Safely Home by Randy Alcorn www.epm.org
Is
this the day I die?
Li Quan’s father had taught
him from childhood to ask this question every day. He told young Quan, “one day
the answer will be yes, and on that day you must be ready.”
Quan stiffened at the shout
behind him. The voice rang with the authority of the Gong An Ju, the Public
Security Bureau. “You meet in the night like the criminals you are. How dare
you defy the law? In three minutes,” Scarbrow said matter-of-factly, “we will
shoot every man and woman – and child – who does not declare himself loyal to
the people rather than the gweilos, foreign devils.”
Quan, Ming and Shen clasped
each other’s hands. Quan breathed deeply and braced himself.
“Surely this is the day.”
American business executive Ben Fielding has no idea
what his brilliant old college roommate is facing in China. After 20 years he
expects to pick up where they left off. But when they’re reunited in China, the
men are shocked at what they discover about each other. The paths they’ve walked
have shaped their lives and loyalties in radically different ways.
Thrown together in an hour of encroaching darkness,
watched by unseen eyes, both must make choices that will determine not only the
destinies of two men, but two families, two nations…and two worlds.
This book of historical fiction will entice
the reader to pray and study more, to look into the persecuted church.
The story relates
that Hudson Taylor introduced Li Quan’s great-great grandfather to Jesu. His
family also knew Ni Tuosheng-Watchman Nee. Following are a few quotes from the
thought-provoking book. This is one fiction book worth reading.
“The enemy
seeks to accuse us that we are not what we are. But just as surely, he seeks to
assure us we are what we are not.”
“Yesu said,
‘You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ Shengjing says,
‘If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’ That is real freedom One
man stands inside prison and is free. Another man stands outside prison and
remains in bondage. Is this not true,..?”
“…Many
years ago NI Tuoshen-Watchman Nee-was asked to speak at a gathering. He knew in
the crowd there were many authorities wanting to arrest him as soon as he spoke
about Yesu or church. When he stood, there was a glass of water by him.
Suddenly he threw it down, then crushed it with his heel. But the more
violently he crushed it, the more the glass spread. Everywhere he put his foot
down, glass spread farther. Then he sat down. The unbelievers thought he had
gone mad. But the believers understood. It was a sermon without words. They did
not arrest him-how can you arrest a man for preaching when he has said
nothing?”
“But what
did it mean?”
“In
attempting to destroy the church, the government has spread it. Instead of
holding the church safely in its hand, the state has lost control of it, or the
church multiplies under Communism even as Israel multiplied under Pharaoh’s
tyranny. China’s government is desperate to regain control over the church. But
the more they stalk and stomp, the more they spread the church with their own
heels. They lock men in prisons, and they take the gospel there. They send
women to correction farms in the country, and they take the gospel there. The
glass will not be controlled. It spreads everywhere. The same state that
persecutes the church is an instrument in God’s hands to make the church grow.”
Quite an illustration.
Writing about the persecution, trials and
discouragements and how come it is taking so long before Jesus Christ returns,
this is a dialog between Michael and the King…
“But when, if I may ask, Lord, will the time be right?” “The moment I
bring justice and relieve all suffering is the moment earth’s inhabitants’
eternal destiny is sealed. Not one more shall be joined to me then. To ‘end it
all,’ as you say, will also mean to end the offer of grace-a grace I delight to
offer, a violet grace that cost me dearly.” …
“Your servants wonder why you do not end it all now…” “They don’t understand that I am not only at
work here, preparing a place for them, but I am at work there, preparing them
for that place.”
