By W. S. Jesske
In the late 19th century, over one million Russian intelligentsia were exiled to Siberia for freedom of conscience. Our Christian group had also been exiled for wanting to worship God in the way we felt best.
The Khirgiz people we met there were kind, but for a long time the language barrier between us was almost insurmountable. With time and practice, however, we began to communicate readily. Then our pastor called our church elders together and proposed a plan for missionary work. He felt sure God must have had a reason for allowing us to be banished there, and he reminded us that God’s Word never returned to Him void. He urged us to exercise our Christian concern among these people and teach them of the living God and His dear Son. Their interest in our way of life encouraged us.
The Khirgiz were illiterate and followed an animistic folk version of Islam. But the Holy Spirit works on all hearts. For weeks the elders of our church, sometimes with their wives, went to the Kirghiz village to teach them. After several months, they came to the church we had built, and we introduced them to the three main points of doctrine that our mixed group agreed upon.
We taught them about our loving God and His inspired Word that gave us instruction and showed the way to heaven. We also taught them that Sunday should be their rest day, rather than Friday, as was their custom. They found this point hard to grasp.
Several weeks later, we were visited by three of the Kirghiz tribal leaders. Their usual kind demeanor had changed. Their spokesman, Hammemba, addressed our church with chilling words:—“One of our priests of the skin offerings tells us that you are liars and deceivers, and that you cannot prove that the day to worship your God is Sunday. If you cannot prove this, then we will certainly kill you, for we want no white man’s deception here!” With that, he whirled and left our little church.
A wave of terror swept through the room. These Mongolian tribesmen had the habit of tanning human flesh. Whenever they were angered or did not receive justice, they would skin their victims, tan the skins, and make “worthwhile items” out of them. The minister of our church ran out after the chief. “It will take a few days, but we will find you the text!”
“You have three days!” And with that, Hammemba and his men mounted their horses and rode off.
Hours of thorough study and prayer failed to give us the text, but we did find many pointing to the seventh day as God’s holy Sabbath. Nowhere in Scripture could we find that it had been changed to Sunday!
Now we couldn’t prove our beliefs. All the evidence pointed to the fact that we were wrong and had been following tradition. We had no means of escape. We felt doomed.
Our pastor stood and motioned for silence. “My dear Christian brethren, take courage! God won’t fail us in this time of trouble! In honesty we’ve prayed and searched the Scriptures, and He has rewarded us with a gem of new truth, hidden for centuries! Don’t you think that if we are honest with our Kirghiz brothers, God will soften their hearts to believe? This is what He has sent us here for, and live or die we must accomplish His will! Let His truth be known! Trust yourselves to Him! Tomorrow we admit the truth and God will indeed be with us, I’m sure!”
Thursday arrived. Clouds appropriately veiled the sun as the members of our settlement gathered in the church for a final prayer session. At noon, the cloud of dust thickened as more than a hundred horses galloped across the steppes!
Brandishing their knives, our neighbors headed for us. They knew exactly how many people were in our little colony, and there was one rider for each of us. They surrounded the church, jumped off their horses, and stood beside them while the three leaders came inside.
We sat silently as our minister met them halfway up the aisle. He told them we had been taught falsely. We had read the Word of God through for ourselves several times, and the only Scriptures we could find identified the seventh day as the Christian Sabbath. There were eight mentions of the first day of the week in the New Testament, but not once did we find any saying it was holy.
“We won’t resist,” our pastor said. “You may kill us, but we hope and pray that instead you will join us in worship of the true God on His holy Sabbath.”
He stepped back and sat down. The three leaders talked together, then turned and walked out without saying a word. The door closed. We sat for another few moments with God, the quietness broken only by an occasional sob.
Brandishing their knives, our neighbors headed for us.
There was one rider for each member of our little colony.
Suddenly the door opened and the three men entered again. “Don’t be afraid. We won’t kill you. We’ve come to join you, and we will all worship on the seventh day, as your holy book prescribes.” Then Hammemba, the spokesman, began to explain the reason for their request.
When the caravan of native priests had arrived at the village for their regular skin offerings, the Kirghiz had none. When they explained that it was because of their friendship with us that they hadn’t taken any skins, the priest asked, “Oh, then you have become Christians?”
“Yes.”
“Then undoubtedly you’ve given up your keeping of Friday, and begun to keep their Sunday?”
“Yes, we have.”
The chief priest drew up to his full height and smiled slowly. “Fools! Go back and ask your white friends to show you proof that their God instructs them to keep the first day holy! If they cannot, then bring me their skins, for they lie!”
The native priests had heard about the Bible before. Some had even studied it. They told the Kirghiz that the Christians would be unable to find such a text and that they would get our skins. The priests told them that if we were really honest about Christianity (they felt that most white men were liars) and wanted to live in the way our God prescribed, we would be keeping the seventh day holy.
Now these men had heard our minister make a confession that we had all been misled, and that our Book had indeed pointed to the seventh day as the Sabbath. They decided we were honest, even though we were white! They really wanted to be Christians; they were tired of such things as skin offerings. Their lives did not improve under the supervision of the heathen priests, while we had helped them to advance in many ways and had asked for nothing in return.
After they had finished, they said they wanted to be real Christians and follow the Bible. They returned to their village and told the priests to go away. They would have no more skin offerings. The following Sabbath we worshiped together.
Adapted from Deathwatch in Siberia, Amazing Facts (amazingfacts.org).
