The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected

by Nik Ripken

“Serving God is not a matter of location, but a matter of obedience.”

“There is one thing I don’t understand about that funeral,” Omar admitted to his Somali friends. “Nik and Ruth buried Timothy—a son who they loved with all their hearts. During the service many people were talking about Tim. People were singing. People were crying. But everyone there seemed to know that Tim was in paradise! Why can’t we Muslims know that our loved ones are in paradise when they die? Why is it that only these followers of Jesus know exactly where they are going after death? We bury our people. We weep. We walk away. And we do not know where our loved ones are. Why? Why have Jesus’ followers kept these things from us?”

Dmitri was dragged from his cell. As he was dragged down the corridor in the center of the prison, the strangest thing happened. Before they reached the door leading to the courtyard—before stepping out into the place of execution—fifteen hundred hardened criminals stood at attention by their beds. They faced the east and they began to sing. Dmitri told me that it sounded to him like the greatest choir in all of human history. Fifteen hundred criminals raised their arms and began to sing the HeartSong that they had heard Dmitri sing to Jesus every morning for all of those years. Dmitri’s jailers instantly released their hold on his arms and stepped away from him in terror. One of them demanded to know, “Who are you?” Dmitri straightened his back and stood as tall and as proud as he could. He responded: “I am a son of the Living God, and Jesus is His name!” The guards returned him to his cell. Sometime later, Dmitri was released and he returned to his family.

“Nik, that’s why we haven’t made books and movies out of these stories that you have been hearing. For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It’s the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been—and probably always will be—a normal part of life.”

I had always assumed that persecution was abnormal, exceptional, unusual, out of the ordinary. In my mind, persecution was something to avoid. It was a problem, a setback, a barrier. I was captivated by the thought: what if persecution is the normal, expected situation for a believer? And what if the persecution is, in fact, soil in which faith can grow? What if persecution can be, in fact, good soil?

The man argued, “Lord, you’ve got to know that there are wolves everywhere. They could eat my horse and if they do, they’ll then eat me! I’ll never make it back.” But the deacon said that the Holy Spirit told him, “You don’t have to come back. You just have to go.” So he did.

Naturally, I asked if he would sing one of his songs. Tavian sang two. As he sang, I understood how he had been able to silence his captors and persecutors as he sang the power of God into their lives. As I exited his building, I imagined Tavian arriving in heaven one day, being met by a choir of angels singing one of the HeartSongs that he had composed while in prison for Jesus’ sake.

Then he raised his voice in a prophet-like challenge that I knew would live with me forever: “Don’t ever give up in freedom what we would never have given up in persecution! That is our witness to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ!”

“Do you know what prison is for us? It is how we get our theological education. Prison in China is for us like seminary is for training church leaders in your country.”

You can only grow in jail what you take to jail with you. You can only grow in persecution what you take into it.”

Finally I told him, “I personally cannot answer your question. But I would ask you another question that I have had to ask myself: ‘Is Jesus worth it? Is He worth your life? Is He worth the lives of your wife and your children?’” He was undoubtedly the toughest man I ever met. He began to sob. He wrapped his arms around me, buried his face in my shoulder and wept. When he finally stopped, he stepped back and wiped away his tears. He seemed angry at himself for this display of emotion. Then he looked me in the eyes again, nodded, and declared, “Jesus is worth it. He is worth my life, my wife’s life, and He is worth the lives of my children! I have got to get them involved in what God is doing with me!” With that, the toughest man I ever met said good-bye. He turned and walked out of the room.*

Though rotations of guards watched him around the clock, each day this man would do his daily devotions in his cell. One day two of his guards came to him in alarm and insisted that he stop his singing. They told him to stop singing “so that your songs won’t convert us.”

When we shared that incredible word with Muslim-background believers, they wept. They cried out to God, “Oh God, please let us live long enough to go to China to thank our brothers and sisters who did not forget us and who are praying for us every morning.”

Yet our pilgrimage among house churches in persecution convinced us that God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating, and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered-down, powerless western faith.

before we can grasp the full meaning of the Resurrection, we first have to witness or experience crucifixion. If we spend our lives so afraid of suffering, so averse to sacrifice, that we avoid even the risk of persecution or crucifixion, then we might never discover the true wonder, joy and power of a resurrection faith. Ironically, avoiding suffering could be the very thing that prevents us from partnering deeply with the Risen Jesus.

At the beginning of every day, we choose. It is simply a matter of identification. Will we identify with believers in persecution—or will we identify with their persecutors? We make that choice as we decide whether we will share Jesus with others or keep Him to ourselves.

Believers who do not share their faith aid and abet Satan’s ultimate goal of denying others access to Jesus. Our silence makes us accomplices.

Perhaps the question should not be: “Why are others persecuted?” Perhaps the better question is: “Why are we not?”

And then he raised his voice to say: “DON’T YOU EVER GIVE UP IN FREEDOM WHAT WE WOULD NEVER GIVE UP IN PERSECUTION—AND THAT IS OUR WITNESS TO THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST!”

The rural house-church movement was so sheltered and so isolated that some of their leaders asked me whether or not word of Jesus had gotten beyond China yet. They wondered if people in other countries knew and worshiped Him. There was a little more to that exchange that I didn’t share earlier. I informed the Chinese believers that they had hundreds of millions of fellow believers around the world. I told them that there were believers in almost every country on earth. When they heard that, they broke into applause and they shouted in praise.

My friends heard my words and my explanation. And, then, they became my teachers. This is what they said: “You see how we are meeting with you here in secret, Dr. Ripken. We have told you how our house churches move from farm to farm, house to house, often at night. Yet you tell us that pastors can preach the gospel publicly in your country and that believers in America are free to worship wherever and whenever they want.” “You have watched our leaders rip apart a Bible and divide up the pages, so that every house-church pastor can take home at least a portion of Scripture to share with his people. Yet you tell us that you personally have seven different versions of the Bible on a shelf in your office. And that you also own many Christian books and regularly read Christian magazines and newspapers.” “None of us has ever owned our own hymnbook or chorus book to sing from. Yet you tell us that your churches have hymnbooks for everyone, that you can purchase them in bookstores or order them by the case from publishers. And you tell us that Christian music is on many radio and television stations.” “You have described how everyone in your country, even those who are not believers, celebrates the birth of Jesus with a national holiday. And you tell us that some churches actually re-enact the nativity scene to attract and entertain the public.” “We have explained how so many of our leaders have been arrested that prisons have become the place where our pastors gain their most im...

When I reach for one of the Bibles on the book shelf in my study and have to stop to decide which version might be best for the passage and purpose that I have in mind, I think of those Chinese house-church pastors, each one going home from the clandestine conference clutching a handful of torn-out pages. They will preach from those few pages until they receive another portion of Scripture.

Samira tugged on the sleeve of my jacket. She whispered forcefully in my ear: “I cannot believe this! I cannot believe that I have lived long enough to see people being baptized in public. An entire family together! No one is shooting at them, no one is threatening them, no one will go to prison, no one will be tortured, and no one will be killed. And they are being openly and freely baptized as a family! I never dreamed that God could do such things! I never believed that I would live to see a miracle like this.”