A Suicide Mission

 Buried in the pages of history is a little-known story of bravery. A small band of men invaded enemy territory. They knew the stakes were dangerous and the prospects for victory risky. By most accounts, it would be a suicide mission. They went anyway voluntarily. Resolved to take back enemy territory. The small band did not come into the city by stealth. They boldly marched down Main Street and rallied people to listen drawing attention to themselves. 

This infuriated the hostiles. Things turned violent. The hostiles targeted the leader seeking to kill him. They thought they succeeded dragging their enemy's lifeless body through the streets to the outskirts of town where they left him. The leader's comrades gathered around him and were surprised that he was not dead. They helped him to aid and left the city the next day. It looked like an overwhelming defeat. 

The fearless leader resolved to go back to where he had been attacked. It looked like another suicide mission for sure. He would not be deterred. He set his face like flint and marched right back into hostile territory a few days later. Who was this dogged determined leader? None other than the Apostle Paul. 

You can read about this story in Acts 14. Paul was stoned nearly to death and dragged outside the city. The Jews thought they had killed him or probably would have never left him alive. There are some who think he did die. He awakened. His little band went to another city to preach the gospel and then Paul decided on the suicide mission. To venture back to the very place where the people tried to kill him. I cannot help but wonder what those men with him thought. I sure looked like a suicide mission. 

Paul did not care about his physical well-being. We know this from statements he made in Acts 20:24, Phil 1:20-21, Gal 6:14, and I Cor 5:14-15. Paul lived on mission. Even suicide missions by some standards. He willingly embraced danger and risk. Proclaiming Jesus to people, all kinds of people, even hostile people fueled his passion. He was fearless and fanatical. He refused to be silenced or intimidated. 

I Cor 11:24-28 sums up Paul's sufferings. On five different occasions he received 39 lashes. Three different times he was beaten with rods. Crazy as it sounds, he was stoned three times. He went on frequent journeys where he encountered danger on every hand. He never knew whether he would encounter friends or foes when he came into a city. He knew both hardship and hard labor. At times, he did not have enough to eat nor adequate shelter or clothing to protect him from the cold. There were also nights he could not sleep. One, from the fact of all the beatings and his achy body. Second, because he carried such a burden to complete his mission of telling people about Jesus and prayed without ceasing. 

Paul is not the only one to attempt a suicide mission. Jim Elliot and few other men labored for Christ in Ecuador. They heard stories about a savage tribe of cannibals. God burdened them to find this tribe and make contact with them. 

It took extensive flying over the canopy of trees in the jungl before they finally discovered the tribe. They located a riverbank where they could land the tiny yellow plane. Jim and Nate Saint, the pilot, came up with a way to make contact with the tribe. They tied things on a rope and then flew in circles above the village dropping things down the rope. Eventually they did the same thing with photographs of the five men who would land on the riverbank. 

Five men signed on for the suicide mission to make physical contact with these savages. It took several trips to the riverbank to fly in the five men and the radio in there. They set up camp and waited. Eventually one came. The following day twp came. They even convinced one man to get into the plane and fly with Nate low over the village. He did so waving to family and friends below. 

Excited, the men radioed back home on Saturday to report the exciting progress they made. They were anticipating the largest gathering to come on Sunday. They were supposed to report back in the afternoon. The designated time came and went with no contact. Nervously, the wives waited all that night and the next day. A search party went out to find them and discover what happened. It took days to cut their way through the dense forest. They found the five men. Some were dead on the beach with spears in them. Some bodies were found floating in the river who also had been speared to death. They were all killed. It is a wonder they were not eaten. 

Here is what they discovered later. The villagers thought the yellow plane was a monster. They had never seen a plane before. When they saw one of their tribesmen in the plane, they supposed that he had been captured. They went out to fight the yellow monster and killed the missionaries in the process. We know this because Jim Elliott's wife, Sue, eventually penetrated that village and actually lived there. She won the very people who had killed her husband to salvation through Jesus. 

People have lived on mission for Jesus for centuries. They have even embraced suicide missions. Many have died. Others were beaten and tortured. They never lost their resolve. Such stories inspire me. I question whether I have the courage to accept a suicide mission from God and follow through? Would you?