Recently I was in a foreign country, and I witnessed one of the most extraordinary expressions of religion I have ever seen. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets, and dozens of devotees were making their pleas to their gods. One man wore a huge, arch-shaped contraption on his head, and out of that contraption came hooks that plunged into his flesh.

Others had taken a knife or a small spear and pierced their cheeks from one side to the other. Another spear pierced the tongue. They would walk for hours and finally climb up about a hundred steps to the temple, where they were taking their vow to their god. It is not possible to witness this without being saddened while at the same time recognizing this enormous hunger for the transcendent in the human heart.

Strangely enough, a few days after that I was at Oxford University doing a series of lectures defending Christian faith, speaking on subjects such as truth, meaning, origin, destiny and so on. The resistance was incredible. Students asked how it was even possible for good and evil to exit in objective reality. At one point I asked an individual, "If I were to bring a baby in front of you and take a sharp sword and cut that baby into pieces before your eyes, would you think I had done anything evil?"

He paused and said, "I would not like what you did, but I couldn't say you'd done anything evil."

As I stood and watched him say that, I realized the ends to which people will go to try to deny the existence of God.

There are two extremes: those with a hunger for the transcendent so intense that they mutilate themselves, and at the other extreme those who would deny the reality of evil or good.

These are the kinds of settings in which we take the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am a Christian apologist, presenting a defense of the Christian faith. To the ones steeped in other religions, we take the message of the Cross and tell them the price has already been paid. To the skeptic we take the character of God and the value of every individual life.

In nearly three decades of ministry, never have I been more convinced of the relevance of the gospel, and yet never have I seen such open resistance to the truth claims of Christ. One of the things I get used to when I travel is resistance and hostility. But to carry that resistance to torture and persecution—when that happens, we as Christians cannot remain silent.

Today there are many who are paying with their lives, paying with the lives of their children, watching them suffer for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This persecution of people for their faith in Christ is not new. In the New Testament, for example, Hebrews 11:36-38 says of the early Christians, "Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them."

There are such followers of Christ in the world today of whom the world is not worthy. I have been to such countries. Persecution has stalked the church since its earliest days and is even more violent in our time. But the faith these men and women had in Christ has triumphed over the centuries. I think, for example, of a man in Shanghai whom I met years ago. His name was Wang Ming-tao. He was telling us of the time he was imprisoned by Mao Tse-tung and how he was persecuted so much that he renounced his faith, upon which Mao released him from prison. And then he began to live in guilt that he had betrayed his Lord. So Wang Ming-tao would walk through the streets of Beijing shouting at the top of his voice, "My name is Peter; I have denied my Lord!" Mao had him re-imprisoned, and he spent 18 years there.

Just a few months before his death, Wang told us how he withstood all that persecution, how every day he awakened to think of the scriptures he knew in his heart and would sing the hymns of the faith. One of those hymns he sang was, "All the way my Savior leads me, what have I to ask beside?/Can I doubt His tender mercies, who through life has been my guide?/Heavenly grace, divinist comfort, led by grace with Him to dwell./For I know what e'er befalls me, Jesus doeth all things well."

I am not able to sing that hymn anymore without thinking of it in a Chinese accent and the price that Wang paid. His faith in Christ helped him overcome that persecution, and indeed, many prison guards came to know Christ during those 18 years.

But because the persecution of Christians has been endemic to the human situation, and because men and women have prevailed in faith over such persecution does not mean that we do not have a responsibility on behalf of those who are facing such suffering. In Hebrews 13:3, the writer goes on to say, "Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering."

I want to leave a few thoughts in closing. We must pray for these believers in the midst of their suffering. Throughout the sifting sands of human history, we see Christ's imprint accompanying the prayers of His people. I challenge you to carry this as your burden.

A few years ago, I was dining in a home in London, and across the table sat a young man absolutely radiant with his love for Christ. I didn't know who he was, and then someone gave me his name. And then I realized who he was: the son of the famed Bishop Haik, who was so brutally martyred in Iran. This young man was only 12 or 13 years old when his father was murdered for the cause of Christ. Yet here he was, sharing dinner with his Christian friends, preparing to carry the gospel back to his own country through the medium of film.

What a powerful testimony. His life spoke volumes. Must not our lives speak for people like him? But silence lurks where anguished voices are being heard. You and I have a responsibility. We must speak on behalf of those being persecuted for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake.

Ravi Zacharias is the founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. This article is adapted from a talk he gave at Makepeace International of Toronto. For more information regarding Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, please call (800) 448-6766/(770) 449-6766 or visit his Web site at www.rzim.org.

Reprinted from Focus on the Family magazine, November 2000, with permission of RZIM.