Lin Xiangao (known in the West as Samuel Lamb) was raised as a believer, born the son of a Baptist pastor in 1924, in the mountains overlooking Macau, China. Following in his father’s footsteps, he preached his first sermon at age 19, shortly before Mao Zedong’s full-scale persecution of the Church. Lamb was first arrested in 1955, accused of being a counter-revolutionary.
He served 18 months before his release, and was arrested a second time in 1958, this time sentenced to twenty years of hard labor. He served his sentence in a coal mine, where his task was to couple coal cars together. He worked underground in low light and in very hazardous conditions, and continued to teach as he was able. Working like this killed or severely injured many men, but Lamb emerged from his sentence in 1979 unharmed. His wife died a year before his release, but Samuel was not allowed to attend her funeral. He said later that her death “was like an arrow from the Almighty, until I understood that God allows the pain, the loss, the torture; but we must grow through it.”
Lamb was targeted mainly for his refusal to merge his house church with the Three Self Patriotic Church (TSPC), the state-controlled church. The TSPC forbade the teaching of the Gospel to children under 18 years of age, denied many fundamentals of the Christian faith such as the Virgin Birth and Christ’s literal, physical resurrection. China’s control of the state church led to their teaching principals geared more toward government support rather than Christian beliefs.
In 1979, Lamb resettled in Guangzhou, where he began to teach English and converted many of his students to Christ. He soon restarted his house church, which quickly grew and had to move to a much larger building. The church continued to grow, and began to occupy multiple buildings and had meetings several times per week. According to the Open Doors organization, his church was a conduit for many thousands of Bibles and other Christian literature smuggled in from the West – Open Doors numbered the pieces of literature at over 200,000. Even so, he adamantly taught his congregation that they should submit to the authorities in all things, except for when doing so directly opposed the teachings of the Scripture.
Suffering was a frequent topic of Rev Lamb’s sermons. “I can understand Job’s victories and Job’s defeats,” he often said. “It taught me that grumbling does not help. Not against God and not against those who persecuted me.” He taught what he called the “Holy principle of persecution”, which was that persecution has only one outcome: more growth for the church.
His church was raided again in 1990. Lamb was arrested and his congregants were admonished not to attend services any longer, but Lamb was released the next day. Though many in the church were intimidated into not coming the following week, Lamb and a few brave souls met the following Sunday without incident. Soon the church was larger than ever, numbering over 5,000 regular attendees.
Even though his congregation was still illegal, Samuel Lamb’s church was not bothered again, up to his death in August, 2013, at the age of 88. Even so, he was prepared for more suffering. He kept a bag packed with a change of clothes, shoes, and a toothbrush – prepared in the event of his arrest so he could just pick it up and go. At his death, over 30,000 people spontaneously crammed the streets of Guangzhou to pay him homage.
His church was raided again just before Christmas, 2018, as part of the Communist Party’s new crackdown on Christian worship. Since 2016, the Communists have sought an ever-increasing dominance over everyday life. The government has banned online sales of the Bible, burned crosses, demolished churches, and forced many places of worship to close. Many church members have been instructed by the authorities to sign letters stating they no longer believe in Christianity. The church has, in many cases, again been forced to move underground and meet in secret. If Samuel Lamb’s “Holy principle of persecution” is to be believed, we should be excited for the long-term spiritual growth of the church in China.
https://www2.cbn.com/news/news/china-strikes-again-shuts-down-third-underground-church-weeks
