go through your mind in a situation like this? Do you think, “What have I done? It might have been better for me to keep quite than to cause a violent riot.” Then the people turn on you! A mob is forming with the intention of stoning you and your partner. You get wind of the plot and narrowly escape possibly due the aid given you by a few of those who believed. As you are fleeing the city, what kinds of thoughts go through your mind? “Did that family that helped me escape, the same family who accepted Jesus as their savior as I told them of His resurrection? What is happening to this family who fed and housed both me and my partner as we preached Jesus to the whole town? Are they being drug out into the street to be stoned? Did they escape as well?” You can only imagine what might be going through your mind as you and your partner escape. As you are running the Spirit leads you to yet another town.

In this town you preach Jesus and Him crucified to tall who will listen. As you are walking from place to place teaching, preaching, and compelling the people to believe in the resurrected Christ you see a crippled man, completely paralyzed from the waist down sitting on a mat listening ever so intently to your every word. You see tears begin to drop from this man’s eyes as you can see that this man believes. At once you shout to him, “Stand up strait on your feet!” At once the man leaps up completely healed and begins to walk! All the people who saw this great miracle begin saying to each other and shouting “the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” They call your partner “Zeus” and you they call you “Hermes” because you are the chief speaker.

At once the entire city is in an uproar! The pagan priest of Zeus runs into the temple and brings out garlands and animals to sacrifice to you. All the people begin bowing down on their knees singing and shouting out praises and worship to you and your partner. At once you become so enraged and furious that you tear your clothes and shout at the people, “Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you turn from these useless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all the things in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” Even after you and your partner say these things and plead with them to worship the Living God they still are reluctant.

After many days of preaching and teaching, there is much fruit for you labor. Many are accepting Jesus and committing their lives to Him. A church has formed! Elders and deacons are being appointed, and the people are gathering together in one place to worship Jesus and to hear the teaching of His word.

Then some powerful religious leaders from another town come in and are somehow able to persuade the people that you and your partner are evil and are misleading the people. They say that you healed the paralyzed man with the power of Satan. Again the people gather together in a mob seeking to destroy you. They burst into the place were you are staying and drag you out to of the city. There they hurl stones at you! Each stone is thrown with great force as they land on your back and on your legs. One angry person runs up and at close range launches a rock the size of a softball at your head. As you feel the concussion of the blow, your eyes become dizzy and you fall to the ground. The mob continues to pummel you with rocks until there is no longer any motion in your body. They leave your lifeless body on the middle of the road covered in your own blood.

A few hours later after the mob had dissipated your partner and some of the people who remained faithful come to fetch your body to bury it. When they arrived at the site of the stoning one of them, possibly the crippled man whom had been healed at your words says to the brothers, “the God whose power healed my legs has the power to raise this man from the dead. His work is not finished, there are many more who need to hear the name Jesus. Let us now ask this God to raise his servant.” So they all gathered around your body and at once you rise to your feet and walk back into the same city where you were just dragged out of.

That night you had a sweet time of fellowship with the brothers of this second town. You worship Jesus for all that He has done and is doing. You recline at the table, under dim light hoping the mob will not learn of your return, telling stories of the things that have happened to you and your partner while on your missions’ trip.

Can you imagine what it would be like to go through events like these? You are called to preach Jesus, a simple message of Him crucified and then resurrected. But the people misunderstand you and reject you, your message, and Jesus. Not only that one town plots an attack on you in which you narrowly escape and the other stones you to death.

Are you willing to risk our life to preach Jesus? Are you afraid to preach Jesus at Starbucks because you are afraid the people will drag you out to the middle of the street and stone you? Or are you afraid to preach Jesus because you think your friend will not think you’re cool anymore? Jesus is looking for radicals who will risk their lives and their coolness for the message of Jesus crucified and resurrected.

Will you be one?

This is where Paul and Barnabus found themselves on Paul’s first Missions trip. The first city mentioned is Iconium and the second Lystra. The biblical account is found in The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 14.