{"id":9730,"date":"2026-02-05T16:07:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=9730"},"modified":"2026-02-05T16:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T03:11:08","slug":"persecuted-pastor-brutally-beaten-imprisoned-before-mind-blowing-miracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=9730","title":{"rendered":"Persecuted Pastor Brutally Beaten, Imprisoned Before \u2018Mind-Blowing\u2019 Miracle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Todd Nettleton is on a mission to combat Christian persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nettleton, chief of media relations and message integration for the Voice of the Martyrs, reflected on the lead-up to the International Day of Prayer for Persecuted Christians, back in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the idea of the Voice of the Martyrs; it\u2019s not a marketing scheme,\u201d Nettleton said. \u201cThis is what persecuted Christians ask us to do. The first thing they ask us to do is to pray, and so the International Day of Prayer for Persecuted Christians is an answer to their number one request that we pray for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>VOM encouraged churches to participate in praying for the persecuted church, integrating this into their church activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDifferent churches will do it differently, but the important thing is every church is praying for our persecuted brothers and sisters,\u201d Nettleton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The effort underscores the importance of prayer \u2014 something that can sometimes get lost in the shuffle of life or become so routine its power is ignored or forgotten. But the persecuted church understands the weight and power of prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Persecuted Pastor Brutally Beaten, Imprisoned Before &#039;Mind-Blowing&#039; Miracle\" width=\"788\" height=\"443\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-F8ITaF-Yxg?start=6&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey understand the power of prayer maybe better than we do,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve had their backs against the wall when all they can do is pray, and they\u2019ve seen God come through and God answer those prayers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, Nettleton said prayer must come first and foremost before anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The persecution watchdog noted that he had recently been on a trip where he heard direct stories from Christians who have faced persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe one that stands out to me is a pastor from India who shared about the time when he was arrested under the anti-conversion law of his state,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was put in prison because he had been warned and he kept on evangelizing. He kept on pastoring a church and, for some reason, they wanted to make an example of him. So the first seven days that he was in prison, he was beaten repeatedly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nettleton continued, \u201cThey hung him upside down and two guards would beat him literally until they were too tired to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the horrific beating, he said the pastor didn\u2019t feel the pain \u2014 something he believes is miraculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGod intervened and protected him and he didn\u2019t feel the pain of that, which, again, is mind-blowing,\u201d Nettleton said. \u201cBut then the story gets even better. So he\u2019s beaten the first seven days of his imprisonment, and then the warden comes to him and says, \u2018Hey, you know, I\u2019m an equal opportunity warden, and, in my prison, we celebrate all the different religious festivals.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With Good Friday upon them, the warden decided to let the pastor celebrate and actually asked if he would want to share with other prisoners about the meaning of the day and why Christians celebrate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAgain, this pastor has just been beaten repeatedly over seven days, and now the warden who ordered him to be beaten is giving him an opportunity to share about Good Friday with the rest of the prisoners,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the pastor said, \u2018Yes, I will do that.\u2019 He stood up and had the opportunity to share.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From there, the pastor was able to share the meaning of Easter and the resurrection \u2014 something Nettleton said was \u201cjust mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe fact that this warden who had ordered him to be beaten is now giving him that opportunity \u2014 yeah, only God could work that out,\u201d he said. \u201cGod changed the warden\u2019s heart, and literally he assigned two other prisoners to take care of that pastor, to make sure he had food, to do his laundry for him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nettleton continued, \u201cAnd he gave the pastor access to the entire prison to go around and talk to other prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s not all. The pastor also prayed for the warden\u2019s son, who ultimately recovered from an illness in a \u201cmind-blowing, amazing\u201d way, with miracles evident throughout the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nettleton said he had heard numerous stories where people expressed gratitude for the persecution they faced because of what God did in the midst of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn one case, [a] man said, \u2018It changed the course of my life because our village was persecuted. Our family had to move to a different village and that village had a good school, and so I got a good education. That changed my whole life. And I\u2019m thankful for that persecution that pushed our family out of the village,&#8217;\u201d he said. \u201cWe never know what God is doing. We never know all that He has in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we\u2019re suffering, Nettleton said it\u2019s sometimes hard to see beyond the pain. We pray for relief from the suffering and for rescue, but Nettleton said we sometimes forget something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t often pray, \u2018Lord, who are you putting in my path that you want me to reach? What is it you\u2019re trying to teach me?&#8217;\u201d he said, encouraging people to look to the persecuted as an example on this front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With that in mind, Nettleton said he\u2019s concerned right now about persecution across the globe. From Chinese crackdowns on Christians and churches to horror in Nigeria, the situation is tough.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Todd Nettleton is on a mission to combat Christian persecution. Nettleton, chief of media relations and message integration for the Voice of the Martyrs, reflected on the lead-up to the International Day of Prayer for Persecuted Christians, back in November. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the idea of the Voice of the Martyrs; it\u2019s not a marketing scheme,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[110,109,455],"coauthors":[454],"class_list":{"0":"post-9730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persecution","8":"tag-christianity","9":"tag-persecution","10":"tag-voice-of-martyrs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9735,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9730\/revisions\/9735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9730"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}