Gottfried F. Alf

Gottfried F. Alf

Do you really believe that the Gospel is “the power of God unto salvation, to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16)?  God works in each individual heart in individual, often unexpected ways.  In 1850, the town of Mentnowo, a German colony near Warsaw, Poland, had no minister.  Lutheran ministers were few and covered very large areas.  The once red-hot Lutheran faith had become a flicker of its former self and spiritual lethargy was the norm among both clergy and lay people.

In cases like that at Mentnowo, where there was no local minister, it was expected that a schoolteacher (who presumedly knew how to read) would lead Sunday worship and read a sermon.  In Mentnowo, this task fell to nineteen-year-old Gottfried Alf.

Taking his task seriously, Gottfried began to study the Bible to better understand the sermons he was reading.  Reading intently for over two years, he realized his own lost condition and understood that salvation came only by the work of Christ.  In 1853, he committed his life to Christ.

Gottfried shared what he had learned with his students.  Many of them came to faith, as well as many parents.  Other parents resisted and complained to the over-extended pastor of the region.  This pastor told him to hold no more Bible teaching and no more prayer meetings.  When he refused to quit, they orchestrated his firing from his job and kicked him, his wife, and their young child from their home.  Now without income, his father took the family in and allowed Gottfried to farm some of his land to provide for his family.

Convicted of the truth of the Gospel and with an insatiable desire to share, Gottfried began making trips around the region to preach.  People were saved.  Lives were changed.  The status quo was disrupted.  As a result of this, Alf was arrested and beaten by the Lutheran authorities.  Realizing he no longer had a place in the church into which he was born, Gottfried became a Baptist – incurring the wrath of both the Lutherans, the local Russian Orthodox clergy, and his own father who threw him off his land.  By 1866, the year overt persecution ceased, hostile authorities in the regions he visited had beaten and/or imprisoned him at least thirty times.  In some cases, food was withheld, chains were put on deliberately tight, medical care was neglected.  Other times he was exposed in chains to crowds who would heckle, jeer, and threaten.  Despite these difficulties, Gottfried continued to preach and work.  He founded many churches in Poland and in Ukraine.

A biographer records just one of his imprisonments with these words:

“Not far from Adamowo, although he was carrying a pass, Alf was stopped by two of his enemies. They found, however, that Adamowo was not listed in his pass and took him to the magistrate in Wiszkow…. Since he carried tracts in his travel bag, he was labeled a sectarian and was thrown in prison on May 13 for four days. For the first three days he was among criminals and without food or drink; on the fourth day a German smith heard of him and brought him food. He was then transported to Pultusk, where he was imprisoned eight days. He was held here so long that his pass expired, which was further cause for punishment. He was then ordered to Przasnysz, a particularly torturous journey by foot since he was not feeling well. Fortunately, brethren with a wagon came searching for him and carried him to Prasnisz, where he remained imprisoned for four days until May 28.
The authorities then sent him to Chazecharow, where on the next day the magistrate ordered him to pay ten rubles. Alf sent in the ten rubles, but that did not settle the matter.… Alf was ordered to deliver the money personally with a written declaration that he had not traveled with any evil intent and would not spread a false faith but only the pure Christian religion…. [By] June 3, Alf had endured twenty-one days of suffering and approximately 1,300 kilometers [808 miles] of tiresome travel. After four weeks he arrived home…. His wife and most of the brethren had given him up as lost and dead.”

Gottfried Alf’s persistence and suffering paid off.  By his death in 1898, many thousands of people had come to faith.  Many of his converts later emigrated to the United States, establishing churches there.

Christian History e-mail: 28 Nov 2021

https://www.captivefaith.org/post-reformation/alf/

Wang Ming-Dao

Wang Ming-Dao

In 1920, a young Chinese man named Wang Ming-Dao, who had been a Christian since childhood, resolved to take his faith seriously.  Writing out a list of his sins, he prayed and vowed to leave them behind.  Praying until he received assurance of forgiveness, he arose a changed man and zealously studied the Scriptures.

A teacher at a Presbyterian boarding school in Beijing, he came to believe the Biblical method of Baptism to be immersion.  Stubbornly holding to this conviction, and teaching it, led to the loss of his job.  Though the loss of his job discouraged him, he remained faithful and began preaching on his own and with a number of evangelistic campaigns in 1923.  He pastored a church called the Christian Tabernacle and also began publishing a quarterly Christian magazine which was widely read.

Beijing fell to Japanese forces in 1937.  By 1939, the Japanese occupiers insisted that all publications print patriotic slogans supporting the Japanese military.  Wang faced a dilemma: become a political publication or shut down.  He chose a third option: publish anyway without the propaganda.  He faced immense pressure from the Japanese and from other Christians and Christian groups which had capitulated to their captor’s demands.  Wang refused to join, and preached on the suffering, faithfulness, and protection that Daniel and his friends faced in Babylon.

The fall of Japan in 1945 led to the rise of Mao-Tse Tung and Communist rule in 1949.  The Communists established an organization which came to be known as the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) – an organization and a set of guidelines for Christian churches which included severing all ties with Western churches and organizations, agreeing to a rewritten Bible, denial of core beliefs including the Incarnation, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the Trinity, and other abuses of power.  Wang Ming-Dao realized this was intended to bring the church under state control and, despite intense pressure, he felt it was his duty to resist and continue to teach uncompromising Biblical truth.

Wang published a number of books between 1951 and 1954, proclaiming the Gospel and defending Biblical truth.  The TSPM ramped up its pressure and in 1954 convened a meeting to accuse him of crimes but, like Daniel in the Bible, they could find no fault with him.  Into early 1955, attendance at the Christian Tabernacle reached record numbers.

On August 7^th, 1955, police arrived at his home around midnight and arrested him, imprisoning him without a conviction.  At the time, he did not realize that his wife had been imprisoned as well.  To the Communists, his defiance was counter-revolutionary and a severe crime.  He was subjected to daily interrogations and torture and then subjected to further torture by especially-placed cell-mates.

After over a year of this pressure, Wang was informed of a number of the detainment of Christians he was close to.  Worse yet, he was told of his wife’s imprisonment and deteriorating health.  Under such intense personal pressure, Wang broke and signed a document stating he was a counter-revolutionary and confessing to his ‘crimes.’

While TSPM leadership was elated, Wang was crushed at his actions.  Plagued with guilt and remorse over his confession he, with his wife’s support, reneged on his promise to join TSPM and they were both re-arrested seven months after their release.

Wang served an additional 22 years in prison, subject to the same daily torturous interrogations faced before.  However, the Lord stood by him and he remained faithful.  He clung to a verse from Micah, “When I fall I shall arise, when I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him until He pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.” (Micah 7:7).

In 1979 China – suffering from famine, a result of Mao’s disastrous policies, let many prisoners go, including Wang Ming-Dao – malnourished and nearly blind from his ordeal.  He settled in Shanghai and preached again, as God gave him opportunity.  In his final years he became one of the leaders of the house-church movement which had sustained the Gospel through the dark years of Communist oppression.

Wang Ming-Dao died at home in 1991.  He shows us that Christians, even when they fail, can have a radiant witness in their faith and do great things for the Kingdom of God.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/wang-ming-dao-faithful-political-coercion/

https://www.evangelical-times.org/the-fall-and-rise-of-wang-ming-dao/