The following excerpt is from the book Extreme Devotion, which you can buy at the VOM bookstore. Even more importantly, if you would like to help give the persecuted church, bibles, one of the tools they need, today would be a great time to enroll in Bibles Unbound. Click here to learn more about Bibles Unbound and to participate in helping equip your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.
The smoke of the train wreck was thick as cries of agony came from the sea of passengers’ bleeding, broken bodies among the ruined cars. Among the wounded and dying walked a surgeon who was unharmed in the collision. His luggage, though, was lost in the confusion, and he cried out, “My tools! My tools! If only I had my tools!”
With medical instruments, the man could have saved many lives. With his bare hands, he stood virtually helpless, watching as many died.
Today’s persecuted church is like that surgeon. They have the knowledge and the willingness to save many lives caught in the wreckage of Communism or Christless Islam. What they lack are the tools.
“Hear the cries of your brothers and sisters in captive nations!” wrote Pastor Richard Wurmbrand when he first came to the United States. “They do not ask for escape; they do not ask for safety or an easy life. They ask only for the tools to counteract the poisoning of their youth—the next generation—with atheism. They ask for Bibles. How can they spread the Word of God if they do not have it?”
Christians in restricted nations cannot provide these tools for themselves. They count on Christians in free nations to help. “Give us the tools we need,” one Christian told us, “and we will pay the price for using them!”
Chalk for a teacher, needles for a nurse, patience for a parent, and a tractor for a farmer. Every person, regardless of calling, uses tools. It may be as complicated as a computer or as primitive as our hands, but our lives change drastically with those tools. As Christians, we know our spiritual tools because we read about them in God’s Word, the Bible. But what about those who never read about the tools of compassion, forgiveness, love, sharing, and all the gifts and talents that God offers? You cannot keep these spiritual truths to yourself, hiding them as a miser hoards gold. Willingly share your tools freely with others in need.
