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Judson was force-marched barefoot for eight miles to prison, where each night the guards passed a bamboo pole between his heavily shackled legs and hoisted the lower part of his body high off the ground. Blood rushed to his head, preventing sleep and causing fierce cramps in his shoulders and back. Clouds of mosquitoes feasted on the raw flesh of his feet and legs. Treatment like this went on for almost two years, and Judson managed to endure only because his devoted wife brought him food each day and pled with the guards for better treatment.

A few months after his release, Judson's wife, weakened by smallpox, died of fever, and shortly after that their baby daughter also died. Judson nearly had a breakdown. He would kneel by his wife's grave for hours each day, regardless of weather. He built a one-room hut in the jungle, morosely dug his own grave in case it might prove necessary, and worked in solitude on a translation of the Bible in the Burmese language. Only a handful of Burmese had shown any interest in the Christian message. Yet he stayed on, 34 years in all, and because of his faithfulness more than 1 million Burmese Christians today trace their spiritual roots to Adoniram Judson. The dictionary he compiled, now nearly 200 years old, remains the official dictionary of Myanmar.

I have read enough such stories and interviewed enough saintly people so as to become impervious to any hint of a prosperity gospel that guarantees health and wealth. "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me," said Jesus, who could never be accused of false advertising. "All men will hate you because of Me," He told His disciples. But the trials would be worth enduring, for "he who stands firm to the end will be saved …. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."

Christians claim a loyalty to another world, and from the time of the Roman Empire on, that fact has aroused the suspicion and ire of governments and other religions alike. In Hindu India, Buddhist Sri Lanka, atheistic China and Vietnam, and scores of Muslim countries, present-day Christians experience discrimination and outright persecution.

As George Ladd wrote, "When God's people are called upon to pass through severe sufferings and tribulation, they should remember that God has not abandoned them, but that their sufferings are due to the fact that they no longer belong to This Age and therefore are the object of its hostility."

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