LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 87

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and will therefore not take your money nor any support until you
repent.” I believe that such a witness from the Ethiopians was not
by the will of men but rather the Holy Spirit working through His
Church. As the baptized children of God, you are His witnesses,
you are light and are called to shine in the dark places of today’s
world of relativism. We also want to partner with you because of
your stand for biblical principles on the sanctity of life.

The 1990 Brutal Civil War of Liberia
and a Witnessing Opportunity
You are probably quite aware that Satan, the devil, would not have
been happy with all that was happening in Liberia through the
faithful witness and mission of the LCMS. Indeed, a brutal civil
war broke out, taking the lives of half a million people and sending
thousands to refugee camps in other neighboring countries. After
having sent my wife and children to neighboring Guinea, I was
captured at gunpoint when Islamic rebels entered my hometown.
Suddenly and unconsciously, I found myself saying the forbidden,
“I am a pastor.” And they said, “Come here, we did not ask you to
speak.” I was ordered to be taken to their high command. Upon
reaching the high command and commander, through the grace
of God, he said to me, “Pastor, you stay with us; we will do you
no harm.” After a couple of days in their custody, I went up to
the same commander and asked his permission to start church
services. Said request was granted me, but I knew that it was at
the peril of my life as well as those would-be worshipers. As we
began having church services, there was a day when a dreaded
rebel walked right into the church service with a loaded AK-47
automatic rifle in his hands. For many that were in attendance on
that Lord’s Day, they knew that he had purposely walked in to wage
terror and do harm. It was then that we had the witness of God
the Spirit, “Fear not, for I am with you.” All of a sudden, he began
to walk out with a mad-looking face. We knew very clearly that
he had come in with an evil intention, but the Lord of the Church
immediately arrested his intent. Even in the midst of evil, God is
still God and Lord of all creation.
The Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration XI 48–50 speaks directly to God’s consolation under the cross, even in the midst of
trials and temptation:
Moreover, this doctrine affords glorious consolation under
the cross and amid temptations, namely, that God in His
counsel, before the time of the world, determined and decreed
that He would assist us in all distresses (anxieties and perplexities), grant patience (under the cross), give consolation,
excite (nourish and encourage) hope and produce such an
outcome as would contribute to our salvation. Also, as Paul
in a very consolatory way treats this, Rom. 8:29, 35, 38, 39,
that God in His purpose has ordained before the time of the
world by what crosses and sufferings He would conform
every one of His elect to the image of His Son, and that to
everyone His cross shall and must work together for good,
because they are called according to the purpose, when Paul
has concluded that it is certain and indubitable that neither
tribulation, nor distress, nor death nor life, etc., shall be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus, our Lord. This article also affords a glorious testimony
that the Church of God will exist and abide in opposition to
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all the gates of hell, and likewise teaches which is the true
Church of God, lest we be offended by the great authority
(and majestic appearance) of the false Church, Rom. 9:24, 25.
This is the consolation that we have as the baptized. He has promised to be with us even unto the end of the age. Our obligation,
then, is to daily walk in our baptismal grace of daily repentance.
By repentance, I am simply talking about a contrite heart and faith
in the forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of
Jesus, the Christ. Your Baptism should always serve as your consolation in times of trouble and distress. Always realize that you
are a child of the King. Whatever the circumstances, especially
if unpleasant, always remember His promise that you are sealed
with an everlasting love.

We Are Not Called to a Theology of Glory,
But of the Cross!
Our witness cannot be only when things are all roses and all going
very well for us. We are to always remember that our Lord Jesus
became obedient to death, even death on the cross, therefore God
exalted Him to the highest place (Phil. 2:8–9). Today in Liberia,
as well as across Africa, there is much preaching of a prosperity
gospel, saying: “If we are truly serving God, then all must be well
with no sickness and plenty of cash.” We reject this as against
God’s Word. In our Baptism, the old nature is being put to death
so that we may walk in newness of life, all unto His glory and not
ours, regardless of our circumstances. The baptized are called to
witness in season and out of season, in Liberian and in English,
when things are good and when things are bad. Dr. Robert Kolb,
in his book The Christian Faith, said, God is Lord over good and
evil. Trust me; I do not intend to open any extensive dialogue on
the problem of theodicy. You know how theists and others come
up with questions such as, “If God is God and indeed a good and
loving God, how come He allows killers to kill, the innocents to
suffer injustice and degradation, and terrorists to terrorize and
frustrate the efforts of the righteous?” Well, I have not come to
defend God; but one thing is sure, and that is I can witness to His
good and loving kindness even in the midst of evil. And I can
also assure you that because of sin, evil is bound to always show
its ugly head as long as we shall live on this earth, but evil will
never triumph over good. I am a witness to the goodness of God.
As earlier mentioned, the 1990 civil war of Liberia took my entire
family and me to Guinea. First, I like to be quick to say war is
always very bad; it is just terrible to see on-site the destruction,
degradation, and the dehumanization that war brings about to
every person or people involved in a war. Someone has rightly
defined war as: “Waste All Resources.” During the 14 years of civil
war in Liberia, most kids were turned into child soldiers, women
were sexually violated, and men were turned into monsters as a
result of forced labor. Even those of us who managed to escape for
refuge in neighboring countries as refugees, we could not escape
the wounds of the war. They kept bleeding and festering as we
recounted and imagined what many of us had seen with our very
eyes before escaping. With no trauma healing programs, the only
thing that consoled and comforted us was the witness of the Gospel.
I vividly remember this one day in Guinea that I stood by an elderly
man of the Islamic faith, a Muslim, at the church’s food distribution
center. And this is what he said to me: “I am a Muslim, but since we
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