IT WAS years ago that an Armenian merchant of Erzerum, Turkish Armenia, was sending some goods from Erzerum to another town. There were no railways in that part of the country and everything had to be transported by camel caravans. The load was very valuable, so the merchant himself went along with the caravan.
He was a God-fearing earnest Christian, having been instructed in the faith by his believing parents.
The country they traveled through was infested by Kurds — bandits who lived by robbing the caravans. A band of these highwaymen was following the caravan, intending to rob it at the first camping place on the plains. The sun went down and tired after the long day’s journey, the caravan prepared to camp for the night.
At the chosen hour, under cover of darkness, the bandits drew near. All was strangely quiet. There seemed to be no guards, no watchers; but as they pressed up closer, to their astonishment, they found high walls where walls had never stood before. Frustrated, the bandits disappeared into the darkness.
The next day they still followed, and again the next night they found the same impassable walls.
The third night they came again and still the walls stood, but this time there were breaches in them. Through these the robbers entered, but the captain, terrified by the mystery, woke up the merchant who was in charge of the expedition.
“What does it mean?” asked the robber chief. “Ever since you left Erzerum we have followed, intending to rob you. The first night and the second we found high walls around your caravan, but tonight we entered through broken places. Tell us the secret of all this, and we will not hurt you.”
The merchant himself was surprised and puzzled. “My friends,” he said, “I have done nothing to have walls raised about us. But I do trust in God and I do pray every evening, committing myself and these men with me to His faithful care. I fully trust in Him to keep me from all evil; but tonight, being very tired and sleepy, I just made a rather half-hearted prayer. Perhaps that was why God allowed you to break through.”
The robber chief and his band, already deeply solemnized by the strange happenings, were quite overcome by the Christian man’s testimony. The story goes on to tell of how that they bowed themselves before God and gave themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. From highway robbers they became God-fearing men.
How wonderful the grace of God that goes out to sinners everywhere. “For God so loved the world” Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Jews and Gentiles of every race — “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Sinners of every race — red and yellow, black and white — will sit down in the glory of God, the Lord Jesus Himself the center of that vast throng, and sing the eternal praises of Him who loved them and redeemed them by His blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation.
But the Armenian Christian merchant never forgot the breach in the wall of prayer.
ML-11/19/1972