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IRAN: Next 24 hours critical to stop the execution of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani

September 29, 2011 in Persecution with 0 Comments

You can get involved by sending an email right now! Click here to help.

These are the facts from the web page asking you to get involved:

The facts:

- Pastor Nadarkhani is repeatedly being asked by the court in Rasht to renounce his faith in order to avoid execution and that the last chance he will be given to do so is tomorrow (Wednesday 28th September), after which he could be executed at any time.

- Pastor Nadarkhani has been charged, and faces execution, solely on the basis of his adopting Christian faith. As such, the Islamic Republic of Iran is violating its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 18 includes a provision for the right to “have or to adopt” a religion, which has been interpreted authoritatively by the UN Human Rights Committee as including the right to change one’s religion.

- Iran’s constitution sanctions Christianity as a legitimate minority faith and asserts that Christians are allowed to freely carry out their religious rites. Article 23 asserts that no one may be “reprimanded simply because of having a certain belief”.

Fox News is reporting that they are hopeful that the pastor will be acquitted. You can read their article here!

Here are some excerpts for those of you that do not have time to go read the article:

The lawyer of an Iranian pastor sentenced to death for refusing to renounce his Christian faith is hopeful an appeals court will acquit his client.

Attorney Mohammad Ali Dadkhah says he believes in a “95 percent chance” of acquittal for 32-year-old Yusuf Naderkhani.

Dadkhah told The Associated Press on Thursday that he has appeared before the appeals court over the past four days and expects a ruling by the end of next week.
He says neither Iranian law nor clerics have ever stipulated the death penalty as punishment for converting from Islam to Christianity.

The pastor would rather die than renounce Jesus Christ as his Saviour! He is a modern day hero of the faith.

When asked to repent, Nadarkhani stated: “Repent means to return. What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?”

“To the religion of your ancestors, Islam,” the judge replied, according to the American Center for Law & Justice.

“I cannot,” Nadarkhani said.

Many of our brothers and sisters in Christ take a stand for Him around the world.

Nadarkhani is the latest Christian cleric to be imprisoned in Iran for his religious beliefs. According to Elam Ministries, a United Kingdom-based organization that serves Christian churches in Iran, there was a significant increase in the number of Christians arrested solely for practicing their faith between June 2010 and January 2011. A total of 202 arrests occurred during that six-month period, including 33 people who remained in prison as of January, Elam reported.

An Assyrian evangelical pastor, Rev. Wilson Issavi, was imprisoned for 54 days for allegedly converting Muslims prior to his release in March 2010, Elam officials told FoxNews.com.

Nadarkhani, a pastor in the 400-member Church of Iran, has been held in that country’s Gilan Province since October 2009, after he protested to local education authorities that his son was forced to read from the Koran at school. His wife, Fatemeh Pasandideh, was also arrested in June 2010 in an apparent attempt to pressure him to renounce his faith. She was released in October 2010, according to Amnesty International.

Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy last September based on religious writings by Iranian clerics, including Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite the fact that there is no offense of “apostasy” in the nation’s penal code, Amnesty International reports.

Please pray and consider sending an email right now! We must do what little we can pray. Pray and spread the word.

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Meet Obadiah Holmes

September 27, 2011 in Persecution, Reading Notes with 0 Comments

Time to learn some Baptist history and to see what our forefathers suffered to get the gospel out. This might encourage us as we minister today in countries where it is also illegal to preach!

Holmes, Rev. Obadiah, was born at Preston, Lancashire, England, about 1606, and came to this country, as is supposed, about 1639. His religious connections were with the Congregationalists.

At first, in Salem, Mass., from which he removed to Rehoboth, where for eleven years more he continued in the church of his early choice. He there became a Baptist, and united with the Baptist church in Newport, R.I. In the month of July, 1651, in company with Dr. John Clarke and Mr. Crandall, he made a visit to William Witter, a Baptist, who resided at Lynn, Mass., about twelve miles from Boston.

The day after their arrival being the Sabbath, they arranged to have a religious service at the house of their host. In the midst of the discourse which Dr. Clarke was preaching two constables presented to him the following warrant: “By virtue hereof, you are required to go to the house of William Witter, and to search from house to house for certain erroneous persons, being strangers, and them to apprehend, and in safe custody to keep, and to-morrow morning at eight o’clock to bring before me Robert Bridges.” The three “erroneous persons, being strangers,” were at once arrested and carried, first to “the ale-house or ordinary,” and then forced to attend the meeting of the day. At the close of the meeting they were carried back to the “ordinary.” The next morning they were taken before Mr. Bridges, who made out their mittimus, and sent them to prison at Boston.

Having remained a fortnight there, they were brought before the Court of Assistants for trial, which sentenced Dr. Clarke to pay a fine of twenty pounds, Mr. Holmes thirty pounds, and Mr. Crandall five pounds, and in default of payment they were to be publicly whipped. Unknown to Mr. Clarke some one paid his fine, and Mr. Crandall was released on promise that he would appear at the next court.

Mr. Holmes was kept in prison until September, when, his fine not having been paid, he was brought out and publicly whipped.

Mr. Holmes says, “As the strokes fell upon me I had such a spiritual manifestation of God’s presence as the like thereof I never had nor felt, nor can with fleshly tongue express; and the outward pain was so removed from me that indeed I am not able to declare it to you; it was so easy to me that I could well bear it, yea, and in a manner felt it not, although it was grievous, as the spectators said, the man striking with all his strength (yea, spitting in his hand three times, as many affirmed) with a three-corded whip, giving me therewith thirty strokes.”—(Backus, i. 94. Newton.)

Such was the charity of New England Congregationalists of that day. Gov. Joseph Jenks has left on record the following: “Mr. Holmes was whipped thirty stripes, and in such an unmerciful manner that in many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest, but as he lay upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereon he lay.”

Mr. Holmes soon after removed to Newport. In 1652 he was ordained to preach the gospel, and took Dr. Clarke’s place as pastor of the Baptist church in Newport. He died in 1682. He left eight children, one of whom, Obadiah, was a judge in New Jersey.

Roger William Heritage Archives Editors. (2003; 2003). Baptist Biographies. Roger Williams Heritage Archives.

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Baby baptizing!

September 14, 2011 in Biographies, Persecution, Reading Notes with 5 Comments

The following story tells of the battle of a man for his conscience and the belief that infants should not be baptized!

Gould, Thomas, was famous in the annals of the early Baptists in Eastern Massachusetts for the persecutions he endured on account of his sentiments. He, like thousands in our own day not connected with Baptist churches, questioned the divine authority of infant baptism.

Cotton Mather speaks of a “multitude of holy, watchful, faithful, and heavenly people among the first settlers of New England, who had scruples as to infant baptism.” Mr. Gould was a man of very modest pretensions, a private member of a small country church, who declined to present his newborn child at the baptismal font, for which a crusade was opened against him by the whole Pedobaptist community, which in the end enlisted all the logic, the stratagems, and bigotry of the entire body, of the clergy, and brought a long train of legal enactments from the secular powers.

Mr. Gould was a member of the Congregational church in Charlestown under the pastoral care of Rev. Mr. Sims, and this is his story: “On a first day, in the afternoon, one told me I must stop, for the church would speak with me. They called me out, and Master Sims told the church that this brother did withhold his child from baptism, and that they had sent to him to come down on such a day to speak with them, and if he could not come on that day to set a day when he would be at home; but he, refusing to come, would appoint no time; when we writ to him to take his own time and send us word.”

I replied that “there was no such word in the letter, for me to appoint the day; but what time of that day I should come.” “Master” Sims told him he lied, but on reading the letter sent to him, it was found, somewhat to the confusion of “Master” Sims, that he was right.

“They called me forth to know why I would not bring my child to baptism?

My answer was, I did not see any rule of Christ for it, for that ordinance belongs to such as can make profession of their faith, as the Scripture doth plainly hold forth.” No better answer could be given by the most learned divine.

A meeting was appointed to be held the next week at “Mr. Russell’s” to take further action on the matter. There seems to have been a four or five hours’ hot discussion, when, as Mr. Gould tells us, “one of the company stood up and said, ‘I will give you one plain place of Scripture where children were baptized.’ I told him that would put an end to the controversy. ‘That place is in the 2d of Acts, 39th and 40th verses.’

After he had read the Scripture, Mr. Sims told me that promise belonged to infants, for the Scripture saith, ‘The promise is to you, and your children, and to all that are afar off,’ and he said no more;

to it I replied, ‘Even as many as the Lord our God shall call.’ Mr. Sims replied that I spoke blasphemously in adding to the Scriptures. I said, ‘Pray do not condemn me, for if I am deceived my eyes deceive me.’

He replied again I added to the Scripture, which was blasphemy. I looked into my Bible, read the words again, and said it was so.

He replied the same words the third time before the church.

Mr. Russell stood up and told him it was so as I had read it.

‘Ay, it may be so in your Bible,’ saith Mr. Sims. Mr. Russell answered, ‘Yea, in yours, too, if you will look into it.’

Then he said he was mistaken, for he thought on another place; so after many words we broke up for that time.”

For seven years this sort of controversy was kept up. All the powers of church and state seem to have been thrown into commotion because the child of a modest yet conscientious member of the church was not brought to the baptismal font. The very existence of the churches of the “standing order,” it was believed, was imperiled by such wanton neglect.

Well did Mr. Gould write, “If eight or nine poor Anabaptists, as they call them, should be the destruction of their churches, their foundation must be sandy indeed.”

Out of this persecution sprang the First Baptist church in Boston. Its members for years endured obloquy and shame. They were fined, and some of them sentenced to be banished, and because they would not go into exile they were imprisoned more than a year. It was in vain that some of the first men of the colony, like Gov. Leverett, Lieut.-Gov. Willoughby, and others opposed these persecuting measures.

The English Dissenters at home protested against this harsh dealing as opposed to the very fundamental principles of religious toleration. But their protests availed nothing with the Boston Puritans.

The sufferings of the martyrs of religious liberty continued for many years. Mr. Gould died in October, 1675. He had not lived and suffered in vain. The principles which he held, and for holding which he endured so much, are everywhere accepted, and the revolution which he started has secured wonderful victories for the cause of religious freedom not only in the old Bay State, but over the whole country.

Roger William Heritage Archives Editors. (2003; 2003). Baptist Biographies. Roger Williams Heritage Archives.

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She died for living out her faith!

August 31, 2011 in Ladies in Ministry, Persecution, Reading Notes with 0 Comments

This is a wild story of a woman that so served God that she was killed for being kind! Ladies read and be blessed!

GAUNT, MRS. ELIZABETH

Gaunt, Mrs. Elizabeth, lived in London, England, in the dark days of wicked King James II. Mrs. Gaunt was a member of a Baptist church, and a lady of great benevolence.

She was accustomed to visit the jails, and to relieve the wants of the victims of persecution of every oppressed denomination. Her reputation for generous acts was the cause of her martyrdom.

The cruel king was greatly enraged that rebels against his authority should meet with a protecting roof and a little food from any of his subjects; and he resolved to be more severe to those who showed kindness to his outlawed enemies than to the traitors themselves.

A rebel named Burton, hearing of the charitable deeds of Mrs. Gaunt, sought and found shelter and food in her house; but, learning the anger of the king against those who treated his enemies with humanity, with a depth of baseness seldom exhibited by the most abandoned of our race, he went and denounced Mrs. Gaunt to the authorities.

She was seized and tried, and without the required number of witnesses was illegally condemned, and cruelly burned to death. She placed the straw around her at the stake so that she would be speedily reduced to ashes, and she behaved so gently, and yet so courageously, that “all the spectators were melted into tears.”

According to Bishop Burnet, she said to the spectators “that charity was a part of her religion, as well as faith. This, at worst, was the feeding of an enemy; so she hoped she had her reward with him for whose sake she did this service, how unworthy soever the person was that made so ill a return for it.

She rejoiced that God had honored her to be the first that suffered by fire in this reign; and that her suffering was a martyrdom for that religion which was all love.” She perished at Tyburn, Oct. 23, 1685.

No doubt her holy blood was one of the powerful causes which summoned down the vengeance of heaven on the guilty king, and which sent him from his throne and country a crownless and cowardly fugitive. A writer familiar with the character of Mrs. Gaunt says, “She stood most deservedly entitled to an eternal monument of honor in the hearts of all sincere lovers of the Reformed religion.

All true Christians, though in some things differing in persuasion from her, found in her a universal charity and sincere friendship, as is well known to many here, and also to a multitude of the Scotch nation, ministers and others, who, for conscience’ sake, were thrust into exile by the rage of bishops. She dedicated herself with unwearied industry to provide for their support, and therein I do incline to think she outstripped every individual, if not the whole body of Protestants, in this great city [London].

Hereby she was exposed to the implacable fury of the bloody Papists, and of those blind tools who co-operated to promote their accursed designs; and so there appeared little difficulty to procure a jury, as there were well-prepared judges, to make her a sacrifice, as a traitor, to holy church.”

Treacherous Burton must have set a high estimate upon the value of her life, when he was ready to offer this noble woman as a burned sacrifice for it. But long since in the eternal world he has learned that the preservation of the most precious life on earth is not worth one wicked act.

Roger William Heritage Archives Editors. (2003; 2003). Baptist Biographies. Roger Williams Heritage Archives.

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No Pastor could be prouder

August 9, 2011 in Persecution with 1 Comment

The following is from one of our church staff missionaries in China. You have seen several things from him and his colleague over the last few days. His words here are exactly what I would want to hear. More than that they are what I think the apostle Paul would say if he were here!

We love you guys and are very proud of you!

Thoughts from What Happened Sunday
Project China Aug 9, 2011 6:00 AM – Show original item
As missionaries to China, we expected persecution in some form.

We came to China to spread the Gospel and plant churches, for us this means we would face persecution. We knew the cops would come, we just didn’t know when.

We weren’t ignorant of the persecution that happens in China, we just decided that is wasn’t going to keep us from making disciples, planting churches and training leaders.

The Bible promises persecution for those who live godly, so the church must be doing something right.

The persecution was nothing of political nature but took place during the preaching of the Word of God.

We don’t plan on running into hiding but to keep advancing and pushing forward. We didn’t come here to retreat.

Some will mock, some will think we are reckless, others will use this an excuse to continue hiding but we will continue to live boldly, proclaim loudly, and worship openly.

We didn’t seek out persecution, we were just doing ministry trying to be obedient servants and it found us.

We weren’t being reckless but we were being radical with the Gospel in China.

Some will distance themselves from us, break any associations with us and continue to comfortably live in China unharmed and untouched because of hiding the candlestick of the Gospel. We simply state: “lift the candlestick high, keep it high that China may see the Light, in spite of the cost, in spite of the persecution, keep it shining bright, Jesus high and lifted up.”

Some probably will never come back to the church, some will be scared for awhile and then maybe come back, others will say “no matter the cost.” The church will be refined.

Biblical persecution is a time for rejoicing seeing many were counted worthy to suffer for His name sake.

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