In this lecture, Vivienne Stacey discusses some of the risks that Muslims often face when deciding to follow Jesus. She shares some of her own experiences and the loss of dear friends who suffered for their faith in Christ and even paid the ultimate price of martyrdom. These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on the risk of Muslims following Jesus:
What you’ve been reading is, Ken Old’s account of the two times that he met Esther and what he knew about her. Perhaps I should start by, telling my side of it, what I know about her. I knew her very well because she came, to the United Bible Training Center and was my student for 2 years. She is, about my age. She was about my age, and, we used to enjoy playing badminton together and we used to do a lot of visiting in Muslim homes in the villages around the town where we were living.
And she would give her testimony and I would give some explanation slightly more, say, a theological, something from the Bible or something else but she particularly could speak from her own experience of being a Muslim and coming to Christ and her desire was to train, so and that’s why she was at the Bible Training Center so that she could be, used by God in further and sharing the good news with her people as she said. Now, I had the opportunity of course, to ask her many questions because she I saw her every day and I asked her on one occasion how she became a Christian, and I asked her to write it out later because I thought it would make a good kind of tract. So she did write it. It didn’t become a tract because it seemed it was too dangerous to publish, and we it’s never been published as a tract in Pakistan. I I think it could be probably now, but it became one of the authentic records.
It’s the only piece of writing about her apart from her letters and number of which I have, which we still have, so it’s a couple of pages that tells how she came to Christ. I also took photographs, individual photographs of each of my students and I’m so glad I did because I think I’ve got one of the good best photographs of her. So she’s one of the 20th century martyrs, but, I want us this afternoon just to look at her story if you like or her it’s it’s, it what’s what happened. It’s real, very real, to see what principles we can draw out of this. But let me just tell you a little bit.
She told me, that she came to Christ primarily through seeing the love of God in her teacher and through studying the scripture in this Christian school, which to which she went when she was 16 or 17, transferred for some reason from 1 a government school to a mission school. In that school, they required this bible study and scripture study, I think probably every day, And, she was given Isaiah 53 to memorize, and she said she told me, how in memorizing this actual text, she came to know Jesus, and she went through it with me. Who has believed what we have heard? Well, she said, we Muslims, we’ve we’ve heard. But, what have we believed and have we believed?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? To whom has God revealed himself? And she said, I don’t see that my people, that I, we haven’t, had this revealing of God. You remember Muslims are looking, to see what is the will of God and so they’re looking for the, rules and the regulations to know how to do his will. But, the personal encounter, where is it?
She that was a question she had. And then about Jesus, she said, well, yes, he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or comeliness that we would look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. She said, yes, we honor him as a prophet, but but no one wants to go further than that. We have despised him.
I have despised him, and I have rejected him. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. She was getting very close to Jesus in her teenage years in that school. And, she realized that though we call him prophet, yet we don’t fully esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
And she remembered that the the Quran, although it agrees that Jesus, was willing to die, that the Jews planned to kill him and actually did. It doesn’t go further than that. It’s the Quran does not entirely deny the crucifixion because it admits that Jesus was willing to die and the Jews intended to kill him, but, there is a denial of the actual crucifixion and a state, so the Quran, really out of a desire to protect a prophet of God from shame, denies the very essence of what is the Christian message, the death and resurrection of Jesus. But she understood. He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities, and upon him was the chastisement that made us whole. And with his stripes, we are healed. And then she said, and all we like sheep have gone astray, but the lord has turned but we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. And when she grasped this, she said, I came to know Jesus. And, that was a conversion for her.
A very costly step. She continued to receive teaching through the scripture lessons, of course, but also, personal help and a a bible to read at school, but she couldn’t take it home. And then came a year later, the creation of Pakistan, independence granted to India and to Pakistan, and the creation of these 2 nations in the well, one created and one, just born. And her family were devout Muslims, obviously, a loving family and devout Muslims. But So they thought they should go to the land created in the name of Islam.
The name, which The very name of the country means land of the holy, Pakistan. So they set out by ship, from Madras and came to Karachi. And in Karachi, she she had no Bible and no New Testament. She had memorized some, and somehow as you have read, word got to a missionary in Karachi asking her to visit this this girl, whose name at that time was Camar. And, so, Marion Logoson, whom I know, she knew, she’s gone to her heavenly home, but, I did meet her sometimes.
She, went to visit Esther, and Esther quietly asked her for a New Testament. And Esther told me, I read the New Testament secretly 27 times. She used to keep it hidden, and she knew that she needed to. And so for many years, I suppose 5 6 or more years, she wasn’t she didn’t make her oak open declaration of faith until 1955 when she was baptized in Sahiwal, which is about halfway between Karachi and Lahore. But until she stole out of her home when there was rioting in the city and sought refuge with Marion Logoson, she her discipleship was a a quiet one of love and obedience in the home, but she couldn’t, go to worship and, she was very glad to have this her New Testament and glad to have an occasional visit from a Christian.
When the question of her marriage came up, she generally found reasons to, they did talk to her about it, her family. She managed to avoid a marriage with a Muslim because she had read, be not unequally loked together with unbelievers and she wanted to follow that. In the end, it became too difficult for her and so she decided that she must leave her home and so she took a horse and rick, a kind of Tonga, horse and cart kind of arrangement which you hire, and it took her to Marion Logoson’s school. And then quickly, Marion sent her with some other staff member who was going up towards Sahiwal and she got to Sahiwal and Sahiwal became her second home. Well, a costly discipleship that, baptized in 1955, I think that she came to the United Bible sent training training center in 1957, certainly by 58.
She said I want to be more prepared and study the Bible so that I may reach my own people, Muslim people in this country. And that’s how I came to know her. She was a delight to teach. I I’ve got memories of, I I am sure that if she had known that she was gonna die by the age of 30 because of her beliefs, she would have agreed that I mean, she wouldn’t have questioned God about it. She she if the cost was gonna be that great, she would be willing to pay it.
And I remember teaching her, teaching the minor prophets, and we studied the book of Habakkuk and, where it says at the end, I remember her face lighting up, though the fig tree doesn’t, bear fruit or nothing blossoms. I can’t remember the exact text. Though there’s no no nothing in the stall and so on. I better read it because I’m murdering the lovely poetry of Habakkuk, so which is perhaps not the right word. So in habokote, if you find it before I do, you might, mention it.
You got it? Anybody got habit yeah. Oh, yes. I got it. Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no yield no fruit.
The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. And that joy, I I remember her face lighting up at this. Because for thing her, things had been difficult. She didn’t know they were gonna be more difficult, but, I have no doubt that, such was her commitment and love for the Lord, that she would have pressed on.
And after she had, graduated, she went to work with this lovely American couple who who worked for many years in in Pakistan and to live in their house. And it happened on a night when there were people camping around because there was a pastor’s conference taking place. So in the grounds and just close, there were friends, but somehow, someone stole in and murdered her on the night of 31st January 1960. It was a shock to everybody. I happened to be in England at the time, and, but God had prepared me to hear this news.
On the way out of Pakistan on going on leave to England, I had stopped at Sahiwal because Esther was there and a friend of hers and another student of mine called Martha, they were both there and trains stopped for half an hour sometimes at a station, so they came to have a chat. And, I thought what a privilege to work as, a colleague with these 2, this these kind of people and I was looking forward to, as I know Martha was, to, many times of fellowship with Esther. Anyway, in Britain, I couldn’t sleep one night, and I was near at my home church, where I didn’t have relatives then at that place, but I was staying there. I couldn’t sleep, and so I was looking through the books in the room where I was, and there was a book by Geoffrey Bull, God holds the key, and I don’t know if it’s about page 35. I can give you the exact reference, but there’s a whole paragraph about, those who have died for Christ.
And, one sentence, which is was very much in my mind as I read, and I noted in my diary, actually. I didn’t know I was gonna hear about Esther and about the next day, but, it was said, Geoffrey Ball said, the early Christians were not concerned with living long, but in dying at the right time. So I put this in my diary. Next day, I had a letter from Martha saying our our sister, Esther, has gone to heaven. So I I was extremely, shocked as everybody was.
And she was she’s 1 in a million or more, 1 in 10,000,000. There was a police search of her belongings and, there was there were 2 police inquiries. It was never proved, who killed her, but it seemed that it was probably an a relative. But the police officer was asking about whether she about marriage arrangements that might be made, Christian ones and whether there was a man on the scene. And anyway, he he went through her letters and all that was left and, that she left and, in the end, he said he found a book booklet by Sadasundar Singh, The Pearl of Great Price, and he he looked at this and, maybe read it, and he said, as the summary, he said, this girl was in love with your Christ.
So that was his, conclusion on, going through her papers and her letters. Now, I would like us to just think about the principles that come out from this, what I’m calling a case study. The scripture influenced her to Christ and the love of God in a person. Those are 2 tremendous principles. And, somebody in Pakistan, a Finnish theologian, he he, lectured in the Christian Studies Centre in Rawalpindi, and he did a kind of study of 30 Muslim men in Pakistan who had become Christians, And, he studied them over a period of 5 years, and partly to find out what influences brought them to Christ, and three influences.
All of them, in one way or another, had some touch with Christians in whom they saw the love of Christ. And all of them, in one way or another, through radio or through tracts or through reading the bible or through correspondence school, correspondence courses, they all, had some interaction with the word of God. And 15 of them over 15 of them, 16, the more than half, he says, became had visions and dreams of Christ. Esther didn’t have a vision or a dream, but she was very influenced by the love of Christ in a person and the scripture. Okay.
Now something else would you like to draw out from this? Yes? What what gives us the right to put individuals such as this sister in in danger with their families I don I don’t think she considered, and I don’t think the people who were working with her and helping her, thought that she was in such as much danger as she was. She was very much prayed about by her and others about whether she should go home at all and and, and and whether she should write home. So I think that everything was done as carefully as could be done in that situation.
And she, being in her late twenties at that time, you know, took full responsibility for what what she did. And she she wanted to be at the United Bible Training Center. She wanted to work, near Sahiwal, where she had been baptized and she worked actually in a village, with this couple. It was about some 20 or 30 miles from Sahiwal. It seemed a very safe situation to live in the home of a missionary, missionary couple, very suitable for her.
So I I mean, I I feel that, you know one can We don’t have any right, but on the other hand if it’s if it’s full consultation and, the Holy Spirit seems to guide this way, then we must all take whatever risks for ourselves or for others that are needed. Some I I know others who’ve been, Afghans, who’ve been martyred. I am deeply influenced by by 2 people, by an Afghan martyr and by this girl. I have her photograph in my flat, and I wonder, I feel that, why should she be killed and why should I live so long? And I I I see I just don’t understand, but I believe.
Yes? Also, just in in response to that, if you were to ask you know, if we were to, be in heaven and ask Esther John if it was worth it, she would definitely say it was. Yes. And the the other friend of mine I mentioned, in the chapel service, he’s the one who said, suffering teaches you to love more the person for whom you suffer. He he very much knew that he stood the risk of losing his life, and he suffered torture and much hardship as a Christian disciple.
God amazingly helped him. God does not abandon people in their suffering and then When he was in prison in Afghanistan, he he had a coat and his fellow prisoner in the cell didn’t. And he he gave his coat to his fellow prisoner, but he says, I was never cold. And that’s quite remarkable if you think if you know the country, the climate of Afghanistan, it’s about as in the winter, about as cold as Colombia is hot. How do you, though, respond to, I have a lot of friends and family that are asking that question.
How can I, you know, go to to minister to Muslims when, I know that they might be killed? Yeah. Can you answer someone who’s Yes. I could. I mean, I’ve had other Muslim friends who came to faith in Christ, who, one I think of particularly, she couldn’t face the cost.
And I I can’t blame her in any way. She said to me and to a friend as we were talking, if I make an if I become baptised, I will be drugged by my family, and I will be sent to a village, to live in obscurity and under surveillance and being drugged, I mean that’s gonna that’s what’s gonna happen to me. She was highly connected, one of her relatives was an ambassador of Pakistan to one of the neighboring countries and so on. She came from a good family. So And I had to ask myself, what is the What right do I have, to invite people to faith when it’s gonna be so costly?
But I I I’m quite clear about the answer. The answer is that it is not I who invite. It is Jesus who invites. And so so I’m just his messenger. And, so whatever the cost to me, I must invite.
And, whatever the cost to them, that They have to make that decision. And I I say to people who are going into dangerous situations or whatever situation, the safest position, the safest place to be is in the center of the will of God and, I possibly will go to some dangerous place and deliberately, but I’ve I think if I don’t go, I disobey God. And the safest place I can be is in the centre of his will. This is the true Islam. This is submission to God.
This is the the faith with obedience and with love. So this is what we invite people to, and this is what we walk in ourselves. I would like to have met the teacher in Madras who so showed God’s love. Yeah. She probably knew what, that’s she must have known that Esther came to Christ.
So it’s often people who, in their particular jobs, not not missionaries, not tent makers probably, but, teachers, doctors, nurses, almost an illiterate midwife in a in a Pakistani village, those who in their lives show the love of Christ. This is a very convincing this is a very convincing, matter for, a Muslim. And, I know of 1 Muslim who, saw a pastor, an Arab pastor in one of the Gulf countries who came from another country not a Gulf country and just the way he and his wife went shopping in that the bazaar in one of those strongest, Islamic countries, he was so impressed by the way he treated his wife. He followed them and want and he wanted to meet the man who treated his wife this way. Eventually, he got he was able to do this and be eventually welcomed into the home.
But it was, seeing God’s love worked out in a in a natural situation. Person these people were not even aware of it. This man eventually became a Christian and this couple were the reasons really, seeing God’s love in that way so even how you walk down the street and talk to somebody or the other can, God, we don’t know how God is gonna work. We have a great responsibility. Love is a very is the greatest of the drawing forces in the world and it is fully exemplified in our Lord Jesus Christ who is still drawing Muslims and people of other ways of life and beliefs to himself.
So we have this great privilege of being called to be disciples. It is disciples who win disciples. So maybe, let’s close with a prayer. We praise thee, oh lord, for the life and for the death and for the certain hope of everlasting life, which is Esther John’s. We thank thee for her example.
We thank thee for the glorious company of martyrs, for those who have washed their robes white in the blood of the lamb. We thank Thee therefore, the church triumphant in heaven, help us as we, in the church down here, press on to make known the glorious gospel of Christ. Let us, O Lord, walk in obedience. Let us walk in love and let us walk in faith. We ask it in the name of the one God, the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.