VICTORY
There are no victories at discount prices.
General Dwight Eisenhower.
Colin Chapman, in The Case for Christianity, quotes Ugandan bishop Festo
Kivengere's account of the 1973 execution by firing squad of three men from his diocese:
February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale. People were commanded to come to the
stadium and witness the execution. Death permeated the atmosphere. A silent crowd of about
three thousand was there to watch. I had permission from the authorities to speak to the
men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me. They brought the men in
a truck and unloaded them. They were handcuffed and their feet were chained. The firing
squad stood at attention.
As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering
what to say. How do you give the gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage?
We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their
faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance.
Before we could say
anything, one of them burst out: "Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you.
The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart.
He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me
and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to
accept him into their lives as I did."
The other two men told similar stories,
excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs. I felt that what I needed to
do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had
said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with
guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces. They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to
put the hoods over the men's faces!
The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people
and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and
the three were with Jesus. We stood in front of them, our own hearts throbbing with joy,
mingled with tears. It was a day never to be forgotten. Though dead, the men spoke loudly
to all of Kigezi District and beyond, so that there was an upsurge of life in Christ,
which challenges death and defeats it. The next Sunday, I was preaching to a huge crowd in
the home town of one of the executed men. Again, the feel of death was over the
congregation. But when I gave them the testimony of their man, and how he died, there
erupted a great song of praise to Jesus! Many turned to the Lord there.
Ray Stamps.
Walking through a park, I passed a massive oak tree. A vine had grown up along its
trunk. The vine started small--nothing to bother about. But over the years the vine had
gotten taller and taller. By the time I passed, the entire lower half of the tree was
covered by the vine's creepers. The mass of tiny feelers was so thick that the tree looked
as though it had innumerable birds' nests in it.
Now the tree was in danger. This huge, solid oak was quite literally being taken over;
the life was being squeezed from it. But the gardeners in that park had seen the danger.
They had taken a saw and severed the trunk of the vine--one neat cut across the middle.
The tangled mass of the vine's branches still clung to the oak, but the vine was now dead.
That would gradually become plain as weeks passed and the creepers began to die and fall
away from the tree. How easy it is for sin, which begins so small and seemingly
insignificant, to grow until it has a strangling grip on our lives. And yet, Christ's
death has cut the power of sin. Yes, the "creepers" of sin still cling and have
some effect. But sin's power is severed by Christ, and gradually, sin's grip dries up and
falls away.
J. Alistair Brown.
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