Living By Faith Blog

A Motivating Story

God has often used this story to stir my compassion and boldness in evangelism. I pray he does the same for you.

A Masai Warrior Named Joseph

Joseph, a Masai warrior, attended the Itinerant Evangelist’s Conference in Amsterdam, where he met Billy Graham and shared his story.  It’s told here by Michael Card —

One day Joseph, who was walking along one of these hot, dirty, African roads, met someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him.  Then and there he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

The power of the Spirit began transforming his life; he was filled with such excitement and joy that the first thing he wanted to do was return to his own village and share the same Good News with the members of his local tribe.

Joseph began going door-to-door, telling everyone he met about the Cross of Jesus and the salvation it offered, expecting to see their faces light up the way his had.  To his amazement the villagers not only didn’t care, they became violent.

The men of the village seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire.  He was dragged to the village and left to die alone in the bush.

Joseph somehow managed to crawl to a waterhole, and there, after days of passing in and out of consciousness, found the strength to get up.  He wondered about the hostile reception he had received from the people he had known all his life.  He decided he must have left something out or told the story of Jesus incorrectly.  After rehearsing the message he had first heard, he decided to go back and share his faith once more.

Joseph limped into the circle of huts and began to proclaim Jesus.  “He died for you, so that you might find forgiveness and come to know the living God” he pleaded.

Again he was grabbed by the men of the village and held while the women beat him, reopening wounds that had just begun to heal. Once more they dragged him unconscious from the village and left him to die.

To have survived the first beating was truly remarkable.  To live through the second was a miracle.  Again, days later, Joseph awoke in the wilderness, bruised, scarred — and determined to go back.

He returned to the small village and this time, they attacked him before he had a chance to open his mouth.  As they flogged him for the third and probably the last time, he again spoke to them of Jesus Christ, the Lord.  Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him began to weep.

This time he awoke in his own bed.  The ones who had so severely beaten him were now trying to save his life and nurse him back to health.  The entire village had come to Christ.  (From John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad, pp.95f.)

Takeaways

Joseph was saved when he met someone on a dirt road who shared the gospel with him.  We don’t need a prior relationship to share the Gospel; we only need humble faith and genuine love.  Everyone we meet needs the Gospel, so share with them.

Joseph shows us that when we see Christ as our all-satisfying Treasure, and how lost people are without him, we will not let anything stop us from sharing the good news.

Joseph’s suffering was part of his message, as it displayed how precious Christ was to him.  So don’t fear rejection, scoffing, or worse.  God will give you grace to suffer.  And he could use your suffering to save your whole office or neighborhood.

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