When he got out, he again started witnessing and they beat him and put him back into solitary confinement. Eventually he was transferred throughout five different prisons with the same thing happening in each one: severe beatings, being starved, being put in solitary, over and over.
Finally he was released from prison after many years. But he would not give up his testimony for Jesus. I've read stories of people who have been tortured, burned alive, had eyes put out, or fingers cut off, and other hideous things happen to them for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them I have talked to personally.
I've spoken to pastors in India, who walk from village to village, ministering to individuals, holding church services, who are sometimes caught and beaten almost unto death, whose families live in daily peril of their lives.
Their homes have been burned; they have been cut off from economic help. They are those who will see Jesus and He will say to them "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord."
Persecuted in America?
Disgusting, isn't it? Can't people see how persecuted we are as Christians in America? Why, most of us Christians go to church if we don't have something else more important to do that day. We have to get in our air-conditioned cars and drive a few blocks to church every week, for goodness' sake! Sometimes, more than once a week, even.
And of course, we have to put up with those padded pews or chairs, while we endure a couple hours for our God. But the pastors watch the time diligently so as to keep us past lunch time or make us miss the ball game. God knows what we go through for Him.
Ah yes, the rewards we will have in heaven one day. Some of us even throw a dollar or two in the offering plate every now and then. After all, we're the richest nation on the face of the earth, even the poorest American is a king compared to 95 percent of the world. So we can afford to give a buck or two, right?
Don't you just hate it when you see these preachers on TV telling us we need to repent and turn from our evil ways? Most Christians don't cheat on their wives or husbands, or kill people, so what's there to repent of? I mean, what could they possibly know about what we go through every day as we try to make our living?
And how could they call us lukewarm Christians? Don't they know we feel sorry for those persecuted Christians? We mean to tell our co-workers about Jesus, it's just kind of awkward, you know what I mean? And if our neighbor next door asks us about Jesus, we will surely know someone we can send them to, hopefully....
Giving an Account
We will all face Jesus one day to give account of what we did with the Gospel. But, telling the lost about Jesus is a job for preachers, right? He couldn't possibly mean for ME to start telling people about Him. What would people think of me? They might think I'm some religious nut and actually be turned off from knowing God, right?
Besides, why should we try to interfere in someone else's religious choices? It's a free country, and people can find Jesus on their own if they want to. It's not politically correct to be a Jesus freak. Why, you could even lose your job and your friends over telling people about Jesus.
It happens to people all over the world. God wants us blessed, right? See, that's all the more reason we Christians don't tell others about Jesus. We could end up losing our stuff. Surely God doesn't want that.
However, His Word tells us what He's looking for: According to 2 Chronicles 7:14,
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.In these times of one thing after the other, floods, hurricanes, and other disasters, that God is giving us a wake-up call as He starts to bring judgment upon. Can it be that the hearts of American Christians are so hard that they can no longer repent? Do we think we can escape the judgment of God for being so lukewarm and lazy as Christians?
My friends, it's time for all of us to get on our faces before God and ask Him to forgive our sins and to give us another chance to win the world to Jesus. I'll do my part. Will you do yours?
Let's ask God to bring revival to America! Real revival; the kind that changes a nation all the way from the President down to you! Let this be our battle cry: "Let none be lost, but all come to repentance!"
Jerry Baysinger was a twenty-one-and-a-half-year civilian employee of Missouri State Highway Patrol and operator of his own successful furniture repair business, when in 1993, he was diagnosed with five melanomas and liver cancer. Given a month to live, he resigned from the Patrol and went home to die. 
