Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. We prayed for our brothers and sisters in chains this morning, as we do most Sunday mornings at Community Church of the Hills – Johnson City, TX.
Richard Wurmbrand brought the plight of persecuted believers to the world’s attention in the 60’s after spending a total of 14 years in prison, three of those in solitary confinement.
After being freed and coming to the West, he started The Voice of the Martyrs in 1967. I had the opportunity to meet this great man in his home a few years before he died. A friend of mine delivered flowers for a living. Kathy had an order to deliver a bouquet to a mansion in Palos Verdes, just above where I lived at the time in Southern California. The recipients: Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand.
I GOT MY 2ND MODERNA SHOT two months ago and my face hasn’t melted, I haven’t died in my sleep and the start of the zombie apocalypse has been postponed.
I didn’t get vaxxed because I was scared, believed Biden, Fauci or the rest of the mainstream news media.
It wasn’t because I believed it was the greatest health threat of our time.
It wasn’t even because my daughters pressured me to do so. I had a much more important reason for getting “the mark of the beast.”
I always looked askance at the whole contrived media distortion of the virus itself and felt the odds of me dying from it were akin to getting hit by lightning while being eaten by a shark.
I always thought masks were stupid, didn’t work, and felt the whole controversy was a big lie to get the Bad Orange Man out of office.
So why did I get the vaccine since it ain’t really a vaccine anyway? After all, my face might melt, my gonads could explode, and my progeny will end up playing dueling banjoes somewhere in the northwest Georgia wilderness.
Facebook “friends” warned that I would suffer blood clots, heart attack or depletion of my platelets. I’d most likely contract some strange immunological disorder, or have a stroke and die.
THE
SCARY-LOOKING MAN entered the crowded Syrian church service carrying a small package.
Squeezing through the hundreds of worshipers he made his way to the front of
the sanctuary where he set the package down in front of the altar while the
pastor preached. He then shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” Over and over again the scary man screamed “Allahu Akbar!” until about half the congregants fled the church
in anticipation of yet another terrorist attack. Fearlessly, the pastor kept
preaching expecting that at any moment the package was going to explode. It
didn’t. The scary-looking man had just become a believer in Jesus Christ and
didn’t yet know how to praise the Christian God. Instead of shouting
“Hallelujah!” he praised Him in the only way he knew how: “Allahu Akbar!”
Tears welled up in my eyes
as I listened to the testimonies of pastors who ministered in China, Pakistan
and Syria at a conference sponsored by The Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry devoted
to assisting the persecuted Christian Church around the world. This is a
subject that most churches don’t talk about, much less pray about, even though
more believers have been killed for their faith in Jesus in the last century,
than in all other centuries combined after Christ was crucified.
“The persecution index is rising,” wrote Mindy
Belz, for WORLD Magazine. “If
someone launched a futures market based on Christian believers getting killed
and took a ‘long’ position, they’d have a safe prospect of a return. Last
year 1 in 9 Christians experienced serious persecution—a 14% increase over the
previous year. Christians are enduring high levels of persecution in 73
countries. The freedom to believe is the first freedom, making possible all others
for all people. Roughly 70% of the world’s Christians live without the right to
worship freely. Many of us are the world’s 30%, rich with religious privilege.”
SOMETHING HORRIBLE happened at our local Stripes convenience store: I gave the Gospel to three teens.
One of the teens went home and told his mom that I said he was going to Hell. This is something I rarely say, and I didn’t say to these teens. 99.9% of the time I ask this question: “If you died today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?”
Here is a similar conversation I had with a gaggle of giggling girls a few years back:
Well, the mom got mad and posted my name on Facebook saying that I told her son that he was going to Hell, among other untrue things. Locals in our small town read the post and made all sorts of false accusations against me. Here’s a sample:
“He told me the same thing, too.”
“He doesn’t like gays.”
“He hangs out at the high school three or four times a week and evangelizes.”
“He scolded me for wearing my cheerleader outfit, saying that men will lust after me.”
THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIANITY is the fact that not everyone goes to Heaven, not every belief system is correct and millions of people stand condemned already.
This bothers me.
It also bothered Senator Bernie Sanders when he grilled Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget last week. Here’s an edited excerpt of the exchange:
Sanders: Let me get to this issue that has bothered me and bothered many other people. You wrote, “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.” Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?
Vought: Absolutely not, Senator. I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith. That post, as I stated in the questionnaire to this committee, was to defend my alma mater, Wheaton College, a Christian school that has a statement of faith that includes the centrality of Jesus Christ for salvation, and . . .
Sanders: I understand that. I don’t know how many Muslims there are in America. Maybe a couple million. Are you suggesting that all those people stand condemned? What about Jews? Do they stand condemned too?
Vought: Senator, I’m a Christian . . .
Sanders: I understand you are a Christian! In your judgment, do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?
I want to jump in right here and say that it really doesn’t matter what Vought had to say in answer to Sanders’ question, but I am glad that he was straight-forward in explaining his beliefs without denying the facts of what Jesus taught and what the Bible says.
Got Vaxxed 2 Months Ago! Ain’t Dead Yet.
I GOT MY 2ND MODERNA SHOT two months ago and my face hasn’t melted, I haven’t died in my sleep and the start of the zombie apocalypse has been postponed.
I didn’t get vaxxed because I was scared, believed Biden, Fauci or the rest of the mainstream news media.
It wasn’t because I believed it was the greatest health threat of our time.
It wasn’t even because my daughters pressured me to do so. I had a much more important reason for getting “the mark of the beast.”
I always looked askance at the whole contrived media distortion of the virus itself and felt the odds of me dying from it were akin to getting hit by lightning while being eaten by a shark.
I always thought masks were stupid, didn’t work, and felt the whole controversy was a big lie to get the Bad Orange Man out of office.
So why did I get the vaccine since it ain’t really a vaccine anyway? After all, my face might melt, my gonads could explode, and my progeny will end up playing dueling banjoes somewhere in the northwest Georgia wilderness.
Facebook “friends” warned that I would suffer blood clots, heart attack or depletion of my platelets. I’d most likely contract some strange immunological disorder, or have a stroke and die.
Or worse.
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