We have now been reading together for a couple of months. I think several of you have enjoyed it and mentioned it to me. I wanted to suggest that this month we read the following:
Colossians
then Revelation
Then Philemon
then Colossians again.
That will give us a chapter for each day once more.
If you are not interested in doing this then simply do not mention it to me and I will cease mentioning it myself.
If you like it let me know and we will continue.
Galatians 6:12 As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.
Amazingly we want people to obey our rules so that we can brag about it. A thousand times over I have done what the brethren wanted me to do to get their approval. It has often been doing things that weren’t really pleasing to God. It was what we were accustomed to doing.
I followed rules. I interpreted verses like I was told. I am now embarrassed. I want desperately to quit making a fair show in the flesh and to please God. I want to please one person and that is the Lord Jesus.
Tomorrow’s reading Colossians 1
Check out bcwe.org
Kyle Shreve, Scott and Melissa Newton and I are in Barcelona, Spain. It is a wonderful place with very wonderful people. There is a great need for the gospel. Today we will spend the day trying to find out what is available and where the greatest needs are.
Last night we visited a 30 + year old church that had just a handful of people. They say that no matter where you turn the people need Christ and that there is little interest.
I couldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for my good nurse friends, Bekah Hall, Tracey Paver, and Anne Lundy who have given me shots to try and hurry me back to health. Thank you all very much.
I will write and let you know what I see happening but ask that you pray that God give Scott and Melissa clear direction.
Galatians 5:13 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
By His grace we are free. There are no rules. We have to do nothing to please Him or be accepted by Him. But our freedom should never be an excuse to do wrong. We rather use our freedom as a means of serving others. Freedom is not for us to joy in being free but rather to joy in submitting ourselves to others.
It is not a license to sin but permission to serve. Every Christian should praise God that He has been given so much freedom but at the same time he must realize what God is wanting from his life. By love serve one another.
Tomorrow’s reading Galatians 6
Check out bcwe.org
The Freedom Scale 1
Freedom Scale 2
The Freedom Scale 3
The Freedom Scale 4
The Freedom Scale 5
The Freedom Scale 6
3. International Pressure in media and in diplomacy
The last key to moving a country up the Freedom of Conscience and Religion scale is to apply international pressure through media and diplomacy. This is last because it is both last in importance and last in sequence. The first two keys will precipitate the third.
As an example of a country moving up the Freedom Scale as these three keys factors play out we can look at the imprisonment of Fransisco Penzotti in July of 1890. Penzotti had been won to Christ and discipled by an American Methodist missionary in Uruguay. This missionary sent him out as a licensed preacher and distributor of the Word to the Pacific Coast of South America. Upon founding a Methodist church in Callao, Peru, Penzotti was jailed by the Catholic governor where he preached to the prisoners.
He remained in jail until March of 1891 when a the international pressure mounted for his release. An American engineer by the name of E. E. Olcott had taken his picture in prison and had published it in the New York Herald and other newspapers. Penzotti’s release marked the last time an evangelical would be jailed by Catholic extremists for preaching the gospel.
In this example we see all three factors: a bold foreign missionary having prepared a bold, national believer and international pressure as a result of his persecution.
None of these three keys guarantees religious freedom to be forthcoming for a country. God is sovereign over all the decisions of man. Sometimes God chooses to allow evil to continue that he may be even more glorified in the deaths of his saints and in his eventual and miraculous victory. We cannot pressure to control the events of history or the actions of kings and governments knowing the God alone controls. We will undoubtedly see thousands of martyrs shed their blood for Christ before we see the governments budge and inch. That is why it is key to remember that martyrs die for the cause of Christ not the cause of religious freedom.
These are, however, three God-ordained and history-proven keys that we must employ in every Muslim country in the world. We want to see religious freedom grow because it is just for it’s people and it is good for the wide-spread preaching of the Word.
Check out bcwe.org
I hope these articles written by my friend will at least help you to think through the process. Feel free to comment or ask questions.
Vision Baptist Church Baptists Committed to World Evangelism