The following is excerpted from a letter written by German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and circulated to a hundred or so of his former students during World War II:

...To be sure, God shall call you, and us, only at the hour that God has chosen. Until that hour, which lies in God’s hand alone, we shall all be protected even in greatest danger, and from our gratitude for such protection ever new readiness surely arises for the final call.

Bonhoeffer is honored on The Martyrs Wall at VOM headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Who can comprehend how those whom God takes so early are chosen? Does not the early death of young Christians always appear to us as if God were plundering his own best instruments in a time in which they are most needed? Yet the Lord makes no mistakes. Might God need our brothers for some hidden service on our behalf in the heavenly world? We should put an end to our human thoughts, which always wish to know more than they can, and cling to that which is certain. Whomever God calls home is someone God has loved. “For their souls were pleasing to the Lord, therefore he took them quickly from the midst of wickedness” (Wisdom of Solomon 4.)

...Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death.

...Only in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ has death been drawn into God’s power, and it must now serve God’s own aims. It is not some fatalistic surrender but rather a living faith in Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us, that is able to cope profoundly with death.

In life with Jesus Christ, death as a general fate approaching us from without is confronted by death from within, one’s own death, the free death of daily dying with Jesus Christ. Those who live with Christ die daily to their own will. Christ in us gives us over to death so that he can live within us. Thus our inner ding grows to meet that death from without.  Christians receive their own death in this way and in this way our physical death very truly becomes not the end but rather the fulfillment of our life with Jesus Christ. Here we enter into community with the One who at his own death was able to say, “It is finished.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life on earth ended when he was hanged in Flossenburg Concentration Camp on April 9, 1945. To learn more about his life, ministry and death, read BONHOEFFER: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.

The text of today's post is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, taken from a sermon he preached while serving as pastor of two German-speaking congregations in England prior to World War II. Bonhoeffer would eventually return to Germany, where he was both a pastor and an active worker against the Nazis. His life on earth ended when he was hanged in Flossenburg Concentration Camp on April 9, 1945. But as this sermon excerpt shows, Bonhoeffer had been thinking about death and what it means for a Christian for quite some time:

No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence.

Whether we are young or old makes no difference.  What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God?  And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal?  That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up—that is for young and old alike to think about.  Why are we so afraid when we think about death? ...Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it.  Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word.  Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him.  Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace. 

How do we know that dying is so dreadful?  Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?

Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith.  But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.

Bonhoeffer is remembered on The Martyrs' Wall at VOM headquarters.

YOUR TURN: How does your faith in Christ change the way you look at death? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

To learn more about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, read BONHOEFFER: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.

My wife was with me on the trip to China several years ago when we met a house church Christian named Sister Tong, who you see in this picture. At that time, she had been free from prison just a few weeks after serving six months for hosting an “illegal” church meeting in her home.

I was relatively new to VOM at that time, and I asked her about her time in prison. What was that like?

And here’s what I was thinking: tell me about the rats. Tell me about the hard beds. Tell me about the cold. And the misery. Tell me how awful it was in prison.

And she got this amazing smile on her face, and she said, “Oh yes! That was a wonderful time!”

I looked at the interpreter, thinking that Sister Tong had misunderstood, or that something was being lost in translation. You must have misunderstood my question! I’m asking about prison!

But no, Sister Tong understood perfectly. And she had answered my question. It was a wonderful time because God was faithful and ministered to her in a special way. It was a wonderful time because God allowed her to share the gospel with her cell mates. It was a wonderful time because she saw a mission field where she was, an opportunity to serve and meet needs instead of a hardship.

When our brothers and sisters in China talk about prison ministry, they don’t mean once-a-month visits. They mean being sentenced to prison, and ministering while there. If that sounds familiar, it may be because we read about it in the New Testament (see Philippians 1:13-15).

YOUR TURN: If you lived in China, would you want your pastor to be involved in prison ministry? Would you volunteer to serve in that role?

Todd Nettleton has served the persecuted church and VOM 15 years. He has been interviewed more than 1850 times by various media outlets. He's the author of Restricted Nations: North Korea, and served on the writing team for FOXE, Extreme Devotion, Hearts of Fire and other VOM books.

After 10 days in solitary confinement, Hussein was taken back to the main prison. The paperwork they gave him said he was a “blasphemer of the Holies,” an apostate. One of the guards, seeing the charge, told Hussein, “Only God can help you in here.”

“Yes,” Hussein replied. “He is helping me.”

Hussein was assigned to Level 11, and when he got there he discovered that Level 11 was death row. The guard at the gate to this section argued with the guard who delivered Hussein: “If you bring him here, they will kill him!” But orders were orders. The gate was opened, and Hussein went in with 250 death row inmates. Then the gate closed, and the guard stayed outside. Inside Level 11, the prisoners were in charge and the prison gang made all the decisions.

“I started praying,” Hussein said. “I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that God was going to do something for me.” On his first night, Hussein was told by the gang leader to meet them at midnight in the bathroom. Hussein was frightened of what they would do to him. But instead of threatening him or being violent, they asked for his help.

“Please tell what is going on here [in the prison] to your friends in America,” they said. Hussein wasn’t sure what they meant; he didn’t have friends in America. But he promised to do what he could to help them. The gang leaders showed him to a top bunk bed. Other prisoners had been there five years and were still sleeping on the floor, while Hussein slept on the top bunk his first night on death row.

“I didn’t know how to say thank you to God, lying there on top of that bed,” he said. From his first night on death row, he was accepted as one of the top eight people in the gang. He was given fresh fruit and vegetables, and he had a private shower. He could use the phone every day, and finally he called his family to tell them what had happened. “It was like a hotel to me,” Hussein says. After two days the guard came and offered him a transfer to a “safer” part of the prison. “No way!” Hussein told him. “I’m not moving.”

He was on death row for eight days. Then his family brought the deed to his house to use as collateral, and he was released on bail. Later, at his court hearing, the judge pointed out some mistakes on Hussein’s appeal document. But even in court, God was at work. The judge personally corrected the mistakes and told Hussein where he needed to go to file the documents. Later, he gave Hussein his cellphone number and offered to personally handle his case file. Hussein didn’t even have to come back to court!

Hussein still can’t believe how amazingly God has stepped into his life at so many points. “If I ever die and I am before Christ,” he said, “I will never have any excuses that He was never with me. Look how many doors He opened for me! This is why I want to serve, because I know Christ is with me. I learned that it is not what I would want in a situation but what He wants, because that is so much better.”

A VOM worker asked Hussein how he is preparing himself for the next time he’s called on to suffer for Christ’s sake.

“I think one of two things will happen,” he said calmly. “They will either kill me or there will be another miraculous event like this.”

Then he looked right at our worker, his dark eyes glowing.

“Which one is bad?”

Hussein’s story was featured in a past issue of VOM’s free monthly newsletter. You can sign up to receive VOM’s newsletter here. You can also read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of Hussein's story. You can also give online to support VOM's work in the Muslim World.

Still blindfolded, Hussein was taken inside a building; he couldn’t tell if it was a house or a business. He was led down four steps just inside the door, and then after 15 feet there were more stairs. He was going to a basement. He heard men speaking Kurdish, a language he didn’t know. Looking down past the edge of his blindfold, he could see that the floor was made of tiles. Hussein was taken to the manager of solitary confinement; he was placed in a cell and the blindfold and handcuffs were finally removed. They gave him a gray jumpsuit to put on and took his clothes. The cell was a 10’ by 6’ room, with no bed or toilet or sink. On one wall were two floodlights, and one of them was always on.

“It wasn’t just the light that was bothering me,” Hussein recalls. “My thoughts were bothering me; a lot of things came into my mind.” He worried what the Christian girls he’d been arrested with were telling police. He worried that other church leaders would be compromised. He wished he could warn them. He put on the blindfold to block the light and try to sleep, but his thoughts were in turmoil.

“Then a big event happened. I had been a believer, but I had never felt Christ in this way ever in my walk. To hear God, like you hear water or anything else; I heard God! I felt like Jesus put everything aside, the whole world aside, to come to me and whisper in my ear. I heard God say to me, ‘Let’s pray together.’ I don’t remember exactly what He said, but He told me how to pray and what to pray for.

“I started to pray, and I got the peace that is beyond understanding. I felt so close to God at that moment. Jesus said to me, ‘There is no need for you to say anything because I am going to tell you what to say. Why are you afraid? At the end you are going to die, right? So why don’t you just serve? Don’t you have faith that when you close your eyes in this world you will open them up to me? And when you open your eyes you will be in my arms. Didn’t you get the teaching that whoever has more persecution gets a bigger crown? So why are you saying any of this?’

“I think that if this situation never happened to me I would probably never of heard the voice of God as clear as I did at that moment. I could feel the presence of God. The fear was gone. I was worried about nothing. Because Jesus said, ‘Don’t worry. Let Me do everything; give Me the responsibilities. Just think when you come out how much glory you are going to give Me and how many people might come to Me because of this.”

The next several days Hussein was interrogated. Each time, he was taken to a small room where gray carpet covered both the floor and walls. The carpet on the walls was stained with ink from hundreds of fingerprinted prisoners wiping their fingers on the wall. He was left in the interrogation room for long periods. He could hear interrogations in the neighboring rooms. Yet even in the interrogation room, the peace that Christ had given him remained.

Different officers interrogated him. One had a baby face and curly hair. Another seemed very angry. Hussein was handed paper and a red pen and was told to write down personal information about himself. They brought some of the literature from the apartment and asked Hussein about it. Hussein answered honestly that the literature was not his, and that he had been visiting the city and meeting with friends.

After three days, he was taken to court. “Why do you have a problem with mosques and Imams?” the judge asked. “Why do you want to destroy Islam?” Hussein told the judge that the books he held—taken from the apartment—were not his. The judge never asked Hussein whether he believed in Jesus or whether he was a Christian.

Hussein was taken back to the main prison, fingerprinted and checked in. But instead of being taken to a cell, he was again taken back to the solitary confinement prison run by the secret police. If any questions were asked, the paperwork would show that he’d been in the main prison the whole time. They took Hussein back to a cell, and the interrogations continued. At night they poured water onto the floor of his cell to make it wet and cold and hard to sleep. But Hussein wasn’t uncomfortable: “This solitary confinement I was starting to like because I was really praying and being alone with God,” he said.

He was there for 10 days, interrogated every morning and repeatedly asked the same questions. When they asked about Bibles, Hussein thought they had found the 500 in the apartment. But he was very careful of his answers, and he later discovered that the Bibles had not been found. The Bibles they asked about were the two from his backpack.

Hussein’s story was featured in a past issue of VOM’s free monthly newsletter. You can sign up to receive VOM’s newsletter here. Visit PersecutionBlog tomorrow to read how God had His hand on Hussein even when he was sent to death row. Click here to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Hussein and his ministry partner had gathered in an apartment belonging to a Christian in a Kurdish area of Iran. The man who lived in the apartment had also invited 10 young Kurdish, Muslim women to come hear about Jesus. The previous week, the believers had received a secret shipment of 500 New Testaments, which were stacked in three large boxes in one of the apartment’s bedrooms.

Shortly after the meeting started, eight members of the Ettelaat, Iranian secret police, rushed into the apartment. The angry men brought the meeting to a halt. One of them slapped Hussein before they took him to one of the bedrooms and handcuffed him. Some of them began to photograph each person at the meeting, while others began to tear the apartment apart, throwing everything—including Christian books and literature—into the middle of the floor in the large front room. They even pulled the pictures off the walls.

But miraculously, they never spotted the 500 New Testaments. “I was sure they would find them,” Hussein said, “because they even picked up a needle off of the floor.”

Hussein and three of the women were put in a white Volkswagen van. The van did not have official government license plates, and the Ettalaat officers had not shown any identification or warrants for the search or arrest. But they told Hussein he was in big trouble.

The police kept asking him about the girls in the apartment. What was he doing in the apartment with so many girls? And why was he, a Persian man, involved with Kurdish women? Hussein tried to remain calm and quiet.

They pulled up to a large gate, and when it opened they pulled inside. Hussein was blindfolded, and his ankles were chained together. The women were taken away; he didn’t know where, and he wondered what they would tell the officers and how he could make his story match theirs.

Three men marched him out of the van. “This is just the beginning of what we are going to do to you,” one of them said angrily. “This is just the welcome parade.” The men then put him in another vehicle. He heard the gate open again and they started moving. He didn’t know where they were taking him. Every time he moved in the car, one of the officers hit him and told him to be still.

“I knew if I made one mistake this church was going to get disintegrated,” Hussein said. “If I wasn’t John, I didn’t want to be Judas.” Hussein was silently praying, “Give me wisdom, God, for what to say and how to act.”

Hussein’s story was featured in a past issue of VOM’s free monthly newsletter. You can sign up to receive VOM’s newsletter here. Visit PersecutionBlog tomorrow to read how God protected Hussein in solitary confinement and interrogation. You can also read Part 1 and Part 2 of Hussein's story.

When a Christian brother we'll call "Bilal" died last spring in a small Nepali city, it was important to his family that his body be buried. For Nepali Christians, burial is not only a way to dispose of a body but also an "Ebenezer" (1 Sam. 7:12), a permanent landmark of a person's faith and God's faithfulness. But in Nepal, where 75 percent of the people are Hindus, cremation is the expected ritual following a death.

About 30,000 people live in the city where Bilal's family live, but there are only four or five Christian families. When Bilal died, radical Hindus tried to take his body for cremation, according to Hindu custom. Death, along with birth and marriage, is one of three significant milestones in Hindu culture. By cremating Bilal's body, the Hindus hoped to erase his Christian testimony. Cremation would be a message in their culture that Bilal hadn't really been a Christian, that in death he'd returned to Hinduism. Conversely, a grave would be a permanent testimony that this man had died a Christian.

Bilal's family refused to turn the body over to the Hindus; they wanted a Christian funeral and burial. The family was at home making funeral arrangements with their church's pastor, Pastor "Sabal," when they heard shouting outside the house. A large Hindu mob had gathered, shouting threats and demanding the body in order to perform Hindu last rights and cremation.

Sabal told the Hindus that Bilal was a Christian and that his family wanted a Christian funeral. The mob then became enraged, grabbing Sabal and two other Christians and beating them with sticks and their fists. The Christians tried to flee on their bicycles, but the mob continued to attack.

The Christians found refuge in the home of "Bima," a Christian widow who motioned them inside her house despite the angry mob chasing them. Why would she invite attacks on her home by sheltering the Christians?

"I am the Lord's servant," she told VOM workers, "so I have to be strong. I will not fear, because he is with us. I thought that some of those people might make problems for me, but I have to be strong."

The mob of angry Hindus backed off, and Christians on motorbikes came to remove Sabal and the others from danger. Sabal was treated for wounds he received in the beating and was later examined by our VOMedical director. While Sabal's body healed quickly, he struggled emotionally. He couldn't sleep for a week after the attack.

"I was praying for myself and I understood, when reading the Bible, I understood that I have to forgive," Sabal said, "because the Lord says if you don't forgive others you will not be forgiven. Those words were pricking my heart." God helped Sabal forgive his attackers by reminding him of the forgiveness he had received.

"I have also done some wrong things, some mistakes, so the Lord is working [to forgive me]," he said. "So I have to forgive. The Lord was speaking to me, 'Forgive them. They have to come to Me.' The Lord was speaking to me. Then I said yes. I have to work with them so they will come to Christ." A month after the attack, Sabal came to the point of fully forgiving those who had attacked and injured him.

He continues to minister in the same city, but after the attacks his congregation shrank by half. Many Christians left in fear, so Sabal preaches sermons designed to encourage believers to withstand the persecution he knows they'll face.

"One day everyone has to die," he tells his congregation. "The life here [on earth] is very short. Whatever they do to us because we're Christian — what we will go through — even if we have to die, we'll die because we'll have a long life [in eternity with Christ]."

Some of the believers too fearful to attend church still ask Sabal to come to their homes and pray with them. He has faith that one day their courage will be strengthened and they will return to the church. "I believe they will come one day," he said, "because they have tasted the Lord."

YOUR TURN: What are you doing to leave a legacy for Christ that others will be blessed by after your death?

I knew that I faced questioning, ill-treatment, possibly years of imprisonment and death, and I wondered if my faith was strong enough. I remembered then that in the Bible it is written 366 times—once for every day of the year—"Don't be afraid!": 366 times, not merely 365, to account for Leap Year. And this [the day of my arrest] was February 29—a coincidence which told me I need not fear!

The interrogators showed no hurry to see me, for Communist jails are like archives, to be drawn on at any time when information may be needed. I was questioned again and again over the whole fourteen and a half years I spent in prison. I knew that in the eyes of the Party my connections with the Western Churches were treasonable, but there was much else of importance which they did not know and must not learn from me.

I had prepared myself for prison and torture as a soldier in peacetime prepares for the hardships of war. I had studied the lives of Christians who had faced similar pains and temptations to surrender and thought how I might adapt their experiences. Many who had not so prepared themselves were crushed by suffering, or deluded into saying what they should not.

Priests were always told by interrogators, "As a Christian you must promise to tell us the whole truth about everything." For my part, since I was sure of being found guilty whatever I said, I decided that under torture I might incriminate myself, but never betray friends who had helped me to spread the Gospel. So I planned to leave my interrogators more confused at the end of their investigation that at the start. I would mislead them to the hilt.

My first task was somehow to get a message out to warn my colleagues and let my wife know where I was. I was able to suborn a guard to act as intermediary, for at that time my family still had money. He received about 500 pounds for carrying messages over the next few weeks. Then everything we owned was seized.

Excerpted from In God's Underground, written by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of The Voice of the Martyrs. You can order a copy of the book here; it is also available for Kindle and Nook e-readers.

Nepali Pastor "David" wanted to better equip Sunday school teachers at his church, so late last year he invited three trainers from another country to teach a two-day training seminar. The trainers had no idea the spiritual battle they would encounter would also become a physical one. David hosted the three visiting trainers in his home. On the first night the trainers were there, a congregation member called saying he was sick. Immediately the pastor left to go and pray with the sick person. While he was gone, seven people—three carrying sharp knives—arrived, asking for the pastor who was "converting people" away from their religion. The leader of the group was a well-known local official, a former high-ranking officer in the Nepali army and a strong Hindu.

The pastor was gone, but the angry Hindus turned their fury on the male trainer instead. They attacked him, beating and threatening him. They also damaged the church building and completely destroyed a motorbike.

David returned very late that night and was shocked to find his guest badly injured and his family cowering in fear. David grew more fearful when he learned he was the target of the attack.

Pastor David reported the attack to the police, and after a couple of days they came to "investigate." But they made no arrests, even though the family told them exactly who led the attack.

"Every day Christianity is growing in my village," said David. "That is why non-believers try to harm me. They are thinking that once we finish the pastor, once the pastor will die, the believers will scatter; there won't be Christianity."

When a VOM team met with Pastor David, his church had 70 baptized members, plus children, in a village of 2,000 people. As a former Hindu, he shares the gospel very clearly in a way Hindus can understand. He also prepares his new converts to face persecution.

"Even Jesus went through tremendous persecution in the Bible," he says. "So when you become a believer, the persecution is obvious. It is confirmed that you will have pressure and persecution. Even the Word of God says that when you believe in Christ that persecution comes to you. I encourage them with Bible verses and taking lots of testimonies from the Bible."

The threats and attacks have come. His fear is real. Pastor David prays daily that God will take the fear away. "But so far," he says, "that prayer hasn't been answered." God hasn't taken away his fear, yet the pastor continues to serve and minister and evangelize. Why?

"Because God has called me to do this," he said. "I have a vision for God's people. If I die also doing this work, God's work will continue. When I die for this one, God will give me a crown. I'll be crowned by Jesus."

David continues his work. But he fears for the safety of his wife and his three children, ages 5, 7 and 10.

"I'm very worried about them. But I teach them from the Word of God. For God, we have to bear all the consequences because we are called to this."

Before the attack, Pastor David would often go on ministry trips for several days. Now he tries to be home with his family each night so they aren't left without protection. When he needs to draw strength and inspiration, the pastor turns to the book of Daniel.

"When Daniel was given all the opportunity, he never bowed down his head to idols. And [Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego] were ready to go through fire. When I read this, I don't feel that the persecution I'm going through is huge—comparing to these guys, comparing to the book of Daniel."

David asked for prayer, but his requests were not for himself. "When I go outside to preach the gospel, to bring the gospel among the non-believers, pray for my family so they'll be safe. And pray for my church believers, that when the persecution comes, they will be very strong, that no fear would come among their hearts."

YOUR TURN: What fears do you have about sharing the gospel with friends and family? Are you willing to share Christ in spite of your fears?

Last month I visited Nepal to meet with and interview persecuted Christians. One of the brothers we met was a young pastor who'd been attacked by radicals just months before our visit. He was beaten up for trying to perform a Christian funeral and burial for a member of his church who'd died. I want to share a portion of our conversation, where he talked about the challenge of forgiving those who had attacked him:

Todd: Have you forgiven the people who beat you?

"Brother S": Yes, I forgive them.

T: How?

S: It is very difficult to forgive anybody that I am knowing and receive forgiveness from people. When I was praying and I understood, when reading Bible I understood that I have to forgive because the Lord says if you don't forgive others you will not be forgiven. So at that time the words were pricking my heart. Because…I have also done some other wrong things, some mistakes, so the Lord is working so I have to forgive. The compulsion was coming from [my] heart and I said okay Lord – the Lord was speaking to me: "Forgive them. [Those who attacked you] have to come to the Lord – they have to come to Me." The Lord was speaking to me. Then I said yes, they have to come – I have to work with them so they will come to Christ. I said okay – I forgive.

T: How long after the attack was that when you were able to forgive them?

S: For one week, I couldn't sleep. But after one month I could forgive.

T: So for one week afterwards you couldn't sleep. Then after one month you were really able to forgive from your heart?

S: Yes.

One of the amazing things I find as I meet with persecuted Christians is their ability to forgive those who attack and persecute them. And beyond even forgiveness, they show love and pray for God's blessings on them.

In Brother S's case, this was a month-long process involving much prayer and wrestling with God before he came to the point of forgiving. I remember meeting the widow of a martyred Christian who said she never felt anger or hatred for the men who killed her husband; forgiveness came to her as a gift from God almost instantaneously.

Most American Christians don't deal with persecution first-hand. We are not attacked for our faith, beaten for our beliefs or forced to bury martyred family members.

But all of us are called to forgive. All of us must ask God to help us work through the pain and frustration of being wronged and come to the point of forgiving. Next time you face that challenge, I hope you'll remember Brother S and be encouraged by his example.

Todd Nettleton is the Director of Media Development for The Voice of the Martyrs. More stories of persecuted Nepali Christians will be featured in VOM's February, 2013 newsletter. If you are a U.S. resident, you can click here subscribe to the newsletter.