The Angel in the Cell

Elizabeth Elliot Devotional

Title: The Angel in the Cell

My brother Dave Howard does a lot of traveling
and comes back with wonderful stories. One summer
when the six of us Howards with our spouses got
together for a reunion, Dave told us this one,
heard from the son of the man in the story.

A man whom we'll call Ivan, prisoner in an
unnamed country, was taken from his cell,
interrogated, tortured, and beaten nearly to a
pulp. The one comfort in his life was a blanket.
As he staggered back to his cell, ready to
collapse into that meager comfort, he saw to his
dismay that someone was wrapped up in it--an
informer, he supposed. He fell on the filthy
floor, crying out, "I can't take any more!
whereupon a voice came from the blanket: "Ivan,
what do you mean, you can't take any more?"
Thinking the man was trying to get information to
be used against him, Ivan didn't explain. He
merely repeated what he had said.

"Ivan," came the voice, "Have you forgotten that
Jesus is with you?"

Then the figure in the blanket was gone. Ivan,
unable to walk a minute before, now leaped to his
feet and danced round the cell praising the Lord.
In the morning the guard who had starved and
beaten him asked who had given him food. No one,
said Ivan.

"But why do you look so different?"

"Because my Lord was with me last night."

"Oh, is that so? And where is your Lord now?"

Ivan opened his shirt, pointed to his
heart--"Here."

"OK. I'm going to shoot you and your Lord right
now," said the guard, pointing a pistol at Ivan's
chest.

"Shoot me if you wish. I'll go to be with my
Lord."

The guard returned his pistol to its holster,
shaking his head in bewilderment.

Later Ivan learned that his wife and children had
been praying for him on that same night as they
read Isaiah 51:14: "The cowering prisoners will
soon be set free; they will not die in their
dungeon, nor will they lack bread" (NIV).

Ivan was released shortly thereafter and
continued faithfully to preach the gospel until
he died in his eighties.