September 27, 2005
Faithful Onto Death
By Yunsheng Ren

Dear professors, faculties, and my dear fellow brothers and sisters, I stand here before you today, it is because of your fervent prayer for me. On the registration day, when I handed in forms to Karen, she looked my forms and said, “I am familiar with your name, I’ve been praying for you every day.” Thank you all. I thank God that He answered your prayer. So, my standing here today is by itself a testimony for the Lord. You may all know, I was diagnosed of Nasopharygeal Carcinoma last December, that was a cancer. Therefore, from last December to this March, I had gone through a very hard time due to this serious health problem.

In last October, I noticed a large lymph node in my neck, but did not pay attention to it. Two months later, it was still there, and it seemed to grow bigger. I talked to a doctor in our church, she urged me to take it out and find what it is. She had her friend--- a surgeon took the node, and sent to pathology to do biopsy. In the night of December 18, 2004, two pastors, one elder, one deacon and that sister doctor came to my home, I immediately realized what happened. All of sudden, my mind became blank, no fear, no cry, no anger, no thinking. The elder said it is ok to cry, but I have no tears. The doctor said, you need to be up spiritually for there is a period of hardship you need to go through. The pastors offered a prayer and they left. My wife was not at home at that time, my 14-year-old son took my 5-year-old daughter in another room. I told myself to be calm, for my father-in-law passed away a year ago because of stomach cancer, my wife cannot stand against another attack like this. I went to bed before my wife came home, pretend nothing happened. While in the bed, I couldn’t control my tears, I asked my Lord, “Why? Lord? You called me to serve you, I have not even started, now I see my end.” Strange to me, that night, I had a good sleep.

The next day, I got up early and opened up the book of Job. I noticed the conversation between the Lord and Satan in Job 1 & 2. The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? A man who fears God and shuns evil.” Satan said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” Then, Job soon lost his children and cattle. But Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised (Job 1:21).” When Satan accused of Job again, the Lord said to him, “Very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life (Job 2:6).” When I read these words, I remembered something happened before. In September 2004, we held a evangelism conference at traditional Chinese mid-autumn festival. I delivered a message of eternal blessings on that gathering, and invited people to accept the Lord Jesus at the end, but not even one response. I was so sad and overwhelmed by the negative feeling that I did not do my job well. The next day was Sunday; I preached again, I stood on the pulpit, so overwhelmed, I cried for minutes on the pulpit platform before the whole congregation. Then the Holy Spirit reminded me, “Don’t cry anymore, but to move on to deliver the Word of God.” I opened the book of Acts, chapter 26, where the Lord commanded the Apostle Paul, “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Me (Acts 26:18).” Paul testified to the king Agrippa, “I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven (Acts 26:19).” I said to my congregation, I will not disobedient to the vision from heaven either, even Satan put a lot of blocks in the way of our ministry, I will still be faithful to the Lord, even onto death. This is what I said on that Sunday: Be faithful to the Lord onto death. When I closed my Bible, it occurred as if I heard the conversation between the Lord and Satan again. The Lord said to Satan, “you see the servant of the Lord? Even you put many blocks in the way of his ministry, he is still faithful to the Lord, even onto death.” Satan laughed, “Faithful? Onto death? Who knows? He is not tested; who knows his faithful is true? Or false? Who knows it is not a spiritual boast?” The Lord said, “Very well, then, he is in your hands, but you must spare his life.” Now I suddenly understood why I got a cancer, like Job, I am chosen by the Lord to suffer for His ultimate glory.

Once having this confident, I asked my wife and my son to stand together with me fighting the battle, my daughter is too young to understand. After a long time crying, the Lord comforted and strengthened my wife, and enabled her to stand with me. On that Christmas Eve, I played the flute and my son played piano accompanying me to celebrate the Christmas Eve in our church. On that Christmas Sunday, I delivered the sermon of the birth of our Lord Jesus. In the prelude, my son played violin of the hymn “Oh! Holy Night!” The beautiful melody was echoing in the sanctuary. I asked the brother of song leader to lead the Christmas hymn singing in between my message, it was a wonderful music worship. My son played piano accompanying our singing, my five-year-old daughter couldn’t sing to much, but that day, she was singing loudly with all her heart, she can only sing “Glo-o-o-o-ria.” My family worshiped God in unity on that Sunday, gave all glory to God. It was so beautiful.

After the Christmas, I knew the battle would begin; I had fear in my heart. But the Lord spoke to me through His Words. When I read the book of Revelation in my devotion time, the Lord said to me, “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:17-18).” On the very day of my going to hospital to start the treatment, the Lord spoke to me again through His Words, “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life (Rev 2:10).” I was astonished when I read these Words, for the Chinese translation “Be faithful onto death” was exactly the same four words I used for my sermon title three months ago. His Words gave me much comfort and strength. I knew He is beside with me. I asked the Lord show His purpose clearly for me of my suffering, the Holy Spirit reminded me His purpose which I will share with you in a moment.

It is easy to say than done. During the subsequent treatment, I did go through a tough journey. Everyday I threw up again and again. Eat and drink became very difficult due to the vomit. So doctors put a feeding tube in my stomach, and the nutrition fluid was put in my stomach through this tube. I became very weak to walk, my immune system and white blood cell became very low and I was easy to get infection. That was a painful and terrible time of hardship and difficulty. Later time after my recovery, I talked to Prof. Glass, he said, many times the cancer itself does not take one’s life, but the treatment does. I absolutely agree with him. I thank God many Christians sent me card, gave me encouragement and comfort. I can never forget, one day I received two comforting Cards from all of you, my CBS professors, staffs and students, the two cards were full of names, comforting and encouraging words, and bible verses. Thank you all.

Now I am going to share with you why the Lord allowed such suffering happened to me, what is His will and purpose? I wrote down this before my treatment after my prayer, and now when I look back, almost all of them have been confirmed, so I know more about the faithfulness of our Lord.

To display the glory and the work of the Lord
I am like Matha and Mary’s brother, Lazarus, who was raised from dead by the Lord Jesus. And when Jesus had a dinner with His disciples and other people at Bethany, Lazarus was among them. The ????ure does not record even one word of what Lazarus said, but his sitting among people was a great testimony for the glory of the Lord by itself. Today, I am standing before you, even I do not speak even one word, I am still a living testimony of the Lord’s healing power, His mercy and His lovingkindness.

My ministry has been greatly impacted
At least one thing I am clear, my preaching style is dramatically changed. In Gen 3:15, after men’s fall, the Lord immediately declared His saving plan, and it was also the judgment upon the serpent, “ He (woman’s offspring) will crush your head, and you will strike His heel (Gen 3:15).” In my former preaching, I always preached the latter part, “you will strike His heel.” I preached a lot of Lord Jesus’ suffering before. I remembered my first sermon, it was Gen 22, about God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. The Lord stopped Abraham to sacrifice his son, but two thousands years later, He sacrificed His only Son as guilt offering for mankind. Whenever I read Lord Jesus’ words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” I couldn’t control my tears. And my preaching made peoples crying too. I preached a lot such passage to make people feel sorrow and repent. But the Lord wants me to preach more about Jesus’ victory, His power, His glory, His Holiness, His Majesty and Lordship, for He has crushed the serpent’s head, He is absolutely holy but being sin offering for sinful man. This is what I learned from my sickness. Now I preach and testify more about Lord Jesus’ power and victory and glory. I know the change of my preaching style, and my congregation can also feel this change.

God wants me to experience His faithfulness
God is faithful, now it is not a theory to me, but my own experience. At the very beginning of my treatment, the Lord told me that I would suffer ten days. This reminded me the book of Daniel. In Dan 9, Daniel prophesied seventy sevens for the nation of Israel. And we know that one seven stands for a period of time of seven years. So ten days of my suffering may also be a period of time of tens. Later when I finished my treatment, to my surprise, my treatment lasted exactly ten weeks, and the feeding tube, from the day it was put in till the day it was pulled out, it was exactly ten weeks too.

I will also tell you a story related with my sickness. Two years after my admission into CBS, my old car stopped working. So a brother in my church gave me another old car as a gift. But this car is very old, and it has problem too. I need to buy a functioning car. One day, I saw an ad, a used car, it was pretty new, and the dealer asked only $4700. I thought that it was the Lord who holds this car for me. And I did not pray enough, and moved ahead to buy this car. The bible says that the Lord looks man’s heart, but man looks only appearance. For me, when I buy a car, I only look at its appearance, don’t know what is inside the car. The seller is always smarter than buyer. Later time I knew it was only worth that much or even less. To make a long story short, I bought this car with Credit Card company check. It was about $4700. I am thankful that our CBS granted me 100% scholarship during my first two years, the later two years, I only paid about 30% of my tuition fee. It was about $2000 a year. And every year, I give some little money to my parents and my parents-in-law. So I had a roughly $7000 bill in 2004. I prayed asking the Lord to pay these bills for me. It was a long time silent. The Lord wanted me to have a lesson, I need to pray hard and be sure the Lord’s will before I move on to do anything. Finally, the Lord told me, “All your bills will be paid off by the end of this December.” It was not a vocal voice, but I hear it clearly in my heart. I told my wife about that unless she denied it was the Lord’s work when it is done. After that, for a long time, nothing happened. Several months passed, I had no patient anymore. I tried many ways in helping the Lord. I went food store, when you buy food, the store will give you a ticket, in a certain day, your ticket will be in a drawing to win a reward, the first reward was $5000. I tried, but I did not win. Then I went to my bank, it said if you open an account to pay your bill electronically, you will also automatically in a drawing to win the first reward of $30000, but I failed again. The Lord reminded me that all these were not His way. Until December 15, it was still silent, I was really nervous. I remembered in the book of 2 King chapter 7, when there was a serious famine in the city of Samaria, because the Aram army siege the city. The king of Israel tried to kill prophet Elisha, at that moment, Elisha prophesied, “About this time tomorrow, a seah of flour will sell a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria (2 King 7:1).” The officer said, even if the Lord opened the floodgate of heaven, this couldn’t happen. Elisha said, you will see but will not eat. I was like that officer. I understand nothing is impossible to the Lord, but how can I pay off my $7000 bill within two weeks? My confident was almost gone. However, on Dec 18, 2004, I was diagnosed cancer, and this news was immediately spread out all over this country. Via phone call, email, internet, through AFC, Bridges International, Christian Life Quarterly, etc. Christian organizations, people shared with each other the news that I got a cancer. And suddenly, within two weeks, the comforting cards, checks and cash, just like the winter snowstorm, flying to my home from all over this country, from Canada, from Hongkong, from Mainland China. Even I worked three and half years in UMAB before I came to CBS, I never saw such a big amount of money. Sure enough, I can never imagine the Lord would use this way to pay off my bills.

God wants me to comfort other suffering people
There are many people suffering in this world, God wants me to go through this valley of the shadow of death, so that I can comfort others who are experiencing same suffering. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (2 Cor 1:3-4).” As a minister of God, one has to have a shepherding heart to care for the flock and other people. God wanted me to understand this truth.

God would like to heal my wife’s sorrow and grief
In 2003, my father-in-law passed away because of stomach cancer. My wife went back to china, and only a short period of time, my father-in-law passed away. Even we know that he is with the Lord now, and that is much better than suffering here on the earth, but he was not that old, the sudden separation still make my wife sorrow and grief. Now it seems that the same thing will happen to me, her husband. She cannot endure such strike. But, through the process of my sickness, my whole family experienced the Lord’s healing power, His mercy and His lovingkindness, my wife saw with her own eyes that even my hair did not fall off during the intensive chemotherapy, He kept His promise that He has counted our hairs. My wife was totally recovered from that pain. She experienced the Lord’s faithfulness, and clearly knows that her father is with the Lord and that is much better. Again, I can never imagine God would use this way to heal my wife’s sorrow and grief. The healing was complete.

God wanted to equip me for a greater service
God wanted me to be a person of faith, a person of prayer, a person of rejoice, a person of strong, a person of thanksgiving. He wanted me to remember that whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10); He wanted me to know that His grace is always sufficient for me in my whole life (2 Cor 12:9); and He wanted me to know that all His promises are yes in Christ (2 Cor 1:20). Also, because of my sickness, I understand that I may see the Lord at anytime, I am now living in the light of giving an account to the Lord at any time, so I will treasure every singe moment that the Lord gives me, I should make full use of all my time and recourse to better serve the Lord and His people.

God wanted me to know the reality of spiritual ream
God wanted me to know that the existence of the Satan and his messengers---the evil spiritual being is not a theory but real, the spiritual battle is going on everyday. But I am not afraid, As the Apostle John testified, “Because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world (1 John 4:4).”

God’s saving grace reaches to my close relatives in China
I have ever told my wife, in the top 100 most difficult things in this world, one of them is to have my mother to believe in Jesus. I asked my mother to accept the Lord many many times over the phone, but she kindly rejected my invitation all the time. She is very faithful to her unknown false gods. My mother has no education at all, in her early age, she started to worship all kinds of gods, including stone, tree or temple. Whenever I ask her to accept Jesus, she said to me, “Suppose you have a good friend, you have this friend for all of your life (in my mother’s case, more than 70 years), now you tell your friend, ‘I don’t want to be your friend anymore, I want to make friend with Jesus,’” how can you do that?” I believe my mother may never be saved, and I was very sad. Since I was diagnosed cancer, I dare not to tell my parents, for they are in their late seventies, this news may strike them to death. Recently, I think this maybe the last chance for them, so I told them. My mother cried all days without any food. I called my mother, “mother, it’s no use to cry, it does not help me. If you want to help me, you can pray for me.” “How to pray?” I told her, “Lord Jesus, save my son.” From that time on, my mother prays that short prayer everyday. Then, one American brother goes to china four times a year for evangelization, I asked him to visit my parents, and he led my mother to the Lord. Now in my father’s house, except for my family, my father and mother, my elder brother and my sister-in-law, one of my niece, believe in Jesus Christ. I pray that the Lord may have mercy on all my close relatives, that they all receive Lord’s salvation.

I mentioned the book of Job at the beginning, and I will quote his words again to finish my testimony this morning. I like Job’s words, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised (Job 1:21).” This is my altitude when I got the news of my sickness. As a matter of fact, I love Job’s last words even more. Having experienced the Lord’s faithfulness, His power and glory, now I can praise Him together with Job, “My ears have heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You (Job 42:5).”